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bearseokie · 4 years

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Working Other Occupations 2 | GOT7

got7 m.list | navi.

Mark: Professional Skateboarder;

learned how to skateboard young, went to parks and gained attention fast

didn't get into competitions until he graduated high school

won his local competition and got signed within a year

all of the kids look up to him, and he helps give them lessons when he has free time

is the quietest in his skate group, but is also a firecracker with jokes

formed a competition that was sponsored, one of the kids he taught won and they were able to donate the money to a charity

used his competition money to open up a skate shop, gifting jobs to some local kids and helping start more skate groups around town

got branded his own line of skateboards

restaurants offer him and the kids free food because of how much he's helped support his community

oversized clothes. baggy jeans he almost trips over. huge sweatshirts. hightops that are tied under the flap instead of out because that's "safer"

dyes strips of colors into his hair instead of dying his entire head

"snapbacks are helmets!"

forces the kids to wear gear and tries to wear it too so they don't get upset he isn't listening to his own rules

always had the coolest art on the bottom of his boards, with bright wheels and reflectors for night rides

gets frustrated easily, but doesn't like breaking boards

got a friend to weld him a beam to grind on, which he later gifted to his students to use to practice

clean rap songs around the kids, og rap songs when it's the older skateboarders

everyone thinks he's cool and sweet

drinks Gatorade and water like crazy

giggles

Jaebeom: Detective;

takes his job Very seriously

people's lives are usually on the line, so he stays focused

yells at interns and then buys them food

everyone in forensics adores him

has so many connections, barely anything ever gets past him

takes very neat notes in his little notebook.

suit + tie every day

hates when he gets cases that involve kids, always tries to care for them best he can and get them somewhere safe

loves stakeouts because he gets to space out until he sees something

thinks driving fast in his car is the hottest thing he gets to do during the job

is always the bad guy during interrogations, jaw clenched and stern stares as he attempts to get answers

always breaks them

drinks more coffee than a human being should

breakfast + lunch + dinner at diners

got put into one of the biggest cases in his bureau's history

a man had gotten away with murder and managed to escape. after lots of sleepless nights and research, jaebeom found him hiding in a motel holding evidence that made him guilty. he was arrested along with two other men that played a part in the murder

jaebeom was labeled a hero, but he explained he was just doing his job

his mean demeanor lifts when he is off duty, always smiling

people are convinced he's two seperate people

hates when he has time off work because he loves his job so much

Jackson: Firefighter;

the main muscle of the group

always gets called to save kittens out of trees

thinks the uniform doesn't show off his muscles enough

is the best at calming people down / distracting them during a fire in order to get them out safely

smashes through a window at least once a week

his firehouse is his family

gets handed a kid even if the person isn't involved in the fire / emergency

hates driving the truck because it's too big for him to control and he doesn't want to endanger anyone

befriended the house's canine and always sneaks it treats

goes into a fire first

puts his gear on others even though he's not supposed to

loves when his house gets to invite local schools for career days, always gives out snacks and smiles when he gets the help the kids slide down the poles

is always in the firehouse's gym

has such a disorganized locker that every time he opens it, a pile of stuff falls on him

walks around with his helmet on because he thinks he looks like a bobble-head

the captain messes with him all the time

some of the walls in the firehouse are glass, he's busted through two on accident because he wasn't paying attention

second fastest time during practice

refuses to see himself as a hero

cries with families he saves, hugs them and doesn't let them go

Jinyoung: Professor;

always looks pissed

gives out hard assignments but half-ass grades them

can and will fail you for no reason

only talks for half of the class, the rest of the time is sat in silence as he glares over everyone doing their own thing

plays movies on Fridays instead of teaching

thinks Mondays are great test days

slams things on his desk to get student's attention

aggressively circles things in the board to make his point

no phones

all the girls flirt with him, he just sighs and gives more work until they stop

licks his fingers before he hands out papers

will kick you out of you disturb his lesson

never teaches about one subject, everything includes knowledge about other things and if you don't know it you're screwed

always gets forced to sub for other professors

will get up and leave without telling anyone class is dismissed so everyone just sits there until they can go

if you smile at him he will stare you down the rest of the class

always has his index finger and thumb clasped against his nose in frustration

gives extra long holiday breaks just because he doesn't want to show up

eats food when no one else is allowed to

button ups with tight pants and pushed back hair that makes everyone attracted to him to the point where no one can focus

Youngjae: Teaching Assistant;

is louder than the kids

best at coming up with fun learning ideas for his students

is very glad he is only an assistant

wears jeans and dark shirts because the kids are messy

sings every day

helps with choir

works with all grades because he believes every kid is different and he wants to experience them all before he becomes an official teacher

makes the best snacks

loves going to older grades and giving them easy work so they can actually have a break

everyone loves him

loves putting random things on the white boards, drawings, quotes, morse code so no one understands what he's saying

eavesdrops on the teachers drama, but isn't included in the gossip circle directly

loves physical activities with the students because he thinks it helps them learn better

tries to end lessons early so they can play games

always has to help students with homework the main teacher assigned

all of the students agree he would make a better teacher than their own

never has to discipline anyone because everyone respects him and enjoys his teaching tactics

will argue against a teacher if the teacher tells a student they aren't allowed a bathroom break, will let the student go anyways

gets sad when he has to fill out nurse passes

hands out stickers

BamBam: Animator;

used to not draw as often as he does for his job

now can't go a day without drawing something

has the smoothest animations for talking characters

started animating for fun, got to do it as a full time job

does all of his work alone, and though it's a process, he loves it

won an award for his details in backgrounds

created a short film

spends most of his days in baggy clothing, hunched over his graphics tablet

everything he owns has some type of drawing / sketch on it

was able to start up his own animation company

takes long breaks to gain inspiration

screams a lot because he wants everything to be perfect, no matter how long it takes

is less stressed when he has his team to help

chews a lot of gum while working

got lines of plushies for his drawn characters, collects all of them for his office

was able to write his own tutorial book on how to start animating, the profits from it was donated to animation programs in schools around the country

chugs water

hates animating series, prefers movies with solid plots

isn't confident in his animating abilities, can't handle praise

bites his tongue when he draws

Yugyeom: Paramedic;

didn't think he'd do well as a paramedic because he's squeamish, but he really enjoys it

passed out the first time he had to draw blood, concerned the patient

fastest runner

can get in and out of his uniform in less than ten seconds, he knows because he timed it

wishes he was the driver of the ambulance so he could go over the speed limit and not get a ticket

quickest to help someone that's choking, performs a perfect Heimlich or tracheotomy every time

hates that he has to leave the patients with other doctors when they arrive at the hospital

will put himself in danger if it means saving someone

thinks medical gloves are sexy

talks about extra terrestrial theories when they are in the back of the ambulance without a patient

fibbed to a patient that he went to Harvard, they found out he didn't and sent him flowers thanking him for getting their mind off their wound, even if he did lie

always gifts kids teddy bears for their bravery

is friends with all of the first responders so he knows who's who during an emergency

craziest patient he had to save was inside of an elevator, he had to walk them through a procedure to save their arm after it was cut open. even he couldn't believe he managed that

is always around the ambulance even when he's off duty, just in case

works out while studying

has fruit around him at all times, offers them to others constantly

witty toward his coworkers, soft with his patients

keeps a tab on the people he helped just so he can ask the hospital how they are

make his own gift baskets

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docholligay · 6 years

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She is a Diamond

A release from the Patreon vaults! @madegeeky was given a fic gift for New Year's from a very fine sponsor (Whose name I gave to geeky privately in case she didn't want to be revealed) and this was her prompt to me:

“And you, my glittering girl, are a diamond. Stone cannot love flesh. It can only bruise and break it." ---apparently a line form both me and Carmilla teaming up, as Jet pointed out.

Anyway, 2000 words, I hope you enjoy!

Michiru did not think herself sulky, in the least, and any sulkiness she might have had as a child had been taken out of her through good manners and etiquette and the gleaming veneer of perfection she was forced to put over everything, a white coat of paint covering every chip and crack and mural that might be there, leaving only a plain perfect base of elegant nothingness.

All that being true, there was a certain kind of low hurt and anger that settled in her whenever Haruka was treated cruelly by her family, and if they were so uncharitable as to call it sulkiness, she was plenty happy to take up that particular mantle.

She’d left, tonight. She didn’t always. No, sometimes, she stayed through the assault, sometimes she would nibble on crostini as Michiru’s mother and father and siblings all fenced with the subjects of her education, her class, her occupation.

Oh, they have a problem with you being a lesbian? People asked, guessing at what the problem might be, and oh, if it were only that banal. They had a half dozen young women to line her up with, all of the appropriate breeding and the appropriate emptiness, vases to be filled with the flower of the seasons.

The party had ended, and Michiru pretended to be very interested in one of the lilies perched in a cold crystal vase, waiting for leave to be given, to return to her home with Haruka, that penthouse her parents threatened to take away whenever she displeased them, the trust fund and the cars and the very life that offered the only thing she truly had to give Haruka: A promise that she would never again know hunger, that she would wear new clothes.

“Michiru, my dear.” Her mother’s voice was firm and flowing and in French, a woman proud of the sense of the exotic she brought to the Kaiohs, the daughter of a fine textiles merchant who had raised her children in Japan and on the continent and never allowed them to belong to either.

“Yes?” She did not look up, simply pretended to be re-arranging the flower, the way she had been taught in her finishing lessons.

“I trust you will have a cordial with us in the salon. To close out the evening. I daresay the party was a rousing success.”

“Oh, I don’t know, mother,” She gave a weak smile, “I’m feeling rather tired, and must beg off to retire.”

Her mother returned the calculated smile. “Please don’t think me simple, Michiru. You’ve been sulking since that girl took her leave.”

“Her name is Haruka.” She crossed her arms. “We have been together for better than a year, and at some point you and father will need to simply accept that. This...casual cruelty, and whatever amusement you derive from it, will have to cease, unless your wish is to make every party ever after a testament to awkwardness.”

Her mother took a took a hydrangea and arranged it next Michiru’s lily. “My dear girl, I know you are of a certain age, and rebellion is a very tempting affair at this time in your life, but it can only bring ruin.”

“It would not bring ruin, if you and father were not so given to unkindness.”

“Perhaps you are unkind in your own way, Michiru,” Her mother looked at her, “To bring her into this world. To bring her to you.”

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

“Haruka is, I assume, a good girl. She probably watches baseball, and drinks beer with her friends, and reads car magazines and all such manner of things. I’m sure she is very sweet, and I have seen the way she looks at you. She does adore you.”

“But you, my glittering girl, are not like them. You have never been like them and you will never be like them. They are lovely, average, people. You, Michiru, are a diamond. You are a crown jewel, unique and talented and poised and cut and shined into such finery. You know this to be true, you are no great fool. You have known this all of your life.”

Michiru looked down at the wood of the table, suddenly interested in the way the grain flowed across the table.

“A stone cannot love flesh, Michiru. It can only bruise and break it.” She gave a chuckle. “Can you really not see that is all you shall do with her, in the end?” She shook her head. “You act as if you are the first woman of breeding on earth to fall in love below your station. It’s a cliche, Michiru.You would do well to note how those stories end.”

Michiru was not unaccustomed to trading barbs with her mother. Too much alike, maybe, her father had once opined, and the thought of it, and that terrifying shiver in the back of her mind that it might be true, haunted her still. Early on in life, she had discovered she was hardly going to fit in, and so she may as well lean into it, and while her brother Ryuji had tried to prove himself to be the most Japanese boy who ever lived, and simply tolerated his fencing lessons, Michiru had sighed through her tea ceremony lessons and asked to take traditional sommelier technique as a reward.

Maybe it was that Ryuji had been so good at being perfectly Japanese, and she hated him.

Maybe it was that she was so good at being perfectly French, and he hated that.

Maybe it was that no one in either place would ever let them be both. God knows Naoko had tried, that sad middle sister who simply managed to make a pig’s ear of both cultures.

In any case, Michiru thought, very often the whys of how our lives turned out were irrelevant to the reality of them. She was a strange diamond in this land, who knew now that she could not leave it for Paris as she’d planned when she came of age, who was trapped here by her duty and now foisted upon the country as a whole.

The Hope Diamond was French once too, wasn’t it? Beautiful and glittering and cursed, only fit to sit in a museum and never be owned by flesh.

“Michiru,” Her mother called her out of the docent’s tour of her childhood, “I tell you this from my own experience, you know that, yes?”

She had not, and yet it seemed foolish that she had not considered it. The tiny voice, the one in the back of her head that said she was just like her mother, laughed and whispered its terrible prophecy, the one that saw her marrying a fine girl and living in a penthouse so much like this one, the one that saw Haruka marrying a girl like her, a perfect blue collar wife who would laugh with her coworkers in dark bars over beer and snacks.

The one that said her mother was right all along.

“In any case, if you were seeking my leave, you have it,” She nodded at Michiru, “I will tell the others you’re a bit tired. But think on what I have said Michiru. However long you intend to toy with the simple girl, a fish cannnot fly with a bird, however it tries. She will never be like you.”

“Goodnight, Mother.” Michiru walked to the entryway, on autopilot as one of her servants helped her into her coat and called down for the car to take her home, whatever home was, just a place where she lived with the girl they all felt temporary.

It did not matter if she was in herself or not, as she was driven. Driven. Taken. She was a passenger in her own life, under glass, and maybe it was true what Mina had said of her, that she had never known what pain was, really, in her life, and so she’d never understand Haruka, not ever, and all the bringing Haruka bags of groceries and buying her clothes would never change that, it’d just make it more obvious to Haruka that Michiru didn’t know what it was like not to have those things.

It had been said in anger, but that didn’t make it untrue.

The car came to a stop in front of the fine apartment building with her fine apartment where the girl she was destined to destroy lived full time now, no longer carting a bag back and forth between Michiru’s upscale palace and the tiny place she shared with a mother that never noticed if she was there or not.

Parents that noticed every movement, and parents that noticed nothing at all, and the both of them feeling all the more unloved for it. What a pair.

Michiru paused outside the apartment building, the drizzle on her skin shining with the light of the streetlights, forcing that diamond sparkle to come alive, the glitter in that cold and painful way and show every facet of what she was.

The driver was still waiting, and she stepped inside the lobby.

“Good evening, Miss Kaioh.” A recorded response by those of the flesh, those who would never know what it was to be carved, a block with all that was not wanted stripped away to make you into a beautiful thing, cold and perfect.

She nodded, the only thing she could think to do. That had been carved, too, and she blended into the marble of the lobby as she walked through it, the pale of her skin becoming marked by the grey straitions of beautiful, perfect stone. As she stepped into the elevator and nodded to the attendant, the one whose name Haruka knew but Michiru realized she did not remember, she felt her hair intertwine with the wrought brass of the elevator door, following its curves and whorls perfectly, elegant and cold.

She touched the cool metal of the doorknob to her home, all a part of her, her purse hung on the wrought iron rack, which smiled beneath her hand, the travertine beneath her feet bending to its sister. The silk of her nightgown cushioned the gem of her body, keeping it from the slightest smudge or fingerprint, never a thing to be touched.

The bedroom door was still open a crack, the light peering into it, just a beam through the darkness.

Haruka lay asleep on the bed, the rain beading on the window, those same treacherous streetlights covering her body with a thousand tiny bruises in perfect circles. Glittering and bruised, two of a pair, but not two of a kind.

She sat down on the bed next to her, the plush of it cushioning each facet. Haruka rolled over and mumbled sleepily, her hand resting on Michiru’s knee, the warmth of it running through Michiru like Celopatra’s snakebite, a poison desperately desired.

Could her mother ever know what they had been through together? The fear, and then the love, and then Michiru, oh she had already broken Haruka to save her, and she touched the raised scar on her chest as she thought of it, that one way in which they were, in fact, matched.

Her mother had given her the number of a plastic surgeon. She had tossed it away. There was something, something, that she and Haruka would ever share.

She reached over and ran her fingers through Haruka’s hair, the boyish softness of it drawing her in, and she snuggled in next to Haruka, placing her hand in Haruka’s. There were callouses there, drawn across her palm. She was used to handling rough objects, wasn’t she?

Haruka sighed against her and pulled her closer. “I love you.”

Michiru touched the soft flesh of her cheek. Even the Velveteen Rabbit became real, once loved enough. So who was to say it was not beyond her, under the strength of Haruka’s belief.

Perhaps a fish could not fly with a bird. But she was the sailor of the sea.

#a holligay joint #i hated thus when i wrote it but now i rather like it

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nfl2sevensummits · 4 years

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Benjamin Alexander: From being an international DJ to trying to make the Jamaica Olympic Ski Team. What are the odds?

182: Benjamin Alexander: Soon-to-be Olympic Alpine Skier representing Jamaica and former International DJ discusses his journey from being a financial analyst to traveling all over the world as a DJ and his current pursuit to represent Jamaica in the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Benjamin Alexader

What is Benjamin Alexander’s connection to the Jamaican Olympic team? “I’m half English, half Jamaican. My father was born on the south side of the island. that’s actually why this whole thing came about. The funny thing is, as a mixed-race person, half-white and half-black, whenever you’re in a group of white people, you’re the black guy; when you’re in a group of black people, you’re the white guy. So, skiing is obviously a very very white pursuit, so that means I am the token black guy in any group of friends when we’re skiing. I’m also Jamaican, so then there’s also this movie Cool Runnings about the Jamaican bobsled team in 1988. Everyone knows this movie so there’s people always talking about Cool Runnings and Jamaican on ice. So, honestly, this whole thing just started off as a joke.”

On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Benjamin Alexander, Expert Alpine Skiier and former international DJ. “Sometimes failing is not a failure. Sometimes failing is a pivot into something that 10 years from now you look back and realize that maybe that was the better thing that you didn’t even think about because you were so focused on the first goal I don’t think there’s anything more positive than a human that is on a mission that they’re really really pumped up and jazzed up about. When you have this thing in life that is a burning passion, it creates a better version of you.”

What You Will Learn:

Benjamin Alexander dives into his love for electronic dance music and how that took him all over the world. “So, I actually started DJing 20 years ago...before YouTube. I had come across this genre of music, this underground form of electronic dance music that was really only available in nightclubs, at raves, or illegal pirate radio stations in London. Because I wasn’t of legal age, so I couldn’t get into the night clubs or the raves, the only way for me to really recreate that experience was to buy turntables and just go out there and buy the records myself and recreate it in my bedroom. This week, actually, is the 20-year anniversary of one of the first mixtapes that I put out. It just started as a hobby. My interest in it just kind of came and went. It wasn’t until I moved to Asia that I started to collect the music that was super popular at that moment.”

How did Benjamin take his basement hobby and turn it into a career? “I really enjoyed performing for people. Something that I would do casually at afterparties then turned into a bit more of a serious hobby. I was invited to play at the best nightclub in Hong Kong called Club Voila. It got to the point in early 2010 where I was working 50 hours a week in the industry of finance and wealth management, and working 5 or 6 hours a week across 2 or 3 gigs in Hong Kong and Macau, and making enough money from the djing alone to scrape by but having far more fun with the djing than the suit and tie 9 to 5. I decided to take the leap of faith in just going full-time with the creative pursuit and I just wanted to see what happened. My eyes were opened to this event called Burning man and from then everything exploded and I before I knew it I was playing all over the world. I was living in Ibiza for my summers and by the time I retired from djing at the end of 2018, I had the opportunity to perform in almost 35 countries.”

Where did Benjamin’s creative bug find him? Or did he find the bug? “Definitely was the class clown. Definitely the trouble maker. I never thought of being a performer of any sort. When I started to collect records, I really did it out of necessity. The energy that I was listening to out of these cassette tapes that were being recorded from pirate radio was like nothing else id experienced. The only way that I could get access to this thing that had this allure, this energy that I hadn’t experienced anywhere else was really just to recreate it myself. I’m an engineer by trade and I just kind of approach these problems by brute force. After a while, you find yourself in a place where without even realizing it, you’re better than 95% of everyone else that’s doing it. You weren’t doing it with the anticipation or the expectation or the desire to be doing it on stage. You were doing it because you just loved the trade and after a while, you were just so much better than everyone else that you naturally just have to follow this through.”

When did the light go off that inspired Benjamin’s goal of getting to the Olympics in 2022? “In 2018, I went to the Olympics in South Korea as an attendee and I noticed that there were only 3 Jamaicans representing the entire country and I was kind of taken by surprise by that fact. We put the Cool Runnings movie on and a lightbulb kind of went off. If there’s only 3 athletes representing the country of Jamaica, maybe I can be plus one when we get around to the Olympics.”

What is Benjamin trying to show people about skiing and achieving their dreams in general? “The story that I’m’ trying to tell here is not only that minorities can do well in winter sports, it’s also that you can do really well even if you pick up something as athletic as skiing later on in your life. But it’s also trying to tell that skiing doesn’t have to be expensive. How many pieces of sporting equipment sit idle in a garage. If you are unafraid to just ask the people around you for help, for gear, it’s incredible. I looked at a photo of all of the things I was wearing in July and every single piece of clothing that I was wearing was a gift, a hand-me-down, or something that I was sponsored. So there are ways to make this thing inexpensive?”

Heli-Ski Trip

Where did Benjamin find the inspiration to not only get into skiing but skiing at an elite level? “So, at the end of 2015, I was invited to a heli-ski trip. I had never skied before. Without embellishing the lavishness and how amazing this thing was, on one of the days, the housecats as they called us, the 8 of us that were not skiing, had the opportunity to jump into a helicopter and join the skiers on top of the hill for lunch. I got up there, and I was just blown away by the scenery by the beauty, by the remoteness of being the only people for tens of miles if not further. Then at the end of lunch, just watching all of my skiing friends hop on their skies and just disappear down the side of the mountain. It just blew my mind. From that moment, there and then I set the intention that I would not return to that place without joining the skiing contention.”

Qualifying for The Olympics

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, Benjamin Alexander discusses his improbably rise from a 12-year-old in his room, to an international DJ, to his current pursuit to make the 2022 Olympics as a Jamaican Alpine skier. “How can it be possible that someone who just started skiing in 2016, especially someone who started skiing later in life, that he believes within 5 years he’ll be able to qualify for the Olympics? The spirit of the Olympics is that you have as many nationalities represented in as many disciplines as possible. What the Olympics does to make that possible is every nation has the ability to put forward 1 b-standard athlete. What that basically, means is, if I can get myself to the level of a really good 16-year old ski racer, you know, the cookie-cutter ski racer started skiing at the age of 2 and started racing at the age of 7 and by 16, they’re going to be at that level if they’re good that I need to get to for me to qualify for the Olympics.”

Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com

Benjamin Alexander: Instagram | Website

Mark Pattison: Instagram

Check out this episode!

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lazuliblade · 7 years

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Victor’s High-quality Lifestyle

Simply put - yes, he could support himself with figure skating, although not purely by competing. The majority of his earnings would come from sponsorships, endorsements, ice shows, contracts, and royalties.

Victor is definitely the highest paid skater of his time. Besides the big sponsorships that can cover a portion of costs, he’ll have magazine shoots and interviews, be invited to ice shows, and have endorsements in various fields (such as sportswear, jewelry, and food).

Training Cost

This post does a great job of explaining the cost to compete, and mentions how skaters need some way to support themselves - whether that be ice shows, a job, or a bit of funding from skating federations in certain countries. It’s not just coaching fees and equipment (boots and blades), but ice time, travel costs, choreography fees (although Victor does his own choreo), music composition fees, costumes, physical therapy, consulting a nutritionist, dance instruction, day-to-day expenses....

It’s only the very top athletes or the very promising ones that companies are interested in sponsoring. For those top athletes in countries that care for figure skating, they'll likely get good contracts at some point.

Lucrative sponsorships help to cover a chunk of training and travel costs. ANA covers Yuzu’s travel costs, is his biggest sponsor, and is listed as his skating club. Mizuno and Lotte are also large sponsors -- you’ll see him wearing Mizuno’s athletic clothing and sporting Lotte’s logo on his official Japan jacket. Amino Vital is the sports drink you see Yuzu with at the boards.

I'm not exactly sure how the Russian federation works when it comes to letting their skaters sign deals (another thing I've been attempting to hunt down with little luck) but there shouldn't be a cap to the number of sponsorships a skater can accept as long as the skater works things out between the companies and it doesn’t affect their skating. I don’t follow any Russian skaters super closely and wasn’t around in the days when Plushenko and Yagudin were the stars, so if someone follows/ed their daily life, feel free to reblog and add info, or send an ask/message. I believe the JSF allows only 5 TV commercial contracts per year, but they don't have a cap on the number of magazine shoots, interviews, or endorsements.

Making Money Through Skating

Victor would be contracted for ice show tours during the off-season. He’s popular enough where he’ll receive multiple tour offers and decide: 1.which offers he’ll take, 2.if he’ll show up for just one city in the tour, or 3.simply not accept any offers for performances. He can afford to decline in order to recover from the strain of the past season and focus on training for the next one. Most skaters love doing ice shows because of the fun and fulfilling atmosphere, and for the chance to interact with fans who support them, so there’s a good chance that popular/successful skaters will perform in at least a few shows over the off-season.

To reference a few real-life skaters, when Daisuke Takahashi or Mao Asada were listed on programs for a show, stadiums would fill up and tickets would sell out FAST if there wasn’t a lottery already in place. Yuzuru will get multiple offers every summer and decide what works best with his training schedule. He loves ice shows, but knows to let his body heal and not strain it too much prior to the start of another season. Plushenko would do all sorts of ice shows during the off-season -- even to the point of ignoring his federation. There are one-time shows that appear in a city for a couple of performances, and long-standing tours that go around the country for a few weeks, so popular skaters have some flexibility here. Japan in particular is a favorite country for many skaters because of the enthusiastic, informed audience and good contracts. I have no doubt that popular tours such as Stars on Ice (Canada, U.S., Japan), Fantasy on Ice (Japan), as well as others throughout Japan, North America, and Europe would sell out with Victor’s name on the program.

With his talent, Victor might even offer his services by choreographing some younger skaters’ programs or doing some coaching for camps and classes. Misha Ge did a little of both while competing.

Of course, every time a skater wants to participate in an exhibition or other such event, it has to be approved by their country’s skating federation. However, regulations in the ISU general handbook ensure that skaters are not unduly constricted from participation and no more than 10% of their earnings are to be taken by their federation.

Examples of Earning Off-ice

To bring real examples of what a skater as popular as Victor might do for TV programs and commercial deals:

skating on an iceberg (Shizuka Arakawa),

laying down on a custom mattress, (Yuzuru Hanyu with Tokyo Nishikawa’s &Free)

skating in collaboration with a major film (Daisuke Takahashi with Studio Ghibli’s “Omoidase no Marnie”/”When Marnie was There”)

All you have to do is look at Plushenko licking lolly pops, Patrick Chan and his ice wine, and dental fairy Yuzuru to see the varied forms that endorsements can take on.

I’d imagine Victor gets asked to feature in occasional photoshoots for Russia’s equivalent of An-an or Men’s Non-no (fashion magazines targeted to the 20-30s demographic). With his striking looks, high-end brands may ask him to model their seasonal lines for a couple of magazines.

“This year’s [Tommy Hilfiger/Banana Republic/Prada] winter fashion!” model: Victor Nikiforov “Our new line of jewelry for that special someone this holiday season” model: Victor Nikiforov

In addition to advertisements, he’ll also have had interviews and articles in various magazines, and been the subject of multiple short documentaries for local TV stations. I would venture that Victor has a few photobooks, an autobiography/biography, and at least one documentary DVD of his own-- all of which bring in royalties.

“A Young Hope Blooms Forth,” “Road to the Olympics,” “Spirit of the Legend” “Platinum and Gold” ...I can come up with a dozen likely titles for programs that TV stations could have aired over the years of his career. Furthermore, it seems he’s been to the Olympics two or three times, and Olympic fever always means more interviews, offers, and special collaborations.

A Few Extra Real-life Notes

I want to point out a skater who’s known for his high-end fashion: Johnny Weir. His family was humble, he doesn’t have Victor’s legendary record of golds, and he wasn’t the highest paid skater when he was competing (that would be Plushenko, Yuna, and Mao). However, he was such an icon and the media latched on for better or worse. Where Victor has a penchant for choreography, Johnny has one for costuming and fashion. He’s a middle-of-nowhere-small-town boy who loves pretty things and grew up to be fabulous on and off the ice. It’s not like the stuff he wears is cheap, but he’s a conscientious spender. Now that he’s turned pro and does commentary for nbc, it seems he’s relatively well-off.

It was mentioned in an interview* that fans would send Johnny expensive gifts in the mail -- like Chanel handbags -- because they knew he couldn’t afford them at the time. This isn’t limited to him. Denis Ten once received dog toys for his pet, and Yuzuru has received clothing. If a skater is well-loved, the fan base might send stuff that a skater wants but can't afford to splurge on or justify buying.

(*Caution that the interview, especially the second part, has traces of homophobia.)

Many skaters are from affluent families - the sport is one of the most expensive in the world - but there are plenty of skaters who start from poorer conditions and make it to the top through a combination of support, sacrifice, hard work, and grasping at opportunities. For a more drastic example, all it takes is a look at Plushenko’s life story to see that starting out with near nothing money-wise doesn’t mean a skater can’t rise to the top.

Tying It All Together

Victor doesn’t have much of a life outside of skating and Makkachin, so after the usual costs that come with competing and daily life, he’s likely saved quite a sum over the years. Perhaps Victor only splurges when it’s worthwhile. A condo and designer furniture are purchases that last for a long time-- and the times he’ll need a good suit are infrequent enough where he would be able to keep their condition for at least a year. He might buy several coats and a collection of suits which last him years. Good clothes, good personal products, and a few good books every now-and-then for his expansive library…

One must remember that he’s been competing internationally since he was at least 13 years old, and likely starting to earn enough himself to cover most costs from the time he was winning Euros at 18. Ten more years of success, with five of those being literal golden years, and he’s at the point where he can ship half of his stuff across the world without worrying too much about his bank account. He seems in touch with economics enough to know how to spend and save money (“if only the euro was down~”), and while we see him furnishing a room at the start of his stay in Yutopia, we have little comparison for spending practices during the rest of his time in Hasetsu, have no comparison for prior years, and this year is the first he feels like he’s living. Of course he’ll go all-out to start this new and exciting chapter.

For all that YOI tells us that he’s a Living Legend and shows us the kind of media attention he receives, Victor’s lofty image is deconstructed throughout the season so we see him as a lovable person rather than an icon. Watching his personal life while focused around Yuuri’s journey means we don’t see exactly how much of the face of figure skating he is, and as a result it’s easy to forget all that it entails.

#yuri on ice #yoimeta #informational post #victor nikiforov #yoi #yuri!!! on ice #ask response #roseofenglandstuff

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sambart93 · 6 years

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Dokkaebi / Goblin: It’s Not Bad But It’s Not Good Either [A Review. An Essay]

It’s been YEARS since I did a review on a drama but this one has so much hype that I was inspired to go back down that hole again... So I started writing this review-turned-essay after only seeing 6 episodes of it; because I was already having major problems with it, and I already knew it wasn’t going to live up to the hype for me. But first a BACKSTORY!

BACKSTORY

So the reasons why I started watching this:

1. I love Gong Yoo! 2. Everyone raves about it 3. It’s so highly rated and recognised even internationally. Any fan of Korean culture or KPop or KDramas, everyone knows and has watched this damn show. 4. It kept popping up on my netflix. 5. My coworker also wanted to see it.

But also my backstory:

1. I much prefer J-Dramas over K-Dramas 2. Me and K-Dramas do not get along for the most part. I’ve dropped so many over the past 10 or so years, and only managed to completely watch 24 in total. << compared to my JDramas which is way over 200/300 (MDL).

So now that the backstory is out of the way. Let’s get into how I feel about this show, and as the title suggests: it’s good but no where near as good as what people make it out to be. But it’s also not bad either. It’s.... meh. It’s.... alright. I have already finished this drama completely but was writing this review throughout my viewing, so great a snack and be prepared.

***DISCLAIMER: Normally I wouldn’t be this analytical or this critical on a drama for the most part, but because it’s just so god damn hyped, I just had to. Don’t hype a drama up if you don’t want it to be put under a microscope and scrutinised by others, okay?

So first lets discuss the general dismay I have with this show.

****BTW I do have a positive section so if you really must, skip to ‘THE SPECS OF GOOD’ instead if you wish to avoid the negativity that gunna go down.

GENERAL DISMAY

I’ve read some reviews and talked to people about this show quite a bit and many places mentioned that this tv show revolutionised how K-Dramas were made after this one. But that puzzles me because there are SO MANY production problems with this show. Let me break some down for you...

(1) Pacing/Tone is a Mess. Oh boy, the pacing is so bad with this. The first episode was just perfect in every aspect in my opinions, but after that we just get episodes where the pacing is too slow; episodes where the pacing is crazy fast; then we get the ending of episodes which are like super high in tension and just have you on the edge of your seat, but then immediately in the next episode it’s gone back to just being a comedy and all fun and games - this dramas pacing and tone is just as, if not more, hormonal than EunDak herself! Sometimes she’s nice to him, or she’s ignoring him, or she’s badmouthing him in front of him to Reaper. Like make your fucking mind up how you’re going to pace and tone the drama - also stablise her fucking attitude. But I’ll get to that later... It feels like the pacing and script was very rushed in the beginning and so we lost what could’ve been good, juicy development between Goblin and EunDak, Goblin and Reaper. Which makes me so sad! I would’ve loved to have seen the boys have more of a hate-hate relationship for just a WHILE long before getting buddy-buddy. I feel like Reaper nicely agreeing to not kill EunDak happened too fast and out of character. Agreeing to is not my problem; the fact that he agreed NICELY. He definitely should’ve had more spite in him at that point of the episodes and story.

An example of pacing disasters: When shit went down at the end of episode 9 with Reaper and Soni -- omg I was so IN! I was hooked! But then in Episode 10, the tension completely deflated so quickly, and the pacing slowed and relaxed so quickly that the show got boring again.

And then the final 5 or so episodes are just all plot driven; There’s about 6 major plot points PER episode once we get to the final 5 or so eps. I loved the plot points and they were shocking but, what was the point of the previous 10 or so episodes? They were completely plotless and pointless! It would’ve been a much better drama if they’d spaced out all those lot points over the entire series rather than one massive rush at the end. << I’ve heard that this is very much Kim Eun Sook’s style. Shes all ‘nice scenes with characters for no reason’ instead of ‘the point and plot of of this scene is’. Even massive fans of the show agree with me that the pacing is just a mess for this show. And it really is.

(2) Editing/Scene-Arrangement is a Mess. There’s so many ROUGH cuts and poor editing in this show. It’s not smooth at all. It actually hurts my heart to see how sloppy it is sometimes. This also links into the scenes that take place. So many times I’d get half way through an episode and think ‘what the fuck was that previous scene about? What was the point of it? How does that scene help the story or plot move along? What the fuck is going on in this scene?! It feels like they’re only bothered to edit in HALF the story for this scene.’ I felt like there were major things being cut out or major jumps were being made between scenes and such. Not only is this a pacing/script problem but I feel like maybe they did film certain scenes but then cut them out completely and it felt very obvious that they had cut them out. I don’t know how to eloquently describe it but I felt like so many scenes were HALF made or HALF edited and put into the story. The whole point of putting a scene in is so it adds to the story, to the plot or to the characters, and scenes within themselves should have a start-middle-finish, but so many times it felt like this tv show showing us just the Middle-Part of a scene; we weren’t being given a whole point, a whole story in that scene. So I was left many times thinking ‘why did they bother putting this scene in? what’s the point of it?’ Just because it was a nice scene? Just because it had their sponsors product in it? Why were so many scenes in this IN IT where they added nothing and didn’t even feel like a whole scene to begin with?! Ughhh...

☆The last twelve minutes of Episode 7 perfectly shows the disaster that is pacing and editing.

☆The beginning of episode 8 perfectly illustrates the mess that is editing continuity.

☆The ending to Episode 9 and the first part of Episode 10 is perfectly showing the mess that is the tone of the show.

(3) The Product Placement is terrible. It’s glaring obviously, it’s so cringely done and it really feels like they spent MORE time trying to fix the products in place so their logo could be perfectly seen, rather than what the fuck their actors were doing and what the script said. It’s actually disgusting; I am actually disgusted in how much effort was put into product placement in this show rather than the actual story or the actor.

☆A good example: in End of Episode 7 / Beginning of Episode 8 we our two main characters wearing the EXACT SAME SWEATER. She is supposed to be a poor 19-year-old high schooler, how the fuck can she afford the same sweater as him?! We haven’t seen him getting her any clothing; only those gifts before he was supposed to die, giving her breakfast, and the bedroom decorating. There are no implications that he’s also buying her clothes -- or are we just to assume that he’s buying and providing fucking everything for her? <<< again, if they’d spend more time on the fucking script(!)...

☆Another example is that fucking BAMBOO PANDA towel. So many scenes with this fucking towel that it’s ANNOYING! So there’s one scene where Gong Yoo has clearly gotten out of the shower and the towel is just flat over his head, but the logo is glaringly front and center in the shot! Then he ruffles his hair with it and pulls the towel around his neck -- which for a normal person means the logo is hidden cos it’d been scrunched up -- but immediately we get a slightly farther shot of him and magically that logo is lying perfectly flat on his shoulder/chest and again front and center of the shot!

I swear to fucking god they spent MORE time arranging the logos and products in place in every damn shot rather than ANYTHING else on this show. It just makes me feel bad for the actors. I can just imagine ‘Yes great shot, great acting Gong, but the logo was off camera slightly, so let us rearrange it and we’ll take that shot one more time, and don’t touch your towel this time.’ you KNOW this fucking went down and it just hurts to think it did!

Other reviews and critiques on this show had put emphasis on the product placement being a problem. As well as:

(4) The Cinderella Syndrome: I don’t have AS much of a problem with this as other people do. But I do think it should be addressed, especially when it comes to how I feel about Goblin and EunDak’s relationship. But first, let’s think back to episode 1/2 when EunDak was essentially on her own; she went to school, did her homework, she got up, cooked breakfast; she was very capable of looking after herself. Jump about 6/7 episodes; she no longer cooks, she BARELY offers to clean the dishes even when BOTH of them (Goblin and Reaper) are giving their meals to her. And when was the last time we saw her study or even go to school? When was the last time she cared about anything else than her ‘romantic life’? << I don’t know about other people, but I remember when I was about 16/17, and I knew I really wanted to go to university so I made the conscious decision of ‘it’s going to distract me from my studies so I just ain’t gunna do it’ which is why I decided to stop working part-time, and to stop dating for almost the rest of my education from that point on. But seems like I was a lot more mature and future thinking than EunDak... because she just doesn’t seem to be showing any passion in her studies, she doesn’t seem to really want to study anything - we’ve seen her mention wanting to be a Radio Director all of TWICE in the first 10 episodes. TWICE. That is a girl that doesn’t really care about continuing her education at all. Again, could just be the script and the directors fault because this IS supposed to be a ‘romance’ drama, but I just think it’s so degrading and gives the wrong idea if we see Romance being the main or entirety of a young girl’s life. ANYWAY going back to the main point: in the beginning we’re clearly show how independent and resilient she is at the beginning, but at the drop of the hat she no longer does anything for herself or for others. She very quickly became selfish and self-centered the moment she moved into his house! It looks like all she cares about now is him and the gifts he gives her. Also remember that scene they first went to Subway after the movie, and she’s like ‘oh sorry, I can’t afford to buy one’ WHERE THE FUCK DID YOUR MONEY GO?! As far as I’m aware: you were getting a wage from the chicken shop; school fees are either paid annually or by semester so a payment wasn’t due around this time; you don’t have to pay for any rent or food at home: SO WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR MONEY?! Also, you’re fucking 18/19 years old! How about your open your fucking hand and paying for HIM for once?! Ughhhh... Seriously, her attitude SUCKS. As mentioned above; she’s ALL OVER the place and she’s really not all that nice to Goblin at all. She’s over 18 years old yet she’s acting like someone who’s 13 and just hit puberty for the first time. JESUS. Get your shit together.

But this links into my next comment which is:

(5) That’s NOT a Romantic Relationship; That’s a Father/Daughter relationship. I don’t care if you disagree; you are wrong (jokes though, you can believe what you will).

It’s weird seeing it or having it anything other than a father / daughter relationship. Examples: He paid for her hospital, he gave her a place to stay, he redecorated her room, he paid for her university fees, he gives her presents for things like passing exams, he pats her on the head. THAT IS A PARENT! That is a parental role! That is not a romantic love interest! The most he’s ever said about her is ‘you’re cute’, he’s never shown any other physical or actual attraction towards her. And her? She never states what she likes in him and when she does, it’s only about his appearance. It’s just an infatuation and schoolgirl crush that she has on him. Nothing more. On top of that, she shows no fucking remorse or appreciation for the fact he AND Reaper are giving her a home, a family, a place to sleep, food, an education etc. Neither of them have ANY grounds to romantically like each other AT ALL.

This drama would have been more mind-blowing, much more meaningful, would’ve had a much better message if it had been a father-daughter-you-don’t-have-to-be-related-by-blood relationship. It would have been much more amazing if: by taking care of her, giving her a safe home, giving her a family, giving her a parent regardless of being non-blood related, and then in return she could see the sword and give him his eternal peace, would have been so much more heart-filling, so much more heart-wrenching, so much more meaningful, so much more moving! I totally would’ve been down for a Lost Adopted Lamb story line SO MUCH MORE than this messed up, groundless, pretty pedophilic feeling romance. Tell me I’m wrong, I dare you.

Which also leads onto:

(6) The lack of chemistry between the two MCs is just atrocious. I didn’t feel any connection, any natural flow between their movements, nothing that told me these two actors have any chemistry, which made the characters seem even more unnatural and awkward and icky to watch. I still feel like we had this HUGE lack of character and relationship development between those two too! It really does feel like a father / daughter relationship than a romantic one. Seeing them kiss is just ‘ew’.

And speaking of relationships:

(7) Reaper and Soni’s relationship is very Childish. It’s 1 dimensional for a long time. I understand that: because they know each other from a past life they don’t need that much substance for a connection BUT(!), I feel like for a GOOD chunk of Reaper and Soni’s relationship, they were only interested in each other because of their looks. Of course, slowly Reaper’s dorkiness and the fact he was clearly trying to answer her properly and trying to make an effort came through, but in the beginning, it felt like he only liked her because of her looks and vice-versa. We the audience were shown how amazing she is personality wise, and yes he did fall for her more when he was invisibly stalking her (because that’s what it is: stalking. It’s creepy, it’s in no way romantic), but I don’t think that's enough to validate their ‘adult’ romance. And when Soni did try to make it more ‘adult’ and he couldn’t do it, he rejected her, which led to them breaking up - which makes complete sense and she’s in the right. And definitely ignore the whole ‘oh they’re meant to be together because of fate and their past-lives’ bullshit. A good chunk at the beginning of their relationship was that they’re only interested because both of them are good looking, and it’s only til a while later that they are exposed to each other’s personality. That’s not an adult romantic relationship in my opinion. But you can totally disagree.

And don’t get me wrong I fucking LOVE them as a couple. I ship them SO HARD (minus in their next life because they fucking suck in that final episode life!). And I love their chemistry and their scenes together and seeing Reaper all mushy for her and trying so hard is just so fucking adorable!! I DO LOVE IT! But you gotta admit; there wasn’t substance actually between them for a long time.

Similarly:

(8) The Dramatics and The Illogics. I’m so not here for it. I lost my absolute shit during the massive car crash that Goblin caused and the stupid Snowboarding incident.

Seriously, in Episode 9: you knew that the snowboards were going to fall down in dramatic fashion, causing the shelf and skates to fall onto her -__- but it was WAY OVER dramatic, she could’ve moved in time but ‘for drama’ her reactions were way to slow. Also the fact that after that scene, the shelter was completely closed without anyone ever going back in after that guy left! You’d notice the shelves had fallen down, you would’ve noticed! It was barely mid-day when she handed in the snowboard and the accident happened. You’re telling me; managers and such at a ski resort don’t do one last look around before closing shit for the day?! BULLSHIT!! But it’s a ‘k-drama’ so apparently logic and common sense is supposed to be ignored.

They were SO over the top, so dramatic, so illogical, so unrealistic, so ridiculous, that it made me angry. They were absolutely bonkers! How is that a well written script?! I understand ‘but it’s a show! It’s a romance! Suspend your disbelief! Just enjoy it!’ but like, these incidents were FAR TOO out of the way (in what should’ve been a normal realistic world minus two extra types of creatures) for me to “just enjoy”. They were absolutely ridiculous and just hurt my brain rather than be enjoyable. It’s just too over the top for my liking. It can have it’s charm - especially if it’s a rom-com tv show - but for this one, it’s just... ridiculous. Too much.

(9) The Biastry in the Fandom; and this ain’t the fandom’s fault at all! But I just noticed, while talking to others who had seen the show: only those who have seen the show, are the ONLY ONEs who have seen the show. It seems like those that hated the show, never even got past episode 3, and dropped it completely. So that HEAVILY explains why the only reviews I see for this show are ridiculously positive all the time/ Because those that didn’t like it, didn’t like it straight away and gave up completely. I think I’m one of the few people who doesn’t/didn’t necessarily like it but stuck through it. And it DOES have it’s good moments; it does. But they’re so few and far.

(10) Not all characters were given justice. This is just a personal preference of mine but I wish Doek Hwa had had more screen time and development. I loved his character from day one; he was a sassy child and then when he grew up, he was spoilt but was also very loving towards people and very open and tried to help when he could. He’s a sweetie. But he literally has the smallest fucking role for 11 episodes -- I don’t think he even featured in over half of them(!) -- yet we get to episode 12 and all of a sudden we have this massive switch up, plot twist with him and suddenly he’s become all super important and has been possessed by a god this whole time(?!) -- oh please fuck off! Give him the appropriate and proper screen time, AND the character development he deserves before doing that god bullshit on me! He deserved better than this! If he was going to be this major plot point or major important character, give him some more screen time from the start! Give him more development rather than every other line we hear from him is ‘where’s my credit card?’. Seriously, what the fuck script writers?! I know some people have tried to defend his lack of screen time as ‘oh but he’s in a boyband and he was touring at the time’ then don’t fucking hire THAT actor then! Give me someone who’s going to fucking be there. NO EXCUSE! GIVE US THE DOEK HWA WE DESERVE!!

Another person is Grandpa Yoo; around episode 9 we’re left with a scene of him in the hairdressers and it’s HEAVILY implied that he is going to die soon, and Goblin realises that day at his house too. But then he doesn’t show up again! It’s all explained by the characters and it’s all off screen and not shown at all when he dies 2 episodes later! What the fuck is that all about?! Don’t introduce a sudden ‘ooohhh things aren’t looking good for him’ type vibe and then completely ignore this plot line for episodes, AND THEN when you come back around to it, don’t have him die off screen! It would’ve been better if he’d died there and then in that last scene we got of him! Address it straight away motherfuckers.

Oooohhhh and that STUPID Tehi plotline. What was the fucking point of that?! He gets introduced like he’s going to be a big threat to Goblin, he gets about two scenes with EunDak who clearly likes him and then that’s it! He’s almost never mentioned again for the rest of the drama! Goblin magically gets over his jealously within like 5 seconds, and EunDak forgets her long childhood feelings for him as soon as he’s not physically on screen - seriously, what was the fucking point introducing him if you’re not going to give him a juicy storyline of getting in the way of their disgusting-feeling romance?

ANOTHER is EunDak’s mother’s friend! She is literally a ghosts that has all about 20 seconds or something of screen time and you expect us to get all emotional when all of a sudden it’s revealed that she is EunDak mother’s friend and saved all these bank books for her and stuff. OH PLEASE! If you want me emotionally invested maybe you should, oh I don’t know, give her decent screen time! Let us SEE the relationship between the two of them actually develop! OH and her stupid mother fucking school friend! Who ISN’T her friend by the way!!! She turned up at her house and started talking to EunDak as soon as she learnt they were going to the same uni; that is NOT friendship! That’s called ‘making friends so you can use them for your own gain’ type of shit. If you wanted EunDak and her to have a proper friendship then AGAIN: FUCKING SHOW IT AND GIVE US MORE SCREEN TIME OF THEM TOGETHER! And develop that relationship!! They spoke all of like 4 lines between themselves before the 9 year gap. OH and all of a sudden 9 years later they often go to Soni’s place and drink together?! FUCK OFF. A lawyer and a radio director? There’s no way she would’ve had time during her law studies to make time for people outside of her class and internship. NO TIME. That is bullshit. They have nothing in common. Nothing to link them together (besides going to the same uni) because she practically ignored EunDak for most of their school life so them being classmates doesn’t count for shit! That is the most 1 dimensional friendship bullshit I have ever seen! They don’t even seem comfortable talking to each other in the 9 years later episodes either!! My god.

There are SO MANY god damn loose plotlines and untapped potential in so many characters in this!

(11) Goblin doing a 160. I know that like over 900 years you’d naturally get used to that current time’s society and that current time’s rules and how people live but... the way he speaks can’t be the ONLY thing that stayed ingrained in him from the beginning. 900 years ago men would’ve been SO MUCH MORE conservative and it just really surprised me how quickly he turned into a little school girl within episodes of meeting her. It really surprised me how open he was with his feelings. Yes he was probably influenced by the 900 years he’s been living in but surely there would’ve been SOME things he just couldn’t change about himself. Many men; past and present still struggle to be open with their feelings, especially towards the women they love. A LONG time ago it was very much ‘you will be my wife’ and that’s that which I kind of expected from him. This man has killed hundreds and thousands of people; how does he not have PTSD? How does he not struggle, even 900 years later, to trust not only other people but himself? How is he not struggling with a ‘I killed so many so I don’t deserve to be treated well’ complex? He just felt TOO modern to say he’s been alive for 900 years. Even those of us who live on 40, 50, 60 years are SO ingrained with what we’ve been educated on and brought up with, that even tens of years later, we still can’t easily destroy or throw away certain beliefs or personality traits or internal thoughts we have been taught or we’ve had. And that is why I REALLY struggle with how ‘modern day’ Goblin is. Stuff from 900 years ago should still be with him now. And it’s just not shown or brought up on screen at all.

Now for the final problem child:

(12) My GOD that Ending was a MESS. First of all, all it takes is her to really need someone and blow out a candle to bring him back? That’s all?! He suffered 9 years in that desert, snow wasteland but all he needed to get back was that?! ALSO WHY did you not make him age once he got back to earth?! I was SO looking forward to him waking up one day, looking in the mirror and being like ‘OH SHIT I have a white hair!’ but that doesn’t happen so... he stays immortal for ever? ............. please fuck off. He should’ve come back mortal and after EunDak’s death, he should’ve gone old, died and then in the next life they should’ve met and properly been together! But NOOOOOOOO they kept him immortal, so when they meet again, EunDak is on her second life. So that means after three more lives and two more deaths, she’s no longer around. SO WHAT THE FUCK IS HE GUNNA DO?! HOW THE FUCK IS HE SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE ONCE SHE’S GONE FOR GOOD? The script writer, Ms Kim, is stupid as FUCK. Seriously. Why would you choose that for an ending?!

There was literally a point while watching this show where I just stopped the show and out-loud just said ‘Ms Kim really should to quit her day job.’ That’s how awful this story and script it to me.

And I already mentioned but they seriously fucked up Soni and Reaper’s personalities in their 3rd life. They were absolutely HORRIBLE. It ruins them completely. And they rushed through it too! There were about 15 minutes left of the show, the final episode and they just rushed the entire 30-or so years later within that shot amount of time. I seriously think a WHOLE episode needed to be dedicated to the 30-years-or-so-later part.

And I will stop my points THERE.

Some people have told me that this show changed the way KDramas were produced and created after this one, but my question... HOW?! How did this show ‘revolutionise’ or change the way K-Dramas were made?! Was it just the high quality of the show that changed them?! <<< which I’ve clearly proved, it is not high quality at all. It has so many flaws that just show how poorly managed, shot and produced this drama was... so please tell me.

***I am definitely open to be proven wrong in any and all of these points above, but seriously; where did this show change KDramas?! Where did this show become so amazing?! Why does this show deserve all this ridiculous hype?

Sigh...

NOW FOR POSITIVES!

So here are the small amount of positives I have for this show.

THE SPECS OF GOOD

(1) The theme song is good! (Just not when you watch all the episodes in less than 2 weeks like I did).

(2) It has a really good, really strong star. Episode 1 is PERFECT!

(3) It does have some very funny moments.I did chuckle in some places. The comedy in this show is good. This scene is definitely one of my favourites, but NOT because of the MCs, but because Reaper is just a witness to the madness and his blank expression is hilarious.

(4) Some moments REALLY GOT me in the feels! When Soni grabbed Reapers hand and he had the flashbacks of her -- my god that was INTENSE and I was freaking out! A lot of Soni and Reaper scenes did have me crying. Especially when she chose to walk away from him --- because WE KNOW he’s a good boy, but he just wouldn’t open up to her!

Another moment that got to me was: The scene with the mother and the daughter at Reaper’s place, and the mother is like ‘oh we came to this cafe and ordered the drink called ‘heaven’’ ugghhhh it hurt! It hit me right in the feels! Another Reaper House moment was when the blind man was reunited with his dog that had clearly waited for him this entire time.. UGHHH GOOD DOGGIE!! I’m dead!!! And ANOTHER was when the War Grandpa had waited his whole life for his wife to be to die so they could be together again. But he had died in war or super young and she’d had her whole life but hadn’t forgotten about him. I cried a LOT ---- these two had more depth and character development and a whole story in those FEW minutes than like Goblin and EunDak did the entire show!

(5) The ridiculous bromance between Goblin and Reaper - it was GOLD. Yes, I really would’ve liked more tension and hatred between them in the begin and that being a bit more extended would’ve been nice, but their bromance after that is just GOLD. I love them two. I ship them SO HARD. I ship them WAY MORE than Goblin and EunDak.

(6) While it was predictable; I really like that the whole concept of ‘if you don’t die, she will’ plotline. I was totally all in for this story line. Granted it didn’t turn out how I wanted it but the concept itself was really good.

(7) The locations in this drama are very beautiful and very well chosen. They all look great --- but then the excessive product placement ruins a lot of them. But Quebec was beautiful and the flower field was beautiful and their house was gorgeous!

ANNNND BACK TO THE BAD FOR A TAD!!!

THE MINUTE DETAILS

And now allow me to be SUPER pedantic but here are super small things that really pissed me off:

When EunDAk said ‘Saranghae’, I just sighed. She doesn’t love him. She is INFATUATED.

There was one moment where EunDak gets beers ready in the store and then walks off to give them to customers, but there’s no fucking other customers in the store during that scene!!! WTF she go with those beers?! xD

Oh and GOD I hate. hate, hate, hated her ‘tehe’ breathly laugh/scoff SO MUCH!

OH WHAT I WOULD CHANGE

During episode 10 I had a revelation: I realised JUST how a billion, million, trillion times better this show would’ve been IF = it had just been the three of them: Kim, Kim and Kim! If it had been more about them slowly meeting, learning their fates with each other and developing bromance and romance and such relationships, OMG it would have been FUCKING amazing! And the Goblin finding his ‘end’ could’ve been more like a ‘towards the end of the show’ thing rather than at the start and rather than as the main plot. I would watch the SHIT out of a WHOLE tv show just about the bromance and the Soni/Reaper romance. Fuck the MC romance that actually happens! OMG I am SO sad at how amazing it could’ve been if they had removed HER or made her a minor instead. OMG I’m so sad.

Either THAT or give me that damn Father-Daughter ‘you don’t need to be blood related to be family’ plot line instead that I mentioned earlier PLEASE!!!

EXTRAS

A friend who LOVES this tv show, luckily commented that ‘they fucked up the main story so soon and so easily that they had to focus and develop the side characters and that’s why they’re so great.’ which made me so happy that even someone who’s a huge fan of the show even admits the main plotline is and was always a mess.

Sigh....

IN CONCLUSION

This show has some good points. It has some really charming points. It has some great moments. But overall; this show does not deserve the hype and the praise and the attention it gets. The plot, the editing, the script, the story, the character development is a mess. It gets nothing more than a 3-4/10 from me. I’m glad I experienced, I’m glad I got on the hype train and discovered what it was all about but it really wasn’t worth my time. Sorry, not sorry.

Like I said! You are totally open and free to persuade, me other wise! I am open to hearing your opinions and proving me wrong!

REFERENCES

Goblin (MDL) (as of writing, it had a 9.0 average rating) Reviews 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Video Reviews Articles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6 My Opinions and “Expertise” (< seriously, don’t take this seriously) comes from the fact I’ve seen over 800 tv shows and movies in 4 different countries (USA, England, Japan, Korea); the fact I LOVE movies and TV; that I always watch and read about the BTS makings and how a movie or TV show is produced and created etc.

#goblin #guardian the lonely and great god #dokkaebi #kdrama #review #drama review #dorama review

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Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Ray Li of Sene, a brand that sells custom tailored clothing.Some stats:Product: Custom tailored clothing.Revenue/mo: $40,000Margin: 60-65%ROAS: 2.5-3xStarted: January 2017Location: Los Angeles, CAFounders: 1Employees: 3Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?My name is Ray Li and I’m the founder of Sene. We take the classic idea of custom tailoring and modernize it with minimalist design and a sleek collection of styles for every day of the week.Our flagship products are our Men’s Field Jacket and Women’s Montmarte Coat. They are minimalist versions of classic styles, and then we custom-make it to fit with luxurious Japanese materials.We have a unique fitting process - we use calibration garments in your standard size to get your feedback on what you wished fit differently, then we cut the garment to order in 1-2.5 weeks. All alterations and remakes are included in the retail price.Our belief was if you combined beautiful design with a stick advantage (custom), we could create extreme loyalty. Two years in, we’ve proven that with 52% annual repeat rates on some of our top categories. We’ll do a little under half a million this year and we’ve accomplished this with very little capital.Our collection for men and women currently spans custom shirts, custom pants and bottoms, custom outerwear, custom basics (i.e. made-to-measure t-shirts), custom suits, custom tuxedos and custom blazers.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?After graduating from Cornell, I was in management consulting at Deloitte doing global process transformations.Then I wanted to experience the other side of the coin, and went to Interbrand and helped companies define their global brand strategy. During my time there, I won a Rebrand100 award for the strategy work for turning around what used to be The Yellow Pages.I was fascinated with the idea of building a brand from scratch. Personally, there were a lot of brands where I loved the aesthetic but being a slim asian guy, the cut usually didn’t work on me. And I’ve had custom clothing made before, but the experience just never felt that special or elevated. The idea was - what if there could be a marriage of the luxury experience of a high-end brand, but the clothing was all custom fit instead of off-the-rack?My wife and I had just gotten married and we were excited to dig into the adventure. We started playing around with the idea on nights and weekends, and we love looking back at photos of us shipping some product from our tiny studio apartment in NYC.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing the product.Fashion manufacturing is incredibly hard, to begin with, and we layered on the difficulty of the data and precision of making clothes custom accurately every...single..time.Though we now use a sophisticated online platform to manage all our orders, we started out placing orders with our first manufacturer by literally sending over PDFs we made in PowerPoint with details on each order! It’s hilarious how little we knew to start, but we figured it was better to get started and despite how messy the back of house was, the front of house AKA the brand really resonated with people.Here's a grungy Facebook photo my wife posted back in the early days:“My guy, dropping off 17 custom orders in the mail to a few of his customers.”We went through two manufacturers before we found the current two that we work with now. The lesson learned is - you get what you pay for. And if you want to create world-class product, you have to work with world-class manufacturers.For us - it wasn’t just making a beautiful clothing product, we had to figure out how you get people who would never shop custom to buy into custom clothing. And we’re not just talking suits, I’m talking about raw denim joggers and wool/silk blend field jackets. This is a radically new way to shop, and we experimented with a ton of different formats.We quickly went to omni-channel and now have our retail flagship store in LA. That was scary because most brands are digital-only for many years until they open a store.For us, because we were creating a new category, the store was like a research laboratory where we could learn about our customers really quickly. I remember signing that first rent check - it was the most money I had ever given away and it freaked me out.We also had to build a ton of technology to manage the data. We need body data, fit data, and order history data as well as how their fit evolves over the lifetime of doing business with us. We initially worked with a developer that was way too cheap and wrote really messy code and did a terrible job with QA, then we worked with a fantastic developer but unfortunately was too expensive for us. So you have to do what makes sense for where your company is and decide what you can afford, as well as what you’ll be really good at and what you’ll outsource.Describe the process of launching the business.Shopify has made the world a lot easier for entrepreneurs. I started with Wordpress, which is much better suited for blogging. Any sort of e-commerce business requires a lot of software integrations (i.e., email, app reviews, social) and Shopify is the best at this. It was a nightmare and we quickly switched over to Shopify, which today is a no brainer.We raised a 300K friends & family round and use it to launch a Los Angeles flagship store, develop a collection, and define a new way to shop. We were super frugal since we didn’t have the luxury of raising a bunch of venture capital money.Our advisory board includes the Retail Design Lead at Google who used to also lead environmental design at IDEO. He helped us create our retail concept, so we were able to launch a beautiful store from the start.At our launch event, it was pouring rain in LA and I was bummed that no one was going to come (yes LA is flaky). However come evening, we had almost 300 people show up to the flagship store. You could hardly move and people were overflowing into the street and the back alley. It was electric. We had a pretty big email list and just invited everyone who was in LA to come, and we partnered with Malin + Goetz and Hendrick’s Gin to offer free cocktails and products. A launch event is always a great way to get press, and can be cost-efficient if you can have vendors sponsor the food & beverage.However, the challenge was I had no idea how to run a store. In the first year, we went through several retail staff since I didn’t know what we were looking for and I spent a lot of time on the sales floor myself on weekdays and weekends just to learn the ropes. We learned that as a young brand that most people don’t know, the product really has to be sold - meaning you need strong sales associates who really tell the story of the brand and build relationships with customers. We’ve seen a 3x difference between really great associates who love the brand and champion it vs associates who are happy to sit on a chair and surf the internet.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?We tried most marketing tactics (that we could afford).Here’s what didn’t work:Hiring a paid marketing agencyWe hired a paid marketing agency but it didn’t work out well - our price point was too high to rely on Facebook Ads as the primary way for people to learn about us. Since most of our customers have never shopped custom, they really either needed to learn about us from sources of trust - friends, influencers and press.Hiring a PR personWe hired a PR person for a below market rate - but that person didn’t get much in terms of press hits. Then we started doing desktop research, just looking up journalists and sending them our story, and that’s when we started getting our best press stories (i.e. LA Times, WWD, Fashionista, etc).Here’s what did work for us:Influencer partnershipsWe focus heavily on influencer partnerships where we gift people free product to talk about the experience, and that started to perform quite well. For example, we worked with Sonja Rasula, the CEO of Unique Markets, to document her experience of getting suited up, and her wearing it at a wedding.Our business is very visual, and this allowed customers to see how simple it was to get custom, which most people think takes forever.Photo and video contentWe focus on creating photo and video content that is entertaining and creates value for the person. We will be releasing our first season of video features in Jan 2019, showcasing the entrepreneurial journey of someone from Death Cab For Cutie, the director for HBO shows like Insecure, and the CEO of Violet Grey.WholesaleAt this point, we’re not doing wholesale. Since we’re direct-to-consumer, we pass on the margin in the form of savings to the customer.Channels like Amazon also aren’t relevant since the process is more complex and can’t be managed on a traditional marketplace platform.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?We are pretty close to being consistently profitable, and that’s because we’re super frugal on our spend.Our business is very capital efficient. Our gross margins are 60-65% after shipping and fulfillment, and we make all of our products to order, so we hold hardly any inventory except that which goes toward the try-on experience in-store and online.My cousin Mark Zheng joined as my business partner at the start of this year and we hired Victoria, who is an amazing Retail Experience Lead, in Q2 this year. Massive positive impact on the business to round out the leadership team with people with strengths that are quite different than mine.On influencer campaigns, we see a 2.5-3x return on spend depending on the influencer, so we’re working hard to optimize our criteria on influencer selection. We have pretty high average order values, so that really helps us in terms of what we can afford to acquire a customer.Our plan in the next 12 months is to double-down on the LA market while significantly scaling our ecommerce business.Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?It helps tremendously to have a business partner. Before my cousin Mark joined, I ran a test with him helping out on a contract basis. We are very close and I knew it could either be amazing or horrible. I also prayed a lot about it and asked for advice from friends, and felt a lot of peace about the decision. It’s made a world of a difference to get to share the highs and lows of the journey with him.The theme is - take your time to work with the right people. In the early days, if you bring on the wrong person, it can kill the business. As an entrepreneur, you’re desperate for help and it’s easy to grab help wherever you can get it but it’s often better to wait and make sure.For consumer products, it’s also important to partner with the other companies with tight brand fit. It doesn’t matter whether you like a company personally. We had this one experience where we ran a multi-month brand partnership with a shoe brand where we personally loved the product but their customers felt our products were too expensive and it didn’t pan out.Finally, I’ve found that strong personal rhythms are important to keep you level-headed. My wife and I are part of a community group through our church and we also try to do date night often. Mark, his gf Cathy, my wife Krista and I often go out and do fun stuff together too.What platform/tools do you use for your business?E-commerce: ShopifyPersonal Email Mgmt: FrontCustomer Emails: KlaviyoCustomer service: FrontSocial Media: PlanolyAnalytics: Google Analytics, MozCollaboration: SlackUX: Sketch, InvisionContent: Adobe Creative SuiteWhat have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?PodcastsHow I Built ThisBusiness Of FashionWell MadeBooksGritNever Split The Difference: Negotiating As If You’re Life Depended On ItThe Hard Thing About Hard ThingsThinking In BetsAdvice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?It is not about how smart you are, it’s about the grit to stick it through the darkest and loneliest times.You may be smart, but you are not smart enough. Surround yourself with people who are better than you.Honesty and integrity matter.You run your business, your business shouldn’t run you. Never blame your business for not being able to accomplish things - take responsibility.Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?We’re looking for a technical design lead and a content lead.Where can we go to learn more?senestudio.cominstagram.com/senestudioLiked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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