#and at least if i work at barnes and noble then i get discounts on books right
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How to change preferences on bookbub
#How to change preferences on bookbub download
#How to change preferences on bookbub free
Lyndsee Simpson is a contributor to The Penny Hoarder. An added advantage is the online book reviews, which I definitely use when choosing a book. If you’re after a specific book, it’s best to just purchase it like any other book.įor me, BookBub is like wandering through the library, picking up whichever book strikes my fancy. Since I’ve been on BookBub, I’ve seen deals on work by Michael Crichton, Anne Rice and Alice Hoffman.Ĭan You Search for Specific Books on BookBub? Most of the books I’ve purchased have at least four stars out of five on Amazon.Īnd books by well-known authors also pop up from time to time. When I first signed up, I assumed these cheap books would be lower quality or less prestigious than the full-priced titles.īut that hasn’t proved to be the case. Once you’re on the book’s page on Amazon or another book-buying site, you can see its ratings and reviews. How Do You Know Whether the Books Are Good? From there, it’s just like purchasing any other ebook. When you choose a book from the email, the link takes you to the purchase page in Amazon’s Kindle store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook store or Apple’s Book Store. How Do You Buy the Books?īookBub doesn’t sell the books directly it just lets you know about deals you can get elsewhere.ĭeals are for a limited time only, so if it’s best to snatch up something you want, but you can also set up the app to send you reminders before the deal expires.
#How to change preferences on bookbub free
Lucky for us, the service is free for readers. Publishers pay a fee to submit their books to BookBub and be included in the daily email. The highest price I’ve seen is $4.99 for an entire series. Most are on sale for $1 to $1.99, a few are free and a couple might cost $2.99. I checked mysteries, nonfiction and young adult.Įach afternoon, BookBub sends me a customized email with a list of discounted books in my chosen genres. You create a free account, which was pretty painless by my standards, then indicate the device you use to read ebooks and choose your favorite genres. To save some money without denying my reading needs, I’m using a site called BookBub in the first two months, I estimate it saved me $60 on five titles. However, I soon realized the cost of replacing my library habit with a bunch of Kindle books was adding up.
#How to change preferences on bookbub download
When I unwrapped my new tablet, I was quick to download a bunch of ebooks.
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I am doing very well today, at least for the most part lmao 😅. Hope your week is going well!
I got the Dia ur+ and that unlockable group one with levi , which made me incredibly happy. I hope u r able to get that one too, although it doesn’t have a devilgram unfortunately 🥲
Twisted wonderland has been a pit of despair trying to get a characters birthday banner card😭
And genshin is trying to kill me constantly 🤦♂️. I like the story and characters but the GUI (and UI in general) isn’t as cooperative as I’d hoped and they definitely don’t make it easy to level up/beat enemies. Which is something i understand but also feels impossible to overcome even with different characters and upgrades😩
I definitely understand the anxiety surrounding work stuff. I have an interview tomorrow that is stressing me out even though im already getting the job. Unfortunately it only pays min. wage but it’s what I could get in my current situation so i guess it’s alright. Basically doing the same stuff i did before, minus steady hours and decent pay lol.
Glad to hear it!!! Though if you need to talk about anything you're always free to message me. And thank you! I need my Barnes and Noble employee discount revoked because the amount of pumpkin spice lattes and apple crisp macchiatos I'm buying is shameful lol.
Ahhh that's awesome! Congratulations! I'm both hoping Levi gets a new UR soon and that he does not because I might lose my mind T . T
I'm sorry ;; Gacha games are torturous! I played a little bit of Twisted Wonderland and it was enjoyable! Just not enough space on my phone after I downloaded Genshin lol. Which character are you trying to get? I hope they come home to you soon! Wishing you all the gacha luck ♥
Aw that's terrible! What do you play it on? I have to play on my phone and it definitely took me a while to get used to it. I'd like to get a computer that can handle it or a Playstation eventually. I wish it was on the Switch. Levelling up and defeating enemies definitely became easier over time. Enemies I couldn't beat before I can beat fairly easily now. I'm still learning how to build my characters so they deal the most damage! I like to take it slow too; enjoying the story, characters, and just exploring the world.
Omg good luck tomorrow!!! Even though the job is yours interviews are always so stressful. I'm sure you will do fantastic, and they hired you so it shows they think you're the right one for the job! I hope this job leads to a much better one in the future. Though you should feel accomplished and proud of yourself and all you're doing right now!
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yikes I understand you, I hate doing the same thing everyday cause at some point you end up getting tired of it so if you want to look for a new job that's fine, maybe you can even find one that you like more, who knows
It really does get very tiring, because it's the same people to work with every day, and because I work at a Panera, we get a lot of the same customers every single day (to the point where I've got several phone numbers of customers memorized, as well as their specialized orders ((like in the special notes we can literally just type the customer's name, and the people working on the line will know the modifications)) bc they come in every.single.day without fail)
I'm really thinking lately that even though I'm kinda happy with my job, since I do like the people I work with and because it's easy, I think I've just become kinda stagnant and I never wanted to stay here for this long, so I have been thinking more lately about leaving
#asks#newaxs#but if i leave i'm just gonna go into something else customer service#like retail and i feel like i might just end up hating that more and wishing i'd not left my job#but anyway#i either want to work at like barnes and noble or a library bc i really like books#and at least if i work at barnes and noble then i get discounts on books right#not that i need more books#my bedroom is full of books and albums and it's a serious issue
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Meta Essay: Medivh The Bisexual Icon
As of the time of this post, there’s going to be an update coming to World of Warcraft where the once all female ghosts in Karazhan will be changed to include male varieties as well.
Full details on the update can be found here:
https://www.wowhead.com/news/female-only-ghosts-in-karazhan-updated-to-include-male-versions-324371
This has caused a lot of fun posts and people to take this as an ‘accidental confirmation’ by Blizzard that the character Medivh is bisexual. Pair this along with how some of his portrayal in Hearthstone was made into Warcraft canon, and in my opinion, it’s an excellent update to his character.
It’s no secret that Blizzard’s had a massive lack in LBGTQ+ representation for the longest time. Often when such subject matter did show up it was treated more as a punchline in some quests or was kept conveniently to the sidelines, with nonconsequential, blink and you miss it text, side characters, moments. It’s insulting, to say the least, and is the source of a growing frustration from the LBGTQ+ members of the audience. What’s more, whenever this frustration gets voiced it’s always talked down to. We are told that to ‘keep politics out of gaming’ and that we are too sensitive, when these are the same people that get bent out of shape when even a single thing changes or is called out in their game. It’s bullshit. LBGTQ+ people exist and the act of existing isn’t a political issue.
But of course, with people even making lighthearted jokes or posts of Medivh being a ‘Bisexual Icon’, there’s folks crawling out of the woodwork with reasons from “But the loooooooore!” (as if the lore isn’t constantly changing and being retconned from one expansion to the next) to “Well A-C-T-U-A-L-L-Y, those male guests were just for the female nobles that visited and attended his parties, Medivh was very straight”. To that, I’m going to say: “Nah, Medivh is a bisexual icon, deal with it”.
In my personal opinion, Medivh is an excellent character to explore queerness with. He’s a character that’s been around since Warcraft 1 and the effects and ties from his story are still felt throughout World of Warcraft in various ways. Medivh is also a character that’s gone through a large amount of evolution and various portrayals. My personal favorite being the One Night in Karazhan take on him because it’s so different from the usual ‘brooding, grand powerful hermit-mage’ that his type of character usually is. Medivh in One Night in Karazhan is instead, vibrant and is a thriving social butterfly that loves to have and treat people to a good time. His reasonings for being this way make a lot more sense when you really think about what Medivh’s situation was.
Now, I have to mention that I do a much deeper dive and deconstruction of Medivh’s circumstances and just how messed up they were in this self indulgent essay/headcanon dump: ‘My Completely Self-indulgent Medivh Essay’. Feel free to give it a read but here is the basic gist for this essay:
Yes, Medivh was the Guardian, one of the most powerful mages to exist at the time. He was also possessed by Sargeras and was the one that created and opened the Dark Portal that brought the Orcs to Azaroth and changed Azeroth forever. But here’s the thing, Medivh had no choice in any of it.
To be the Guardian means you have to put your life on the line for Azeroth’s sake. This is a role that had to be kept to secrecy, people had to make a lot of sacrifices to be the Guardian. You gain phenomenal powers and it is a great honor but none of this was anything that Medivh ever asked for. He was literally born to become the Guardian, there was no other choice for his own future.
Then you have Sargeras, he had his plans in play long before Medivh was even a thought. A sliver of Sargeras had entered Aegwynn (Med’s mother and the Guardian before him) from a battle between Aegwynn and his avatar. This influence hid within her and made its move when she decided that she wasn’t going to allow the Council of Tirisfal to choose her heir for her title and powers for her. Ignoring Chronicle’s softening of her, she used Medivh’s father, Neilas Aran, the court magician of Stormwind to sire a child. In TLG she let him know she flat out used him and felt nothing for him then came back later and tossed baby Medivh to him for free childcare. What neither of them knew at the time was that Medivh was possessed by Sargeras while he was in the womb. Sargeras would then screw him over even further by causing his powers to lash out when he was fourteen, causing him to accidentally kill his father and fall into a near 10 year coma, and wake up mentally and emotionally fourteen in a twenty-three-year-old’s body. So from the very beginning Medivh was always set up for failure.
So with this summary out of the way, the point of the matter is that Medivh is a character that had little autonomy for most of his life. His career and his fate were chosen for him from the start. Sargeras was in his head messing with him throughout his life, in TLG Medivh even tells Khadgar that he tried to fight it as much as he could. His story is a tragic one but with his reappearance in Legion there’s potentially a ray of hope.
I think there’s a lot of aspects in Medivh’s story that can tie well with the feelings and experiences of queerness. Not so much the being possessed by discount space Satan, but more so the struggle of trying to have autonomy and hanging onto who you are as a person. Being queer myself and looking at it through that lens, I see Medivh being vibrant and throwing parties as an attempt for him to seize what autonomy he could for himself. To exist, to be seen, and to have an identity of his own that had nothing to do with being the Guardian of Tirisfal. I think that it’s also something that separates Medivh from Sargeras. There were likely times where Sargeras may have forced the lines between them to blur as he gradually poisoned Medivh’s thoughts and twisted his soul throughout the years. Medivh likely had to struggle a lot with separating who he truly was from Sargeras. This being inside him, who wasn’t him but would at times take over his body suppressing Medivh’s true self. It’s a horror story where some elements can really hit close to home.
Medivh I believe surrounded himself with like minded, free spirited people like Barnes and the theater troupe (while there’s the joke Medivh’s only seen three plays, I choose to headcanon he’s a theater kid, given how he has a theater to begin with and his own love for theatrics). Whether you picture Medivh as aro, ace, gay, bi, pan, or trans, with the upcoming changes he clearly accepts many kinds of people into his home.
This also has the interesting effect of changing some of the tones for some events in his lore. One example being the titans sending down the Maiden of Virtue to punish Medivh and make him live a more ‘pure’ life. The Titans are Azeroth’s closest thing to a pantheon of gods. They are beings of order, having taken Azeroth in her rawest form and molding her into something they saw fit. Apparently, Medivh’s parties and behavior was seen as something that required ‘correcting’.
On one hand, it’s really easy to read it simply as Medivh being a selfish, spoiled brat. But with looking at it through a queer lens one can put a more positive spin on the situation. The Maiden of Virtue was sent to shame and punish him into conforming into something the Titans believe someone like Medivh should behave. It clearly didn’t work. Looking at this situation, one can read it as Medivh refusing to relinquish his identity because a ‘higher power’ wanted him to. In the real world there are so many that have to hide their orientation and gender thanks to people using religion and belief as a cudgel. So having a character like Medivh as queer, with the power and willfulness to flat out refuse and shut it down is a refreshing power move.
Medivh’s story and the way he is in general has elements that I believe many people of the LBGTQ+ can relate with. He’s a complicated character that has dealt with abuse and being forced into roles without his consent, he made identity for himself and it was stripped away by an oppressor (Sargeras), and, depending on if Blizzard decides he’s actually resurrected/alive instead of being a ghost, is a survivor.
So to me, I love the idea of Medivh being a queer icon in Warcraft. It hasn’t been officially stated by Blizzard at the time this essay was posted but it has started a fun conversation. There are and will be the haters who will scream and tantrum about the LBGTQ+ touching their precious (when convenient) lore with their filthy paws and tarnishing ‘their game’. But in the meantime, I’m going to continue having a blast with the idea and enjoy working the story potential it gives into fanfics, speculations, and essays.
If you enjoyed this essay, I did a few other bits of meta, headcanons, and speculation for fun:
My Completely Self-indulgent Medivh Essay
A Bit About Wizards and Sorcerers
Headcanons: Medivh is Alive and Currently Uses ‘The Guardian’s Study’ as his Home
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A Step-by-Step Guide to Self-Publishing a Middle Grade Adventure Book
It can be so exciting to share your story with the world! While everyone’s writing journey is different and there’s no right way to seek publication, here’s a guide from middle grade author RJ Vantalos detailing the steps they took to get their novel published:
Back in November 2018, my writing partner (my fiance’s 11-year-old daughter!) and I wanted to craft a middle-grade fiction book during NaNoWriMo. We decided to write about a family that has magical powers that they use to save a romp of Sea Otters in Monterey Bay.
That NaNoWriMo journey created the first draft of the book we just self-published called The Magical Mystical Mirror under our pen name RJ Vantalos. Why a pen name?
As artists, we want to focus on our art and write some great stories together. RJ Vantalos gives us the space to collaborate as co-authors in this adventure series under a single banner, without blurring the lines with other aspects of our respective lives. Besides, RJ Vantalos is just an awesome pen name and was begging to be put to use.
We wanted to share how we did it so that if you might have a book you want to self-publish, you’ll at least have one experience to guide you.
Know Your Genre and What Readers Expect
At the time, we wanted to write a middle-grade story that had some roots in our lives. Since we take trips to Monterey Bay often (at least before COVID), we decided to make that the setting of our story.
Since one of us is a middle-schooler who loves both Scooby-Doo and Nancy Drew, it was decided that she would guide what a middle-grade reader might want to read about. This was invaluable and allowed us to fill in a lot of the story as we took our trips to Monterey Bay Aquarium, Mission Carmel, and Cannery Row.
We also knew that we wanted to have some magic, mystery, and a “crime” to solve. That led us down the path of Fantasy/Adventure that’s a cross between Scooby-Doo and Harry Potter.
What this also did was make us realize that we needed to have illustrations for the book. The middle-grade chapter books we are fond of, such as Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, to name a few, all had illustrations.
So the first step in our process (after we finished our Draft 0 during NaNoWriMo in 2019) was to find an illustrator. You can skip that if you don’t need them.
Step 1: Find an Illustrator
We needed to have illustrations for the cover and beginning of each chapter. That was an essential part of what a middle-grade chapter book must provide for the reader. We worked with a local San Francisco artist named Julia Geller who writes books as well.
We had to make sure that our draft was not going to change too much since the illustrations will be based on what’s in each chapter. That’s why we needed to make sure it all made sense. This brings us to step 2.
Step 2: Have Friends and Family Read It
Thankfully, we have a wide variety of friends and family in our target reader group, so they served as our “beta readers.” This is an essential part of creating a story that works for your readers. As we had them read the close to final drafts, we got a lot of great advice on how to refine the story. This refining process is a good way to know when you’re ready to hire an editor.
Step 3: Hire an Editor
Hiring an editor is a great way to ensure that your final book makes sense and does not have typos. Since we already had the structure of the book nailed down, we only needed to hire a line editor as opposed to a structural editor.
For what, we used Kerrie McLoughlin, who not only is a great copy editor but also has kids in our age demographic. Win and double win!
Step 3b: Rounds of Editing
Editing a book is such an art and it’s also something that feels like it’s never done. After we got the edits from Kerrie, we went through them to make sure they worked from our perspective. Even after that, we got others to look at it just to make sure.
If you don’t have someone awesome like Kerrie, there is a marketplace for editors on Reedsy.
Step 4: Create a Cover
Julia also did the cover illustrations for the book but not the cover. For that, we used 100covers. At first, you might be tempted to try and do a cover or use an automatic cover generator from one of the self-publishing tools (more on that later). We’d recommend against that.
One thing we found is that automatically generated covers tend to be a little off and that makes the paperback look a little weird. For eBooks, that’s not as true. We’d say experiment with it and see how it looks. The beauty of self-publishing is that you control the process and can iterate over and over again. Which we did.
One upside with having 100covers do your cover is that we got a lot of marketing images to use as well since we picked that package.
Step 5: Format the Inside of the Book
Since we have images in our book, we hired Formatted Books to do both the paperback and the eBook. This worked out extremely well. At first, we tried to use the Reedsy formatting tool to create the print version. This did an okay job.
The problem was with the images and how we wanted them to look. We wanted the images to be above the first page of the chapter. The Reedsy tool did this but not on all of the chapters.
If you have a book that is not image-heavy (or no images at all), then you could save a bit of money on formatting. Again, play around with it and see how it turns out.
Step 6: Setup the Book on Blurb
We used Blurb.com as our “publisher” for the print version. It’s an easy site to use and also allows independent bookstores to order books as well. This was an important part of our promotion plan. We LOVE independent book stores and want all our friends and family to be able to buy them there.
Of course, with Blurb, they can also buy it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble if they so choose.
NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program participants also get a special Blurb discount by using the code YWP30
Step 6b: Setup the eBook on Kobo
Blurb.com does offer eBook distribution but you have to create an eBook from your print book pdf. This did not work out for us.
The formatting of The Magical Mystical Mirror turned out awful when we ran it through Blurb’s converter. It also gave us an error that we could not use the font that was in the print version. That was the main reason the formatting went wrong. When the tool tried to swap the fonts, everything went sideways. That’s why we went with Kobo.
Kobo.com allowed us to upload the eBook we got as part of the package from Formatted Books. This worked out awesome.
Kobo is easy to use and is a great way to sell the eBook (and audio if we had one) all over the world. We first heard of Kobo from Joanna Penn, whose podcast and books on self-publishing we relied on for help and guidance. She’s even done NaNoWriMo several times!
Step 7: Review Print & eBook
We did several rounds of galley copies of the print book to double and triple-check it. A galley copy is what publishers call the first book(s) “off the press” that is used for final checks.
We did find a couple of typos and mistakes in the galley copies that we had to feedback to Formatted Books. It’s hard to find every typo or misspelled word when looking at an electronic copy. We’d highly recommend getting a couple of galley copies to look at before officially hitting publish.
Step 8: Hit Publish!
On both Blurb and Kobo, you can keep your book in “draft” while you’re reviewing all the versions. You’ll also have to set pricing for all of your versions and if you’re selling to bookstores, the discounted price. Both tools have good guidance on this and we would recommend looks at “comps” in your genre. “Comps” are books that are similar to yours.
Congratulations! You just self-published your book. Have a party to celebrate while you think about how to promote your book.
The Promotion Plan
We love independent books stores and a big concern of ours was whether or not they could carry our book. Thankfully, if you use Blurb, they can.
Our promotion plan is centered around local independent bookstores and creating demand for the book via friends and family. Of course, writing a blog post on NaNoWriMo does not hurt either!
Research All Your Local Bookstores
We used bookweb.org to find our local books stores. This only works for U.S. based bookstores. They have a great search feature that gives you a URL for the search results. This URL is what we’re going to email to all our friends and family along with instructions on what to tell them.
We know this is a bit “old school” but it’s important to us that we try and promote our local independent bookstores to help our local economy. We’re not sure how successful it will be yet but it’s worth a try.
Thanks for Reading This Far
If you made it this far, thanks for reading our journey to self-publishing The Magical Mystical Mirror. It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun. There is something magical about seeing and feeling a book you worked on. For us, it’s a matter of pride and a job well done that we had an idea and it’s now a reality.
If you’d like to read The Magical Mystical Mirror, why not try and pick it up at your local independent bookstore. The ISBN number is 978-1034384199. Tell them RJ sent you! If you’d like the eBook version, then try Kobo.
RJ Vantalos is the pen name of the collaboration between an entrepreneur and his fiance's middle-schooler daughter who one day said "why don't you write books for kids?" So we did! RJ wants all young writers, their friends, and their adults to create more together. It's through creation that we can all learn more about each other and thrive. RJ lives in San Francisco, CA.
#nanowrimo#writing#amwriting#ywp#young writers program#now what#publishing#self-publishing#by nano guest#rj vantalos
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Hey, I don't want to post this to get dragged and for some reason I feel like you'll get me.
Idk if you've heard about the maastastic Patreon, but i checked and there's 5 levels, most of the benefits are early access to the podcasts and merch discounts, access to a Discord server, and getting to submit questions to Sjm, which I think it's cool. Now, for level 4 and 5 (30 and 50 Usd I think?) they also offer exclusive podcast episodes featuring Sjm that won't be shared publicly. Honestly, I don't know if this is a great idea. As fans we barely get to see/listen to Sjm and I get the feeling that since she will show up there, the public ig lives will happen less often.
If they were to ask about Sjm's current reads or music she listens to or random stuff I'd be cool with it, but it's pretty likely they'll discuss her books and maybe (without giving too much away) hint at new releases.
I'm a broke college student, and many of the fans are too probably, If I could spare 50 bucks a month I'd buy books instead of borrowing from the library.
So yeah, I don't know what to make of this, and this isn't even a fuck capitalism! situation because maastastic is obviously not doing this for the money, they have a Patreon just to support the podcast, and all the other benefits I'm okay with, but these exclusive interviews seem like a bad decision.
Enough ranting, what do you think? xx
I do get you! 100%
I know about a lot of fandom drama and happenings from Discords and lurking other social media 👀 so I watched the story yesterday and the announcements and the reactions, and tl;dr is that I wouldn’t worry about missing any important content from the exclusive podcasts by not subscribing. By important content I mean book announcements or hints about future books etc. It would be shooting herself in the foot and they have a whole huge marketing team strategizing and such. You could see how, even in the recent lives she’s done, she was very uncomfortable making any statement that could be even slightly misconstrued. SJM seems much more likely to leave that to other people, or to at the very least let them guide her about what is okay to say and how.
You could make the same arguments for her exclusive book editions that had the feysand and Az short, but ya know what? We all got our hands on the info anyway. People outside the US literally didn’t have access to the Barnes and Noble edition, so... I don’t like how the book “economy” has become a place where special editions and merch are coveted and sold by third parties, but we also don’t *have* to participate in those aspects.
I think we’ve gotten spoiled with her events the past year or so because we used to *never* hear from sjm online. It’s been kinda nice, but even if the podcasts ending up having some exclusive content, it’s not going to be anything that changes the way we look at the books or characters.
While I, personally, am not interested, I don’t judge people who want to subscribe to get that content. I hope that any theories or art or other ideas that are floating around the fandom that they either use or refer to are attributed appropriately, but that could be the composition teacher in me.
There is, to me, a weird thing where there are thousands of us online creating content for free and in our spare time and the only compensation we get is interaction. I’m personally of the mindset of, if I want a certain kind of content, I’ll make it myself. But it’s all a weird transformative works blurry lines thing and I don’t think I care enough to be bothered by it, especially if they aren’t profiting. I sure wouldn’t mind being compensated for the 500k of fanfic I’ve written, though 😅
idk I have a lot of very fuzzy thoughts about this and I hope it made sense!!
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The Ongoing Struggles of Being A Mall Gay (Part 1/3)
Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN or here on tumblr below the cut
Summary: Hoseok works at Build-A-Bear and Yoongi works at the Orange Julius that gives them discounts. Warning for gratuitous overuse of American mall culture.
***
Hoseok is leading around a dog on roller skates. Not a real dog, though that would be fun. They named the dog Clifford, though he is neither big nor red. Hoseok just looked at the dog one day and decided his name was Clifford.
Clifford has pink sparkly roller skates and he’s being led along on his pink sparkly leash by Hoseok who is having way too much fun with him. He’s tried to teach Clifford to roll over, but he’s filled with polyester stuffing and therefore is unable to understand even the most basic of commands. He’s absolutely killing it in the “sit!” game, but that’s the only thing that he’s mastered. You don’t even want to see the disappointment in everyone’s faces when they tell Clifford to fetch and he just sits there, dead in the eyes.
The mall isn’t really busy enough at this hour to rationalize Hoseok playing around with Clifford, but it’s not for any passersby’s amusement. Hoseok is having a blast all by himself thank you very much.
After a few minutes longer than anyone would have expected, he goes to sit by the stuffer. Hoseok picks up a few pieces of fluff off the floor that someone didn’t sweep up, and Taehyung’s head practically pops up out of nowhere from behind the giant contraption.
“Did you notice the new guy?” Taehyung asks.
“Um, what?” Hoseok inquires. Last he checked he was the manager and new hires go through him before anyone else. He would’ve noticed a new a guy. He would’ve hired a new guy since Seokjin doesn’t like to do it.
“No, not here,” Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I’m talking over there.” He points over to the Orange Julius, their direct neighbors. Hoseok analyzes and tries to determine which face is new. There’s Namjoon making small talk with a customer and Jimin pretending two cups are his eyeballs. The usual.
The new face is immediately recognizable because of how uncomfortable he looks. He hasn’t quite perfected how to wear the hat in a way that doesn’t make him look like a robot. He’s also got his shirt tucked in, which is technically a part of the dress code, but Namjoon has never and will never enforce it, as is evident by the fact that Jimin’s shirt is both two sizes too large and hangs down to about his upper thigh. Now obviously Namjoon, ever the rule follower, has his own shirt tucked in, but this little duckling hasn’t learned the culture yet.
“Oh, he looks like a freshly birthed child,” Hoseok notes, with a shake of his head. They’re just a little bit too far away for him to make out features on the face, but you could tell from a mile away that he’s a teenager. There’s no question he’s younger than Hoseok.
“Should we mess with him?” Taehyung asks.
“We’ll see what Jimin says,” he shrugs. He doesn’t want to mess around with a newbie without verifying it with him first, because the last time they did it, they scared the guys so much that he quit. Apparently pretending to get a needle through your finger with the assistance of lots and lots of ketchup is a no-no. Namjoon didn’t talk to them for like three weeks. It made the carpool pretty weird, that’s for sure.
“Jin, do you know anything about the fresh meat?” Hoseok calls over. He says it just a little bit too loudly, because a customer who’s looking at the Choose Me wall looks up, alarmed. Maybe referring to a person as a meat sack isn’t the best thing to say in front of a customer. The glory of being a manager though means he can’t get fired by his boss.
“This is a Build-A-Bear, not a butcher,” Seokjin doesn’t even look up from the paper he’s reading.
“I meant at the Orange Julius.”
Jin looks up and across the hallway, spotting the man that Hoseok is referring to. “Oh him. It’s his first day. Joon said he comes to us by way of Applebee’s.”
“Wow, glamorous.”
“Do you think he could hook me up with discounted appetizers?” Taehyung says.
“We should probably know his name before you start making dinner reservations.”
The confused customer walks away to be replaced by a mother and her daughter who are very clearly on a mission. Since Hoseok is an expert in the customer service game, he welcomes them with a big smile and a wave. Everyone has a rough outline of a script that they use, but this obviously varies based on who walks by their store.
It’s not a real store with four walls and an entrance, it’s actually a kiosk, or what’s called a concourse. It’s probably the biggest kiosk you’ll ever see. The little cell phone repair kiosk a few paces down is only about three feet on any one side, whereas the Build-A-Bear is large enough that it would take you about a minute to walk around the whole thing. The concourse has an employee “room” that runs right through the middle of the store. It’s not a room, it’s just got a little swinging door which separates it from the shopping area. This section only has one entrance, near where Seokjin is standing. The store is set up very much shaped like a horseshoe.
On one side are all the bear skins, which is the technical term, and even after working here for almost ten years, Hoseok still hates it. On the other side are all the clothes, and of course there’s the stuffer on the short end.
Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
Hoseok has always been good around kids, that’s why he’s stayed for so long. His first job was actually at the Orange Julius a few meters away, but he could never stay there for that long, god bless Joon, though. In any case, whenever a kid walks “into” their store, he lights up and knows immediately how to talk to them.
This little girl, with her little mermaid T-shirt, seems like a pretty good candidate to show their new mermaid bear to, and he is right. She barely even has to make eye contact with the unstuffed bear before she looks to her mom with determination in her eyes.
“Is this the one?” he asks. It’s unconscious of him, but Hoseok gets lower to the ground whenever he talks to kids. He likes to be at eye level with them, it’s less intimidating. Hoseok does have one of the least intimidating faces of all time, but still.
She nods and Hoseok smiles, thinking fondly of how much he’ll spoil his own kid when he has one someday far off into the future. Got to get a boyfriend first.
He always has to look up at the parent like he’s asking for permission on behalf of their kid. The little girl’s mom is smiling, so he takes that a as a yes. Since it’s part of his job description, he leads them to the sound machine.
“When you’ve picked out any sounds you want, my good friend Taehyung over there will be able to bring your new friend to life,” he says. Absently, he organizes the bins so that all their eyes are facing up. When he first started, it was kind of creepy how all the animals stare at you, but he’s gotten used to it. Now, the more they stare at him, the stronger his temptation gets.
He doesn’t have an addiction to them, per se. He just has a lot of teddy bears. That’s okay. Lots of people collect things. He doesn’t have shame in that. He has to store some of them at his parents’ house because his apartment is too small, but that doesn’t mean he has a problem. He makes eye contact with a dinosaur and the two of them war with their eyes. Hoseok’s warm brown ones, and the dinosaur’s plastic green ones. He’s probably going to buy the dinosaur soon…
A few more customers come along and Hoseok helps them before gesturing over to Taehyung, who is designated stuffer for today. Hoseok’s favorite job hands down is stuffer, but he’s a good boss who will hand over the role every now and again.
After about an hour, they die down. It’s been about fifteen or so minutes since their last guest and Seokjin is talking about the squirrel in his attic again. Always the squirrel with this one.
“What if it lays eggs in your ceiling and then you start to run an entire squirrel condominium?” Taehyung asks.
“Excuse me?” Seokjin’s voice is way too loud when he responds. “Eggs, Tae? Eggs? Did you just ask me if the squirrel lays eggs?”
Taehyung realizes his error too late. “I didn’t mean eggs.”
“What did you mean Taehyung?”
“Oh forget it,” he says, shaking his head.
Seokjin calls across the hallway. “Joonie, Tae thinks squirrels lay eggs!”
“You what, Tae?” Namjoon responds. His voice is much quieter, because their stores are not that far away and there is no reason for Seokjin to be yelling other than to make sure everyone around them, or possibly in the whole mall, hears them.
“I’m going on my fifteen,” he says with a humph.
Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
“Would you do me a favor and stop at the Barnes and Noble to buy yourself a book about squirrels?” Seokjin asks him. Taehyung, because he’s a good employee, waits until he’s taken his apron off to flip Seokjin off. Hoseok watches the entire scene with fascination from behind the Dress Me wall.
Hoseok gives it another ten minutes, letting Seokjin taunt him even more with how cute and domestic his life with Namjoon is. When he and Namjoon first started working together about a decade ago, he had probably the biggest crush imaginable on him. They were both oily teenagers, but he was utterly infatuated. Seokjin didn’t come along until a year later when the Build-A-Bear was put in. Before that, Hoseok kind of assumed that eventually, he and Namjoon would end up with each other. Obviously, as soon as Namjoon first uttered a word to Seokjin, they were already in love. It didn’t take too terribly long for Hoseok to realize he never could feel the same way that Seokjin did about Namjoon. The crush didn’t melt away overnight, but he got over it.
Hoseok isn’t jealous. He’s not lonely. His roommate Jimin is the closest, friendliest guy in the world. He absolutely adores the guy. However, it would be nice to be married and have someone love him the way Namjoon loves Seokjin.
“Did you read the email from corporate?” Hoseok asks him absently.
“I try not to.”
“I don’t understand how you’re paid as much as me when you don’t do anything,” Hoseok sighs. That’s not true of course, Seokjin is very good at his job and he is great at the things he does. He’s good with guests, money, numbers, business-y things. He’s just really bad with listening to what he’s told, and those corporate emails are always about him doing what he’s told.
Hoseok checks his watch and looks around the hallway. There’s no way anyone is going to be coming by any time soon. Hoseok is the kind of manager that won’t get angry with any of his employees for playing on their phones, but he doesn’t want to set a bad example by doing that himself. Taehyung has been here for nearly four years now, but Hoseok still views him as an impressionable young child, because that’s what he was when Hoseok first hired him. That was so long ago, back when they assumed Taehyung was just going to be one of their temporary hires until he graduated college, but once he graduated, he just never left them, and Hoseok is very thankful. Seokjin promoted him to assistant manager a year ago so that they could have one more set of keyholders.
He catches Jimin’s eye, who waves him over like he has something to say. Hoseok walks across the hallway to him where they don’t have any customers either. Namjoon is off somewhere, probably in the backroom.
Hoseok looks at the new guy now that he’s a little closer. He’s got black hair and the palest skin. He’s absolutely decadent, Hoseok notes. He’s gorgeous in a soft way like a tiny little marshmallow. What do they put in the water at these goddamn Orange Julius’ to make everyone so pretty? He doesn’t have a name tag yet, which is unusual considering that Namjoon is the manager and he’s Namjoon. New Guy is standing and looking uncomfortable like all new employees at any job ever look. Hoseok thinks to say hi to him, but he wants to know if Jimin is plotting something before he does so.
“Did you do that thing I asked?” Jimin says in the type of whisper that is meant to be overheard. He winks right after saying it and that’s how Hoseok knows it’s for the new guy’s sake. He’s ready and gives a small nod to indicate to Jimin that he knows what to do.
“Your instructions weren’t clear. I wasn’t sure where you wanted it.”
“In the river, dumbass!” Jimin hisses.
“That’s what I thought,” Hoseok nods. He’s trying to determine what he put in the river. Was it a body? Drugs? Something else? “I weighed it down so no one will find it.”
“Good,” Jimin nods. Hoseok spares the briefest of glances over to the new guy but he is very intentionally looking at the jewelry store a little bit down the hallway. Oh yeah, he’s listening. They have to make it more grandiose than this though.
“I don’t get why you had to kill the guy anyway,” Hoseok mutters.
“He knew too much.”
“I just wish you had consulted me first.”
“It was a spur of the moment decision. I had to do what I had to do right then and there. I would do it again, Hoseok. I would do it again.”
At that, Namjoon comes out from the backroom. “Hoseok?” he asks. It’s not uncommon for someone from Build-A-Bear to be standing against the counter like this, but Namjoon gets very territorial whenever he makes a new hire. Their last hire just left for college, and he usually hung out with his school friends rather than his adoptive family, which is how Hoseok refers to himself and his coworkers. That kid is not particularly missed so much as there is an absence of a human.
“Hey Joon, how are you?” Hoseok says, pretending to be surprised by his entrance.
“What are you two… oh come on,” the look of annoyance on his face when he puts the pieces together could be put into a museum. “Again? Seriously?”
“What are you talking about?” Jimin plays innocent.
“Why are you always doing this to me?” he aims the question at God and then turns to his new employee, “Whatever they were just talking about, disregard it. They do this to everyone I hire; they’re just trying to mess with you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hoseok says. “I’m offended you would make such an accusation.”
“Just go away,” he says, shaking his head and making a shooing motion. He’s not ready to deal with both Jimin and Hoseok. The two of them have been roommates for just long enough that they have a mind meld that Namjoon doesn’t trust. It’s best to keep them separate at all times.
“Wow. Well you just lost yourself a paying customer.”
“Not cool of you, Joon,” Jimin shakes his head.
“I sign your paychecks.”
Jimin stands up straight dramatically and salutes, “yes sir!”
Hoseok laughs and returns to his actual job. Taehyung is back from break and he’s in the middle of helping two little girls pick out their new furry friend and he smiles fondly at them. Besides performing the motions, stuffing, ringing people up, the best thing about this job is just seeing how happy you make people. It’s the only job in retail where you get to make someone’s day one hundred percent of the time. It’s absolutely impossible to go to a Build-A-Bear Workshop and not leave with a smile on your face. It’s literally page one in the employee handbook. Make people smile, make their day.
Hoseok goes to hang out in the middle of the concourse with Seokjin who he now realizes was not actually reading a paper at all, he was just holding it up to hide his phone.
“You crafty son of a bitch.” He says it as quietly as possible because there are literal children only a little bit away.
Seokjin smirks. “You’re very gullible.” Seokjin isn’t usually one to be on his phone constantly while he’s at work, but the day has been unbelievably slow so far. Hoseok looks over his shoulder to see what he’s doing. There are very few secrets in this family. Mall family, that is. Hoseok knows what type of porn Jimin watches, though that’s less to do with them all knowing each other really well and more because he and Jimin’s rooms share a wall.
Let the record show that Seokjin is taking a quiz to determine what type of rock he is. Hoseok wouldn’t need a quiz to tell you that Seokjin is a rhyolite.
Hoseok grabs his phone from his hand and gives Seokjin an annoyed glare. “Will you go clean up after those two kids? They messed through almost every bin.”
“Ugh, fine,” he’s easy to push over because they both know he hasn’t done anything today.
“Taehyung,” he says leaning over the wall to look at Taehyung who is preparing to help stuff a very beautiful unicorn and bunny.
“Hmm?”
“Would you be interested in going home an hour early? It’s so slow.”
Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
He nods vigorously and Hoseok rolls his eyes when he lets him go back to work. Taehyung is scheduled for another two and a half hours, but it’s a Wednesday and they haven’t even broken their midday goal yet and it’s three hours past when they were supposed to.
“I’m sending Tae home a little early,” Hoseok calls over to Seokjin.
“Fine with me,” he says. “We’re almost out of Pikachus.”
Hoseok frowns. Pikachu is one of the animals that he hates to run low on, because it’s so popular. Customers rarely yell at you at a store like this one, but when they do, it’s usually because you’re out of a Pokémon. One time a soccer mom made Taehyung cry when they didn’t have any Piplups and it’s the closest Hoseok has ever come to hitting a person. No one is allowed to be rude to his children and Taehyung is very much one of his children.
“I’ll run to the stock room to see if there’s any more,” he sighs. He walks out of the store and across the hallway, enjoying the sound his keys make when they jingle in his hands. Since they’re in a concourse, their stockroom is out the service door in the somewhat creepy mall employee hallway. It’s supposed to only be for people who work at the mall, but the door is always unlocked and lately, customers have started to learn that. It’s not haunted, but it’s also not not haunted.
Unfortunately, they do not have any more Pikachus and it’s not the kind of thing they can just order more of. Either they get more Pikachus in their next truck or they don’t. It’s not up to them what comes and what doesn’t. He notes that there is a substantial amount of fluff that was left on the ground, Taehyung the obvious culprit. Hoseok loves him, dearly and truly, but Taehyung hates sweeping with a passion.
He returns to the mall to see their store has once again cleared out, but a familiar darkly dressed figure is now approaching. “Well if it isn’t the traitor himself,” he says. As per usual, Jungkook is dressed in all black. He’s wearing his signature stomping shoes today. He’s light on his feet, which is good, because if he wasn’t, those boots would intimidate Hoseok into hibernation.
“I’m not a traitor, I’m a capitalist.”
“Sounds like something a traitor would say,” Hoseok says.
Jungkook throws up his arms in a shrug before he takes a seat at the table just outside the technical boundary of their concourse.
“When are you going to come back to me?” Hoseok asks. Hoseok is just tall enough to lean over to look inside the concourse where he reaches for something.
“As soon as you’re able to give me a 40% discount to Hot Topic,” Jungkook responds, pulling out his phone, because there is no other purpose to having a break then to check all the text messages that you haven’t received in the last three hours because all of your friends work at the same mall and have the same hours as you do.
“I still have your apron for whenever you come back,” Hoseok declares once he finds it. They put the apron on a How to Train Your Dragon Toothless that Jungkook himself stuffed, who, being a dark black dragon, is an adequate replacement for their lost comrade. Toothless goes by several different names now that Jungkook works at Hot Topic. Jungkook 2, Emo Boy, Judas.
Hoseok gives him his world renown, absolutely heartbreaking pout while holding up Jungkook 2. He gets all up in Jungkook’s personal space and tries to win his heart through his beautiful, devastating face.
“Not gonna work, Seok.”
“I’ll win you yet! Just you wait, Jeon Jungkook!”
Jungkook receives a message in the Group Chat, which he opens to see that it’s a picture of himself taken maybe thirty seconds ago, from Seokjin. The caption just says, “Bitch: sighted.”
Across the hall, Jimin, who is most certainly not allowed to have his phone on him laughs. He looks over and gives Jungkook a bright wave. It’s very difficult for Jimin to pretend to be angry when his personality is like a Peaches and Cream smoothie, which is coincidentally his favorite Orange Julius beverage.
“You’re all so very petty,” Jungkook sighs, holding up the message for Hoseok to see, though it’s all in good fun. He’s as much a part of their family as anyone else, even if he did abandon them viciously for Hot Topic.
“Put your phone away Mr. Kim,” Hoseok calls over.
“I don’t have my phone,” Taehyung says.
“No, the other one.”
“Hoseok, we’re co-managers. You don’t get to tell me what to do.” Seokjin is just in one of those funks. It happens on slow days like these. It’s not just because the store isn’t making as much money as their target, it’s also just very deflating to not be doing anything.
“We just miss you Jungkook,” Hoseok sighs. It’s been nearly a month since he left, but it doesn’t feel like he’s gone anywhere. His store is just down the hall. Far enough that they can’t shout to him, but close enough that if anyone gets pissed off with anyone else, they can go vent about it to Jungkook on their break. This is infrequent but Jimin occasionally has a short temper when it comes to Taehyung. Probably because they’ve been secretly fucking each other for like a year now, though Hoseok isn’t supposed to know that.
“It offends me deeply that you care more about discounted jewelry than you do about me,” Hoseok says. To be fair, Jungkook has been threatening to get a sleeve tattoo for some time now and that’s not technically allowed under store policy.
“Kids just have… too much snot,” Jungkook shakes his head. “They’re so full of snot. Just right out their nose onto their bears and then it gets on me, and I just… goths don’t have as much snot, Hoseok.”
Hoseok shakes his head. That’s the Jungkook he knows and loves.
“New guy!” Taehyung calls over, as the new guy clocks out for the day. The guy doesn’t even realize that Taehyung is talking to him because he looks like he’s about to walk in the opposite direction. “New Orange Julius guy!” Taehyung yells louder this time, and that gets his attention. It’s less vague, there’s only one person who could be given that superlative. He turns around, looking for the source of the voice, and sees Taehyung waving him over. He points to himself as if he’s asking whether Taehyung is talking to him, but who else could he be talking to. “Yes you.”
“Don’t scare him,” Hoseok says.
“Didn’t you and Jimin try to convince him you killed someone?” Taehyung asks.
“Ah, Namjoon ruined it.”
The new guy looks very awkward as he approaches, but Hoseok tries to be as welcoming as he can be, which is something he’s gotten to be very good at given the nature of his job.
“Hey there,” Hoseok says, waving at him. “How was your first day?”
“Um, good,” he says and Hoseok is a little caught off guard by his voice. It’s not that his voice is deep, but it’s deeper than you would expect when you look at his face. His voice sounds uncomfortable. Hoseok doesn’t want to scare the guy too much, even if it is kind of fun.
“I’m sorry me and Jimin messed with you earlier,” Hoseok says. “It’s something we’ve been doing for years. I didn’t actually hide a body.”
“Yeah, uh, I figured that out,” he says. Oh boy, he’s the cute kind of awkward that makes Hoseok’s heart stutter.
“We didn’t introduce ourselves!” Hoseok realizes. “I’m Hoseok, this here is Taehyung, and that guy over there is banging your boss.”
“We’re married! Stop telling people we’re banging. You came to the wedding,” Seokjin rolls his eyes, but then waves at the new guy. “I’m Seokjin.”
“He’s banging your boss,” Hoseok whispers.
“At least I can get some,” Seokjin says. Taehyung makes an “oooh” sound, because Hoseok walked right into that one.
“What’s your name?” Hoseok asks him, choosing to ignore both of the people around him.
“I’m Yoongi,” he replies. Hoseok smiles, deciding he likes that name. It’s sweet, just like Yoongi’s face.
“Nice to meet you Yoongi. In case Jimin didn’t give you the low down yet, we at Build-A-Bear and at Orange Julius are a family. You’re part of the family now. If you didn’t read the fine print when you got hired, you won’t have been made aware that you are now loved and respected. That’s just something you’re going to have to accept.”
“Jin is our mom,” Taehyung adds.
“I’m not your mom.”
“Namjoon is our dad.”
“That part is true,” Seokjin says.
“…Okay?”
Hoseok almost puts an arm on his shoulder, because that’s what he would do if Yoongi was anyone else, but he literally just met this guy and a few hours ago he had pretended he killed someone in front of him. Give it a little time before you get too familiar with him.
“I just mean that we look out for each other, that’s all. If you ever need anything at all, one of us will be able to help you out. We’re not just coworkers, we’re best friends.”
“Jeez, Seok, you make it sound like a cult,” Seokjin says.
“Why do you have to go around and ruin a bonding moment like that, man?” Hoseok says. “Well anyway, I’ll let you get on your way, nothing like going home after work.”
“Especially when you have someone at home who loves you,” Seokjin says. He’s laying it on pretty heavy today, but in all fairness, Hoseok has been single for a really, really long time.
“We’ve got to add you to the group chat!” Taehyung says, and Hoseok can’t believe he almost forgot.
“Of course! How could I forget? Is that cool with you, Yoongi?”
Yoongi takes a second but then nods. Hoseok is trying not to throw his personality at him so fast, but it’s hard when his personality is big. He takes up a lot of space just being himself. Yoongi seems like the kind of guy who would apologize for using too much space on a couch.
“Great,” he says and then hands his phone over to Yoongi. “Put your number in there and then I’ll make sure everyone sends you their name so that you can add them to your contacts. There’s only six of us, but if we ever get to be too annoying, just mute it and text us individually. The only person who will probably annoy you, though, is me. I post pictures of every dog I see on the street.”
“I enjoy them,” Taehyung nods. Taehyung often names the dogs that Hoseok takes pictures of. Jimin rates them. No dog has ever ranked lower than a ten out of ten, and for the longest time, Hoseok assumed Jimin was just an avid fan of the WeRateDogs twitter, but as it turns out, he had never heard of it. He just really loves dogs.
Yoongi tries to hide it, but Hoseok sees him smile just a little bit, and he’s proud of himself. Maybe Daily Dog Digest – which is what he calls his dog spotting – will bring that smile onto Yoongi’s face more frequently.
Hoseok decides very quickly that Yoongi is beautiful, which is going to get annoying considering he’s older than the guy and he doesn’t want to be creepy about it. Yoongi is probably over 18, but by how much is uncertain. He doesn’t ask him his age because that’s weird, but as Yoongi turns to leave, that small smile lingers in his brain. He is a heartbreaker, that one.
They watch Yoongi leave; Seokjin doesn’t look up because he doesn’t care, and he’s married so he wouldn’t look at him anyway.
“He’s gorgeous,” Taehyung says, stating exactly what Hoseok is thinking.
“I know, right?” he shakes his head. “He’s almost prettier than you Tae.”
“No such thing,” he shakes his head. “I’m definitely the prettiest, no one can even compare.”
As a manager, Hoseok works nearly every day of the week. If it were any other job, he’d despise that fact, but he gets to come into work every day, hang out with all of his best friends, interact with kids, make peoples days… really it’s hard to complain, because he’s been making a lot of money. To put into perspective how many hours he puts in, Hoseok has already managed to pay off his student loans and his car payments, and he’s barely in the latter half of his twenties. That just seems… unheard of.
He still lives with a roommate and the reason is twofold. He’s never lived on his own before because he’s afraid to and what better way to avoid being out on his own than to live with his very best friend in the entire world? He really loves and adores Jimin with all of his heart. They get along as well as two people can possibly get along. The second reason is because he wants to have a life someday. Maybe travel, maybe buy a house, maybe buy a drumkit. To whatever end, he wants to save his money in order to have those things, and having a roommate means that he can continue to save up.
He technically makes enough to live on his own, because they very much do not live in a big city, so rent prices are not terrible. Taehyung and Jungkook are constantly in his apartment when they’re not at work because Hoseok is a good cook and neither of them know how to use a toaster.
He tries not to sound too interested, but in the evenings when he and Jimin share dinner, he tries to see if there’s anything to learn about the new guy. Jimin knows as little about him as Hoseok does. His name is Yoongi, he has black hair, brown eyes, squishy cheeks. Jimin describes him as being very quiet, very soft spoken. Sexually ambiguous but probably straight. The guy is younger than Hoseok, far too young for him, so he really wishes he didn’t care to the extent that he does.
New Guy hasn’t contributed anything to the group chat yet, but he hasn’t removed himself from it altogether, which seems to be a good sign. The only thing he’s texted was the initial “hi, this is Yoongi” that he sent on day one. Whether he likes or dislikes Daily Dog Digest is yet to be determined.
Hoseok works a few more shifts before he finally sees Yoongi again. Hoseok has an opening shift, so he’s too busy uncovering the concourse to see Yoongi actually come in for the day. He only notices him once he hears a blender start running. Hoseok turns to look over at them. Unsurprisingly, they don’t actually have a customer yet, it’s just that Jimin always starts his day out with a smoothie whenever he works a morning shift. Morning is a bit of a misnomer though since they open at 11:00.
Hoseok smiles. He gives a nod to one of his high school employees to continue setting the store up as he walks over to greet Yoongi.
“Good morning guys,” he says, smiling brightly. Yoongi looks up at him like a scared mouse but gives a small smile anyway. Hoseok forgot how pretty he is in the days since he last saw him. No one should have the right to be that cute.
“Morning!” Jimin shouts. He pours his peach smoothie into a cup and smiles at Hoseok like they didn’t just see each other an hour ago. Jimin has a short shift and then has to go to his real job, otherwise they would have carpooled.
“How are you, Yoongi?” he asks. He looks confused by Hoseok addressing him directly.
“Um, good,” Yoongi says. He’s the type to bite his lip. It’s quite sweet, actually.
“Great! It’s been a while since I last saw you. You like it here? Is Namjoon treating you right?”
Namjoon peers over at him from the register. Namjoon has never spoken a bad word about anyone ever in his entire life. He has had asshole customers yell at him and still remained as composed and perfect as he always is. Hoseok had an all-consuming, bone breaking crush on Namjoon for at least a year after meeting him, so his opinion is rose-colored. In any case, there’s no way in hell that Yoongi could possibly have any qualms with him.
“He’s very nice,” Yoongi says. His responses are short, not because he’s rude, but because he doesn’t say more than he needs to, which is basically what Jimin had described.
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“If you ever have any problems with him just take it up with me and I’ll kick him in the ass for you. He owes me more than a few favors.”
Namjoon just rolls his eyes. Jimin is giggling, standing between the scene. He’s just sipping his smoothie like a child watching his parents fighting.
“Okay,” Yoongi says, he doesn’t even attempt to make eye contact with Hoseok, and it is very intentional.
“My name is Hoseok, in case you forgot,” he says.
“I remember, Hoseok,” Yoongi says, and his ears turn red but it’s so subtle that Hoseok doesn’t actually notice it.
Hoseok doesn’t meant to lick his lips. Yoongi is still not attempting to look at anything other than the counter so Hoseok doesn’t try to capture his eyes any longer. He just looks at him for longer than he probably should. He wonders why Yoongi doesn’t look back. He’s a soft-spoken kind of a guy, it’s possible that he’s just shy. Hoseok barely knows him at all, but he seems the type who takes a while to unfreeze around new people.
“Hoseok, your job?” Namjoon reminds him and he suddenly remembers that he is on the clock right now.
“Right! Well, do me a favor Yoongi and stop by the workshop when your shift ends, okay?” He smiles and Yoongi looks up at him and the eye contact that they have lasts for only about a second but it’s very heavy. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but he revaluates and decides not to.
Hoseok turns on his heels and sees his high schooler folding up the tarps they use to cover the store. The two of them finish the task with Hoseok only turning to look at Yoongi a few times.
For whatever unholy reason, they’re frighteningly busy this Thursday. There’s no reason for it, the density in traffic for a retail store is one of life’s greatest mysteries. It could be that passersby see Hoseok’s wonderful face and decide to approach in order to get a better look. He is annoyed with how understaffed he is today, Seokjin makes the schedules usually, but there’s really no reason for why he would staff three people in the morning for a Thursday in the middle of summer, so it’s not his fault.
He doesn’t get another employee in until 1:00, and by then, the line for the stuffer is already six different groups, most of whom have more than one furry friend each. He was supposed to take his lunch once Taehyung clocked in, but there’s no way he’ll be able to sneak away until they’ve gotten through the line. He just sighs and powers through it.
About an hour later, Hoseok is finally able to take his break. He goes into the middle of the concourse and then lies on the floor and makes a groaning sound. He stays there for about five minutes, trying to cool down. When he decides he’s gotten his bearings, he stands back up, pulls off his apron and waves bye to Taehyung and the high schooler. He gets a whole twenty-five minutes of peace away from the store. Knowing his luck, there won’t be a single customer while he’s gone, but after that, the entire population of Bolivia will want to make a bear. He can’t wait until Seokjin gets into work later because his feet could honestly fall off at any minute.
He glances over at Orange Julius to see that they’re extremely busy too. Had he not noticed before how much shorter than Namjoon Yoongi is? He’s so little. Jimin must have already left, but Yoongi honestly can’t be much bigger than him, if he is at all. It’s adorable. What a cutie. Then he makes his way to Hot Topic to bother Jungkook.
Jungkook is the store greeter today, so he sees him right as he approaches. He waves at him, and Jungkook stares back with blank eyes. The store is as dark and cramped as every other Hot Topic in the world, and apparently, it’s a truck day so there are more staff than usual who are all pushing stock. Yet, for some unsaintly reason, they’re not busy at all, except for the two alternative girls who Hoseok just stuffed an Eevee and a Pikachu for ten minutes ago.
“You can only bother him if you buy something,” Jungkook’s manager says, and he gives her a thumbs up. He can always do with more jewelry. Jungkook’s nails are painted today, and based on how shoddy the work is, he did it himself. He looks like a full course meal, but he’s Jungkook so that’s to be expected.
Jungkook looks confused at Hoseok’s disheveled appearance, because isn’t it a Thursday? Why does he look like he’s just fought a war on a goddamn Thursday? “How bad is it over there?”
“It was a nightmare. I don’t know why. People getting back their tax refunds maybe? I thought I was going to die.”
“Sorry, dude. Tae working?” he asks, and Hoseok is slightly offended, because Jungkook doesn’t need to be asking about Taehyung when it’s Hoseok standing in front of him. He’s the one visiting Jungkook, not Taehyung.
“I fired him.”
“That’s a shame,” Jungkook sighs. “Now I can never return.”
“I’ll only rehire him if you come back too,” he says with an award-winning smile.
“Guess Tae will just have to find another job… Orange Julius will be hiring soon if you guys scare the shit out of the new guy like you did that one time.”
“Ah, he seems alright,” Hoseok says. “He hasn’t talked to us in the Group Chat yet, which I’m trying not to be offended by. He’s just a baby.” Jungkook is also a baby, to Hoseok at least. He met the kid when he was literally a sophomore in high school. He met Jungkook before he even met Jimin. Jungkook used to be shorter than him. Now, even without his stomping boots, he’s taller. Hoseok is starting to feel his years slip past too quickly. How can Jungkook have gotten so big?
“He’s quiet,” Jungkook nods. “But so was I when we first met; we just gotta soften him up a little bit. Maybe go out for drinks sometime.” Hoseok is still unable to comprehend that Jungkook is old enough to drink alcohol. That doesn’t even seem real. Jungkook will always be one of his teenage hires, he’s just one of the ones that never left him. Until a month ago. Ugh, traitor.
“I’m going to have him make his initiation bear later,” Hoseok says, getting excited thinking about it. He loves making new friends, it’s one of his favorite things in the world to do, and it’s so easy to talk to people at his job. Kids are easy, they’ll love anyone who makes a teddy bear for them. Adults are a lot of fun, because they think the heart ceremony is ridiculous, but you can almost always convince them to do it anyway. Yoongi should be a treat later. Hopefully he’ll manage to pull a little bit more of his personality out of that way too pretty shell.
“Do you think he’ll stick?” Jungkook asks. They’ve had a lot of difficulty keeping anyone in their family as of late. Taehyung was actually the last recruit and that was something like four years ago.
“I hope so,” Hoseok shrugs.
“You like him?” Jungkook says, looking maybe a little bit too deeply into him. Jungkook is a bit of a mind reader, and it has always been a bit frightening to Hoseok.
“I just think he’s a nice view from the store, that’s all.”
“Jimin is across the hall from you,” Jungkook says. He’d mention Namjoon too if he wasn’t married, because Namjoon is definitely something to look at.
“You’re horny for everyone, Jungkook,” Hoseok shakes his head. Jungkook is an enigma, hard to tell who he’s attracted to and who he isn’t. All that’s certain is that he is easily impressed.
Jungkook’s boss gives Hoseok a glare. They’re not enemies, but she did steal Jungkook from him, so they’re certainly not friends. He wonders what would happen if he ran away without buying something after he promised he would. She knows where he works, so he’d get found out. If there’s any one in a mall that knows how to contact a bounty hunter, it’s a Hot Topic employee. And maybe those bitches down at Bath & Body Works; he’s never trusted them. They have blue aprons just like Hoseok’s, and that seems far too coincidental to be a coincidence.
“Pick out something gay for me, won’t you, Jungkook?”
Jungkook nods, and immediately goes to the jewelry section. It takes him no more than a few seconds to throw a rainbow beaded bracelet at him. It’s overpriced because they work in a mall and also capitalism, but Hoseok goes to the checkout anyway. Jungkook’s boss doesn’t give him a discount. Most stores in this mall will give mall employees a 10%, but not Hot Topic. That’s why it was so easy for her to steal Jungkook from him. Jungkook always found a way to make a blue apron look slightly goth, and that has always been impressive.
Before he left, Jungkook had been threatening to get tattoos on his hands so that he couldn’t work at Build-A-Bear anymore. Hoseok rolled his eyes because he would’ve let Jungkook work there anyway, even if it is against company policy. He let Taehyung dye his hair blue that one time, he just didn’t schedule Taehyung whenever their district manager dropped by. Jungkook could do almost anything to his appearance and Hoseok would still hire him back.
“Gay enough?” he asks.
“Nothing will ever be gay enough for me, Jungkookie,” he smiles sweetly.
***
“Hi Yoongi!” Hoseok waves him over excitedly when he sees Yoongi walking out from behind his prison-like counter. He’s got a backpack over one shoulder, which makes Hoseok feel slightly awful. For him to be using a backpack means he is definitely too young for Hoseok to have attraction towards.
“Hi, Hoseok,” he says, and for some reason, when Yoongi stops in front of him, he seems warmer than usual. Maybe Hoseok’s sunshine is starting to rub off on him, or maybe Namjoon is breaking him down just a little bit. In a good way. You need to be a little bit weathered in order to fit in around here.
“Are you tired? It’s been a train wreck around here!”
“Yeah,” he nods. Seokjin is talking with a few customers, a family by the looks of it, at the front of the workshop, but he’ll be coming around soon to the stuffer, so Hoseok just steals Yoongi away to hang out by the register.
“I know how tough it is to start a new job when everyone is already friends with each other,” Hoseok says. “It’s awful. It’s so hard to break through. We’re all really close, and that’s why I don’t want you to feel left out. But if my personality is ever too much, just tell me. I know I’m a bit much.”
Yoongi blushes, but again, Hoseok doesn’t notice it. “It’s fine, I appreciate it. I’m just…”
“New jobs are hard,” Hoseok says when Yoongi drifts off. “But if you ever need any help, literally come to anyone. I happen to know quite a bit about Orange Julius myself.” He did work there for like two years, but that was so long ago. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t unofficially looked after the place a few times.
Taehyung pops up from behind the concourse. He went on his break a little while ago, and Hoseok just assumed he went somewhere, but apparently, he was just sitting on the floor out of view.
“Yoongi!” He says, excitedly. “How are you?” Taehyung has the personality of a puppy. In every way, he was supposed to be a dog, but someone flipped the wrong switch and he ended up as a person. He’s a very special person who Hoseok would do anything for.
“Good,” he says, and apparently the increased quantity of people shrinks him up a little bit. His shoulders get a little less slack once there are two people looking at him instead of just one.
“You like your new job? Is Jimin alright?”
Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
“Jimin is very nice, yes,” Yoongi says.
“Cool! Do you want to come get dinner with us some time? And by dinner, I mean the Panda Express at the food court. I’m a bit of an addict.”
“Um, sure,” Yoongi says nodding, and a soft smile appears on his sweet little face.
“Wonderful. I can’t promise when… we all tend to work the same hours, hard to get a break at the same time, but Hoseok will figure it out, won’t you, Hoseokie?”
“That’s a Jin question. I abhor scheduling.” Taehyung looks over at Seokjin who has migrated to the stuffer and is about to stuff the family’s chosen friends. It’s always alarming to Hoseok how kind and charming Seokjin is when he’s with guests as opposed to the snarky guy he knows. By all accounts, Seokjin is the nicest, kindest, and most wonderful person on the planet, but he’ll call you a motherfucker if you blink too hard in his direction.
Taehyung sighs. “Do you have anywhere to be? You should hang out for a little while, if you can.”
Yoongi shakes his head. “I’m off for the rest of the day.”
“Great,” Hoseok interjects. “There’s something you’ve still got to do.”
“What is that?” he looks wary.
“You, Yoongi, get to make an initiation bear,” Hoseok says, brightly. “I’m buying. As long as you name him Hoseok. If his name isn’t Hoseok I won’t let you make one.”
Taehyung smiles, “I have three Hoseoks at home.”
“You only have to name the first one Hoseok, I really don’t know why you kept doing that.”
“It’s fun,” Taehyung shrugs and takes a sip of his Orange Julius sponsored water. Taehyung is a serial forgetter of water bottles so at this point they usually put his water on the counter as soon as they see him clock in. Jungkook has recently become very save the planet-y so he’s been reprimanding Taehyung for how much he uses non-reusable cups.
Yoongi takes a second to find his voice and then stutters out, “You don’t have to do that for me-”
“Nonsense!” Hoseok says. “Everyone gets a bear, that’s just how it works. Or not a bear. You don’t have to pick a bear, we’ve got dogs, unicorns, bunnies. Pick whatever you want, but their name has to be Hoseok.”
“I have a very beautiful dinosaur at home named Hoseok,” Taehyung adds. “And a dog. And a monster.”
“I don’t appreciate the dog being named after me. I’ve never licked a toilet bowl in my life.”
“You’re actually serious?” Yoongi says, interrupting the back and forth that he and Taehyung could probably have for hours. Taehyung brings out sides of people that they never knew they had, it’s just the kind of person he is. He’ll get you thinking about the meaning of life, but he’ll do it in a stupid way by asking you what the shelf life is of your average wool sock. Wool socks last longer than cotton socks, but that leads into a whole philosophy majors worth of follow up questions. Taehyung doesn’t even pose difficult questions, that’s just what being around him is like. His brain is a lot wider from knowing Taehyung.
“Absolutely!” Hoseok says. “Have you ever built a bear before?” Yoongi shakes his head shyly and Hoseok gets the brightest smile on his face. “Perfect! My favorite type of guest! So, the first thing you need to do is pick out a friend. But you have to smile while you’re doing it, or else Taehyung doesn’t get to eat dinner.”
“I need dinner, Yoongi. Please smile.”
Yoongi smiles. He would have suppressed it if not for the fact that Hoseok has the prettiest smile he’s ever seen. That face could cheer anyone up. Seeing Yoongi’s tiny smile makes Hoseok glow. What a cute little thing, holy shit.
“You should get a horse,” Seokjin says, peaking over. “Hoseok hates it when we call him a horse.”
Hoseok gives him a death glare, and Yoongi just looks at the bins below him trying to determine the best Hoseok there is. There are many great options. There’s many rainbow or pastel colored bears which give off some serious Hoseok energy. There’s also a pink bunny which is one of Hoseok’s favorites that he recommends to half of their guests. Also, there’s a shark.
Yoongi looks carefully, analyzing everything in front of him. He’s never done anything like this before but the idea of it is fun. He wishes he could go back into his past and come here as a kid. He would’ve tripped over his own feet to have made his own bear.
Hoseok watches Yoongi look at his options with total fascination. He’s literally gorgeous. The profile of his face could make anyone swoon. He tells himself to force those thoughts away because Yoongi is too young for him. Not so young that Hoseok is a creep, but too young that he can’t think about dating him. He’s also probably straight because contrary to Hoseok’s friend circle, most people are straight.
Yoongi ends up picking one of the more classic bears. It’s a basic brown bear, some of the softest fur out of all the ones on offer, but it’s also on the cheaper end of the spectrum.
“You don’t have to pick one of the cheaper ones just because I’m buying,” he says. He’s a very honest person, Hoseok could easily just give a bear away for free, but crazily enough, he actually respects the company that he works for. Obviously, he’ll be using his employee discount on it, but he’ll still pay from his own wallet.
“I like this one,” Yoongi says firmly. “The fur kind of matches your hair color.” He blushes right after saying it, but Hoseok doesn’t notice because he takes a strand of his hair in his fingers and tries to look at it to determine if Yoongi is right.
When he determines that his hair does indeed match, he smiles and looks at him. “You can go absolutely wild with the other stuff. Get the most expensive sound, fill it with scents, buy a tiara. Literally, go crazy.”
Yoongi smiles. The thought of Hoseok in a tiara makes him feel a way he doesn’t think he should be feeling. He looks at the unstuffed bear in his hands and tries to determine whether a tiara would suit him.
“Do you want to put any sounds in it?” Hoseok asks, gesturing to the sound station. “You can get the Star Wars theme in there. I think that’s a pretty baller choice since his name is Hoseok. I like Star Wars a lot, so I’m sure little Hoseok will like it too.”
“Is that what you want?” Yoongi asks, looking genuinely interested in Hoseok’s opinion.
“It’s not about what I want, it’s about what you want. I’m just your tour guide here, all I’ll do is make suggestions,” he says. He tilts his head, undeniably intrigued by Yoongi. He wonders what his personality is like when he’s not nervous and dazed. It’s hard to get a read on him. Hoseok considers himself to be extremely empathetic, so sometimes he’ll detect things about a person without them showing it. It makes his job a little easier. It’s impossible to tell with Yoongi, though, because he’s dressed in a uniform rather than anything that could give him a sign. He also avoids making eye contact, which is precious, but it does little for Hoseok to learn anything about him.
“Okay, Star Wars then,” Yoongi says. Hoseok helps him look through the few different options, and they settle on the Imperial March, which makes Yoongi’s face get all squishy with a little smile. Hoseok adores it. He wants to pat Yoongi on the head and read him a bedtime story.
“I love when people get Star Wars,” he says fondly. “Nothing against Frozen, but Star Wars is classic.”
Yoongi nods and allows Hoseok to lead him to the stuffer. “Okay, Yoongi, this is the best part. This is where we give your bear life.” Yoongi can’t stop himself from blushing, because both Taehyung and Seokjin are watching him now with interest.
Yoongi feels a little bit like a zoo animal. Everyone is trying to learn things about him, but he’s the kind of person who is very contained when he meets new people. It’s weird walking into a circle of people who already know each other so well. It’s very intimidating, like Hoseok had said.
Then again, they’re all very open and kind to him, Hoseok especially. Yoongi is not an idiot, he knows that everyone around him is insanely attractive. Namjoon is too pretty, but he’s married so Yoongi doesn’t salivate at the mouth whenever he’s near. Jimin is an easy pretty, and from some source he was told that Jimin is decently famous on Instagram for posting dance videos. And of course, there’s Hoseok who has the brightest energy about him. Yoongi doesn’t believe in auras but if he did, Hoseok’s would be bright pink. Yoongi is going to inevitably fall for one of them, and the way that Hoseok looks at him makes him believe he’s already figured out who.
Hoseok places him in front of the stuffer and he’s presented with a pedal. It feels very foreign to him, looking at the limp teddy bear which Hoseok is about to stuff? Apparently? With a giant machine? That spins around and looks a bit like cotton candy? The concept is foreign, because there wasn’t a Build-A-Bear where he grew up. All he knows about the place is what he watches from behind his counter a few yards away.
The sound that the machine makes startles him, even though he’s heard it a dozen times just today. It’s a lot louder when you’re right next to it. Hoseok looks like an expert, not that he’s been spying on him the entire time while he’s at work, but it is hard not to let your eyes wander over to the giant blue store in the middle of the hallway. It’s even harder to avoid looking at the pretty guy who has a way with kids and has a face like a sunrise.
His eyes just gravitate towards Hoseok when he talks to customers, laughs with them, talks to them like he’s known them all his life. He seems like he’d be easy to talk to, because no one else has any trouble with it, but Yoongi is a hopeless gay who gets tongue tied around pretty boys.
“Alright,” Hoseok says, turning off the machine. Yoongi takes his foot off the pedal, though the machine has stopped so it’s not like it does a whole lot. “I’ll have you give little Hoseok a hug test to make sure he feels right.” Taehyung comes out of nowhere to hug Hoseok from behind his chair and he just sighs. “I was referring to the other Hoseok, but I appreciate it, Tae.”
“You feel just right,” Taehyung says. Hoseok pats his hand as he tries to shrug him off.
“Feel good?” Hoseok asks, looking to Yoongi though Taehyung has not let go of him. Yoongi nods. This is such a weird group of people, but he kind of likes them already. Especially Hoseok.
“Okay, now comes the actual best part,” Hoseok says, and he pulls a small fabric heart out of a bin right beside his machine. Taehyung lets go of him at this point, only to stand a few feet away to watch. Hoseok always does the best heart ceremonies, which doesn’t seem fair, because half of the time Taehyung just copies everything he does, but Hoseok makes it look so easy and natural. He really was made for this job.
Hoseok places the heart into Yoongi’s hand, and their fingers touch and it makes the real heart inside of Yoongi’s chest stutter just a little bit. He really is just so weak around cute boys, so it’s been a difficult job to transition to. To make it worse, Hoseok is his kind of cute boy. It’s all in the smile.
“So, the first thing you need to do is get that heart warm by rubbing it between your hands.”
“Do we really have to do this part?” Yoongi asks, looking sheepish. He’s seen this part from his perch, and it seems awkward to do it in the middle of the mall. He looks around himself, even though there’s nobody here to watch him. Well except for Seokjin and Taehyung. This just doesn’t feel like the sort of thing that a guy who’s in his late twenties should be doing.
“Don’t you want little Hoseok here to have a big heart?” Hoseok asks him, holding the bear by its arms like it’s ready to reach out and give Yoongi a hug. If the way he holds it wasn’t enough, all he needs to do is look at the real Hoseok’s lip pouting out. He’s never been good at saying no to people.
Yoongi just sighs, nods, and says, “okay.”
“Perfect!” Hoseok says and has Yoongi warm the heart up. He demonstrates with his hands what he wants Yoongi to do, so he copies. “Then you’re going to tap on it to get that heart beating. And you’re going to want to rub it on your cheek so that little Hoseok always smiles at you. And rub it on your funny bone so your bear is full of giggles. And rub the heart on your tummy so that he gets all of the food he needs without stealing yours. And rub it on your side so that he’s by your side for life. Anyone want to chip in?” Hoseok directs the question at the two behind him.
“Rub the heart on your toes so that he is toe-tally awesome!” Taehyung says.
“Rub it on your knees so that he always knee-ds you,” Seokjin says.
Yoongi takes it all in good stride, though he’s painfully awkward as he tries to modestly follow all the commands. He wonders if they’re just messing around with him again. When he thinks of that, his entire body stiffens up. He doesn’t want them to make fun of him.
“And the last thing you need to do is hold the heart up to your face and make a wish,” Hoseok says. He looks at Yoongi and sees that he looks very uncomfortable right now, which was never his intention. He probably shouldn’t have gone overboard on giving the bear so many traits. But it’s Yoongi’s first bear and now he’s part of the group so maybe he just wanted to show off. Then he opens up the back of the bear for Yoongi to put the heart into. “I’m sorry if that was too many things. We aren’t trying to embarrass you. We just really like our job.”
“I’m only here for the view,” Seokjin says, looking across the hallway to where Namjoon is serving both smoothies and looks.
Hoseok smiles brightly and Yoongi is mesmerized by it. “Do you want to add any smells to your bear?” he asks. Yoongi doesn’t hear the question. Embarrassing himself makes him weak, and in his weak state, Hoseok’s face is able to reach inside of him. He repeats the question when Yoongi doesn’t answer, so he blanches.
“Wh-what?”
“I have smells you can add to your bear,” he says and then scoots over on his chair to point to them.
“I made a bear with four smells inside once,” Seokjin says. “One in each arm and leg. Different fruit smell in each one. He smells like a smoothie, and it reminds me of my husband.”
Taehyung makes an aww sound and Seokjin just nods because he knows that he wins cutest couple award.
“Uh, I guess,” Yoongi shrugs. “What’s your favorite?”
“Cotton candy,” Taehyung says, his eyes darkening. It’s a frequent joke that Taehyung likes the cotton candy smell. He keeps one in his apron, so he goes around everywhere smelling like cotton candy.
“I like lavender,” Seokjin smiles.
“We’re out of lavender.”
“Then I like watermelon.”
“Oh me too,” Hoseok nods. “I’m a watermelon kind of guy.”
“Let’s do watermelon,” Yoongi says. Hoseok loves how easy it is to make any grown man excited about a teddy bear at Build-A-Bear Workshop. They come in with whatever bravado they have but then you tell a guy he can make his bear smell like birthday cake and his eyes light up.
He lets Yoongi smell it and when Yoongi nods a little too eagerly his heart thuds painfully against his ribcage. He’s so pretty, he’s so pretty, he’s so pretty.
Once the smell is inside, Hoseok stitches up the bear with lightning quick precision. Yoongi can’t stop himself from looking at his hands. They look strong, but also a little blistered from all the stitching and sewing he must do. When the bear is done, he gives little Hoseok over to Yoongi. He doesn’t mean to, but he gives little Hoseok a very excited squeeze and that’s what makes big Hoseok’s mouth dry up a little bit. He can’t stop himself from imagining Yoongi cuddling the bear late at night. God, and if he actually names the bear Hoseok! He’s going to cry!
“Thank you,” Yoongi says, and Hoseok nods.
“You get to dress him up now!”
Taehyung jumps up excitedly to give him a tour of their Dress Me wall. Everyone has a favorite part of the store, and Taehyung is oddly in love with showing off all the clothes that you can put on the animals.
“Might I suggest a tiara?” Hoseok says.
Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
Taehyung shakes his head, “personally, I’m against shoes and tiaras because they are not as easy to cuddle in bed.”
“We also have bows!” Hoseok jumps up excitedly after picking up some loose stuffing from the floor.
Yoongi ends up putting the bear in a dinosaur pajama piece and Hoseok has never been prouder of such a marvelous creation before. Also, Yoongi lets him put the bows on the bear. This is quite possibly the most perfect bear that Hoseok has ever been witness to. He’s a soft, dark brown bear, that plays the Star Wars theme, smells like watermelon, wears a dinosaur onesie, and has pink and purple bows on his ears. He’s perfect.
“That’s hands down one of the most beautiful bears I’ve ever seen,” Seokjin says, and there’s no sarcasm to his voice which is astonishing.
Yoongi would feel self-conscious if he didn’t agree whole heartedly. Little Hoseok is one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Big Hoseok helps him to make a birth certificate which Yoongi finds adorable. True to his word, the name that goes on the birth certificate is ‘Little Hoseok.’ Big Hoseok then proceeds to take all of the tags off of the bear and his clothes and brings them to the register.
“No, it’s okay, I’ll pay,” Yoongi says.
“Um, excuse you,” Hoseok says. “I lured you over here in order to buy you a bear, you aren’t paying for shit.”
“But it’s expensive, I-”
“Listen, there’s nothing you can actually do to stop me, I’m the one who knows how to use the register,” Hoseok says. Yoongi accepts defeat, though it’s with several more “are you sure?”s. Eventually, Yoongi comes to be holding little Hoseok inside of a little box that is the perfect size to hold him. He honestly feels like ripping the bear right back out and holding him. He would probably prefer holding onto the bear’s namesake, but anything to keep him less lonely at night will do the trick. For now.
Hoseok sends Yoongi away brightly. Taehyung asks him to stick around a little longer, but he really needs to get some air, because breathing in Hoseok’s air makes him lightheaded. Aw fuck, he’s a little boy having his first crush in elementary school all over again.
***
“You know, for their first date Seokjin and Namjoon came here and recreated the scene from Ghost only instead of pottery, they made a unicorn,” Hoseok says.
“That was, like, our third date actually,” Seokjin says. Namjoon sits at the table outside of the concourse waiting for Seokjin’s shift to end. There are actually two other managers at Orange Julius that aren’t him, which is hard to believe because he’s such a workaholic. Crazy, right?
“Not to sound dramatic, guys, but that’s literally the cutest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Taehyung says.
“The unicorn was our ringbearer.”
“Even I know that’s not true. I was at the wedding,” Jungkook says.
“So was I,” Taehyung says. Literally everyone was at their wedding. It was a year after their family had truly formed. Taehyung was fresh but he was still beloved.
“Well that’s what I’m going to write in my autobiography anyway,” Seokjin shrugs.
Namjoon looks at him with stars in his eyes, very clearly hanging on his every word like he’s an angel. There’s literally never been a couple more helplessly, adorably in love as Namjoon and Seokjin. If you look too hard at them then your heart will rot away. Also, you’ll crave desperately someone to hold you. Sometimes Jimin gives extended hugs and that’s the closest Hoseok has been to a person in about seven years.
In the process of looking at the two of them clearly in love, Hoseok sees a beautiful black-haired boy come in through the service door behind them. Hoseok’s heart bumps out of key for just the briefest second before returning to normal.
“Yoongi!” He says, calling him over. It’s been about a week since Yoongi made little Hoseok and ever since, Hoseok has been very excited by his presence whenever he sees him. Not to say he wasn’t before, but it’s a little louder now. He assures himself it’s just because Yoongi seems like he’ll fit into their friend group. That’s surely all it is. It’s not just because he’s also the prettiest guy Hoseok has possibly ever seen.
“Hi Hoseok,” Yoongi says smiling softly. Either Yoongi doesn’t say hi to everyone else or Hoseok tunes it out because of the way that his mouth looks when he forms words out of it. His voice is so calming. He could read you the dictionary and you’d be fascinated by every word.
“I’ve got to go to work,” Yoongi says and waves goodbye only a minute later.
“Oh, okay,” he says. Seokjin checks his watch and realizes that Yoongi’s shift starting means that his shift is ending.
“Freedom!” he says excitedly, tearing off his apron. Namjoon smiles at him and watches Seokjin as he goes into the concourse and clocks himself out for the day. When he returns, he kisses Namjoon a little bit too passionately for public and Jungkook makes a grossed-out face. Taehyung just thinks they’re cute. Taehyung loves love a little bit too much. Whenever anyone looks like they’re in love, he thinks it’s cute. His favorite thing in the world is when couples come into the store and record their voices saying “I love you” to each other for their bears. There’s no one who does a better heart ceremony for anniversaries than Taehyung.
“Take me away from here,” Seokjin says. They’re very weird people. They’re a match made in heaven, which is evident because they each put up with each other. Seokjin climbs onto Namjoon’s back like it’s normal and they walk away with Namjoon giving him a piggyback ride. God, Hoseok wants something like that.
“I want something like that,” he says.
“If we’re both single when we’re forty I’ll be that for you,” Taehyung says. Hoseok smiles at him and nods. He loves Taehyung, but not romantically. If he’s still single at that age, god forbid, he’ll live with any of his friends so that he’s not lonely, but he does not want to kiss Taehyung even though he’s sure it would be amazing.
It’s weird. When he first met Taehyung, even though he knew he was gorgeous, he never felt an instinctual urge to run his hands through his hair and kiss his cheek. Not like he thinks about Yoongi like that or anything…
He looks over to Orange Julius at the prettiest employee. Hoseok’s not close with the other managers there; one of them is a total piece of shit, and the other is way too serious. Yoongi is getting instructions for the day from the way too serious one, and his face in profile mesmerizes Hoseok.
“Um, earth to Hoseok?” Taehyung says, waving a hand in front of his face. He looks up from his trance and realizes they have a customer. He jumps right back into customer service mode with Jungkook behind him wondering if their little Hoseokie might have a bit of a crush.
***
Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
“So,” Jimin says.
“So,” Hoseok replies.
“So.”
“So?”
“How do you like the new Orange Julius employee?” Jimin asks.
Hoseok frowns at him, sitting across from him at the dining room table that Jimin’s mom gifted them when they moved into their own place.
“Isn’t that something I should be asking you? You’re his coworker.”
Jimin purses his lips, “yeah, but you’ve been very eager to get him to interact with us in the group chat.”
“Are you trying to ask me for my permission so you can fuck him or something?” Hoseok asks. “Because, I really don’t think he’s gay.”
“No,” Jimin scoffs. Jimin doesn’t think that Hoseok knows he sometimes sleeps with Taehyung in a friends with benefits sort of way, but he does. Very hard to hide a secret like that from him when he’s both Jimin’s roommate and Taehyung’s boss. Hoseok is pretty sure that Jimin doesn’t know Taehyung is in love with him, but that’s just something they’ll figure out for themselves one of these days.
“Then what’s your point?”
“I’m pretty sure you want to fuck him.”
“I don’t want to fuck him,” Hoseok says, which is both a lie and the truth.
“You like him.”
“I… shut up, Jimin.”
He smirks at him and then winks. Jimin turns around to rinse off his plate, but he leaves the feeling in the air. He’s not surprised that Jimin sees through him, but he desperately hopes that he’s the only one. Yoongi can’t know that, he only just met him, and that would make their budding friendship very weird.
“When was the last time you had sex, Hoseok? I don’t think you’ve slept with someone since I met you. That’s like five years. What if it falls off?”
Hoseok throws a piece of egg at him which gets lodged in his hair. Hitting him where it hurts; Jimin cares more about his hair than he does about his health.
“Probably closer to seven years.”
“Dude! That’s a really long time.”
“I’m me, Jimin,” he says, like that’s an explanation. “I don’t sleep with people unless they’re special.”
“You never slept with me,” Jimin says, “I’m special.”
“That’s because you’re Jimin and I don’t like you,” he says, flinging another piece of food at him. He and Jimin went on one date soon after they first met. The two of them went to college and studied dance together, so it seemed to make sense at the time. They both thought dating each other might be convenient until they went on one date, found it awful and decided to instead be best friends. It’s been working out pretty well, neither of them has wanted to date the other since and it’s been nearly five years. Hoseok can’t imagine how terrible it would be if they had moved into this apartment and been trying to date. He might not have his best friend in the world if that had happened.
Jimin rolls his eyes and backs away from the projectile. “Okay, so maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but I do wish you’d date someone. You have to be getting lonely over there in your room, watching porn slightly too loudly because you think I can’t hear it.” Jimin barely even attempts to pretend he’s watching porn sometimes, that’s just the kind of person he is. Hoseok’s headphones are often put to good use because of the weird things Jimin is into.
“I’ll go at my own pace,” he says. “I’m married to my job, Jimin, you know that. I put in so many hours at work, so I barely have a life unless it’s with you.”
“Do you think maybe you’re just scared of entering a relationship? I’m not talking about Yoongi in specific. I mean in general. I think it’s been so long for you that you forgot how to date.”
“That’s very probable,” Hoseok says, going back to the food in front of him which he had been eating before he started throwing it at Jimin. “What about you, though, Jimin? You haven’t found the one yet, either.” He doesn’t mention Taehyung, because surely there’s a reason that he hasn’t told Hoseok about that.
“I date!” Jimin says. But he hasn’t since he started fucking Taehyung.
“You’re just as afraid of commitment as I am.”
Jimin scowls. “That’s not true. I at least know how to date someone. I know how to be a boyfriend and how to love someone and how to… fuck. You haven’t dated since college, and that’s not real dating anyway. You’re not a real person yet until you leave college.”
“I don’t want to deal with this right now,” he says, and that’s the honest to god truth. It’s all too much to think about. Yeah, he hasn’t dated anyone in a really long time, and it’s become easy. Being single is just the way that he knows how to exist. Allowing another person into his life is far too much pressure. He’d just as soon be content or discontent not putting himself out there than try to navigate the world of dating for the first time at age 26.
But then again, wouldn’t it be nice to cuddle someone? God, his skin hungers for someone to cuddle him and put their arms around his waist and kiss his neck. He blushes at the thought. He wonders who that person will be. What do they do in their life? What do they look like? Hoseok doesn’t view himself as a real adult, so he can’t have someone with a real job. He can’t date a lawyer, because that’s a whole ass person with their life in order, and Hoseok stuffs bears for a living. He couldn’t date a doctor, because they’re in charge of making sure people don’t die, and Hoseok puts bunnies into fairy princess dresses on the regular.
It really would be convenient for the both of them if he and Jimin had romantic attraction to each other. That would be pretty great. Or if he actually liked Taehyung, or if it was seven years ago and he had beat Seokjin to Namjoon. None of those relationships would last though, because he just doesn’t like them that way, even if there was once a time when he thought he did.
Yoongi is a convenient scapegoat. He’s too young, probably straight, therefor, he’s off limits. Hoseok can’t possibly find himself wanting to be in a relationship with someone if that person is five years younger than him, so he can continue to find Yoongi attractive all he likes, and he can save himself from committing to a real relationship.
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#jhope#hoseok#yoongi#suga#sope#yoonseok#yoonseok fanfiction#yoonseok fic#yoonseok fanfic#sope fic#sope fanfic#sope fanfiction#suga fanfic#suga fic#suga fanfiction#yoongi fic#yoongi fanfic#yoongi fanfiction#hoseok fic#hoseok fanfic#hoseok fanfiction#jhope fic#jhope fanfic#jhope fanfiction#hoseok x yoongi#yoongi x hoseok#bts suga#bts fanfic#bts fic#bts
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Sanctus Reach(around)
I’ve been having a very Warhammer 40k weekend thus far. I ordered some ork boyz, but while I was out at Barnes and Noble today, I noticed they had a couple boxes of Space Marine Heroes left. Mind you I am in an area of South Carolina far removed from most Games Workshop products, so normally I would have to travel a town over or order from amazon.
This time I got lucky. Not sure which guy at B&N is making the call to order Warhammer stuff from time to time, but that guy is the real MVP.
Anyway, Steam is also running it’s 4th Skulls for the Skull Throne sale, which is the perfect time to pick up any Games Workshop related games at a discount. Most notably this year, Total War Warhammer 1&2 are on sale, which means for 35.38 USD, you can get most of the races and mortal empires, which is the most crack addicted way to play Total War Warhammer 2 these days. I can’t say if getting the rest of the DLC is worth your venture, but if your like me and already own both games, you probably have all the DLC too. It just ends up happening that way.
But this year I just got a few of the B list Warhammer games. Gladius, Inquisitor Martyr, Chaosbane, and Sanctus Reach.
I started with Sanctus Reach, and oh boy, I was not disappointed.
Already I can tell that Sanctus reach is a video game that profits entirely on your desire to have more 40k, which if your not a big fan, is not much of a selling point.
Visually I find Sanctus Reach to have the least flattering texture work I have seen in a while. While nowhere near as bad as some Nintendo 64 games I remember, there is just something off about how Sanctus Reach looks that I can’t put my finger on.
Up close the units look fine, like these pack of Space Wolves.
Or these Chaos Demons.
But zoom out and there is just something about the visual style that makes me feel like there is a lot of visual noise.
It works for what it has to do though.
The game is not very animation heavy, yeah there are attacks, units move and shoot and beat each other to death with blunt or sharp objects, but most of it is the limited animation you would expect from any tactics game. Don’t expect Relic Entertainment level work here. Unless your expect Dawn of War 1, then maybe this game might surprise you actually.
As far as the core gameplay loop is concerned, it plays a bit like Xcom but without all the polish, which is actually not bad, I can see myself playing a few matches of this for the novelty. I always thought strategy games in the style of Xcom or Final Fantasy Tactics would be a good fit for the 40k setting. it’s just not a 1:1 digital clone of the table top.
Which is a shame, because I feel if we can get a digital version of Magic the Gathering as good as Arena, I think it’s about high time 40K got a decent digital version of the tabletop.
The units in game work on movement points, action points, abilities and HP, but honestly it’s not much of a stretch to think they could have easily done everything else tabletop does.
I also a little disappointed that there are not a whole bunch of dice rolling in the corner of the screen, showing how many of my models hit their target as that is the most satisfying part of watching live games of the table top. I know the units are really not set up like that, what what I am seeing is a squad being presented as a whole because it’s a tactics game, but I feel like there is something satisfying of making hits and watching the other player have to remove models from the the squad, a visual indication of your conquest.
To be fair, when one squad damages another, models often die gory deaths. Which are fun puffs of blood mist brightening often gloomy looking maps rendered to look like 40k play boards. Seeing this red cloud early means you often forgot to put your units in cover, or managed to miss an overwatch phase, and all the typical stuff you can find in Xcom.
It’s a fun novelty, but I feel like at the end of the day, Sanctus Reach just makes you want to play a better tactics game (Xcom) or get into Warhammer 40k on the table quicker. The game just feels like it's lacking a lot of the polish you would get from a larger studio, and the menus and UI feel like they had little effort put into them other than to try to make the text look like 40K. I actually thought the game’s multiplayer community was dead because of the UI not being easy enough to read at a glance.
All in all, this is one for the collector, not for the critic. The die hard 40k guy who can’t get enough, and not the guy looking for something as robust as Dawn of War or Total War Warhammer.
In short there are better games, but if you in lockdown and you need something that feels kind of like the table, this might be your closest shot.
I just wish they had more factions. Oh well.
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The Gates of Hell
A Mayans MC one-shot (it was supposed to be a drabble, lol) featuring Miguel Galindo / Reader. I don’t do character/reader fics (usually) as I’m not totally sold on self-insertion in stories. But I do enjoy writing in 2nd person POV so I thought I’d give it a shot anyway. Let me know what you think.
Warning: sexual content, lots of swear words and body parts with naughty names.
“You're the most beautiful woman in the room.” The whisper caresses your ear as his finger traces the line of diamonds across your neck. It’s a gift — one that toes the line of elegant and obnoxious. You’d rather never find out how much the necklace costs at the risk of causing yourself a stroke; but you have your suspicions. The size and clarity of the stones suggest it costs more than a year’s rent. So if you die from a clot in your brain from trying to process how much money is wrapped around your neck, at least you can store your ashes in the pretty velvet box it came in.
“This was a bad idea,” you say as you look on at the infestation of retail investors and venture capitalists.
“Having you around makes it less likely that I kill one of these imbeciles.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.” You take his hand as he leads you farther into the hotel’s ballroom. “All these people networking and negotiating all the different ways they can fuck up this town… sounds like my idea of hell.”
Miguel grins, knowing he’s not left out of that equation. He leans over your shoulder and lets his lips linger on your ear. “The gates of hell have opened and you are my plus one.”
The statement and the depth of his voice sparks a flame that radiates desire through every nerve ending. You close your eyes and think of something un-sexy like that Chucky guy who works at the scrap yard and comes to your shop a few times a year to ask if you’re selling pornographic magazines. It kind of works because you’re able to muster up enough courage to turn in Miguel’s arms. You tilt your chin up to look him square in the eye. “I don’t know how you convinced me to say yes to this.”
Miguel smirks. “I can be very persuasive, cariño.” His hands run down your exposed arms, squeezing lightly at your wrists. He lowers his head, his gaze softening. “I know this isn’t your idea of a good night, but I promise to make it up to you when I get you home.”
You roll your eyes at the suggestion, but the corners of your lips lift into a sly smile.
He waves back at a man gesturing for him to come join their conversation. Groaning, he presses a kiss to your cheek. “Come save me in ten minutes.”
And just like that, he’s gone off to charm the suits into investing money toward the Santo Padre expansion project.
One moment, you’re at the bar nursing a gin and tonic while watching your man make deals and shake hands; and the next, you’re overhearing a conversation with a representative from a bookstore chain about how opening a store in Santo Padre stands to make him a big bonus this year. It’s certainly a lot more than you would ever make running your independent bookshop in La Unión — a neighborhood that celebrates both the old and the new in your border town.
“Our research has shown that our stores opening up in these communities leads to lower crime rates and higher education. So, really, we’re doing these people a favor.”
You nearly spit out your drink. “Excuse me?”
The man shifts on his stool to face you. “I wasn’t talking to you, sweetheart.”
“George —” his friend tries to interrupt.
“You were talking about my community, so please tell me more about how your big-box bookstore is going to save Santo Padre.”
The man smirks and takes a swig of his drink. “It might be too complicated for you to understand, but it’s really just basic business development. Commercial chains open up in wasteland communities like yours, then all of a sudden, property values skyrocket and rental costs rise —”
“— And pricks like you displace the people who have lived here for generations.”
“Please,” George says with a roll of his eyes. “Half this town is made up of illegals.”
“George, you shouldn’t —” his friend tries to interrupt again. He grabs him by the arm and tries to nudge him away from the bar.
“— Let me finish,” George says, jerking away. “All the more reason to drive those border-jumpers back to the other side of that wall.”
In a split second, the glass in your hand is empty and the man in front of you is drenched. The room goes quiet and you don’t have to see it to know that all eyes are on you right now. George stares back in shock as the gin and tonic drips from his ruddy cheeks down to his off-the-rack suit.
“You bitch!” He lunges forward and you stumble back, landing on a hard body that catches you by the arms. The body turns, shielding you from the impending attack. When you look over your shoulder, you see the dark braids and realize it’s Nestor — your boyfriend’s head of security.
Behind Nestor, George is being pulled away by his friend before the rest of the Galindo security detail can get to him, which they eventually will before he even makes it outside the hall. “You’re fucking crazy, man!” his friend cries out as he steers him away. “That’s Galindo’s girl!”
The taps are turned on, water running down the porcelain sink to drown out the noise from the hotel ballroom. Staring back at your reflection, you wipe the tears and take a deep, steadying breath. You repeat the mantra in your head: you will not cry, you will not cry, you will not cry.
“Shit,” you remark as you notice the black stain under your eyes. The mascara was supposed to be waterproof but it doesn’t hold up, and now you just want to cry even more because there’s no way you can go back out there without looking like a hot mess. You’re dabbing at your eyes with a tissue when the door bursts open and in walks the man of the hour.
Miguel’s on top of you in a few, quick strides, his hands cradling your face and his big, brown eyes searching for answers. “What the hell happened out there?”
You slink away from his hold, crossing your arms protectively over your chest. You shrug, not really knowing what you’re most upset about. Was it you coming to this event tonight even though you were reluctant to go in the first place? Miguel never forced you to go, but you saw how excited he was when he offered the invitation. He never passed up an opportunity to see you dressed up and have you be the woman on his arm — as possessive as it may sound. Was it the preposterous argument with the man at the bar? You’ve had a few run-ins with xenophobic assholes and you’ve always held your own and never let them get to you. But why cry now? Was it the comment about being Galindo’s girl? Was it the fact that you were only going to be respected because you were associated to the man standing in front of you?
“Por favor dime que esta pasando.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you invited big-box stores to invest in this expansion?”
Miguel’s brows knit in confusion. “You’re mad about this?”
“Why wouldn’t I be mad?” You cry out. “I’m an independent business owner and you’re letting Barnes and fucking Noble have 50,000 square feet of your land to sell discounted books and burnt coffee.”
“Baby,” he says, a tentative smile on his face. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious, Miguel.”
“Santo Padre is one of the fastest-growing towns in Southern California. The first phase of the development was a success. The agri-firms created thousands of new jobs. New houses are being sold before we’ve even set the foundations. But, now, we have to meet the demands and that means letting these developers into town so the people can have their Targets and Best Buys.”
“Don’t pretend you’re doing this for the people. It’s greed. You want their money.”
“And so what if I do?” Miguel challenges back, his body looming over yours and his eyes devoid of any care. “You know who I am.”
“Yes, I know about the cartel,” you hiss out the last word. “But I also know you leased out your property so I could sell books for a living. And, similarly, you did that for countless other people in this town who were down on their luck.”
“— Babe, I did that because it was a lucrative business decision.”
“Well, I’m glad this lucrative business decision has paid off in more ways than you could’ve imagined.” You storm off, heels clicking on the marble. He grabs you by the arm and spins you around to face him. “Let go of me.”
“I wasn’t done.”
“I am.”
He loosens his grip just enough for you to walk away if you really wanted to, but his eyes are pleading for you to stay. “Meeting you was unexpected, and you know I’ve been grateful for that ever since. But please don’t be under the impression that I’m developing Santo Padre and employing half of its population out of the goodness of my heart,” he says with a scoff. “You know I don’t make business decisions out of emotion, but I’m willing to make the exception for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know what this is all about. You’re worried Barnes and Noble is going to drive you out of business because you won’t be able to keep up with their competitive prices. No matter what happens, your business will stay above water. I’ll make sure of it”
“Fuck you, Miguel.” The urge to shove him or slap him across the face is so strong that you feel as if your hands are charged with electricity. Clenching your fists, you take a deep breath and turn away from him. “I’m not going to be your pity side project.”
“I never said you were —”
“While all of these local businesses are going under because they can’t compete, mine stays afloat because I’m Galindo’s girl.”
“Who would say that?”
You gesture to the door and, with a sigh of defeat, you begin to explain what truly got under your skin. “Those guys at the bar. The guy I threw my drink on — he was giving me the rundown of how gentrification was going to save this town from all the uneducated and criminal Mexicans. And he wouldn’t have stopped, but his friend told him who I was. Galindo’s girl.”
“I’m —” he begins to say.
“— And I know I am,” you say with a heavy sigh. “I know I’m yours. Not yours as in your property; but yours as in we’ve chosen each other. I’m with you in spite of all the reasons why I know I shouldn’t be with someone like you. And you’re with me because —”
“— Because I enjoy your company.” His hands rest on your waist, his breath in your hair. “And because you’re the only person who can say ‘fuck you, Miguel’ and make me so hard I could drill concrete.”
You laugh. “No one wants to see that.”
His lips graze the shell of your ear, his hips molding to yours. “But you can feel that?”
You swallow hard. There’s no doubt his presence can be felt from the base of your spine to the curve of your ass. Arching your back, you release a moan that invites him to press into you a little harder.
“I’m sorry those guys were assholes,” he whispers, his arm snaking around your waist. “I’m sorry for being a capitalist criminal.” He shifts his stance so you’re both facing the mirror, staring back at a reflection that makes you revel in the idea of being a woman possessed — of being Galindo’s girl.
Your breasts are heaving, the diamonds across your neck refracting the warm glow of the lights above the sink. His hands course down your hips, fingers dancing around the hem of your little, black dress. He hikes it up your thighs, just far enough to catch a peek of French lace and silk. You reach around to grip the back of his neck, turning your head to skim your lips over his jaw.
“Look at yourself.”
You roll your hips and feel his length, rock solid, down your backside. God, you want nothing more than to be rid of the layers of clothing between you and have him slide in, fill you, and make you scream until you feel like he’s splitting you apart.
“All of this makes you hot.” Miguel’s hand disappears under the skirt of your dress, his fingers trailing upward along your inner thigh. Your breath hitches in your throat when his fingertips slide along the seam between your legs. “All of this makes you wet.” He moves smoothly along the folds toward the apex, and your torso lurches forward, hands braced on the marble counters. It gives him a chance to press farther against your ass, his strong legs on either side of yours, which are already so unsteady in six-inch stilettos. “All of this — all of this corrupt shit that I do — it makes you want me so bad.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“Fuck. No.”
He hikes your dress up so it’s bunched up your waist, while his free hand dives into your lace panties, fingers parting your slit. You gasp as he lunges in, two digits full, wasting no time to curve inward to find the spot that has your knuckles turning white and your lungs fighting for breath.
“Miguel,” you plead. But he doesn’t relent as he thrusts his fingers up your walls, thumb circling where you need it most. “Please.”
“Look at yourself getting off.” His voice buzzes in your ear, his lips tracing down your neck. “Admit it. Tell me it turns you on knowing you’re in bed with el diablo.”
As much as you try to suppress it, the moan that you release gives him the satisfaction he craves. Your mind wants your body to be stronger than that, but he’s got a hold over you so powerful that it’s both terrifying and alluring at the same time. Your lids are heavy and your vision is clouded by a haze of lust. The picture in front of you is so pornographic it makes your skin burn and makes you shy away into the safe warmth of his neck. Breathing in the scent of his cologne, the coils at the base of your stomach tighten. It’s like a Pavlovian response; you can’t help that his scent makes you salivate for him in an animalistic, illogical way. Your knees tremble, and you feel like you’re only tethered to the ground by Miguel’s arm around your waist.
He’s working to bring you close to that release like only he can. Someone with a natural ability to get a woman off just by looking at her a second too long. Someone who isn’t satisfied with mediocrity — a woman needs to be studied; her undoing needs to be perfected.
You’re so close to the edge as your body thrums with expectation. His name is poised at the tip of your tongue as you hold your breath. And then he slides his fingers out of your walls. He raises them up to show you they’re coated in your arousal, and it’s all too obscene that you have to bury your head farther into his neck. But he tugs at your hair, arching your head to the ceiling, and he presses his fingers to your lips so you can taste yourself. You’re going to fucking kill him after he makes you come.
As your lips part, he slips his fingers into your mouth, down your tongue. His eyes darken until they’re almost black and he swallows hard as he watches you take the length down your greedy throat. Miguel barely has his fingers out of your mouth before he’s kissing you, pushing you against the sink, pulling his tie, hiking your legs around his hips, tugging on his belt. You take his hands to still him, kissing him back slow and steady.
“I have to have you,” he rasps almost desperately. He’s right where you want him.
You push him just far enough to work on his belt and the button of his trousers. “You can have me when I say you can have me.” Holding onto the waistline, you jerk him back so he loses his footing. Then you have his trousers down his thighs, taking his underwear down with them. He’s hard. So. Hard. You can tell by the strained expression on his face that he’s been trying his best to stay patient while getting you off with his hands, but all this time all he wanted to do was fuck you within an inch of your life.
Miguel’s eyes are filled with lust — a desire that’s only reserved for you. It’s a look you know well. It’s a look that makes you weak in the knees, but also makes you feel so emboldened. To have this man at your mercy is a high you can’t even begin to describe in words.
Wrapping your arms around his neck for support, you lift your hips to slip your panties off then shove them into the pocket of his vest. He looks down at the lace fabric peeking out of the silk pocket, and looks up to give you a cheeky smile.
Miguel takes you by the swell of your hips, pressing you against his cock, grinding deliciously against your heat. He takes a sick satisfaction in watching how much it arouses you, how much your body responds to him. But there’s an element of tortuous self-control that twists him up inside as he restrains himself from penetrating you. He watches you as he moves, licking his lips when the head of his dick bumps your clit. You grip onto his shoulders with more force than necessary, and all it does is urge him on as he enters you slowly and then all at once.
Full. You’re so full of Miguel’s cock. And he’s pounding into you so hard that every thrust feels like a challenge, like he’s asking you if you can take more of him. He pulls your hair to the side, exposing your neck so he can leave hot kisses along the side. Your back arches, head resting on the mirror. His palms squeeze tighter on your hips, raising you off the counter just a little so he can get that extra leverage to fuck you even harder.
“There’s something about how much you love this fucking town,” he says in between grunts of pleasure. His voice is muffled by his lips pressed into the tops of your breasts. “I’ve never wanted anyone so devoted. So passionate.”
Your heart beats like a drum, but your brain can’t help being a smartass in the moment. “You’d know the feeling if you cared about something other than yourself.”
He pulls away, slipping out of you so fast, you whimper when he’s gone. His palms press against the mirror behind you and he tilts his head to the side. “I care about you, don’t I?”
You arch a brow.
“What do I have to do to make you believe it?”
“Finish fucking me,” you tell him as you take his dick into your hand, wrapping your fingers over the velvety skin. He stiffens even more as the head leaks with precum. “We’ll talk about your hard-on for Targets and Best Buys when we’re done.”
“Fuck you.” Miguel thrusts into your pussy so hard and deep, it hurts. But the pain gives way to a pleasure that quickly takes you back to that precipice. You wrap your legs and arms tighter around his body. But he’s not even touching you — his hands braced and eyes trained on the mirror behind your head. There’s something so erotic about this sudden shift in him. It makes you ache for him even more. It’s maddening how his intensity — either hot or cold — can make even the most stubborn cell in you beg for him to make you come.
You moan loudly and Miguel’s eyes dart to the door, and suddenly you’re reminded that you’re in a public restroom. Your body stills and you grasp onto the fabric of his suit in fear of getting caught. He shakes his head to assure you not to worry. “Nestor’s outside. No one’s getting in.”
There’s something so messed up about Miguel’s security detail standing outside of the restroom while you two are fucking. But that’s just the nature of sleeping with the head of the Galindo cartel. You thought you knew what you were getting yourself into when you let him kiss you between the stacks of historians and philosophers. You knew the risks. But you let him into your bed anyway because he’s handsome and charming and dangerous. And it’s only a transient period of your life when you can say you’ve truly lived. But what was transient has lasted over a year, and now everyone in town knows you as Galindo’s girl.
You close your eyes as his thrusts even out in pace and rhythm. You moan a little louder this time, and you’re pretty sure the person standing on the other side of the door can hear you. It won’t be the first time.
“Baby, I’m so close,” you say in between shallow breaths. “Kiss me or I’ll scream.”
“Let them fucking hear it.”
Your hands rise to the back of his ears, urging his face to yours but Miguel remains firmly in place. Your lips part and the orgasm tears out of your lungs and echoes into the room. The orgasm is so good it radiates across your belly, to the top of your head down to the tips of your toes. It’s electric.
Your heart is beating so fast and you can’t seem to catch your breath, especially when Miguel is fucking you harder and faster, his thrusts becoming more and more erratic. His palms slip from the mirror, then he’s holding you again. Hands all over your body. Fingers digging into your flesh, lifting you off the counter, sinking his hard cock deeper into your cunt.
“I love —” He pulls and pushes and buries himself to the hilt, grinding down so fucking good, you’re about to climax once more. “— fucking you.”
He growls to match your moans. And you tremble when he captures your lips, kissing you like a man starved of affection. He bucks violently as his grip becomes unyielding, and he releases molten hot and deep inside of you. He arches his hips up into you, every muscle clenched taut as he finishes.
When he pulls out, Miguel lays heavy on your limp body, forehead pressed against the mirror. His heart is racing against your own chest. He turns his head just enough that his lips brush against your temple. “Being Galindo’s girl has its perks,” he says with a soft laugh.
You playfully push him away, hopping off the counter to straighten your dress. “I’ll have to review the cost-benefit analysis of being with you.”
“I look forward to seeing your report on my desk in the morning,” he says, swatting your ass.
You narrow your eyes at him before turning to the mirror to wipe the dried mascara from under your eyes. You press your lips together for a blotted effect, knowing you’ll need a whole train case of makeup to conceal the aftereffects of being freshly fucked.
Behind you, Miguel buckles his belt and shoves the lace panties deeper into the pocket of his vest. He catches your eye through the reflection and winks. “Shall we?” he asks, holding his hand out for you to take. You slip your hand in his and let him lead the way back out to the ballroom.
Outside, Nestor is waiting. His face is serious the second you walk out. He holds it for all of two seconds before he breaks out into an impish grin. “Can I just say one thing?”
“Don’t,” Miguel warns one of his oldest friends.
Nestor giggles and ignores the warning. “If it means anything, chica, you might be Galindo’s girl, but you got my boy here whipped, talking about feelings and shit.” He slings an arm over Miguel’s shoulder and roughs him up a little. “Ain’t that right, Mikey?”
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Yes, we’re down to the last week of the Contagion Chronicle Kickstarter – and so I know you’ll all be sad to know that it’s my last week of coming up with awful pun-ny titles for this blog based on the KS.
(Never fear, in several weeks we’ll be starting the Pirates of Pugmire Kickstarter campaign, and you KNOW I’ll have pirate titles for the run on that!)
(Of course, I may just title them “Yarrr!1”, “Yarrr!2”, and so on.)
But back to The Contagion Chronicle!
We’re looking to finish strong on Thursday, so this is really the home stretch. Hopefully, at this point, backers are able to tell whether the project is intriguing them based on the text that’s almost done being released.
And hopefully, folks who are wondering about backing have seen enough from backers posting here and on social media, and the various Actual Play vids that Matthew and James have linked to, to give the project a shot.
Remember, you can back for a mere pittance and get the chance the review the text yourself without being locked in to pledging at the end. Well, at least until it really is the end on Thursday – at that point Kickstarter charges everybody!
Also, by backing at a bit more than a mere pittance, you’ll also receive links to the PDFs of the two Stretch Goal projects that have been being built up throughout the course of the Kickstarter when they are finished. More locations and some alternative rules in the one, and guides to crossovers on a more nuts and bolts level in the other.
Adventures For Curious Cats illustration by Pat Loboyko
Mighty Matt McElroy wanted me to thank all of you that made our 20th Anniversary WoD books PDF sale a huge success! We’re thrilled that so many of you took it as a chance to catch up on some of the WoD20 books you hadn’t yet checked out! Thanks!
He also mentioned reminding all you awesome people that we have two sales on physical books going on at Indie Press Revolution: for physical hardback copies of the Pathfinder rules edition of the Scarred Lands Players Guide, and for the Deluxe 20th Anniversary physical books that IPR still have in stock.
Or, if you prefer, Studio2 also has the Scarred Lands Players Guide – Pathfinder edition – physical books on a deep discount sale right now. You can check out the links below in the BLURBS!
We’ll be having some very cool info about the Scarred Lands Creature Collection for 5e coming up in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that. I’ll say this now, the monster art is looking gorgeous!
Book of Oblivion illustration by Drew Tucker
Following up on last week, we immediately started using the new Errata Form for the Geist 2e and Trinity Continuum KS backers as Backer PDFs went out to them.
So far, the form seems to be working fantastically, so thanks to all of you who have used it for sending us your feedback on these two projects!
Along with that, it’s our plan to wrap up the situation with the Scion 2e errata this week. Neall is working on a message for our Scion community to go with the fixes and a downloadable errata sheet, and our shipper is supposed to start sending out all the KS packages this week.
Our apologies to everyone concerned, frustrated, maddened, or just confused by this whole thing. We truly appreciate everyone’s patience in letting us take the time to delve into what happened, and the extent of the number of errata fixes that got “unfixed”.
It’s like that warning on airlines to don your oxygen mask before assisting others. We had to end our own confusion before we could explain what happened and how we’re dealing with it. And that’ll come later this week.
Dystopia Rising: Evolution illustration by Marco Gonzales
One other thing I wanted to note, which came out of the Scion errata thing, but has popped up before, is that when I’m writing this blog, I generally have to bear in mind that for any given situation I’m trying to address, there are many segments of our community I’m addressing.
What I mean is that sometimes I will make a point during discussing one thing that is also addressing other concerns that other members of our community have. These are folks that maybe don’t feel comfortable voicing their concerns in the dangerous seas of social media, but who have sent me private messages. I need to be responsive to them – but I don’t want to “out” them.
(And there are also those private messages that rip me a new one, that I also don’t share because I’m not here to get into flame-wars, but which have items in them that aren’t true and I don’t want to leave unaddressed).
In both those kinds of cases, if you see a series of messages and I respond and seem to veer off to talk about something else that’s not directly prompted by the thread – this is what is probably on my mind with my answer.
After all, we have a community containing folks of all ages, all kinds of interests, all walks of life, and who may love one, some, or all of our game worlds, and I need to always bear that in mind and try and give everybody the connections they need to explore our:
Many Worlds, One Path!
BLURBS!
KICKSTARTER:
Now in it’s LAST FEW DAYS, the Contagion continues to spread, passing 1275 backers and infecting all in its path with more and more Stretch Goals! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/contagion-chronicle-a-chronicles-of-darkness-cross
The Contagion Chronicle actual play continues on the Onyx Path YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/WR92yIuafU4
He also asks for your Contagion Chronicle-related questions here: https://youtu.be/axvrFeQOvEg
Matthew’s interview on Flames Rising about Contagion Chronicle:
http://www.flamesrising.com/matthew-dawkins-is-infected-with-the-contagion-chronicle/
Our next Kickstarter starting in several weeks will be for Pirates of Pugmire!
ONYX PATH MEDIA
Illustration by Charles Bates
On this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, our team takes a deep dive into the epic “Greco-Apocalyptic” fantasy of The Scarred Lands game line! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/
And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:
It’s a new episode of the Onyx Path News from host, Matthew Dawkins: https://youtu.be/Cjqey_N3_jQ
Matthew also lets loose several previews regarding Mummy: The Curse Second Edition here: https://youtu.be/X9lbz4TWY9s
If YOU have a podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, or talk about games on a blog or other website, and want to perform actual plays or make reviews of our games, please reach out to the Gentleman Gamer on the Onyx Path forum. From there we’ll share emails and get you started, so when you do start producing content we’ll be able to promote it on our blog and YouTube channel!
The Contagion Chronicle actual play continues on the Onyx Path YouTube channel! https://youtu.be/WR92yIuafU4
Red Moon Roleplaying have commenced their actual play of Scarred Lands, in a campaign Matthew Dawkins is running named The Great Vilhaim Heist! https://youtu.be/QUFVS4g6gDg
Caffeinated Conquests also continue with their foray into the Scarred Lands, with the Gauntlet of Spiragos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lVL40fkPX8
And as if that wasn’t enough, Devil’s Luck Gaming are still hard at it on the dangerous seas of Scarred Lands on their Twitch channel! https://www.twitch.tv/DEVILSLUCKGAMING
The Story Told Podcast have not one but two shows for you to check out, as they continue their chronicle of Dragon-Blooded for Exalted 3rd Edition, and have even reviewed it today! https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/
Here’s the Gamer’s Table again with their They Came from Beneath the Sea! actual play: http://gamerstable.com/cheesy-sci-fi-horror/
Cheesy Sci-Fi/Horror
And Occultists Anonymous, the Mage: The Awakening chronicle, also continues here: https://youtu.be/i4NNs_G0NNw
If Vampire is your thing, here’s an actual play of the Blood War for Vampire: The Requiem on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhai2P1uktAzDEch4d1r2JZir0VqUrBQJ
And the Dramatic Failure podcast crew continue with their Geist: The Sin-Eaters chronicle too! https://dramaticfailure.podbean.com/
Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!
ELECTRONIC GAMING:
As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!
Here’s an update from the App devs:
Onyx Dice! We’ve recently released the Changeling: The Lost, Trinity Continuum: Aeon dice, and now the Geist dice. Next up on our radar is: Demon: The Fallen, Mummy: The Resurrection, Kindred of the East, Vampire Dark Ages, and Mummy: The Curse.
We have a serious issue on the Pixel and Motorola phones that prevent the user from using the app correctly. A fix is coming shortly. A temporary workaround is to minimize the app without shutting it down, and then restore it.
ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:
You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).
If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!
Our selection includes these fiction books:
OUR SALES PARTNERS:
We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire
We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game
Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost
Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio 2:
https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands
Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/
And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296
The Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) and WoD 20th Anniversary Deluxe sales on IPR are still going until the end of the month!:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/
DRIVETHRURPG.COM:
On Sale This Week!
This Wednesday, we’ll be offering our monthly Exalted 3rd PDF releases on DriveThruRPG!
CONVENTIONS
UK Games Expo: May 31st – June 2nd From the US comes Eddy Webb, Matt McElroy, and Rich Thomas to join with Matthew Dawkins, Steffie de Vann, John Burke, Chris Allen, and Klara Herbol!
Gen Con: August 1st – August 4th
Save Against Fear: Oct 12-14
GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd
We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year.
And now, the new project status updates!
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):
First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)
M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)
Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)
Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)
Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)
Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)
Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)
TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)
Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)
Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)
Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)
DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)
One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)
Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Redlines
Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)
Legendlore core book (Legendlore)
TC: Aeon Ready Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)
Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)
Blood Sea: Crimson Abyss for 5e (Scarred Lands)
DR:E Threat Guide (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)
Second Draft
Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)
Let The Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Development
Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)
Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)
WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)
Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)
Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)
Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)
M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)
Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)
Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)
Manuscript Approval:
Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)
Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)
Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)
Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Editing:
Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)
CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)
Post-Editing Development:
C20 Novel: Cup of Dreams (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)
M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)
V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)
CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)
Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)
Indexing:
Trinity Core
Trinity Aeon
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:
In Art Direction
Ex3 Monthly Stuff
Chicago By Night – Art coming in slowly but surely.
They Came From Beneath the Sea!
EX3 Lunars
Hunter: The Vigil 2
Contagion Chronicle – KS.
VtR Spilled Blood – Hiring artists.
M20 Book of the Fallen – Contracted.
Dark Eras 2 – Getting artnotes in from devs.
CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel – Contracted.
Pirates of Pugmire – KS art contracted, sketches and finals coming in.
Marketing Stuff
In Layout
Dystopia Rising: Evolution – With Josh.
Shunned By the Moon
Scion Jumpstart
Aeon Aexpansion
Proofing
C20 Player’s Guide – At WW for approval.
The Realm
Book of Oblivion – Inputting last corrections.
Dragon-Blooded Screen – At WW for approval.
Signs of Sorcery – First Proof.
Trinity Core and Aeon Screens
At Press
Scion Hero – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.
Scion Origin – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.
Scion Dice – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.
Scion Screen – At Studio2, preparing to ship to backers.
Fetch Quest – Shipped to backers, prepping PoD version.
In Media Res – PDF out to backers, gathering errata with new sheet.
Geist 2e – PDF out to backers, gathering errata with new sheet.
Scarred Lands Spell Cards – PoD proofs ordered.
Adventures for Curious Cats – Going out to backers.
Tales of Excellent Cats – Going out to backers.
TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE:
Today is Earth Day, and we live here, so let’s celebrate doing what we can to keep Gaia alive!
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Tylluan Penry, Solitary Witch, Author and Founder of the Wolfenhowle Press
Tylluan was talking earlier about being made aware that someone was looking for a free PDF copy of one of her popular books, in other words a pirated copy. We obviously all know that this is theft, and that hurts small independent businesses particularly hard.
Tylluan though, is also aware that it can seem difficult to get hold of her books, particularly outside the UK as people are so used to shopping with large retailers.
So, I’m sharing her words for those who have been frustrated hearing about her books but thinking they can only get one through dishonest means.
TL:DR - email her if you are overseas and you can get a copy of any of the books directly from the lady herself and it may be cheaper than going through a third party. If you’re in the UK just order from her website.
The photo is nothing to do with Tylluan Penry, it’s a photo of my garden - hope you like it!
“Yesterday someone asked why it is so difficult to purchase my books in the US, so I thought I would explain how it works...
When I started The Wolfenhowle Press back in 2011, my plan was to publish affordable, informative and beautiful books. The problem of course is that once we sell through a third party, they require their percentage, often much larger than we can afford.
Also, Amazon does not allow us to fix our postage prices - meaning if we sell a book to, say, the US, we are only allowed the price they say, not the actual cost. So we only sell on Amazon to the UK.
Then there are bookshops. Most require at least a 40% discount (some require more). Bearing in mind that we have to pay the printer, they are asking for us to let them have a £10 book for example, for £6, plus we bear the cost of postage and often have to wait for them to pay us. Some want sale or return terms - meaning a damaged book can be sent back to us without any compensation!
Now, there is a way around all this, and that is to tack a couple of pounds onto the price of each book, but that goes against our ethos of publishing affordable books.. We have always felt that our readers come first, not Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
The upshot is that we don't sell on these large sites in the US or Europe. What we ask instead is that you email us - quite simple, just drop us a line at [email protected] and let us know what you are interested in. Then we can get a quote on the postage for you.
Yes, it might take an extra couple of days (we check various postage rates and also, if necessary, various couriers) but again, it saves you money. We don't guess - we aim to be accurate - it keeps the prices as low as possible.
We have always kept our Kindle prices low, but we don't put new titles on Kindle any more because of book piracy. It's a pity but there's really no way around that at the moment. If things change, then we'll look at it again.
So please - we CAN and DO ship all over the world, and if you're outside the UK then don't panic, just drop us a line and we will handle your order personally so we can keep the price low for you, the reader.
And thus we can keep to our original ambition: to publish affordable, informative and beautiful books.”
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Alright, enough of you would like to see my likely long rambly post about my 3-day weekend away so let’s do this.
About a month ago a friend of mine connected with me and asked if I would be interested in a girls’ weekend because there’s a loud music festival that happens practically in her backyard every year and she didn’t want to be in town for it. This friend lives in Appleton nearly 2 hours away from me and we rarely have reasons to be in each others’ neck of the woods anymore so I don’t really visit with her much anymore. So when she asked I really wanted to say yes, but she just so happened to be suggesting a 3-day trip the same month as my 6-day vacation to travel to North Dakota to see family and attend my cousin’s wedding. We planned a budget accordingly and I just gotta be conscious of money the next couple of weeks.
The music started on Thursday and ideally we would’ve left town that evening, but I ended up being scheduled to work until 9 PM closing time at the pharmacy that night… of course. We had plans already scheduled for midday on Friday, so I had to pack everything before work and then left immediately from work for my nearly 2 hour drive and arrived at her house at about 11 PM. I listened to some of the first campaign of Critical Role - time well spent.
So our Friday morning was spent running a few errands and finishing prep to leave Appleton before heading out to Milwaukee including running her pup to a friends’ house, getting groceries, and picking up coffee to fortify ourselves. We headed out around 11 AM I think and arrived early for our massage in a Milwaukee suburb with time to spare. It was my first massage and it was pretty good other than too much on my neck which led to a light headache. I really should’ve said that it was hurting too much, but I wasn’t sure if it would or would not be beneficial as I had never had a professional massage before.
Our hotel was in Wauwautosa and we arrived a good two hours before check in so we went and got food at Dave and Busters which, for those that don’t know, is an arcade for adults - meaning there is a bar. It was fun, but 3 of the 5 games we played didn’t work correctly or at all and then it was time to head out. Kinda wish we had had the opportunity to go back for another hour since I had plenty of credits still and would’ve really liked to play Mario Kart and check out one or two more games. I did play a Star Wars game with the wrap around screen which was pretty wicked cool.
That evening, after we checked into our hotel and washed off our oils from the massage, we went to a suburb to participate in a Paint and Sip class - this one was a paint your pet class and they even had little gift bags with goodies for you pet. I picked a picture of Binx that was low lighting which they oversaturated so you could see both his eyes, but since they oversaturated the picture he no longer looked like a true black and white tuxedo but like he had shades of grey and black all over which would not have been my kitty. Since I was not following the picture exactly it was proving impossible to distinguish his features, so I gave up and just used my time to fill in the areas I knew I could and plan to ask another of my friends, who works with me for the library Paint & Sip classes, to help me finish it some time. No idea when that may actually happen since she is super busy, but I have plans that meant I was okay with my experience. Not thrilled since it was a $35 class not including our wine, but eh. Meanwhile my friend was frustrated because even though she asked a few times for help with colors she never got close enough to be happy with her picture. On top of that she had chosen a picture of her goofy dog with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, but they CUT OFF HIS TONGUE and then didn’t make the picture as large as they could’ve so she had a lot of negative space. She was unimpressed to say the least. At least our wine was good. Really the class should’ve had prerequisites such as having participated in their other classes to be sure customers would get the best out of their experience. They did see that I had not finished and were offering a free session to join their free paint classes for help finishing… which we couldn’t do since we both live too far away (in my case a good 4 hours). I do really wish it had been a more standard paint class with the fast blended background and straightforward foreground. Ah well.
We finished day one at the Cheesecake Factory, a first for me! My friend commented that she was never very impressed by their food and she wasn’t surprised do be unimpressed yet again (though I didn’t mind my food at all), but we finished off with cheesecake, obviously, and that was delicious. Unfortunately I forgot my leftover cheesecake at her house in Appleton.
Saturday was our busiest day. We started at the Milwaukee Public Museum which was excellent though it really is a whole day affair not the two hour filler we planned for it. About halfway through my friend started to get anxious about her car and concerned it had a ticket or had been towed and I think she was also just getting tired of being on her feet. I think I was overall more interested in the exhibits too and she seemed to only be truly interested in specific things. I’m also a reader and wanted to actually read some of the shit while she just breezed through exhibit after exhibit. Like I said, we really didn’t have the time, but it was disappointing to be rushed so much.
Then we went downtown to The Safe House which she had wanted to check out. She did not realize it was literally right downtown and there was some anxiety, but we made it! For those that have not heard of Safe House, it’s a restaurant where the servers are in-character as secret agents and guests are also secret agents. There is a password to get in and if you don’t know it you have to prove you aren’t a spy by acting out some silliness. The interior is a wild and zany pieced together hodgepodge with references to spies in popular culture. Guests are given a list of missions (clues) to wander about and try to figure out the password. If you figure it out you are able to get a discount on their merchandise.
It was more confusing than my friend was expecting and not as engaging as she had expected either. She was pretty sure she figured it out, but neither of us were really worried about the merchandise, so we just didn’t even bother. They had a pen listed that we both kinda wanted, but they didn’t have any in stock.
After that we went to the North Point Lighthouse which is a lighthouse museum and I really enjoyed that little attraction. After that we finally headed back to the hotel for a short break and to get bandages because she wore strappy shoes that were trying to eat her feet. We discovered there was some sort of convention going on so the hotel was packed and TOO busy for only two slow elevators.
Next we went to Water2Wine, a winery in a suburb that imports their grapes and then makes their own wines in house. It was cute and pretty decent, but we weren’t overly impressed tbh. Next door to the winery was a Half Priced Books which my friend suggested instead of going to Barnes and Noble in the mall. So we wandered around, which was the first time I’d been to a Half Priced Books, but she got bored relatively quickly and dragged me out well before I would’ve like saying I could go to Barnes and Noble instead and then if she got bored she could wander the mall. So then we ended up at the mall and I was ready to settle into browsing for nearly an hour before wandering around the rest of the mall until close, but again she dragged me out likely because it isn’t that fun to wander by yourself. I did pick up a book at both places, Of Fire and Stars and Spinning Silver. I could’ve stayed in the bookstore all evening and likely only bought the one book, but nooooo, I ended up in the game store and bought an expensive gorgeous metal dice set. Pft. I also bought macarons which I had never been able to try and the ones I got were disappointingly too sweet for me to enjoy. We were both ready to be done, so we grabbed Chipotle, another first for me, and just curled up with a little TV before bed.
Sunday we got brunch at the ludicrously hipstery Cafe Hollanders. Very good and excellent atmosphere, but I couldn’t get over how chique it was being. The cafe was located in this ritzy area filled with high end stores that neither of us could afford, but we wandered around and gawped at insane prices before heading out to the Milwaukee County Zoo which I have WAAAY too many picture of to share here, so just check out my Instagram. I mentioned a few times, because I was seeing merchandise, that we hadn’t seen the red panda and my friend said she thought it might be a seasonal exhibit. After I was home I checked… it wasn’t. We literally missed it and I kinda wanna cry tbh.
We left Milwaukee around 4 and I ended up home around 7:30, but I tossed some gas in my car, washed it, and ran to the grocery store first so idk exactly how long my drive was. Though not everything was amazing I still had a pretty damn good time, my friend on the other hand seemed to get bored and/or impatient and/or disappointed/frustrated on a regular basis and I swear she didn’t enjoy the trip nearly as well as I did which just makes me sad. I also realized that since the last time we had really hung out we have both changed. Whereas I am online a lot and am fairly socially conscious she was not and she made a few borderline racist jokes (okay, not really borderline at all). Nothing nasty, just those ingrained stereotype jokes that are just not funny when you recognize how hurtful they can be. It also became more apparent that our interests do not overlap much at all. Which is another post to ramble about later. I loved the lighthouse and the zoo and wish I could’ve had just a bit more bookstore time and arcade time. It was nice to get out of town and not think about work while getting to catch up with an old friend though.
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Horror and me, two things that can’t fit well together ever since my very childhood.
...UNTIL NOW IT SEEMS.
I grew up being scared by a lot of things which would basically leave me terrified of anything that had to do with horror. 😅
However, having seen Van Helsing 2004 more than once on Netflix it’s such an underrated movie, having watched clips of said movie, as well as having seen Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak (more than once) and The Shape of Water (recently), along with my seemingly constant craving for dark fantasy, gothic romance and novels with gore in it and whatnot, I think it’s safe to say I am less ‘’’’’scared’’’’ of Horror than I used to be. Then again it depends all on the amount of horror, as well as jumpscares, etc.
Thanks to Van Helsing’s Dracula (portrayed by Richard Roxburgh, one of my favourite actors), I came to appreciate and became fascinated by the works of Bram Stoker, the author of ‘’Dracula’’, ‘’Dracula’s Guest’’, you name it, as well as Vampire myths and legends themselves.
Due to my love for vampires which all started with the Twilight Saga which I don’t watch nor read anymore due to vampires being way too romantized in those movies and novels in my opinion, no offence to those who love it, I decided to get myself this today:
My first - ever actual horror novel, bought while getting some some discount. A hardcover and clothbound edition of Bram Stoker’s famous novel ‘’Dracula’’; which, according to the front page is a revised edition as well.
Despite this and despite having Dracula right now, I might get myself another second different edition of it because I like the Barnes & Noble Dracula and Other Horror Stories edition too. Perhaps I might get Mary Shelly’s ‘’Frankenstein’’ novel someday also, but I don’t know yet.
It’s quite funny that, when I walked over to the counter to buy it, the employee selling the Dracula novel to me warned me it’d be a very scary read, which had me shrugging (though I can tell I might lay awake at night when reading this every now and then).
I decided to go and try out a new bookstore for once today. American Book Center, or as I’d like to call it, ‘’Bookworm Heaven’’. They didn’t have much of the specific editions I was looking for but I was also pleased with this one. They even had Manga, so I was having a hard time not to drool while standing inside of that bookstore. Due to the Manga section, my sibling (who hardly ever reads) even wanted to go back there when we were leaving the city we were at haha.
Unfortunately I wasn’t given much time to examine and admire each book there. I only had like a couple of minutes. My parents were in a hurry because for one, it was raining a lot (after three months of no rain and two heatwaves) and two, my dad doesn’t seem to appreciate novels or at least going to bookstores much-
Nevertheless, book - hunting was fun today, although it was raining like crazy.
I plan on reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula near October, because I feel like that’d be the perfect month to read a horror novel such as classic and scary as this one. Besides I still have to finish reading The Gospel of Loki, The Testament of Loki, Norse Myths and Tales, the movie novelization of Crimson Peak and Crimson Peak: The Art of Darkness. At least my To Be Read pile is going to kill some time when it comes to waiting for Cornelia Funke’s The Glass of Lead & Gold novel, as well as her Reckless IIII: The Island of the Fox novel.
It’s ridiculous how many novels I have at this point. Probably more than I used to have as a child (about 100 novels from one novel series). Of course my novel - taste has changed /drastically/ ever since I got rid of most of my childhood novels.
Like, it went from innocent High Fantasy in which good would always win from bad to mostly a majority of Dark Fantasy with violence, gore and supernatural things, Gothic Romance and now even Horror. Plus Manga with demons in it. (Kuroshitsuij / Black Butler).
#A Bookworm's Bookish Rambling#Dracula#Bram Stoker#Horror#Vampires#American Book Center#Novels#Other
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Analysis: Bezos leaves behind a company that's created value but has also triggered a national reckoning Bezos, the world’s richest person until recently, has gone from selling books out of his garage to running a company that makes consumer electronics, produces award-winning films and TV shows, offers organic groceries and hosts some of the world’s biggest websites. His company’s ambitions include delivering packages to households using flying drones and spreading facial recognition technology to virtually every consumer’s front doorstep. With each new innovation, Bezos and Amazon have offered the promise of making life easier, more convenient and enriching for customers. But these services also became testaments to Amazon’s ever-expanding power, influence and self-interest, inspiring fierce criticism from the company’s opponents: that Amazon kills brick and mortar businesses; that it bullies workers; that it uses the data from its massive online storefront to maintain a monopoly; that its partnerships with law enforcement have made it an accessory to discriminatory policing. “The guy was just obsessed with the end user. They were the highest priority,” said James Bailey, a professor of leadership development at George Washington University’s business school. “It’s one of those situations where your biggest asset is also your biggest liability.” Now, as he prepares to step down as CEO of the $1.7 trillion business he built and take on the role of executive chair, Bezos leaves behind a company that’s created immense value for consumers, investors and many small businesses, but which has also triggered a national reckoning over the costs it may have created for everyone else. A model for building online companies Bezos’s ambitions were large from the start: He launched Amazon at a time when few people knew what the internet was and chose the name, he later told journalist Brad Stone, in part because the Amazon river is “not only the largest river in the world — it’s many times larger than the next biggest river. It blows all other rivers away.” To achieve his vision, Bezos frustrated some shareholders by investing heavily in the business. It wasn’t until the end of 2001 that Amazon had its first profitable quarter, and its first profitable year didn’t occur until 2003. Amazon would continually flirt with profitability for the next decade. This approach would become a model for many others in Silicon Valley, and perhaps even something of an excuse for cash-hungry startups that seemingly burned through money without a pathway to profit. “Bezos created the blueprint for building internet businesses, being hyper customer-centric, and scaling disruptive innovation,” tweeted Aaron Levie, the CEO of enterprise cloud company Box.com. No other innovation symbolized Bezos’s appetite for losses like Amazon Prime, which was launched as a $79-a-year subscription plan and introduced what became the company’s most recognizable offering: free two-day shipping. On the surface, Amazon Prime stood to lose money. The cost of its benefits — which came to encompass not just fast shipping but streaming media, digital photo storage and discounts on groceries — outweighed what the company made in subscription fees. But it was another example of Bezos’s long-term plan to lure new customers into Amazon’s orbit and persuade them to become mega-spenders on the platform, thereby allowing Amazon to lower its costs even further to attract yet more customers, creating a virtuous cycle, or what Bezos called a “flywheel effect.” The company last year announced it has more than 150 million Prime subscribers worldwide. Relentless, or ruthless? As Amazon became a bigger player in retail, it inevitably came into conflict with others, both big and small. In some cases, it effectively drove them out of business. The bookseller Barnes and Noble announced in 2019 it was going private after a decade of trying to keep pace with Amazon. Toys”R”Us has blamed Amazon’s aggressive pricing for crushing the quintessentially American toy store. Rightly or wrongly, Amazon is often listed as a contributing factor behind the so-called retail apocalypse. And these days, the mere mention of Bezos’s interest in a new service is enough to send an entire industry’s stocks into a downward spiral. Like Walmart before it, Amazon has come to be viewed as “the new big bully, at least in the internet retail space,” said Bailey. Amazon famously clashed with book publishers over who controlled e-book pricing. It deliberately lost money selling diapers in order to thwart Diapers.com — then, according to a landmark antitrust investigation by US lawmakers, it acquired the company before raising diaper prices. (Bezos has said he does not recall giving an order to raise prices.) Amazon’s growing clout has allegedly given it immense leverage to squeeze its suppliers and to use third-party sellers’ own sales data against them to gain an anti-competitive edge. Bezos has argued that Amazon prospers not at others’ expense, but rather when it helps grow the whole pie. “Amazon’s success depends overwhelmingly on the success of the thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that also sell their products in Amazon’s stores,” he told Congress. Bezos also ruffled feathers when he held a highly publicized contest for the privilege of hosting Amazon’s newest headquarters. The so-called “HQ2” was pitched as an engine for local job creation and economic growth, particularly to small and mid-sized cities seeking development. For months, dozens of city leaders jockeyed for Amazon’s favor with offers of tax breaks and real estate. Ultimately, though, Amazon opted for Northern Virginia — just outside of Washington, D.C. — and New York, two of the nation’s wealthiest and most obvious metro areas, leaving many onlookers perplexed. (It later withdrew from New York after facing backlash from members of the community.) The entire episode was a bizarre flex of Amazon’s power and influence. To some critics, the good that Bezos has created does not negate the alleged harms. On the 2020 campaign trail, figures like Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for Amazon to be broken up, and regulators are circling. “The US and Europe are coming for Big Tech, and I don’t think the lawsuits against Facebook and Google are the end of it,” said Paul Gallant, an industry analyst at Cowen & Co. What’s good for customers isn’t necessarily good for workers Just as Bezos’s growing empire raised questions about whether it was good for other businesses, it also raised questions about whether it was good for workers. Rising automation, complaints about working conditions and a tough stance against unions all contributed to years of employee walkouts, petitions and, in some cases, lawsuits. Many of the company’s white-collar workers have also protested Amazon’s impact on the environment, calling on Bezos to make stepped-up commitments on climate change. (Amazon and Bezos later pledged to do more, with Bezos committing an initial $10 billion of his own money to fight climate change.) Early on in the pandemic, Amazon faced a warehouse worker revolt over a lack of hand sanitizer, masks and other protective gear. After one New York-based employee organized a protest over the issue, Amazon fired him for violating the company’s Covid quarantine policy. Amazon has since said it’s put in place temperature checks at fulfillment centers, ramped up its cleaning regimen, and established some 150 “process changes” to keep workers safe. Amazon has won plaudits for increasing its minimum wage to $15 an hour, but only after intense pressure from labor groups and some US lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders. And the same day that Bezos announced his plans to step down as CEO, the Federal Trade Commission said Amazon would pay more than $60 million to settle allegations that it withheld tips from its contract delivery drivers. In the coming weeks, Amazon workers in Alabama will vote on whether to form the company’s first US union. In response, Amazon has pushed for in-person voting despite the ongoing pandemic and launched a campaign to discourage unionization. “Jeff Bezos built his multibillion-dollar empire on exploitative practices including wage theft and surveillance tactics designed to bully workers into silence and prevent them from organizing,” said Rashad Robinson, president of the civil rights group Color Of Change. A tech icon whose reputation reflects his industry’s Despite the criticisms, Bezos will undoubtedly be remembered in the business world as a brilliant strategist and a disciplined entrepreneur. Bill Gurley, a prominent venture capitalist, called Bezos’s tenure at Amazon “the most spectacular CEO run of my lifetime.” In many ways, Bezos’s story with Amazon mirrors that of Silicon Valley. He began with a small idea in his garage that would change the world. He was lauded for innovating his way to success, putting in hard work and taking calculated risks. But those same choices also led to claims that his company had grown too powerful for its own good, and for the good of society. Now as allegations about Amazon’s power and approach to competition may be leading to a showdown with Washington, the billionaire CEO is tapping out. In a letter to employees this week, Bezos said he plans to spend more time on his newspaper, The Washington Post, and his spaceflight company, Blue Origin. He also plans to get more involved with his philanthropic initiatives, perhaps following in the footsteps of another transformational tech CEO — Microsoft’s Bill Gates. “Bezos wants to go out on top,” said Gallant. Source link Orbem News #Analysis #Bezos #company #Created #JeffBezos'scomplicatedlegacyasCEOofAmazon-CNN #Leaves #National #Reckoning #Tech #triggered
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Beginner’s Guide to CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction) in 2020
Let me guess — CJ Affiliate by Conversant (aka Commission Junction) keeps popping up on your radar, and you’re itching to sign up as a publisher.
But whoa, not so fast.
You want to know what you’re in for before you commit to it.
Those questions racing in your mind?
You need answers, stat.
“What payment methods are available?”
“Why should I join when I’m already a member of other affiliate networks?”
And, of course: “How do I start?”
In this definitive 2020 guide, you’ll learn exactly that.
You’ll also discover just what it takes to earn a passive income with affiliate marketing networks and how to use CJ Affiliate to partner with the biggest brands in the world.
Let’s begin.
CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction): Q&A
What is CJ Affiliate?
Founded over 20 years ago in Santa Barbara, California, CJ Affiliate is one of the world’s largest and oldest affiliate networks.
It specializes in pay-for-performance programs and is part of a Fortune 500 company called Alliance Data Systems.
Yep, that’s how big CJ Affiliate is.
Free Bonus: How to Go From $0 to $1,000 in Passive Income With Affiliate Marketing
With an astounding track record since 1998, this massive affiliate network has 15 offices worldwide and over 3,000 merchants.
Ever wanted to work with the big kahunas like J.Crew, Barnes & Nobles, and GoPro?
CJ Affiliate is it.
How is CJ Affiliate Different From Other Affiliate Networks?
CJ Affiliate has several features to distinguish it from Amazon Associates, ClickBank, ShareASale, eBay Partner Network, and other the affiliate network programs out there for affiliate marketers. Here are a few of them:
1. Stellar Real-Time Reporting
CJ Affiliate is renowned for its always up-to-the-minute analytics.
This means you never have to refresh the page because you can monitor your activity as it happens.
Granted, navigating the dashboard for the first few times may feel overwhelming.
But as you spend more time exploring it, everything becomes intuitive. You’ll also come to realize how invaluable these features really are.
With these insights in your fingertips, you know the types of affiliate products that work best on your blog and how to create content readers love.
2. Tons of Selectivity
Most display advertising networks bunch up dozens of products in one ad code — not CJ Affiliate.
As an affiliate publisher, you choose exactly which advertisers’ individual products you want to display and where.
3. Royal Treatment for Star Publishers
Do you create top-notch content in your blog? Does your blog have 10K+ page views a month? If so, you want to look into CJ Affiliate’s Content Certified program.
As a Content Certified publisher, you automatically connect with over 600 brands — brands that are the cream of the crop.
Thanks to this attractive perk, you enjoy pre-approved access to advertisers for premium rates while maintaining editorial control over your blog’s content.
What are the Sign Up Requirements for CJ Affiliate?
It’s free to join CJ Affiliate.
However, you do have to be at least 18 years old and own a website to sign up as a publisher.
What if you own multiple websites? Does this mean you have to set up multiple accounts?
Not at all. Simply go to Account > Websites > Add Website.
A word of caution:
If you have a new website with little traffic, watch out. Publishers who fail to get results within their first 6 months may get deactivated.
What Affiliate Programs are Available with CJ Affiliate?
CJ Affiliate boasts a phenomenal variety of programs.
From automotive and electronics to gardening and recycling, there really is something for every blogger or entrepreneur.
When you’re on Links > Search, you’ll notice the special filters on the left, like:
Events: Mother’s Day, Christmas, Cyber Monday
Promotion Type: Sales, Hot sweeps, Hot product
Link Types: Banner, Text Link, Content Link
Let’s explore how this works out.
Say, you run a health blog and want to promote health equipment in your blog post, 7 Best Pieces of Equipment for Health Fanatics (Up to __% Discounts!).
With this goal in mind, you could select…
Category: Health > Equipment
Promotion Types: Sale/Discount
Link Types: Banner, Text Link
…and pick the ads that best fit your content.
Pretty neat.
Most offers on CJ Affiliate are cost per acquisition (CPA) — such as pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead, and pay-per-call.
Occasionally, a handful of advertisers offer pay-per-view or pay-per-click.
Placements and flat spend opportunities are also available.
Depending on which program you choose, you can promote products on social media.
Tip: Review the policies of both the advertiser and social media platform before you proceed.
What are CJ Affiliate’s Payment Methods?
As a publisher, you get paid via direct deposit, check, or Payoneer (for non-US folks).
CJ Affiliate pays out within 20 days of the end of the month, as long as you have a minimum payment threshold of US$50 (Direct Deposit) or US$100 (Check).
Commissions from multiple programs will be put together in one account.
For international folks, Payoneer offers over 150 local currencies with zero clearing fees. Commissions are processed according to CJ Affiliate’s standard schedule.
As of this writing, CJ Affiliate doesn’t offer payment via PayPal or credit cards.
Which is it: CJ Affiliate or Commission Junction?
In 2014, Commission Junction’s parent company, ValueClick, was rebranded to Conversant.
Conversant then rebranded Commission Junction to CJ Affiliate.
As a result, people refer to the network by both names: CJ Affiliate (its official name) and Commission Junction (its name for 16 years).
In short, both names are correct.
Alright, now that we’ve gone over the frequently asked questions, let’s roll up our sleeves and tackle the ins and outs of CJ Affiliate.
Starting with:
How Do I Sign Up for CJ Affiliate?
Go to cj.com and sign up as a publisher. Fill in personal information like your name, email address, and preferred language. Click Next.
Look for the confirmation email in your inbox and click the green button ‘Create my CJ Publisher Account’:
You will then be directed to the Publisher Sign Up Form. Fill in your details and click ‘Accept Terms’ to complete registration.
After sign up, you’ll be immediately directed to your CJ Account Manager, a dashboard that housed important details like your network stats, performance summary, and messages.
First, click Account > Network Profile. (Note: you need to complete this profile to join affiliate programs.)
You’ll see these 3 sections in the Network Profile:
Website description (e.g. Share your website’s strengths and relevant statistics.)
Promotion methods (e.g. What affiliate channels do you use to promote advertisers? Is it a blog post, email, social media, or other digital marketing platform?)
Documents (e.g. Do you have a media kit? This is optional but raises your chance of being selected.)
Complete these 3 sections to show advertisers the value you bring and how you amplify their reach with your audience.
Think of it as your cover letter.
The Network Profile is your chance to stand out amongst the sea of publishers.
Next, click Account > Administrative Settings to edit your payment and tax information.
Edit Payment Information and select if you want to receive payment via direct deposit, check, or Payoneer.
Then, edit your Tax Information. CJ Affiliate requires all publishers to submit their tax forms for payout.
US:
W-9 Request for Taxpayer Identification and Certification
Non-US:
W-8BEN Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding
Certificate of No United States Activities
Contact your tax advisor or visit your country’s IRS website if you have questions.
Power tip: Remember to submit a new tax certification if you change your country or business type to receive continued payment.
How Does CJ Affiliate Work?
You should at least have a basic understanding of HTML, as you need this skill to insert the tracking code in your website.
If HTML is completely foreign to you, visit w3schools to pick up this new skill.
To find advertisers within your niche, click Advertisers > Category.
Before you start joining affiliate programs, let’s break down what these 3 columns mean.
The first column, Network Earnings, shows how an advertiser performs on CJ Affiliate.
See that green bar? It’s based on the volume of commissions paid out to publishers like you.
The longer the green bar, the better it is. This indicates the advertisers are actively paying commissions, which is a great sign.
New accounts are labeled “New” for their first three months.
The second column, Earnings per click (EPC) measures how many visitors you can drive through your site that will generate sales for advertisers.
During this 3-month and 7-day period, if there are less than 1000 and 100 clicks respectively, N/A will be displayed.
To view more details about the program, click on the advertiser. It tells you important information such as the commission rates, policies, and referral period.
Click the green ‘Join Program’ button in the third column to submit your application. During this stage, you may be required to accept the terms and conditions.
Many advertisers use automatic rules to accept or decline applications, whereas some review manually.
Responses can take from a day to a few weeks, so you may need to be patient.
Now… advertisers on CJ Affiliate are notorious for being picky.
If your website — knocks on wood — gets rejected, don’t be disheartened. Move on to the next advertiser. Who knows, they may be a better match for your blog.
Upon approval, click Get Links.
Power tip: If you pick banner, flash or text links, hover over the icon to get a preview of the ad. You can see how it will appear on your website.
Next, click the Get Code (</>) button:
There are 4 choices to choose from:
HTML
JavaScript
Click URL (for search engine promotion, aka Google and Bing)
Image URL (for products)
If you want to customize your code (e.g. open in new tab), only customize it via the Get Code interface on CJ Affiliate. Remember to update it. If you don’t, your changes will not take effect.
You’ll notice several advertisers’ codes include different click domains or additional parameters. Do not modify them.
CJ Affiliate will not take any responsibility if publishers modify and make a mistake with the codes.
If you want to modify them or have questions about the code, contact the relevant advertiser (not CJ Affiliate). You can do this in your dashboard: Mail > Messages > Compose.
After you finish customizing, copy the entire code:
…and paste it into your web page.
If you select HTML, make sure you’re on Text editor mode before you paste it.
Need to refresh your memory? Here’s a handy guide on how to use WordPress’s Block Editor.
Voila, you’re done.
To verify your tracking code, go to Reports > Performance Reports.
Adjust the filters as you see fit. Let it run for a while. If your link is reporting clicks or impressions, it’s tracking.
Power tip: Watch out for invalid links on a daily basis, as offers expire or advertisers may get deactivated.
On your Tasks list, look for a “Review __ click(s) from invalid links”.
And keep a close eye on your notifications. You will be notified if a link or ad isn’t working.
If you’ve been reading CJ Affiliate reviews in forums, you’ll notice there have been numerous cases where publishers are promoting links even when advertisers have already left the program.
Don’t let this soul-crushing situation happen to you.
It’s a huge waste of time and effort.
Final Tips to Make it Big on CJ Affiliate
Your website needs a ton of targeted traffic to start earning commissions.
Typically, it takes three to six months to start seeing results.
Affiliate marketing is a patience and stamina game — and CJ Affiliate is no exception.
Bloggers who have found success recommend this: create your blog’s content around the product. Select the products you trust and love. From there, brainstorm lead generation and content ideas for new customers.
For example, Riley Adams of Young and the Invested is an affiliate of tax preparation software, TurboTax. Take a look at how he shapes his content around the product:
You can do this in any niche.
Check out how Jo-Lynne Shane, a fashion blogger and Content Certified publisher at CJ Affiliate, does it in her holiday gift guide blog post:
You can also do this on your blog resource page. David Alexander of Mazepress added affiliate links in the email marketing and social media tools he recommends to his readers:
Moving forward, you want to make monitoring a habit, as your best-performing affiliate marketing programs signal the type of products and content your readers want.
Your most successful affiliate programs don’t just earn you passive income.
They also inspire new blog post topics and business ideas you’d never thought of.
CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction): An Affiliate Network Trusted by Advertisers and Publishers Alike
Have you decided if CJ Affiliate is a good fit for you?
If you’re just starting out in the blogging scene with only a few hits a day, it probably isn’t the right time to join this network.
But if you’re a blogger with an established audience?
Or an entrepreneur with high-quality traffic on your website?
Then yes.
CJ Affiliate could be the yin to your yang.
With its superior reporting and the opportunity to work with the world’s most recognized brands, this affiliate network shouldn’t be missed.
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To The Mall! | Chocobros Headcanons FF15 |
So I went window shopping yesterday and Ruby and I walked past William and Sonoma (I LOVE THAT STORE, I know sounds such like a domestic mom thing to say) and I commented that Ignis would love to shop there. And Ruby was like that would be a great headcanon what would they like to do hit up for shops and food at the Mall. So before I finish up my newest chapter of Family is Forever let’s have some fluff.
Tagging: @themissimmortal @stephicness @stunninglyignis @blindbae @rubyphilomela @cupnoodle-queen @sheylann @zacklover24 @misssarahdoll @mistressoli @neko-otaku13 @blondechocobobutt @ardyns-jabberwocky @alicemoonwonderland @nykamito @teneniel @waifuthewhite @lady-asuka @nyxswaifu @mandakatt @iamthechocobabe @xnoctits @ffxvhoe @eternallydaydreaming2015 @sweetchocobae @chocobabyporcelain @roses-and-oceans @valkyrieofardyn @insomniascure @insomniacapples @insomniasix
Preface: So I am going to base this off a mid-level mall not a super fancy one and not a low rent one either. So decent food court, good selection of shops and a movie theater with arcade. If you live out of the USA and don’t have these stores, I’m quite sorry if these are confusing or just make no sense I’ll try to explain them best I can!
Noctis: Bass Fishing Pro shop, Dicks Sporting Goods, is our Princes’ favorite shops to visit in the mall. He prefers Bass as it has everything he’s looking for on the fishing front but if it’s a smaller mall it has Dicks and the selection is a bit smaller but still enough to supply his needs. For clothes Noctis likes to hit up Hot Topic it has everything he likes, he use to go to Spencers but they are more retail than clothes. The arcade in the theater would only be a spot for him if he was going to the movies as you can’t go to it unless you did buy a ticket. Plus the games aren’t that much the selection is small and only the super popular stuff is there. So he would rather go to a real arcade. Noctis is one to show up during the afternoon and right before close to the mall, never the first person to show up that is for sure. He likes to wander around and window shop from time to time if it is a rainy day. Noctis likes to eat pretzels from Auntie Anne’s and the cinnamon ones are his favorite. He also washes that down with a lemonade slush.
Prompto: Any photography store, FYE, Gamestop, Hot Topic and the candy kiosk are his go to shops. Prompto loves the mall, loves all the people the only time he doesn’t like it is during the holidays and middle of summer if it is a indoor mall it gets too crowded and not for him. He gets overwhelmed. (Honestly who wouldn’t, beyond Gladiolus?) Prompto can’t help but take the samples that the kiosks offer, he feels bad if he doesn’t at least acknowledge their presence! So often times Prompto ends up getting half a manicure, some lotion on part of his other hand, a spritz of cologne and some food samples he’s back with the group. Prompto loves to be there all day, specially if it is a open air mall or one that is outside like a town-center it is given for more photo opportunities! His favorite foods are from Sbarro, Subway, Cinna-bon (extra icing, please!) and the Smoothie Shack, he can never make up his mind what is his favorite so he has his “i’m in the mood for”.
Ignis: Williams and Sonoma, Sears, Starbucks and Perfumania. Ignis isn’t fond of going to the mall but he will if he needs to, he will make sure to go during the middle of the week so it’s not busy so he doesn’t have to deal with that. He just doesn’t like how crowded it gets, people stealing, loud kids the works too annoying for his taste. Williams and Sonoma is his main spot to hit up it is really his only spot he would go to if he didn’t have to go and pick up Noctis a lot. If W&S doesn’t have what he needs he goes to his clothes store which doubles as his back up store, Sears. Ignis likes to go to Perfumania to get some good colognes so he can spray the group when he needs to mask their scent after not showering for a few days. Ignis will go first thing in the morning or not at all you will never see him there on the holidays or right before close. If you ask Ignis if he eats at the food court he will deny it until he’s blue in the face. BUT if you sneak and catch him eating Dippin’ Dots, Starbucks coffee (Double Tall latte, 2 raw sugars) and popcorn from the kiosk.
Gladiolus: Spencers, Dicks Sporting Goods and Barnes and Nobles. Gladiolus can get all his camping gear at Dicks Sporting Goods, plus muscle shirts, footwear and they give him a discount all the time. Spencers is great for Gladiolus because it has a ton of joke stuff that he likes to toss out at the others though if he leaves any of the joke items out and around Ignis will take them and use them against Gladiolus in a much more disastrous manner. Gladiolus doesn’t actually walk around the mall because he always ends up going when it’s busy and he bumps into people a lot and he finds it annoying. So he B-lines it to his needed spots then goes to the bookstore and sits in the cafe for hours until closing time. He will get a drink from the cafe, read and be at peace. His favorite foods is from Sarku, Panda Express, Yogurt Mountain and free samples from the liquor store.
#ff15 headcanons#ff15 imagines#ff15#gladiolus amicitia#noctis lucis caelum#prompto argentum#ignis scientia#my writings
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