#i drew each of these in like 2 mins and i can do like 50 more the amount of energy i have rn is !!!!!!!!!!!!

[larabar]

"so, that was fun"

[imaginethe-dragons]

Boy With Luv (2)

summary: While maintaining your corporate office job at Kim Publishing House, you also have to try and balance your professional life with your love life. Can you keep both separated or will they collide?

pairing: eventual jeon jungkook x reader

genre: fluff, eventual smut, coworkers to lovers

warnings: this part gets a bit steamy, make out themes. nothing extreme, but lmk if I missed anything!

word count: 5.4k

part: 2

pronouns: she/her

part 1 here

As soon as your alarm sounded, you tapped the off button so fast. It's the weekend, so you are not getting up at the ass crack of dawn. You shifted onto your other side, feeling the warmth of someone else.

Did Joon have a nightmare and sneak in? You thought to yourself. He had done it before so you wouldn't be shocked. Though, when you realized who it was, memories of last night immediately flooding your mind. It was your 'Work Husband', as Namjoon referred to him.

The alarm hadn't disturbed Jungkook, but you were wide awake now. His arms were still wrapped around you, but you carefully removed yourself from his hold in order to go to the kitchen. You reached for the Advil in the medicine cabinet and tapped two of the pills into your hand. You grabbed a bottled water and went back to your room. Jungkook was sitting up, looking around your room.

"Noona? How'd I get here?" He asked you, voice a little hoarse due to the alcohol he consumed. You laughed lightly, handing him the water and medicine, which he took gratefully.

"You called me from Hobi's party and then you crashed here," you told him. His eyes widen and he checked to see if he was still dressed. He leaned his head back, eyes fluttering shut, and released a sigh of what you concluded to be relief.

"H-how bad was I?" He asked you, his tone was letting you know he was nervous.

"You came on to me a few times, but then I told you if you didn't stop, you could sleep on the couch," you answered, walking to your closet.

"Like how?" He asked further. You could tell he was walking on eggshells because he had no idea if you were upset with him in any way because of his drunken actions.

"You told me I was pretty, grabbed my ass, grabbed my thigh, then tried to have sex once we got home," you answered him. He groaned in response. He lifted the comforter over his head to 'hide'. You giggled at his childish actions, making him peek at you.

"I'm sorry, I should have called someone else," he told you. You picked out a sweatshirt as the apartment had gotten colder since last night. You took off Namjoon's shirt and replaced it with the hoodie.

"It's alright, Koo. I told you that if you felt the same today, we could talk about it," you shrugged, walking to your dresser. You put your jewelry back on, opting to leave your rings off.

"This isn't how I wanted to tell you, I hope you know that," he said after a moment had passed. You nodded in understanding.

"I'm gonna go make breakfast, would you like to stay?" You asked.

"Is Namjoon going to mind?" He asked, still nervous.

"No, he was just worried last night because he was half asleep when I told him I had to pick you up," you answered, leaving the bedroom to the kitchen. Namjoon was up and making coffee.

"Good morning," he smiled when he noticed your presence next to him.

"Morning," you responded quietly. You opened the cabinet and pulled out the box of pancake mix before going to the fridge and grabbing some bacon.

"Did he leave yet?" Joon asked, handing you your own cup of coffee.

"No, he's staying for breakfast," you answered as you both moved around the kitchen in sync as you prepared breakfast.

"Good morning," Namjoon said and you looked behind you. Jungkook had emerged from your room. Namjoon placed his hand on the small of your back as he walked behind you to get plates.

"Good morning," Jungkook responded coldly.

"JK, there's milk or orange juice in the fridge, grab whatever you want," you told him as you flipped a pancake.

"Thanks, noona," he told you.

"So, what'd you do with the condom," Namjoon asked.

"Joon! What the hell," you hissed. He laughed at how defensive you got.

"So that translates to you put in in your nightstand and didn't have sex?" He asked, making you roll your eyes.

"He was drunk, I wasn't going to do anything," you explained. You both finished breakfast and brought a plate of pancakes and a plate of bacon to the kitchen table.

"This smells amazing," Jungkook said, smiling at you.

"We've had a lot of trial and error before we got a routine down," Namjoon laughed, remembering the many times the smoke alarms had gone off.

"Okay, I'm starving," you chuckled, putting three pancakes on your plate. You drowned them in syrup before you dug in. You hadn't had anything since you had gone out to eat with Jimin yesterday.

"I made an appointment to go to the shelter today," Namjoon told you.

"Oh, cool. Did you look at any of the other hybrids?" You asked.

"I looked on the website and they have so many dog hybrids. I thought they only had a few, but wow was I wrong," he told you.

"You're getting a hybrid?" Jungkook asked.

"I am, it's not something we're doing together," Namjoon told him. There was a sudden knock at the door and you got up to answer it. It was a man in a suit holding an envelope.

"Miss Y/l/n?" He asked.

"Yes?" You asked, very confused. He thrusted the envelope in your direction. You grabbed it and the man hurried off. You shut the door as you walked back in the kitchen, pulling a letter opener from the junk drawer.

"Who was it?" Namjoon asked you. You shrugged as you sliced the envelope open. It was the invitation to the annual fund raising gala that the Kim Publishing House holds every year on the last Friday of March.

"It's my invitation to the fundraising gala," you told them, examining the expensive looking paper.

"Who did you get paired with?" Jungkook asked. Each person who worked in your department got paired with an executive at your sister company, Min Press.

"Min Yoongi," you groaned. He was the son of the owner of Min Press and he was known as a fuck boy, a fact the media never lets anyone forget.

"Shit, if you've got it that bad, I'm dreading to see who I'm stuck with," Jungkook groaned as well.

"What about a date?" Joon asked. Jungkook chuckled at his naivety, but you shook your head. That was how Jungkook was able to tell that Namjoon was being serious.

"You can't take a date to this gala. We get paired up with someone from Min Press to keep them in business with us. All of our focus is on this one person. And y/n drew the short stick," Jungkook explained while you were cursing Seokjin at the moment. Your phone began ringing and you picked it up. It was Jin's caller ID. You opened the message. Your thumbs flew across the screen, responding to all of Jin's messages.

Jungkook's blood began to boil. Min Yoongi was a slimy son of a bitch and he couldn't stand the thought of any one's hands on you except for his own. But he bit his tongue, not wanting to cause a scene.

"What's the theme, Noona?" he asked you, drawing your attention away from the invitation.

"Masquerade," you answered, putting the invitation on the fridge with a magnet. You put your plate and fork in the dishwasher and sat back down, resting your head on your hands.

"Depending on my partner, I can cut in whenever you need it," Jungkook suggested. You shook your head, knowing that could result in a write up.

"No, it's fine. I'll just have to put up with it," you told him.

"I have to get ready for the shelter, do you want to come with me?" Namjoon asked as he cleared his and Jungkook's plates from the table.

"I'll stay here and get the apartment cleaned up," you told him. He nodded and went to his room to get dressed.

"I guess that means I'll go then," Jungkook said, starting to get up.

"You can stay. We still have some things to talk about," you told him as you started to wash any dishes that were in the sink.

"Okay, I'm out. I'll text you when I'm on my way home," Namjoon said, completely dressed and ready to go.

"Be careful!" You called after him as the door shut.

"Noona, why do you live with him?" Jungkook asked once he was sure Namjoon had gone. You looked up from the dishes and leaned your head to the side in thought. You were searching for the right way to explain it.

"After Hoseok and I broke up, I couldn't live with him but I wasn't ready to live on my own. Jimin offered to let me stay at his place, but I didn't want to just stay for free. Joon agreed to go in 50/50 on an apartment with me," you explained as you began dusting all of the wall décor.

"Does he like me?" he asked you, making you turn to look at him.

"Namjoon? Koo, he calls you my work husband, he just doesn't show it to your face," you giggled, but you noticed the way Jungkook visibly relaxed at what you had told him.

"Your work husband, huh?" He asked, curiosity weaved in his words.

"Yeah," you hummed as you continued to do a deep clean of the house.

"What makes him say that?" Jungkook asked, suddenly behind you. He was wrapping his arms around your waist. You jumped at the sudden close proximity.

"He says it because whenever he comes into the office we're attached at the hip. He always says you followed me around like a lost puppy," you answered.

"That was because you're so addictive," he mumbled, drawing circles into your skin. You shivered at his touch.

"Koo, we shouldn't," you told him, trying to unwrap his arms from around your waist.

"If you want to stop say no. But please, let me do this," he whispered, pulling your hair over one of your shoulders as he kissed the newly exposed skin.

"At least take me to dinner first," you giggled at the way his hair tickled your neck. It had always been hypersensitive. He smiled against your skin.

"I can do that. Where do you want to go?" He asked. He was kissing his way up your neck now. You leaned your head away from him, exposing more of your skin to him.

"You choose, I'm up for anything," you answered him. He nipped at your ear, causing you to stiffen in his arms.

"Sorry, do you not like that?" He asked you, concern making its way into his expression.

"Just sensitive," you answered him. He continued pressing light kisses here and there. You relaxed in his arms once again.

"There's a new sushi restaurant that opened up, let's go there," he suggested, pulling you closer to him.

"Okay, sounds good," you agreed, beginning to rock back and forth in his arms.

"Let's go tonight," he continued, moving with you.

"I don't have anything to wear," you said, knowing you had plenty of date night outfits, but most of them were from your relationship with Hoseok.

"What about that red dress you wore for Valentine's day?" He asked. You had bought the dress with Hoseok and wore it to one of his parties.

"No, I don't want to wear something that he touched," you whispered. Jungkook didn't even need you to say your ex's name to know what you meant.

"Come on," he said, grabbing your hand and leading you to your bedroom. He gestured for you to sit on the bed and you did so as he walked over to your closet, opening the door. He found your section of date night clothes.

"What are you doing?" You asked him. He just went through all the different dresses you had. His hands seemed to stop on any dress that stuck out to him.

"Which one of these have not seen out of this apartment?" He asked, holding up three dresses. One was a black dress you had worn clubbing with Jimin a couple times. The second was a red dress that you had bought for a party that Jungkook threw a month or two ago, but you had the flu so you ended up staying in. The third was a white dress from when you graduated from university.

"Black one I went clubbing in, second one never got worn, third one is from graduation," you told him.

"Who went clubbing?" He asked. If it was just your girlfriends, then he was willing to let it go.

"Jimin," you responded and he immediately hung the dress up as if it was burning him to the touch.

"Definitely not that," he laughed.

"I knew you would say that," you smiled. He held up the red dress.

"What was this one supposed to be for?" He asked, silently wishing that it hadn't been for someone else.

"I bought it for that party you threw, but I got sick and had to stay in," you answered him and he let out a low whistle.

"Were you trying to kill me?" He laughed as he laid it down on the bed. Your face was on fire as blood rushed to your cheeks at how quickly he was able to figure you out.

"No, I had just broken up with Hobi and I wanted to look good," you explained, not giving him the whole truth.

"For who?" He questioned you further. You didn't want to admit that he was right, so you tried to come up with something to satisfy his questions.

"Myself," you sassed him. Your phone beeped and you looked at it.

"Hey, pay attention to me, Princess," Jungkook told you. You snapped your head to look at him with the sudden use of a pet name. He smirked at how you had reacted. You managed to text Joon back before turning your attention back to Jungkook.

"Namjoon is on his way home, I have to get dressed and straighten up everything," you told him, scrambling off of the bed.

"I'll take care of the cleaning, you get ready," he told you. You both sprung into action. You traded your sleep shorts for some ripped mom jeans, and your sweatshirt was traded for a more cheerful sweater. You hurried to make your hair decent and brushed your teeth.

"How's it going?" You called as you made your bed.

"I was able to vacuum and dust!" He responded. Wow he worked fast, you thought.

"Can you make Namjoon's bed and put his laundry basket in the laundry closet?" You asked him. You put on your rings and some fluffy socks to protect your feet against the hardwood floor.

"Y/n, we're home!" You heard Namjoon call. You walked out into the living room, and before you knew it, you were tackled by an unfamiliar figure.

"Taehyung," Namjoon exclaimed. The boy scrambled to get off of you. The hybrid wrapped his tail around his legs, his eyes glued to the floor.

"I'm sorry, you just smell so sweet and I couldn't help myself!" He whimpered.

"It's okay, let's just not make it a habit," you told the hybrid. He had golden ears that flopped over his brown hair and a long shaggy tail.

"Noona, all done," Jungkook said, out of breath.

"I thought you said you lived with just her," Taehyung said to Namjoon.

"That's her..." Namjoon started to say, looking at you.

"Complicated. He's my complicated," you answered. Jungkook nodded in agreement, knowing that it was too soon for labels.

"Well, Y/n, this is Taehyung. He is a golden retriever hybrid," Namjoon told you, as if you hadn't read that on the website the night before.

"It's nice to meet you," you smiled.

"Likewise," he smiled, his tail starting to wag.

"Tae, why don't you do a little exploring," Joon told the younger boy. He walked in the direction of his and Namjoon's room, leaving the three of you alone. "Since when was this complicated?"

"When you left, we started talking. We're going out tonight," you told him. His focus sapped to Jungkook.

"If you don't treat her right, I swear you'll be a eunuch," Namjoon growled. Jungkook began rapidly nodding, moving to hide behind you.

"You should go now," you told Jungkook. He nodded in agreement.

"I'll come pick you up at seven, and I'll bring Namjoon's clothes back washed," he told you, hurrying out of the door once he had everything.

"He's gone?" Taehyung asked, emerging from the bedroom.

"Yes, he is," Namjoon sighed in relief.

"I'm sorry for tackling you," Taehyung said again.

"It's fine. You said something about my scent. What does it smell like?" You asked him. He sat on the couch and thought, taking deep breaths every now and again. You sat next to him to make him feel comfortable.

"Like orchids, irises, and honey," he answered you.

"Orchids mean love, fertility, and elegance. Irises mean wisdom, hope, trust and valor. Honey means sweetness and prosperity," you said, recalling many flower dictionaries and online resources you had read.

"They all smell so pretty when mixed together," he told you.

"Thank you, Tae," you smiled.

"How about we go get the room set up," Namjoon offered and Taehyung jumped up to follow him. You went back to your room and stared at the dress on your bed. You chewed on your fingernail, thinking about if this was the right thing to do. It felt wrong, but things came so easily with Jungkook. You just had to keep your love life separated from your wok life.

"Church and state," you whispered, quoting an episode of Grey's Anatomy you had seen. Essentially, keeping the love life at home and the work life at work. You hung the dress up before moving to sit on the middle of your bed.

"Hey," Namjoon said, pulling you out of your thoughts. You turned your head to look at him. He was leaning against your doorframe with a small smile on his face.

"Hi. How's Tae settling in?" You asked.

"He's doing good. He's taking a shower, so I figured I'd come see how you're doing," he told you, sitting on the edge of your bed. You looked at him questioningly.

"I'm fine, why are you checking on me?" You asked, twisting your ring that was on your right hand. He raised his eyebrows at the action, making you roll your eyes.

"This is your first first date since Hoseok and I can tell that your mind is going a mile a minute," he answered, shrugging his shoulders. You huffed, but pat the spot next to you and he moved closer.

"I'm nervous. I just don't want this to end badly and then not have Jungkook in my life at all. He's been such a good friend at the office, I don't know what I would do without him there," you admitted. Namjoon knew that you weren't seeking his comfort, so he allowed your words to hang in the air.

"If you think about it, your relationship won't change that much. The only new thing will be intimacy," Joon said after a few minutes.

"It's still scary," you mumbled, resting your head on his shoulder. He chuckled at you, making you smile in return.

"That's what you said about Hoseok. You'll be fine, Y/n. Jungkook likes you a lot. He would be an idiot if he let you slip through his fingers," Joon said in earnest. Your ears turned red at his words.

"That's what you said about Hobi," you laughed, remembering having this same conversation roughly a year ago.

"No, I said he'd be stupid if he fucked up your relationship," Joon laughed, making you smile.

The conversation had happened before you moved out of your apartment from college. You were sitting with your legs crossed on your bed while Joon occupied your desk chair. You had been freaking out about the date all day and Namjoon took it upon himself to calm you down since your roommate didn't seem to be bothered. He talked you down for two hours before you successfully took a deep breath and began to get ready.

He soothed all of your anxieties up until the moment Hoseok had knocked on your door. He was the one who made you answer the door and the one who put the calla lilies Hoseok bought you in a vase. You vividly remember the two thumbs up he gave you as he shoved you out of the apartment, stumbling into Hobi because of your high heels. That was something that the two had teased you about for weeks.

"It'll be fine. It's not gonna be much different," you repeated Namjoon's words back to yourself. He gave you a nod of encouragement. You took a deep breath, letting the words sink in.

"It will," he assured you. Footsteps sounded throughout the hallway and before you knew it Taehyung opened the door slightly.

"Are you okay? Your scent changed," he asked you with big doe eyes.

"I'm fine now, Tae. Thank you for your concern," you smiled at him. A boxy smile took over his features and his tail began to wag.

"Can we do something fun tonight? Like to get to know each other?" Taehyung asked the both of you. You felt bad that you agreed to go out with Jungkook on the same day Namjoon brought Tae home, but it wouldn't be fair to Jungkook.

"I have a date tonight, but I promise we can go do something tomorrow, just you and me," you told him. He looked at Joon, searching for approval.

"If you want to go, I'm okay with it," he chuckled and Taehyung jumped onto the bed to hug you both. Everyone erupted into laughter. This was such a simple moment with you and the boys, but whatever you were feeling right this instance, you knew you never want to let go of it.

"Do you guys want to help me pick out a dress? I'm not wearing the one he picked out," you asked, knowing that it was a party dress and not a date dress.

"Can we hyung? Please, please, please?" Tae begged so hard, he might as well have been down on his knees.

"Let's go," he agreed and the three of you hurried to put shoes on. You made sure to grab your wallet and keys before walking out of the apartment door.

"Who's driving?" Tae asked as you approached your car. You laughed but Namjoon just rolled his eyes.

"I always drive because Joon doesn't have his license," you answered Taehyung. He smiled and giggled at what you told him.

"Whatever, let's just get going," Joon huffed as he sat down and buckled his seatbelt. You drove to the mall closest to you and Joon's apartment and parked right outside a fancy department store.

"Does Tae have a collar?" You asked Namjoon quietly, knowing that Tae could still hear you. Right on cue, he whimpered at the word.

"Tae, it's only while we're in the store. Laws are extremely strict regarding hybrids in public. I'm not asking you to do it at home. It's honestly for your safety," you assured him, looking at him through the rearview mirror.

"We got one, I let him pick everything out," Namjoon answered you, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the silver chain with a small oval tag on it. It looked more like military dog tags than a hybrid's collar.

"It's subtle. Great taste, Tae," you smiled as he put it around his neck. When he was done the three of you got out of the car and went into the store. Taehyung kept extremely close to you. Something about how your scent was calming to him.

"Miss Y/n, so good to see you again. To what do we owe the pleasure?" Hana, the store's manager, greeted you. You frequented this store every time you had an event to go to and you needed an outfit.

"I'm going on a date tonight to that new sushi place that opened up and I don't have any fresh date clothes," you answered her. She nodded in understanding.

"Well, we just got our spring collection in, come take a look," she smiled, pulling you to the racks nearby. Taehyung eagerly followed you while Joon kept a little bit of distance, watching you.

"What color scheme are we going for?" Hana asked as she pointed out some of her personal favorites.

"He likes me in red," you answered and she smirked because who doesn't like you in red. It was the color that has always made you confident in your own skin.

"Okay, well here we have a nice dinner party styled dress. It's not too flirty but not too innocent either," she told you, pulling a dress off of the rack and handing it to you. You came in here so often that she knows your sizes like the back of her own hand.

"This is going in the maybe pile," you smiled. Hana nodded and handed you a few other dresses from every color possible.

"Y/n please let me hold something," Taehyung whined as your arms became full. You giggled but handed him a few dresses which he took happily.

"Hana, thank you for your help once again. I'll come find you when I decide," you smiled and she nodded. She went back to fixing displays as you led the boys to the fitting rooms.

"Okay, you two wait right here. I'll come out and show you when I get one on," you told the two as the sat on a vacant bench, a few feet away from where another guy was surrounded by shopping bags. You took the dresses from Taehyung and hung them up in the small space and shut the door.

"She makes you come with her too?" You heard the other guy laugh.

"No, we wanted to come," Namjoon answered, clearing his throat. You could sense the tension as you slipped on the first dress. It was a white dress, but you knew it would end up some other color after dinner. You were always the one to spill something on your dress.

"Joon, can one of you zip me up?" You asked, opening the door just a bit. Namjoon shot up and opened the door so he could come in.

"You know this dress will end up trashed by the time you come home," he chuckled as you pulled your hair out of the way. His hand ghosted over the zipper for a second, but before you could ask what he was doing, he pulled it up.

"I know, but I have to try on everything Hana hands me. It's an unspoken rule," you told him. You opened the door to walk out to the bigger mirror outside of the rooms.

"Y/n! You look so pretty in white," Taehyung smiled. It was a boxy smile and that made you smile. Namjoon took his seat once again as they both watched you in the mirror.

"Thanks, Tae. But white and I do not mix," you laughed, ruffling his hair as you walked back into your room. As you shut the door, both boys were engrossed in their phones and you just smiled. Little do you know what they were doing.

"How about this one?" You asked, opening the door to reveal you in the red dress Hana had first handed to you. Both Namjoon and Taehyung had their eyes fixed on you, jaws practically on the floor.

"I don't think you need to try on any others," Taehyung answered you, regaining his composure much quicker than Joon. Taehyung elbowed Namjoon, who fake coughed in response.

"Yeah, you look stunning," he answered. You smiled before admiring yourself in the mirror.

"Thank you, boys. I agree," you nodded, turning to go back into the room, changing back into your clothes. You hung the red dress back on its hanger before putting the rest on the rack for the clothes meant to be put back.

"Can we go get something to eat?" Taehyung asked but Joon just laughed at him.

"You have so much to learn. Starting with the fact that Y/n doesn't go to just one store. Especially before a date," Joon answered, patting Taehyung on the shoulder.

You dragged those poor boys all around the mall. From Sephora to Pandora to a small shoe store. You only had a bag from each store, but Taehyung was stressing that you were carrying too much so you gave him one to make him satisfied. You picked up a new red lipstick to match with the dress, you bought two rings that you had been looking at for a while now, and you picked up some red sandals for tonight.

"Okay, are we done?" Namjoon asked, leaning against Taehyung as you walk towards them from Barnes & Noble with two bags in hand.

"Please let me carry some more," Taehyung whined once again and you handed him the bag from Sephora. You smiled at the dissatisfied look he gave you.

"We're done, I wanted to pick up a couple of books I edited for the bookshelf," you told the two as you both went to the car.

"Anything I'll enjoy?" Joon asked as he opened the passenger door, but Taehyung hopped in before Joon had a chance.

"Compiled short stories and rewrites of Grimm Brothers' fairytales," you answered him, putting your bags in the backseat. You had spent a couple hours in the mall, and it had shocked you when the time on your phone read 6:15.

"Shit, we gotta go now," you exclaimed, hurriedly turning the engine over and driving hurriedly back to your apartment. You grabbed as many bags as you could before Taehyung started begging to help. You led the way to the elevator, which thankfully was quicker than you had anticipated.

"He's picking you up at 7?" Namjoon asked as he unlocked the door. You all stumbled through the doorway, Tae following you to your room with his three bags.

"Yeah, and it's already 6:30!" You exclaimed, stripping until you were in the shower, hurrying to wash your hair, face, and everywhere else.

"Here's the dress, undies, and a bra. Everything is seamless, don't worry. Get dressed and I'll blow dry your hair while you do your make up," Namjoon told you. He had walked into the bathroom as soon as he heard the water shut off.

He had learned how to do your hair the weekend you were sick and supposed to go to Jungkook's party. The reason being is that you had been complaining that you felt gross, but barely had the strength to take a shower. Namjoon had ran you a bubble bath, washed your hair, and then offered to blow dry it as you talked him through it.

"Thank you, Joon. You're a life saver," you smiled, quickly getting dressed as he turned around.

"Finished?" He asked when he heard you digging in your make up bag.

"Yeah, hair dryer is already plugged in," you told him. He began to gently brush your hair as you started to apply some light make up. Nothing too dramatic, given that it's a first date. Namjoon was drying your hair in bigger sections than he usually would, given that Jungkook's supposed to be here in ten minutes.

That's when you heard it. The loud knocks that could be heard over the hair dryer. Taehyung busted into the bathroom as Namjoon worked harder with the dryer. He looked between the two of you, obviously in distress of some sort.

"He's hear, do I let him in?" Taehyung asked the both of you. Jungkook was early, so he could wait until 7 like he had promised. Namjoon was close to done.

"No, he can wait. I'm not ready yet. Thank you Tae," you added, spraying some sweet perfume on your wrists, rubbing some on your neck.

"Okay, you're good to go," Joon smiled, turning off the dryer. You turned around and smiled at him.

"You're such a life saver, you know that?" You told him and Namjoon didn't even tried to hide the blush on his face, but nodded. You leaned onto your tip toes before pecking his cheek in thanks, walking into the foyer. Suddenly frozen in place.

        Ding Dong.

Thank you guys so much for reading! I’ve been working on this chapter ever since I published chapter 1! If you want to be on the tag list, ask questions, or have suggestions, my ask box and my messages are open!

tag list: @religious-pizza-roll, @fangirl125reader

[charmedseoull]

Interview with sugamins about her work House of Cards (Ao3′s second most hit English work and most hit BTS work)

Before You Read the Interview

Archive of Our Own Transcript

Reddit Transcript Part 1 / Part 2

House of Cards is documented within the Top 50 Most Hit BTS Works on Archive of Our Own Project, otherwise known as T50BTS, by Charmedseoul. It is the second most hit English work on the Archive of Our Own platform, most hit BTS work, and 16th most hit work overall. It centers around the internationally popular K-Pop idol group BTS (Bangtan Sonyeondan) with the main characters being Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, and Jeon Jungkook. This work is being documented for historical purposes for the Fanlore website with its own page. Charmedseoul is a BTS-focused anonymous historian who plans to eventually document each of the top 50 most hit BTS work on Ao3 as in depth as this one. If you are in contact with any of the authors of these works, please contact her on Twitter @charmedseoul or on Tumblr @charmedseoull.

Parts of this interview have been edited with links to Fanlore and Wikipedia pages for understanding. Any information in [brackets] serves for further clarity for readers and elaboration of information.

Disclaimers: This interview contains spoilers for the BTS Archive of Our Own work House of Cards. The story’s Archive of Our Own tags contain violence and gangster activity, along with discussion of prostitution and drug use. The full tag list is:

Alternate Universe - Gangsters

Gang Violence

Violence

Drugs

Drug Use

Explicit Sexual Content

Explicit Language

Blood and Gore

Blood and Torture

Gambling

Gunplay

Undercover

Disturbing Themes

Homophobic Language

Attempted Rape/Non-Con

Xenophobia

Dom/sub

Threesome - M/M/M

Drug Addiction

Dubious Consent

This interview discusses an 18+ mature work and Not Safe for Work topics. Please read this interview at your own discretion. You are responsible for the content you consume.

House of Cards by sugamins is a multi-chapter Archive of Our Own fanfiction that follows police officer Kim Taehyung’s undercover operation into the gangster world of Haedogje Pa. Jeon Jungkook, shrouded in an air of mystery and dubbed “The Boy,” is the heir to this crime empire. Park Jimin lives with him, acting as a lover of sorts in a high, pristine penthouse apartment. The story follows the three and their complicated relationship where sex, violence, and drugs surround them. Kim Taehyung tries to take down the empire as his moral lines of black and white begin blurring into gray. In this crime-ridden alternate reality to Seoul, everything from the structure of the gangster world to the trust between three lovers is as fragile as a house of cards.

Now presenting the interview with sugamins, author of Archive of Our Own’s second most hit English work and most hit BTS work, House of Cards:

How did you start writing?

How did you get into fanfiction?

How much writing experience did you have prior to House of Cards?

Do you have any literary or artistic inspirations? Any other authors or works that have inspired you to create anytime before or after House of Cards?

How did you become an ARMY [ARMY stands for Adorable Representative MC for the Youth. It is the fandom name for fans of BTS, otherwise known as Bangtan Sonyeondan]?

I started writing fanfiction in 2012. But before then, I used to enjoy writing stories as a child and young teenager. I used to write and illustrate my own stories. I even had a sketchbook filled with my own comic book, which was terrible! But I've always been creative. It started with art and then I moved onto writing when I discovered I was able to be much more creative with my words rather than my pencil.

I first got into fanfiction through my years spent on Tumblr. I had always known that it had existed, but I had never really gone looking for it because I hadn't belonged to a fandom at that point in my life. It was back in 2012 when I stumbled upon an EXO fanfic that a lot of people were talking about (Arbitrage, you can find it on Livejournal.) I read it and then thought...wow, so this is fanfiction! From that point, I started reading more and more, mostly Infinite fanfiction. And then I decided to start writing with the encouragement of an old online friend, and here I am!

In terms of writing experience, I have never formally received education. I stopped studying English Language and Literature when I was 16, instead focusing on Art, History, and Religious Education (purely because I wanted to learn about philosophy and quantum mechanics) for my final two years at high-school. The only experience I have is through writing fanfiction. I started back in 2012, and I've developed a lot since then. I started off small, writing horror short stories and little collections. Brotherhood was the first 'long fic' I created. I was shocked that it managed to get so big because I had never created a story of that size before. Writing helped me gain experience and figure out what worked and what didn't work, what I was good at writing, and where I was lacking and needed to learn. I don't think you can really experience an art form until you start doing it. You can learn all about the techniques and the conventions, but until you pick up a pen and start writing or drawing, you won't ever know what it means to create.

My literary inspiration has always been Stephen King. Which is funny, as he has described himself as 'having diarrhea of the typewriter.' I think that applies to me sometimes. I am a bit of a wordy writer, though I've started honing it down for certain stories. Sometimes, a story needs to be floral and descriptive, sometimes, it needs to be punchy and direct. So, King was my major inspiration, especially with horror. I also enjoy the works of Poe and Lovecraft (I acknowledge the problematic themes in the work of Lovercraft and seek not to praise him as a person. He was a terrible person for sure, but sadly, he had a way with cosmic horror that is hard to find.) I also enjoy Chuck Palahniuk and the dark, seedy and overall zany stories that he has created. I like his style a lot!

In terms of inspirations for House of Cards, I was obviously inspired by the films Infernal Affairs/The Departed. American Gangster and Training Day were also major inspirations (and also because I love Denzel Washington's performances in both films. I mean, who doesn't love him?) But I also drew inspiration from other sources that were less focused on gangs, more focused on the dark, nihilistic state of the world around us. I couldn't recommend the TV series True Detective hard enough. It is one of the best series I have ever watched. It handles dark and disturbing content so well, and its fractured, unreliable story-telling and philosophical musing is some of the best I've ever seen on screen. I highly recommend checking it out, but be sure to check the content warning and triggers because it certainly isn't suitable for younger audiences and those with triggers. In terms of real-life content, I think Ross Kemps' docu-series are very good. Particularly Extreme World and On Gangs. His docu-series show the dark and disturbing side of criminal activity, the drug trade and more. 

I became a fan of BTS [Bangtan Sonyeondan] back in 2013. I had already been a fan of K-Pop for some time by then, as I had started listening to various K-Pop and K-Rock artists back in 2009. I knew of their debut, but I had seen hundreds of new acts debut by the time that they broke into the scene, and so I didn't pay much heed. Someone I followed on Tumblr at the time kept posting about how much she loved them, especially Taehyung [BTS V/Kim Taehyung]. One day, I stumbled upon a gifset of Yoongi [BTS Suga/Min Yoongi] being sarcastic in one of their first interviews. I thought he was funny, so I decided to check them out. At the time, they had recently released We Are Bulletproof Pt. 2 [BTS’s second music video release with their debut album 2 Kool 4 Skool]. I followed them from that point, and their first comeback [A “comeback” refers to when a K-Pop idol group releases new music, usually done twice a year.] was also my first comeback. I liked their music [BTS released Boy In Luv and Just One Day in 2014, both music videos of songs from their Skool Luv Affair EP.], but I liked them even more as individuals. I loved watching their shows [Here is a link to BTS’s schedule during 2014 when they had their first comeback. You can find the shows and interviews they were on there.], even though they are incredibly embarrassing to look back on now. They just had so much energy and looked to be having so much fun that I was having fun just watching them. I was a fan, I liked a lot of their songs and followed their activities. But it wasn't until they released HYYH Part One [Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa Part 1 (Korean) = The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt. 1 (This is the title in English), released with the I Need U and Dope music videos.] that I really became a fan of their music. I had already created a couple of small horror stories for the fandom at that point. HYYH Part One [The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Pt. 1] inspired me so much that I created Brotherhood, my first 'long fic.' I joined AO3 [Archive of Our Own] and started posting there. I received so much support from fellow fans that I carried on writing, and the rest is history!

How has your experience being an ARMY [Adorable Representative MCs of the Youth, BTS’s global fan base name.] been? Did you ever leave the fandom then come back? How did you interact with others when you first got into the fandom and as you grew up?

How have you been since you wrote House of Cards? What have you been working on? 

Are you okay with talking about how old you are now and how old you were when you wrote House of Cards?

Before you even wrote House of Cards, what inspired it? Any TV shows? Music? Movies? Books? Ideas? It could be anything.

How did you start writing House of Cards? Did you finish the entire story then publish it or did you write it as you went? What was the writing process like?

Did you have any beta readers or editors? If you did, are you still in contact with them now? How did they feel about your work?

My experience being a fan has mostly been positive over the years. In the earlier days, back around when I first started writing for the fandom, it was certainly much more positive. I've received so much support over the years, not only in my writing but in my personal life from readers and fellow fans that being a fan of the boys [The members of BTS] really has changed my life. That's not an exaggeration. I doubt I would even be here now without those years having such a positive effect on my mental health. I've never really been the kind to interact with others and form cliques within the fandom, I just like being in my own space and interacting with everyone that comes my way, I guess?

These days, I'm not as active as a writer or in fandom spaces however. I feel like my time in the fandom has started to come up and I don't know how I feel about it just yet. I feel nostalgic for the time when I was first starting out in the fandom and I didn't really know much, but everything was fun. It doesn't feel so fun now, but I mostly contribute that to the effect that Twitter has had on shaping the fandom's growth. Twitter has never been a good place for creatives within fandoms because of issues with algorithms and such. Tumblr was always the better website for hosting artistic content for a variety of reasons. So, I think the fact that everything is on Twitter now has been partly responsible for my decline in engagement and overall enjoyment. I'm currently taking a break from Twitter. The next couple of months will be what makes me either stay or leave the fandom.

Since writing House of Cards, I've been an active writer in the fandom. Over the years, I've added quite a lot of stories to my AO3 accounts and various pseuds. My largest ongoing story is another gang story, set in the 1980s, called Valentino Summers. I actually started writing and publishing it on Ao3 just four or so months after I finished House of Cards—which is wild to think about. Finally finishing House of Cards seems like such a long time ago in my mind, and yet I'm still working on a story I created that same year! I like contributing horror stories to the fandom, especially in the Halloween period. I like publishing series in the month/upcoming weeks before Halloween—though I won't be doing so this year [2020].

When I started writing House of Cards, I would have just turned 22. It was inspired by the song 'Wires' by The Neighbourhood. I might be mistaken, but I believe that Jungkook [BTS Jungkook/Jeon Jungkook] posted a tweet with the song in it. [Jungkook did tweet about this song. Here is the English translation.] I had never heard of the band before, but my partner was a fan of their music. She sent the song to me and I was very interested in the lyrics, so I started discussing them with her. One thing led to the next, and then we had basically come up with the entire plot of the story. We just needed to create the characters. We spent a little while doing so, and then I started doing some research and started writing the story. There really isn't a grand backstory to House of Cards, it just happened so fast. We often come up with story ideas like that, and my partner is responsible for a huge amount of my stories. She has the creative visions, which I then turn into words. We make quite the team, haha~ The inspirations, I mentioned those in my previous answer regarding films and TV shows.

I published the story as I went, though I staggered the updates because I didn't want to post too frequently. I had the entire story planned out from the start——I didn't change a single aspect of the story no matter what I received in terms of feedback. I think a lot of readers assume that writers might tweak things if they sense the audience wants something to happen in terms of plot or relationships. Personally, I don't like doing that. I like sticking to my plans even if I know my vision might not be what the readers want. I think it's important for the story to be created the way I see it because my vision is what made me create it, if that makes sense.

The writing process was surprisingly smooth! You might not think it because the story is big and there are a lot of characters and plot threads to keep on top of, but it went smoothly for me. It flowed just as smoothly from start to finish as Brotherhood did. I never struggled once with writing the chapters, nor did I ever get stuck and wonder if I should change the content in order to make it easier to write. I'm surprised that I managed to complete it so easily because that's not the case with writing now! I tend to be a lot slower now, more deliberate and more open to changes in order to ease the process and the overall flow of the story. In a way, this change has been for the best. I do wonder what House of Cards would be like if I were to write it now, with my different approach to planning and writing. It would probably have a quicker flow, and the word count would either go down as a result of cuts, or go up because of additional scenes I would have likely included.

I didn't have any betas, which you can probably tell from the work. My stories are so big that I never wanted to put the burden of fixing them onto someone else. I know they are imperfect, oftentimes bloated things, but that's just what they are. I did try creating a story with another writer in the past, but it didn't go very well. She would often have conflicting opinions on things and would not have any leeway for anything I suggested, whereas I always had leeway to allow her to change things. Even to the point of completely changing the plot of the story that I had already started writing, and then allowing her to add graphic sexual content she didn't even want to be in the story. She actually stopped writing fanfiction randomly in the middle of us creating the story! She made a post about it being disgusting and nasty and then bowed out. I have no clue if she ever came back! So, my negative experience with attempting to work with someone else when creating a story kind of made me not want to have a beta. It's a wild story, I know!

House of Cards is praised for its realism and accuracy with weaponry, torture, sex, and violence. How did you research these things?

How did you come up with the gangster universe in House of Cards? How did you develop Haedogje Pa?

How did you name the original characters in House of Cards? Did any characters in particular take inspiration from existing characters in TV shows, anime, books, any type of media?

How did you decide on Vminkook as your main characters for the story? What do you see in their dynamic and them as characters?

Jimin is claimed to be one of the best written characters in the entire story. What was your thought process when characterizing him and developing him?

Taehyung is an especially dynamic character whose morals get tested time and time again in House of Cards. What was your thought process when characterizing him and developing him?

Jungkook is one of the characters that the readers spend the least amount of time getting a perspective from, but is incredibly well written in his character progression. What was your thought process when characterizing him and developing him?

When it came to various aspects in the story, I did do research. Most of it never really had an impact on the story itself. For example, I would be looking up gun models that are used by law enforcement agencies around the world and trying to find specs of them so I could learn how many bullets each gun held, or how much a magazine could hold. In action scenes, I didn't want my characters firing off 20+ bullets for a gun that—in reality—holds far less. That's a fact that doesn't really mean much to the average reader, but it meant something to me! I've always hated how many bullets fly through the air in action scenes in films and TV shows because I'm always wondering if it's possible with the firearms featured in the scene haha~ In terms of torture, I've come across the subject through various documentaries and TV shows about gangs, crime and serial killers. I didn't really do much additional research into the topic, beyond reading up on what I had come across to make sure it wasn't fictionalised for drama purposes. Obviously, there will be some lack of realism in my story because I couldn't possibly write a realistic portrayal of gang violence and torture when I have zero personal experience with it. My aim wasn't to give the story 'full' realism (I'll explain more about that in the next question) but to simply create a world that felt real, even if there were little aspects that had to be exaggerated for the sake of the story. Taehyung's behaviour when undercover certainly broke many procedures. The only thing working in his favour that allowed him to get away with it is that the crimes he committed couldn't be directly traced to him. But a real undercover agent would never do the things that he did on behalf of the gang. Basically, this means that the entire story is unrealistic! But of course, it wouldn't be very entertaining if Taehyung simply observed from the background and didn't dirty his hands. So, I had to bend and break the rules a little!

For the universe, I knew that I couldn't base it too much in reality. Because of basic Korean law, it would have been impossible for me to write the gang operating in the way they did in the story—especially with guns. Most Korean gangs tend to use other forms of violence and weapons in order to control their respective areas, rather than guns. My other story, Taste of Ink, has what I would consider a more realistic approach to gang activity—with the main weapons being knives, baseball bats, etc. and the main forms of violence being assault instead of flat-out murder. So, for the sake of allowing guns to appear in the story, I had to create a Neo-Seoul, so to speak. I took inspiration from Korean gangs, and mixed it with influences from other gang cultures in order to create 'Haedogje Pa.'

When it comes to naming original characters, I honestly don't put much thought into it. I like to use real names for inspiration. I often Google various Korean films I've watched and read the cast list in order to find interesting character and actor names. This is because I have a habit of reusing names sometimes. For example, readers of my stories might have come across a couple of Daesu and Goohee characters. Do you know where I got these names from? I picked Daesu from Oh Daesu - Choi Minsik's character in Oldboy. Goohee comes from the manhwa 'Let Dai' - he is the stubborn gang leader that actually has a good heart beneath his rough exterior. I ended up liking him the most by the end of the story, so his name is one that often comes to mind when I need to pick an original character name.

I never really consider real life dynamics when I'm writing because my stories are so detached from reality that it seems pointless including any inspiration from reality. I chose the three main characters simply because, at the time, they seemed to fit the character moulds the best. The other characters fit their respective characters so well (especially Namjoon [BTS RM/Kim Namjoon] and Yoongi) that I simply thought it was best to have Taehyung, Jimin [BTS Jimin/Park Jimin] and Jungkook as the three lead roles. I chose them more based on how I thought they could personally fit the characters, rather than focus on the dynamic. To use Taehyung as an example, I thought that he would fit the character of the informant in my story because in reality, he is intelligent and seemed like he would suit the role. For Jimin, I thought he would be a good choice for a character that some might think is vulnerable or even weak. He is actually very strong and the most important character for the plot progression. For Jungkook, I liked the thought of someone with such an innocent outer appearance hiding a dark secret.

I'm so glad that readers took to Jimin so positively on a whole. I know there are some that hated him, or that hated the fact I chose him for such a role (a 'negative' sex worker role). But Jimin is the most important character for the plot progression. It is through him that the entire plan finally culminates in the explosive finish. I wanted to treat him with care because I understood that his character could go very wrong if not handled correctly. It would have been easy for him to simply become nothing more than a sexual prop, should the story have focused too much on Taehyung and Jungkook as the key players. So, I decided to subvert it by giving Jimin the ultimate hand in the story and allowing him to have more control than Jungkook in the end. If Jimin had not decided to follow through with the plan, if he had decided to snitch or had simply refused to do his part in exposing the gang, the story would've ended drastically differently. But I also didn't want to write Jimin taking control of the entire situation at the end because it would've felt ingenuine. He is a character that has been deeply affected by a lifetime of trauma. I was worried that some might take my portrayal of his trauma the wrong way, and see him not as a character that has suffered immense mental damage but rather as an annoying, weak character that gets in the way of more 'interesting' dynamics. I'm sure there will be readers that think that. Mentally traumatized individuals are often seen in such negative light, be they fictional characters or real people. When writing his character, especially in the later scenes, I wanted to make sure the trauma he experienced would shape his behaviour. Writing the scene of him getting ready to leave, when he is taking his pills and he doesn't think he can do it, it was hard. It was hard getting into that headspace of feeling so powerless in the moment and knowing that freedom is in reach, but not knowing how to achieve it. He was a difficult character to write, but I think he turned out just right in the end.

Taehyung was probably the best character to write. I love characters that start off so morally upright and pristine, and by the end of the story, their backs are bending and close to breaking from the weight of their conscience and misdeeds. His character has many facets to him that made his perspectives so interesting to tackle. From his green days in the gang, where he is horrified by the violence he sees, to the changes in his psyche as he starts to become desensitized to it all. Fundamentally, Taehyung begins the story as a good man, a hero, but by the end, there is no black and white thinking. He has become grey, muddied from his time spent in the gang. Is he a hero for bringing them down? Would a hero do the things that he did in order to bring down the gang? He killed people. He tortured people. He threatened a man with a gun, a man he knew had a deepset fear of guns that would severely trigger him. I think it all depends on how the reader sees it. The hardest thing to write for his character was his troubled descent into the relationship between him, Jungkook and Jimin, and how it affects his thought processes and emotions. I didn't want House of Cards to be seen as a romantic story when I created it. If readers see it that way, they are more than entitled to their own interpretations. I cannot tell them how they can interpret my art, that is not my role as the creator. I don't know if I effectively portrayed the co-dependency between the three main characters as well as I would've liked. But I had never tackled such a story and themes before, and so it was all new to me.

I didn't know that Jungkook had the least perspective from the three main characters. Similarly, I never really put that much effort into creating and developing his character! Jungkook simply 'happened' in the moment. He would appear in the chapter, and then his character would basically take control of the scene. I never really knew what he was going to say or do beyond my rough plans for each scene. I just waited until he appeared and let the creative spirit flow through me. That's how he came to be! I've had that happen many times in the past with characters—they have a life of their own and I've no control over them. In my story, Brotherhood, Taehyung happened the same way. It was impossible to write his character in that story because he was so wild and free-spirited that it didn't feel right unless his behaviour was a total spur-of-the-moment reaction to the other characters and new plot points. But with Jungkook in House of Cards, I don't know why I didn't have him planned out like the others. It's interesting to think that he might've had a good progression when I never planned any of it in detail!

Were there any original characters you particularly liked writing or enjoyed?

When you wrote for the BTS hyung line, how did you determine their roles in the story and characterize each of them?

Is there a reason behind Namjoon saying “brother” or was it a consciously written character quirk?

When you handled more serious subject matter in House of Cards, how did you feel when writing it? Were you ever startled by your own work?

Was there any type of purposeful titling for the fanfiction chapters?

What was your reason for House of Cards’ open ending?

I liked writing Lim, the original informant that helped Taehyung join the gang. I like writing characters that come across as sleazy. In his case, the sleaze was all an act and wasn't true to his character; he was affecting it for the sake of creating a persona. But I enjoy writing absolute sleaze balls too—the kind of guys that have chest hair and wear gold chains and thick watches, who practically ooze oil. I just find them fun! Lim was a good teacher, even when he was rough around the edges. It was sad doing what I had to do to him for the sake of the plot. But I feel like Lim understood the game as well as everyone else, and so he knew he was running on borrowed time. 

Of course, I loved writing Bae Goohee too! He was an absolute bastard! I loved writing this figure that is spoken about throughout the story as a frightening man, one so brutal that the readers are already wary of him before he even appears in the story. I believe that Taehyung refers to him as a 'guard dog' at some point. I think Bae is the scariest character in the story for me because he is so ruthless and willing to do any order that the Jeon clan give to him. That kind of blind and unwavering devotion is frightening!

I also enjoyed writing Sungah and Jangmi. I think they're the only female characters in the story that have dialogue? Sungah has a great backstory that I unfortunately couldn't go into too much in the story, but it shaped her character a lot. I like how frank and intelligent she is—she holds her own even in a department filled with men that receive far more praise than she does simply because she is a woman. She also allowed me to add an angle about the unfair treatment of women in jobs that have power, drawing parallels with how Taehyung faces discrimination from his fellow officers when his sexuality is abruptly revealed during the investigation. As for Jangmi, I just liked writing about the wife of a mob boss! And not one that is simply a trophy wife, but actually has a lot of power and influence across the city. I wish I had been able to feature her more, alongside her husband, Jeon himself. But I like the scenes they appear in and I enjoyed writing them.

For the rest of the members, I had Namjoon and Hoseok [BTS J-Hope/Jung Hoseok]'s characters planned right from the start. I had also created plans for Yoongi and Seokjin [BTS Jin/Kim Seokjin], but I wasn't sure how much of a role they would play in the overall story. As I started writing them, I realised that Yoongi would play an important role in both Taehyung and Jimin's character development, and so he ended up featuring a lot more than I had expected. I planned their jobs and then let them influence how I would write them. Namjoon and Hoseok's characters came naturally. Yoongi's character completely took over his job role and basic description and became a really strong character that I'm proud of. Seokjin was a little trickier because he doesn't appear in too many scenes—but the scenes he does are integral to the plot. I needed to make sure that his character said everything he needed to in his limited scenes. He has quite the bombshell to drop after all! Seokjin was also tricky because I wanted him to have an air of mystery around him. I wanted him to be the kind of guy that not even Taehyung and his police connections would be able to unearth much about; a ghost in the system. I would've also liked for him to feature more in the story, but I feel like his character appeared in the essential scenes that the story needed. He was going to feature more in the planned sequel, being one of the first characters to appear alongside Yoongi. He was going to serve an important role, so I'm disappointed that I didn't get to show those scenes to readers.

With Namjoon, I wanted to portray him as a mature character, but not one that was conservative and stiff. I thought about having him say things like 'man' but that seemed too casual and didn't suit his character. 'Man' made him seem more like a surfer than a police officer. But when he said 'brother' in one of the scenes, I realised the word suited him better. It was fraternal, and it allowed him to show some affection towards the other characters without having to have physical contact with them. It's not the only Namjoon I've written that says 'brother' a lot. In Valentino Summers, Namjoon has experience with hippies in the neighbourhood that he lives in, so he also refers to other characters like Jimin as 'brother.' It just seems to suit him! I guess it's because I like creating Namjoon characters that are intelligent and mature, but still have a gentle and warm presence. I could picture him saying it in real life (I'm certain he already has!)

When writing serious subject matter, I'm surprised to admit that I was never shocked by what I was writing! I guess it's because I already knew that I was going to be handling dark themes. I wouldn't have tackled such subjects had I not felt comfortable doing so. Dark content isn't for everyone, and by that I don't simply mean consuming it. Creating it can be very difficult for some writers, and can even cause distress. It's not easy diving into a world that is filled with crime, pain and fear. It's even harder putting yourself into the shoes of a character that is suffering/has suffered. I was never writing in a desensitised state though. Far from it. I'm actually very sensitive to violence in reality. In fiction, it depends on the violence—but I'm usually not too affected by it. I've been a fan of horror since I was a child, and so I've seen a lot of nasty films filled with gore and 'shocking' deaths that never really had much of an effect on me. Unrealistic violence doesn't scare me. But when it comes to personal violence, that is always frightening to me. It's far scarier writing a scene where a character feels threatened by another character and doesn't know what is going to happen to them then, say, writing a scene of a character dying a bloody, ridiculous death in a horror story. Personal violence is much more realistic, therefore it is more unsettling to write. In House of Cards, the violence is very personal. It's in your face, it's inescapable for the characters that are involved in it. But at no point did I ever feel like I needed to stop writing because I was uncomfortable or scared by the content. If I had been uncomfortable, it would have been very reckless of me to continue writing the story.

My word of advice to fellow dark content writers: it's always important to recognise your own boundaries. There's nothing wrong with removing dark content from a story if you get a bad vibe or feel strange when writing/reviewing it. Always follow your gut instincts and never put out work that you don't like.

When writing stories, I vary between titling the chapters and leaving them blank. For House of Cards, I cannot remember the exact method for naming the chapters. Sometimes, the title comes to me when I am writing the plans and I have an idea that just suits the mood of the chapter. Other times, I have finished the entire chapter and I have to spend some time reviewing the content to decide that the title will be. In some cases, I have finished most of a whole story and I'm still not certain what to title it! I feel like with House of Cards, the titles came after the chapters were finished, or at least when they were works-in-progress.

There are some titles that really stand out to me. 'Nice Teeth' for example, is a really ridiculous title. Going into the chapter, I don't think many readers would've imagined what it could mean. 'Submachine Sodomy' is even funnier. I really can't believe I chose that as a title! I'll bet a lot of readers saw it and thought, "Oh no! Not another gunplay scene!" Luckily for them, it wasn't a reference to Jungkook's predilection for firearms in bed.

In terms of chapter titles that I really like: 'Delusions of Grandeur,' 'I Own This Fucking City,' 'Sleeping Dogs Bite' and 'Carpe-fucking-Diem.' I just feel like these titles are very well suited to the contents of the chapters. They are the kind of titles that have bite to them, that hint at action or an important plot point.

As for the open ending, there are a couple of reasons. First of all, I had planned to continue the story in a sequel that would pick up after the events of House of Cards, roughly a year on after the investigation. However, I did not pursue this sequel. I wanted House of Cards to end on an open note for the sequel to continue the story. When it comes to certain stories, I just feel that closed endings aren't always necessary. I often enjoy stories with open endings. With House of Cards, it didn't seem right just closing the book and saying it was over. There was still so much that needed to be explored. Unfortunately, I decided to not continue it. But I still think that House of Cards' ending fits the story.

Were there any scenes or moments or lines in House of Cards that you were particularly proud of or want to highlight?

If you were to write the Yoomin sequel to House of Cards, how would’ve that looked like?

How were readers’ reactions to your work in the beginning?

Did any reader comments stick with you in particular?

How did you take the criticisms and hatred towards House of Cards for its serious subject matter? When did those types of comments start appearing? Also, where did the hatred come from? Twitter? Tumblr? Ao3 comments? Did people harass you at all or hurt you? How did you heal from that?

House of Cards has a lot of scenes. I'm proud of most of them and I think I did the best I could when writing them. I do not really like the sex scenes, but that is because I wanted to write them in a dirty, sleazy way. If I could, I would change them. I like the action scenes, especially the Gold Monkey Casino and police raid scenes. Action scenes are hard to write! Fight scenes in particular are so tricky. I often sit there, choreographing the fights so I can describe them! I loved writing Yoongi's introduction to the story, when he walks into the scene wearing nothing but his underpants.

One scene that I really liked writing is the scene where Namjoon and Hoseok investigate the USB stick that Taehyung sends to them. I personally love Namjoon and Hoseok's characters. I always enjoyed writing them. In this scene, I liked getting to write them in a setting that was not the police department office. A scene where they got to relax and banter with each other, even though they were still working. They discover a horrifying crime ring in the city, but they are left with no choice but to keep it secret because they do not want to risk blowing Taehyung's cover. I do not know why I really like this scene, I just do.

In the sequel, which focused primarily on Jimin and Yoongi, the plans were to have them reunite through Seokjin—who has avoided jail time through a plea deal with the SMPA. They undergo a healing process together as they try to come to terms with what happened to them. Yoongi has a lot of unhealed trauma from his childhood, much like Jimin, which I only got to briefly touch upon in House of Cards. They grow closer from bonding over their traumatic experiences, and they become happier and healthier as a result. Taehyung and Seokjin were also going to be main characters, with Jungkook, Namjoon and Hoseok making supporting appearances over the duration of the story. It was going to be drastically different from House of Cards because it would be lacking in action and violence. It would have been much more intimate, with much more scenes of characters talking and discovering things about one another.

I cannot remember early reactions to the story, I just know they were positive. There was a lot of positive support from the start. As I updated and started to get more and more into the story, I received a lot of support on tumblr too. I started posting chapter previews there, as I used to get asks [On Tumblr, users are able to ask bloggers questions through an “Ask” function. This can be done anonymously or with their own blog username associated with the question.] requesting them. I got A LOT of asks on my original Tumblr from readers that wanted to discuss the characters and certain scenes. It was really interesting seeing just how much the readers were interested in the story, so much so that they wanted to learn even more about the characters and the universe I had created.

Through House of Cards, I have received comments and messages from readers that had addictions. They told me about how they recognised their own behaviors through Taehyung, and this helped them realise what was happening to them. Those comments stuck with me for obvious reasons. I have family members with addiction issues, and knowing that I could help some stranger I have never met before come to terms with their own addictive behaviours had a massive impact on me. Funnily enough, a negative comment stuck with me. It was not a bad comment, by no means meant to cause offence. It was a comment that was left on the story when I was posting the early chapters. I recall the reader asking when the story was going to pick up the pace because it was too slow. It stuck with me because, at this point in the story, Taehyung had already trained to become an undercover agent, had enrolled in the gang, had met and interacted with Jungkook, and had murdered a man. I was surprised that this amount of development had been seen as 'slow' by a reader, as I had thought the plot had been moving very fast.

I never really had any hate posted on the story when I was updating it. I got angry reactions when I had finished it. Because the story had not ended the way some readers had wanted, I think that was what caused the negative reactions. On my original Tumblr, I even got an ask about how an anon reader was going to write their own ending because my one was bad. I told them that I did not want them to take my story and change it like that. I have no idea if they ever posted the ending anywhere. The angry reactions were mostly from shippers, who were upset with the story not ending the way they had wanted. To them, I ask: what were you expecting from the story? I thought it was always obvious that Taehyung was going to do what he had set out to do from the start, so I do not think I misled readers at all. It was a story about an undercover agent taking down a gang—and that is what I wrote.

I know there was some animosity towards me on Twitter too. Twitter is a whirlpool of negativity, I am not surprised. Writing House of Cards made me appear problematic. My partner used to follow an author a long time back, who tweeted about me being problematic—despite having never interacted with me or admittedly read my stories. It was shocking to me that people were making assumptions of who I was as a person based on a story I created. I have never created stories with the aims of hurting or upsetting others. I am a very quiet and private person, and I hate the idea of hurting others. It was strange to me that people could assume me to be this cruel or even dangerous individual, intent on hurting others, because I created a fictional story. Do they think the same of script writers for television shows? Or film directors, who create films with dark subject matter? Do they think published authors are problematic people for writing dark and disturbing content? Do they think certain genres should not exist because they do not personally like them?

I do think it is strange that fan fiction writers are placed on these ridiculously high pedestals of moral absolutism. Fan fiction was created to be a space for creative outlet for marginalised individuals, particularly queer individuals. The heavy censorship of dark and unusual content is putting this entire ethos at danger. I understand not wanting to have certain topics included in stories because there is a risk that the content can be used for grooming or can be presented in a way that can negatively affect young consumers' perceptions (like pedophilia for example.) I certainly agree that there needs to be boundaries in place to stop the community from being flooded with such illegal content. But I think there is a difference between wanting to remove dangerous content, and wanting to get rid of content you do not like. Content can be problematic to you, but that does not make it dangerous, illegal, or bad. For some readers, the content they create is their way of dealing with trauma. Maybe this is not healthy for them. But that is their decision to make, not yours.

I orphaned the story because I did not want to handle the potential backlash. To put it simply, I do not handle negative criticism well. Not because I am stuck-up and think I am perfect, but because I am a very anxious person. Just reading angry comments makes me feel very uncomfortable, often nauseous. I know that House of Cards has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from readers, and for that I am thankful. But I had to distance myself for the sake of my own mental health. Since orphaning it, it exploded in popularity. I am thankful that I orphaned it because that amount of attention would frighten me a lot, haha~

What was your reaction to the fanfiction trailer by Sappiamur?

How did you come to the decision to reveal your real name in the end note of House of Cards?

How did you feel when you finished House of Cards?

How did you come to the decision to orphan House of Cards?

Did you ever anticipate the overwhelming fan reaction to House of Cards?

How do you feel knowing that House of Cards is one of the most read fanfictions on Ao3?

What do you want House of Cards to be remembered for?

What do you hope people take away from House of Cards?

Why do you think House of Cards became so popular?

I had to go back and watch it. It's been some time since I last have, and I'm still as amazed by it now as I was back then. The trailer is insane. I cannot imagine how much work went into making it. It's so good and it fits the vibes of the story to perfection. I think the first time I watched it, I was in shock. I must have repeated it at least 10 times in a row, just to make sure it was real and I wasn't imagining it. Then I think I screamed about it on my social media accounts, haha~ If you reading this have not watched the trailer, consider doing so. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Back when I first started posting fanfics, I used to get a lot of asks wanting to know my name, my pronouns, stuff like that. I thought by adding my name at the end of the stories, it would help cut down on these requests. But I also did so because I used to get a lot of asks referring to me as 'author-nim' and I didn't like being addressed by this honorific. I'm not Korean so I have no right to receive that honorific. So, I included my real name so readers could address me with it when sending me asks and interacting with me. I don't add my name at the end of my stories now, but my name is in my Twitter bio for those that want to know.

When I finished it, I felt relieved! I was so calm in the moment! Looking back on it, I can't remember much. But I do remember finishing House of Cards without any issues. The final chapters flowed smoothly, it all clicked into place, and I had a great time writing them.

I came to the decision to orphan the story after several nights of contemplation. I was considering deleting the story, along with a few others, but my partner and some friends told me I shouldn't do so. They suggested orphaning it instead. So, I did so. I didn't want to delete it in case readers that had started it had not gotten to finish it yet. I would've felt very mean robbing them of the opportunity to finish the story like that. I don't regret orphaning it instead of deleting it. I didn't want to destroy the story, I just needed some distance between me and the story.

I didn't anticipate it, and I still don't understand it! I'm shocked that House of Cards got the reaction that it received. Do I think it's a good story? Yes, I think that I worked hard to create a story that is enjoyable to read. But did I ever think it would get the reaction it did? Not in a million years! I thought that it would be one of my more popular stories because a) the pairings and b) the content. Gang stories usually tend to get a lot of attention because it's a popular genre in fanfiction. I just didn't expect it to reach such a vast amount of hits, kudos and comments.

I'm in shock that it is one of the most read stories on AO3. I don't think I will ever be able to create another story that will garner that kind of attention and feedback. It's a once in a lifetime thing, so I'm immensely proud of myself for achieving such a feat. But really, it's all because of the readers that it achieved such a goal. I'm so thankful for every single one of them.

I just want it to be remembered for being enjoyable, I think. I don't have any grand and lofty ambitions for the story. I think so long as the readers enjoyed it, that is all that matters.

I'm not sure what I would like readers to take away from House of Cards. I guess I want them to reflect on the idea of morality and that not everything is black-and-white. Good people can do bad things, and bad things can happen to good people. It's hard to answer this question because House of Cards isn't a story that I consider to have deep messages in it? There are no messages about acceptance and love and healthy relationships and such, like some of my other stories.

Honestly? I don't know what made it get so popular. I assume it's because of the pairings or the setting of the story. I know that a lot of readers say they love the story because of how well it's written, but I can't comment on that as the creator, haha~ I can't say my story is well-written as I'm not consuming it from an outside perspective. What I can say is that I do think I created a story that has a lot of twists and turns and betrayals, which I think adds to the enjoyment factor.

How are you now in 2020? Are you writing professionally in real life at all? 

How do you feel BTS fanfiction has changed over time? Since you’ve been writing for it for so long. 

Do you have any messages for people who may read this interview in the future?

I'm not writing professionally. I have self-published two books via Amazon and Lulu. One was a basic re-branding of my story babes in the woods. The other was a total rewrite of Brotherhood, which I called 'Brothers,' featuring a whole new setting and roster of characters. I published them as readers showed an interest in reading original stories. I have been considering rewriting House of Cards as an original work in the future, but I can't say for certain that I will do so.

Since I started writing, I think there's been a lot of changes in the fandom—not only in fanfiction but in general. There's been popular trends that have come and gone (I was around for the explosion of social media and text-based AUs, which I personally am not a fan of) but there's also been a lot of push for more inclusive content. I'm really happy by the amount of inclusive content that I see these days. Despite some pushback from non-queer fans that sometimes have an issue with queer subject matter (for example, trans characters) I think it's wonderful that artists of all colours, genders and sexualities are now proudly creating content they want to see, and not simply just what is 'in demand' from the fandom.

The message that I would like to share with readers of this interview is: stay healthy, stay happy, and most importantly, stay you. I also want to take this moment to tell them this - if you are considering becoming a creator, but you are worried about reception to your work, or that it might not be good enough, stop right now! Stop doubting yourself and just give it a shot! I was once like you, scared that my weird and niche interests and writing would be ignored or even mocked by the fandom because no one would like it. Had I not decided to take the plunge, my life would be so drastically different. I've made so many friends, fallen in love, and completely changed my life by creating fan content. It can be scary, but once you take the leap, you will find your feet coming down on solid earth without any danger.

Thank you for reading this interview. Further below are reminders and information about this interview and Charmseoul’s Fanlore project.

sugamins is still writing on her sugamins Archive of Our Own account today if you are looking for her works. Charmedseoul will not be sharing the author’s social media or contact information.

This interview is a part of the Top 50 Most Hit BTS Archive of our Own Works Project by Charmedseoul. The project documents the works and authors of the top 50 most hit BTS works on Archive of Our Own. All work for this project is done through Fanlore, which is run by the Organization of Transformative Works. However, Charmedseoul herself is not associated with Fanlore or OTW directly. All information documented through this project is done with full transparency.

Authors, works, and fandom culture must be documented for the future. Unauthorized and malicious editing of Fanlore pages will result in a termination of account. Charmedseoul and Fanlore itself protects fandom history’s participants and works. Personal opinion on authors and works may be posted on social media, but may only be quoted and paraphrased on Fanlore.

This interview was conducted through email from September 23, 2020 to October 25th, 2020 with sugamins’ consent and protections under Fanlore’s Identity Protection policies. Unauthorized reposting of this interview is forbidden. Quotation and screenshot share of this interview is allowed.

If you would like to authorize a repost please contact @charmedseoul on Twitter or @charmedseoull on Tumblr. Linking and sharing is appreciated. Translation and unauthorized repost of this interview is forbidden.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them.

Charmed Seoul. Fandom Historian based on Fanlore.com. Twitter. Tumblr.

[brooklynmuseum]

Join us for a virtual tour of JR: Chronicles, the first major exhibition in North America of works by the French-born artist JR. Working at the intersections of photography, social engagement, and street art, JR often collaborates with communities by making portraits and wheat pasting them in nearby public spaces. See how JR has expanded the meaning of public art through his ambitious projects that give visibility and agency to a broad spectrum of people around the world.

Created by Sharon Matt Atkins, Director of Exhibitions and Strategic Initiatives, and Drew Sawyer, Phillip Leonian and Edith Rosenbaum Leonian Curator, Photography, Brooklyn Museum.

Born in Paris in 1983 to Eastern European and Tunisian immigrant parents, JR began his career as a graffiti artist under the alias Face 3. 

JR (French, born 1983). Expo 2 Rue, Action à Paris, 2001–4. Gelatin silver photograph. © JR-ART.NET 

After finding a camera in the Paris Métro in 2000, he started to document his posse of friends in the act of graffitiing and eventually pasted photocopies of these images onto exterior walls and added painted frames, creating Expo 2 Rue (Sidewalk Galleries). 

Since the pasted images almost always get washed and worn away, documentation of these installations, including the voices of the participants through video and audio recordings, is central to JR’s practice.

In 2004 JR initiated his first major public project, Portrait of a Generation, which featured photographs of young people from housing complex in the Parisian suburbs of Montfermeil and Clichy-sous-Bois.

28 Millimètres, Portrait d’une génération, Amad (2004). Gelatin silver photograph. © JR-ART.NET

JR and his friend Ladj Ly, a filmmaker and resident of Les Bosquets, worked with these communities to produce black and white portraits. 

JR used a camera with a wide-angle lens, which not only distorts their faces but also conveys extreme proximity and intimacy, as opposed to photojournalists who use telephoto lenses from a distance. 

28 Millimeters, Portrait d’une generation: Amad, Paris, Bastille, 2004. Installation image. Wheat-pasted posters on building. © JR-ART.NET

JR and his collaborators then pasted the enlarged images in the surrounding neighborhood of Montfermeil and, eventually, throughout central Paris. Each pasting included the name, age, and address of the sitter.

This photograph of Ladj Ly and friends was the first large-scale image that JR and his friends wheat pasted in the neighborhood prior to the riots there in 2005. It appeared as the backdrop in photographs accompanying newspaper articles and television footage about the uprising, thereby becoming JR’s first published work.

JR (French, born 1983). 28 Millimètres, Portrait d'une génération, B11, Destruction #2, Montfermeil, France, 2013. Installation image. Wheat-pasted posters on building. © JR-ART.NET

In 2013 JR learned that the housing towers in Les Bosquets were going to be demolished, so he and a group revisited the Portrait of a Generation project by pasting portraits in the interior. As the buildings were being torn down, the monumental images of residents were slowly revealed.

In 2005 JR traveled to Israel and Palestinian territories, where he and his friend Marco were inspired to carry out a public project similar to Portrait of a Generation. 

The following year, during a period of fierce tension and fighting in the Gaza Strip, they began meeting with and making portraits of Palestinians and Israelis who held the same jobs.

Ayman Abu Alzulof, a Palestinian actor from the town of Beit Sahour, said he agreed to be photographed because the images would be seen on both sides of the border. "It shows that both parties look like each other, as human beings,” he explained. “It's difficult to differentiate between a Palestinian face and an Israeli face. It will also show that we live here. I think a lot of people will talk about it.”

In 2008 JR initiated Women Are Heroes after learning about the deaths of three young men in the favela of Morro da Providência in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the subsequent riots ignited by the involvement of the Brazilian military. 

The exhibition includes this multi-media diorama that narrates the stories of the participants and project.

28 Millimeters, Women Are Heroes, Action dans la Favela Morro da Providência, Stairs, a Few Days Later, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2008. Color lithograph. © JR-ART.NET

After meeting with residents for a month, the artist collaborated with them to make photographs of the eyes and faces of local women, including some related to the murdered men. Together, they pasted the blown-up images on staircases and buildings around the favela.

28 Millimètres, Women Are Heroes, Action dans la Favela Morro da Providência, Favela de Jour, Rio de Janeiro, 2008. Installation image. Wheat-pasted posters on buildings. © JR-ART.NET

Giant faces and eyes appeared to be staring down into Rio from the hilltop.

Casa Amarela, in Morro da Providência, Brazil. © JR-ART.NET

JR continues to work with the communities with which he partners. In 2009, he established the Casa Amarela (Yellow House) in Morro da Providência in 2009. 

The moon on top of the house is actually a room, where artists from all over the world can stay in exchange for conducting workshops for the children and adults of the favela. They just celebrated their 10th anniversary! 

The exhibition includes a model of Casa Amarela, created by Brazilian artist Raphael Truffi Bortholuzzi

Between 2008 and 2010, JR also completed Women Are Heroes installations in Cambodia, India, Kenya, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

Here is an installation that shows portraits of some of the participants alongside an aerial shot of the images printed on vinyl and installed on rooftops in Kibera, Kenya in 2009. 

The images both transformed the landscape and provided protection from the rain.

In 2008 JR began his project The Wrinkles of the City in Cartagena, Spain. As he had done for Women Are Heroes, JR collaborated with the community to create large-scale portraits. This time he photographed the oldest inhabitants of the city.

This gallery also demonstrates more of JR’s process, including the rolls of paper shown here and mockups.

In 2011 JR won the TED Prize, a $100,000 award given to “leaders with creative, bold wishes to spark global change.” The prize enabled JR to launch Inside Out, a global public art project. He began encouraging others to use his process and providing the means to do so, expanding his collaborative practice to a fully participatory art project.

This installation highlights many of the Inside Out projects (@insideoutproject) through more than 50 videos created by the organizers and participants of actions around the world.

Since 2011 more than 400,000 portraits have been pasted in 141 countries worldwide, including visitors to the Museum’s First Saturday programming last August!

In September 2017 JR installed a monumental photograph of Kikito, a one-year-old boy from Tecate, Mexico, in a location near the child’s home along the U.S.-Mexico border. The giant toddler, seeming to peer over the fence, prompted the viewer to wonder, What does a child think about a fence he sees every day?

Kikito, 2017

Although the nearly 70’ tall image stood in Mexico, it could best be viewed from the United States. Kikito’s mother remarked: “I hope this will help people see us differently than what they hear in the media. . . . I hope in that image they won’t only see my kid. They will see us all.”

JR (French, born 1983). Migrants, Mayra, Picnic across the Border, Tecate, Mexico—U.S.A., 2017. Installation image. Wheat-pasted poster on table. © JR-ART.NET

On October 8, 2017, for the last day of the Kikito installation at the U.S.-Mexico border, JR organized a gigantic picnic on both sides of the wall. Kikito, his family, and dozens of guests came from the United States and Mexico to share a meal. 

People at both sides of the border gathered around the eyes of Mayra, a “Dreamer,” eating the same food, sharing the same water, and enjoying the same live music (with half the band’s musicians playing on either side).

In 2016 JR returned once again to Clichy-Montfermeil with the filmmaker Ladj Ly to photograph more than 750 people from the Parisian suburb in order to create a large-scale mural, inspired by the work of the Mexican painter Diego Rivera. 

In 2017, the mural was installed at Les Bosquets. Here the work is shown as a large-scale transparency print in a lightbox. 

In early 2020, JR started teaching a course titled “Art and Image,” at the École Kourtrajmé, a film school in the neighborhood founded by Ladj Ly.

Still from The Gun Chronicles, 2018. Video, black and white, sound; 4 min. loop. © JR-ART.NET.

Commissioned by Time magazine for its cover on November 5, 2018, this video mural visualizes a spectrum of views on guns in the United States through collaged portraits of 245 individuals, including gun collectors, hunters, law enforcement officials, shooting victims, emergency room teams that treat victims of mass shootings, and gun industry lobbyists. 

Participants were invited to share their individual views, describe their own experiences, and search for common ground; their accounts are accessible on the project's website.

At the center of the exhibition is JR’s new monumental mural project, The Chronicles of New York City (2019). In the summer of 2018, JR and his team spent a month roaming all five boroughs of New York City, parking their 53-foot-long trailer truck in numerous locations and taking photographs of passersby who wished to participate.

JR (French, born 1983). The Chronicles of New York City, 2018–19 (detail). © JR-ART.NET

Each of the 1,128 participants was photographed in front of a green screen, and then the images were collaged into a New York City setting featuring architectural landmarks. 

The participants chose how they personally wanted to be represented and were asked to share audio recordings of their stories, which are now available on a free mobile app.

In keeping with the public and collaborative nature of JR’s art, the museum partnered with organizations in Brooklyn to install murals throughout the burough.  

The Chronicles of New York City, JR and Triangle Stack 2, LOT-EK at Domino Park Photo credit: Marc Azoulay - JR-ART.net

A monumental version of The Chronicles of New York City is on view in Domino Park (@dominopark) in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The project has been conceived in collaboration with LOT-EK, which designed Triangle STACK #2 to help bring JR's mural into the city's open space. 

Installation view of The Chronicles of New York City at Kings Theatre, 2019; and Inside Out project at Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance, Bedford-Stuyvesant Courtesy © JR-ART.NET

JR’s murals are also on view at Kings Theatre in Flatbush and the Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Thank you for joining us on our tour of JR: Chronicles. Tune in next Sunday for another tour of our galleries! 

Installation views of JR: Chronicles by Jonathon Dorado

[aqvarius]

[WALKTHROUGH + REVIEW] Masquerade Kiss: Yuzuru Shiba Season 2

Expectations:

I just want to start off by saying that the prologue is absolutely outrageous. There are probably so many targets that hang around the EAC headquarters, especially since HQ is presumably 3 miles within the UN Headquarters and let’s not pretend that there isn’t at least one target going to work there everyday. I actually spent 30 mins on google maps street view trying to find exactly where this location is supposed to be modelled after so I could find all the companies and buildings that have potential targets and then just gave up lol. BUT either way, I refuse to believe that a top international intelligence agency would just go WARNING WARNING and go into emergency lockdown because a target entered a 3 mile radius of HQ. Ridiculous. Also, the letter from the EAC even in the Yuzuru prologue also calls her Arisa Mifune which is her Kazuomi alias lol.

EDIT: I found the location of that background which implies that EAC HQ is modelled after 2 Hammarskjold Plaza or somewhere near (which is right next to the British Consulate btw, how did MC not see that on her way to the building. Also conveniently near something called Japan Society.). Note the octagonal-roofed thing on the bottom left, the general shape of the building, the covered part of the building lobby, the blue sign (afaik street signs in NYC are green) and the position and shape of the building down the road. And I know I’m taking this whole thing way too seriously, but Jeffrey Epstein had a mansion about 2 miles away from here so this whole 3 mile emergency alert thing is just ridiculous. Sure, Epstein probably never existed in the world of Masquerade Kiss but come on, it is highly unlikely that not a single target lives, works or passes by for a kebab within a 3 mile radius of the EAC HQ.

With that out of the way, let’s talk Yuzuru. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to even play Masquerade Kiss ever again. I like most things about the game but Love Choice is honestly just a turn off and the only LC game that I am genuinely drawn to is actually Destind. But then I had 287 unused hearts because I bought a bunch of hearts with the intent of playing Kyogoku’s route in Romance MD (and then I didn’t because I actually just don’t like that game) so I decided to give it a shot. I actually (surprisingly?) prefer Kazuomi to Yuzuru as a character, but I like Yuzuru’s MC more than Kazuomi’s MC and I was intrigued that Voltage would push this whole love quadrangle thing. We’ve seen hyper-jealous Yuzuru before in a substory so I think I went into this route more interested in the plot aspect and to see how they would develop the kind of strange relationship between Yuzuru and his MC. I genuinely enjoyed Yuzuru’s S1 MS a lot and wanted to see how he and his MC would grow as a couple. Also I wanted to play it in order to write a review to bring some traffic back to my semi-hiatus stagnant blog lol. Please give this a like/reblog please I’m begging you please :’(

Keep reading to the walkthrough and review. I’ve calculated a way for you to get to EE with all CGs (50 hearts saved), SHE with CGs (83 hearts saved), or a cheapest overall option to SHE (107 hearts saved).

Stop scrolling after the walkthrough and guide if you haven’t yet played and don’t want the route to be spoiled.

Walkthrough:

Story 1:

Yes, we should keep an eye on him.

No, it’s not necessary

Story 2:

“You came to be with me.” (Love Meter +1) (6 hearts)

I can’t say.

Story 3:

I sign without hesitating.

I hesitate for a moment.

Story 4:

Text Yuzuru.

Don’t text him.

Story 5:

I’ll sign it. (Love Meter +1, CG) (13 hearts)

I’m not going to sign a New York contract.

 Story 6:

Casually intervene. (Love Meter +2) (11 hearts)

Pretend not to notice.

Story 7:

See him out without asking what’s wrong.

Ask what’s going on.

Story 8:

It’s payback time. (Love Meter +1, CG) (16 hearts)

Don’t do anything.

Story 9:

Start touching him. (Love Meter +2) (12 hearts)

I can’t interrupt.

Story 10:

Seduce the info out of him. (Love Meter +1) (8 hearts)

Try to force it out of him.

Story 11: (second chance)

Gently ask about it. (Love Meter +3) (18 hearts)

Now is not the time.

Story 12:

“I’m thinking about you.” (Love Meter +3) (13 hearts)

“Nothin’.”

Story 13:

“It was fun.”

“It was relaxing.”

 Story 14:

Apologize and keep talking. (Love Meter +1) (7 hearts)

Ouch. I have nothing to say for myself…

Story 15:

Play dumb: “What are you talking about?”

Ask: “What if I am?”

Story 16:

Find out if he’s jealous. (Love Meter +2) (18 hearts)

Don’t ask any questions.

Story 17:

“I’ll stay ten more minutes.” (Love Meter +2) (14 hearts)

I have nothing to say.

Story 18:

Ask about his Texas accent.

Don’t ask about it now.

Story 19:

Call out to Yuzuru.

Let him go.

Story 20:

Put up a strong front: “I’m okay.”

Tell the truth: “I’m not okay.”

Story 21: (second chance)

Ask Yuzuru why he did it. (Love Meter +3, CG) (25 hearts)

Don’t ask any questions.

Story 22:

“Not as stubborn as you.”

“You already knew that.”

Story 23 (useless):

Trust Yuzuru and don’t go. (Love Meter +1) (13 hearts)

Right now, I have to go to Jeremy.

Story 24: (second chance but she saves him either way)

Rush over to protect Yuzuru. (Love Meter +3) (19 hearts)

I can’t get there quickly enough.

Guides:

I calculated the cheapest ways to get to Eden End and Super Happy End with CGs and without CGs. Just opt for the heart scenes that I’ve highlighted in each guide below.

Click the read more below for my review. Stop here if you haven’t yet read the route because there are spoilers galore.

Review:

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this route. As I read through, I thought the pacing was excellent and I was really drawn in by everything about it, especially the relationship between Yuzuru and his MC. It has definitely been a while since a LC route really captured my full attention. However, upon rereading my notes and writing this review, I do have quite a few issues with it, particularly the plot. I’ll go through the things I enjoyed about the route first and then discuss what I find to be its limitations.  

So Yuzuru is great in this route. We get a far more expressive and soft Yuzuru. We get to see the most charming side of Yuzuru again, his childlike passion for engineering and innovation. This, in my opinion, is Yuzuru at his softest and most appealing, when he is genuinely passionate and not just doing the hyper-organised scheduling thing (although naturally most of this is hidden behind a heart scene). Sometimes it’s nice to remember that Yuzuru is human.

He’s definitely more playful with his MC in this route, even going as far as to blur the lines between work and personal life a little bit in a way that I found quite unexpected. There’s a lot of flirty banter between them, as well as just little suggestions of flirtations here and there in their body language – in front of people too! Scandalous. It almost reminds me a bit of Kazuomi and his MC, which is definitely a pleasant surprise. A lot of these scenes are hidden behind heart scenes, which I’ll get into later, but I will say that these cute and suggestive moments between the two are probably some of the best moments of the route, and part of the reason why it was so easy to keep reading.

I’ve mentioned this before but Yuzuru’s MC is my favourite version of the Masquerade Kiss MC. She’s great in this route too – cool, calm, great at her job. I also love that she likes Night at the Museum? Lmao me too girl. She has such trashy taste in movies and it’s a cute quirk that definitely makes her more relatable within the sensational premise of the game. Personality-wise, I think they did a good job at bridging the professional and personal aspects of her personality too, making her read like someone who has different personas that are different aspects of the same person. You definitely get a sense of the conflict within the MC when she has to extract information by using her sExUaLiTy when her boyfriend is watching on lol, even when they kind of make it out like a game. It is interesting and quite novel to see a Voltage MC successfully pull off a honey trap on a guy who kind of repulses her. We get snippets of it in other games such as Her Love in the Force but HLITF MC is always careful to keep boundaries so we never get to explore the full potential of the jealousy that can crop up in such situations. MK MC goes above and beyond to give us (and Yuzuru) a show. With that being said, I do feel like they kind of drew back from it a little by having Jeremy be super forward with his affection so the MC just has to respond, keep him on the hook and pull back every now and again, rather than actively needing to pursue someone to obtain information.

I also really enjoyed that moment when Yuzuru tells her to shower before going to his bed to wash off “Mia.” It solidifies that he’s really in love with her and not her charismatic, flirtatious hostess alias. Throughout the route, the blurring of the personal and the professional is definitely a theme that we see cropping up in the lives of both the MC and Yuzuru. It’s something that I find particularly interesting and I’m glad they picked this developmental direction since both Yuzuru and his MC are notoriously bad at mixing those two worlds, with both of them consistently and repeatedly picking work over love. We also get to see Yuruzu and his MC almost working together at times, which I adored. At times, they feel like a team. As always, they have tons of sexual and physical chemistry but they are slowly building up on the emotional chemistry and communication issues which is so crucial for character and relationship development. 

The SHE and EE in particular has some incredibly cute moments. Yuzu’s MC describing them as part of a machine is *chefs kiss* incredible. Their sex scenes are intimate, loving and incredibly romantic. Yuzu preparing his NYC home for MC? Adorable. And, most importantly, him not only tolerating but welcoming his MC’s “bugs” in their relationship? That’s character growth babey. 

With super long LC routes, I always get tired about 7 chapters in and give up and then have to come back and finish it later. However, this route sped along. The pacing of this route is pretty quick and snappy – in fact, I wouldn’t have minded if it was actually longer? Developments tend to happen pretty quickly, there are plenty of moments between Yuzuru and the MC that keep the story moving, and there’s basically very little, if any, ‘downtime’ in this route. Because they are constantly in the club or at Yuzuru’s place lol.

The writing/language quality is great. I felt genuinely tense every time Yuzuru and the MC almost got caught in the club and even more so when the MC went to Jeremy’s home. I couldn’t spot any significant typos or coding errors. The readability of this route is definitely top quality.

Moving onto my gripes with this route, I would say that they have to do mostly with flimsy plot, characters being reduced to plot devices, and lack of relationship conflict.

Firstly, something that I always find a bit off about the premise of EAC is how public their relationships sometimes are and how the MC’s private life even works. Yuzuru literally gets swarmed with people in the prologue asking for autographs and photos and yet later in the route can somehow go on a public date to busy tourist spots in central NYC with a spy? (That being said, I refuse to take that prologue as canon because of how sensationally ridiculous it is.) Let’s not pretend the EAC isn’t watching them lol (they even imply multiple times that this is the case). Is she not worried that Jeremy or Grace or any SHIBA or Space Crystal employees or any of the numerous powerful and dangerous people who frequent Freja will spot them together? There is no way she looks significantly different as Mia than as herself unless she’s wearing prosthetics or can turn off her star aura like Britney Spears can.  Also, is the MC supposed to be mixed? No one has any questions about how a native Japanese woman can get away with being called Mia Knightley?

They also set up this tension of something happening to the MC without Yuzuru ever knowing which never really plays out. There’s a brief callback to it but it’s more about the MC finding an excuse to see Yuzu. I thought the drama would have more to do with the MC having to keep secrets from Yuzu and disappearing but that never happens and so the repeated mentions of this particular source of anxiety don’t really amount to anything. I also wish they made better use of the stun bracelet! I think it would have been cool if that was what took Jeremy out. Symbolically, it could have worked as a physical manifestation of Yuzu’s trust and support of his MC and her job helping to protect her against the Big Bad.

Okay so my main issue is about the villains and the flimsy plot. Jeremy and Grace were such wasted villains!! If this guy went crazy and murdered 3 people… how did he manage to not only reinvent himself but in fact become a very high profile tech executive with more or less the same name? Imagine if Elon Musk was actually a crazy murderer who used to be called Elon Avrevic… there’s no way that he would be able to bury this, especially if he came from nothing and had no connections during the time in his life when he committed these murders. If there are actual criminal reports about his crimes that can be accessed by the EAC and SHIBA, how did he not get taken in for life after murdering 3 people? Why is he even free in the world? It’s such a big plot hole to me… doesn’t have the same fingerprints? Did he get such extensive plastic surgery that he’s not recognisable and also burn off his fingerprints? Evidently not, since the MC can recognise both him and Grace from childhood photos!

I also didn’t think his motivations were really that convincing. We get a throwaway line about his alcoholic father killing his mother because she tried to leave him, but in general they set Jeremy up with so much potential as this psychopath who hunts a very specific type of woman but then they just kind of throw it away with him just going crazy and shooting people because he just wants “girls and money”. Nooo Jeremy they did you so dirty!!!

I just think they built him up as this incredibly dangerous and manipulative predator but then just made him a standard alcoholic incel. He could have been such a good villain. He could have maybe drawn the MC in with sob stories about his mother and actually made her doubt her instincts with his charisma and vulnerability, with it turning out that the whole time he was just luring her in, instead of just relentlessly hitting on her and then getting carelessly drunk and going crazy. He spends so much of the route attempting to play and get with the MC and then just throws it all away by getting pissed and letting her basically have free reign of his apartment? I just don’t buy that a co-founder of Space Crystal would get to the top without being more clever, suspicious and manipulative – especially since he murdered 3 women and still is somehow a free man, ‘disguised’ as a very successful CEO?  Also, if he really just wanted girls and money, there were a thousand other ways of doing it. He could have been so clever and instead they just made him have occasional psychotic breaks with no discernible trigger. Disappointing.

(On a side note, they made his house look weirdly similar to Epstein’s manor. Or maybe all Upper East Side homes look like this, I have no idea. I did look around on Google Maps and I guess a lot of the homes in this area are kind of similar.)

Grace is also a wasted character. She kind of feels like a MacGuffin just to have this love quadrangle in order to play out the jealousy plot but ultimately plays no significant role. Actually, both Grace and Jeremy basically just act as jealousy plot devices, only the jealousy plot isn’t strong enough to actually threaten Yuzu and his MC’s relationship (except for one moment which to be honest doesn’t even play out like that because of jealousy and rather because Yuzu is trying to protect his girl).

Speaking of that moment, I thought that Yuzuru’s “push the MC away plan” could have been stronger. I feel like it’s not like him to do make such a basic attempt at fooling his MC. It might have worked in a different game but all of the MK guys usually know that they can’t trick their MC with cheap Harry and the Hendersons plots and they tend to not disrespect her enough to try. I know that as readers, we enjoy not knowing what the love interest is up to because it ups the tension and drama but I feel like there was a way of having that insecurity and conflict play out while keeping everything a mystery and making better use of the characters. Like maybe it could seem like Yuzuru is running into Grace’s arms after finding his MC in a compromising position with Jeremy when he’s actually doing his own covert investigations and making plans to foil their ultimate plans. Or maybe even working with Grace to take Jeremy’s wild country-bombing plans out. That way, we would prolong the jealousy/love quadrangle plot with the MC stressing about Yuzuru and Grace’s relationship, especially when she already doesn’t trust Grace. It would also make better use of Grace as a character and her position as both someone with a ginormous crush on Yuzuru and as Jeremy’s ‘partner’. If Grace also ended up betraying Jeremy to help Yuzuru and the MC, we could also have had some extra heartbreak about Grace having to betray the one person she has always had in her life (and maybe some extra backstory about Jeremy going nuts as part of having to protect himself and Grace from their parents and the world). #voltagehireme lol. I also find it highly unlikely that Jeremy managed to set up this whole missile-launching phone app business under Grace’s nose, especially when Yuzuru knew about it. Also, the idea of an American attempting to launch a missile to destroy the whole of Japan is a bit… on the nose lol.

The season isn’t really driven by relationship conflict even though they were pushing the whole jealousy line in the marketing. In the end, I don’t think the route is as much about jealousy as it is about trust – but then again, Yuzuru has always placed ultimate trust in his MC even in S1. I can see this being an issue for people who went into this route wanting genuine conflict in their relationship so that they can overcome and work through it to develop. There’s only a little bit of conflict towards the end when the MC goes to Jeremy’s home, and then that kind of gets discarded pretty quickly anyway. They just happen to be better at communication this season, and a lot of that is because of Yuzuru going out of his way to keep tabs on his MC. This is probably what makes the route so easy to read, because Yuzu is more open. However, because of this, while it is great that their communication as a couple improves, it may not necessarily feel that earned? With that said, credit to the writers for making Yuzu more open without making it feel jarring or like he’s had a sudden personality change.

And on another note entirely, I wish there was a bit more detail about the three “S”es and more involvement from Kazu and Kei, who basically just make gratuitous appearances in this route. Learning about them making Takoyaki together at Oxford is such a cute detail and also such an international student in the UK thing to do. Find me one Asian student studying abroad in the UK who hasn’t collectively cooked home food in halls with friends from their country (it’s always hotpot for me lol). I wish there were more moment with them actively involved in helping the MC.

Finally, I have my usual issues about the Love Choice system. If you play the route for free, you get very few cute scenes between Yuzu and his MC, miss out on some major character development moments (esp that planetarium scene) and you get a fade to black ending in the Normal End. Personally, I started playing Voltage in the early 2010s so I don’t mind fade to black endings, but I think the mature/sex scenes are what a lot of MK readers are here for, so it’s a shame that there isn’t even a kiss scene in the NE.

Overall, I would say that the chemistry between Yuzuru and his MC is what keeps this route going and flowing. I would recommend it if you just adore Yuzuru, want to maximise time with him and don’t really care much about plot. Otherwise, while their relationship is brought to new levels, it does not happen because of the plot as much as Yuzu’s response to events we don’t necessarily see, and it does not necessarily feel that earned because the plot doesn’t really put their relationship in that much jeopardy.

Don’t get me wrong, I actually really enjoyed reading this route – I found it super easy to keep reading, and Yuzu kept me hooked. I also love Yuzu more than ever. I think it’s a similar situation to Takane’s route, where the route made me love the love interest more, but has an average/flimsy plot. I imagine that his PoV will reveal more about those events that make him go out of his way to keep an eye on his MC, but as a standalone route, I wish there was more actual relationship conflict leading to more development.

[rootcut3]

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[nicol3houghts]

STOP WATCHING THE OFFICE:   other things to watch this summer

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE ZIE OFFICE!! But as much as it pains me to say, the office isn’t a personality trait, so I’ve decided to make a list (e.g. Buzzfeed lists) of my top 16 recommendations for TV and podcasts to watch and listen to—since we all need to stop being basic bitches and FOCUS! 

I hope you listen to me when I say these shows are amazing and actually watch them if you have the time. I'm doing this because I care about you and your TV preferences.

I'll break it up by streaming service, starting with Netflix then Hulu, YouTube, then Podcasts last.

*I apologize in advance for the lousy grammar and lack of editing, but also not really sorry bout it.

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On NETFLIX:

1. Arrested Development

Number of Seasons: 5

Number of Episodes: 91

Hours to Binge: 35

Okay, number one on my list is Arrested development. A lot of people I talk to, especially in my age range, don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, but this show is GENIUS... on G*D. I’ve watched it around four times now, and each time it gets better and better. I read somewhere that it was created as a satire of Bush-era incompetence and idiotic hanky-panky during the Iraq war. But at its heart, the show’s about a rich family with four adult children—who are all goofy and quirky. Their dad get’s thrown in jail for doing business with terrorists or something like that and Micheal Bluth (Jason Bateman) has to get them out of weird ass situations.

Above is one of my favorite scenes  (Best clip I could find on youtube!!).

This show has a LOT of jokes and long running bits that you kind of have to pay attention to to get the storyline. It’s hella META, and at times, can be really weird (see George Micheal Bluth and Maeby Fünke’s little Les Cousins Dangereux). In conclusion, however, Jason Bateman is hot, Micheal Cera is hot, and Tony Hale is ~super~ hot.

P.S. a lot of memes come from this show that you would know but don’t know that it’s from this show.

2. The Haunting of Hill House

Number of Seasons: 1

Number of Episodes: 10

Hours to binge: 9

Scary as f*ck! Do not watch yourself or u will die. I warned you.

I'm not going to spoil it too much, but it's about a family living in a spooky house and crazy ass shit keeps happening to them. They eventually move out, but even 20 years after--when the kids are all adults--the haunting of the house follows them.

There's even a 17 min scene that they shot in one shot!!!!!!!! That's wiLD.

3. Schitt's Creek

Number of Seasons: 5

Number of Episodes: 66

Hours to binge: 25

Yet another show about a rich family loosing all their money. A bit different than Arrested Development. This show is about a rich ass family loosing all their money and resorting to live in Schitt's Creek--a town in Nowhere, U.S.A. the family bought as a JOKE. It's a really easy watch. The characters in this show are SO un-relatable and mean it's hilarious--only if u f*ck wit dry humor tho.

Here's my favorite character, Alexis Rose just being iconic:

Give it a try, the first few episodes are rocky, but it gets better. That's a guarantee.

4. American Vandal

Number of Seasons: 2

Number of Episodes: 16

Hours to binge: 9

A lot of people already probs watch this show, but it's honestly so beautifully written. The show is an homage to Making a Murderer, a true crime mockumentary of sorts. It follows two guys, Sam and Peter as they try to figure out a mystery: WHO DREW D*CKS ON THE TEACHER'S CARS?

Also, JIMMY TATRO!!!!!

Season 2 follows a different crime and it's... it's poopy.

5. Mindhunter

Number of Seasons: 1

Number of Episodes: 10

Hours to binge: 9

YUH. Just started this, already on ep. 8, very interesting. Mindhunter is about the first FBI agents to use profiling to catch serial killers. THE CHARACTERS IN THIS SHOW WALKED SO THAT HOTCH AND REID COULD RUN.

This show is no joke and based on true serial killers like the coed killer, the shoe fetish killer, and BTK, it's very.... very creepy.

ALWAYS carry pepper spray on ya, that's fer sher.

6. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

pinot noir, caviar

7. John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid

eat ass, suck a dick, and sell drugs

8. The Good Place

is it really the good place?

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On Hulu:

9. Broad City

Number of Seasons: 5

Number of Episodes: 50

Hours to binge: 18

One of the greatest television series of all time about two baller best fraaands who get into the schemes of the century in New York City. Illana, a ferocious kween wit ZERO f*cks, and Abbi, an aspiring artiste with a great ass. The two work min-wage jobs in NYC (so they're broke) and they're just trying to find luv and a good bacon egg and cheese.

Think Sex and the City but fresh and new and wild. Abbi and Ilana's dialogue and schemes are relatable af, it makes it seem like you're there with them. Their co-dependency is so powerful... yet at moments, a lil destructive. I once had a friendship like this.. and let me tell you... co-dependency is a wild ride.

Some of the funniest scenes in this show is just of them talking on the street. Sometimes, when I'm walking with my friends, I pretend like I'm in the show lol.

I recommend you start from beginning to end because of the endless callbacks and running gags, but if not start with season 3, episode 7 B&B-NYC. Blake Griffin is in it.

10. Community

Number of Seasons: 6

Number of Episodes: 110

Hours to binge: 41

What can I say about this show to make you watch it? Well first of all the fact that Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) is in it should already have you clicking over to Hulu by now.

Community is about seven quirky misfits: a disbarred lawyer, a failed housewife, an activist everyone hates, a racist old man, a stupid jock who lost his sports scholarship, a high-strung know-it-all who took too much adderall, and abed. They all end up at Greendale Community College with a phsyco spanish teacher and a colorful dean. 

This show is kind of a parody of a sitcom, and it is VERY meta--often referring to themselves as TV show characters. The seven get into hilarious adventures and obstacles along the way. The show also genre hops from time to time. For example, they have a whole pillow fort vs. blanket fort episode (Pillows and Blankets, season 3, episode 4) in a Ken Burns documentary style, an episode in claymation for Christmas (Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas, season 2, episode 11), and a bunch of paintball episodes in style of Quentin Tarantino and StarWars.

Again, you should start at the beginning, but if you want to get into it quickly, I really loved Pillows and Blankets (season 3, episode 4).

11. The Mindy Project

As a "petite asian woman" who is not petite, this show is very relatable. About finding love and eating good in the big apple.  

P.S. If you don't like Kelly from the office, you're dead 2 m3.

12. Brooklyn 99

Cool. coolcoolcoolcool. Jake Peralta is the greatest detective/genius.

13. Superstore

If Walmart and the office had a baby and it was incompetent.

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On YouTube and Facebook Watch:

14. The Real Bros of Simi Valley

Number of Seasons: 2

Number of Episodes: 14

Hours to binge: 4

You straight up know these guys, fool. Four stoner/burn-outs who think your hometown's Mexican food is the best in the world. Amazingly written and surprisingly good acting. Lightweight lowkey thought they were speaking another language at first.

Jimmy Tatro, Cody Ko, Getter, and Nick Colletti. What more do you want? LITERALLY WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?

The unnecessary drama and endless quotable jokes in this show leads you wanting more with only 14 episodes totaling at around four hours.

Watch the first season YouTube here:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybcPQVipNAw

---------------------------------------------

Podcasts:

15. Tiny Meat Gang

Aha hah bro last night was a movie bro ON GOD.

Noel Miller and Cody Ko talk about literally anything, but goofy. I can listen to them talk for straight up hours.

I usually listen on Apple Podcasts, but you can also watch on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/ZCMs4FrC_c0

Just start listening, bro.

16. My Favorite Murder

No shade to Codel, but My Favorite Murder is my all time favorite podcast. Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark  are two hilarious women who love murder. Not murdering, but the psychology of murderers and survivors. Each Thursdays each of them tell a story about a murder. They don't make fun of murders, but it's their banter that makes it fun to listen to.

If you're a fan of true crime at all, please listen so I have more people to talk about it with. shouts outs Jenna for putting me on to the show!

Here are my favorite episodes!

*tip: skip the first 15-20 min to the first murder when first listening.

150: How Dare You Kill Kelli

The Hanging of Alice Riley and The Murder of Reyena Marroquin

131: The Uninhibited

The Murder of Standford White and The Case of the Boys on the Tracks

[kizakuza-blog1]

DKs Van Life Take 1: The test

Last year, two weeks before Drew, my partner, and I were ready to set off on our first official overseas trip together, I was admitted to hospital for a week and then told I couldn’t fly.

That feeling of being trapped set in about a month later, when my condition was being managed and I realised I had been told I couldn’t do the one thing I live for – exploring the world.

So what does one do when they are grounded from flying? Camper Van it!! Drew was in love with the idea instantly and we started planning. Wondering whether  buy a van straight up or should we hire first? We decided to do a test trip before we buy and here we are.

The Test. 10 Days going South of Sydney heading to the Great Ocean Road and back through the Barossa Valley. 3,548kms will be travelled in total.

Our hot tips for a van life. Season vanlifers, I’m sure already know these, though for any newbies out there we highly recommend making note:

1.       Baby wipe baths. When you have no idea where you’ll be setting up camp or where the next shower is, baby wipe baths is one way to stay fresh.

2.       Head torches. Even when you have light in the van, it’s never quite enough. When you’re parked in a remote area or if you want to go for some night exploring. These babies are your best friends.

3.       Bucket Toilet. Now when this was first suggested to me I was like, umm really!! But ladies I assure you, in the middle of the night when you’ve parked your van in the most beautiful spot you can find, but there are no facilities, the bucket toilet is your saviour. Whether you make your own or do what we did and invest in one from your local camping store. I promise you’ll be most grateful you did.

Day 1: Heading to our first stay. We chose Tumut, a cute little place with a free camp site, nestled between the mountains and a trout filled river. It was a little in-land as day two takes us to the Milawa Cheese Company before heading down to the Mornington Peninsular. 

Here we are, head touches on, setting up the van for the first time. It’s about 8pm, the roof is popped and I start transferring our things up in the top storage section in preparation to make up the bed. Drew starts prepping to cook up a storm on our little Webber......Then it hit me..….we forgot the doona/quilt/duvet!! Basically we had sheets and a blanket to keep us warm on our first night….Snuggle time!!

For anyone vanning down the east coast of OZ looking for a free camp site. No facilities, however plenty of wood to make a little camp fire, simply put ‘The Tumut Wetlands’ into your GPS. It’ll take you approx. 4hrs 25 mins South of Sydney.

Day 2: After a chilli night, we wake up to a crisp morning and the sounds of the running river. We pack up and head into town for a coffee and to buy a doona. Next stop The Milawa Cheese Company, approx. 3hrs away. We highly recommend stopping in and tasting their cheese. They do sampling between 9am and 4pm and I promise, you won’t be disappointed. Our Favourite, the King River Gold.

From there we start our hardcore drive to Barwon Heads to meet up for a few drinks with. Just over 6hrs drive away.

We had planned to get an unpowered site at the caravan park situated right on the water, but we arrived to late, they were already closed. Good news though, there is a long car park that runs behind it, better view and another score for a free place to set up. As an added bonus it’s a 2 minute stroll to the local pub.

If you’re heading down that way the street name is Ewing Blyth Drive, Barwon Heads.

Day 3: Bells Beach Australia!! Even if you’re not a surfer, everyone has seen the movie and knows about the Classic Bells Beach and the 50 year storm – even though the movie wasn’t filmed at the real Bells Beach, it’s still a destination to visit. Just a short 8 minute drive out of Torquay’s town center. 

This beautiful beach hosts the Rip Curl Pro surf comp every Easter bringing professional surfers from all over the world. Unfortunately, it’s not a Van friendly town, so you need to be strategic when selecting where you set up for the night. There are many breath-taking places, you’ll be right.

Day 4: We consider this our real first day on our little trip, as neither of us have been past this point. We decided to have no real plan, to just take each moment as it comes. For me who is a massive planner, this was the first time ever I was just going with it. And I am loving every minute.

Drew is a massive coffee drinker, can’t start his day without one and recommends popping into the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery before heading on to your next destination. 

Heading down the Great Ocean Road we were both craving a hot shower. Baby wipe baths are great and all, however as we all know, nothing beats a nice hot shower. If you’re driving through Lorne Victoria. Lorne Sea Baths. $10.50 entry, if you have some extra time you can have fun in their pool, relax in the spa and steam room. Although if you’re like us and just in need of a hot shower, this is the place to stop.

Although Lorne provided a great spot to stop for a shower, we decided to move on to Apollo Bay.

The road to Apollo Bay is striking. Winding up and down on the side of the high cliffs, before making your way down to the humble little town on the other side. 

Another town that isn’t camper van friendly, however we were lucky to get a hot tip from a local that told us about a little spot, right next to the beach, where we could set up for the night. And we’re going to share the secret... As you’re driving into the town, with Lorne behind you, take the first left into a little tree covered car park, just before the Big4 Caravan park up on the right.

We love Apollo Bay, it reminds us of the North Shore in Hawaii with stunning mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, the perfect balance of earth and water living side by side.

Day 5: There are many sites to see around Apollo Bay. If you’re into Hiking and seeing the ancient trees and waterfalls, make sure you give yourself time to explore. We took a little 30 minute forest walk through Maits Rest, getting a shameless tourist picture in the famous tree belly, before heading off down the Great Ocean Road to see the remaining 12 Apostles.

It’s wondrous how some eroded rocks being shaped by the battering sea, can attract so many people to see them. As we turn into the first look out, at Castle Cove, we are marvelled, just as the others before us. Mesmerised, watching the sea crash into the bottom of the rocks we start to understand why these awe-inspiring natural structures draw such big crowds every day.

Stopping at every look out to take photos we finished the day at the little community town Port Campbell. We are delighted to hear they had a bush style camping ground for both powered and unpowered sites. Full outside kitchen and hot showers. Unpowered sites are only $10pp. Powered sites $20pp with all proceeds going towards the community. You can also hire fire barrels for $20 deposit and $25 for a bag of wood. Just punch in Port Campbell Recreation Reserve into your GPS. It’s close to town so if you want to eat out, it’s just a 5 minute, easy walk in. After you’ve showered and picked your camp spot for the night. 

Don’t forget your head torches. Although the sky is filled with stars, it’s a dark walk back.

Day 6: As we make our way to the Coonawarra down the remaining Great Ocean Road, we are breath-taken by the structures on the other side of the 12 Apostles. It’s strange no one talks as much about this side of the Great Ocean Road, we think this spectacular coastline, with more sea battered structures are equally, if not better than the reaming 12 Apostles. We highly recommend stopping at every look out to take a peak and many photos. All except the Grotto, you won’t miss anything if you skip that one.

Another place you can skip is ‘Cheese World’. Don’t get excited. It is the smallest world of cheese we’ve ever come across, and really not worth the stop, unless you’re busting for the bathroom.

We pull into the Coonawarra, the town is actually called Penola, punch this into your GPS, not the Coonawarra wine region. We arrived a few minutes before the information center closed and was please to be told there is another bush style camping ground just up the road. This one was nestled amongst the vineyards. It has tepee style tents and one of those igloo ones. $10pp for unpowered sites. $25pp for powered/glamping sites.

Day 7: To the Barossa, after doing a little wine tasting along the Coonawarra strip. More Drew tasting, but a tiny sip was had by myself and with great delight I discovered my new favorite winery. Penley Estate. They have the most exquisite glasses, which are available for purchase. We bought four. Best impulse stop ever.

We decided to stay at the Murray Bridge, before the Barossa. We had set off later than expected and we were in no rush.

Day 8: The Barossa is about 3 hours from the Coonawarra and there’s not too much along the way. So crank that stereo and sing your way through it.

The town was full of people. There was some festival on, it was crazy. We find a side street to park in and walk through the streets towards the sounds of an auction. They were auctioning weird stuff, like a sacks of potatoes at the bargain price of $50. Anyway!! We made our way to find were we had booked a delightful degustation dinner at Appellation. I was so excited, this would be our first degustation. Drew’s more into the hardy meaty meals so the moment he suggested finding a great place for dinner, I was onto it.

Little did I know, he had a plan. I can’t believe I had no idea.

We found where we were going to set up for the night, close the restaurant. We discovered one of my favorite mid week wines ‘The running with the Bulls’, was made by Yalumba so we headed out to their vineyard to see if we could snap a good cellar door price. Unfortunately, no, the price was pretty much the same as I can get at home. Lets go to lunch and find a hot shower.   We found a hot shower and got ready for our amazing dinner. 

The Restaurant had a bar which overlooked the thousands of grape vines scattered amongst the small hills below.   As we sipped out first drink, Drew noticed they had a life size chess set. He loves a competition and we had some time to kill before our reservation. As the sun started to set Drew says he needs his sunnies and went out to the car. I stood there sipping beautiful wine out of a gorgeous Ridel stemless glass, freezing my ass off. Drew comes make, makes a move and then goes in to get more drinks. By this time I was wondering why he wasn’t concentrating on the game and trying to win. 

He urged me to abandon the game and come for a walk in the vines to watch the sun set. And the next thing I know Drew pulls a ring box from his pocket and is down on one knee.   I said yes.   

Wearing my sparkly new ring I couldn’t stop staring at it as we were seated for dinner. The waitress picked up on it and congratulated us with a glass of Champagne. We choose the 4 course degustation menu and were delighted to know that you don’t have to have all four sections. This was perfect for us as we don’t eat dessert. So we worked out how we could try most of the menu in the four courses.   The flavour combinations and presentation was spectacular and the absolute perfect place to celebrate our engagement.   

Day 9: The trek back home begins. There’s not a lot to see today. There’s a whole lot of nothing over the dry plains except for sheep, the odd emu and kangaroo. After 7 hrs of solid driving, we decided to stay at another bush style camp ground at Hay. $10pp, nice hot showers and our last dinner in the van.   

Day 10: It’s time to hand Johnno back. Up bright and early to detail him then back to Sydney we go. We had stopped into Robertson to have dinner with Drew’s mom and celebrate our engagement with his sister and cute little niece and nephew. What an amazing journey. The test score was in…..we will be buying a van.    

Thanks for coming on the ride with us on our first van life adventure. Follow our other travel adventures @kizakuza on Instagram.

[lovebunnie]

Do all the asks coward

1. what does your wallet look like?

-i got it as a present from my uncle for christmas and its really expensive but also so ugly im sorry uncle tom. its like that ‘southern fashion’ bullshit that white MAGA moms wear. but it was better than my old wallet, which looks like this and i got when i was 12:

2. favorite color?

- baby pinnk

3. do you own a pride flag, or more than one?

-heres the thing: my parents basically know im not straight but i havent told them. my brother has thought i was a lesbian since freshman year, i have a small pride pin on my backpack, ive never been on a date, its complicated. but no, i dont have one. maybe one day, hopefully.

4. describe your favorite outfit

-black pants, platform doc martens, hoodie under a jean jacket, one clip on earring, and holding my crushes hand :]

5. when was the last time a girl made your heart flutter, and what’d she do?

-okay so theres this girl in my theatre class who is really cute, and she put her head on my shoulder and shes pagan so she drew a little sigil on my arm that means “safe and homely” so like :)))))))))))))

6. do you use nail polish?

-i do, i mostly do black tho

7. do you keep organized?

-absolutely. i have things online filed accordingly, i pick out my outfits the day before, my binders are neat, i learned how to army fold my shirts, i keep my shit CLEAN

8. ever take naps?

-only accidentally. ill be laying in bed watching youtube and next thing you know my autoplay has me watching a markiplier video even tho i dont like him and its 4 hours later

9. who was your first crush?

-idk if this is a real person or not so ill do both. my first fake person crush was either troy from high school musical or frankie stein from monster high. and my first real crush was on a boy named dominic in elementary school. i told him i liked him at the end of 5th grade because i thought i was switching schools but then i didnt and we never spoke again.

10. what are your crush tendencies? fall hard or often?

-both both both. i am the worst with crushes. i have crushes all the time because im romantic and a fucking fool. i have 3 crushes off the top of my head rn and i like them all for different reasons. thats not to say that i want to date them, but its that i like them a lot and i kinda wanna kiss their cheek or hold their hand idk

11. describe your ideal day

-play overwatch with my best friend (u gonble >:) ) then hang out with my cat, go get a smoothie, buy some cool shoes or something, take a shower and be asleep by 9 :,)

12. describe your ideal date

-i have stated that build a bear is an amazing first date and im NOT BACKING DOWN. ITS CUTE AS FUCK AND ILL ACCEPT NOTHING LESS!!

13. whats your favorite food?

-either sushi or strawberries :3c

14. who do you feel most comfortable around?

-my theatre class, people from camp, and gobble

15. what is your favorite compliment to receive?

-i dont have a favorite, any and all are going to make my face go red so i have to cover it and maybe make me cry

16. did you/do you like highschool?

-the first 3 years fucking sucked but senior year has been amazing so far. mostly because i just kinda stopped giving a fuck but its amazing

17. favorite animal?

-i think its cats now. i really like cats

18. do you like your name?

-eh, its okay. its pretty but also it seems like there are 60 million fucking people named grace and its so annoying. i wish it was something more unique idk

19. what kind of weather is your favorite?

-a light rain. no swinging trees or thunder, just lots of rain. its nice to stay inside and feel secure

20. do you believe in horoscopes?

-absolutely not. but theyre fun if you like them

21. tell us about your music taste

-its horrific. to sum it up, my two favorite musicians are the gorillaz and frank sinatra. take from that what you will

22. have you had your first kiss? if so, what was it like?

-i havent had my first kiss yet. gonna be honest, i felt like i was going to, a few times at camp and recently when classes ended. but yeah, nothing yet

23. did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a kid?

-i went thro cycles of favorites. but one ive had for years is a plush shadow the hedgehog from universal studios i got when i was 6. i used to carry him around, even to a pool once

24. what time do you usually wake up and go to bed?

-if you know me, you know i go to bed ridiculously early. i usually get tried at around 6pm and fall asleep between 7:45 and 8:30. and i always wake up before 6 am. i havent slept past 6 am continuously since the end of junior year. please help me

25. what dream trip would you take with your wife?

-maybe to go explore new york, just the two of us that sounds like fun :]

26. do you have any pets?

-i have 2 dogs and a cat. the family owns the dogs but that cat is mine

27. what pair of underwear is your favorite?

-uhhhhhhhhhhh i have some with rainbows that are cool? i dont have favorites, none of them are cute anyway

28. what makes you smile?

-funny jokes make me smile real hard, and if you compliment me at the right time, i kind of pull my legs up and hide my face? its cute and charming i promise

29. what makes you feel heavy?

-in both the physical and metaphorical sense, eating bread

30. what makes you feel better?

-watching bo burnham always makes me feel better, hes my go to whenever im really depressed

31. how do you show your love?

-i show my love in everything i do. everything i do is for love, i love love so much its sickening

32. when is it time to get a haircut?

-whenever u want to lol?

33. where would you live if you could live anywhere?

-maybe san francisco, its beautiful and i love the city

34. do your friends and family take good care of you?

-as much as i allow them to. sometimes i go days without communicating and i know thats annoying but my friends put up with it (they shouldnt have to, i know) and my family is okay. its cliche to say, but they honestly dont understand what im going thro alot of the times, esp with my anxiety and shit

35. have you always used the labels you use now?

-back in the beginning of highschool, i used they/them pronouns and identified as asexual/aromantic. eventually, it didnt feel right, so i know identify as cis and bisexual and that feels right to me

36. what makes you laugh?

-my friends, when people shit talk gobble and i in overwatch even tho???? we didnt know him?????? and the mcelroys always get me

37. who is your favorite fictional character?

-too many options, see list here

38. who do yo admire?

-my father when hes not threatening to throw my phone into a fucking lake and my friends for putting up with me

39. describe yourself in three words

-i am baby

40. how long does it take you to get ready in the morning? 

-usually about 45 min, more or less as each day goes

41. what do you wish you could tell your younger self?

-listen: STOP GIVING A FUCK ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE. YOU WILL NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN, BE YOURSELF. STOP HIDING AND BEING SCARED OF YOURSELF, BE GENUINE!!!!

42. what would you do if you win the lottery?

-get my parents settled, see about other family members, and then distribute the money to charities accordingly, starting with flint and getting them water

43. would you call yourself a romantic?

-yes

44. what is your gayest childhood memory?

-my mom had cosmos magazines

45. do you have tattoos or want any?

-i dont have any tattoos but ive been obsessed with them since the 6th grade. id love to get tattoos, i just dont know what or where and also im afraid of pain

46. whats your worst habit?

-either biting my thumbs, starving myself, or ghosting my friends. prob ghosting my friends

47. what are you proud of?

-i guess coming out of my shell finally? idk, i actually have friends now and it feels amazing tbh. im in 5 group chats now. i havent been in a group chat since 6th grade. :))))))

48. did you know that youre actually a gift to the world, for real?

-hi i love you?

49. whats your favorite memory?

-there are so so many. but what comes to mind first is our dance night at camp where we all stood outside and i finally gave ian my tumblr and we all ran inside to dance to mr. brightside then ran outside again and we requested nightcore and rivers was fucking dancing their hearts out and we all sang along and im going to crying just typing this out

50. do you have a sweet tooth?

-i guess so. too much makes me feel like shit but i do really enjoy smarties

51. what do you like most about yourself?

-this is dumb, but my sense of style. since i got a job ive been wearing shit i actually like and its amazing. ill admit i have cool clothes

52. what makes you fall for a girl?

-besides acknowledging me, probably getting to know me and not like, putting me on a pedestal. idk its weird, ive met a lot of people this year who like to place me so high it feels like i cant make a mistake around them without disappointing them. idk, i want someone to call me out on my bullshit instead of assuring me im okay. i want to know what i do wrong so i can fix it

53. make a recommendation

-for what? uhh okay for music, listen to ‘clay pigeons’ by michael cera (yes i know michael cera) and for television, watch bojack horseman and for movies, watch the docuseries called ‘7 days out’ on netflix

54. have you ever had your heart broken?

-yeah, when i broke up with maddy because we werent ready to date. i cared and continue to care about her and i didnt want to hurt her but i knew its what we both needed. its what i needed, atleast. and i cant be a good girlfriend if i feel like im doing badly. but also ive had friends break my heart and family break my heart. but im okay now, this heart is ready to be broken again

55. when do you feel most yourself?

-def when i was at camp, that place is magical in the way it allows you to be yourself. but also when i talk to gobble because hes my best friend and when im at college, we can talk more and its gonna be dope as shit

56. name a gorgeous celeb

-jake gyllenhaal jake gyllenhaal jake gyllenhaal 

57. what are some of your favorite songs this week?

-fake happy by paramore, im not okay (i promise) by my chemical romance, tomorrow comes today by gorillaz

58. tell us 2 or your biggest hopes and fears

-biggest hopes: i publish a book someday & i get a job doing something i love

-biggest fears: i end up homeless and broke & something horrific happens in college

59. what flavor chapstick/lipbalm is the best?

-raspberry i guess

60. are you okay?

-i answered a lot more honestly then i shouldve for some of these and i start new classes tomorrow so im feeling really anxious so im doing alright i guess.

gobble you test me but i do love you

[kboyreactions]

Cracks Upon The Skin. Yoongi.

Warnings: mentions of murder and blood.

Genre: Angst? Very slight Fluff.

Word count: 1.221

—————————————————————

April 3rd 2018.

“He doesn’t trust anyone, don’t think you’re going to be any thing special,”

“You can’t fall in love with someone who doesn’t feel emotions,”

“He’s going to break your heart,”

He does break your heart, over and over again.

But he always mends it.

His soul had been crushed beyond repair and yet you continue to hold the pieces in your hands, hoping to piece them together.

“Y/N, just leave me, you don’t want someone like me,” he whispered, his naked chest rising and falling in calm frustration, your fingers tracing the delicate skin that concealed the organ that had seen the most pain....

his heart.

“Yoongi, I could never, I don’t care what you did, I don’t care if you think you did something wrong, I want to be here for you and that’s my own choice, get over it,” you whispered back, your fingers stopping over a small scar that had always hurt you to look at.

“Why do you always go for that scar?” He mumbled, his arm under your neck pulling you closer to him, his fingers twirling your hair delicately.

“Because it hurts me, how could anyone ever want to hurt you?” You whispered, you were looking up at him but his eyes were closed, his grip tightened around you.

“I tell you this everytime Y/N, I had a rough upbringing, stop asking questions about it, now I’ll go make lunch, stay here,” he mumbled, pulling the blanket away from him and tucking it under your body, his naked form moving away from you.

You sighed and looked at him, your thoughts taking over, why was he so secretive? Did he enjoy hurting you? Did he not trust you?

“Y/N,”

Your eyes snapped up to meet his, he was smiling at you, a hint of sadness on his features,

“I love you,” he whispered, his hands gripping the band of his boxers that he had just pulled on. You sighed and rubbed your eyes, sitting up, the covers slipping down to your waist.

“I love you too,” you smiled, allowing him to kiss your forehead.

As soon as he left the room you felt tears growing in your eyes, you were hurting. The last few days with him had been awful, he was distant, cold, and he had been coming home at stupid hours, smelling of smoke and alcohol. You loved him but despite his words, you didn’t believe that he loved you.

A small vibration under the pillow drew you away from your thoughts. You lifted the pillow and stared down at his phone, your eyebrows furrowing.

You quickly cleared the message and put the pillow back over the phone, your tears flowing freely now. He did it again. He had hurt someone again.

November 9th 2017.

The clock had just struck 3am, Yoongi still hadn’t come home and you just couldn’t sit around and wait for him anymore. 2 years of relationship under your belt and you had cried over him over 50 times, each time being hurt beyond your limit. It seemed that your limit was raised every time he did something bad. Maybe you just didn’t have a limit anymore.

When Yoongi arrived you were sleeping on the sofa, in a sitting position with the TV quietly playing a drama that you weren’t watching. He was relieved that you were asleep, he didn’t care to show you the state that he was currently in. He pushed his shoes off his feet, trying to avoid touching anything around him. The bathroom was the place he instantly ran to, dropping his coat on the floor and staring down at his grey t-shirt that was coated in blood. His hands were shaking, the red liquid dry and dark, dirt under his nails. The man in the mirror was someone he so wished he didn’t recognise, but he did. It was him, face smudged with blood and dirt, lips parted to allow his oddly calm breath to fall through them.

Slowly, he reached for the shower, turning the hot water on and sighing as he placed his clothes in a bag.

“Yoongi?”

It was a small whisper that sent his whole world spiralling, his whole body turning to you, his stomach covered in the blood that had seeped through his shirt. Your face was pale, almost lifeless as you stared at the love of your life covered in blood. His hands, face, stomach and socks were covered in blood, his black jeans had patched of dirt over them.

“Did you hurt yourself?” You mumbled, face still pale, heart hammering in your chest and your hands shaking as you approached him. He stepped back, away from you, shaking his head. You continued to move towards him, your main concern being him.

“Stop.”

His broken voice made you stand still, tears dripping from your eyes, your throat on fire and your head spinning.

“Yoongi, what happened? I’ll help you clean up, please just tell me what happened,” you whispered, your feet moving towards him once again. Your hands met with his chest, feeling his heart beating rapidly against it.

“No, I did something horrible, I just-“

He was becoming frantic, as if realising what he had done, his whole body becoming numb.

“Yoongi, take your underwear off and get in the shower, we can talk once you’re clean,” you told him, placing your hand over his bloodied cheek. He pulled his boxers down as you helped him take his socks off. You didn’t care for the possible outcome of the night he had suffered, you just wanted him to be okay. You quickly removed your own clothes and got into the shower.

“You don’t have to help me,” He whispered, his eyes full of tears, his whole body shaking as the hot water hit him.

“You’re right, but I want to,” you told him, rubbing his face with your hands, the blood dripping to the shower floor in a pink pool around both your feet. His arms wrapped around your waist, his hands shaking. The blood across his whole body was slowly running off of him onto the shower floor. He was breathing heavily, tears falling down his face.

“Y/N, I killed someone,” he mumbled, his eyes staring straight through you.

April 3rd 2018

A second message came through shortly after, you couldn’t stop yourself from looking at it, your hands instantly reaching over to grab the phone.

Your heart hammered against your chest and your head spun, you were doing it again. You were going to be an accessory to murder for the second time in your 3 year relationship with Min Yoongi.

You instantly rose to your feet, pulling some panties on and leaving your bedroom. You rushed down the stairs towards the kitchen, much to Yoongi’s amusement.

“Babe, you could have at least put on a shirt, not that I mind but-“

“Yoongi, did you hurt someone again!?”

You couldn’t help the loud tone that escaped your mouth, your hand shoving his phone against his chest.

“What are you talking about? I promised you I wasn’t going to hurt anyone again,” he mumbled, his expression changed as soon as he looked down at his phone.

“Y/N, go get dressed,” he told you, his hands shaking.

“Yoongi, wha-“

“Go, now!”

[thisdaynews]

Rugby World Cup final build-up: England v South Africa - radio & text

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Rugby World Cup final build-up: England v South Africa - radio & text

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2 mins

Missed penalty

England 0-0 South Africa

It is from a long way downtown – on the England 10m line – but Handre Pollard would have expected to slot that.

Instead the ball screws right of the sticks…

1 min

Penalty to South Africa

England 0-0 South Africa

Swing Low is ringing around the stands as the game gets going.

Ben Youngs hoists a box kick up to halway. England chase hard, but Courtney Lawes fails to roll away at the tackle.

Penalty South Africa. Jerome Garces was quick there.

And Handre Pollard points to the posts.

1 mins

Under way

England 0-0 South Africa

Jerome Garces is not afraid of a big decision, just ask New Zealand’s Sonny Bill Williams.

He blasts the whistle and Handre Pollard’s kick-off is safely gathered by Tom Curry…

AFPCopyright: AFP

Posted at 9:029:02

comments

John:Taking my wife to hospital after a lorry reversed into her stationary car 30 minutes before kickoff. She’s OK but it’s Rugby by radio for me today.

Shg:From a Scot backing England… but as part of commonwealth eating Biltong for breakfast to bring a bit of parity!

Posted at 9:029:02

‘Something big will happen’

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

Paul Grayson

Former England fly-half on BBC Radio 5 Live

Something big will happen in the opening period and you’ve got to deal with it and not lose control. I think we’re going to see a level of physicality we’ve not seen even from South Africa, and it’s going to come at frantic pace.

Kick-off next

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

South Africa are more melodic, but no less heartfelt. Tendai Mtawarira and Siya Kolisi at the end of the Springbok line bring the national anthem to a crescendo.

A squeeze of the arms before they break up and head out for kick-off.

Posted at 9:009:00

God Save the Queen sung

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

Ben Youngs eyes tight shut, Manu Tuilagi with his head thrown back to the Yokohama night sky, every single man jack of them belting out God Save the Queen like the final will be decided on a decibel meter.

Posted at 8:588:58

‘South Africans love being the underdogs’

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

BBC Radio 5 Live

Former South African international Joel Stransky on BBC Radio 5 Live:“Two weeks ago, before the game against Japan, the South African attitude was ‘the whole world is against us’ and the South Africans love that, when they’re underdogs, when they feel aggrieved and everyone’s trying to pile on the pressure.

“Tonight it’s not as extreme as that because there’s a lot of support for the Springboks. But it’s a night when it’s set up for an upset. It’s the perfect scenario for the underdogs.”

Posted at 8:588:58

Teams out

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The teams emerge to a soundtrack of stirring strings and thumping drums.

Billy Vunipola, already looking a little moist of eye before the national anthems even start, licks a dry lip as he stares into the stands.

Ready?

Posted at 8:578:57

‘Hang on to your seat’

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

EPACopyright: EPA

Speaking to ITV, England coach Eddie Jones said:“It is always a bit of nerves and excitement and it is like the last dip of the roller-coaster, you just have to hang on to your seat and hope you get through it. They play a certain way but they can play differently.

“They can move the ball when they want to. They play quite a box-kicking type game but let’s see. It doesn’t mean anything to us to be favourites. Both teams are equal when the hooter goes.”

Posted at 8:568:56

Teams in the tunnel

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

England are coming out of the dressing room.

Amateur body language translation: they looked relaxed and ready to go. Manu Tuilagi was sporting a wry grin, Courtney Lawes pulling on his tracksuit top like he is just popping round the corner for a pint of milk.

He definitely isn’t.

Posted at 8:558:55

‘This is when you have a word about why you’ve gone through the pain’

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

Matt Dawson

England World Cup winner on BBC Radio 5 Live

You’ve got to do what gets you right for the game. In the changing room there will be a bit of chest-thumping, the forwards slamming into each other just to feel that contact. Where you and I would say hello or give each other a high-five, they’ll be smashing into each other.

This is when you have a little word about why you’ve trained, why you’ve sacrificed, why you’ve gone through the pain, why our friends and families have helped us so much over the years for this precious 80 minutes of a moment.

Posted at 8:548:54

comments

Get Involved

#bbcrugby or text 81111 (UK only)

Justin:Just arrived in Jo’burg- found a restaurant with the match. Come on England

SMS Message: I don’t think enough has been said about how well Japan have hosted this tournament. Not only have their team impressed, but the Japanese fans have embraced almost every game and team, with superb stadia as well. Hoping this will see the rise of Japan as a Rugby powerhouse, nationally and internationally. from Tattz, Harbourne

I don’t think enough has been said about how well Japan have hosted this tournament. Not only have their team impressed, but the Japanese fans have embraced almost every game and team, with superb stadia as well. Hoping this will see the rise of Japan as a Rugby powerhouse, nationally and internationally.

Posted at 8:548:54

‘Harry had a few alcopops in 2003’

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

Paul Grayson

Former England fly-half on BBC Radio 5 Live

GettyCopyright: Getty

Prince Harry was about 18 in 2003. He came to the afterparty and had a few alcopops, I guess, with the lads, stayed up late and had a good time. Let’s hope he’s a lucky charm again!

Prince Harry has arrived at Yokohama Stadium.

Posted at 8:528:52

England to win by plenty

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

We asked you to vote on the outcome of this match and you did in huge numbers.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the majority of you are backing England – but the vote was split between those who think it’ll be a thrashing or a tight edge-of-the-seat victory.

BBCCopyright: BBC

There is not enough time for Rassie Erasmus to pin this to the Springbok dressing room wall is there?

You lot are making me even more nervous…

Posted at 8:508:50

Oh Maro Itoje

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

Becky Grey

BBC Sport at International Stadium Yokohama

AFPCopyright: AFP

Springboks fans sound like they’re outnumbered in here so far. The South Africa team just went back down the tunnel to the sound of “Oh, Maro Itoje” from the crowd.

They could be saving their voices for the main event though…

Posted at 8:498:49

comments

Get Involved

#bbcrugby or text 81111 (UK only)

burratton:My son and and I are watching from the kids pool in Cyprus. My husband from the golf club house bar… who drew the short straw

SMS Message: Managed to watch every England RWC game live until today… Son No1 decided to pick a flight that lands at 9am. Difficult choice: make him wait, tell him to taxi it or be a Dad? Being a Dad of course and picking him up, but he knows he’s paying for beer for the next year! from Mark, Sussex (via Heathrow…)

Managed to watch every England RWC game live until today… Son No1 decided to pick a flight that lands at 9am. Difficult choice: make him wait, tell him to taxi it or be a Dad? Being a Dad of course and picking him up, but he knows he’s paying for beer for the next year!

Posted at 8:498:49

Warm-ups done

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

South Africa are heading back to the sheds with their final warm-up drills done.

England, who were later to arrive at Yokohama Stadium, are still out there hitting some last bags.

And they are done. Owen Farrell trudges back towards the tunnel, Billy Vunipola is at the back of his group.

The next time they emerge it will be for the biggest match of their lives.

Posted at 8:468:46

‘Winning the World Cup is incredibly special’

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

Matt Dawson

England World Cup winner on BBC Radio 5 Live

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

On behalf of all the 2003 squad, we’re incredibly proud, excited, and we want nothing other than for this group of players to experience what we were lucky enough to experience in 2003.

It was incredibly special, it’s created some amazing memories. It has changed the courses of all of our lives and I wish that upon every single player and person involved in that squad. It’s absolutely amazing.

Posted at 8:458:45

Opportunity knocks

England v South Africa (09:00 GMT)

Probably fortunate that Jack Whitehall has not got the gig of delivering the final words in the England dressing room…

Read More

[midorichan10]

Moments I have witnessed intense KnB fans in Japan

Upon request here’s my post of personal experiences I’ve seen or been in that show how Japanese KnB (mainly Akashi) fans are that you probably won’t see too often back in your home country.  *If you are one of these fans, I’m not saying stop doing it or you shouldn’t do it, but just be responsible and don’t neglect other priorities and don’t inconvenience others...and be reasonable. Also these are things I’m not used to seeing so for me it’s quite eyebrow-raising. Thanks. 

Fans with multiple and intense ita-bags (bags with character merch usually dedicated to 1-2 characters)

Many people cover every inch of their bags with badges/straps of a character and I’ve seen some intense Akashi ones. Also they many have duplicates of the same badges and I’ve seen people who have like THREE bags they take to J-world or an event.  *(I also have my own itabag and I know other Tumblr users have their own as well. And I can say, those are normal and I wouldn’t classify them as the ‘crazy’ bags I’ve seen)

Fangirl logic in Japan as said by someone in an interview: The more you spend on rare merch of a character you like the more you love them, or something. Hence why girls collect 50 duplicates or more

Girl spending over $600 on Akashi Newstyle badges

Last year they had NewStyle badges which were from a lottery/kuji at certain arcades. You could choose who you wanted so buy the time I got up to try all the Akashi ones were gone. The Akashi badges in particular were VERY expensive on auction. A two-badge set went on average at the time like $60. It would’ve been cheaper but there was this ONE girl (same girl because the username was the same) who kept BUYING THEM ALL OR WINNING ALL THE AUCTIONS. I had the auction pages saved (since I was keeping an eye on them while I was bidding) and I calculated the total of the ones she won and it went over $600....

I eventually got my own set for $90........

Also pretty sure I’ve seen the acutal girl because she had like 40 New Style badges on her bag and these weren’t common badges compared to the usual KnB ones from J-World......she also had 3 intense Akashi bags and I see her frequently..

Fans spending TONS of money to get a high rank in Cross Colors.

There is no hack or cheat people literally do spend hundreds of dollars to get a high rank for a 5 star Avatar in Cross Colors. I’ve seen the same people try one event after another so it’s not like they save up for months and then go all out. Fans do this for other game apps too like Ensemble Stars. 

Girl hyperventilating at the site of an Akashi lifesize cardboard cutout (I’m not exaggerating, she was holding up the line to take pictures)

Girl hugging a Kuroko cutout as if she was embracing him romantically and looking into each other’s eyes. (not the typical let me take a picture with him because I can sort of thing)

Fans being over the top seeing a guy in an Akashi mask/costume at J-World.

I just wanna say first of all, even his hands are gloved and since it’s a mask, he can’t talk. Think of it like Mickey at Disneyland or any other mascot

I’ve seen a girl actually trying to strike a conversation with him and all he could do was stare back and nod and gesture her to move on because she was holding up the line.

I’ve seen another girl jumping up and down in front of him showing off how she got the Akashi movie clearfile. Again not much of a reaction from him. 

When I got a picture with him, there were girls peeping at him from behind the backdrop like some stalkers.....it was really unsettling....

When he walks around J-World, he ALWAYS WITHOUT FAIL has a herd of fangirls following him trying to take pictures of him, and I know some of those girls are J-World regulars and already have a pic with him. One time the guy was going back to the staff area but they had to do one last round of pictures because the girls would’t leave him alone. 

This is probably a thing in multiple fandoms and even back at home but KnB stageplay tickets selling out within 10 min. And a lot of those tickets were bought merely to just be resold at a much higher price. And that was just for the first play.

People going to Jump Festa and sleeping overnight in line when you’re not supposed to but guess the staff allowed it anyway....I went at 3:30am so I could get a shot at the limited KnB Merch and I barely got them...

I’ll also add people buying KnB merch not even for themselves but for the sake of selling. How do I know? For example the Oreshi Puni Puni doll is limited to only two per customer and then I see on auction the same day one seller selling two of them. Unless they asked their friend to pick it up too so they could sell for money but I feel that’s still pretty bad and unfair to those who actually wanted it.Also seen people sell like 40 KnB Jump Festa keychains...which by the way sold out.  

GIrls (specifically girls) shove you and knock you over to get in line for the goods even when staff members are there demanding you line up calmly and no running. I had one girl fully jab me in my arm with her shoulder to get ahead of me. 

Last year’s Jump Festa had an exclusive Akashi wall scroll that sold out in less than 30 min despite the limit they set per person. The original price was about $32. I found one on auction for $100 and bought it right away. Sad thing is, that was the cheapest. Later when everyone else decided to put their own scrolls up for auction they went super high like $300-500 if I remember. I remember one auction it was a fight between three buyers and then it got down to two buyers and they kept outbidding each other and the auction got extended for 2 extra hours because they wouldn’t stop bidding. (Yahoo auctions only end if there are no bids in the last 5 min otherwise they automatically get extended for another 10 min). Ending price was at almost $700, or if not it WAS $700 depending on the currency exchagne rate. 

Girls trying to compete with you on how much goods you have

My friends and I were at J-World just chilling at a table resting and these two Japanese girls walk by and one of them points at my Akashi bag and shows her friend. They weren’t in my line of sight but my friends who could see them from our table said that the other girl sat down and started pulling out ALL of her Easter Akashi merch ranging from badges, straps, putting on her decked out Easter Akashi lanyard, and displaying them on their table. I was just sitting there talking and my bag was just casually on a chair because we had space for it....I wasn’t trying to start anything. And it was very clear that she had more merch than me anyway so I don’t get why it was necessary to show that she is clearly the “winner.” 

Jealous fans who won’t stop staring at you

Example of this was when my friend and I were at a KnB Cafe. There was a mini game the staff did halfway through where you try to match the same picture as them and if you’re in the top 5 (I think) you get a special sparkly holograph coaster of a random character. My friend managed to be one of the lucky ones but the coaster you get is random. My friend luckily drew the capsule that had the Akashi coaster so she gave it to me. Once someone picks that capsule the staff doesn’t put it back in the box so in other words no other winner can get an Akashi coaster. One Akashi fan across the room kept creepily staring at me after that because her friend also won a coaster but because the staff came to us first, her friend had zero chance of getting Akashi. That girl kept staring at me for awhile and it was quite unsettling....

Fans declaring they love Akashi more than anyone else

I actually saw someone’s profile on Cross Colors that said that....

Last year for Valentine’s, the Jump Store had a lottery campaign where if you tweeted a picture of a Valentine’s Card you got from them and tagged it with whatever hashtag it was, then you can be entered for a KnB poster lottery of your choice. One girl literally made an account just for this on twitter and spammed every hour a post so she could try to get the Akashi poster. Now that’s not the worst part. Each post had some sort of sentence of her declaring her love for Akashi and how she loved him more than anyone else in the world (she actually said ‘world’). How she only thought of him ever since she “met” him 3 years ago. She even jokingly said as a reference to Akashi’s phrase, “If I don’t get that Akashi poster I won’t forgive you Jump Store lol” at least I hope it was a joke. 

If you just google image search 赤司部屋 (Akashi room) you can see how dedicated some fans can be into decorating every inch of their room with Akashi merch....literally every inch....though I’ve seen rooms like that for other characters too and other series. 

You’d think fans would be happy that you like the same character as you right? Or everybody in Japan is nice? Well, sadly for Akashi fans that’s not the case a lot of the time. When it comes to showing off merch on twitter fans seem pretty chill but when it comes to actually getting the goods and in person, well.....good luck....

So that’s my report of personal experiences of crazy KnB fans within my 3 years of Japan. I really wished I was making these up but I don’t think I ever could. Here’s to hoping none of you guys have to experience these XD;

[financevisionary]

My strategy for turning $15,000 into $200,000 every month

Let me inform you the tale of 2 companies that are specifically the same-except for one simple difference.

Each business begins off with $100 in capital.

One has a one-month sales pattern (i.e., people go from possibility to client in one month). The other business has a four-month sales cycle.

Not remarkably, the slower company adds much less over time. But do you recognize exactly how much less after one year?

It just generates $800 in income, while the faster company sees sales increase to $204,800.

That's 256 times much less, merely because it has a slower sales process!

With the slower sales pattern, the proprietor can reinvest his or her earnings merely four times rather than 12 times.

In many means, this is the story of my company. It used to take months to close a $279 sale.

Now, it takes merely 48 hours to close a $5,000 to $25,000 sale from a complete stranger.

This sales-cycle distinction transformed everything!

When I made the change from a 'slow-sales' design to a 'fast-sales' version, my company jumped from $120,000 each year to $2.4 million per year.

The fast-sales model is certainly better. Nobody would certainly choose a slow-sales design on objective. Yet many individuals accidentally wind up stuck there.

In my case, I fell under 2 dangerous as well as typical holds:

1. Content-first marketing. The belief that I have to produce blog posts, videos, and also social-media posts for months or perhaps years prior to I can offer my consumer anything.

2. Ascension model marketing. The idea that I should begin selling customers inexpensive products before I can sell them more costly ones.

Here's what I learned:

You do not should create months of content prior to an individual will certainly buy from you.

You don't need to construct a tribe.

You don't should offer a low-price product to at some point get someone to purchase a high-price one!

All you require is a properly developed sales system that actually works.

In this short article, I discuss my exact sales system along with certain numbers and also hacks you could promptly make use of to begin to obtain sales fast.

First, to provide you context, here is just how my sales channel performs in a normal month. In a given month, we'll spend $15,000 on marketing as well as bring around 20 to 30 customers right into our high-ticket programs. It appears like this:

Problem-First Marketing: My System for Developing Rapid Sales of Expensive Products

One big please note: Prior to you can get results from the funnel above, it is absolutely crucial that you recognize, speak with, and also fix the customer's core trouble in each step of the sales channel. I clarify exactly how to do that in 'Business Ideology That Grew My Company From $120,000 to $2.4 Million In 30 Days.'

Step No. 1: Target My Exact Consumer on Facebook and also Twitter

Every month, I spend $15,000 to $20,000 on Twitter and also Facebook ads.

There are a million ways to target people on Twitter or facebook, but exactly what's functioned best for me is problem-based targeting. I target individuals based on whether they have the certain issue that my product resolves. I clarify the power of the problem-first approach in my previous Inc.com article.

While Facebook as well as Twitter do not yet have a means to clearly target clients with the issue you resolve, there is a method to do this indirectly. You can target people by the particular Facebook Pages they follow.

Why does this work? If somebody adheres to a niche firm that just deals with the precise problem that my firm concentrates on, then I could be positive that this fan has that problem also. On the various other hand, if they follow a very general Facebook page, say a prominent musician's, then I do not actually recognize if they have that issue or not.

Step No. 2: Create the Ad

Our concentration here is driving individuals to sign up for a totally free webinar.

In order to do this, we focus the ad on the result that potential consumers want. This might be an objective they wish to accomplish, an issue they intend to prevent or address, or both. The a lot more eye-catching the result is for that prospective customer, the much more powerful the ad will be.

Clearly showing what people get is one of one of the most crucial aspects of an effective headline. MEC Labs has conducted 10s of thousands of heading tests over 15 years, as well as they came to the same final thought when they discussed their five essential findings.

Here is among my old advertisements, to reveal you just what one of my Facebook advertisements resembles:

Note that the result is clear: double the variety of new clients you get weekly. That's a wonderful hook, as well as it's appropriate in line with exactly what we provide for the people we work with.

Step No. 3: Release a Landing Page

From my promotion, I link to a landing web page for my webinar.

There are four crucial tactics I use on this page to transform 20 percent of its site visitors:

Only one connect to click the entire web page. Most Website supply a navigating bar as well as bunches of different paths for visitors to comply with. Good landing pages are designed to get site visitors to do just one point. That thing can be buying a product, offering an email address, or joining to a webinar.

This free Landing Web page 101 training course strolls you through suggestions on creating a landing web page. If you're just starting, I advise using LeadPages to produce your landing web page. It totally automates the process.

Goal-based and also problem-based headings. There is no replacement for deeply recognizing the problems your audience faces and also the objectives they desire to reach and speaking to them.

That's why I make use of the adhering to formula for headlines:

How to [AWESOME] Without [SUCK]

Or, put another way:

How to [INSERT GOAL] Without [PUT ISSUE]

Over 10,000 research studies by psycho therapists in the last 20 years show the power of approach and avoidance as main motorists of motivation. So, the power of this formula is that it talks with each of these.

Extensive Testing. I spend weeks examining the headings on this web page. With a tool like LeadPages, you can very easily A/B test different headings. I'm always amazed at the outcomes of testing. The examination that wins is usually one that I had not been anticipating. That's why it's crucial for even the most skilled online marketers to continuously test.

I added a countdown timer. There is a timer that counts to the next proving of the webinar. This provides a 10 percent to 15 percent bump in conversion for me.

The concept of a launch procedure timer has actually been embraced in several put on the Internet, consisting of one of the most prominent event administration system online-Eventbrite-and Amazon's Daily Deals.

Academic study by respected scientist Robert Cialdini, author of Influence, shows that individuals value things a lot more extremely when they are much less available. Having a target date is one powerful method to produce this scarcity.

LeadPages makes it very easy to include a countdown timer to your landing page.

Step No. 4: Hold a Webinar

I initially found out about the power of webinars in 2012. I obtained a call from my pal, E. Brian Rose, writer of Millionaire Within. He had seen a sales page I had developed for my previous business, and he primarily told me, 'I believe this offer would certainly do considerably better if you attempted to do a webinar. I'll place a number of individuals on it. You can run it, and afterwards we'll divide the profits.'

He explained ways to do it. He helped promote it.

It drew 110 people.

I remember being truly terrified. It was the very first time I had actually done anything like it. However I simply focused on talking from the heart. Fortunately, it resonated.

Half of the 110 people purchased.

From that day on, I have actually been completely convinced that webinars are magical. They do the work of an entire content advertising and marketing campaign while making a direct offer.

You can't do anything else online as well as obtain a 50 percent conversion.

Here's why webinars work so well:

Viewers invest even more time on webinars compared to almost other form of online web content. The standard short article takes merely a couple of minutes to read. As well as that's presuming people check out the entire article-55 percent of site visitors to short articles just invest 15 secs skimming them. On the other hand, my ordinary webinar is 45 mins and over 30 percent of individuals remain to the end as well as routine a telephone call with somebody on our group. That's the matching of 15 short articles of time.

Webinars help you develop a much deeper connection compared to a post can. With a webinar, you could guide listeners with your voice and also photos, as well as interactive tools like Q&A, group chat, etc.

Webinars give you with wholehearted attention. Most individuals concern an article considering that they saw it in their social-media newsfeed. Webinars are various. If they're watching your webinar, it indicates that they have actually taken time out of their routine to turn up and also focus on what you're doing.

All of these factors make webinars the perfect location to inform possible clients and make a deal for your product.

In the webinar, I supply real value. I hand out as a lot of the option as I could in the time that I have. Wonderful cost-free content will certainly obtain you before even more people, and also it will develop a deeper level of count on with them.

At the end of the webinar, I invite individuals in the viewers to have an individually telephone call if they feel my product is a good fit. People publication sessions with us with the scheduling software application, Set up Once. Then, we call them at the time they select.

Keep in mind that our objective isn't really to convert every person. Throughout the webinar, we repetitively claim which our program is EXCEPT. We can possibly obtain 60 percent of individuals to arrange a telephone call if we allowed simply anyone. If we did that, however, we 'd be losing our time in meaningless conversations with individuals that aren't a good fit. That wastes their time and also ours.

In a future article, I'll discuss my formula making a high-converting webinar that's incredibly valuable for attendees and effective adequate to generate regular sales right into your business.

Step No. 5: Talk With Prospective Consumers One-on-One

The 35 to 45 minute discussion serves 3 functions:

It removes people that aren't a good fit. Although it's appealing, I've learned by hand that you never ever need to take cash from the wrong people. If your item can't absolutely aid an individual, then you're doing them a disservice. Second of all, if people are NOT genuinely encouraged to take activity, after that they're doing themselves an injustice. If you have a firm program, like I do, then even one bad apple can throw off the entire team's mechanics. In the short term, this causes millions of bucks less in earnings each year. I have no question that it's the appropriate decision.

It offers the additional mentoring that we promised in the webinar. We aid callers establish the excellent rate that they must be billing, who their suitable customer is, and the very best way to reach their ideal visitor. This reveals customers we could address their problem, makings them most likely to deal with us.

It provides us an opportunity to supply a sales offer to potential customers that we assume are a good fit. When we genuinely think that we can help someone and they're a great fit, we make a solid case for why they must relocate forward.

Take Action

Over the years, I've aided hundreds of entrepreneurs create sales funnels that are compelling adequate to produce constant $5,000 to $10,000 sales. Some of these business owners have developed companies simply as huge and even bigger compared to mine. Others have failed to get any traction.

So... just what is the distinction between the two? It is not intelligence or skill.

It's fear.

Fear of being rejected.

Fear of stumbling upon too 'sales-y.'

Fear of charging too much.

Fear of stating no to visitors who typically aren't an excellent fit.

Fear incapacitates people and also stops them from acting and picking up from their mistakes.

Fear makes individuals go for sub-par profit, average visitors, and an average product.

I'm not effective considering that I'm the smartest man in any room.

I really did not go to an Ivy League school. I began my occupation as a bartender, not a venture-backed entrepreneur.

But what I do not have in pedigree, I have actually make up for in boldness.

I invested $61,423 as well as numerous months in 2013 only doing full-time designing, screening, as well as refining of my sales funnel. It was only after months of aggravation as well as denial that my sales skyrocketed from $10,000 a month to $200,000 a month in November 2013.

Over the last two years, I raised my rate by 100 times. Nobody asked me to enhance the price. I looked at the value of the info I was providing, and I knew it deserved more.

I rejected $2 million in profits this year by stating no to potential clients who I didn't think were a good fit. I asked some visitors to leave the program and also refunded tens of thousands of bucks if I got a feeling that they ultimately weren't an excellent suitable for the program. I had high requirements, also when I actually required the money.

Most entrepreneurs merely typically aren't going to go via this struggle or make these tough decisions in the beginning.

So, before you begin, ask on your own two questions:

Are you willing to deal with that fear as well as require what you're worth?

Are you ready to do numerous examinations until points 'click'?

Look yourself in the mirror. Be sincere with yourself.

If you're not prepared, then stop now. You will certainly save on your own years of false beginnings and also sub-par results.

If you prepare, after that start currently. Every hard choice and every examination will bring you closer to the success you're looking for.

Russ Ruffino is the designer of Clients on Need. Using his approaches, instructors, professionals, thought-leaders, and also solution professionals attract the excellent customers, at the best rate, anytime they desire. For more information, see his complimentary webinar.

[milansinghsolanki]

JAIPUR - 'Fort'-ified love?

10:50 AM - I reach Jaipur, de-board at 'Narayan Singh Circle', full of anxiety more than ever, all weird thoughts about my appearance crossing my mind, that is certainly degraded after a long bus journey of 5 hours that I started at 6:00 AM in the morning, for which I had to wake up at 4:30 AM, for which I could only sleep at 02:00 AM as I came home late from Ghaziabad and went shopping to Janpath, as Nancy wanted it and me being me, couldn't say NO!

Phew! Are you yet convinced how tired I am or should I dive into the pool of intricacies? Alright, let's just say I don't look good anyday, infact most days I end up looking like a 'zombie' failing to recognise even myself at times,  but this was one of those days when you don't even look average cos you decide to overdo yourself the day before and hey, to worsen things up, this day is a 'date' with an utterly goodlooking man. FML. This, truth be said, is my first ever official date. I have never approached a guy like that. I have never planned what they term in the humanly world as a'date', let alone going to meet a guy from 'Gurgaon' to 'Jaipur' . Welcome to the world of Imtiaz Ali - "What you seek is seeking you?" Well, we'll figure out.

In a world where appearances are beautiful, planned, flawed, deceptive and an essential element to make things work, I decided to wear the only thing I have always believed we all should be wearing well and I wore my 'confidence' and without giving my clothing a real chance to play an important role, I found out even my clothes weren't ready to pay me as much of a vile sheer little importance either. Damn, the regular sweater I thought I would wear, was lying in the most unimportant spot in the world, the laundry bag.

Alright, not an issue, let's go for the second regular sweater I have. There you go! Launday bag again.

Okay, third one? Laundry bag. Before I checked the fourth sweater in the closet, I checked in the laundry bag first this time and not disppointing me ever, it was there too! Thanks to the regime of doing an ebb and flow from Ghaziabad to Gurgaon on weekends, no time for laundry.

Well, who comes to rescue at these irritating yet need-to-be-dealt moments. Well, your roommate and your friend does.

Nancy, looking at my despair face, pulls out a sweater and hands to me with a t-shirt and the needy me quickly grasps it at once. I was thankful at that time, I still am but in this moment, I wish I had worn my clothes! I wish I had carried my body odour here to Jaipur cos wearing her clothes made me feel all the time as if Nancy was with me all the time, sitting in the next seat with me in the bus. I could smell her:P

Don't get me wrong, my feelings can get creepy at times. But in my solemnest of the wishes, I wish I was dressed in my own clothes, cos your clothes carry an impression that is very personalized to who you are and don't tell me that you don't believe that your clothes carry your odour and charm too. Okay, now I am nervous as I am not confident in my skin in Nancy's clothes but I just went with the flow. Isn't that what I did too when I decided to come to Jaipur? Yeah right, went with the flow, kill me.

So, here I am, de-boarded and trying to catch a beat. Yes, my heart is thumping. Lot of overwhelming emotions scaling themselves out; there is a sense of excitement as I am doing this for the first time, then there is a sense of fear grasping you by your feet asking you to be skeptical of what all can go wrong, all of these amalgmated with figuring out how to approach a scenario where the guy you have come to meet and who told he'd be at the bus stand to pick you up, hasn't yet shown up. Okay, that's a little careless but I am too critical of my thoughts already, let's give the guy a fair chance at least.

Alright, with a 'ganne ka juice redi' on my left, a 'kulche' wala on my right, and almost 8-10 men staring me right into my face, O boy, they are staring into my soul, heightening a sense of urgency in me, to just rush from the bus stand to someplace less awkward, as if being in an unknown city isn't enough of an awkwardness already, my options are limited.

"Hey! stop thinking so much and chase the adrenaline you came here for. Experience!" - Shouted the hormone of confidence in me.

I walk a little to the right, a few meters away, I find a mall reading 'WESTSIDE' in huge bold letters or so I think. Okay, this is the time I should make a call to 'Varun' and tell him that I'd be at the mall instead of the bus stand. See, this is what a responsible behavior constitutes of! Are you reading this Varun? :P

*Making a call to Varun*

Varun, with his full brimming voice - "Han gee bataiye Milan Singh, kahan pahuche?" *WTH! I already texted him that I'd be there sooner than we reckoned. He hasn't checked my text perhaps. Cool down, Milan. Like we decided, we'd give the guy a fair chance*   Milan, in an attempt,not to sound awkward - "Yeah-2 I am here, the bus arrived early. Listen, I'd meet you at the mall, I am going towards it as we speak" Varun - "O yaar! I got stuck with something. You be there , main ata hun. There are various things that you can check out at the mall. There is ........(list of check-outs)...." Milan interrupting as she is least bothered about references at the moment and most excited about just seeing him. Milan - "arey, it's okay. I will be fine. You just reach soon." Varun - "Sure-2 I will be there in 10-15 mins" Milan - "han-2 araam sey"

Disconnected.

Phew! Am I overreacting by being a little mad at him for not being on time or any other girl would have done that? Damn it, I think it's just me.

Alright, what do we have in the mall? I am dip hungry and haven't had anything for the last 14 hours now. Should I eat? Also, I am on a TB medication that urgently requires me to have meds before 9 AM and eat something. That's fine, I can give the regime a break. I will eat with Varun. Wouldn't it be so stupid to have come so far and yet not eat with the guy that you came to meet? In a world of realism, it would be absurd. Okay, stay hungry Milan. Let him come.

Let's shop something. Oh! A cosmetic shop. Yes, let's shop for a deo. This journey and this mundane start, calls out for something that smells good. More than that, I have to put Nancy out of the picture. She can't be with 'us' when I meet him. Sorry Nancy, I am trying to override your presence amongst us, with this newly bought deo. :P

*Call from Varun ,flashing on my screen*

Milan - "han gee, kahan pahuche" Varun - "I will be there in 2 mins. You come out....." *Varun giving directions to me for the exact point where he'd meet me* Milan - "Okay, ati hun, waise if you want to eat something, yahan mall mei bhi kha sakte hain" Varun, with a whimsical and fanciful voice, the one that I love - "Pagal hai kya?" Milan - "Oh okay-2 I get it. Coming out"

*Calling Varun.........* Milan - "I can't find you" Varun - "Okay, you might see a bus, I have crossed that. I am standing right at the gate of the mall" Milan - "What is the color of the car and which car?" Varun - "Rapid, Blue, I think I see you" Milan - "Oh! Yes, I can see the car too. Coming"

Okay, this is the moment when there was an earthquake of emotions bursting in me. My feet went cold, my inner voice shouting a thousand things to me and.......

He comes out of the car, the first thing I notice about him is a long black shrug. That's a noticeable shrug, in a good way. Second thing, he is wearing glasses. Oh come on man, I'd never do that. We are meeting for the first time. I understand you were driving but take them off when you meet me. Make an eye contact, let my first impression of you be through the eyes crossing each other. No? Please.

While I was thinking all of this, I drew my hand out to make a handshake with him. How else do you meet people whom you are meeting for the first time? Well, not in Varun's world. Comes out of the car, not letting me process a lot of things, hugs me. Yes, just like that. Okay, we have to stop here. We have to go through this moment for at least a hundred times, no let's settle for a thousand times. Damn, it felt so good. No matter how much I had prepared for a handshake a few minutes back, this unexpected move felt just so good. I didn't want to let go. It felt like I had known him for years. Is there a button in life that could pause moments? I'd like to use one at this very time please and play this moment on loop. Or I'd like to simply freeze it.

And hence starts a journey that is going to be endearingly lovable and unforgettable.