i so desperately miss being REALLY into making fan content for stuff. like i miss the days where i was uploading fics rapid fire because i kept getting ideas but at the same time i'm like. really relieved about not doing it anymore? I rarely even open ao3 anymore and idek how i feel about it.

i think i miss the fun of it, but all the relief in stopping comes from no longer having to deal with other people that i'd be catering to and trying to please everyone. the moment i realized writing fics wasn't actually like. my job. i think i stopped feeling so burdened and just kind of ended up moving on altogether

and as much as i really really love focusing on original things now, there's definitely a kind of void i feel knowing the audience i did and still have and that the vast majority isnt interested in me as a creator once i'm no longer in a specific fandom yknow? like "wow over half a million have read this one fanfic but only the smallest fraction of that have read my comic"

that being said the biggest thing i've been learning over the last year is to just make content for myself and to try not to worry about Numbers

1OO IMPORTANT CHARACTER QUESTIONS

taken from beth kinderman and nikki walker’s the 100 most important things to know about your character. a good list to help develop a character’s background, personality, and general aspects.

(Template link here)

PART 1: THE BASICS

What is your full name?

"Koriand'r, but on Earth it is Starfire!"

Where and when were you born?

"On Tamaran, in the castle. We were still in the war with the Gordanians."

Who are/were your parents? (Know their names, occupations, personalities, etc.)

"Myand'r, the Grand Ruler of Tamaran, and Luand'r, his wife! They were very wonderful! They have cared for us as well as they could, I believe, and I do not doubt that they have loved us very much!"

Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like?

"... Blackfire is my older sister. I have always looked up to her, but she is very much not interested in a positive bond between us. She is a criminal, I believe many parts of the galaxy are searching for her, and she has multiple times before attempted to capture me or bring me into the hands of those who would not be very nice to me.

I much prefer to talk about my baby brother, Ryand'r, or Wildfire as he is calling himself on Earth! We have long thought that he has died when he was still very small, but he has survived and lived many years in complete isolation! He has grown to be very wonderful and nice and friendly, and I am loving him a lot! I am most thankful that he has by now returned to my life!"

Where do you live now, and with whom? Describe the place and the person/people.

"I am living with my best friends, the Teen Titans! Our home is commonly called the 'T-Tower', and it is a very accurate description as it is a building with many floors and in the shape of a T!

Raven is as close to me as I am imagining a sister to be that does not constantly wish to harm me! She is skilled in magic, and she has to meditate for calming her emotions because her powers can be dangerous when she is feeling too strongly! This is also leading to her appearing very calm or 'unemotional' in many situations, I am knowing that she is loving us as much as we her!

I am most admiring Beast Boy's talent for joking! It often is about things that I do not initially understand, but I am still certain that his jokes are always very funny and most entertaining!

Cyborg is very skilled with technology. He has equipped our home with its security, he created our communicators, and he is also very much enjoying to play the games of the video together with Beast Boy!

Our leader is Robin! He is very trained, he knows many types of the martial arts, and I am very much enjoying to fight alongside him! Some times he can be too focused on his work, but we are all trying what we can to make him realize it and stop, and I believe it has bettered over the time that we are together."

What is your occupation?

"I am a hero, one of the Teen Titans! We are using what we are capable of to protect the people of the city - and the planet - from dangers and any form of harm!"

Write a full physical description of yourself. You might want to consider factors such as: height, weight, race, hair and eye color, style of dress, and any tattoos, scars, or distinguishing marks.

"I am commonly wearing my tamaranean uniform, which is mostly purple and combined with silver metallic armor! I believe I am taller than the average human, I am thin and do not have any tattoos, scars or similar! As with all of us tamaraneans, my skin is more orange, or golden, than a human one, and my eyes are having their green color both in the sclera and the pupil! Oh, and I am having long red hair, which I preferto wear untied!"

To which social class do you belong?

"A... a social class? I have never visited the earthen schools!" [[Well, on Tamaran probably upper/highest class since she's of the royal family, and on Earth, average I assume? So probably middle, or something?]]

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses?

"I am allergic to metallic chromium."

Are you right- or left-handed?

"My right hand is the one that I am using predominantly!"

What does your voice sound like?

"I believe I am having a very friendly and light voice! But I cannot describe voices well."

What words and/or phrases do you use very frequently?

"There have before been people mimicking me by reciting 'glorious' or 'wonderful', so perhaps those!"

What do you have in your pockets?

"My communicator! A bit of cat food, oh! And this is a drawing that I have been given by a child earlier!"

Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics?

"People have before mocked me by using very many times of the 'the' in each sentence, so perhaps that is a thing? Although I have never understood this mockery. I am also very much enjoying to hug people - but that cannot be a bad thing, no?"

PART 2: GROWING UP

How would you describe your childhood in general?

"It was a very wonderful childhood! I have grown up with parents that loved me very much, I had two siblings, and I have been able to learn much! There also was our caretaker, Galfore, I am still very close to him and thankful for his advice. ... I would have wished for chances to explore and learn about other worlds already during my childhood, but I can understand how it was too big a risk!"

What is your earliest memory?

"I remember playing a game with my father! I am very happy that this is a memory I recall, especially since at a later time of our lives, he did not have as much time for us anymore."

How much schooling have you had?

"I have completed all the tamaranean schooling! It is not working in the same way as the earthen system, so I cannot compare it."

Did you enjoy school?

"Of course! It was most fascinating to learn about every thing!"

Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities?

"Most of it has been trained on Tamaran! But with my friends I am also continuing to strengthen my abilities!"

While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them.

"My father! He was wonderful to us, and also a great ruler even in the times of war! I have always admired him. ... I have also very much looked up to my sister. She has always been so strong, so independent and so experienced..."

While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family?

"I have gotten along very well with my mother and father! And Ry was most adorable and we were very close as well! ... I have always assumed that I was also getting along well with my sister, but by now I have realized that such never has been the case."

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

"... I have always wanted to be like my sister. ... And I have wished to be able to explore other worlds!"

As a child, what were your favorite activities?

"I have often strolled through the royal garden! ... as long as it has still existed. It was also very entertaining to be taught by Galfore, in cooking and about the history and the customs and how to fight!"

As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display?

"I do not believe that my personality has changed much since my childhood!"

As a child, were you popular? Who were your friends, and what were they like?

"As children of the royal family, we were very... shielded. There were not many other children that we have met, so I do not believe that there was a chance to truly measure popularity. Those that I did meet liked me though, I believe."

When and with whom was your first kiss?

"Kissing does not carry such a meaning for my people. It is default that as children, we are having lip-contact with multiple teachers, to train the assimilation of languages and to learn the most important languages."

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity?

If you are a supernatural being (i.e. mage, werewolf, vampire), tell the story of how you became what you are or first learned of your own abilities. If you are just a normal human, describe any influences in your past that led you to do the things you do today.

"My abilities are normal for the tamaraneans, so while I am an alien to this world, I do not think that there is a story that I can tell."

PART 3: PAST INFLUENCES

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far?

"Having met my friends, and having found a home with them!"

Who has had the most influence on you?

"That is either Galfore or my friends of now!"

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

"It has felt like a big success when I had beaten my sister for the second time. And that even while she had used the Jewel of Charta, which was making her much stronger and less vulnerable."

What is your greatest regret?

"I am still feeling very sorry for the destruction that I have initially caused on Earth."

What is the most evil thing you have ever done?

"That destruction, I believe."

Do you have a criminal record of any kind?

"I do not know! But as I have caused damage on this world, I assume it would only be right if it is noted somewhere, no?"

When was the time you were the most frightened?

"After we have watched a movie, Raven's powers had once brought the monsters and the spookiness from the movie to life! It has been a very frightening situation."

What is the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to you?

"I have many times misunderstood the earthen phrases. At times, the people around me are laughing very openly about it. That is making me feel very embarassed."

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why?

"I would hope to be able to better the connection to my sister!"

What is your best memory?

"I will never forget how Robin has assured me that Blackfire would never have been able to replace me."

What is your worst memory?

"My brief staying in captivity was most horrifying."

PART 4: BELIEFS & OPINIONS

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic?

"I believe I am more optimistic!"

What is your greatest fear?

"Being alone, and captive, without hopes of escaping."

What are your religious views?

"It would take much time to explain the beliefs of X'Hal to you! It is the tamaranean religion, and I am adhereing to that."

What are your political views?

"I... I do not know what you are asking here. My political views? On what?"

What are your views on sex?

Are you able to kill? Under what circumstances do you find killing to be acceptable or unacceptable?

"Yes. I do not enjoy to take a life, but if there is truly no other option for saving those that are in danger, I will not hesitate as much as I believe my friends would. But under any circumstances, and wherever possible, it should be avoided to kill someone."

In your opinion, what is the most evil thing any human being could do?

"Harming innocent children is most evil!"

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love?

"Though I would not call it these, I believe in similar concepts, yes."

What do you believe makes a successful life?

"To be happy, to enjoy what you are doing, perhaps also to make those happy you care for."

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings (i.e. do you hide your true self from others, and in what way)?

"It is difficult for a tamaranean to be dishonest about the feelings. It can very quickly become similar to a sickness. There are tamaraneans that still do not show what they are thinking or feeling, but I am feeling much better if I am simply being open!"

Do you have any biases or prejudices?

"Even when I am not happy about some thing, I would always do what I can to not let such connections endanger a new meeting."

Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? Why do you refuse to do it?

"I would always refuse to harm my friends! Because it cannot be right to do such!"

Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)?

"It is not a thought that I enjoy. But I believe me and my friends all would not hesitate to give our lives for those of the others."

PART 5: RELATIONSHIPS W/OTHERS

In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how?

"I am doing my best to treat every one politely! And I do not think that my behaviour is changing if I am knowing some one better."

Who is the most important person in your life, and why?

"All of my friends are!"

Who is the person you respect the most, and why?

"Raven! It must be very difficult to keep such a control of her emotions at all times!"

Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people.

"There are so many friends that I could name! My best friend is Robin! I have described him before, have I not? He is the leader of our team, and he is often willing to explain to me what I do not understand. He is very important to me!"

Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person.

"I do not have such!"

Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened.

"I... Yes, there was... there was a connection that I have felt immediately as we have first met. We... We are still working on it, I believe."

What do you look for in a potential lover?

"I wish for some one who is friendly, who is there for me and who can rely on me in return. Some one that I am feeling at home and comfortable with!"

How close are you to your family?

"It... it is difficult with Blackfire, I would not call us 'close' at all. But I am very close to my baby brother, now that he has returned to us!"

Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not?

"I have not! But I am most enjoying the idea. It is a delighting thought to picture myself having children of my own that I can care for!"

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help?

"My friends, my team! The Titans!"

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why?

"I would never doubt that my friends would always protect me, as I them!"

If you died or went missing, who would miss you?

"I believe my friends and my brother would miss you! And many of my friends would attempt to find me, or find out what has happened. And Galfore certainly, as well!"

Who is the person you despise the most, and why?

"I am aware that she is merely a human, and that I need not feel as strongly towards her... but I do not like Kitten, the daughter of Killer Moth, at all."

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict?

"I do not like arguing! But if necessary, I would not avoid it."

Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations?

"I do not think so. But I am often talking much, so perhaps I am, and merely do not realize it?"

Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not?

"Certainly! There is an earthen saying, that it is merrier the more people are there, no? I find it very entertaining to have many friends around me!"

Do you care what others think of you?

"I am trying to lessen how much I am caring, but yes. It is most unpleasant when I am insulted."

PART 6: LIKES & DISLIKES

What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes?

"Exploring Earth! Oh, and I am enjoying to go shopping, or to cook or care for our Silkie!"

What is your most treasured possession?

"I... There is the 'crown' that I have worn when I came to Earth. My mother has gifted it to me shortly before we have lost her."

What is your favorite color?

"I am very fond of purple, as many of my people are. Perhaps it is simply some thing I have been raised into, as it is the most common color for clothing on Tamaran."

What is your favorite food?

"Glorg!"

What, if anything, do you like to read?

"Raven is recommending books to me some times! I am not very fast with reading them, as I have often some thing else that I am then thinking of doing, but they are most entertaining to read!"

What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)?

"I do not understand. Entertainment is good if it is keeping one entertained, and as the likes of such vary, it is difficult to have any entertainment that is not good!"

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit?

"I am not doing any of these things."

How do you spend a typical Saturday night?

"If we are not on a mission, it is often that me and my friends are making the nights of movies!"

What makes you laugh?

"There are many things that are making me laugh!"

What, if anything, shocks or offends you?

"It is not very nice when people are unfriendly to others based on how they look or which gender they are having. I am hearing bad words because of my looks and for being alien, as well. So perhaps these."

What would you do if you had insomnia and had to find something to do to amuse yourself?

"I would watch TV! There is always some thing interesting shown, no?"

How do you deal with stress?

"It is best to unleash any troubles I am having. Such includes stress. And my friends would certainly aid me in overcoming the stress."

Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan?

"I am not very good at sticking with plans."

What are your pet peeves?

"I do not understand what those are that you ask for."

PART 7: SELF IMAGES & OTHER

Describe the routine of a normal day for you. How do you feel when this routine is disrupted?

"It is often that our days are not going by routine. When trouble is coming, we are going to it as quickly as we can. It might not be pleasant, but it is necessary, so I am rarely feeling bad about it. On a routine, hmm... I am waking, I stretch and prepare myself for the breakfast. We are commonly eating together, and doing some activity for spending the day. On many days, there is also our training."

What is your greatest strength as a person?

"Perhaps that I am willing to trust others? Although my friends have also told me that it is a big weakness. Perhaps caring for the well-being of others?"

What is your greatest weakness?

"Perhaps my trusting too easily? I do not truly know."

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

"I would not change a thing! I am happy as I am."

Are you generally introverted or extroverted?

"Extroverted!"

Are you generally organized or messy?

"I prefer to have things look organized, but if I am too distracted, I can quickly be very messy, as well."

Name three things you consider yourself to be very good at, and three things you consider yourself to be very bad at.

"I am good at cooking! ... tamaranean dishes. My friends have before complained that I am often not following the recipes, and am creating different earthen dishes than what they expect. I am a capable fighter, and I am good at making friends!

I cannot draw well, um... I am not aware of many parts of the earthen sayings, and I am not good at recognizing when I should not be trusting or believeing someone."

Do you like yourself?

"Yes, I think I do."

What are your reasons for being an adventurer (or doing the strange and heroic things that RPG characters do)? Are your real reasons for doing this different than the ones you tell people in public? (If so, detail both sets of reasons…)

"I am a hero because it would feel wrong to not use my abilities, that are more than the average on this world, to aid others. It would feel egoistic, and I enjoy to help others."

What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime?

"I do not have goals. All I am wishing for is to continue to be happy."

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

"I hope that I am still with my friends!"

If you could choose, how would you want to die?

"Either after a long living, or if it must happen earlier... I would prefer to die in saving someone else."

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left.

"I would visit and hug as many of my friends as I can! I would wish to tell them again how much I value them and how their friendship has delighted me. And I certainly must spend a lot of time with Ry! If there is no more time, I must do what I can to make him understand that he is worth much more than he is thinking! ... And I also wish to say goodbye to Galfore, and perhaps leave messages for those that I am not able to reach. ... Perhaps a message for Blackfire, as well."

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death?

"Perhaps for the good that we are doing as heroes?"

What three words best describe your personality?

"Friendly, cheerful, and very happy to explore and learn!"

What three words would others probably use to describe you?

"I am hoping some thing similar! Although there have also been words that were not as friendly, I believe that more people would not use those mean words."

If you could, what advice would you, the player, give to your character? (You might even want to speak as if he or she were sitting right here in front of you, and use proper tone so he or she might heed your advice…)

I don't think there really is anything I'd need to give her as advice. I mean, if I really have to say something, probably something like that she should stay how she is and not change only because of some bad experiences. Something like that.

those tsukki fluff hcs? i am LIVING. could i get general dating hcs for tobio? 👉👈 good luck with your blog - 🐸

— kageyama as your boyfriend

LISTEN kageyama has a condition where brain is filled by (2) things: volleyball and food. relationships? that doesn’t exists. you’re gonna need either a miracle or a saint’s patience to get anywhere with this nerd, whichever works best for you.

i hope you’re well aware that your luck is on a negative count from the get-go, since 1) his knowlodge about romance is next to none and 2) he’s dense as fuck. even if he’s the one to develop feelings first, he wouldn’t act on those any sooner because he doesn’t even gets what’s going on. he just goes ( ??? ) whenever you smile at him and there’s this funny feeling around his ribcage and he’s 100% sure it’s hunger. so, unless you have the guts to fess up first… get ready to simp over this boy for the longest time.

that or until his teammates ( namely, suga ) do a divine intervention ‘cause damn, he’s so grossly in love, and if kageyama was already in the dark we fucking lost him, because what does it means to be in love??? that’s not a position or a game tactic as far as he’s concerned.

he even goes as far as to seek the textbook definition on dictionaries and spiel to himself like a damned mantra in the hopes he’ll get it but guess what? he doesn’t. if anything, he just further confused with the poor intent of describing such abstract concept with big words.

the whole process of realization is so agonizing and infuriatingly slow, it has gotten to the point where all da fucking team is up to date with the tragedy and they’re even making bets as to how it’s going to end ( tanaka and noya are putting all their money to kageyama not ever knowing about his feelings, ennoshita and the third-graders still have a bit of hope for their son. the first-graders are just enjoying the shitshow. )

but when it finally hits him… that there’s no better place than the one by your side and he couldn’t possibly have it otherwise… then it’s over for both of you.

once tobio is set his way, there’s no stopping him. hell, he might as well blurt it out as soon as he sees you, for all he cares. “it seems like i’ve fallen in love with you”.

but now you returning his feelings??? the most unrealistic and unlikiest scenario. his monkey brain definitively didn’t think out this far and now he’s in shambles. you’ve to spent half of an hour explaining to him that, all of it apparently means that you can be “a couple or something” and you can literally see his braincells combusting through his eyes.

are you going to clown him for his confession for the rest of his life? yes. do you hold the moment close to your heart regardless? Yes You Do.

needless to say, kageyama as a partner is awfully awkward. the boy’s barely familiar with platonic relationships, dating it’s like walking blindfolded onto unknown territory. he’s going to need you to teach him the ropes !!! ( not that you’re complaining, of course you’re not complaining )

being as unapproachable and volleyball-crazy as he’s known to be, i think many people depict kageyama as someone who doesn’t fully invests himself onto his social relations, especially the non-platonic field; because yes, to kageyama, volleyball comes first and foremost, but he’s just as devoted and earnest when it comes to his teammates and friends, and more importantly, you. once there’s something that means a lot to kageyama, he’ll give everything he has to offer, and you aren’t the exception to the rule.

while volleyball still takes most of his time and that won’t change under no circumstances, you can tell he does his best to spend the scarce time he has to spare with you. juggling between his passion and his loved one is not an easy task, but kageyama knew what he was applying himself for and there’s no way he’ll be half-assing, no sir!

at the very least, he always makes sure to walk you home. even if that means he’ll have to return afterwards to the gym, because he always trains ‘til very late and there’s no way he’s gonna keep you waiting that long for him ( you keep telling him it’s fine, that you don’t mind waiting, but he doesn’t relents “no. im taking you home first, then practice. and that’s final. now come here, dumbass.” )

he also calls you every single night before heading to sleep! he can���t stay long on the phone because he needs to go to bed early for morning practice, but just being able to hear your voice… to know about you and your day… is more than enough for him.

honestly it never fails to melt your heart when he begins talking in this raspy, low voice and you can tell he’s sleepy by the way he mumbles his words so you tell him that it’s ok for him to go to sleep now but he just shakes his head in spite of the fact you can’t see him and goes like “i still have a couple of minutes left. i want to hear your voice.” like honestly GET FUCKED !!!!!! HE’S SO LOVELY I’M-

kageyama understands if you have different interests and things you’re passionated about ( in fact, he’ll even try it out just so he can something to share with you! ), but, truly, nothing would make this blueberry as happier than you showing the tiniest bit of interest into volleyball. sometimes, the topic creeps onto your talk and unavoidably, tobio switchs to full nerd mode and starts geeking out about the matches and stuff and he’s just so giddy about it but then he freezes, and realizes he might be info-dumping you about something you probably don’t even care about, so he kinda cuts himself before going on… but the look of sheer happiness he offers you when you encourage him to go on? how his big, doe-eyes lit up once you ask him to explain you more carefully? can you possibly fathom how joyous it makes him to know he can get the best of his favorite things together?

to be honest, you’d expect him to be less considerate and act more fit of the self-centered, entitled king role he has been granted— not saying that he doesn’t slips and has his bossy moments of no filter, because he does, but the thing is: he’s surprisingly open to your opinions, too. over time, he’s been taught that communication is of utmost importance and the only way to understand others and have them understand you, and he’s firmly sure that applies to every aspect of his life. he wants you to know that, just as he speaks his mind, you’re free to do the same.

it’s ok if you argue, it’s ok if your points of view don’t match, because that means you’re talking to each other, and that’s way better than letting things sink without actual closure. kageyama learnt that the rough way. his speech might not be the most articulated or refinated, but he tries his best to get his points accross without unecessarily hurting your feelings. communication is so crucial to him, please, keep it in mind.

with that being said, kageyama’s prone to be unromantic and even insensitive at times with how he voices his opinions, because he’s no concept of sugar-coating and won’t hesitate to tell you if you suck at something, or flawlessly ignore your efforts to put on a lovey-dovey mood. but if you talk him about it and express that you’d like him to have some more tact, he’ll take the note! “tact? ok, ok. i’ll.  try to be as tactful as possible from now on and… read the mood? but i make no promises” ( spoiler alert: he keeps telling you that you suck but now he lets you have a sip of his milk and pets your head to soften the blow. )

and speaking of physical affection… god, kageyama is an utter stranger to pda. i mean, the boy is just a prude, unripe blueberry. he doesn’t know how it works, he’s not used to it, and the last thing he wants is to go and do something that’ll put you on a tough spot. your comfort is one of his main priorities, so you have to let him know what’s ok and whatnot, then he’ll start getting the hang of it. once he does, you’ll find out that kageyama is, as a matter of fact, one of the most touch-starved persons you’ll come accross with.

he just can’t seem to get his hands off of you, in the most literal and non-sensual way possible. be it small gestures like your hands brushing together, shoulders bumping, or your heads resting against each others’, kageyama just craves the feeling of your skin against his. despite how bad he denies it, he’s pretty clingy.

you’ve picked on how much he apparently enjoys holding hands, and petting your head, for that matter. you don’t know why, but his hand would always makes its way atop your head. it has even gotten to the point in where he does it out of habit, and when you ask him what’s wrong he just replies “nothing? why do you ask?”

i think kageyama has two stages while he’s on a relationship. the earlier ones, where he cannot lock eyes with you for more than give seconds before going all blushy and stiff, and the advanced ones, in where physical contact has practically become a must and one of his primary functions as a human being to operate naturally.

kageyama’s hugs are so freaking awkward at first… there’s no guides about this. does he just envelops you with his arms ??? and then stay still like that ??? what if he hurts you by holding you too tight ??? oh my god he’s even holding his breath while he’s at it SOMEONE FREE HIM-

and don’t even get me started on the kisses. LISTEN YOU DEFINITIVELY CLASH YOUR TEETH DURING YOU FIRST KISS AND YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT CHANGE MY MIND ON THIS ONE !!!!! knowing him, he needs weeks of mental preparation and advice from his god-send suga-senpai before going for it, and when the moment comes… he goes too hard for literally no reason and right after you’re both on the floor whimpering ‘cause that shit HURTED.

“ow, ow… tobio WHAT the HELL” “oh, PISS OFF”

well, at least he has an excuse for rehearsing!!! don’t worry, he’s a fast-learner ;))))

cuddling is just about the same you guys spend all day squirming in order to find a comfortable position and it’s just a mess™ of limbs and giggles.

“wait… maybe if i put my arm around here…” “wait, tobio, you’re tickling me-” “??? don’t laugh !!! STOP LAUGHING THIS IS NOT FUNNY”

but once you finally manage to settle down, god, it’s so pure… kageyama loves to have you in his beefy, setter arms as much as he loves being hold by you. the crook of your neck? a heavingly place for him to rest his head and which belongs to him and him only !!!

look kageyama is so weak for physical affection i’m not even kidding. all you need to calm him down is to rub his back soothingly and he’ll even forget why he was so mad about to begin with. the amount of power you hold over this boy… it genuinely surprises people to see how tame he’s when it comes to you. everyone can agree that if kageyama has a weakness, that’s you.

tobio is not the one to get particularly cheesy or romantic, everyone knows at least that much. however, he has this thing in where he genuinely voices out how great he considers you to be without batting an eyelash which of course makes you super flustered because “why are you getting so cheeky for?” “??? it’s the truth though” SHUT UP IM SOBBING.

you know how slow and oblivious your boy is, so the last thing you expect is him being able to read you as easily? it takes its sweet time, but within the years, kageyama steadily learns to understand you and how do you operate. your habits, your body language, what makes you happy or upset, he knows all of it. he can tell when something’s off just from a glance, yet he’s so nonchalant about it— like it’s obvious to know what’s on your mind. now, does he know how to act knowing this? not really, but give him props, he tries his best!

with all that has happened to him, it should come as no surprise the fact kageyama can get pretty insecure in the relationship. it’s not like he doesn’t trusts or you ( god, the boy could trust you with his life ), but you can’t blame him for letting his insecurities get the best of him. he’s just so, so afraid… that one day you’ll notice how unlikeable he truly is and you end up leaving him, like most of the people have done to him in his life…

tobio desesperately needs the reasurrance, the words of affirmation, to bask on the feeling of knowing he’s so deeply loved, and that he’s no such thing as an unlovable person. i hope you let him know that, just as he lets you know how grateful he’s for having you in his life.

all in all, kageyama can be a blunt, awkward and more than a bit dense partner, but he’s striving to become a better version of himself day by day, so, he secretely wishes you’ll put up with him a little longer.

4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 28, 29 + a, b, c, h for xingchen / 1-10 & 15-20 + a, b for zhi yin ?

aaaaaaa thank u for this jo!!!!! sorry this took so long!!! anyway this is. also very LENGTHY so im putting it under a cut <333333

xingchen

4. how easy is it to earn their trust?

it is actually very difficult to earn their trust, only because xingchen doesn’t allow people close enough in order to do so. the very few people who do have their hard-earned trust before the gang comes around is their remaining bio family.

5. how easy is it to earn their mistrust?

i wouldn’t say it’s easy for xingchen to suddenly mistrust you after earning their trust. they actually are the type to hold out for you for far longer than they probably should. while there are like, inklings of mistrust here in there, they’ll probably still trust you to watch their back in a fight and defend you against others who are like ‘xingchen maybe that isn’t a good idea :/’ they have a whole lot of hope & love for the world, though, & it's very hard for them to give up just anyone, especially someone who has previously earned their trust.

6. do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

xingchen was raised that laws are immovable, so they’ve grown up knowing & believing this philosophy for most things. however, as they’ve grown older they’ve realized that maybe they aren’t completely sure about this. perhaps, it can be situational.  

7. what triggers nostalgia for them, most often? do they enjoy that feeling?

snow. winter on the mountain triggers nostalgia for them. seeing the jade amulet & sword that belonged to their mother & the calligraphy set that belonged to their father but mostly snow. they do not enjoy the feeling. they will subject themself to it anyway.  

11. how do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

it mostly depends on where it comes from or who they’re around and what they’re confused about. usually they’ll simply ask to clarify; there’s no use in going into a situation pretending like they know something & they all get themselves killed because of negligence and pride. but…. that pride is exactly what gets the better of xingchen sometimes and it’s fucking hilarious.

28. would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth?

xingchen would absolutely prefer an unpleasant truth to a lie. they would possibly mumble through it or deliver it stiffly/coldly so as to be detached from the unpleasant feeling, but at least you would know the truth.

29. do they usually live up to their own ideals?

hmm. this is... difficult because so much of xingchen’s ideals were crafted by someone else, expectations put on them by someone else. outwardly, it would seem so. for xingchen, i think that they would always feel as though they have not done enough, or that they could have done something differently; that there is always room for them to improve to become the most perfect version of themself. they’re very tough on themself and i think that it begins getting worse around the second youxiong arc & the aftermath of that & the entirety of new boot goofin arc :)

+

a – why are u excited about this character?

i love xingchen’s energy!! their thoughts and their feelings are something i love to explore as well as like, the way that they’d react to things bc their method is so different than zoe’s. im also excited bc, just. like. the outward perception of xingchen is so different when compared to who they are as a person, unfiltered and raw.

b – what inspired u to create them?

xingchen was the order in the chaos; that’s initially why they were created. the body of their character was this philosophy, to balance zoe, to mirror her. xingchen’s name was something that was conceived almost like, directly after this, and once again, it was a mirror to zoe’s birth name - xian, and the implications behind that. xingchen’s name was mainly chosen bc of the amount of stars that surround their planet: 4. so xingchen’s name & this idea of someone who completed zoe’s balancing act, who ordered the chaos, crafted the idea of a character that was, in a way, the juxtaposition of celestial and earthly (like zoe) but only slightly to the left, wherein even to zoe, this character would be someone you were in awe of. they always sort of felt like the human embodiment of a shooting star, moved by duty and the righting of wrong to come down to earth. xingchen & zoe are technically on the same spectrum, but they have different methods, and that’s what i wanted from xingchen. i wanted a character that did elicit this feeling of awe, because of how amazing, talented, attractive etc. they are, EVEN TO ZOE, but was also intensely stubborn and, initially, very stuck on this ‘my way, or the high-way’ sort of mentality. i WANTED xingchen to create conflict with zoe and zoe to create conflict with xingchen, bc i wanted it to be an opportunity for both characters to be taken out of their comfort zones by each other.

of course, other things, small images, inspired me further when creating a silhouette for xingchen: blue & white; white jade; the sunrise; loquats; clouds; snow on mountain tops; spring; music played on a guqin; ballet & figure skating; swan <3

c – did u have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?

hmm i did have trouble figuring out how i would involve them, or any of the rest of youxiong, into zoe’s story after the new boot goofin arc. sure she made off world excursions late in that arc after her recovery, but there wasn’t a lot & my mind was blank. i’m still looking to involve xingchen more maybe bc im not 100% sure on the whole roommates thing.

h – what trait do u admire most?

tbh how deeply xingchen feels things. they don’t communicate it often, it’s difficult for them, both verbally and visually, and sometimes even physically, but they feel everything so, so deeply and that’s. i just really love them a l o t.

zhi yin

1. what’s the maximum amount of time ur character can sit still with nothing to do?

yin can sit still for a moderate amount of time with nothing to do. she fiddles, though, with her fingers or with her clothes, even when she isn’t particularly nervous.

2. how easy is it for ur character to laugh?

it’s fairly easy for yin to laugh if she’s on good terms with you - & this is mostly everyone as she believes the best of everyone, that everyone is generally good.

3. how do they put themselves to bed at night? (reading, singing, thinking?)

yin usually starts by making herself - & cheng – something warm to drink & once she’s assured her brother she’s fine & sent him off to bed, she’ll curl up in bed & read about far away places or an interesting new techniques that she knows she’ll never be able to try until she passes out.

4. how easy is it to earn their trust?

it’s hard for me to gauge how easy it is bc yin DOESN’T trust most ppl. she’s the type of person who looks like she would be easy to win over, & she would be likable & sweet to u, but the only ppl yin is loyal to & trusts at the beginning are cheng, her uncle, and oddly enough, zoe. so like, while she does believe ppl are generally good, this doesn’t mean that she has every intention of falling victim to someone’s wrongdoings or intentions to harm people she cares about bc she trusted blindly on account of this philosophy. she’s cautious, but she doesn’t have this all-around anxiety like cheng, and she isn’t gullible like everyone intends her to be. for yin, i think it is like this: if cheng or zoe trusts you, she will trust you, but she will be cautious, and mostly look to them.

5. how easy is it to earn their mistrust?

i think in order to lose yin’s trust, you would have to lie to her. like, big time. or hurt her family.

6. do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

yin is on the fence with this. with her uncle zhi as one of her mentors & cheng always looking out for her, laws/rules were immovable in order to keep her in a box & (in cheng’s situation) to keep her safe. however, their clan never actually taught them that rules had to be followed so rigidly (they follow a philosophy that one should achieve the impossible) that they were flexible, so i do think yin leans more towards flexible, but has anxiety about acting it out.

7. what triggers nostalgia for them, most often? do they enjoy that feeling?

making soup, walking on the docks, boating out on the river, practicing forms with cheng. yin does enjoy it, even if it is sometimes bittersweet.

8. what were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

stop daydreaming so much. (she wasn’t daydreaming) :)

9. do they swear? do they remember their first swear word?

yin doesn’t swear! not really

10. what lie do they most frequently remember telling? does it haunt them?

‘i’m fine.’/ ‘i feel fine!’ yes.

15. how do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

yin has a soft, pleasant voice. it’s almost like a whisper but its warm & sweet. she has the type of voice that if u were in a crowd, because of the tone of it, u might not be able to hear her even if she was standing next to u & speaking. her tone is always very sincere, or slightly teasing. she can stutter a lot when she’s excited or nervous. yin thinks about what she says usually, but sometimes she does pipe up & blurt what she’s just thought of on the spot. rarely does she raise her voice, but when she does, u know she means business.

16. what makes their stomach turn?

when she goes under. it’s an awful feeling of being disconnected from herself & not knowing what she did while she was out, & seeing everyone’s faces after, looking them in the eye after what she could have possibly done & them seeing what happens to her when she get ‘sick.’

17. are they easily embarrassed?

yes. yin is easily flustered, if that’s the same thing. she fumbles over her words in this case & will fiddle with her hands. crying is sometimes the result of being embarrassed too :) but i would rather not think about yin crying…

18. what embarrasses them?

usually anyone acting particularly brash, or flirty. when she, herself, makes a grand gesture on her own end, and it’s rejected. sometimes being reminded that she can’t cultivate while others can, that she’s a lacking heir.

19. what is their favorite number?

hmm three.

20. if they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do it?

yin might explain familial love as brushing her a-cheng’s hair out of his face & patting his head despite him being taller than her just to piss him off a little, nagging him until he rolls his eyes & does as she says, or finding a blanket tucked over her that clearly wasn’t there before after a late night of reading at her desk. she might explain platonic love as sitting with zoe on the docks with their toes in the water, zoe’s head on her shoulder & both of them spilling their hearts out, or sharing tea & poetry with xingchen for the first time, seeing them blush around the tips of their ears & having to stifle her giggles until they finally broke the tension with a laugh of their own. yin doesn’t know how to explain the difference of romantic love yet.

+

a – why are u excited about this character?

yin has so many different, like, facets & she’s really fun to think about. i really love thinking about her dynamic with zoe, but i especially love to think about her dynamic with others in the group & how she might get along with them & how their relationships will progress. she’s really sweet & is willing to help people out of the good will of her heart but still holds them at a distance & is like…disconcerting in a way, and that’s a character i’m pretty sure i’ve never had before, so she’s pretty new to me.

b – what inspired u to create them?

yin remained a mystery to me for so long, hence why her name is yin. she was like a little shadow. she remains a little shadow. a secret still. something i, and everyone, has yet to figure out. a dark spot with a gentle smile that stayed at zoe’s side. she’s the shadow in the pond that you arent too sure is a stick or a snake or not, but you keep creeping closer to anyway bc you think if it were a snake it would have made some move to get closer to you by now. and yin’s not a snake. she’s the turtle in this story. or a shell, perhaps. a lucky dark little tortoise shell. she can be a little scary at times, as the person creating her, and for the other characters interacting with her, but also she comes off as completely harmless. like a lake or a river wide and deep enough to swim in. yin has really just been fragments and pieces, little ideas here and there, that have come together to create a very healing, loving character that just has an overwhelming flood of love pouring out from her at all times.

there was also the idea, story-wise, of wanting to create a character that doesn’t become friends with zoe specifically bc of a shared interest/goal – yin doesn’t want to kill her uncle; she genuinely wants to be zoe’s friend. they do share traits & like. actual interests – they’re both family oriented, hence why yin wouldn’t want to kill her family – but yin isn’t zoe’s loyal-ass friend bc they have a similar moral code or bc they had similar goals & became close over the course of the mission etc. like jason, for example. the lotus is a big symbol for yin as well, which connects her directly to zoe, who is representative of the center.

ask me some q’s about my ocs!!

Name: leyna

Age: 1X

Writing Blog URL(s): @jensungf​

What fandom(s) do you write for? nct (dream)!

Nationality: american!

Languages: english, vietnamese (spanish??? very bad)

Star Sign: capricorn sun!! 

MBTI: enfp-t hehe

Favorite color: lavender

Favorite food: beef chow fun/noodles

Favorite movie: our times!

Favorite ice cream flavor: chocolate chip cookie dough

Favorite animal: cats! 

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? hmm i’m not a big fan of either tbh but vietnamese iced coffee with a LOT of condensed milk is super good 

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): honestly idk! maybe an editor or professor who knows

Go-to karaoke song: “gee” by snsd or “if it ain’t you” by alicia keys

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? vocal-induced manipulation or basically power of persuasion with my words hehe

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? maybe the 90s! i really like the vibes and aesthetic

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? no bc learning is a part of life!

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken? horse sized chicken hahaha bc horses are wild

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? drama queen LOLL

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? to an extent yes! 

If a genie gave you three wishes, what would they be? world peace, equality for all, and hmm true love in every life i live

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? i have 3k followers on pinterest hahaha weird flex

When did you post your first piece? april 2020!

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? i write most fluff and angst or a combo! with some crack bc who doesn’t love some humor hahah

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? i write reader inserts

Why did you start writing on Tumblr? ive been writing on tumblr since 2015, just for diff fandoms bc i always loved reading fanfics and i wanted to become a better writer

What inspires you to write? other writings, real life experiences, dreams, basically anything!

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? i find fluff easier to write than angst but i like a good balance of all the genres! i rly like writing soulmate!aus for some reason or just some domestic fluffy established relationship stuff

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? i hope they can actually feel the emotions i’m hoping to convey from each character (referring to my more angsty works) or their sweet tooth gets satiated hehe

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? i try to read other stories or talk to my moots to help me!

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? i think my fav has to be only forever because it’s something that i feel like is really cliche but it actually represents the meaning of young innocent first loves. i reminds me of what someone’s youth should sort of feel like. my most successful has been jsmr: sugar and spice because who doesn’t love jsmr!jeno and some sweet fluff and a spicy make out scene 🤭

Who is your favorite person to write about? jeno or jaemin tbh

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? there is a slight difference because fanfiction provides you a sort of foundation with characters but to be honest, i believe that if you just switch the names and perspectives for most of the stories on here, it would become a bestselling hit because it conveys the same emotions and it’s just as enjoyable to read. the writers on here are truly exceptional. 

What do you think makes a good story? i definitely think little details and the nuances that add to the plot development and character development. most importantly, if a story evokes emotions from me and i can feel the story then i think it’s beautiful in itself. 

What is your writing process like? for me, i can come up with an idea based off of anything that might inspire me. like watching something, reading another story or just a dream i have. then i like to outline my stories by bouncing ideas with my best friend and from there once i figure out all the points i wanna hit i start writing! or for spur of the moment fics i deadass just start writing

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? yes, most likely. 

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand? i love fwb to lovers and enemies to lovers! also soulmate!aus / tatbilb tropes cus i’m a sucker for cheesy stuff. i’m not a big fan of cheating/parent/apoc!aus or love triangles. oh and i can’t stand slow burn 😭

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? as someone who lives off of validation, it means a lot and motivates me to write my stories and post them! we put so much hard work into our stories, so feedback and engagement is honestly the least you can do 🥺

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? i think just being in a community with other talented writers has taught me a lot!! and of course, having people read my work.

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? yes! all the time. 

Do you think art can be a medium for change? yes, maybe not on a macro scale but personally definitely. 

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? sometimes, but i always try to pull myself back into why i really started writing. but writing for others helps motivate me. 

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times? not on a serious level! it’s more so how details and events are interpreted but it’s fun to see how ppl have different perspectives on own piece versus your own vision.

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? yes!! not my family ofc but my close friends do and support me 100% and i’m forever grateful for this

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? thank you so much for everything you’ve ever done for me no matter how little or small it may seem, it means the world to me. 

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? i think you need to realize why you’re writing and it’s because it brings you happiness, and you’re sharing your beautiful work out there and it has the possibility to change someone’s life whether it’s bringing them a little bit of joy or helping them feel emotions. you might discover things you never knew about yourself as well. 

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? not really! as of recently i’ve seen a lot of changes with the platform and although it’s a big struggle, i can’t regret it because it’s brought me so much.  

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey? i’d hate to pick and choose because all my mutuals have really helped me in some way whether or not they know it because they inspire me, motivate me, and are just genuinely amazing people to talk to. but honestly talking to mary / @neostains​, nana / @nanasarea​, anie / @mjlkau​ have helped me open up from being shy and i appreciate them a whole lot. 

Pick a quote to end your interview with:  “to burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” - spanish poet federico garcia lorca

heeeey rookies dash lurkers !! it’s mun blaire here, making a comeback with a new muse, miss chong tingyan !! i used to mun kard’s somin, but, i was so low on muse and my activity was the absolute worst !! however, i’m back with a new muse, who i’ve worked on developing a lot more and i adore ( but it’s also the elkie stan in me popping out ) !! she’s similar to somin in a lot of ways, but has tons of differences, too !! this time around, she’s chinese, 20 years old, and a more angelic type of mean ?? but she’s still loves to dance and has that fiery spirit somin posessed !! anyways, i hope this time around i can be a lot more involved in the community than i was before, and have tons of fun developing her with you all !! if you’re interested, you can find her plots here, profile here, and bio here ! and, as always, feel free to contact me on twitter @blairemeetsrp if you’d like to plot, as i’ll be more active from now on there ! trivia and little tidbits about this chaotic tsundere under the cut ! give this a  ♡ and i’ll pop in your ims !

okay i know i say this and never do but this time around, i’ll actually try to keep things short! i’ll leave out the majority of her background this time, because it can be found in her bio if you’re interested and it’s rather complicated!

as a condensed version - she’s from shanghai, china! nowadays she’s pretty glamorous and would never confess this to anyone who didn’t know but back in the day, she lived n the outskirts of town because her parents both worked for the upper class! her dad a dishwasher, her mom a housemaid.

so you can kind of see where that idea of serving other people plays in, right?? anyways, being the only daughter & having 2 older brothers they were convinced that marrying tingyan into money was the only way to bring her family out of poverty!

so they put her in etiquette classes, her mom taught her to cook and clean, she learned ballet (the only thing she liked & still does from the things they made her to), basically anything that screamed wife !!! 

at first she was like...ok. but then she got interested in music, kpop especially, and more types of genres of dance than just ballet. she loved performing & knew that was the way she wanted to go, and what she wanted to do in her life instead but knew there was no chance it was happening!!

she didn’t expect the whole marriage thing to happen so soon, but it did phew!!! literally, as soon as she graduated, they started making plans to marry her off once she turned 20. of course, she was like, what??? she had worked hard through high school and she was going to attend a prestigious university so marrying a random man definitely wasn’t on the bucket list. but when she told them no things got really nasty and essentially they were like “we only wanted you for your husband!! if you won’t marry him leave”

so what did she do?? you guessed it folks, ran away from home and moved to korea with nothing but a suitcase and money she’d saved up from her part-time job for college!! sksksks, but she chose korea because it was the only other place besides china she held dear to her and it was still somewhat familiar? 

ok soo. she really had no idea what to do, because she was sad about the whole scenario & really lost because she was in a whole other country. but she saw how much beauty impacted koreans and how it was a moneymaker and was like huh?? maybe i can do something w/that???

this next part is gonna be really short because it’s a little ridiculous and requires too much explaining, so if things don’t make sense feel free to read the bio, once again!! at this point tingyan didn’t believe she was very conventionally attractive, yet reeeally wanted to fit with the asian ideals of beauty so she wouldn’t stand out as much. but people liked her because she was charismatic & kind of a flirt?? so, she essentially became a sugar baby (stick with me sksks) to pay for plastic surgery, and after an agonizingly long period of surgeries and recoveries, she finally felt comfortable w/herself!

sidenote i do not condone changing yourselves for others in any way!! this is 100% tingyan though on the other hand, i you want plastic surgery for yourself?? do you!!

even nowadays, though she gets more attention because of all her enhancements she’s still a little self-conscious deep down? because she knows that it’s not real, and that she probably wouldn’t get as much attention otherwise :((

anyways!! she soon joined a small international school along with a language course to both further her study & learn korean quicker. and though it helped, nothing could compare to what dance did for her!! as mad as she was to her parents for making her take all those classes, she’d stuck with ballet, branched into other genres all throughout high school, and really missed it when she left china. so she joined a dance studio in seoul and it finally felt like her life was piecing itself together again!!

now let’s skip the rest because this is getting too long ugh!! now, onto the current tingyan!

nowadays, the adjustment to korea has gotten better. she’s been here for a little over 2 years now, so while there’s still a lot to learn, she’s gotten a lot better grasp than she had 2 years ago. she’s still in college & took up a job as a model once she realized her looks could get her beyond just getting a date? so now she models clothes for several online stores. and she really likes it, but she knows it’s not a steady career & she still really hopes to do something with her love of dance.

sidenote she’s also kind of off the radar?? she tries to live a private life and although she’s a model, she keeps her personal things private because she doesn’t want her parents to find her in seoul. so while she may come off as closed off, a big part of it is this rather than her just being cold!

a lot more bold than she used to be! she feels that since she was raised to be so dependent on others, she has to be twice as strong to prove she can do things on her own! so that’s why in almost anything she does, she tries to prove that she’s the absolute best no matter what. but she’s scared of being seen as obnoxiously rude & angry like her mother was to her, which is why she’s developed the queen b-esque style she has today. isn’t afraid to speak her mind, no matter how someone may feel about it, and definitely not shy when it comes to romance. shes’ the type of person to say the meanest things but so politely that they actually seem nice?? if that makes sense.

right now, though?? she doesn’t really know she wants to be an idol just yet. she knows she wants to perform, but doesn’t believe she has what it takes yet to get there! at the moment it’s not something she sees herself doing but that’s what development’s for, right?

she still has sugar baby tendencies lmao, but she’s rather shameless about it. she makes it known she likes money, and likes to be spoiled by whoever she’s seeing! often times this is how she funds her expensive taste, but she won’t openly say that. she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s from a low-income family, especially since she lives in gangnam where all the elites reside, so she often claims she comes from wealth! 

so if your muses have money and want to spoil her, tingyan is taking donations lmao!! she doesn’t discriminate & can be your muse’s arm candy!!!

omg i’m a mess

while one would think this would go against her whole being independent and working for herself thing going on, tingyan feels she’s kind of working hard to get the money too?? her words directly, and i quote, “keeping conversation can be exhausting, and a job in itself. have you ever had to feign interest in your partner’s golf addiction?”

but she does! not! like! commitment! after having marriage practically thrown at her, you could see where the fear to settle comes from? she really wants to take advantage of the freedom she’s gained and is really just liking where she’s at - not taking life too seriously and seeing who she wants when she wants!

she probably needs people to ground her and give her some stability because of this?? at the moment she doesn’t really have anyone keeping an eye on her or someone she can feel she can trust in, so she’s a little lost! and though tingyan will never say it to your face, i’ll do it for you - she needs real friends!!

but...also enemies?? or any sort of angst because - yes!

i think that’s it!! i want to leave the rest to be explored during plots and don’t really want to write a whole essay to write at you, so that’s all i have to say on my newest addition! i hope you love her, and, if you’re interested in plotting please let me know!

hey guys many people aren’t really aware of it, but every year after black friday and cyber monday, there’s another “something-day” - a day of not getting something for yourself but rather giving out to different charity associations and causes. it’s called giving tuesday (this year it happens on november 28th). many people aren’t aware of it, but for many charities it’s an incredibly important day. and for smaller charities, with tighter pockets, it’s even crucial.

one of those charities is spca ramat-gan and vicinity (a bit of a mouthful, i know) - a small animal shelter in tel aviv, israel.

there are a few things that make spca rgav unique among other animal charities in israel. first of all, its top principle is and always has been being a non kill shelter. there are very few animal shelters in israel who are non-kill. there are estimated to be over 2 million stray cats in israel (to put it in context, israel’s population consists of 8 million people) - and that’s probably an underestimate. the situation’s reached a point where cats are considered in many places to be somewhat of a vermin. as for dogs, over 100 thousand perfectly adoptable dogs are put down in israel every single year. spca rgav operates from a tiny, ancient shelter that can only house a maximum of about 30 dogs and 40 cats. yet it’s never even considered to put any of them down. each and every one of them is our responsibility. another thing that makes spca rgav unique is that we use exclusively force-free training techniques on our dogs, being as cruelty-free as humanly possible. this is also a strict rule that we never stray off of. force free dog training is still a relatively new and unknown thing in israel, so advocating it to our audience of adopters and volunteers is of the upmost importance. it’s also made our shelter somewhat of a specialist of taking care of emotionally divergent dogs - dogs who suffer from anxiety, communicative difficulties, aggression, and what’s known in professional dog training as “reactive behavior” - dogs who naturally always struggle to find homes, and are often the first to be put down. we never give up on them. this year alone we had four highly reactive dogs finally adopted after spending with us varying time spans of between 2 to 5 years.

some general statistics about our activity in 2017 -  this year alone, we have:

saved over 90 dogs from dog pounds, where they’d likely have been put down, including elderly dogs, sick dogs, and puppies

managed to find loving homes for over 170 dogs - and the year isn’t over yet!

spent over 100,000 new israeli shekels - nearly 30,000 usd - on vaccines, neutering/spaying, medicine and life-saving medical procedures and operations for both cats and dogs in need.

found new homes for over 80 cats, a very difficult achievement in a country that is literally flooded with stray cats in need - including blind cats, paralysed cats, days-old kittens who were found on the streets, cats whom we taught to trust and love humans, and more.

ran educational programs who’ve reached over 1100 children and teenagers - advocation for loving and caring for animals is one of spca rgav’s prime and unique operations.

and much more.

this year’s giving tuesday is a critical point for our shelter. as a small charity that relies on private donations, competing against other gigantic, much more well known and well resourced animal charities in israel (and often confused with others due to similar names), we always struggle for donations. and right now, we’re at an especially dire financial situation. the donations from this giving tuesday could very well be the sole thing that will allow us to keep going, and not, maybe, close down.

why do i even tell you about all of this? i mean, this is just some multifandom blog, right? well. spca rgav means a lot to me. i’ve been volunteering there for over a year and a half. it’s the first place, in my whole life, where i managed to feel like myself. and like i’m helping and making a positive and important impact on someone’s life - on many lives. i’ve rehabilitated cats who were terrified of people. i’ve helped save lives (some of you might remember when i’ve shared the campaign to save pavarotti the kitten’s life - it was thanks to tumblr that his life-saving operation was funded, and now he’s a big, healthy cat, with his own loving home!). i’ve helped dogs and cats find loving homes. i’ve adopted 2 cats from the shelter myself. i was influenced to go study force-free dog training - something i’d never have even thought of doing if it weren’t for this shelter. spca rgav has changed my life for the better, infinitely so, and i can’t imagine my life without it.

so what am i asking of you, then?

if you can - please, please donate to us! every little amount matters! (also, given coin rate conversions, your money is probably worth more than it seems to you once converted to nis!)

if for any reason you don’t want to/can’t use the link above, you can also try this link right here!

if you can’t donate at all - please share this post, and the donation link, to anyone, anywhere! sharing and spreading our story is just as impactful as a direct donation!

for more info (mainly in hebrew, sorry, but there’s some in english as well) and a look at our current residents, you can click on the donation link above, as well as spca rgav’s official website, facebook page and instagram. if you want to know more - if there’s anything you didn’t understand, any info you couldn’t find, anything at all - feel free to shoot me an ask!

thank you so much for reading!

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT COLLEGE

False positives yielded by statistical filters turn out to be mails that sound a lot like spam, and these tend to be the default plan in big companies. And microcomputers turned out to be a really huge wave, bigger than even the most optimistic observers would have predicted in 1975. One of the great masters, because copying forces you to look closely at the way a painting is made. But if you parse it all, your filter might degenerate into a mere html recognizer. Some investors are known for deciding quickly, and those are extra valuable early on. Rapid change in one area uncovers big, soluble problems in other areas. But while Microsoft did really well and there is nothing in spam-of-the-future for filters to notice.

If you write software to teach Tibetan to Hungarian speakers, you'll face ferocious competition, precisely because that's such a larger prize. If you try to fly at too steep an angle of attack, build up speed, and then when you explain this to VC firms they have to decide quickly because you're running out of room. Maybe I got a little carried away with this example. VCs want to invest in startups: not just because things change faster, but because the space of possibilities is so large that you can find plenty that are cheap or even untaken. He claims not one bug was ever found in the Apple II, in either hardware or software. When do you give up? Query response times, usually the proof is profitability. When it reaches a certain concentration, it kills off the yeast that produced it. Like the JV playing the varsity, if you get $50k from a well-known investor who has just invested in you.

What next? And they, incidentally, that cured me of copying the wrong things? Should you spend two days at a conference? And yet, mysteriously, Viaweb ended up crushing all its competitors. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake when trying to convince investors of things they're not convinced of themselves? People at big companies don't realize the extent to which they live in an environment that is one large, ongoing test for the wrong qualities. And yet most VCs are driven by consensus, not just within their firms, but within the VC community. Either VCs will evolve down into this gap or, more likely, new investors will appear to fill it. Meanness isn't rare.

Reddit and think I wish I could think of an idea like that, remember: ideas like that are all around you. As with contrarian investment strategies, that's exactly the point. Being a noob at technology would, if you're not convinced yourself. You know you're going to be one of them. Eventually, they get to the point where 100% of the startups we fund never make decks in phase 2, you have to be arranged at least a pure one. In art, for example—because they're confident you'll pick them. There's a parallel here to small businesses. 100% of the top 20 YC companies by valuation have the.

When you're drinking through a straw, you can tell from the way their sites are organized that they don't lead, or that uses ugly variable names. A worse danger is that you won't be able to. The large size of their investments makes them conservative. Growth is why VCs want to invest because it's a game you can't lose. And the customers paying so much for them were largely the same government agencies that paid thousands for screwdrivers and toilet seats. You're on the right track, then you could end up not having a spam probability of 98%, whereas the same token anymore. A new medium appears, and people in these fields tend to be very successful. The most obvious is that outsiders have nothing to say.

In life, as in books, action is underrated. It might seem that it would always be better to start in a small market that will either turn into a big company in a design war with a company that grows at 5% a week will grow 12. This is stupid, because fundraising is not the absolute number of new customers every month, you're in trouble, because that showed how much time I must have been wasting. To succeed in a domain with so much variation. What's particularly dangerous for founders is the way they taught me to in college. On current spam, I've been able to achieve filtering rates that approach CRM114's. As far as I know there's no word for something we like too much. That difference is why there's a distinct word, startup, for companies designed to grow fast.

What if they like you? In the meantime I tried my best to imitate them. I'm going to name them: type A fundraising. It's an old idea that new things come from the margins, and yet glorifying their doomed efforts with the grandiose title of startup. If you start a search engine you have to be crazy to refuse. Being married to her is like standing next to an airport baggage scanner. These two senses are already quite far apart. When they finally decide to try, they find they can't. I hadn't been deleting them as spams before. The danger of fundraising is particularly acute for people who control a private company to funnel its revenues to themselves e. In startups, as in books, action is underrated. It's not that you don't think about the upper limit on what you should have cited.

Reason I think WWIII projected start is probably about 2040-2050:

Effects of climate change will start reaching Europe and North America, and more of the world’s economic superpowers will be forced to deal with it. Right now, it flies under the radar because the most extreme effects are only visible in Subsaharan Africa and the countries lining those areas, and South/South-east Asian especially lower lying island countries, a few South American countries who’s main economy is based on things that is affected by climate change. BUT, but 2050, there’s a projected 15 million climate refugees and they will try to move to Europe and America. That’s when they’ll start giving a shit. rising tensions will create an environment for animosity to thrive between communities who are feeling the pressure of not having enough themselves but being forced to accomodate foreigners and foreigners who had no choice but to move and now feel like they have nothing else to lose.

It will get easier and easier to build technology such as computer viruses and actual (biological) viruses because of the light-speed scientific progress we’re making. In a heated political environment that involves multiple countries all with the ability to fund research and development, information that can be used for good (creating vaccines and helpful computer programming) could very well also be used for nefarious purposes; such as creating designer viruses to create bioweapons (granted we are very far from this and actually, the US has put in programs that would detect ppl who appear to be trying to make these things. But we don’t know if other countries have the same oversight. We don’t know if the US is doing this themselves or other countries’ govs might be creating their own bioweapons. Soviet Union for example, did create weaponized smallpox during the Cold War. If they could do it back then with limited technology, imagine how easy it would be now that we have sequenced the genome of so many things already.) 

Subpoint: With everything being increasingly connected to the net, a similar thing could also be imagined for computer world. And it’s not so much, “shutting down the internet” that would be a problem. It would rather be, hijacking it for nefarious purposes. Maybe they steal everyone’s credit cards. Maybe they turn off the ability to do any banking procedures. Soon we have descended into chaos because nobody uses cash anymore. Economic collapse would be swift and devastating. (an internet friend referred me to the story of Stuxnet a few weeks ago and I never ended up reading it but with some serendipity, the whole story was outlined as one of the nightmare scenarios in the book that I clearly just finished reading and now I am low-key freaking out.)

I’ve mentioned rising sea levels and desertification so many times on this blog it’s become redundant. Ignoring the fact that countries that are not wealthy would not be able to put up the same measures that Netherlands and Germany has with dams and everything, even those areas would be vulnerable if economic pressures due to climate refugees forced people out of the poorer low-lying areas, cuz maintenance of the dams would suffer and eventually that would mean it would also become more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. One bomb on a dam is all it would take to unhinge the entire tiny country, because let’s be real if parts of the country would already be 10 ft under water twice a day right now without the dams, if the dams disappeared the effects would be sudden and irreplaceable. 

All of these could happen further than 2050, for sure. I hope it is. I don’t wanna be alive through a world war that I personally experience. I’ve experienced war already and I am not keen on experiencing it on a scale where there will be no escaping. So why do I think it’s probably 2040-2050?

Here’s the thing. People have short memories. Generational memories are practically non-existent. Every second or third generation goes through a war and that’s been true as far back as I know my western history which is like, 1600′s (not very well, better with 1850-2000). But I know my Asian history. And aside from small wars that have always existed, isolated in an area, big wars happen every 80-100 years. Because that’s how long the longest human memory would last. Then the last person who remembers the war forgets. It becomes just stories. And we are bound to repeat history. I had hope that world wars were the exception. Maybe those two were sufficiently bad that we understood this is not something we are going to do again.

But the last survivors of the Holocaust have started to die off. By 2040, the youngest of the holocaust survivor’s children will have died off. The World Wars will become a story. None of us experienced it within our parents’ generation. So we will forget teh lessons it taught us, and we will repeat history. I can already see the starting patterns. You can see it if you look really close. Everything I outlined above, it’s already happened in smaller scales, and the mechanisms exist/are being put in place right now for it to happen again but much worse.

I hope I am dead by then. I don’t know that it’ll be worth it to live longer than 60.

Ida Thompson

For the past 62 years Columbia has been blessed to have Ida Thompson share her grace and wealth of knowledge. Having grown up in the same district she taught in, Richland One, Mrs. Thompson’s passion for education and literacy has been fostered since youth. Her mother, as she describes as a quiet, beautiful spirit, did not have the opportunity to attend college but instilled in all of her children that education was of the utmost importance. She made sure they did well in school, never missed a PTA meeting, and sacrificed so much so her children could advance in life. Mrs. Thompson reminisces about the mail order book club her mother signed her up as a child. The excitement she felt waiting at the mailbox for her next shipment of books continues even now in her role as a board member for the Richland County Library and on several national committees of the American Library Association.

For Mrs. Thompson, education and literacy are the gateways to every person’s success of living positive and meaningful lives. Her success is knowing at the end of each day she can look back and see she helped someone else or moved closer to her personal goals. She reminds us that we have to see success in the small things in life - having family who love and care about us, having good health, and living in a democratic society where we can enjoy the benefits of freedom and liberty. Mrs. Thompson even describes her greatest professional achievement as the small stuff; seeing her former students and them saying “you made all the difference in my life. You helped me see that I could be more than I thought I could be.” Mrs. Thompson would tell her high school students “Don't send me a wedding invitation until you have two degrees”. Her former female students have told her this is the best advice she ever gave them. They understood then that they take care of themselves and pursue their interest. Mrs. Thompson describes it as taking care of yourself first so you can be an independent contributing member of society and all of life's other pleasures will fall into place.

Mrs. Mary McAfee saw the sparkle in Mrs. Thompson and has mentored her for many years. She gave generously of her time and took Mrs. Thompson under her wing showing her how to be a true professional. She wanted to see Mrs. Thompson work at the district level and encouraged her to take the necessary steps to succeed. Mrs. McAfee was truly a hard worker, creative and talented. She really cared about her students and their success and gave 100% every day. They found that they had many of the same qualities, professional interests, and talents in common and remain very close today. Mrs. McAfee advised Mrs. Thompson to work hard but to take care of herself. Self care includes knowing what platforms you can empower yourself through.

Community is necessary if we all are going to be successful. Mrs. Thompson sees it as we each have a responsibility to engage in supporting and improving our community. We all have something to contribute, no matter how small because small acts lead to bigger opportunities for service. Everybody has ideas, everybody can contribute some things, everybody has an opinion and we should make our community the best it can be, not just for us, but for those to follow. Mrs. Thompson does this in her position at the library. As a Trustee with the Richland Library, she can shape decisions and policies that ensure the viability and growth of one of the most progressive library systems in the country.

Through its many programs and services, the women in this community have access to a wide range of information services and programs that enhance the quality of their lives, their families and the greater community. Specifically for women, it is important to advocate, no matter how small, because we should never forget the work and progress women have made. Keeping good role models for young women to encourage and inspire them ensures we are always moving forward and not backwards.

For Mrs. Thompson, being a woman is an awesome opportunity! She explains, as mothers we influence and guide our children, as community leaders we help share and direct the conversations and actions that impact our neighbors and friends, and as professionals we contribute to the creativity and success of our given avocations and the community at large. Women are wired to see the big picture, understand the impact and develop a strategy to get there. She doesn't feel like she has tapped all that's in her, she still has more that she wants to do. Being a woman, for Ida, gives her an opportunity to shine.

Mrs. Thompson knows the city has established an environment that encourages citizens to share their concerns through open lines of communication and accessibility. Through its outreach, service and programs, it opens platforms for citizens to express their input, from an

89 year old to the youngest members of our community. She recognizes that more can be done to make women’s voices more visible in Columbia. Showcasing women to the community on the city’s cable channel, ensuring that women are equally represented on committees and boards, conducting forums on special women’ issues throughout the year and expanding mentoring programs are just a few of the brilliant ideas Mrs. Thompson offers to increase visibility.  Taking the time to formally recognize women is crucial because seeking recognition is not inherently a part of how women think. Mrs. Thompson wants her life’s work to be inspiring others to do well and make our community and this nation better. She is already doing this with positive influence on reading, writing and literacy and her lifelong commitment to Columbia.

The last 160 and you are Finished

Considerations - By Colin Wright

From Good to Amazing: No Bullshit Tips for The Life You Always Wanted - By Michael Serwa

The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism - By Olivia Fox Cabane

Man's Search for Meaning - By Viktor E. Frankl

I Will Teach You To Be Rich - By Ramit Sethi

The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won't Learn in College About How to Be Successful - Michael Ellsberg

No More Mr. Nice Guy: A proven plan for getting what you want in love, sex and life - By Robert A Glover

She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman - By Ian Kerner

Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: How I Went from Gang Member to Multimillionaire Entrepreneur - By Ryan Blair

The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - By Mark Roberge

The Fine Art of Small Talk: How To Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills -- and Leave a Positive Impression! - By Debra Fine

Models: Attract Women Through Honesty - By Mark Manson

The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life - Hal Elrod

Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth - By Steve Pavlina

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results - By Gary Keller

Managing Oneself - By Peter Ferdinand Drucker

The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire - By David Deida

The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment - By Eckhart Tolle

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltec Wisdom Book - By Janet Mills

168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think - By Laura Vanderkam

Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits - By Gretchen Rubin

The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are - By Brene Brown

Early Retirement Extreme: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Financial Independence - Jacob Lund Fisker

The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Tell Your Family History, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More - By Bruce Feiler

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun - By Gretchen Rubin

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead - By Brené Brown

Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long - By David Rock

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business - By Charles Duhigg

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard - By Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die - By Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - By Malcolm Gladwell

Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being - By Brian R Little

The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life - By Chris Guillebeau

Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator - By Ryan Holiday

The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth - M. Scott Peck

The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size - By Tor Norretranders

The Art of Thinking Clearly - By Rolf Dobelli

The Productive Narcissist: The Promise and Peril of Visionary Leadership - By Michael Maccoby

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - John Boyne

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong - By James W. Loewen

The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse - By Gregg Easterbrook

How Rich People Think - By Steve Siebold

The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea - By Bob Burg and John David Mann

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny - By Robin Sharma

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession - By Daniel J. Levitin

Breakfast of Champions: A Novel - By Kurt Vonnegut

The 10 Secrets of 100% Healthy People - By Patrick Holford

You Must Change Your Life - By Peter Sloterdijk

The Last Lecture - By Randy Pausch

The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? - By Rick Warren

The Prophet - By Kahlil Gibran

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't - By Jim Collins

The Power of Positive Thinking - By Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny! - By Tony Robbins

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" - By Marianne Williamson

The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science - By Norman Doidge

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind - By Joseph Murphy

How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling - By Frank Bettger

How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People - By Leslie T. Giblin

I'm OK--You're OK - By Thomas Harris

Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life - By Spencer Johnson

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar - By Cheryl Strayed

I Too Had a Dream - By Verghese Kurien

Great Men of Literature - By Will Durant

The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind - By B. Alan Wallace

The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health - By John Durant

Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation - By Daniel J. Siegel

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything - By Chris Hadfield

Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat - By Paul Jaminet Ph.D. and Shou-Ching Jaminet Ph.D.

Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success - By John C. Maxwell

Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It - By Kamal Ravikant

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change - By Stephen R. Covey

Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?: And Other Provocations - By Seth Godin

A Brief History of Everything - By Ken Wilber

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles - By Steven Pressfield

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion - By Jonathan Haidt

Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story - By Arnold Schwarzenegger

The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help - By Amanda Palmer

Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence - By Ben Carson M.D.

The Psychology of Self-Esteem: A Revolutionary Approach to Self-Understanding that Launched a New Era in Modern Psychology - By Nathaniel Branden

Mastery - By Robert Greene

Your Killer Emotions - By Ken Lindner

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life - By Marshall B. Rosenberg

What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings-and Life - By Laura Vanderkam

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists - By Neil Strauss

The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships - By Neil Strauss

The Strangest Secret - By Earl Nightingale

The Wheel Of Time: The Shamans Of Mexico Their Thoughts About Life Death And The Universe - By Carlos Castaneda

The Art of Dreaming - By Carlos Castaneda

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy - By David D. Burns

Wishes Fulfilled: Mastering the Art of Manifesting - By Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

I Can See Clearly Now - By Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao - By Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

You Were Born Rich: Now You Can Discover and Develop Those Riches - By Bob Proctor

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit - By Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living - By Dale Carnegie

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams - By Deepak Chopra

The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts - By Gary D Chapman

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High - By Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In - By Roger Fisher, William L. Ury, and Bruce Patton

Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale - By Zig Ziglar

The Power of Awareness: Move from Desire to Wishes Fulfilled - By Neville Goddard

King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine - By  Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette

The Art of Seduction - By Robert Greene

The Art of Non-Conformity: Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World - By Chris Guillebeau

Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life - By Wayne W. Dyer

You Can Heal Your Life - By Louise Hay

The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Richard Branson Way: 10 Secrets of the World's Greatest Brand Builder - By Des Dearlove

Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, and Outnegotiate Your Competition - By Harvey B. Mackay

See You at the Top - By Zig Ziglar

Feel the Fear . . . and Do It Anyway - By Susan Jeffers

The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level - By PhD Hendricks Gay

The Winner Effect: The Neuroscience of Success and Failure - By Ian H. Robertson

The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life - By Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd Ph.D.

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph - By Ryan Holiday

The Compound Effect - By Darren Hardy

The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness - By Pema Chodron

The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster: Why Now Is the Time to #JoinTheRide - By Darren Hardy

The Art of Profitability - By Adrian Slywotzky

Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas - By Seth Godin

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less - By Barry Schwartz

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - By Robert B. Cialdini

How We Decide - By Jonah Lehrer

The Investor's Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between - By William J. Bernstein

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World - By Eric Weiner

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful - By Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter

The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal - By  Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills - By Daniel Coyle

The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It - By Kelly McGonigal

The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking - By  Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird

Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered - By Austin Kleon

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking - By Oliver Burkeman

When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures - By Richard D. Lewis

Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It - By Gabriel Wyner

Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want - By Nicholas Epley

Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success - By Shane Snow

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction - By William Zinsser

Management of the Absurd - By Richard Farson

Hiring Smart!: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game By - Pierre Mornell

Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection - By A. J. Jacobs

Cut to the Chase: and 99 Other Rules to Liberate Yourself and Gain Back the Gift of Time - By Stuart R. Levine

How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships - By Leil Lowndes

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School - By John Medina

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted And the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, And Long-term Health - By Thomas Campbell and T. Colin Campbell

Lucky Or Smart?: Fifty Pages for the First-Time Entrepreneur - By Bo Peabody

Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking - By  D.Q. McInerny

On Writing - By Stephen King

Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Getting Things Done - By David Allen

Island - By Aldous Huxley

You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself - By Harry Beckwith and Christine Clifford

Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur - By Richard Branson

Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality - By Scott Belsky

The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms - By Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success - By Adam M. Grant

Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work - By Chip Heath and Dan Heath

A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) - By Barbara Oakley

Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity - By Hugh MacLeod

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. - By Daniel Coyle

BLACK LIVES MATTER. Visit this link for ways you can help.

*= I am trying to make a more conscious effort to read books by authors of color. I know many others are as well. Moving forward, I will be annotating books by authors of color with an asterisk. Please let me know if I missed one or mislabeled one.

Stats

Total: 28 DNF: 3 Rereads: 0 Ebooks: 7 Physical Books: 2 Audiobooks: 19 1-Stars: 0 2-Stars: 0 3-Stars: 8 4-Stars: 8 5-Stars: 12

DNF

*Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson I received this as an eARC from Netgalley. This is a contemporary romance about a woman whose mother-figure has passed away, leaving behind her 4 adoptive sons. Some of them want to close her knitting store, but one wants to keep it open and enlists the help of our heroine. The author, Kwana Jackson, also goes by KM Jackson, is a Black author. She has a big backlist of contemporary romance novels under the KM Jackson pen name that I definitely want to check out.

I think this book was just a case of bad timing and burn out for me. I found myself skimming pretty early on in this book because it felt like the story wasn’t moving forward at all. Scenes were lasting too long to keep my attention. It was actually pretty disappointing because I was really excited about this book! I don’t knit, but I crochet, and I liked hearing about yarn and knitting in Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City series, however, I had to put this one down. Amazon

Becoming Mrs. Lockwood by LI Lynn I talk more about this in my 7yo Picks my TBR video, but this was a book that Roree picked out for me. I think I heard this is a Twilight fanfiction, but it’s another one that reads like fanfiction, however, is extremely different than the original. It’s about a girl who is on vacation with her mom in Las Vegas, but hasn’t been able to see any sights since her mom is gambling all day and night. Since she is underage, she can’t go with her. All of that felt like a stretch to begin with, but then this super hot guy spots her from across the room and immediately is in love with her and takes her out to see Las Vegas. There is also an age gap in this, but it isn’t a good one. She’s a very immature 18 year old who is still in high school. This is mentioned when they first meet, yet he still pursues her. It just… rubbed me the wrong way. Like, how can this be instalove and still be a 500+ page contemporary romance. I DON’T UNDERSTAND! Amazon

Taming Her Mountain Man (Bear’s Tooth Mountain Man #1) by Cameron Hart I read this for the Weekend Contemporaryathon, so I talk more about that in my Contemporaryathon Vlog. It’s about an adoptive girl that is running away from her shady adoptive parents to her estranged grandmother’s cabin in the mountains where she meets this older, loner mountain man who is running away from his past. This is a novella, so it’s obviously very instalovey. What put me off of it was the main character and the instalove wasn’t done well. She’s another one who is SO immature that I was weirded out by the age gap. I think I’ve found that I don’t mind age gaps as long as there isn’t a big difference in maturity levels. Amazon

  3 Stars

  Remind Me (Magnolia Sound #1) by Samantha Chase This was a book I just randomly listened to off of Hoopla before I realized I have a limit on how many books I can read on that app. My library just got Hoopla, so I’m still learning. To be completely honest, I remember next to nothing about this book and the next one on this list.

If I remember correctly, it is a second chance romance about a girl who has moved away from a small town in North Carolina. She had a summer fling with her grandfather’s neighbor, but she moves away to NY to be a successful woman in tech (as they do in these types of romances). A hurricane is threatening the town and they are being asked to evacuate, but her grandfather is refusing to leave, so the hero stays with him.

I want to take a moment here to talk about this. I live in FL and have lived through many hurricanes. Some that were scary (Irma), some that fizzled out to be nothing but some wind and rain. Either way, living here my whole life has taught me that when there is a mandatory evacuation, you GTFO ASAP. Hurricanes can and have flattened entire communities.

Anyway, this book was just meh. I didn’t really care about the characters. There wasn’t a lot of chemistry. It was just ok. Amazon

The Royal Treatment (Alaskin Royal Family #1) by MaryJanice Davidson I recently did a video talking about the books that got me through my Twilight hangover back in the day, and Mary Janice Davidson’s Undead series was on this list. When I came across this book on Audible Escape, I was curious to see how her contemporary romances would be.

And it was as I expected. Just meh. This is an alternative/futuristic reality in which Alaska is it’s own country or something weird like that. Anyway, they have a king there who is looking for a wife who would make a good princess for his son. He ends up setting up our main character with his son.

A couple of things were weird about this. First, the who Alaska thing seemed unnecessary, like, just make up a country like everyone else does. Second, she didn’t really do anything that I saw for the King to think she was so amazing. Something I did find interesting, was this was almost opposite of instalove. Both of them seemed pretty neutral about each other aside from sexual chemistry until the very end. I actually really appreciated that.

Also, the synopsis calls this book erotic. It’s not. If I did steam fans like Steph, I’d give this one 3 steam fans. Amazon

PS It’s Always Been You Part 1 by Lauren Blakely I read this one for the Weekend Contemporaryathon and talk about it in that vlog. Let’s be real, I read this for Scott Eastwood’s narration… and it was pretty disappointing. The book and his narrating. He had a lot of awkward pauses. Anyway, the time it’s going to take me to tell you what this book is about is pretty much as long as it took me to listen to this audiobook. It’s about this daredevil, reality TV show guy who once hooked up with this girl who is some sort of historian, but ends up ditching her for his career, until one day they end up having to work together. And that’s it. That’s the whole story. The End. Amazon

Abducting Abby (Dragon Lords of Valdier #1) by SE Smith I 100% do not remember reading this book at all. This is what happens when I go crazy adding audiobooks to my favorites in Hoopla (which I use as my TBR) because I got over-excited about having a new service.

This is a short, smutty, sci-fi romance that I picked up because… dragons. Abby creates and sells luxury artwork from her cabin in the mountains when one day an alien space ship crash lands in the woods near her and she ends up saving the guy inside not realizing that he’s a dragon shifter.

Now that I’m remembering the story, I did enjoy reading this one, it just wasn’t anything particularly special. I think I may actually move on in the series, though. If you like the whole fated mates thing, you’ll like this one. It’s no IPB, but it’s good for IPB hangovers. Averie – you should totes give this one a try! Amazon

Fire in His Blood (Fireblood Dragon #1) by Ruby Dixon Ruby Dixon is the author of IPB, and I was super interested to see how her other books are. This series is a fated mates dragon shifter post-apocolyptic romance. It’s pretty long, I was expecting it to be short like IPB, but it’s not. And I feel like I would’ve liked it better if it was. It just got a little repetitive. I did like when there is a communication barrier between the hero and heroine in these types of books. Especially when the hero recognizes that she’s his mate, but she’s like WTF, dude, back off. And I especially, especially like when they respect consent despite the communication difference. I’m over here like, “IF AN ALIEN DRAGON SHIFTER WHO HAS INVADED OUR PLANET CAN UNDERSTAND CONSENT, WHY CAN’T YOU, BROCK?” Amazon

Racked and Stacked (Blacktop Cowboys #9) by Lorelei James I read this for a secret TBR that I’m in the middle of right now because when I do secret TBRs it takes me years, so I’m not going to talk about this one too much. Just know it’s a cowboy romcom, enemies to lovers. Amazon

Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner This was an ARC I received from Netgalley. It’s Berkely’s first F/F published romance, which is awesome for the author. And I think this is OWN voices, but I’m not sure. I had super high expectations going into this one – I didn’t realize how high until the book didn’t meet them. It’s about a woman who works in the entertainment industry, I think she’s a director or producer, and her assistant. The media thinks that they are dating because of something that happens while paparazzi were around. This is a SUPER CRAZY INSANE slow burn. Like… the first kiss doesn’t even happen until 75% into this book. Don’t get me wrong, I adore slow burn. Mariana Zapata is my favorite contemporary romance author, but the burn was so slow in this one, it affected how I felt about the relationship. I started not caring after awhile whether they got together or not.

I can see how some of the scenes were supposed to be super full of tension, but I think because it took so long for the relationship to develop, I just wasn’t as invested. Amazon

Shy Girls Write It Better (Some Girls Do It #1) by May Sage I read this one for Contemporaryathon and talk about it in the vlog. It’s about a woman who writes erotic romance and accidentally gives her hot boss a copy of one of her manuscripts instead of a report and instead of getting mad, he wants to give her real life BDSM experience because she writes it so badly.

Overall, this was pretty good for a short, smutty read. I don’t love the overly innocent, inexperienced heroine to begin with, so that definitely affected my rating. Also the fact that she’s supposed to be a super successful romance author and she knows she sucks at writing BDSM, but yet she continues to do it? I don’t know, something about that entire aspect of the premise was off to me and I think this book would’ve been better without it.

I did really like that the hero wasn’t your stereotypical alpha, though. That was refreshing. Amazon

4 Stars

Point of Retreat (Slammed #2) by Colleen Hoover I read this book for Contemporaryathon. It’s the sequel to Slammed which is Colleen Hoover’s debut novel, a contemporary romance involving slam poets. Obviously it’s so much more than that, I mean, it’s Colleen Hoover. At first I wasn’t sure if this book was necessary before reading it, but Layken and Will’s story definitely wasn’t done. Amazon

*Flame in the Mist (Flame in the Mist #1) by Renee Ahdieh Renee Ahdieh is a Korean-American author and this book was a unique twist on Mulan. This book was as beautiful and badass as the cover.

I’ve always been partial to the story of Mulan, but I love how much more intricate this story was in comparison.

Our main character doesn’t magically have all sorts of powers and though she is a badass, it’s because of her quick-thinking bravery, and resilience, not any magical skill.

The writing was also one of my favorite things about this book. It was beautiful and fit so well with the story itself. I felt like I was experiencing everything our main character did, right beside her. Amazon

*The Marriage Game by Sara Desai I received this ARC from Netgalley. I believe this is an OWN voices novel. It’s a fun enemies to lovers romance where our main character, Layla, moves home with her big family after a humiliating break up that essentially lost her her job. Her father sets her up, not only with the office above his restaurant, but also with some arranged marriage prospects (without her knowledge). Little does she know, he also rented out the space to Sam, CEO of a corporate downsizing company. Read my review here. Amazon

*The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements #2) by Brittainy C Cherry My monthly Brittainy C Cherry novel. If you don’t know, I discovered BCC this year and fell in love with her books. I’ve been reading at least one of her backlist titles per month. She is a Black author, by the way.

This is a sunshine and grumpy, friends-to-lovers romance about two teenagers who have very rough home lives. Our hero’s mother is struggling with bad addiction which has trickled down to him and has been affecting him since he was a young child. Our heroine’s mother, though successful, is cold and disinterested. Though they come from completely different backgrounds, there is a lot they have in common that bring them together and they become really good friends.

This wasn’t my favorite BCC. That being said, It was still a really good, emotional story that I’ve come to expect from her. I think the main reason why I couldn’t give this 5 stars as I have literally every other BCC I’ve read, is because there is a lot of drug use and addiction in this novel and it’s just not my favorite thing to read about. Amazon

Mind Reader by Kirsty McManus I read this book for Contemporaryathon and talk about it in my vlog as well. This is one of those novellas that I found for free on Kindle and downloaded because it sounded fun. The hero can see other people’s soul mates and knows when they will meet. Until he meets our heroine, a woman who works in the STEM field who thinks it’s all BS. Their paths cross and sparks fly.

This book is perfect for those who prefer a lot less steam. It’s very fade-to-black.

This book was a lot of fun to read. I had a lot of expectations going into this book, and I expected it to be pretty predictable, but it surprised me a few times. Though the beginning as a little rough, it starts from the hero’s POV and he was kind of douchey, but the book ended up being super sweet. Amazon

*The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa I believe this is OWN voices for the latinx rep. It’s a romantic comedy between a woman who has been left at the alter and the groom’s best man and brother. Because of this, it is a hate-to-love, but it’s so much more. The hero is dealing with issues of his own self worth in comparison to his brother (the ex-groom). The heroine is dealing with prejudice in the workplace.

I feel like this book is a little underrated. It’s not my favorite enemies to lovers, but I think it is a lot better than many of the reviews I’ve read for it were. There are a lot of complaints about the male narrator in the audiobooks and I agree, but it didn’t completely put me off of the book because of it.

I thought that the humor was really good, it was awkward in some areas, and the issues both of the characters were dealing with played out really well. Amazon

*Girl Gone Viral (Modern Love #2) by Alisha Rai Alisha Rai is a South Asian American writer. This was a refreshingly diverse bodyguard romance with fantastic panic disorder rep. Katrina is an ex-model and divorcee to a very wealthy man, she also suffers from debilitating panic attacks, so when a couple in a coffee bar live tweet an interaction between herself and a man who approached her and it goes viral, she’s not only in danger, but it also triggers her anxiety. Her long-time bodyguard whisks her away from the spotlight and sparks fly.

I almost didn’t read this, but I’m so glad I didn’t listen to some of the sub-par reviews, because I really enjoyed this book. First of all, it’s a bodyguard romance and he’s been pining after her for a long time. There is also great anxiety rep.

I had to take away a star only because I felt like the build up of tension between these two characters was so good, but when they finally got together, I was a little let down and I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly. Amazon

*Desolate (Grace #1) by Autumn Grey Autumn Grey has officially been added to my list of authors I need to read their entire backlists alongside Brittainy C Cherry, Mia Sheridan, and Sarina Bowen. Autumn doesn’t have as many books in her backlist as the others, so I’m going to have to pace myself.

I didn’t know what this book was about going into it for Contemporaryathon. I just saw the author’s name and picked it up. Autumn is a Black author, by the way. I recently read Fall Back Skyward by her after buying it from her at Shameless Book Con last year, and I fell in love with it.

This book is a forbidden new adult romance between a man who is planning on becoming a priest and a woman who is wrongfully considered the town whore. As soon as I realized the premise in this book, I was hooked. And the characters, oh my goodness, the characters and their chemistry were so potent. From the moment they met and how fascinated our hero is with the heroine, despite his dedication to God. How he can’t seem to tear himself away from her.

I will say, my only complaint is that this is a cliff hanger. It is part of a trilogy which is complete and I will be reading on in it. That and the hero started driving me crazy at the end because he wouldn’t make a freaking decision, but like I said, I loved this book. Amazon

5 Stars

Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz I need to preface this by saying that I know Hannah Moskowitz has said some problematic things on Twitter recently. I haven’t seen them myself, I’ve only seen references, but I do want everyone to know that going into this novel.

With that being said, this book was such a great and refreshing representation of chronic illness in YA. I have Multiple Sclerosis and though none of the characters in this book have that exact illness, they do have their own and they do have similar experiences and thoughts.

The two meet at, I believe, an infusion center. Some place that many with chronic illnesses are very familiar with. And there is great chemistry and bonding and banter from the beginning. There were so many moments where I found myself nodding vigerously as they talked about healthy people vs. people with chronic illnesses. What it’s like to be surrounded by healthy people when you are not. Being limited and defined by your illness. Big topics that were well portrayed.

I definitely felt seen. Amazon

Grin and Beard It (Winston Brothers #2) by Penny Reid I’m slowly but surely making my way through this series and so far I’ve been loving every second of it. Normally I’m not a big fan of the fame element in a romance novel, but it was a little easier to swallow with this book because it was the heroine who is famous. Our heroine is a comedic actress who gets rescued by our hero, a park ranger, in a small town where she is filming her upcoming movie.

Fame plays a big part in this, which I normally don’t like, but there was something about the dynamic between her outgoing, charisma mixed with his southern charm that I loved. Amazon

Beard Science (Winston Brothers #3) by Penny Reid So far the first book is still my favorite, but this comes in close second. This is Cletus’s story, and he’s such a big weirdo I was wondering who he was going to end up with. It was NOT the heroine. Where Cletus is super smart and manipulative and quirky, our heroine is very polished and put together and naive. She has lived under her mother’s thumb working at a very successful bakery.

Nobody in town takes her seriously, especially Cletus, until she blackmails him and they are forced together. Soon, he realizes there is a lot more to this seemingly shallow woman.

I loved this book so much more than I thought I would, given the main character. I thought, when we were first introduced to her that she was going to get on my nerves, but honestly, her character growth and unexpected depth made me change my mind entirely.

And I’m such a fan of quirky heroes, so I loved Cletus, too. Amazon

Powertools: Collection 1 (Powertools 1 & 2) by Jayne Rylon You guys. I never would’ve expected a super steamy reverse harem novel would be so high on my list, but here we are.

I talk a lot more about this book in my Contemporaryathon vlog, but in short, I loved this book because though it was ridiculous, there was a strong romance in both of the two short stories. I also was totally into the whole summer vibe of the first book and the immersive autumn vibes of the second book. Also, the hero in the second book is so swoony and I fell so hard for him. Amazon

The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides #1) by Jennifer Ashley Yay! A historical romance I LOVED! I knew it was only a matter of time until I found one that hit the spot for me and it was absolutely this one.

This was a rec from a comment on one of my videos and they freaking nailed it.

This is a historical romance between a widow and a man with autism. Of course, back then, they just thought he was mad and threw him and everyone treated him so horribly because of it. Seriously, my heart absolutely broke. However, our heroine is the only one who truly understood him, or at least didn’t look down on him. I also absolutely loved her. Because she has her husband’s fortune, she doesn’t need to marry. In fact, men are lining up for her. She also isn’t a naive, innocent virgin. She knows what she wants and she goes after it. She’s smart and witty.

This was everything I am realizing I love in a romance novel. Amazon

*Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda This freaking book.

So, I haven’t seen this musical yet, but I am such a huge fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda and the music – especially Jonathan Groff’s song, though, I’m biased because I’m obsessed with him. I’ve watched performances and interviews and I’m so excited about finally getting to see this on Disney Plus on July 3. I can’t contain myself.

I actually downloaded this audiobook when it went on sale a while ago, but I picked it up on a whim last week and finished it in a day because I became obsessed.

I loved seeing how this musical became the phenomenon it is. I loved hearing Lin’s thought process behind creating it. How he wanted to depict these historical figures in a modern, much more diverse way, using a genre of music that was not associated with Broadway at all. From the choreography to the costumes – it was absolutely fascinating.

I just… I need July 3 to be now. Amazon

Lover Her or Lose Her (Hot & Hammered #2) by Tessa Bailey I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this one. So many people complained about how the hero was way to alpha for them and I kept thinking, “Well, jeez, if he’s too alpha for them, he’ll definitely be too alpha for me.” But, honestly? He wasn’t.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s definitely alpha, but I adored his reasoning for it.

Anyway, this is a second chance romance between a married couple who have a ton of chemistry in bed, but have lost touch of each other in every other way. So, when our heroine has had enough, she decides to leave her husband.

But he is not having it. To him, she is his everything. It’s kind of the opposite of The Bromance Bookclub because he thinks everything is fine since the sex is still really good, but that’s not the case. I loved how this book really dove into love languages and how both people must understand the other’s language and support it.

And there was so much longing, it made my heart hurt. Yes, he was very alpha. He very much wanted to be the one who provided for his wife, however, I wasn’t bothered by it AT ALL. Amaz

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune OMG this book was so sweet, I couldn’t handle it. It’s a whimsical fantasy that, if I had to explain it in one word, it would be charming.

It’s about a man in his forty’s who has led a very mediocre life thus far. He lives for his job, which is to evaluate orphanages for extraordinary children for a very corporate overlord of a company. He’s sent on a highly classified job to check out this orphanage for especially gifted, some think dangerous, children.

It’s very elementary school x-men.

And oh my goodness, the character growth and the relationships that are built, both familial, romantic, and platonic are all so strong and vibrant. This book absolutely lives up to the hype. Amazon

Beach Read by Emily Henry This is another book that absolutely lived up to the hype. Though the title might lead you to believe that this is going to be a fun, light read, it’s really not. There is a lot of substance behind this book that the title and cover do not allude to.

Aside from a swoony romance and hilarious banter and writing, we are dealing with grief, with loss, with resentment … a lot of heavy topics woven between this romcom story about two writers who have challenged themselves to write each other’s genre, one literary fiction, one women’s fiction/romance. Amazon

The Edge #0.5-2 by CD Reiss These are all short, but super intense military suspense romance novels. I feel that the prequel is required reading for this series because it sets up the relationship so solidly, that despite the craziness that this couple goes through in later books, you root hard for them. The couple meet in a war zone, one a surgeon who works for 8 days straight saving lives and one a psychiatrist who is trying to keep him standing and sane – along with all the other medics and soldiers. I felt like this book was so well researched and gorgeously written. CD Reiss is called the Shakespeare of Smut for a reason. The steamy scenes were just as intense as the rest of the book.

I absolutely plan on reading the rest of this series! Amazon

May 2020 Wrap Up BLACK LIVES MATTER. Visit this link for ways you can help. *= I am trying to make a more conscious effort to read books by authors of color.

Hi Everyone! Julian here from Founder Stories (founderstories.io) - here's one of our latest interviews with ZenMaid's founder - Amar Ghose on how he and 2 Co-founders started a 40k+ / mo SaaS business.Interview: Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hi, my name is Amar Ghose. I’m the CEO/co-founder of ZenMaid. Our software makes it easy for growing maid services to manage their cleaners, clients, and schedules in one easy to use software.While we might have started off slow (both my co-founder and I worked full time for over 2 years after starting ZenMaid) we now make more than half a million dollars a year helping maid service owners to achieve the freedom in their lives and businesses that we have (I’m currently writing this from Canggu in Indonesia!)how-we-validated-and-grew-a-saas-for-maid-services-to-500k-year What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea? I’ve always been quite entrepreneurial. I started as a kid selling candy to my middle school friends actually. Despite that I hadn’t been able to create a real business that really stuck until ZenMaid.In 2012 I came across a post on Reddit. A guy was starting his own maid service and documenting the entire thing. By chance a friend of mine saw the same post and started working on the technical side of the business (building a website and etc). My friend quickly realized that he didn’t want to deal with the people side of the business however. He tagged me in to help with operations and sales/marketing. From there I was quite quickly made an equal partner as he had yet to launch.Don’t fall into the classic trap of spending months building or working on something, only to find out when you launch that no one is interested.At the time I was doing sales for a tech startup so closing business by phone was my jam. From there I quickly learned basic man management skills to work with our cleaners.Fast forward 1 year and I was no longer living locally. I’d moved closer to home (the SF Bay Area) for a much better day job. I was 400 miles away from our maid service and that caused tension with my partner. Ultimately I gave up my portion of the maid service (which shut down shortly thereafter).It was at this point that another friend approached me about what became ZenMaid. He felt he could build a better management platform than the one he’d seen me using. And he was confident that I could sell and market the software given my skill set and industry knowledge.Hence ZenMaid was born (initially named MaidDesk though I doubt that’s ever been mentioned anywhere publicly before now :-) )While working full time (myself at a startup, my co-founder on his PhD at Stanford University) we began simultaneously working on the product and getting in contact with as many maid service owners and offices as we could.Take us through the process of building the product. My co-founder Arun was familiar with the coding language Python but decided after reviewing some of the existing libraries that Ruby on Rails was the right way for us to proceed.… so he taught himself Ruby in ~8 days and got to work. I’m still baffled by this looking back on it.Due to my full time work schedule I made calls between 5 am and 8 am on weekdays before going into work and all day on Saturdays.It took almost 6 months to get a working prototype due to Arun’s PhD program at Stanford (he worked from 11 pm to 3 am most nights on ZenMaid). I spent that entire time calling maid service owners and offices. Due to my work schedule (1.5 hour commute to SF each day) I made calls between 5 am and 8 am on weekdays before going into work and all day on Saturdays.We made the decision to focus our efforts on an easy to use calendar that specifically focused on truly recurring services (something that’s unique to maid services and housekeeping companies) and on automated communications around the appointments.To this day that is still our bread and butter, though we’ve added many features and benefits since.A lot of people have asked about our startup costs but we didn’t really have any due to our combined skill sets. The only expense we took on was once the product was live was ~$100-$200 per month for Google AdWords so we could get consistent traffic to our website and app.Describe the process of launching the business.We didn’t do much of a launch for ZenMaid as we didn’t have an audience to announce to. We paid for a press release service that didn’t do much but I did reach out to everyone I had been talking to when the software was ready. Our first customer came onboard for $1000 for life, paid over 4 months (we have given a few other maid service owners lifetime access for a set price but we quickly moved to a more traditional SaaS model priced monthly which now starts at $49)We already had a landing page at this point as I was treating the business/product as if we were ready at least 3 months prior to the software being launched. I believe we initially used a tool called LaunchRock and then moved to WordPress with a theme quite quickly.Launch numbers (this was fun to look up in Stripe) :We brought on our first customer on September 9, 2013 and ended that year with 5 customers (though 13 had tried and paid us for at least a month) so clearly there wasn’t much of a launch eventSince launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers? ZenMaid has always relied heavily on paid advertising (Google, Capterra, LinkedIn, Facebook) for a constant flow of leads however we quickly branched out from there to do content marketing which helped with SEO and a variety of other things.We actually stumbled on this by accident when I took the keywords I had researched for my maid service and I shared them in a Google Spreadsheet which we hid behind an email gate. This was our very first lead magnet and to this day it still gets us more leads than anything else :-)From there we built an extensive email marketing funnel that’s almost all quality content. Our goal is to never be forgotten by our leads because when they’re ready for our software, they’ll let us know. Essentially any maid service owner that signs up for our email list will receive high quality, implementable content for their businesses for almost two years, each email having a small, unobtrusive link at the bottom to learn more about the software. If they click this link they’ll get a couple more targeted emails. I set this up following Ryan Deiss’ The Machine course a few years ago.Two quick examples of awesome content we’ve done would be The Ultimate Hiring Panel, where we interview 3 industry experts on their hiring best practices, and “Steal This Cancellation Policy for Your Maid Service”, which is exactly what it sounds like: 3 example cancellation policies that can be copy pasta’d into a maid service whether they use ZenMaid or not.More recently we’ve added in extensive Facebook retargeting campaigns, also focused on quality content, that we use to nurture the leads we get from other channels.And finally, what we’re best known for in the industry, is our Facebook group, the ZenMaid Mastermind. We built the first widely joined community (some existed before us but were quite dead, and many have appeared since we did it) and at the 2015 industry event we were the talk of the town.More people knew us from that community than for our software though that’s changed since. It’s still where we get lots of leads, content ideas, and feedback on our software!Building the Facebook groupThe Facebook group actually happened by accident - I had a crazy idea that we could start a membership site and do it on Facebook so I launched a $19 per month subscription to our email list.Two months later and after signing up a whole 3 (THREE) members, I realized it wasn’t the time or place (in hindsight this failure was 100% on me and had nothing to do with timing or anything other than my lack of experience)We refunded the money of the members who had joined but left the group up on Facebook. Over time I started inviting people to join if they added me as a friend and were part of the industry.Fast forward a year and we had 50 members who were starting to chat regularly when an awesomely epic thread appeared. I sent an email to our list letting them know they might be interested and 50 members turned into 200 overnight. We haven’t looked back since.What was the thread? You know how they say Sex sells…One of the cleaning clients caught the team lead and a cleaner having sex in her bathroom while they were supposed to be cleaning. To make matters worse the 3rd cleaner on the team in question was the WIFE of the team lead (yes, you’re reading that right)Epic, hilarious, and very beneficial to our business.Since that time we’ve built up the group with great content and discussion as well as making it a safe place for owners to let loose and rant (my approach was to make this a place online that maid service owners could get the help they need but also relax with a glass of wine at the end of a long day and chat with their friends)These days we do regular Facebook Lives and feature many of the industry’s leading experts :-)And all of this has led to speaking engagements for myself and partnerships with almost every big name consultant in the industry. It helps a lot when we have a bigger audience than they do so at some point there was a snowball effect where most influencers chase us rather than the other way around.For example, we have a virtual summit coming up this year and, where most organizers have to chase speakers, we had 25 confirmed presenters within 24 hours of making contact with the first one.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?We recently passed the half million dollar yearly mark and will be breaking the million dollar a year barrier in late-2020.That will actually happen much sooner if we can accomplish the 3 primary goals I have in mind for ZenMaid going forward - two of which I consider to be “holy grails”1 - To extend our lead as industry leaders.It sounds weird to me to answer that but after 6 years of hard work and focus the truth is ZenMaid is now the gold standard in the house cleaning industry for software.We have some very good competition but none are focused on our industry specifically which gives us a lot of advantages that we’ve piled up over the years (for example, we now employ 4 current or former maid service owners which puts our support heads and shoulders above other software who serve our audience)2 - Negative net churn.We recently changed our pricing to grow every month with our customers as they are more successful. That change has lowered our churn significantly but we do still lose money each month from our current customers. By the end of 2019 I’d like us to actually make more from our existing customers even if we continue to lose ~5% of them each month.Software folk will recognize this as the SaaS holy grail, and we think it’s possible for ZenMaid :-)3 - Paid marketing that pays for itself (I’m not sure what the right term is for this - any readers want to let me know in the comments?)Inspired by Russel Brunson who actually makes money advertising ClickFunnels before people convert to paying software users … With our current lead costs my goal is to get a $97 or $197 info product that’s part of our email automations so that we can advertise the software and immediately recoup our advertising spend.If we can achieve #1 and #2 simultaneously the sky's the limit for ZenMaid, particularly as a bootstrapped company. It’s the holy grail of marketing in my opinion.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous? Test test test would be lesson #1 as we essentially lit our business on fire overnight about 2 years back. We had the best intentions and it absolutely turned out for the best but we burnt a lot of bridges and lost almost 30% of our revenue because we didn’t do enough testing prior to releasing a massive update on our software.Lesson #2 would be something I learned from Tim Ferriss which is “treat everyone like they can put you on the front page of the New York Times”.A lot of our best partnerships and relationships have come because I simply cared more about the actual people than our competition a few months or even years before either we could help them or they could help us. We’ve had multiple customers sign up who currently pay us thousands of dollars a month who knew me 6 years ago when the company was starting but we weren’t sophisticated enough for their businesses.On a similar note I’ve gone out of my way to help up and coming consultants, some of which became quite big years after and now refer us business left and right. And most consultants in the industry know they can approach me for tech or marketing advice if they want it. I’ll even fix problems for them (usually paying money out of my own pocket to do so) if I know it’s considerably easier for me or my team to do than for them.Lesson #3 would be to simply Not Quit. Everything in our business these days sounds like flowers and sunshine (and profits) but I can point to at least 20 situations where other entrepreneurs would have thrown in the towel. The reason we’re in business and successful today was that we never gave up when things got challenging. It’s easy to run a business when things go well, it’s what happens when the sh*t hits the fan that actually defines you and your success.What platform/tools do you use for your business?We use a lot of software as a software company so here are our daily ones:Slack - for chatting when an email is unnecessary. Group discussions and etc. I’ve seen people mention this can be a big distraction but with a remote team it’s absolutely vital to everything we doActiveCampaign - Email marketing and automation, we’re known in the industry for our email marketing and current email leads will receive messages for approximately 2 years after registering so this one’s important fo’ shoIntercom - I hate their pricing with a passion as it changes every month but they’ve done a great job of infiltrating every part of our customer process. We use them for support but also as a sort of customer dashboard (easier for us to find users with over X employees using intercom than anywhere else, for example)What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources? I listen to a ton of books these days (Audible on 3x speed) so there’s a lot to pick from but here are a couple that I think helped me a lot as I got started:The Four Hour Work Week - the lifestyle dream was always my why after reading this bookJobs by Walter Isaacson - this book completely shifted how I approached building the ZenMaid product and taking pride in many of the little details in our business I previously thought were unimportantThe Fish That Ate The Whale - Best entrepreneur [true] story I’ve ever read - everything about this man’s life is epicThe Foundation - a online course to help folks like me start software businesses. We went through this after picking up our first 5 customers and came out the other side with over 30Straight Line Persuasion - a sales course by Jordan Belfort, who everyone knows from the Wolf of Wall Street. I was already in sales and this course took my sales game to a new level. Shortly after listening to it we had our first +$200 MRR day which at the time was absolutely massive for usAdvice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?The main advice I would give to both starting entrepreneurs and even experienced one is to focus on FEEDBACK LOOPS, and increase the speed at which you go through them.A feedback loop is essentially asking yourself “How can I figure out if I’m on the right track as quickly as possible?” For ZenMaid we’ll run article headlines and outlines by our audience before we create content. We’ll do quick mockups of new features and share them first with our team, then with our champion user group on Facebook to find whether we’re on the right track to solve the problems we intend to. This has been absolutely invaluable.For a new entrepreneur, don’t fall into the classic trap of spending months building or working on something, only to find out when you launch that no one is interested. This is why I spent so much time calling maid service owners while we were developing the software and getting as much input from them as I possibly could. And this was despite the fact we “knew” what we were building.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We try to keep our dev team lean and fast moving but on the non-tech side I’m always on the lookout for two types of people - entrepreneurial marketers and maid service owners.Most of the ZenMaid team members work part time for us and have their own businesses I’m happy to help them build. Anyone who can help me to get more leads, or convert more maid service owners into active users, is going to have my attention.For quite a few of our entrepreneurial team members their other business is an actual maid service in which they use ZenMaid. I can’t dogfood my own software anymore since exiting my maid service. But the next best thing is hiring our customers or potential customers to help with customer service, marketing, account management, and more.Where can we go to learn more?Your website: theamaricandream.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/godblessamarica Instagram: https://instagram.com/TheAmaricanDream/ If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Amar Ghose, Founder of ZenMaid‍

The Australian Film Tackling The Greatest Issue Of Our Time

The Australian Film Tackling The Greatest Issue Of Our Time

Sustainability

by Elle Murrell

Damon Gameau spoke to more than 50 different scientists, academics and economists from around the world to get an idea of what we could do, what the psychology was, and what solutions existed. Photo – Courtesy of Madman Entertainment.

‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’ – Buckminster Fuller’s quote inspired the film. Photo – Courtesy of Madman Entertainment.

The documentary is structured as a visual letter to Damon’s four-year-old daughter. Photo – Kate Nutt.

Earlier this week I waited in our local cinema. It was a little emptier than usual on cheap-night (thanks GoT), and as the first trailer began to roll, polished, futuristic-yet-familiar scenes captivated the audience. A camera panned over cityscapes of lush rooftop gardens before encircling forests of gigantic wind turbines. A voice over started, and I was a little taken aback to hear the narrator’s Australian accent.

It was Damon Gameau. The film director and actor – you may have seen his acclaimed That Sugar Film; he is kind of our answer to Morgan Spurlock – has just released his latest project. Neither overloading with complex science nor paralysing with fear, 2040 trades in hope.

The film sees Damon embark on a global journey to hear from experts, innovators, change-makers, and schools of kids who, along with his own young daughter, will inherit the world we leave behind.

Damon shared more about his documentary, a vision board for how we can all regenerate the Earth for future generations…

Was there a moment, person or place that inspired you to make this film, and approach our climate emergency in the way you have?

It was probably a discussion with the environmental psychologist Dr. Renee Lertzman. She really helped me to understand some of the neuroscience around how we respond to information that is overwhelming or comes attached with any fear or anxiety – which as we know is pretty much the only narrative we really hear around climate and the future. So she talked about how limiting that can be, in terms of how that activates our brain and shuts down parts where we do think creatively and problem-solve.

That was a huge moment for me to think, ‘Right, maybe there is a way of trying to communicate this circumstance in a more motivating way’.

Your 2014 documentary, ‘The Sugar Film’ tackled healthy eating. Have you long been keen to explore an environmental issue?

I have always been interested in environmental issues but have struggled with how to connect with them because they are so dire and negative.

I guess having a daughter really made me think about the power of imagery. I think we are often guided by images in society and the ones that concern our future are almost entirely catastrophic and even that extends to films. Hollywood films often show a future that is really uninhabitable in some cases there is very little nature and we are all living in really desolate environments. I just thought it was important to have an intervention and throw up some alternatives and say, ‘You know what, it doesn’t have to be like that. There are opportunities to create a really vibrant and rich future, with a lot more nature being incorporated into our cities and our surrounds’. It’s kind of who we are as people, it’s how we have evolved. In fact, there is terrific research showing the healing aspect of being in nature and doctors in Scotland are even prescribing it to their patients!

What can people expect from the film?

We’ve done 45 Q&As around the country and found that people feel this overwhelming sense of hope again and relief. I have been getting lots of hugs after the screenings because, I think, people are feeling incredibly overwhelmed by the state of the planet, and rightly so – you know we do need to also allow ourselves to feel that emotion and feel how upsetting it can be sometimes.

But people need to also see that there are others who care deeply about this issue and that there are solutions that exist. We actually have everything we need right now to deal with all these problems. We just need motivation for people to get involved. I think we are more prone to be motivated when we are given a goal to strive for, or a more hopeful future. That’s sort of how we are wired.

I’ve called it ‘fact-based dreaming’ before; it is a vision of the future, but there is nothing that is made up. Everything I show my daughter exists now, it’s just an extrapolation of that into the future. There might be another tonne of solutions that pop up, there will be in the next 20 years, but what we have right now should be really encouraging to people.

Yes, it is a hopeful vision, and it portrays a much different future, but only based on what we already have. I think is an important way to ground the film so it doesn’t feel too utopian or fanciful. I’m not making anything up.

presenting the future is a huge undertaking. What’s been most challenging for you and your team?

[laughs] Probably trying to decide what to leave out there were so many innovations and solutions that we discovered! How do you condense that into a story that is both entertaining and informative in 90 minutes? You can overload people with wall-to-wall facts, but it’s about getting that balance between the head: the information but also the heart: the storytelling and emotional journey. How do we connect people to this issue – whether it’s their children’s future, the food we’re eating, or the air we are breathing?

And also there is just an infinite number of future outcomes, possibilities, or opinions. So ultimately I kept coming back to my vision and was guided by all of the children we consulted – more than 100 from all around the world. Just distilling all the information and their answers was probably the biggest challenge.

It must have also been technologically difficult to portray your vision visually?

We had a brilliant designer, Luke Bubb and he and I worked really closely; we had some fantastic late-night chats about certain visions of the future and what that might look like. Then there was our visual effects team, Cumulus VFX. An Australian company, their office is run entirely on renewables, so all the visual effects in the film were made by the energy of the sun!

There were about 20 VFX specialists, most under the age of 25. To see them come in every day to contribute to what their future might look like, what their dreams are, was a really wonderful exercise and very collaborative process.

Which side of the road driverless cars will pull over on? Where would the door be? What kind of trees would you have in the rooftop garden in a certain city and what foods could grow there best? All those little questions were really fun to explore.

Looking back over the more than three years you’ve been working on this film, project, movement (!), what stands out to you the most?

So far, it’s been the response we’re getting from kids. They’ve been asking the best questions at the screening Q&As – I’ve done a school visit in every town and city we’ve been to, and to just see how engaged they are with this topic and how passionate they are. The language they use, how articulate they are, how eloquent their questions are they really know what’s going on better than most adults.

That gives me enormous hope, they really are on a mission these kids. We’ve just got to make sure we nurture them, really support that passion and do whatever we can to get involved and help make it happen.

You’ve just wrapped up an Australian tour of the film and ON Thursday it was released across the country, did you consider the Federal Election in your timeline?

Yes, we talked a lot about when to release the film, whether before or after would be best, with a range of different groups.

We felt that no matter the outcome of the election, no party was going to come in and wave a magic wand and make this all happen. It’s still going to take an enormous effort from the grassroots, the passionate people that are trying to make a change. This is how it has happened historically, we’ve taught the leaders how to lead on these types of issues, whether that’s been the abolition of slavery, the suffragettes getting women the vote, decriminalizing inter-racial marriage. These things have only come about because of small groups of passionate individuals who keep making their voices heard until eventually, the system changes.

I think more than ever the election results, for the people that really care about the environment and climate issues, is a galvanising moment to say, ‘Look, we’ve actually got to work even harder, come together, even more, collaborate where we might have operated differently and independently before, and make our voice even louder’.

What comes next?

When we first began, we did eight months of research where I spoke to about 50 different scientists and academics and economists from around the world to get an idea of what we could do, what the psychology was, what solutions existed. And Dr. Renee Lertzman really changed and motivated me to tell a solutions-focused story because that is really important. She is really big on saying, ‘You know, we need to all own this problem we are in and make sure people are emotional about it and are able to convey their feelings and not deny what is going on.’ But at the same time we need to also restore that other part of the balance which is to say there are other things that we can do and let’s start motivating people with goals of what we can achieve.

We have a website: Whatsyour2040.com where you can go on and create your own climate plan. You fill out some questions about what your interest are, what kind of person you are and it will give you several things that you can get on with right now on your own, in your community, or at school. We’ve teamed up with more the 50 international organisations and there are options from helping to launch the first seaweed platform of the coast of Tasmania, helping farmers by paying them to put carbon back in the soil, or mentoring online if that’s what you want to do. For teachers, there are 35 free lesson plans for grade five-to-10. So there are a number of opportunities to really step up and join the regeneration effort.

This weekend, May 25th and 26th, at Palace Cinemas across Australia, school-aged children attending with an adult (1:1) can get gain free-entry to watch 2040.

48cm:Trey Richardson: The bike industry doesn't really exist

By Trey Richardson

Editor's note: Trey Richardson is a marketing professional for hire who spent nearly three decades in virtually every supply channel of the cycling industry. In lieue of payment for this column, Trey would like to encourage appreciative readers to make a donation to World Bicycle Relief.

I started writing this several months ago but decided to sit back and chew on some popcorn and see how things fell after the smoke cleared (still waiting). Between Interbike's 2019 walkout, the ASI/Performance outcome, the number of companies changing hands and now brands like Trek and Cannondale partnering with REI ... that was a lot to take in over a period of about 6 months.

I took several steps back and looked at everything as if I had no knowledge of, or experience in, the church we call 'The Bike Industry' and came to a conclusion I have yet to hear:

The 'Bike Industry' has ended

We ... all of us, use that phrase 'The Bike Industry' a lot. If there was one thing I would say that may make many of the IBD woes go away, it would begin by putting a stop to perceiving 'the industry' as exclusive to who it belongs to and accept what it is and will (not) be in its future state. The days of trying to control how it operates in virtually every channel have been dissipating fast for some time now.

Since anyone alive can remember, bicycle and bicycle related manufacturers have (mostly) used the same, exclusive distribution channels. 'The Industry' had made it a practice to determine who belongs, who doesn't, and how it wants to operate without any outside influence. Add to that, retailers expected faithful support from their suppliers and demanded exclusivity, MAP, margins ... I could go on. Today, money flows in from a lot of different directions and most of it goes into a funnel that is the internet.

I have always said, three shops working together will increase ridership in their community more so than six shops working independently.

Many are upset by (fill in the blank), but the reality of it has ALWAYS been, a business (should) forecasts growth potential based on tomorrow's bottom line ... not how dedicated a retailer was in the past. Especially if said retail channel can no longer support the highest possible ROI for them.

It sucks, but that is how business works.

The new (big) kids on the block

Today, while many shake their fists at the Amazons out there, many don't see them for what they really are. Sure, they warehouse and sell items, but their real business is being a marketplace for others to use as a sales channel. That in itself is what has helped Amazon grow, (well, that and them streamlining the ordering and distributing process in addition to offering many outside services).

Then you have a company like REI. They have a massive network of stores who have managed to maintain if not increase foot traffic in their brick-and-mortar locations as well as have an e-commerce website that includes third party sellers: kind of like Amazon (but I wouldn't necessarily consider them a marketplace ... yet?)

History repeats itself

Around 150 years ago, general stores killed the specialty stores and street markets selling locally sourced goods when trains started delivering mass amounts of goods to populated areas. Then Sears & Roebuck knocked those out when their mail order catalogs made goods available to anyone with a street address (additionally, communication technology exploded with the telegraph and later telephone system, cutting the time it took to a company like Sears to make deals with their suppliers).

Sears managed to get a massive and wide range of products from their suppliers and into customers' hands in a fraction of the time it used to take ... Sound familiar? (The way things are looking, the IBD is going to far outlast Sears, once the pioneer in delivering goods to the mass market).

What was — The bike industry

A bike mechanic, company rep, and customer walked into a bar ...

Years ago, as we were wrapping up our shop's weekly pub crawl one night, a few of us were having a conversation about 'the state of the industry' over beers and burritos. One of our favorite regulars, who was never short on jokes, started making fun of our conversation.

"I never knew the bike industry was such an elite organization ... do you have a secret handshake?" (three fingers go up)

We went on to explain how there is a sort of dedication that puts passion above money and the entire industry works to support each other. "We're family" and not here for the money. I look back at my response as a reminder to not ever base a business decision on how much I like something ... but instead, hope the business decision I make ultimately leads to support that passion.

What happened?

What was 'the industry' is not what I (or most), would consider an industry today. It is instead a supply channel to the overall marketplace. For instance, the auto industry still relies on a closed-chain supply channel requiring their main products (autos), to pass from manufacturing and authorized dealerships before making it to the end user (though this is changing as we speak). Though there are fluctuations, all adjustments are made by companies within that closed supply channel. That closed-chain supply channel is what defines them as AN INDUSTRY.

Until recent years, every bicycle manufacturing, distribution, and sales channel had to pass thru the IBD in order to reach the consumer. Similar to the auto industry, that is what made it an industry.

Today, 'the bike industry' only supplies a niche product category to a small percentage of the marketplace through more 'generalized' channels. Manufacturers and distributors channels are selling through an endless number of nonexclusive retail channels (IBD, outdoor, e-commerce ...), as well as direct to consumer. The bicycle-related supply channel now lives in the same space as most consumer products do. While laying on a beach in Europe, I can order toilet paper, dog food, Swiss Cake Rolls, and a bike, all located in three different states, and have it all shipped to my address in Atlanta. That would take me as little as 5 minutes to accomplish.

In addition to my above statement, no matter how everyone wants to be recognized, the general, money spending consumer doesn't see us like some major player in the economy either. Bloomberg probably can't even spell Schwinn.

The next 4.0 version of 'the bike industry' everyone seems to be waiting on simply doesn't exist. Like most, I will still call it the Bike Industry but we need to stop looking at it, as such, operationally. Complaining about MAP, margins, exclusive brands, etc. is a 'spinning your wheels' waste of time and resources.

We're the IBD Industry and need to champion that!

The IBD Industry is not new because theoretically, it's been like this for years ... but it needs to organize and make a better impact. It needs to make the RIGHT impact.

Since the playing field has been taken over by consumer demand and a more streamlined supply channel scrambling to fill it (while leaving the IBD in the dust), IBDs need to reset their approach to doing business. While this is hard to conceptualize because it goes against everything we've been (wrongfully) taught, retailers need to begin focusing on growth instead of survival ... like they should have 20 years ago.

A large percentage of people running things on the retail side are trying to justify how they can keep things the same with the same number of people while fighting for a harder to obtain than ever dollar. Most of those still around, live on a constant up and down 'net profit' roller coaster which has caused the health of their business to suffer ... much less grow.

THIS NEEDS TO END and shop owners need to make a huge shift in their personal roles.

Do you own a business ... or do you have a job?

This is one of my favorite questions to ask people who have or want to open a shop ... or any business. If an owner attaches themselves to the labor of their business, they have a job. No title or tax identity changes that. Not to sound like a complete tool, but if you own a shop and take on any of the day-to-day items like sales or service ... by 'business standards', you just have a job. A business owner's only responsibility should be focused on growth and branding. Owning a business of which you wear several hats is the number one growth stopper. If there isn't enough time in the day to follow up on what could be some great opportunities, you'll never get out of that up and down cycle.

This is also where I feel the hobby vs. business line gets drawn. Owners who prefer to make a difference from within the walls of their stores often do so because it's what keeps them motivated and/or they see it as one (or two) fewer payroll checks they have to divvy out. Many say it allows them to best serve and keep their customers ... but that only includes customers who willed themselves to go to your store in the first place.

I know 'hobby' is a strong word to use ... but would an owner be that willfully present in the day to day operations of their business if they were running a paper supply store? Would they strike up conversations about what their customer printed last week or tell war stories involving paper cuts and copier jams? ..."Hey, come look at this 32 lb weight almond paper made of imported linen!"

IBD Business owners in what was the 'Bike Industry'

So back to my statement of being an "IBD Industry." Shop owners have a lot of hard decisions to make and more often than not, overwhelm themselves. Many decided to give up because they only saw things getting worse. Most of the 'owners' I know who closed their shop were really only an elaborate employee at best because they were a manager first. In some cases, it may work out, but it is 100 percent not how the 'to grow a business' manual lays it out.

On the surface, the owner/employee role sounds like a thrifty way to start or even run a business. There are a lot of business gurus out there that make running business sound easier by resorting to laying out a plan with a bunch of bad or outdated habits based on low entry fees, first-person service, low head counts, etc. The mentality to run tight and efficient is today's poor excuse that most often results in a business's inability to nurture growth.

Changing tubes and selling bikes with a free tuneup isn't how you grow. Forget about that "right now" money and go hunt down some of that "next 5 years" money!!!

Business owners in today's IBD Industry ... You have ONE job

The IBD Industry is made up of thousands of community-based stores that have the ability to provide services far beyond their traditional means ... which will gain them huge amounts of exposure in return. Alliance marketing is one of my favorite topics. It involves forming partnerships with other lateral and local businesses who are willing to collaborate and even promote yours in exchange for the same.

STOP ...

Do not walk down the street and ask if you can leave some business cards or a countertop ad at the local gym or running store. You need to think bigger and do some old-school hustling. In fact, freshen up those roached out Vans, toss a sports coat over your shop T-shirt (or at least put on some deodorant ... this person knows who I'm talking to), and walk out the door.

If there is a bike shop, there is a 99.9 percent chance there is a community around it consisting of several other small business, associations and events. There may even be some larger companies who host a large number of events for their employees (see some examples below). A shop owner should be focused on knocking on doors, attending SBA meetings, asking questions, and finding new ways to be involved. This could include advocacy, community events, offering services to corporate wellness programs, and many other avenues.

The possibilities are unlimited so why would you limit your access to these?

Generally speaking, owners should spend two or more days a week dedicated to networking outside their shop and not just in the offseason. The best time to promote your business is when things are in full swing! I know I make this sound simple ... because it really should be.

If a shop owner is in a rut being one of two employees in their shop, well ... they're going to have to work a lot harder in order to achieve that level of growth. A common business practice in our industry is to cut corners to save money when in fact, it is likely costing what could be potential new business. Sometimes, a person will just have to say eff it, get out of the shop, and plan on doing some damage control, (that may involve coming back and working late or going in on your typical day off). If you stick with it, things will eventually level out and you'll begin to really appreciate your newfound perspective of running your business.

Competition is your friend!

I have always said, three shops working together will increase ridership in their community more so than six shops working independently. There are three competing shops around me who are great at working together. They often communicate and work together on things both have an interest in. From where I stand, it almost seems as if they are competing more on who can offer better community support than who can sell more bikes. Regardless, we have a healthy riding community that still loves to shop locally.

Bringing it all together — Branding

Once you have enough plates spinning in the air, you need to focus on bringing it all together and associating your efforts with your brand. A brand is different from a business in that it is the strategically planned out identity of your business. Holding a road ride twice a week brands you as a roadie shop ... supporting your community brands you as a pillar of that community. The best problem you could have is that your networking efforts have created a pile of opportunity requiring you to hire more help or professional outside services.

The best part, once an owner begins to nurture these efforts, they suddenly get excited . MOTIVATED even! Seeing your efforts increase the community's appreciation of your business will rewire your brain and relight that entrepreneurial fire I sure many have missed.

Stop letting things outside of your control run your business

Business 101: The structure of a business should be established so that any products or services brought in will only compliment that establishment ... not run it. Putting your trust in someone else's hands is the greatest risk an owner could take.

This is what a lot of past and current retailers are going through. Bike companies and distributors hung a super juicy steak out there making it irresistible to do business and led everyone to a level of dependency. Skip ahead to today, because those once 'dedicated' supply channels have been breached by 'outsiders', there is no more special treatment or entitlement being given to dealers. What you did yesterday or for the last 20 years does not matter to a company's future bottom line. Rather than burying yourself with how things like bad margins, MAP and who else is now selling your brand, affect your business ... focus on earning that loyalty back from your community ... one you've probably missed for a very long time.

Places you should network

I'll throw out some ideas but more so, want to spark some thought. If you have something that works, share it in the comments!

Schools & universities — In addition to NICA, find out when a local school is having a play day and offer to include a bike event. Offer a middle school a couple of bikes at wholesale to add to their PE classes. Park your mobile shop van in a high-traffic area of a university for a couple of hours each week and do repairs.

Large businesses — Most have a wellness program and LOVE when a health-related business offers to come out and give a class (we did this 25 years ago on everything from training to bike basics and maintenance). Even better, negotiate and see if a company will PAY YOU to repair or maintain their employees' bikes as an incentive to their employees staying healthy. (this is currently a thing). Help start a bike club within the company!

Small businesses — See what they're involved in, let them know what you're involved in, and find ways you can help each other out or make connections with people they know. Join or start a small business association.

Chamber of Commerce / city officials — If you sell e-bikes, take every person possible with any decision-making powers in your community, on a ride. This is how you open doors to bicycle infrastructure *bike companies may even want to help out with this so ask!

Charities — From the humane and cancer societies to helping someone local in a dire situation, find ways to be of service.

Other shops including co-ops — Get with other local shops and collaborate on how to do better on penetrating your market. If you have a co-op or shop who serves a great purpose like WeCycle Atlanta here, be a resource for them and offer anything you can to GET INVOLVED!

Churches, hospitals, doughnut/bagel shops, restaurants, rehab facilities, professional sports teams and the facilities that rehab them ... I could go on.

If it's not on LinkedIn — It didn't happen

For goodness sake folks ... polish up (ugh, or create) a LinkedIn account and list every business-related effort you do ... especially advocacy. I spelled this out a while back regarding how every person associated with an IBD should promote their professional identity to their customers. The goal should be to bring the community, your branding, and your business together in as many ways as possible to initiate and drive a more progressive way of doing business.

The funny thing is ...

In many ways, I am contradicting what I've stated in other articles. I said, in its current state, there are too many bicycle-related businesses fighting for the same dollar ... and the approach to increasing overall ridership to match what has become a bloated industry is a backward approach.

These things are still true when spoken as if there needs to be an industry-related effort to repair it. As individuals, that is not the case ... but you're going to have to wash your hands of any and all concepts related to any of your suppliers fixing things for you. If you have a business, GET OUT THERE AND OWN IT!!!

Your friendly neighborhood chucklehead — Trey

31 Things Skiing Can Teach Us About Life

There was hardly enough room for two cars to pass each other at 50 mph, let alone a car and something much bigger than a car. On a curvy, narrow road with no shoulder (and often no center line) on the Isle of Skye, I was a little gripped. Driving on the left side of the road, manual transmission with the shifter and pedals switched from American cars I’m used to driving, you might say it was far from a relaxing drive along the coast. Every time a car approached from the other direction on the really tight parts, I felt my arms and core tense up, and then relax again as the car passed.

But then, of course, a bus came flying around a curve. Were its wheels on the center line? Oh, they’re over the center line. This’ll be exciting. Don’t hit the bus, Brendan, don’t hit the bus. Instead of watching the bus’s tires to see how far they were in my (already narrow) lane, I stared at the edge of the road on my side, hoping my left tire had a few more inches of asphalt over there. I probably held my breath. Don’t look at the bus don’t look at the bus don’t look at the bus. The bus passed.

But then, later, more buses. Trucks. We were on the island for five days, and every day was a new thrill for me, in the driver’s seat. I never hit anything with that pristine little rental car, because someone a long time ago told me the secret to skiing in the trees: Don’t look at what you don’t want to hit. If you don’t want to hit a tree, don’t look at the trees. Your skis will go where you look.

This idea, I found, also works in mountain biking, and in life in general: Look where you want to go. Obsessing over all the bad things that could happen doesn’t mean you’re going to run into those bad things (like when you’re skiing trees), but it’s a waste of time. It’s better to obsess over the things you want to happen (and work to make them happen).

We often think of skiing as a break from our normal life, as a vacation. But if it’s worth doing, it’s probably worth learning from. I started thinking about all the things I’ve learned from skiing—the value of earning your turns, you wear a helmet not because you’re a bad skier but because other people are bad skiers, don’t try to teach your partner/spouse to ski, the value of always trying to make better turns [LINK: https://semi-rad.com/2016/02/the-search-for-the-perfect-turn/ ] — and thought other people might have some ski-gained life wisdom as well. So I asked. Here are some of their answers.

“How to live in the moment. And embrace it. As humans, I think we rarely do that. Also, on the chairlift, how to listen to hear, not respond. Lot to learn if you just let people talk.”

—Peter Kray

“The longer you stare over the edge, the harder it gets to actually drop in.”

—Danielle Tarloffski

“Skiing has taught me a key principal of safe urban bike commuting (and general situational awareness): Head on a swivel! Keeping as close to 360 visibility at all times by constantly looking around is important when skiers and snowboards are bombing downhill from behind you, just like cars speeding past on the road. I bet you that bike commuters who also ski are in less accidents than bike commuters who do not.”

—Jaeger Shaw

“You should always trust your gut. When it’s telling you not to do something, it’s usually right.”

—Kristina Ciari

“Complaining about the weather is a waste of energy. Just smile about it. You can’t get hurt going fast—it’s the sudden stop that gets you. And nobody cares if you’re accomplished at x and they value y.”

—Ben White

“During first lesson, my instructor said, ‘Don’t stare down the whole mountain. It’s intimidating. Just look at where you are standing and do what I tell you. When we get to the bottom, you can look back UP the mountain and be proud.’ Man. Has that turned out to be valuable life advice.”

—Barbara Neff

“Here’s what skiing has taught me to apply to the rest of my life:

Happiness = Reality-Expectations.

I went skiing in Japan a few years ago with my husband, it was everything they say it should be. So, two years later, I brought a few friends back to Japan with me. I had inflated what skiing in Japan was like and then over-inflated that expectation to them. When we arrived and there was 2-3 inches of snow and somewhat warm temperatures, we were all SUPER bummed. But how stupid is that? We were with our best friends, in an INCREDIBLE place, in what on any other day would have been super fun conditions, yet, we had chalked it up to be something magical and were disappointed when it wasn’t. It’s a tough practice, but I’ve learned to set those expectations aside and just remind myself that I am there for the adventure, no matter what happens, and that I can find nuggets of happiness anywhere.”

—Sam Kilgore

“Backcountry skiing taught me to slow down and communicate with others. To speak up and often to keep that door open regarding decisions and risk.”

—Dan Ives

“Get excited about what’s next, not fearful.

The difference between adventure/fun and an epic/catastrophe is having a partner. Suffering is a solitary, singular venture. Comedy is community perspective. Think about it, hiking a ridgeline in a whiteout, wind blowing a bajillion miles an hour is a brutal shitshow on your own. But with a pal, it’s a ‘what the hell are we doing here’ giggle fest. Same is true in life.

Also, don’t ration your passion. Express and trumpet your happiness, your stoke. If you’re having fun, tell those around you. Psyched on the line your skiing? Whoop-n-holler during and hi5 after. Stoked that you just landed that job, paid your bills, made yourself dinner, went on a great date with that special somebody? Deploy your barbaric yawp.”

—Paddy O’Connell

“Ski the turn you’re in. Regardless of how far or hard something is, you can only do the thing you’re doing at that moment. Doing those small things, like a single ski turn, over and over are what make up big things, whether it’s work or an adventure. You need to be mindful of where you are in the ever present moment. Secondly: You have to make the turn. You can’t be passive. If you sit back and let stuff happen to you, you end up getting bounced around, go off-course, and it can end badly. You need to be dynamic, take control, and commit over and over.”

—Alicia MacLeay

“As a ‘recovering’ tele skier, every time I thought I had my tele turn perfected I found the hard way that I didn’t. Same with life. Get back up and keep working to get better.”

—Patrick Stoneking

“When I was quitting my last job, I kept thinking about standing on the edge of a cornice before jumping. Everything I’d done to that point had prepared me to jump: I’d jumped off little bumps, then rocks, then jumps, I’d practiced landing and knew that even if I fell (because I had before) I could pick myself up, brush myself off, and laugh about it later. I knew the snow was soft, but ultimately I still have to take that deep breath and slide forward. Quitting my job felt the same, standing on the edge, having an idea of what my future could feel like but not knowing for sure, and having the confidence that I’d be okay no matter how I landed. It was scary to jump, but jumping turned out to be the most important thing I ever could have done.”

—Elizabeth Williams

“Backcountry skiing and splitboarding have taught me to plan everything better, to scope the whole scene and be prepared for everything. My example: being in too big of a rush to get to the toilet without scoping the whole scene and not having TP …”

—Reid Pitman

“One thing I’ve learned through skiing and other adventures like rock climbing, is to take risks and be less scared. The bad outcome usually not nearly as bad as you envision.”

—Russ Rizzo

“I’ve fully embraced the ‘the last one down’s having the most fun’ mantra. Sliding down snowy mountains is just fun, and life should be too. So don’t take this shit so seriously.”

—Maro LeBlance

“#1: Don’t leave good snow for the chance of better snow. This is not the opposite of ‘you deserve better’ or ‘treat yo self.’ It’s more about taking the moment to appreciate what you’ve already worked for, and how good you’ve got it. I think Moses may have said this first as don’t covet your neighbor’s wife.

#2: Happiness in the moment is directly correlated to the expectations you set previously, and you’re 100 percent in control of your expectations. The only shitty ski days I’ve had are when I just ‘knew’ it was gonna be a sweet powder day with tons of vert, and then it wasn’t. I’ve also had amazing ski days of 1000’ vert in the rain, because I was expecting 500. This works for buying houses, getting jobs, cooking dinners, etc.

#3: Skin tracks are better when you keep your chin up and look around, keep your heart rate low enough to breathe, and make your kick-turns razor sharp. AKA, don’t burn out and take the time to do a good job you’re proud of, or else the reward from your job won’t even be worth it.”

—Peter Wadsworth

“Even something as fun as skiing can very dangerous—it will kill you if you’re not super careful and take the time understand the dynamics of the medium on which you are playing.”

—Graham Zimmerman

“While being the best is fun, it’s not always the most important. Knowing that someone (or lots of someones) can send it harder and better but having the courage to do it alongside them anyways can be just as rewarding.”

—Claire Rabun Storrs

“When things get too fast and out of control, sit down.”

—James Larkin

“If you’re not falling, you’re not learning anything.”

—Drew DeMarie

“Things are not always as they appear. The Imperial Express Superchair looks insane but once you get up to the top, it’s not that bad. Conversely, after that run, the Horseshoe Bowl doesn’t look scary at all until you drop in and ask ‘WTF am I supposed to do now?’ because it’s so steep.”

—Joe Engels

“It’s nice to have a sandwich with you.”

—Mike SanClements

“What has cost you more in life, patience or impatience?”

—Rob Coppolillo

“There are a lot of ways to enjoy the snow. Not all of them are the same way you enjoy the snow. Other people choosing to enjoy something you love but in a different way is ok. It even can make it better. Skiers would have never had halfpipes and snow parks without snowboarders. So moral of the story: let other people enjoy life. They’re probably making your life richer for being around them.”

—Jesse Finch Gnehm

“Backcountry skiing has taught me a ton about life. Primarily the uphill part. It’s relatable to life in that nothing just happens. You don’t just have this divine moment to where you’re able to say you’re at the top. It’s small continual steps that get you there, that came by planning, working your ass off in whatever the conditions may have been and keeping a positive mindset that you’d make it. I guess the flip side of it all is that as soon as you’re to the top it’s only a matter of time till you’re working on something else.”

—Andrew Petersen

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