#and if you stigmatize. being upset with a business that did something wrong.

[jellogram]

Remember how "Karen" used to mean "suburban white lady who calls the cops on black men" and then like almost immediately it morphed into "the customer is always wrong and asking for a manager or requesting a refund makes you an entitled brat" with a side dose of "rude and angry women are the worst humans on earth."

Criticizing white women for weaponizing the police against black people? Not interesting enough apparently. But loving capitalism and hating angry women? Hell yeah let's have 10,000 viral videos that's the good shit right there. That woman being a bitch in a starbucks is worse than Hitler and we should doxx her children

[quizzicalcrow]

Can you do some angst Dad might and Izuku?

This was requested an ungodly long time ago but I’m finally delivering, hope you like anon.

Tw: suicide, allusions to abortion 

Toshinori frowned and checked his phone again though knowing it was pointless. Barely a minute had gone by since the last check and he wasn’t expecting a phone call or message from the boy. Despite now having trained Midoriya for the last three months, he hadn’t gotten around to exchanging phone numbers with his chosen successor - a mistake, he realized now.  It hadn’t seemed necessary before, he gave the boy a detailed training schedule so he always knew when to expect Midoriya while he himself popped in and out when he could. If the boy had a question it had always been something that could wait until the next time they met up. 

Toshinori bit his lip and scanned the beach again, hoping to see the boy’s figure running towards him in the distance. But he was alone on the sand except for the seagulls and piles of trash. Piles, he was pleased to see, that had been steadily decreasing over the last few months. Midoirya was making good progress and even managing to stay slightly ahead of Toshinori’s tight schedule. He knew he had made the right choice after seeing Midoriya’s selfless act of bravery and the boy had only proven him more right every day with his dedication and hard work. Midoriya had thrown himself into the harsh training and had stuck to it, never missing a day or even being late - until today. 

Toshinori checked his phone yet again and sighed, it was now over thirty minutes past Midoriya’s scheduled start time but still no sign of the boy. Maybe he was sick, or had something after school today? There was no way to know. He didn’t even know where Midoriya lived. Tsukauchi could probably look up Midoriya’s address if Toshinori really needed it, but the hero was reluctant to use his friend’s connections like that unless absolutely necessary. He at least knew the middle school Midoriya attended since there were only three in the city of Mustafu and each had a unique uniform. Should he try stopping by there? Was that too forward or interruptive? If his successor really was just held up at school, would he be upset at Toshinori checking in on him? No doubt he’d probably faint at having All Might show up at his school. His lips twitched up into a small smile at the thought. 

This would have been so much easier if I had just given him my number weeks ago. Berating himself, he hauled himself up from where he had been sitting on an old, rusted dishwasher. Despite Midoriya knowing two of his greatest secrets, his injury and One for All, and soon to be inheriting the Quirk itself - Toshinori had tried to keep some measure of distance from the boy. It would be better, he had initially thought, to not get too close. He had managed to lose or push away pretty much everyone else close to him and had decided long ago that it was better this way, safer. After all, Toshinori himself only had at best two years left before Nighteye’s predicted future, it would be best for all involved if he didn’t leave behind anyone to mourn him. He thought of his own grief after Nana’s death, still a dull pain now even 30 years later, and didn’t wish that for his own successor. 

And yet… Toshinori had planned to just get Midoriya started with his training regime, drop by enough to make sure the kid stuck with it and didn’t crush himself under a garbage pile, and then just check in when needed. And still he found himself making excuses to stop by on days he didn’t plan to, to stay longer when he should be at his agency. On days he couldn’t make it to the beach, Toshinori found himself missing the excited ramblings and mutterings. When he was stuck in meetings at his agency or out helping others, he found his thoughts turning to his young successor - wondering how his day was going.  Despite himself, he knew he was growing attached to the boy. Some warm, unnamed feeling bubbled in Toshinori every time he saw Midoriya’s bright smile on seeing him - even in his shriveled,skeletal form. That same feeling grew cold and hard at the thought something could have happened to him. 

I’ll take a walk. He decided. I still have a little bit of my time limit left so I can count it as a patrol, and maybe I’ll run into Young Midoriya along the way. He took off in the direction of the boy’s school, following the route he had seen Midoriya follow on his way to the beach. He’d at least take a walk around, make sure everything was okay before circling back to the beach one last time and calling it a day. 

The streets and sidewalks were busy in the early evening as people left work and ran errands. Toshinori walked along, hunching over and staying off to the side to avoid attention. At one point he saw a small group of students walk by, the boys in uniforms identical to Midoriya’s but there was no sign of the boy’s unkempt green green hair among them. He resisted the urge to go up and ask them, no doubt they’d just be alarmed at a skeletal old man like himself bothering them. 

Still, he couldn’t help watching the students past, laughing together about something. Midoriya never mentioned any friends, never had any issues sticking to the harsh schedule Toshinori had devised for him that left him with no free time for socializing or fun. Despite his clever mind and ambitions, the boy didn’t seem to be in any after school clubs or activities either. While Toshinori had grown up Quirkless as well, it hadn’t been as rare back then - and not as stigmatized as it was now. Did the boy have anyone close to him besides his mother? Was there anyone else Toshinori could try asking where the boy could be? 

There was a crowd ahead at the end of a bridge, clumps of people stood either talking quietly to each other or craning their necks to get a look at whatever had drawn them all together. Toshinori tensed and prepared to go into his muscular form as he approached in case All Might was needed. He paused at the edge of the crowd and tried to see what had caught everyone’s attention to no avail. Even with his height he couldn’t make out what was going on ahead. 

“Did something happen?” He asked two young women nearby at the edge of the crowd. 

One, a lady with teal hair and matching eyes turned and looked at him disdainfully, no doubt wondering who this ugly skeleton was. “There was a suicide jumper, police have the bridge blocked off as they fish the body out from the river.”

Toshinori’s heart twinged at that, feeling sorry for the person who felt they had no other choice left in their lives except to end it. 

“They’ve had this bridge blocked for the last 15 minutes and the next closest one to cross the river is, like, a mile away!” Her friend whined, shaking her head topped with a small set of antlers. “Quirkless idiot had to do it during rush hour of course.”

Ice ran through Toshinori’s veins. “Q-Quirkless?” He choked out, trying to keep his voice even. 

A man nearby spoke up. “Yeah, I heard it was some Quirkless kid.”

“Poor kid, probably realized he didn’t have much of a future ahead of him and offed himself.” Someone else muttered. “Probably a relief for the family. My cousin has a Quirkless kid,” He shook his head regretfully. “Wish that was something they could test for before birth, would make things a lot easier.”

Toshinori looked sharply at the man who spoke and was surprised to see others nodding in agreement. Around him, other onlookers were saying similar things, more upset about the minor delay in their lives than the life that had just been extinguished. Had Quirkless discrimination really gotten so bad? He staggered away, sickened by the blaise way those people spoke of a child feeling so lost that the only way out they could find was to end it all. 

Quirkless. Child. Toshinori’s heart clenched. No, it couldn’t be. 

How many Quirkless students could there be in Mustafu? The few times young Midoriya spoke of school, it seemed he was the only Quirkless one among his classmates. While the Quirkless rate was 20%, he knew it was significantly less than that in Midoriya’s generation. But no, it couldn’t be possible. It had to be someone else. Please let it be someone else. It was wrong to plead for such a thing but for the first time in his life Toshinori felt selfish, desperately wishing for once for tragedy to befall someone else. 

A memory came to him, from that rooftop exchange where Toshinori had initially dismissed Midoriya’s dreams of being a hero. The boy had looked so lost and broken but the hero had been too wrapped up in his own problems to care at the time. Had he missed something since? Was there a sign he overlooked? He thought of those broken sobs of relief from the boy when he had told Midoriya he could be a hero. They were like a boy finding something to live for.

He wouldn’t, would he? Toshinori collapsed on a nearby bench, doubled over and clutched his hair tightly in his hands. The boy was timid and uncertain at times, but also so full of hope and determination. He could still picture that bright smile on Midoriya’s face just yesterday as they said their goodbyes after training. But you should know better than anyone that a smile can hide so much. He shuddered. 

Midoriya had come so far, and had worked so hard. Did Toshinori miss something, had he been too hard on the boy? Maybe his trainee had decided the task was too impossible and he wouldn’t be able to complete the cleanup in time for the entrance exams. Midoriya practically worshipped All Might, perhaps he was too afraid of letting his hero down.  What remained of his digestive system twisted. It’s my fault, I dangled hope at what seemed just out of reach for the poor boy. His hands dug in deeper in his scalp to the point of pain as the first tears began to fall. It’s all my fault. It was getting hard to breath and yet Toshinori hefted himself up to his feet. The ground seemed tilted beneath his unsteady legs. I have to find out, have to know for certain. 

“All Mi- um, sir?” The voice was hesitant and oh so familiar. Toshinori’s head turned sharply and there was Midoriya a little ways down the sidewalk, looking confused and worried but alive. 

In a flash Toshinori covered the distance and had Midoriya wrapped in a tight hug. The boy went rigid for a second, no doubt surprised. But Toshinori held on, clutching the boy’s shirt with one hand and burying the other in that soft green hair. He needed this. needed to reassure himself that this was real and his boy was actually here. After a moment Midoriya leaned into the embrace. 

“Um, sir? Are you okay?” He asked and Toshinori’s heart squeezed at the sound of concern in his voice. Reluctantly he broke away from the hug so he could look his successor in the eyes. 

“I-I got worried, when you didn’t show up at the beach.” He murmured, still keeping one hand on the boy’s shoulder. 

Midoriya bowed slightly. “I’m so sorry! I got held back by a teacher about a group project thing, and I normally take this bridge across but well you can see it’s closed down so I had to go a ways out for the next one.” The boy looked over to the crowd of people. “Did something happen? I hope I didn’t interrupt you if you were about to do some hero work All-”

“It’s fine.” Toshinori said quickly, both to stop the boy from saying his hero name out loud in public and prevent any more questions. This wasn’t something Midoriya needed to know about. “There’s nothing more I can do here.” He couldn’t keep the regret from his voice. His successor looked at him quizzically but thankfully didn’t ask anything further. 

Toshinori stood up fully, though stayed close by Midoriya’s side. He looked back the way he had come, towards the beach. “How about we stop by a food stand and get something to eat before we start your training for the day?”

“But what about my schedule?! I’m already behind for the day!”

Toshinori gave a small smile. “We still have time my boy, there’s still time.” Time for me to correct a few things.

“Midoriya, I just want to let you know that you can clean up the beach in time. And if something happens and for whatever reason you don’t, I promise you will still receive One for All. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get into UA, or another hero school if that doesn’t work out. You have a bright future ahead of you boy, and I will do everything I can to make sure you accomplish your dreams.”

Predictably, the boy’s bright green eyes soon filled with tears and Toshinori just silently passed over a clean handkerchief. 

“Th-thank you All Might. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

“It’s no problem my boy, I should have been telling you this all much sooner. And something else,” He reached into his baggy pants to pull out his phone. “I never did give you my phone number, did I?”

--

Okay so this ended up not being as angsty as probably requested but I am incapable of not writing a fluffy ending. 

[realtruebeauty]

“The less time you can spend dwelling on your mistakes, the more mental energy you can devote to doing what you need to do in that moment.”

On this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, S. Christian Wheeler, the StrataComm Professor of Management and Professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School Business, sits down with podcast host and lecturer Matt Abrahams to talk about embracing failure and managing in-the-moment.

“When we’re confronted with personal failure, it feels bad to us. And we work hard to try to avoid that failure, and that can often be counterproductive,” Wheeler says. “But failing is something that’s on the pathway to success.”

Think Fast, Talk Smart is a podcast produced by Stanford Graduate School of Business. Each episode provides concrete, easy-to-implement tools and techniques to help you hone and enhance your communication skills.

Full Transcript

Matt Abrahams: Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Think back to a day in your recent past. Did things go the way you expected? Did everything and everyone follow the script you planned?

Unfortunately, business and life can be quite chaotic, unpredictable, and even messy. How can we better prepare ourselves to manage all of this spontaneity in a creative, collegial way?

I’m Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Today I am really looking forward to speaking with Christian Wheeler, who is the GSB StrataCom professor of management and professor of marketing. Christian teaches a variety of courses, including those on behavioral research, marketing management, and spontaneous management.

Welcome, Christian.

Christian Wheeler: Hi, Matt. Great to be here.

Matt Abrahams: I’ve really enjoyed working with you on a few projects at the GSB. You seem to have unending energy and are amazing to watch teach. I’m so excited about our conversation. Shall we get started?

Christian Wheeler: Yeah, let’s do it.

Matt Abrahams: All right. As I mentioned in the beginning, things don’t always go as planned. You teach a course in spontaneous management. Can you share with us two or three of the key learnings you impart to your students?

Christian Wheeler: We all spend time making plans, whether those are business plans, such a quarterly earnings forecast or personal plans, such that we rehearse in our minds the way a conversation or interaction is going to go.

And things rarely turn out exactly like we anticipated. And that can be upsetting to people. It can throw them off of their game.

And so the class on spontaneous management is built around this idea of providing people a sense of calm and flexibility so that they can adapt to whatever circumstances come about.

So I know you talk a lot with your students about managing anxiety.

Matt Abrahams: Yes, we do.

Christian Wheeler: A lot of people feel anxious, you know, even given a planned, scripted presentation in front of others. And how much worse is that when you’re dealing with circumstances that you can’t completely control, such as a question-and-answer session that goes differently than you anticipated or just being asked to make spontaneous remarks about something?

So one thing that we deal with right at the beginning of the class is just learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable. You know, all of us have some natural reaction of arousal when we get in situations like that. And that’s not necessarily a good or a bad thing.

What is good or bad is how we respond to that sense of arousal. And so sometimes when we get in these situations where we need to make unplanned comments, we can get a little anxious. And then we get anxious about being anxious. We feel bad about being anxious.

And that’s where the problem starts. There’s nothing wrong with being uncomfortable. The problem is with your discomfort at being uncomfortable.

And so we work on exercises teaching people to be in that situation and to respond in that situation with a sense of calm they can acknowledge that they feel a little bit anxious, but they’re not going to dwell on it, and they’re going to trust their minds to bubble up the necessary responses that they have in that moment.

And it’s when we start layering other things on top of that feeling of arousal or anxiety that it becomes problematic. You know, if you’ve ever watched American football, they talk about how the best quarterbacks have to have a short-term memory. What that means is if you go out and you make a mistake, you throw an interception, the next time you go out there, you can’t be thinking about that interception you just threw. You need to be thinking about in the moment what you need to be doing to adapt to that next series of plays that you have.

And so the less time you can spend dwelling on your mistakes, the more mental energy you can devote to doing what you need to do in that moment.

Matt Abrahams: So I really like that advice. And a lot of this is just acknowledging that getting nervous in those types of situations is normal and natural, rather than something that is bizarre and strange. Most people get that way, and then that can help short-circuit some of that anxiety you’re talking about.

Do you work with your students on specific things they can do to develop that short-term memory and to help reduce some of that feeling bad about feeling nervous?

Christian Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess that was going to bring me to the second thing.

We work on having a sense of not fearing failure. So failure is another thing. This is similar. You need a similar set of responses. Failure is not something that we seek, and no one wants to fail.

Matt Abrahams: Right.

Christian Wheeler: But the fear of failure can create these – layer all of these other maladaptive responses on top of that.

And so what we do is we put people into situations a lot. Some exercises we do early on is what improvisers call “brain fries.” They’re situations where your brain simply can’t compute all of the necessary information. And you learn to be in those situations with a sense of comfort, at least relative comfort, and you learn to treat failure as something that’s okay.

You know, here in Silicon Valley, we have this mantra – many companies do – of failing fast, failing quickly and all of that. And that’s fine as an intellectual orientation. But many of us, when we’re confronted with personal failure, even with things that are not high stakes, it feels bad to us. And we work hard to try to avoid that failure, and that can often be counterproductive.

So we try to encourage people to accept failure as being something that’s okay and to enter situations like that with a sense of play and a sense of joy.

Matt Abrahams: I once heard a wonderful bit of advice that just because you fail doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Failing can actually be a wonderful learning opportunity. But it sounds like what you’re trying to inculcate in your students is this idea that failing isn’t bad and it’s something that you can actually desensitize yourself to.

Christian Wheeler: Failing is something that’s on the pathway to success. People forget what it was like to be a young child. Children are bad at everything, right? They don’t know how to walk, they don’t know how to use a spoon, they don’t know how to tie their shoes, they can’t do anything. And children fail and fail and fail and fail and fail until they stop failing.

And so a young person is used to failing all the time. It’s no big deal. And through failure, they learn how to gain the skills that they need to participate in life. And as adults, we get to some point where we can structure our own environments in such a way that we don’t put ourselves in failure situations. And that’s where we stop growing.

We need to recognize that failure is a great thing, because failure suggests that we are operating at the outside of our abilities and that we have some skills that we can acquire to better adapt to our circumstances.

Matt Abrahams: You know, you remind me of a company I worked for many years ago. We had Failure Fridays. And the CEO essentially rewarded people for stepping forward and acknowledging some work failure they had with the idea of being 1) what you’re saying there, is to push ourselves to try new things. And, of course, when you try new things, failure happens. But also to be an educational experience. So it was okay to fail, but let’s not make the same mistake again.

So those Failure Fridays were actually quite fun, and people would compete to have the biggest failure. And it turned into quite an event. But it was really something that helped desensitize people to failure and encourage learning.

Christian Wheeler: Yeah, I love that idea. I love that idea. And then everyone else can learn from your failures as well. Right? They learn what didn’t work, and it de-stigmatizes your own failure. That’s great.

Matt Abrahams: Absolutely. So in your course, you talk about creative collaboration. Can you provide us with some practical tips on how we can be more creative in our collaboration?

Christian Wheeler: Sure. So one of the things we work on in my course is understanding your tendencies. So all of us have – we exist along some continuum of either wanting to seize control or wanting to avoid control.

And so we do some exercises aimed at helping you understand your basic tendencies. And then within that, to recognize that the things that your collaboration partners are giving you are gifts. So what a lot of people don’t fully appreciate about the creative process is the value of inputs that come outside of your brain, whether they’re from your environment or whether they’re from someone else that you’re collaborating with.

But Arthur Koestler talks about this as having intersecting reality planes. Right? We have two different ways of viewing the world. Each of us has our own perspective, our own set of experiences, our own set of associations, and that when those things intersect, that’s when you can have interesting creative solutions.

And so when we’re working alone, we can do things to foster that process. But the collaborative process naturally creates that type of thing.

And so one thing we work on is viewing inputs as gifts, or as an improviser would say, as an offer, as something to be built upon. And so if you’ve read anything or heard anything about improvisational theater, you know that the first rule is “yes and.”

And so what we do is we affirm what the person gave us, and then we build directly on that idea. And what people who do these exercises with me find is that they come up with crazy, innovative solutions that they never would have been able to dream up on their own just by having that additional person provide an input into them.

Matt Abrahams: So do you teach your students or do you have some recommendations for some ground rules or some directives that can help people feel okay being creative and saying, “yes and”? There’s a lot of pressure to get things right. And I feel like that stifles this yes-and approach.

Christian Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. So I think what’s important — in the sessions I teach on creativity, it’s important to know which stage of the creative solving process that you’re in.

We often have a tendency to judge our ideas at the same time we’re creating them, and that’s something that humans are not good at doing. There’s a time to judge, but that’s not the time when you’re creating ideas. You can judge ideas later.

Matt Abrahams: So you essentially encourage people to 1) recognize, are we in the brainstorming and ideation phase or are we in a different phase? And in that ideation phase, anything goes, let’s not judge, let’s really focus on how we can see what others are saying are offers.

Christian Wheeler: Yes, and to build upon those things, because we don’t know the value of an idea until we follow it to its logical conclusion. And even if we end up some place that isn’t super valuable for us, we may find that there are aspects of that idea that are still valuable that we could incorporate in a different way.

Matt Abrahams: Certainly. And I can only imagine that in interacting with others in that way, collaborating in that way, it builds trust and camaraderie so that perhaps that idea wasn’t good, but it might lead to the creation of other good ideas.

Christian Wheeler: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. People are thinking a lot more about issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And I think that’s really important to think about. In any given context, you may be an individual who feels that you belong or feels that your contributions are valued or feel like you have something useful to say.

And the way people respond to your initial ideas are probably going to affect the way that you interact in that environment. What I mean by that is you mentioned that there’s some evaluation, apprehension associated with a group decision-making context. Right?

Matt Abrahams: Yeah.

Christian Wheeler: I don’t want to say something stupid or be judged for that. And I have some threshold for how good I think an idea is before I’m going to let it come out of it mouth. And then I’m going to look to people’s responses to that. And if that initial response is negative, the next time around, that threshold may be a little bit higher.

And so it’s very easy to unintentionally stifle the voices of people who may have varying levels of comfort with contributing, because they feel that they belong in that group or don’t.

One thing that this orientation does is it makes sure that you’re hearing all voices, even those who may be a little more reluctant to speak up initially.

Matt Abrahams: Oh, and that is so critical for not only good decision-making and feeling part of a group, but just for furthering this cause of diversity and inclusion.

Beyond focusing on spontaneity and management, you did some research on what you referred to as “positive implying pronouns.” Can you give us the scoop on how our language use, specifically pronouns, might help us in our communication?

Christian Wheeler: Sure. So the pronouns that we use indicate something about the relationships that we have with others or the norms of the situation. So that research was about the language that businesses use to communicate to customers. So if I’m in a joint business venture with somebody, loosely speaking, meaning that I’m a banker trying to communicate to a potential client or I’m an insurance company trying to communicate to a potential client, how do I talk about that relationship?

One way we could phrase that is I could say, “You and I will work together to meet your financial needs.” Or I could say, “We will work together to meet those financial needs.” And what research shows is that when people use pronouns like we, that is indicating implicitly but in a way that people pick up on, it’s indicating closeness and a shared identity.

So if you look at committed relationship partners, they use the words “we” more often than not. We, our, and us, this pronoun that implies this togetherness versus separateness pronouns such as I, me, or you.

And if you look at the spontaneous language of couples, couples who use these inclusive pronouns like “we” have higher relationship satisfaction than ones who use “I.” And so it can be an indicator of the type of relationship that you have. And it can also increase relationship satisfaction when you tend to use those pronouns.

But how successful that will be will depend on the existing norms of the situation. So in a business context, what our research showed is that there are certain industries for which people have expectations of a closer relationship and other industries where they feel they have an expectation of a more distant relationship. And that people responded more positively when the pronouns used reflected those existing norms that people had in their minds.

We also know that use of the pronoun “you,” just referring to you as “you” can increase what psychologists call self-referencing, which means that you are relating the information to yourself. So if I say something like “computer technology is changing every day,” or I could say, “Matt, you know that computer technology is changing every day,” just adding that “you” there makes you more likely to think about that information in a self-relevant way just along the lines of using someone’s name, which relates to some other research that I’ve done.

Matt Abrahams: Interesting. So using you, using someone’s name invites people to pay attention and then do some self-reflection in a way that they might not if you don’t use that language.

Christian Wheeler: That’s right. Yeah. So we recently published a paper showing that just putting someone’s name in the subject line of an email, even when they know that you already knew their name, increases their likelihood of opening the email and increases the likelihood of generating sales lead or having them click through to another page.

And interestingly it decreases unsubscribes. And the way it has this effect is through increasing elaboration of the information in the message. So if you provide compelling reason to adopt a product or to browse on the web page, then they’re more likely to do that when you use their name in the subject line, even, again, when they know that you know their name, such as with Stanford alums or any existing customer of a company.

Matt Abrahams: Fascinating. You know, you talked about and we talked about this notion of rapport and bonding and feeling part of something. It goes without saying that teams that know each other well tend to work better together. Unfortunately, we don’t always have time to bond with our colleagues. Or perhaps with our new ubiquitous remote work, we don’t have the benefit of in-person — for lack of a better term — schmoozing.

I’ve seen you help teams bond rapidly. What advice and guidance can you provide to help us get to know our coworkers better and more quickly?

Christian Wheeler: You raise a really good issue there. This remote working thing is dramatically changing the way that organizations function, I think.

So one fear that people had, if people are coming into the office and I’m not there to look over their shoulder, maybe I’m worried they’re not going to get any work done, that turns out from what I’ve seen not to be true. People are certainly capable of supervising themselves and getting work done.

But what we do miss is this contact that we have with people, you know, stopping by their office or running into them at the water cooler. These little interactions with one another have a huge effect on the level of bonding that we feel with one another.

So we know that proximity, for example, is one of the biggest predictors of attraction. That just means how close we are to individuals. You’re more likely to be friends with someone who has an office or cubicle next door to you than someone who has an office or cubicle on a second floor.

And also there’s this principle developed by Bob Zajonc, who was a Stanford psychology professor before he passed away, called mere exposure. Simply coming into contact with something repeatedly makes us like it more.

And so these little interaction that we may not feel that they’re a critical component of our organizational functioning have a huge effect on how close we feel to one another. And when we have those frequent and positive interactions, they form the foundation for trust. And the foundation of trust helps us identify more with our organization and the organizational mission.

And what we’ve seen here with meetings, for example, is that we often think of the purpose of meetings as just to be the things that are on the agenda sheet. But what we see is that meetings have a lot of other functions. They serve these socialization functions even if it’s not an explicit part of the meeting. We show up to the table a few minutes early or linger or a few minutes afterwards, and we have this incidental contact with others that is taken away when we’re working in this remote environment.

One thing that organizations need to think about is ways to artificially induce that into this more formal Zoom-style interaction that we’ve adopted.

So in my exercises, what we do is we have people engage in exercises where they’re interacting with one another, they’re experiencing this positive affect, and they’re engaging in some degree of self-disclosure, which is something that creates the foundations of trust.

Matt Abrahams: Can you give an example, one or two examples of an activity that you do? I’ve seen you do multiple ones. I’m curious if one or two bubble to the top that you’d like to share.

Christian Wheeler: Oh, yeah. They can be very, very simple things, such as minor acts of self-disclosure. I have people, for example, psychologists have developed this series of questions to create rapport in the lab artificially. So oftentimes people may want to study closer versus more distant relationships, but when you just bring friends versus strangers into the lab, there are all kinds of confounds.

But what they’ve developed is a series of questions with escalating levels of self-disclosure that can create these feelings of a close relationship even with someone that you’ve met just mere minutes ago.

And so one thing we do is we bring people through those questions, and they escalate in a way such that people generally feel comfortable revealing something about themselves. So it’s not too fast, but it’s faster than you probably would normally in an ordinary conversation with someone.

Matt Abrahams: So give me an example of one of those questions.

Christian Wheeler: Well, you start out with things, such as, Matt, how long have to been to Stanford? Why did you come here? This type of thing. Moving through a series of questions and a series of stages to get to more — you know, the last level we’re talking about things like an embarrassing experience that you learned from. Or something you really want to accomplish in the next 20 years that’s close to your heart.

Matt Abrahams: So it’s a gradual escalation where each person reveals a little bit so they feel more connected as they go.

Christian Wheeler: That’s right. That’s right. And what we’ve seen through research is that we like people who self-disclose to us, and we like people more when we self-disclose to them.

Matt Abrahams: This notion of self-disclosure in a virtual world, I’ve done this with some of the students I teach and some of the folks I coach, where we’ll just say take something in the room you’re sitting in and just show it to us virtually. It’s like show and tell when we were kids, but it’s a way of disclosure, because people will explain why it’s important.

It also has this wonderful side effect of making people turn on their videos. And people are loathe to do that sometimes. So it feeds into what you’re discussing.

Christian Wheeler: Yeah, that’s an interesting thing that we see with Zoom meetings now is that we get glimpses into people’s lives that we wouldn’t ordinarily have. Right?

Matt Abrahams: Right.

Christian Wheeler: We see their living rooms and their children and their pets. And so people are often engaging in unintentional forms of self-disclosure that still give us the feeling of knowing that person better.

Matt Abrahams: Absolutely. I think you can connect to people much more when you see more of them, for sure.

I’d like to move on, and I know that you use improv games to help your students better understand the concepts you teach. And I’m wondering if you’d be willing to play a quick improv game that I just made up.

Christian Wheeler: All right, let’s do it.

Matt Abrahams: Okay. I’m going to name a business activity, and I’d like for you to respond with the first thing that comes to your mind.

Christian Wheeler: Sure.

Matt Abrahams: All right. Here we go. Email.

Christian Wheeler: Hell.

Matt Abrahams: Tell me why. What are your thoughts on email and any advice on how to make it better?

Christian Wheeler: You know, email is a bad form of communication. I mean, some of it is our own fault. For example, I’m not as good as I could be at managing my inboxes and keeping personal things separate from work things. But even within a work inbox, there are some things that are very important, things that are unimportant.

And so one thing we can do as senders, for example, is to clearly indicate in the subject line whether this is something that requires action on my part, whether this is something that’s just for my information, whether this is a newsletter or that type of thing, because we end up in this endless task without clear prioritization. There are various technological solutions that can help with that, but nothing’s perfect.

And then also, you know, emails tend to be too long. They’re not prioritized efficiently, and so it’s easy to start drowning in this swamp of email.

Matt Abrahams: Absolutely. On this podcast, we’ve talked in the past about how structure can really help you when you’re trying to be efficient and concise. And just thinking about how to structure an email, rather than just listing bullet points can really help. So I agree being more concise and direct is helpful.

Let me give you the last activity I’d like your thoughts on performance reviews.

Christian Wheeler: Approach.

Matt Abrahams: Oh. Tell me more what you mean about that.

Christian Wheeler: I think it’s incredibly useful to seek feedback, and I think most of us tend not to do that as much as we should. When we think about performance review, when we’re on the receiving end of that, that’s often a source of evaluation apprehension or anxiety. When we’re on the giving end of that, that can often be the source of uncomfortable conversations.

But the only way you learn how you’re doing is through seeking performance feedback. And I think people should do it more frequently than they do. And, again, if they have this orientation that receiving negative feedback is something on a pathway to growth, then that can take some of the potential sting out of hearing news that you don’t necessarily want to hear.

Matt Abrahams: Oh, I like that. That approach really does change. And it feeds right back into what you talked about, seeing things as offers and gifts. I mean, in some ways performance reviews are gifts. They’re tools to help you better yourself. Just taking that mindset versus, oh, I’m being judged, evaluated, I have to defend myself. That could really change how these things go.

Christian Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. And talking to — all of the communications lectures at Stanford, that [set] is fantastic at doing. They continually seek student feedback in an open-ended way, and they continually revise their class so that they can better meet the needs of the students.

Matt Abrahams: I’m blushing, Christian. Thank you. Before we end, I’d like to ask the same three questions of everybody that I speak with. And I’m hoping you’ll join me in this.

Christian Wheeler: Sure.

Matt Abrahams: If you were to capture the best communication advice you ever received as a five- to seven-word presentation slide title, what would it be?

Christian Wheeler: Five words. I would say make a connection with others.

Matt Abrahams: Okay. Tell me more.

Christian Wheeler: Well, that sounds a little trite on the surface of it. But there are lots of things that we do that can increase or decrease our likelihood of doing that.

When I first came to Stanford we had communication coaches that helped us improve our teaching. And I got some fabulous advice that I never forgot. One is I used to wander around a lot when I was speaking. I don’t know if it was nervous energy or I thought it was kicky. It tends to just be very distracting for people. They’re moving their heads around like they’re watching a tennis match.

The communications instructor said to me, “I want you to hold on to this podium and don’t let go. I want you to just stand right here and do not move.” And when you do that, when you can deliberately use stillness in your body, it gives you incredible power as a communicator. When you can move with intention and also not move with intention. So you can create this gravity and stillness when you want to, and then you can create a break.

Another thing that a person said is to make extended eye contact with people. That’s something I didn’t bring up in the bonding thing that we were talking about earlier.

Matt Abrahams: Right.

Christian Wheeler: But what this coach said, she says, “Look, I want you to just pick one person in the audience and look at them for a few seconds. And then I want you to look at another person, pick them and make eye contact with them for a few seconds.” So she said, “Don’t do the general sweep or look into the far distance as though you’re watching a sunset on the horizon.” Then she said, “I want you to pick specific individuals and make extended eye contact with them.”

And what you find is that, boy, if that person is being looked at, they’re paying attention to what you’re saying. And interestingly, the other people in the room don’t feel neglected by that. As an audience member, that’s a totally fine thing to watch. But as the person being looked at, it makes that very strong connection.

Matt Abrahams: And we’re actually finding that looking at the camera when doing virtual communication has a similar effect. So looking at the camera makes the people on the other end feel like you’re talking directly to them.

Christian Wheeler: Absolutely. And it’s so hard to do, because you’re trained to make eye contact with people, which virtually assures that you’re not looking directing into the camera.

Matt Abrahams: Right. So let me ask you question number 2. Who is a communicator that you admire and why?

Christian Wheeler: Ah. I don’t normally think about communicators that I admire or not. I guess I’m going to say, give you a weird answer, I’m going to say Elizabeth Strout.

Matt Abrahams: Okay.

Christian Wheeler: She’s a novelist.

Matt Abrahams: I want more information.

Christian Wheeler: She’s a novelist. When we think of communicators, we often think of orators or business leaders. But I think novelists are clearly communicators. And what I like about her, she’s a fabulous writer, but good novelists reveal that they have very keen powers of empathy and observation.

So she writes about a person, Olive Kitteridge, who’s a dislikeable person, but she’s the protagonist of many of her books. And through placing you in the mind of Olive, you gain a level of empathy with her. And so for Elizabeth to be able to do that, she needs to both understand what a person like that is like and then to be able to convey that to you in a way that you empathize with it.

And so I think to be a good communicator, you need to have keen powers of observation, you need to be able to read the people in the audience and understand their reactions and how they’re responding to you. And you also need to have that empathy to take their point of view, to understand what they want to get out of that interaction. And when novelists can do that in a way, particularly by depicting dislikeable people as someone that you can still identify with, I think is just incredible.

Matt Abrahams: I’m smiling because I’m thinking a good novelist has to be able to read his or her audience so that the audience, in turn, will read their stuff. So a lot of reading has to happen there.

What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

Christian Wheeler: Okay. Well, the first one I’ll double-up on a bit. I guess I’ll say attentiveness. You need to be attentive to the situation. Another one I would say would be vulnerability. And the third one I would say is openness. I mean this in the way that it’s an orientation toward the world of curiosity and lack of judgment, that if I’m really going to be engaging in a successful interaction with you, I need to listen to the things that you’re saying with a sense of curiosity and a lack of judgment so that I can respond in a truly open way.

Matt Abrahams: Well, Christian, all of us have been listening to you with an intense curiosity and we have learned so much. I thank you for sharing with us your insights into communication.

To my mind, what I heard you say is it all boils down to approach. Having an open approach, seeking offers, being open to failure, really being attentive and responsive to the needs of those you’re communicating with can make a huge difference.

Thank you for your time and thank you for your insights.

Christian Wheeler: Thanks, Matt.

[Music plays]

Matt Abrahams: Thanks of joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Produced by Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. For more information and episodes, visit www.gsb.stanford.edu or subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, find us on social media @stanford.gsb.

[terselylove]

50 Ways Parents Screw Up Their Kids Without Even Realizing It

1. Punishing them for doing something good. For example if the kid is in his/her room for a long time while guests are over, and when he/she comes out of their room the parent says, “Look who came out of their cave.” This highlights the fact that they were in their room and will worsen social anxiety in the future.

2. Praising them for their intelligence, rather than for working hard.

Children internalize that they have some quality that makes them better than others on some level in that they can do well without trying. They learn that their worth is based on this intelligence and that it’s the thing that generated success.

A lot of children go on to coast through high school, with everyone telling them how intelligent they are.

They never learn to study or work hard for something and then at some point they fail a test or get rejected for a job, or get fired, whatever. Now they are questioning their self worth. If intelligence was what led to success, and now I’m failing, that makes me a failure. Suddenly they have to learn how to apply themselves and what it means to work hard for something which is much more difficult to learn at that age.

3. Using your kids as therapists. My mother has always relied on me to talk out everything that happens to her. I proof read her texts and emails and it has absolutely ruined any chance of me having a mother, I’m so busy caring for her she can’t care for me.

4. Make promises they don’t keep. Good or bad — it is as bad to not give a punishment that should have happened as it is to not do that trip to Disneyland you said you would. You become unpredictable.

5. Being overprotective and strict, you’re just teaching your kid how to lie and hide things from you, you aren’t making them a better person.

6. Arguing in front of each other, as well as with other people constantly.

7. Compare them to other “better” kids.

8. Making them dependent on you for life by not allowing them to work, to get a driver’s license, to do any housework, not giving access to education, basically intentionally crippling them so that they have to depend on you.

9. Not respecting a child/teens privacy. Yes, kids will do things wrong but not every secret they keep is something negative. Treating everything a child keeps from an adult as something bad will bring on trust issues later in life. Personal growth is something that is learned and it takes mistakes to accomplish this.

10. Vandalizing their kid/teen’s privacy, like reading their journals and going through their phone without their consent.

11. Overemphasizing the importance of grades.

12. Setting them up to have an unhealthy relationship with food.

13. Going from 0 to 100 on anger scale for small things.

14. Being a hypocrite. No way the kid will function normally if (s)he thinks that’s normal.

15. Not saying a word to their kids for hours or days at a time, and never explaining why the parent is mad or upset. The child is left alone, trying to figure out what’s going on in their parent’s head.

16. Take their anger out on their kids and never apologize for it.

17. Berate and belittle them when opening up. Then wonder why, as adults, they don’t call you or answer your calls.

18. Constantly repeating the same lecture over and over again as if I’ve never heard it.

Like mom I get it, you were once poor. Even if I occasionally don’t finish my food, that doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful.

19. Every time they, especially if they’re boys, express a kindness to someone of the opposite gender, “Oh is she your girlfriend?” Ensue snickering. Or indicate they’re “horn dogs” or constantly thinking about sex. Shy people are built with this shit. Knock it off.

20. Constantly worrying about their own appearance and/or judging other people’s appearance in front of the kids is something I feel my mother really screwed me up with and I think a lot of parents may also do this without realizing.

21. Tell their kids that when they misbehave or mess up it makes them (the parents) look bad. My mom did this all the time and I still get anxiety about the things I do, it’s always in the back of my head, ‘Will this make my mom look good? Is this something she’d be proud of?’ Uggggh

22. Tell them to be honest then punish the child when they are. It teaches the kid to lie when they do something wrong rather than understanding what was done wrong and why the corresponding consequence is needed.

23. Try to make their kids little versions of themselves. You were not cloned you made a person with there own thoughts feelings and ideas of success.

24. Force/guilt their kids into hugging/kissing/touching people. There is almost always a reason why little Jimmy doesn’t want to touch grandpa. And no matter what “I don’t want to” is a good enough reason not to make your kid touch someone.

25. Giving a kid anything they want. All this does is make them grow up to be snobby adults that think everyone has to do things for them and that they’ll get anything they want. You see so many stories of athletes going through hardships and coming from terrible families and becoming the best at what they do. How often do we see success stories where the kid was allowed anything he wants at anytime, not as often. Overprotection and babying a kid through his/her life can be just as harmful as a child growing up with a family that can’t provide as easily and makes the child work for things. Long story short: be hard on your kids.

26. Treating waiters/retail workers like shit and/or whining like babies at said places whenever anything doesn’t go their way.

27. Blaming every character or physical flaw on the kid’s hobbies and activities and completely ignoring genetic and environmental factors.

My parents blame all of my problems (Introversion, Myopia, even Depression and other mental issues) on my PC use. They don’t listen when I argue otherwise.

28. Using gifts and basic necessities against them as guilt. Ie. “I can’t believe you think (other opinion) I give you shelter and bought you (insert birthday gift).” Or expecting you to agree to do whatever they ask because they bought you something for a holiday. I’m 21 and still really uncomfortable with being given anything by anyone or asking for any help, because I’m worried it’ll be used as leverage against me.

29. This isn’t a big screw up, but freaking out every time a young kid gets a bit hurt. Children learn a lot of their reactions by observing their parents, and you’ll often notice that after a small tumble or bump kids will look to their parents first and gauge their reaction, and then respond. If their parent is worried and immediately runs to try and soothe them, the baby is going to cry. If their parents are worried, they believe they should be worried as well. If their parents aren’t worried, they won’t cry. Over time, these reactions will become internalized and will develop similar responses to stress when they get older.

And obviously, if they’re really hurt, don’t play it off, but you will know when they’re hurt. A lot of the time, you notice a few second gap between when the incident happens and when the baby starts crying, and that’s when the baby is gauging their parents’ response. If there’s no gap, then they’re truly hurt and need attention right away.

30. Stigmatizing substances. Alcohol and pot are things to use with respect and moderation. I know that if I was introduced to alcohol much earlier in life and taught how to enjoy properly, I wouldn’t have gone through my rebellious period of binge drinking and smoking until I can’t feel feelings.

Legit. Teach your kids when enough is enough early.

31. Not make time for them.

32. Isolate them from other kids for years by homeschooling them and not socializing. Fucked me pretty good for a while.

33. Acting like their kids opinions don’t matter just because they don’t agree with it. Be a person and treat them like a person and have a conversation. In the end you can still say no for whatever reason because you’re the parent, but at least hear your kid out and make them feel like they have a voice.

34. Not vaccinating them.

35. Force them into religion.

36. Mocking them.

37. Ignoring signs of mental health issues and then when they end up in the hospital they act like they don’t know what went wrong.

38. Comment on their weight or appearance.

39. Put an iPad or something similar in their hands to shut them up.

40. Hitting them and not teaching them empathy or emotional intimacy.

Both of those things have royally fucked me up in a fair few ways.

41. Zero chores or pressure ever… then they move out and can’t handle themselves.

42. Leaving for extended periods when angry.

43. Forcing them to do their dream career when the child does not like it.

44. Removing any obstacles in their way that might otherwise help them learn and grow.

45. Punishment for honest accidents, accusing them of not caring if they forget about something. People forget, kids forget, it doesn’t mean you don’t care.

46. Slut shaming a girl when she’s a virgin and knows absolutely NOTHING about how a girl gets pregnant.

47. Thinking that they’re the same kid as when they were 8 and being confused when their now teenager has different interests and wants. Causes a lot of fights and misunderstandings.

48. Making them feel that they owe them for feeding them and taking care of them like it’s not their fucking responsibility since they decided to have a child.

49. Alcoholism. Don’t drink around your kids.

50. Emphasize “success” over happiness, and happiness over meaning.

[skruffie]

Been a while since I posted a mental health update, huh? well

Not a lot has been going on lately for me to blog about. Therapy is going well, I’m trying to do little things to like, stand up for myself and inch my way through progress.

Today though has been a giant fucking garbage fire.

(abortion, trauma, abuse talk under the cut)

Started off on shaky ground first thing in the morning because I interpreted a thing that a friend said to mean he was talking about me about something I did, since he DMed me personally too relating to Thing so I was like

“aw fuck”

the actual Thing he was talking about involved other people 

an otherwise mild trigger reaction ran right into a different trigger relating to like, feeling as if I can’t talk about a thing or being told to not talk about stuff, so WHOOPS

So I’m at work and kind of trying to just... exist, work, and sometimes I do peek at my phone because this job is slow and low-stress 99% of the time, and I saw an otherwise informed acquaintance of mine post this stupid meme relating to all the abortion talk lately that equated all people with a penis as men, and so like

here’s my thing. When sexual assault was a hot button topic with the Me Too movement I tried to remind people as often as I could to not leave trans and non-binary people out of the discussion. With this, I’m doing the same thing. We have a stake in this too and we’re consistently forgotten. I told her that this was a bad take for trans people’s involvement and she apologized but also said that it’s a lot of men getting involved in this when they have no business... so I tried to introduce her to the concept of specifying they’re cis men, but like

being forgotten pings the childhood neglect

The ultimate bullshit occurred earlier on twitter when someone I was following started griping about a different user adding a trigger warning to a discussion about abortion, so my response was “Wait, why do you think that was unnecessary?”

The response I got was a very angry “because it’s a fucking medical procedure and not a trigger” 

which turned to me pointing out that medical trauma exists and also there are families that end up needing to choose abortion for a pregnancy that they would have wanted to keep, or maybe... that sometimes abortion is forced on someone who actually didn’t have the choice. Any trawl through a sexual abuse survivor forum can tell you those stories. 

It’s thin ice because the debate of WOMEN GET TRAUMATIZED BY ABORTIONS is a tactic that the right-wing uses to try to further stigmatize abortion in general, but again. I’ve read enough survivor stories to know that not every person comes out of an abortion gleeful. It’s a personal experience unique to each person but Twitter doesn’t allow for this longwinded of a discussion.

i pointed out that trigger warnings are also a disability accomodation and explained how I’ve used them with success to help me concentrate without having a complete breakdown and was told it doesn’t count because it’s a different environment. Okay, cool. Some random person jumped in to link to a hilarious “study” about trigger warnings that didn’t even use volunteers with trauma, then linked to a second one that said it could cause negative effects, and also at some point OP compared trigger warnings to lobotomies in saying that “we used to think these were useful but not we don’t” at which point I was already way too far gone and upset

The irony of being completely triggered by a conversation about trigger warnings is not lost on me. Right out of the gate the responses to me were cruel and aggressive, even though they were also a trauma survivor (which tells me they were triggered but like, don’t fucking take it out on other people) and so at one point I said “They work for me, they don’t for you, we don’t have to agree” but they kept pushing that I was wrong and so I told them I was done with the conversation. Actual lived experience doesn’t count for anything.

What triggered me about this mess was going back to my ex friend and how she was so entrenched in the abuse she’d been going through her whole life that the times I tried to help her recognize what was happening was often met with anger. From her. From her family. There was one time I even tried to explain how someone gets triggered to her parents without using the word “triggered” or ‘abuse” and the only response I got from the stepdad was “You should be a psychologist”, which was a complete mindfuck with all the effort I had gone in to not outright saying “You’re the reason she’s so fucked up, you fucking assholes”

This is the kind of shit that makes me want to get mean.

 I don’t want to be nice. I don’t want to be a helpful person. I want to destroy something physically with my bare hands and scream until it feels like i can’t make sounds any more. When I try to approach with kindness and understanding and openness it opens the door for more shit to be piled through. 

[dracox-serdriel]

Lament of the Asphodels - Chapter 27: For the Footfall of Artemis

Lament of the Asphodels

Title: The Thread of Moirai Author: Dracox Serdriel Artist: @liamjcnes Artwork: Post 1 | Post 2 Word count: 2,100 Rating: NC-17/Explicit (except on FF) Warnings: Graphic descriptions of violence, Graphic sexual content, Declaration/threats of sexual violence, Minor character death, Social stigmatization/abuse, Detailed descriptions of hopelessness/depression/inner turmoil, Descriptions of the effects of extreme phobias/social anxiety, including anthropophobia, thalassophobia/hydrophobia, and hylophobia/dendrophobia, Descriptions of shipwrecks and storms at sea

Read Lament of the Asphodels on FF, AO3, LJ, or start at the beginning on Tumblr. Written as part of @captainswanbigbang.

Chapter 27: For the Footfall of Artemis

Killian woke to a burning in his eye. Rushed to ease the startling discomfort, he inelegantly dragged his hand across his face, where he gathered several strands of golden hair that had flown into his brow at the will of the rolling dawn breeze. The stinging subsided in ebbs and eddies, and he relaxed in equal measures, slipping back into the sweet surrender of sleep with only the faintest flourishes of wakefulness holding him on the edge of consciousness, where he delighted in the blissful limbo between the fantasy of his dreams and the comfort of blanketed warmth.

The wind lashed out abruptly, cutting through the protection of the quilt and jarring him awake with its icy tendrils. He instinctively tensed to conserve heat, and in so doing, he brought Emma tight to his chest. She barely stirred at the onslaught of frozen air, though she mumbled a string of nonsense as she buried her head in his chest.

"Morning, love," he whispered in her ear.

She had yet to awaken fully, for her wont was to rise late, even more so on days like this, when she felt she could lounge in bed till sundown. She curled against the firm body wrapped around hers, and a playful smile came to her lips as she recalled events from the night previous, which flooded her with such euphoric energy that her eyes snapped open. Had she still been in some stupor of sleep, the blaze of the sun overhead would've shaken her from it.

"Morning," she grumbled in reply.

"Spot of breakfast?"

"Do I have to move?"

"Aye, and it's best if we do so now," he said gently. "We're out in the open. Only a matter of time before someone happens upon us."

They dressed haphazardly and half-covered with the quilt before consuming a cold and paltry breakfast. They likewise packed hastily and perhaps somewhat unwisely, for they were determined to clear any sign of their camp thoroughly, lest they be tracked by some manner of enemy or random miscreant with the will to do them harm. Killian obscured any remaining vestiges as Emma double-checked the concealment of the rowboat. Unfortunately, their speed did precious little to counter their late-morning lingering, for they had slept hours beyond the dawn. By the time Killian discovered their bearings and Emma, the trail head, midday was upon them.

It was fortunate Killian knew something of the landscape, for there were many miles between the shore and the plains and more yet to the edge of the forest. They spent most of the day under the blaring heat of the sun with scarcely a shadow for comfort. Neither desired any additional delay, but they stopped outside the tree line to consume a very late and equally light lunch, which was hindered by the effects of their hurried morning packing.

Naturally, Emma felt that they deserved the reprieve of the late afternoon clouds, which afforded them a spot of shade as their meal came to a close, but Killian reacted as if a looming danger had announced itself. Without an iota of explanation, he scrambled to their packs and dug out an assortment of oddities, upsetting their already messy packs.

"Emma, we need to act quickly," he said, as if only noticing now that she had not joined him in his frenzy. "It may be upon us in minutes."

She had been too busy enjoying the dimming light to realize what such a thing forecasted, for it was far too early for dusk. The overcast was the herald of a storm front.

She immediately came to Killian's aid, and together they sorted the packs and donned their raingear with impressive speed. They even had a few minutes walking before the wind picked up and the sky opened, pelting them with heavy droplets of rain.

It didn't take long for the precipitation to rise into a full-fledged rainstorm, which was mercifully free of thunder and lightning. The discomfort of their trek increased tenfold, however, for the din of the tempest drowned out everything, robbing them of one another's company. Perhaps that was why the latter part of the day seemed endless in length.

The storm waned as dusk fell, and Emma wondered if they would reach their destination soon or if they'd camp to avoid hiking in the dark. Neither option was particularly tempting. Before she could vocalize her thoughts, however, a sign appeared in the distance, and both increased their pace as their endurance rebounded on the faintest glimmer of hope. She could make out heavy lettering, though the words remained foggy and elusive, yet she was certain that it announced their arrival at the stables. She was so sure of this fact that she did not notice the sign's message was naught but nonsense; indeed, she failed to realize the lettering was enchanted until she was only a few feet away.

Once alerted, she halted immediately, throwing her arm out across Killian's chest to arrest his momentum. He silently obeyed but could not help the confused scowl that blossomed on his face, for he saw no reason for caution.

"Something's wrong," she said in a hush.

That was all she had time to say before the world went black for both of them.

Her next memory was of intense pain followed by a permeating feeling of illness that glued her eyes shut, for she was certain that whatever she saw would only make matters worse. She slowly became aware of a continuous swaying motion along with a constant clip, clop, clip, clop that seemed distant. As her aches receded, her strength grew, and she shifted her weight to test her body, to see if she was ready to rise.

Emma's hands protested, and with a pang of horror, she recognized that she was bound. She held back the panic and the fear erupting within, yet even so, her breath soon turned labored as her heart drummed up a tantrum of blood so fierce it threatened to burst from every pore.

"Brave," a cold, female voice spoke. "But pointless. Don't bother being coy, dear. I know you're awake."

Emma knew that voice, but it couldn't be. She was dead.

Everyone here is dead, she reminded herself.

She sat up and forced her eyes open, unwilling to lay helpless in the presence of an enemy. She vaguely registered that she was inside a carriage, but her focus fell entirely on the woman she'd hoped never to see again.

"Cora," she said stiffly.

"So informal, Second Keeper," Cora replied. "It's the Mayor to you. Do sit."

To her dismay, magic lifted her from the floor of the transport and slammed into the seat opposite Cora. Hoping that the villain would be too distracted by her gloating to notice, Emma began to channel her magic, focusing it so she could free herself of the rope.

"Where's Killian?" she asked.

"Killian?" Cora repeated in disbelief. "Do you mean to tell me that you actually fell in love with some loathsome lighthouse Keeper! Foolish girl!"

"Where is he?"

"Tell you what," she replied. "I'll tell you where he is if you answer one question for me."

Emma could muster no more than a begrudging silence as agreement. Her magic wouldn't pool at her command, nor did it shake the bindings free of her wrists. Something was blocking her powers.

"How did you die?"

Emma jolted at the unexpected question and balked, "What?"

"It's hardly a complicated question. I died after your mother transferred a deadly poison from the Dark One to my heart with a cursed candle and then tricked my own daughter into returning it to my chest," Cora explained. "And you?"

"The Dark One," she replied.

"The Dark One?" Cora repeated, a thrill of laughter escaping her lips thereafter. "It certainly serves your mother right, doesn't it? She murdered me to save him, and then he turns around and kills you."

Cora smiled smugly at the thought as she relaxed into her seat, her posture still rigid and regal. They rode silently for a few minutes, each expecting the other to speak.

"Killian," Emma said. "You said you'd tell me - "

Cora interrupted, "Only after you answer my question."

"I just did!"

"You told me who, not how."

Emma bit her lip to stall, but Cora clearly wasn't going to tell her what she'd done to Killian until she got what she wanted. What option did Emma have? She needed to know what happened to him.

"Sword to the heart," she said tersely.

"We both know that your heart is protected."

"So did he," Emma replied. "Which is why he enchanted it."

"What is it about your death that you're so desperate to keep secret?" Cora asked. "I doubt the Savior had anything less than a blaze of glory."

Cora snapped her fingers, and every muscle in Emma's body clenched into unmoving tension. It wasn't painful, but neither could she relax. In fact, all she could move was her eyes and eye lids.

She blinked, and Cora was suddenly within an arm's reach with a single index finger extended dramatically, a faint purple glow emanating from the tip. It pressed hard into the center of her forehead, and she went cross-eyed trying to follow it. She knew the spell Cora was conjuring, for it was similar to the magic of Dreamcatchers, which draw out memories, though this spell sussed out secrets instead.

If she could have, Emma would've smiled, for while the spell was powerful, it sought all secrets in equal measure, then honed in those most deeply guarded by the heart. Any secret could lead astray, so she latched onto the most recent one, specifically the location of the rowboat left ashore, and guarded it with everything she had.

The magic burned against her skin, and her secrets flashed before her mind's eye in swift succession: the woman she lied to protect from her abusive husband; Graham, her previous feelings for him still unconfessed; the many things she'd never had a chance to say to Henry. The more she saw, the quicker they went, becoming more and more brief as they did so. She saw flickers of conversation with Regina, her father, her father... she even had a view of Rumpelstiltskin, her parents, Henry, Regina, and Robin standing in a dark corridor before the image of the hidden rowboat overwhelmed it.

Then it all stopped, and Cora withdrew her hand. It took Emma a moment to recognize that she could move again.

"Clever girl," Cora remarked, though by her tone made it plain that it was the exact opposite of what she thought.

Then she huffed a mirthless laugh before she pursed her lips as she shook her head, no.

"Did you really expect me to believe that Rumple killed you?" she asked, her voice derisive. "Don't you want to know what happened to the Keeper? The only way you'll find out is if you tell me how you died."

"Why do you care?" Emma countered. "Dead is dead."

"Except when it isn't," Cora said, her perception sharp as a barb. "Because you are more foolish than my daughter and even your own mother, walking into the Underworld for a pirate!"

"Why did you do to him?" Emma demanded, unable to hide the venom in her voice.

The smile on Cora's wicked face could make serpents slither away in revulsion. With a wave of her hand, she rendered Emma mute.

"I suppose now that I have the only living soul in the Underworld, there's no harm in telling you about the pirate's fate," Cora said. "It was nothing personal, you understand. I never had anything against Hook. In fact, he proved an adequate ally at one point, but he had served his purpose long ago. Now, well, he was a complication, an obstacle, for my plans. He would never stop trying to save you, to defend you, and I couldn't have that. I cut off his head and banished his body rom this realm."

Emma struggled fruitlessly against her restraints, desperate to escape and rescue Killian, but if anything, the ropes tightened against her skin. She wanted to cry out, to scream, because if he was dead, if he wasn't in this realm, then she had failed. All was lost.

Cora watched her railing misery with naught but indifference, save for the shine of malice in her eyes.

"Didn't I tell you, dear? Love is weakness."

End-of-chapter notes: In Greek mythology, Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, wild animals, and the wilderness. 

For next and previous chapters, proceed to the Lament of the Asphodels main Tumblr page.

[travelling-trooper-blog]

I arrived at Beatrice’s shop. Its iron sheet frame and nameless storefront made it indistinguishable from every other shop on the street. The only thing that made the shop unique was the person behind the counter. There’s only one Beatrice.

Beatrice was slim, and sported fiery red and black braids to go with her funny and lively personality. She was one of the few LPK women I came across who wasn’t afraid to flash a smile at the camera. When she did, I felt that she wasn’t smiling at the camera’s eye, but directly into my own. It was the warm and genuine smile of an old familiar friend. Her dimples framed her lips and sparkling teeth and inflated her cheeks like balloons on her thin face. When the wave of her smile reached the shores of her eyes, it caused them to narrow slightly and light up, like the playful foam that forms as the shoreline ebbs and flows and dances with the tide. In that smile, I could almost see what 12-year old Beatrice looked like, which made listening to her story that much more heartbreaking.

Beatrice has suffered a great deal of pain in her life. She was raped at the young age of 12 on her way to school.

Instead of receiving the love and support of her friends and family, she received outright rejection. Her friends abandoned her, while her mother treated her coldly. “Every time I would complain to my mom, she would not do anything. She told me that I have already become a woman,” she says. Feeling upset and betrayed, she ran away from home.

Beatrice ended up befriending a prostitute who housed her in exchange for taking care of her children and selling drugs for her. She also started using drugs herself.

Beatrice finally returned home seven years later, when she was pregnant with her first child. She visited a clinic and discovered that she was HIV Positive. With nowhere else to turn, she was forced to move back in with her mother, who rejected and shamed her for her HIV status. “At that time, my mother was an alcoholic. That night when she drank, she shouted and told everybody that I was HIV positive and that I have come back because I knew I was going to die.”

Her family even abandoned her once she went into labour, and Beatrice was left to give birth in their house entirely on her own. “After two hours, my family came back. They did not ask me who helped me or how did I deliver my baby.”

Overwhelmed by the stress of her situation, Beatrice began to loathe herself and her baby. This combination of stress and hatred was toxic, and she soon found her health deteriorating further.

Concerned with the worsening of their daughter’s health, the family forced Beatrice to move out to the small shed in the back where they cooked with firewood. “I stayed there, and they never came to see me.”

A neighbour, whose mother was also sick, learned of Beatrice’s status after her mother had drunkenly shouted the news to the neighbourhood. She told Beatrice of a woman who visited her mother regularly and suggested this woman might be able to help Beatrice as well. This woman was Mother Mary (Mom).

Beatrice had to meet Mom. Somehow. “At that time, I had stayed for a long time without moving, so it was hard for me to walk,” she says, adding, “Plus, I was weak because I was sick.”

Despite her weakened state, she managed to find Mom. ” I was not able to approach her, so I followed her. I followed her until the program. I went to the house, but I did not go in because I was afraid, so I stayed outside.”

The ladies in the office eventually noticed her standing outside, and Mom went outside to speak with her. “Because I didn’t know where to start, I just told her I was hungry.” Mom invited her inside and listened to her story.

Beatrice was soon enrolled in the Women Economic Empowerment Program, visiting the hospital regularly, and taking medication.

Unfortunately, Beatrice could still not face her mother. She chose instead to drop out of the program and go back to living with the prostitute. She explains her decision saying, “Because  I did not have a place to stay and my mother was not letting me in, I left the class. And I was doing drugs, so I could see that the better place for me to stay was with those girls who were doing drugs. ” She lived there until she became pregnant with her second child.

At this time, with her children as her driving force and motivation, Beatrice returned to Mother Mary and was given a second chance in WEEP. “That is when my life started to be good,” she says. She was even given a place for her to stay with her children.

Then in 2015, she graduated from WEEP and opened her own business with the financial support of LPK.

WEEP taught her so much more than just business and tailoring, though. Through the love and support of those around her, Beatrice learned to forgive and trust those who stigmatized her, and she learned to love herself.  “It was hard to manage on my own when everybody rejected me. Let me say that for all of those years after I knew my status and what happened to me, I was living in anger. I could not even trust anyone. I could see everyone wanted to use me, so it was hard for me.

“But when I was in WEEP class, we were having psychosocial classes, and through that we were able to overcome what is making you feel like you can’t move.

“I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I have to accept the way I am. I have to accept that what has happened is not a curse; it is something that is happening to everyone. It can happen to anyone else. I learned that if you can’t value yourself, other people will not value you.”

She even reconnected with her mother. “Last year in December, Mom took me to my mom’s house, and I asked for her forgiveness if I have done anything wrong to make her reject me. We resolved our differences.”

Beatrice has reclaimed her life thanks to LPK. When speaking about graduation day, she says, “I was very happy because when I  was leaving the program on graduation, it wasn’t just that I was graduating. It meant that my life is my life, and it doesn’t matter what people say. I could make them see a difference.” She is now the proud owner of a shop that sells beauty products. (After the interview, she joked that now that she had shared her story with me, I had to christen her nameless shop. I suggested B’s Beauty Shop. We’ll see if it sticks.)

She is also the provider for her two daughters. The significance of the fact that her eldest daughter is turning twelve is not lost on her. “I feel like maybe something can happen to her,” she says. “I’m trying everything to make them be friendly with me. If anything happens to them, they can come tell me. I’m sure if anything happened to my girls, I would fight for them. To be a mother is to be a protector of your children. You have to take care of them. You have to teach them to move in good ways.”

Beatrice is a strong, beautiful, independent, and loving human being. She lived in cold darkness all alone for so long, though you would never know it from the light that radiates from her smile today. “LPK is the light, because I was in the dark and now I can see the light,” she says, adding “It has made me who I am. If you ask me where is my home, I would say it is LPK.”

Meet Beatrice I arrived at Beatrice's shop. Its iron sheet frame and nameless storefront made it indistinguishable from every other shop on the street.