#crucial conversations

[annacswenson]

« walks are everywhere in Pride & Prejudice. The heroine walks on every possible occasion and in every location, and many of the crucial encounters and conversations in the book take place while two characters are walking together.»

—Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

[kuyabry]

Daily Dose of Purpose: Crucial Conversations

Chapter 1: What's a Crucial Conversation? And Who Cares?

When I started reading this book, It was election season here in the Philippines. I was forced to deactivate my socials because of the number of crucial conversations that were mishandled. Reading this book during the election season really helped me. According to the book, a conversation becomes crucial when the "stakes are high, opinions vary and emotions are strong". As I was scrolling my Facebook feed and reading influencer and ordinary people's opinions, I proved that "we're designed wrong", and emotions don't help us converse effectively. We are starting to call people names, we start to label people bobo, stupid, or tanga. What people don't understand, even if they are making sense or basing what they are saying on facts, is our body, organs, and adrenaline react when someone disagrees with us.

I know someone, who was willing to vote for the candidate that was the most qualified but shifted to another candidate due to the "toxicity" according to him.

Sarcastic remarks/tones are being thrown everywhere, and people are starting to cut off long-time friends because of the difference in opinion and it just ends up in an unhealthy, self-defeating loop. No one listens anymore. It's really true, the more you push people, the more you create behaviors that you both despise. It makes me realize if only people knew how to handle crucial conversations better, would the results end differently?

The election season was just a recent example of how flawed we are in handling crucial conversations, the way we talk to our loved ones, how we address problems at our home, or even how we talk at work are also a few relevant examples. We always have crucial conversations in our daily life and we fail to see the importance of these micro-moments. These conversations affect our career, health, love life, and social life, do we not care about these things?

I know you do. In the following chapters, I hope we can handle crucial conversations better. Are we going to handle these conversations or are we just going to ignore this and move on with our lives? Whatever your decision is, it does not reflect you entirely, you just made a choice.

A special takeaway in this chapter is "everyone has differences, not everyone splits up, It's how you argue that matters".

Check out the book

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

We've all heard of "Barry Bluejeans was the roadrunner to Kravitz's Wile E Coyote for like ten years post-Stolen Century pre-Gerblins" (impeccable concept, always hilarious) but consider:

Kravitz has attempted to reap Merle-Fuckin-Highchurch at least 4d6 times since he first appeared on this plane. Through a series of miscommunications, lucky rolls, slapstick shenanigans, and the occasional bout of divine intervention, he has never once succeeded.

Merle is totally oblivious to both his alleged crimes and Kravitz's increasingly desperate attempts to charge him for them.

[autumnhobbit]

would you all think that continually rescheduling even up to the last minute before an appointment, regularly switching from call to texting even when i’ve said i find texting less helpful because it comes off more brusque, no consistent linear topic directing, constantly directing focus to my day to day life/relationship rather than anything else about me even if i express concern about the rest of it is reason to consider breaking up with a therapist

[trans-axolotl]

some of Eli Clare's writing about diagnosis feels very relevant to discussions on tumblr right now:

"It’s impossible to grapple with cure without encountering white Western medical diagnosis—ink on paper in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Diseases, a process in the hands of doctors, a system of categorization. I want to read diagnosis as a source of knowledge, sometimes trustworthy and other times suspect. As a tool and a weapon shaped by particular belief systems, useful and dangerous by turns. As a furious storm, exerting pressure in many directions.

Simply put, diagnosis wields immense power. It can provide us access to vital medical technology or shame us, reveal a path toward less pain or get us locked up. It opens doors and slams them shut.

Diagnosis names the conditions in our body-minds, charts the connections between them. It holds knowledge. It organizes visceral realities. It draws borders and boundaries, separating fluid in the lungs from high blood pressure, ulcers from kidney stones, declaring anxiety attacks distinct from heart attacks, post-traumatic stress disconnected from depression. It legitimizes some pain as real; it identifies other pain as psychosomatic or malingering. It reveals little about the power of these borders and boundaries. Through its technology—x-rays, MRIs, blood draws, EKGs, CAT scans—diagnosis transforms our three-dimensional body-minds into two-dimensional graphs and charts, images on light boards, symptoms in databases, words on paper. It holds history and creates baselines. It predicts the future and shapes all sorts of decisions. It unleashes political and cultural forces. At its best, diagnosis affirms our distress, orients us to what’s happening in our body-minds, helps make meaning out of chaotic visceral experiences.

But diagnosis rarely stays at its best. It can also disorient us or de- value what we know about ourselves. It can leave us with doubts, questions, shame. It can catapult us out of our body-minds. All too often diagnosis is poorly conceived or flagrantly oppressive. It is brandished as authority, our body-minds bent to match diagnostic criteria rather than vice versa. Diagnosis can become a cover for what health care providers don’t understand; become more important than our messy visceral selves; become the totality of who we are.

...

It is impossible to name all the ways in which diagnosis is useful.

It propels eradication and affirms what we know about our own body-minds. It extends the reach of genocide and makes meaning of the pain that keeps us up night after night. It allows for violence in the name of care and creates access to medical technology, human services, and essential care. It sets in motion social control and guides treatment that provides comfort. It takes away self-determination and saves lives. It disregards what we know about our own body-minds and leads to cure.

Diagnosis is useful, but for whom and to what ends?"

-Eli Clare, Brilliant Imperfection pg 41-42, 48.

[transmascutena]

i think all the episode previews are good and worth watching but they do vary so much in how important they are. like most of them are just a fun little joke or whatever but then the preview for episode 33 drops the entire setup to the plot of that episode which you wouldn't get at all if you skipped it

[mcmissileproof]

ostensibly cishet coworkers who randomly strike up conversations with you like "so... pride month is coming up... how about that" are a vital part of the work experience when you're not out professionally and I didn't even know to miss them until I worked at a place without them

[lgbtlunaverse]

It's actually pretty fun and not a crime to read fanfiction of media you haven't read/watched yourself. Maybe an author you like from a fandom you're in started writing for this new thing now, and even if you don't know the characters their writing is great. It's like dropping in on the 5th season of a good tv show. Do you know who these people are? Not a clue. Does this fuck? Supremely.

And then maybe you check out their bookmarks and find a bunch more fics from that fandom and hey you sort of know these characters' names by now and the writing is still good, and you're just enjoying yourself! You're not participating in the discourse, you have no idea what's ooc or not and you don't have serious opinions on it. You're just vibing. Taking in the craft. For all you know these are all just conspicuously similarly named OCs. It's harmless as long as you refrain from tricking yourself you actually know what's going on in canon and start posting, that's the devil talking and you mustn't give in.

[sovonight]

more on this au

after the events of the games, radri becomes the new lady of murder and tries to adjust her image, mainly trying to get bhaal's existing old followers to stop doing sadistic sacrifices in her name. but they just think it's a trick to test their devotion and they just start murdering harder. radri does gain some good-aligned followers who remember her for her actions during the games, but they're very much a minority. while all this is happening she's also trying to adjust to being a goddess in general & managing her plane and the beings in it (who also expect her to be evil; she is so tired of being expected to be evil). eventually she shuts down and closes herself off into her old pocket plane and just does the bare minimum, earning her a reputation of being a reclusive mess (among the gods, at least. the mortals have no idea how sad she looks rn)

fast forward to some time later, radri has grown SO sick of cespenar (who will Not get the hint that he's not welcome in her pocket plane alone time, and keeps popping back in whenever she removes him) and peeks back in on the lives of her old companions. everyone seems happier than she'd left them, more rested & recovered, especially imoen, who she'd been worried about the most. in a spur of the moment decision she makes an avatar to greet her in person, but at the last moment, radri falters. she can't face imoen--she's too afraid of how imoen will react. radri didn't tell anyone she was going to ascend--she'd barely even thought it through herself, it was a decision made out of guilt and pain and self loathing. radri disappears, and imoen turns just a moment too late, strangely sure that her sister had just been standing there

anyway, radri has an avatar now, and it'd be a shame not to use it, right? she finds jaheira. (subconsciously, the reason she's able to show herself to jaheira but not imoen is bc jaheira appears to live with little left to lose these days; radri is less scared of ruining her life)

meanwhile, xan is still with the greycloaks, having gone on several successful missions after recovering from his solo escape from the nashkel mines. this time, however, the greycloaks have abruptly dumped him into a mentor role (apparently to build some traditional sense of cooperation and morale) to daelas, a young upcoming greycloak agent who's carefree, outgoing, and had complained loudly about his assignment to xan (who had been, unbeknownst to daelas, within earshot). xan sees daelas' promise and feels it is his duty to mentor him properly, but is also constantly having his patience tested. their first mission together is to investigate a strange unrest involving people disappearing/being kidnapped in some area of the sword coast

as it happens, jaheira had already had her eye on this unrest & had been traveling to investigate it herself, and thinks it would be good for radri to travel with her to resolve it (she mainly just wants to get radri out and about and active again, for the sake of her mental health). the two pairs cross paths and join up when they realize their common goal

xan initially finds radri oddly familiar, as though he should know who she is (because her fame/infamy was so great, most people have a rough idea of her name + description, but only a big fan would be able to confidently clock her right away), but radri manages to brush it off by saying she has a common name where she's from/that she's often mistaken for others/etc. xan naturally asks where she's from then, and radri freezes with "candlekeep" right on her tongue, and instead forces out "baldurs gate". later xan muses in front of daelas that she seemed to be lying & that it's suspicious, and daelas is like i think it's your austere frown that made her nervous, have you ever tried smiling? (xan gives daelas a withering look)

daelas quickly forms a friendship with her--it's one-sided at the start, but radri soon warms up to him, in part because they're both thieves (although daelas is a fighter/thief for party balance). meanwhile, xan keeps finding weird discrepancies in radri's background/behavior: radri was introduced as jaheira's ward, and yet jaheira seems accustomed to following radri's orders; radri seems unconcerned about risking her own life, but very scared of risking everyone else's; radri has too many spells that she insists are just from her collection of artifacts from her time adventuring (those artifacts would have to be rare and expensive indeed, but xan hasn't seen her actually show a single one of them). daelas interprets xan's special attention towards radri as romantic interest, and starts pushing the two together (partly because he can tell radri is interested in xan, and partly because it gets xan off his back so he can relax in peace)

radri knows what daelas is thinking & doesn't buy that xan's attention is romantic in nature, but she can't help but hope and try her luck anyway. she gives xan gifts (practical ones, like gear or consumables that he'd needed to replenish anyway--spells, components, ink, parchment) but does so in secret, so he barely even notices the gift has been given, much less that it's from her. the one time she dares to leave flowers with it, he mistakes it for an anonymous gift from the innkeeper's pushy daughter and disposes of it publicly (radri is devastated until she overhears the assumption he'd made). she tries her best to loop xan into talking about himself/magic/evereska/his passions, but he keeps turning the conversation back to her in equal measure, forcing radri to scramble for half-truths to continue to conceal her identity. one time when xan mentions the particular danger of the pass ahead and how much he's not looking forward to it, radri goes ahead of the party in the middle of the night and clears the way ahead--but then later when the whole party goes through, xan is only put that much more on edge when nothing happens. another time when xan expresses how much he regrets the moonblade & yet feels that he must keep it, she asks if he would release it if corellon himself gave the okay, and xan's like sure but that's never realistically going to happen, and for the next few days radri looks into what it would take to get an audience with corellon (spoiler: a lot) and gives up when she realizes her reputation is in such shambles that it would probably reflect badly on xan for her to be in any way involved

on xan's side, radri had admitted early on that she's had few friends & has always wished for more, so xan feels like he should be her friend first and a romantic interest second, and tends to redirect/suppress his romantic interest in her compared to canon. his affections take form as bits of poetry in the margins of his spellbook, braided flowers that remind him of her, longing glances when she isn't looking, and cantrips to cheer her when she gets a somber, distant look in her eyes. one time, radri asks about the flowers and asks lightly if he has anyone back in evereska, and xan feels caught with his affection for her and rambles by saying no, and he's never been interested in such relationships, he merely appreciates the flowers for being what they are. radri looks struck by that information and makes a weak and awkward smile, and is distant until he seeks her out again. from then on, radri seems muted but somehow a little freer around him (for her, the stakes are lower now that she knows she really, truly does not have a chance with him, ever). they grow closer from then on as strictly friends, with both of them hiding their affection

radri ends up telling xan about her almost visiting imoen:

R: (describing how well imoen's life is going now, how happy she is for her, but obviously feeling sad that she's not in it) (remembering she needs to make up an excuse for her semi omnipotence) …Well, that's just what I've heard, anyway. X: …You haven't talked to her? R: No. I… left, a while ago. Never to return. She didn't react well… but I did it for her. For everyone. Everything just seemed to go wrong when I was around…. R: I can't talk to her. Not when things are finally going well for her. …It's better this way. X: If you believe that, then why are you here? R: W--what? X: If you think that your presence only spells misfortune for your companions, why travel with Jaheira? Why join us? R: … X: I think that-- (noticing that radri's mood has completely fallen, worried) Radri--? R: No. You're right. Why am I here? (she stands, eyes brimming with tears) R: I'm weak. I'm stupid. That's why I'm here.

hurt and emotional, she escapes to the pocket plane, and her exit is the last piece of information xan needs to put together who she is.

after some confusion over radri's disappearance (jaheira isn't that confused or surprised by it, which only confirms xan's suspicion further since he knows now that jaheira had famously accompanied radri throughout the events of the games, but daelas is totally like what do you MEAN she's just gone, xan what did you SAY to her?!!) the party can only travel on, and finds out the heart of the unrest: radri's followers, arguing over the "right" way to worship her. the disappearances in the area have been due to her evil followers collecting sacrifices, building up to the grandest sacrifice yet in the hopes that the new lady of murder will finally approve of them like bhaal used to, and the good followers have been thwarting their efforts and getting in their way, arguing that radri said quite explicitly that she did Not want murder/torture sacrifices anymore. jaheira xan & daelas are discovered in their investigation, and are captured and tossed in a cage; soon after, a huge fight breaks out between the two sides outside.

suddenly, the sounds of fighting stop, and what sounds like some sort of divine voice speaks out with reverb, but it's so muffled by the time it reaches the cages that they can't really make out what's being said. moments later, radri walks into the room & unlocks the cage. after a hasty explanation (radri says things have been resolved for now, and while there's ultimately more work to do, the original quest is over) they leave the place--through a back door, so the party doesn't get to see exactly what took place at the site of the main fight. as they leave, xan is just staring at radri trying to reconcile the radri he knows with the "lady of murder" who had triumphed in the chaos those several years ago. radri can feel his eyes on her, and knows that xan knows the truth now

later, radri & xan find themselves in a moment alone, and radri apologizes for her reaction and for leaving, and apologizes that the reason for the whole quest was because she couldn't keep her own mess in check, and she just let it spiral out of control. she promises that from now on, he won't have to see her again, and tries to say her goodbyes--but xan stops her. he finishes what he was trying to say the last time they spoke--that even if what she believes is true, that her presence ruins everything and dooms her companions and she should just leave everyone alone, don't her companions have a say in that, too? they chose to follow her. they clearly see something in her that's worth braving death and ruin for. and with that love, they wouldn't want her to disappear "for their sake"--they'd want her to stay. radri stares at him, taking in that he's saying this despite knowing exactly who she is, and starts crying

they hug, and as xan holds her he's like, of course this extends to me too, i want to see you again, i… i care for you… as much as a mortal can possibly claim he knows a goddess well enough to hold such feelings for her. and radri just assumes that xan means, like, platonically, and she's already emotional and relieved and lightheaded, and she's like, sure, i'll drop by, i just… have to get my feelings back in check first because i still haven't gotten over my huge crush on you and now you've just told me something with a huge impact on my mindset of the last several years so i've kind of been knocked back to square one. but i'll get there. and xan's like, ….you had a what? and radri's like, yeah, you know that gift you threw away, that was mine, and so were all those other random spell scrolls that turned up in your pack, and that dangerous pass being so uneventful was my doing too, oh and this is so embarrassing but i even tried to see if corel--uh, xan? (xan is frozen, flashing back through all the evidence of radri's affection, now realizing it for what it was)

although xan's mind is racing, radri's emotionally exhausted and they turn in for the night. when radri wakes, xan presents her with a crown of flowers, and uses them to admit that he was always thinking of her when he gathered them before. he tells her that in one of his earliest missions, he was sent to investigate the iron shortage and was captured in the mines--he only escaped because a commotion distracted mulahey & the kobolds long enough for him to retrieve his moonblade and flee. that very commotion was due to her arrival, and he's been thinking about what would have happened if he'd met her then, if he'd joined her in her travels, if they'd been mortal together. radri wears a sad smile like, so it's impossible now, because i'm a goddess…? and xan's like, that would be the wise thing to say. but… i already lost one chance to know you, and nearly lost another. as foolish as this might make me, i want to love you now, if you'll have me.

(after all this, radri finally visits imoen for real, and the world doesn't end. imoen doesn't hate her; in fact, imoen hits her playfully on the arm and asks her what took so long.)

[belleandsaintsebastian]

have you had your awkward conversation in the elevator of the day yet ??? if not go have your awkward conversation in the elevator and hold my hand xx

[cruciallifechangingskills]

Crucial Conversations are those that matter most: They're the ones that challenge us, change us, and define us. BYLD Group offers Crucial Conversations training that can help you develop the skills you need to have productive and successful conversations, even when the stakes are high.

[dykexenomorph]

fuck spring tornado season!!!!

[fangedprinx]

Mutuals aand mutuals in spirit (you know who you are), I am wandering into your garden and eating flowerpetals directly from your roses 🌹🐐

[hoodienanami]

since were living in this new age of understanding when it comes to how becoming famous (especially tabloid famous/infamous) at a young age negatively effects your mental health and psychological development i think its time that ppl start reevaluating how they talk about the sex pistols

[toastsnaffler]

ykw actually I am angry + disappointed w them. I've been pushing how I feel aside and trying to make it my own fault so it's all contained but I think theyve just been mean. and they really should know me better ik I try to pretend I don't expect more from them so I feel less hurt when they do things that upset me but we've been friends for years by this point. like come on.