Pov: all of your colleagues want you dead (sound)

5 days of spooktober~ #4: snare

day #4: incubus taehyung x reader x incubus jimin

word count: 1.4k

summ. it’s strange waking up in your car the morning after Halloween with no recollection of last night’s memories except for a foggy dream. But what if what happened in that dream was real? 

warnings:  smut, dubcon/noncon themes (mindbreak, cunnilingus, handjob, vmin giving each other the suck a couple paragraphs in), 18+, explicit language, alcohol, taehyung wwe-smackdowns you at some point

a/n: prr someone needs to stop me from rushing thru fics and not checking over my work. I ‘tis a woman on a time crunch so excuse any mistakes. Can y’all believe Halloween is in a couple of days AND we’re one fic away from the end of this fun lil’ holiday spree? Also, this drabble wasn’t very yandere-ish for some reason whoops. Thank you guys sm for 3.6k; I’m INFATUATED and somehow rly funny rn. 

It seemed horrifically cheesy that you were out in the woods on Halloween on a night in which the moon was full and glinted a waxy blue. You had been drinking something bitter that burned on its way down your throat, and your head was spinning from the music of the party blaring around you.

You had only meant to step away from the party briefly, just to take a breath, but somehow you ended up deep in the woods. You stepped into something that made a squelch and wrinkled your nose in disgust.

God, you really didn’t want to end up as the first murdered side character of some half-assed horror movie thrown together on iMovie. And you even looked the part, with slightly smeared mascara and a short dress that you had to yank down so it wouldn’t expose an ass cheek to the unforgiving autumnal wind. You heard a noise, like the sound of a branch snapping underfoot, and your buzzed mind sobered as it quickly turned towards it.

“Fuck. Oh god, right there.’’

Wow, since when did the antagonist of a horror movie swear? They were always busy doing evil and ruining lives to swear. You blinked as the sound of skin against skin and ragged breathing filled your ears. Oh…oh. Yeah, you really had to get out of here.

You were about to gingerly step away when you heard the sounds shush, and you froze. Come on, come on, resume your activity, you pleaded in your head.

“Who’s there?’’

And you were running now, branches and twigs cracking underneath your frantic feet. No way were you going to meet face-to-face with two people getting it on in the middle of the woods. That would be an awkward confrontation to have.

You made it about another minute before something slammed into you and shoved you into the ground, knocking your breath right out of your chest and into the fall air.

“Literally, what’s your problem?’’ your voice mumbled out. You should have been terrified, and you were—the kind of scared that made you want to piss your pants. But you couldn’t show weakness; hell, if you didn’t die making the audience laugh then what was the point.

“Were you watching us?’’

You shook your head. Well, you tried to. Not much you could do when your face was in mud and your body was being pinned down.

“That’s not the kinky shit I’m into. I got a headache from the music and the sucky booze so I left for a breather. Didn’t mean to catch the two of you fucking, and if you want an apology, then I’ll give you one but only if you get the fuck off my back and apologize for body-slamming me. What are we? The fucking NFL?”

You were nervous sputtering now, and it must have shown because you heard his partner laugh, the voice light and soft and almost sweet if it didn’t sound so sensual.

“Come on, Taehyung. It was just a mistake. Besides, isn’t she funny…,’’ you felt this Taehyung get off your back, and you were being pulled up so you could face the two of them. The moonlight dappled through the leaves of the trees and sent waning droplets of pale light onto your dirtied face.

You could see the two you had interrupted…and wow, they were handsome to the point where it was almost otherworldly. If only one of them didn’t decide to WWE smackdown you into the forest floor.

You saw his partner smile impishly, a glint in his soft eyes, and he said with a lowered voice,” Hey, hey, Taehyung, isn’t she so pretty for a human? It’s been so long since I’ve had someone as cute as her.”

Okay, what the absolute fuck?

You laughed nervously. It was time for you to get out.

“Jimin, you’re right,’’ Taehyung’s lips stretched in an almost feral-like smile,” She is pretty.”

You saw a glint in their eyes, and suddenly, you were unable to move. You felt hot, tingling all over your body with a buzz that the alcohol had not given you, and your breaths were coming out in more rapid heated gusts.

You felt Jimin push you against the nearest tree, and his fingers toyed at the waistband of your jeans.

“May I?’’ his lips curved in a playful smirk, and when you nodded hesitantly, you saw his eyes darken as his soft pink tongue peeked out and pressed against his plush lips in a mischievous look. He was falling down to his knees, dragging your jeans and panties down with him.

You felt shame bloom in your gut but with it the heat intensified, and you were urging him to hurry by spreading your legs a little farther. You felt Taehyung press up closer to your side and the sound of a zipper echoed through the night air. He moved your hand to his throbbing cock, his voice hushed but breathy as you grasped it in your palm.

Jimin was pressing his tongue flat against your pussy, and you jolted, your eyes fluttering shut as he trailed his tongue up your slit and pressed it against your aching clit. He suckled on your clit, and you choked on a moan as he swirled his tongue around it. Your fingers trembled and tightened further around Taehyung’s cock, and you heard Taehyung groan.

Jimin’s movements against your pussy paralleled the intensity of your fist’s movement around Taehyung’s cock. He was savoring your taste, devouring you and playfully toying with you until every one of your nerves was alight. You were close, so close, and your head scraped against the trunk of the tree as your grip wavered around Taehyung’s cock.

“Please,’’ you begged, and your voice hitched on a loud incoherent keen as your legs trembled and quaked, and you felt yourself wet Jimin’s lips in a mixture of juices and cum. You heard Taehyung breath out a more ragged low moan, and something hot and sticky coated your palms and the fabric of your clothes.

You let go, almost sagging against the trunk of the tree, but you heard the two of them move, Taehyung taking Jimin’s place and firmly placing his arms underneath your ass to hoist you in align with his cock.

You tried to whimper, make a sound, but Taehyung leaned in closer—you caught a lustful glimpse of bright red in his eyes—and whispered softly in your ears, his cold breath brushing against the curve of your ear and leaving you trembling further.

“It’s my turn to devour you now, hm?’’

~

You felt lights in your eyes, forced to wake up in the back of your car.

“What?’’ you mumbled out as you heard someone banging on the window. It was dawn now, the sky a grayish-pink hue. You recognized the face of the friend you had gone with through your blurred vision and the throbbing ache of your head. You opened the car door and winced at the ache between your legs.

“I’ve been looking all over for you! Where were you?’’ your friend demanded.

You blinked once, then twice. You remembered taking a breather from the party and then…nothing. Well, not really nothing. You had a good wet dream, the kind that pinned you down and fucked you until you were a moaning whore of a mess. But that was but an alcohol-fueled dream.

Your friend sighed, shaking their head. “I guess whatever they spiked the drinks with did you wrong. Luckily, you’re safe. I heard that there was some kinda ghost in the woods. One of the drunk guys stumbled in and heard a ghost moaning, but he was wasted so it must’ve been a delusion.”

Your cheeks turned red as you felt something sticky on your pussy make a soft squelch as you made a move to try to get up. God, your hips were sore. That dream must’ve been something else. Unless?

“Are you okay? You look feverish.”

You blinked up at your friend for a moment and then shook your head, a silly smile on your face. You didn’t notice the eyes on you, the playful smile toying at the lips of the two beings hidden in the shadowy edges of the forest.

Yeah, one heck of a dream alright.

Hi!!!

I have a lot to update, just moving is wildly draining so i havent had the headspace to write anything yet.

SO i got the keys a week ago today, and excitedly rocked up with my laptop bag so I could carry on working there for the afternoon. I’m eventually going to make a little video of my progress when I can be bothered to figure out how to use imovie. but i LOVE IT. honestly. i wish id done it sooner in the pandemic, but tbf maybe being alone at that point would have been a bit miserable.

anyway, there was no sofa. and there clearly should have been a sofa. so HMM i called them up and we eventually finally managed to get the sofa delivered on tuesday. but back in time again to friday. after my work day finished, i popped back to grab some essentials, including bedding, and decided to just spend the night there immediately. our current contract doesnt end until the 2nd of dec, but honestly its a hell hole and iM OUT. it was hard to sleep, even with earplugs, because a weird ocd (i have diagnosed ocd i am allowed to say this) thing i have is that i am wildly sensitive to smells, so sleeping in new places is impossible because i can smell them and i cant cope. ANYWAY MORNING CAME, and i got up early to run back to the old place and pack up more stuff. my flatmates mum was coming to help her move her stuff around lunchtime, so i helped her pack up the final lil bits and load the car. THEN an angel twitter friend came by to help me rescue my bookcase from the greenhouse. i didnt really need it in the current flat so i just stored it there to avoid throwing it away, and spiders have taken over, so i didnt dare even open the door. we pulled him out and brushed off the cobwebs and he SEEMED spider free (reader - he was not), so all good. i did ask my guy best friend to help first but he told me spiders were ‘evil monsters’ and refused. rude.

ANYWAY, after doing a few little trips (and hurting my body so much i could barely lift an arm) myself, my moving van came on sunday. i booked a small van, and it was immediately obvious that i had more than a small vans worth of stuff. we can just do two trips :) i smiled at my nice moving man, josef. no we cannot, josef replied. fortunately josef had brought large van anyway so this was a moot point and he didnt even charge me extra in the end. what a great guy. i left him an excellent review. my favourite bit about unpacking josef’s giant van, was that when my bookcase was laid on its side, i was able to see that there WAS in fact a spider attached to my bookcase - he was simply nesting with his eggs under the base! after screaming hysterically, josef loudly asserted THERE WILL BE NO SPIDERS IN MY VAN and grabbed him in his bare hand and hurled him out the door. i bravely removed the eggs myself later. im sorry for separating you from your babies, little one. i feel bad now. but you are hideous and terrifying. this act of valour also featured in josef’s 5 star review.

ANYWAY over the next few days i ordered a little tv table, and both him and my sofa arrived on tuesday. not sure why i expected hermes to deliver me a fully assembled table, but they clearly did not, and i was forced to assemble it myself with a potato peeler in place of a screwdriver. it took like 2 hours, but we got there. the sofa men attached the sofa’s legs in what i would describe as ‘the most manic act of efficiency i have ever seen in my life’. they tag teamed the job in honestly 30 seconds and then sprinted out of the door. bye.

a few days later, after id dug out enough coat hangers, i pulled my jackets out of my laundry basket where id been storing them in transit, and unearthed yet another spider. this one was the daddy long legs variety which i am sliightly less scared of, so i managed to capture him and gently release him outside, whispering ‘goodbye angel’ as my upstairs neighbours stared at me out of their window, as they do every time i open the door. they had a SCREAMING row last night and i actually considered calling the police. i definitely will if i hear them again. i couldnt make out words but it was loud enough to wake me up at 2am, and he was RAGING. it was quite scary. and she was screaming and crying. and there were multiple loud bangs that i *think* were them slamming doors, but they could have been throwing things which i why i considered the police in case she was hurt. so maybe il keep an eye out for her over the weekend..

anyway. a few other things happened, i hosted a failed work movie night, me and Sofie netflix partied Holidate, which is godawful, and now i am on my first standard class train in 5 years because i spent all my money on rent. it’s my grandads funeral today im giving the eulogy. i currently think il be fine, but my emotions are a law unto themselves so i guess we’ll find out at 12!!! this train has no freebies or wifi, so im using my phones hotspot. i also have my normal sized suitcase inside of a giant one i borrowed from my parents when i first moved to london like 5 years ago because its the size of me and i have nowhere to store it. so i am generously returning it to them. anyway. i have like an hour and a half of this journey left so im going to read my kindle and decide what to have on toast when i get in.

AMV process...

I’m not sure many people often think about the process that goes into editing fast-paced videos, and to be entirely fair neither did I before I got into it as a hobby. XD

But with that, I thought it may be interesting to pull back the curtain a bit and share some of my mental process/decision making while editing. So letsgo!

To start, I must be entirely honest: I am currently cursed with the grungy piece of trash software that is iMovie. Adobe Premiere is my preference, but dear goodness it’s too expensive for me now that I’m not getting a student discount anymore. But honestly, I think that really gives credit to iMovie about how much it can do, despite its lack of features. If you’re really savvy with it, there’s a lot of functionality you can squeeze out. 

Where it makes me cry, however, is how it only allows chronological editing.

Basically, I had to put in every single clip one by one IN ORDER. I can’t float clips I want at a minute forty seconds and then return to the very beginning to edit there. This is a huge disadvantage of iMovie, along with its weak ass transitions. Despite this, I thankfully found a way to make it work.

So! I’m gonna look at the Oh No! AMV I just finished. First off, when I select songs, I try to pick ones that have lyrics I can outright match thematically relevant clips to. The more lyrics you can match up, the better. Second, songs with strong beats are the best candidates to edit to. A strong downbeat helps give good transition points. Thankfully, this song had both.

In my mind, the best AMVs tell a story. Thus, while considering clip choices I wanted to both reflect the lyrics and also drive the video’s narrative of Steven’s plunging mental state further. One of the ways I worked to do this was by switching up the meaning of one of the lyrics in the chorus each time it showed up...

“I know exactly what I want and who I want to be.”

1. In the first instance, I used a bunch of clips where Steven appeared lost, flustered, or confused to push the sheer irony of this statement for him. Because at this point in his life, he doesn’t know what he wants, not at all. It’s a statement laced with spite and sarcasm.

2. The second time the chorus hits, it’s Steven- still every bit as lost and confused as he ever was- realizing that what he wants is to be Stevonnie forever. The clips are all proposal/Stevonnie focused here.

3. In the third chorus, Steven has now convinced himself that who he wants to be is... a monster. Because that’s what he feels he is. I swapped it back and forth between Steven having a bit of a mental break in Everything’s Fine and Kaiju Steven to really push that he only appears like this because he’s successfully convinced himself of it.

I made a lot of active lyric-matching choices like this throughout the editing process, but this was one of the biggest ones. 

One of the others I’m particularly proud of was matching up the last “I’m now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy” to three consecutive clips of Steven standing in craters of his own making. 

That’s one of the other places where AMV making is fun- pulling in the parallels! Sometimes while editing you notice moments of thematic parallelism you don’t notice on first watch.

Okay, so beyond matching lyrics... what about clip choice? How do you pick clips that are gonna make the video really pop?

Here’s a few tips I’ve picked up from over time:

Avoid using a surplus of clips where characters are doing nothing but talking. This is especially important when you’re not incorporating audio clips from the show in your edits. This is because tiny lip movements can often distract against the song’s beat. 

If you DO have clips where the characters’ mouths are flappin’, do your best to at least sync it up with the rhythm! Or else, sometimes I outright edit the order of the frames to make it look like they’re lip syncing, ahah.

Seek out clips with strong movement. Feet stamping down. Arms swinging wide. Eyes dawning with horror. Use those movements to emphasize the downbeat.

Clips that have strong movement AND already incorporate “camera” movement are liquid gold. Protect and use these hummers. By camera movement, I mean... the POV pans or zooms in and out. Those look extra sexy in video edits.

Timing? Transitions? How the hell does any of that work?

Gonna be real here. Timing is a bitch. I can’t even count how many times I’ve rewatched portions of this video, constantly making tiny spot edits over and over and over again. It’ll honestly probably never look 100% perfect. I eventually just have to call it done for the sake of my own sanity. Fast-paced video edits are tricky because it has to both stay on beat, and be clear enough that viewers aren’t lost with the speed of the transitions.

A few things I’ve come to find helpful...

Don’t overdo it with the fancy transitions. In my latest video I’ve got a few cross-zooms, a few slides, and one funky mosaic thingy. But mostly, I just let the bulk of my clips sit side-by-side. Hard transitions are really crisp. You really can’t beat them. Save the fancy ones for moments you really need a bit of extra pop. 

I honestly speed up almost all of the clips I use. It depends on the kind of song you’re editing to, but for fast edits this helps keep everything up to tempo.

Smash-zooms. A lot of the time, I split longer clips halfway right on a down beat and then crop the second half so it’s zoomed in. It gives a fun bounce to your video.

Anyways, in the end- video editing is as much about the audio as it is the video. Let the music flow through your soul, kiss your creativity free, and go feral with it! It’s a whole lot of fun, if you ever wanna try playing around with it.

Call me deluded but some part of me still doesn't believe Sessh is the actual dad. And this is from someone who never cared that much about Sessh in the first place. I'm counting on blood transfusion to Rin, weird adoption papers, ANYTHING but "the obvious" to determine why everyone else is calling Rin's babies his daughters. Like, there's just no way. Plus he never explicitly says himself that they are his daughters. So though I'm probably not gonna be watching Yashahime after this, I'm gonna still wait for news that everyome got grossly lislad by this episode. Yeah yeah I know...I'm being too hopeful here.

I’m not either I’ll look at the moroha gifs and hope people compile her scenes (I actually would and fast forward but I don’t have editing software anymore maybe iMovie is good enough but anyway) that’s what I originally thought abd was SUPER excited abt sesshomaru adopting hanyo orphans b/c I think it was more of a natural step vs making some with his ward he knew since she was 8 and took on a protector role up until they got married (he just?? Abandoned her in the tree like 😭) and I hope he at LEAST claims them or oh my god but like? He didn’t even react to his children he just put them down in the middle of the woods 😐 then left hell he just looking back a second then leaving with the 😐 would have did so much idk how ppl can be so 🥰 when he’s so emotionally detached idk how Towa is going to go from Sota to that no well balanced child can grow up with that Rin might as well be a single mother

Editing Anon from a few days ago. Yeah, ive never really touched editing software before. Like... Only once or twice, but it was super basic stuff, like cutting some pieces out.

I have good news; cutting is a good 90% of it. ,,,that might be an exaggeration but it is certainly what I am feeling very passionately right now.

I know last time I said I didn’t have any course suggestions, but if you can find lists that are just... literally just editing techniques, and historical videos can’t hurt. Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles basically made the basis of modern US/Western editing... because they were busy trying to one-up each other. I wanted to give you an Akira Kurosawa rec too because he literally invented the Rashomon Sequence but none of the videos on youtube vibe with me, but in 1950 he basically said “hey....... what if the editing LIED to you” and it was great.

Definitely stay away from film critic channels. I like watching them because I enjoy being hurt, but they will absolutely not give you editing advice. Animation will give you tons of editing stuff because EVERYTHING in the setup must be deliberate and the editing is built into the creation process, but in general just watching movies twice helps. First time to see the movie, second time to see HOW it movie. Film theory is 80% editing. A director can hand you the shit, but you’re making sense out of it. This is why Wonder Woman 2017 was janky, even though I loved it. The editing in some places was janky as hell and if you go with a notebook and try to write down the edits happening and pick out what went wrong or was confusing, I promise you will learn a lot.

I can’t really give any advice specific to your editor, but as long as you can make an accurate cut, you can make a good video on whatever basically. But there are some general things that I do need to impart: 1) if you’re doing anything with any amount of pause, have some background radiation. Literally just hold your phone up and record the sound of a quiet room if you have to and stick it on the bottom track. Keeps the silences from being too deafening in anything serious, when otherwise you’ll hear that ‘click’ of the sound dropping off entirely.

2) watch your sound levels. If you look off to the side of your timeline, you should see a gague that is usually two bars with decibel levels (dbs) marked on them. and as your sound plays the bars go up from green to yellow to red. You want your gague to hit yellow. If it goes to red, you’re blowing out the speaker. If you’re in green, people will need to raise their volume to hear you. You will probably have to google how to change sound levels specific to your editor, but usually you turn on a mode (or have an automatic turned on mode) that puts a thin line in the middle of your soundtrack bar and you can put points on it and raise and level the sound in between those points. This seems like a lot of extra work but it’s part of ‘invisible editing’ where you DON’T want the audience to notice the editing so they aren’t distracted from the content. Drawing attention to the editing is usally an artistic choice or for a funny,like a smash cut where someone says “i’m not doing that” and immediately cuts to them doing that.

3) ...this is all sound editing lol USE CROSSFADES AND FADE-OUTS with audio. It smooths out that ‘sound just cut out’ click mentioned in 1. The ambient noise will help but fading in and out will also help a lot. This is for DaVinci Studio but you can see what an audio crossfade is there and most editors should let you at least do a fade out, and then you can put them on different lines and have them overlap that way if a system doesn’t let you crossfade directly (looking at you, iMovie.)

................................and yeah the rest of it is just chopping things up and putting them on top of all that audio you worked hard on lol.

Anything more complicated is going to be system-dependent or dependent on the shooting of the film itself. So for filming tips:

Have consistent lighting. Daylight is best looking but if the sun goes behind the clouds and you have to cut some dead space, all of a sudden the light goes dark in your film and it’s really  obvious. You can probably digitally brighten some of it up, but it’s easier to just have an extra light on in the first place while filming. Florescent bulbs flicker, LED’s don’t, but LED’s also look very clinical.

Film the same thing once or twice from different angles, especially if you only have one camera. Do not become stanley kubrick.

microphones are hell i still haven’t figured out how to not fuck up recording

save often, your computer is always about to crash.

..OH FUCK GET AN EXTERNAL HARDDRIVE.

Keep a copy saved on your external harddrive ALWAYS. Two saves at minimum at all times. Or you will end up like my classmate whose entire thesis deleted itself 2 days before deadline.

bring snakcs and hydrate.

these are all the important things i can thnk of.

camera shy - d.d.

plot: you and David are friends and get into a huge fight about you not wanting to be on camera and in his vlog. 

requested: yes, by drawingsupernova ! Could you make an angsty one with an introverted reader where David wants to put her in vlogs and stuff but she doesn't want to then they get in a fight then it has a fluffy ending????

author’s note: hi! this was requested, hopefully it was something similar to what you wanted. again, i’m not the best at writing angst, so sorry in advance!! if you want to send in a request for an imagine about David, send me a message and i will write it

word count: 2,050

masterlist

You and David were alone in his house, a rare occurrence since your friend group was constantly coming over. David was editing the vlog that was supposed to go up tomorrow while you watched reruns of Friends on your laptop, half paying attention while you chatted with David. He was stressed about his vlog, and you told him to take a break and relax, even offering to give him a shoulder massage. But he refused, shaking his head and saying he wanted to finish. You leaned back on the couch, your eyes returning to Friends., glancing over at David every so often to watch him work. He was focused now, his fingered moving rapidly across the keyboard. You heard the same clip replay a few times before he moved on to the next clip then and played them together. It was fascinating watching him work, he was always so focused. He bit his lip and sighed in frustration whenever something didn’t flow.

"Fuck," he yelled a few minutes later, causing you to sit up.

"What's wrong?" you asked, concerned.

"I accidentally wiped the memory card and it had footage that I hadn’t imported yet. I'm screwed. I don't have enough to finish the vlog. And no one is answering me so I don't know if they have anything with me in it that I can use" he groaned, and you frowned.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" you asked, knowing there probably wasn't anything you could do to help at this point.  

"Can I please record a bit with you for the vlog?" David asked, a pout forming on his lips and his eyes widening. He was trying to use the puppy dog face on you, which probably would've worked in any other situation but he knew how strongly you felt about this.  

You shook your head, "You know I don’t want to be on camera."

You loved hanging out with David and his friends, but you made it clear to them that you didn’t want to put in their videos or on any of their social media accounts. You didn't like having the attention on you, and if David put you in his video people would wonder who you were and that was exactly what you didn’t want.

"Come on, please. No one else is around and I only need another 24 seconds for my vlog," he begged.

"David, no," you repeated, and he rolled his eyes.

"What's the point of hanging out with me and my friends if you don't want to be on camera?" he asked, and you weren't sure if he was being serious or trying to make a joke. Either way, his words felt like a slap in the face and you couldn’t believe they had just come out of his mouth.

"Fuck you," you spat.

"What? Come on, I was kidding!"

"It didn't sound like you were, Dave." You could feel your face getting hotter as you tried fighting back tears.

"Of course I was kidding!" he tried to reassure you, but you still didn't believe him. "I'm just stressed about not having footage for my vlog that has to go up tomorrow," he sighed.

"Find something else to film then. You know how I feel about this."

Something in David flipped, you watched as his jaw clenched and his eyes darkened. "This whole act of you being shy and not wanting to be on camera is getting really old. I am sick of having to make sure you aren't in the background of every clip I film, and I'm sure everyone else in the friend group is tired of it, too."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" you shouted. Your blood was boiling and your eyes stung as you blinked back tears. You stood up from your spot on the couch, ready to leave. "You know I don't like being the center of attention. You don't get to use that against me."

You could not believe David had just said that to you. He knew you didn’t feel comfortable being on camera for his millions of subscribers to see. You didn't let him or any of his friends follow you on any social media because you knew their fans would find out who you were if they all did. You loved your friends, you did. You just didn’t fit into their lifestyle and you weren't quite ready to adapt to it yet.

"Wait, I'm so sorry," David apologized, but you brushed it off.

"I cannot believe that just came out of your mouth. It isn't something to make fun of me for and it sure as hell isn't something for you to make me feel bad about," you yelled, walking towards the front door.

David hopped up, chasing after you. You felt his hand grab your shoulder, bringing you to a halt, as he stepped in front of you, "I'm sorry." His eyes were soft now, and you knew he felt bad.

"David, I don’t care," you sighed, just wanting to leave and go home. You didn't want to fight, but you couldn't forgive him. You just couldn't.

"No, listen to me. Please," David begged, and you let out a long sigh, really not in the mood to listen to him. But your feet didn’t move and you opened your mouth to say something, but nothing came out, so David took it as his cue to talk. "I feel horrible for what I said. I don’t even know why I said it. I know you don’t like being on camera. I know that you're an introvert and I know that it's hard to feel like you fit in with our friend group since we're all always filming. But you need to know that I never want to pressure you into doing something you aren't comfortable with."

"Are you done?" you asked, not impressed by his speech. If he knew everything already, he has no excuse for what he said. He glanced at you, and nodded slowly, waiting for your reaction.

"Okay." was all that you were able to say, as you stepped around him and walked out the front door. He stood frozen for a moment, before running after you again, stopping you before you opened the door to your car. You turned to face him, looking up.

"No, I'm not done," he breathed out, his face close to yours.

"David, there is nothing you can do that will take back what you said," you said, watching as his eyes flickered to your lips for a split second.

"I know. I'm an asshole. I just want you to know that I really am sorry. I'm just really stressed and I need a vlog for tomorrow and no one is around to film with me. And I just, I don’t know. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. I know you don't like being on camera, I shouldn’t have ever thought it was a good idea to ask. I'm sorry." His words were raw and genuine and honest, and he started choking up as he rambled on.

"David, stop talking," you whispered, cutting him off. He looked at you, confusion splashed across his face.  "I know you're stressed out about your vlog. And I know you're sorry for what you said." You watched a tear roll down his face and pressed your thumb to his cheek to brush it away, not moving your hand after doing so.

You two were face to face, your eyes meeting his before you quickly looked away, shaking that idea out of your head. You had no intention of being anything other than friends with David.

"Come on, let's go finish your vlog," you said with a soft smile, even though you had no clue how you were going to do that. David followed you inside, hoping you could figure out a way to help him. It was already almost 2am, and none of your friends were answering their phones so he would have to wait until the morning to get any footage they had and he wanted to finish the video tonight.

You curled up next to him on the couch, draping a blanket over your legs.

"Do you have any old footage you can use?" you asked.

David shook his head, "I posted a blooper video last week so I don't have anything that hasn’t already been posted."

You thought for a minute, trying to think of something for David to do for his vlog that was possible at 2am.

"What if you go to a fast food place and pay for people in line behind you, or buy a bunch of food and give it away to drunk people at a party?" you suggested.

"That could work," he paused. "Would you hold the camera and film? You don’t have to be in it." You nodded, and five minutes later you were in his Tesla driving through the nearly empty streets of LA.

You stopped at a 24-hour Taco Bell and a McDonald's, ordering a wide range of food, before driving to a club to hand it out.

You sat in the front seat of the car, pointing the camera out the window while David walked up to different people and asked them if they wanted food. Within ten minutes, all of the food was gone, and David returned to the car to watch the footage. He was pleased with how it turned out, and you headed back to his house.

He transferred the footage to his laptop and imported it into iMovie to finish editing. It took him an hour and half to cut it down to 24 seconds, and you had fallen asleep on his shoulder about twenty minutes in.

David lightly shook you awake, and you let out a low groan as you sat up, realizing it was almost 4am. You were planning on spending the night at your place tonight, but that wasn't going to happen now.

"I'm going to bed," David announced, standing up. "You're staying over, right?"

You nodded and lazily held your arms out for him to help you up. Instead, he bent down and told you to wrap your arms around his neck, scooping you into his arms.

"Where do you to sleep?" he asked, not realizing that you had already fallen asleep in his arms.

He carried you into his room, carefully placing you down on his bed. He quickly changed and climbed into bed next to you. You stirred, rolling over to face him and draping your arm over him. He knew you were sleeping and the action wasn't a conscious one, but his breathing still stopped for a moment. He smiled, looking at you sleeping peacefully next to him, and he had the urge to kiss you for the second time tonight.

The next morning, you woke up next to David. You were facing each other, your noses almost touching. You realized that your arm was draped over him, and you quickly pulled it away.

Nothing between you had happened physically, but there was something about last night that changed your relationship. You didn't know what to make of it and you weren't ready to talk about it with him. You rolled over and got out of bed, quietly walking towards his door. But he sat up as you reached for the doorknob, asking where you were going, and practically begging you to come back to bed.

"Come here," he whispered, and you listened. There was something pulling you towards David, and you couldn't resist it.

You sat on the edge of the bed, but he motioned for you to come closer. You were inches from his face now, and it was like this magnetic pull that pushed you closer to him. Your stomach fluttered as David moved one hand to the back of your neck and the other to cup the side of your face. You swallowed, completely aware of what was going to happen next. David leaned forward and you leaned closer to him. It felt like it was happening in slow motion, but your lips finally connected with his.

You pulled away first, and he brushed the hair out of your face. "Wow," you breathed out, before reconnecting your lips.

863

Do you have any friends who are on and off with bfs/gfs all the time? Yeah, Jo and Aya don’t make the most stable couple. They had one really problematic stint last year where they would break up and get back together every week. They ironed it out eventually and they’ve been ok for a while, but lately I think it’s a little rocky again because I no longer see them interacting and they’ve been retweeting stuff that gives me a few hints. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve broken it off for good. When was the last time you almost cried out of exhaustion? Ohhhh boy. It was some day in Feb I think? and everything had just been going wrong for me. Andrew and I got yelled at by our thesis adviser because she didn’t like what we submitted and she gave us a day to revise three entire chapters. We stayed in the college working away from 3 PM to 10 PM then when I got home, I realized I forgot to bring with me a certain item that my org entrusted me with. Absolutely wasn’t allowed to lose it. Had a panic attack and this was when I started crying because it was so late and I just wanted to go to bed; though Andrew saved my ass by offering to go back to school at like 11:30 just to retrieve the damn thing. Lastly, that was a time when business reporting was still giving me hell and I was struggling to find a business story around campus to turn in for that week, so I was freaking out about that too. All in all a shit day. What`s a TV show you hate missing? Idk man, if I miss a show I don’t think there’d be hate attached to it. I imagine I’d miss a show because it made me happy, so this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Do you think it’s funny how people always say their pet is the best ever? It’s adorable haha but not necessarily funny. Whenever someone says it I totally believe them; I think all pets are the best :) When did you last brush your teeth? This morning.

What was the last website (besides this one) that you visited? I checked my Twitter right before this question. Do you have a friend who you think you’ll be best friends with forever? Yes, Angela is for keeps. Does it annoy you when you accidentally delete things? For the most part I can just undo and get the deleted thing back, but when that’s not applicable it can get super distressing. I know I was gloomy for a very long time when I accidentally wiped out my camera roll with photos from 2014-2016. What`s a movie / book / TV show / band / whatever you highly recommend? Movie: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Book: Got nothing in this department. Show: BoJack Horseman Band: Paramore ha. They got a sound for almost everyone! When did you last use a dictionary / thesaurus? Two questions ago when I was looking for an adjective to best describe what it’s like to lose your entire camera roll and, essentially, good memories that you’ve made. Are you anticipating or dreading anything? I ammmmmm anticipating dinner haha. I can’t think of anything I’m dreading.

If someone could randomly give you something right now what would you like? Baked sushi :( It’s a recent trend locally and it looks so gooddddd, I just don’t wanna spend the last of my savings on it or ask my parents to buy a tray for me. What`s the most annoying thing in the world? At the moment it’s people who refuse to wear masks because they claim that it messes with their oxygen level or because they find it personally uncomfortable. When did you last use one of those water slides you put on hills? I have no clue what you mean. What are you sitting on right now? One of the dining room chairs. What skills would you like to learn / develop? Adobe Indesign and iMovie. I dabbled with these recently – Indesign for a class and iMovie to make a video for Gabie – and though I was always too scared to start using programs like these, I actually found them fun and super useful when I finally had my hands on them. When we saw each other the other day Gab was talking about using this break to take up workshops in different Adobe programs so that she’ll have more stuff to put on her resumé, so I might follow her footsteps too. What is something other people say you’re good at but you think you’re not? Teaching. I always feel like I fumble a lot, but idk I get compliments on it so I guess I’m kinda okay but I just don’t see it. What does your bedside lamp look like? I don’t have one. I used to have a wall light though. It was a just tiny lil bulb that I had to plug in to give my room a light orange hue. What did you last take a photograph of? Myself and Cooper. When was the last time you got really frustrated with technology? Yesterday. My laptop was a bit slow when I wanted my YouTube video to go full-screen, and my impatient ass already got irritated with it. What was the last funny thing someone said to you? She didn’t technically ‘say’ it but my mom was singing a song earlier and had the lyrics wrong, and what came out of her mouth instead was so wrong and so funny.  Who taught you to tie your shoelaces? My grandmother. What was the last thing you bought? I bought snacks from my girlfriend’s dad Korean food business! I got myself odeng (fishcakes) and tteokbokki (spicy rice cake) :) Do you want to move to somewhere else? If so, where? Any country with a capable government at this point. What time is it where you are? 8:04 PM. What’s your favourite picture of yourself as a child? I’m not sharing that on here, but I do have my favorites.

Do you like your neighbours? I suppose they’re okay, in a sense that they haven’t done anything to annoy me. I’ve never talked to them in the last 12 years that I’ve lived here though haha I always felt like my mom could take care of the socializing stuff – and she has been. Does your room need to be cleaned? Nah I’m barely in it these days. It’s mostly spotless and things are stacked up neatly. Do you have a good relationship with your family? I wouldn’t say it’s good, but it’s not bad. Super lacking in the emotional aspect, though, and it’s a big reason why at the end of the day I can’t call it a good relationship. What is something people are surprised to hear about you? That I don’t like fruits. The horrified gasps and expressions never get old. Do you make judgments about people straight after meeting them? Only if they blatantly act like a jerk. Do you hate any particular groups of people? I mean I hate racists, abusers, rapists, Karens... but if you mean to ask if I hate any race or people of a certain sexual/gender orientation then most definitely not. Do you fall up or down stairs usually? Down :( Do you constantly break things? (By mistake or otherwise) HAHA yes. What was the last bug you saw? Kinda looked like a moth but I’m not sure what it was exactly. Are there any smells which make you feel nauseous? Rotten egg, any fruits lol. What is the scariest thing you`ve ever gone through? Random men play-lunging at me when I’m walking outside and then laughing once I jump or whimper. I don’t know if there’s a certain script that those fucking pigs follow, but I’ve had several of the exact same experiences through the years. That’s why my friends can always poke fun at the fact that I drive everywhere no matter how close my destination is – at least I feel safest that way. Do you have anything unusual in your bag? No. I only carried the essentials in the last bag I used when I went out the other day. Are there any people you know in real life that you only talk to online? Yeah, there’s a bunch of people I don’t really get to see irl. Some of them are friends who’ve migrated, some are my friends’ parents, my relatives who’ve always lived in the US, etc. Do you think people who don`t care about education are dumb? In the Philippines they will definitely be considered careless, dumb, and having no ambition. But I know education isn’t as big of a priority in other countries and that college isn’t a necessity in those places, so I guess there’s a cultural difference here. What`s your favourite key on a keyboard? I don’t pick favorite keyboard buttons lol. Do you always finish what you start? Nah I’m a little terrible at that, especially if we’re talking of passion projects. I collected Starbucks planners for like six years and was never able to completely fill up any one of them. Who`s your favourite character from The Simpsons? Or do you hate that show? I’m not a big fan of the show but just because I relate to her a lot and the fact that she’s intelligent and a goody-two-shoes, Lisa. Have you ever had any friends who always tried to steal your things? Nah wtf? I’d so easily stop talking to them if all they did was steal from me lmao What is something you will never understand? People!!! Who!!! Aren’t!!! Nice!!! To!!! Servers/Baristas/Anyone working in a job that has to directly deal with customers!!! When did you last laugh hysterically? Probably earlier this afternoon watching a Good Mythical Morning episode.

À Triomphe - BTS AU

AU:  Art Thief!Bangtan

Description: You are a curator at one of the many museums in Paris, and have finally earned the bosses trust.  But after a strange meeting with a new coworker and his friends, you begin receiving messages from an unknown party.

Part:  Six / Five / Four / Three / Two / One

Warnings: Swearing, Suggestive Situations.

Your emotions had settled down, leaving you on the opposite side of Jeongguk’s room as you stared at the floor. You hated being here, and the worst part was no one would tell you why.  Jimin had been missing for over a week, leaving a nasty taste in your mouth as you thought of all the things that video, that nightmare, entailed.

Who was it that kept sending me warnings? And why the fuck didn’t I listen? You thought.  All of which had led you to this moment, cowering in the corner of a room foreign to you, various chunks of your memory evading you as you tried to make sense of it all.  You had begun to bite your fingernails, again; a habit you had dropped ten years ago.

Jeongguk sat on his bed, drawing in a small notebook, taking small glances out the window every once in a while to capture his muse; a small bird perched on a tree across the yard.  

There was something off about him, but you couldn’t pin it.  He was reclusive but extroverted.  He was egotistical and charismatic, but also frigid and distant.  His index finger rubbed against the paper, creating a shading effect.

If it hadn’t been for the fact he almost crushed your hand, you might’ve wanted to make small talk, but fear enveloped you.  And every second you spent in that room with him was every second you wished you were dead.

You swallowed your pride, voice cracking with anxiety as you spoke up, beckoning for him. “Please tell me,”  He turned his head to look at you, eyebrows corrugated as he wondered what you wanted.  “Please tell me what happened,”

You looked up from the floor to match his gaze, your breath hitching as you saw his warm glare begin to ice over once more.  “It’s not my place to tell you anything.”  His voice trailed off as he turned back to his work.  

“I feel like I have a right to know what the fuck happened—“ you barked.  Jeongguk tightened the grip on his pencil as to try and evade a rising temper.  “I would appreciate it if you just shut up, okay?”

You let out your breath, unsurprised to his answer.  Jeongguk groaned, tossing his book across the bed as he began to stand up, sauntering towards you.  “If you want to talk, Hoseok is across the hall,”  He gripped your bicep, pulling you up forcefully as he stared daggers at you.  “I don’t like to talk.”

Jeongguk opened the door, pushing you out into the hall before slamming it behind you.  You stumbled, catching yourself before hitting the wall adjacent to his door.  You rubbed the flannel shirt gifted to you by Taehyung before you had left the hospital before he had restrained you.  Your sweatpants were loosely fitted, almost falling down.  You quickly tied a knot in the drawstrings before knocking on Hoseok’s door.

You heard indistinct swearing and objects clattering as footsteps trudged closer to the door.  The man named Hoseok quickly opened it, slowly looking up as he exclaimed disapproval, “Look, Jin, I’m sorry—“

His beg for forgiveness paused as he looked at you, hair riding just above your ear.  “When’d you get a haircut?”  He slowly opened his door wider, giving enough space for you to enter. “I—I need to ask you some things,”  you mewled.

He closed the door behind him, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared at you.  He bore an oversized blue and yellow letterman sweater, a white shirt, and black sweatpants, various stains covering his outfit. Hoseok sighed, walking away from his door and through his messy floor back towards his computer seated in the corner of his room on a small black desk.  

The walls to his room were painted dark, mimicking a beige tone.  His floor, although hardwood, was barely visible as clothes, magazines, and other miscellaneous objects were strewn across it.

God, how can someone live like this?

“Jeongguk didn’t want to talk, I assume,” Hoseok snickered to himself, rubbing the back of his neck as he scrolled through an online forum.  “He’s a wild card, isn’t he?”

His attention stayed glued to the screen, not once turning back to look at you as you stood, unsure of what to do, unwilling to invade his space.

“What did you want? I’m a little busy,”

You fidgeted, remembering why you had been sent across the hall.  “What happened to me?  Why was I in the hospital?”  Your mind began to trail off as question upon question sped out of your mouth.  “Where’s Jimin?  Why can’t I leave? Why won’t anyone tell me anything?”  Your voice grew higher in pitch as you became more panicked, falling back onto Hoseok’s bed as you began to tug at your hair.

Hoseok turned in his chair, staring at you worriedly.  “Hey, calm down…” he murmured, slowly standing up as he walked over to you, promptly sitting beside you.  “Stress won’t help your head, you know?”

His half-handed attempts at consoling you, as expected, didn’t work.  He let out a long sigh, resting his elbows on his knees as he began to fiddle his thumbs.  “Our boss told Taehyung to take you to the hospital—he used a pseudo name, so please don’t try to go back and get records—and he was instructed to keep an eye on you for as long as you stayed there, posing as your husband.”

Hoseok began to unravel the story, keeping his voice down.  You could feel the fear he had; he knew someone had to be listening.  “Jimin is away on business, in Spain.  He goes there often; please don’t worry about him.”  

Hoseok stood up, walking towards his door as he turned the knob.  “You can’t leave. Just leave it at that,” he growled, forcing himself to open and door and walk away from the conversation, leaving you alone while he walked across the hall. You heard him open the door to Jeongguk’s room, and promptly closing it behind him.  You were alone once more.

You brought your knees to your chest, clawing at the fabric wrapped around them as to save your sanity.  “I want to go home,”  you wept.

Ding.

The music note rang throughout the room, a voice following behind it.  

“You’ve got mail!”

Hoseok had a fairly new computer, one in almost pristine condition, you would say.  But there on the screen was a graphic every adult was familiar with.  A small letter danced in the corner of the pop-up, ‘One New Message’ dancing across the screen.

You stood up, walking slowly past a window placed between the bed and desktop.  You bent over, pressing your palms against the edge of the small desk as you glanced over the dated graphic.

“You’ve got mail!” It sang.

You clicked okay.

In a matter of seconds, an abundance of messages popped across the screen.  Amidst the middle of the turmoil was a small video.

Press Play To Download iMovie

You glanced over your shoulder, hoping Hoseok had busied himself enough not to walk in as you prompted through his private computer.  You turned back to the screen.  You clicked play.

Noise erupted from a desktop as a grainy film began to play, slowly clearing up to reveal an image; a young man sitting in front of you, grinning as he began to speak.

“I didn’t want to show my face, but you’re not the best at following directions.”

He sighed, cupping his face in his palms as he began to tap his cheeks. “Maybe I can get through to you this way?”

You furrowed your brows, your breathing picking up the pace as you grew confused.  “I’m not going to tell you my name because you don’t need to know it,”  he quickly ran through his lines, “but you need to know that they’re lying.”

He leaned in closer to the screen, his cat-like eyes glaring at you behind a curtain of black, flimsy bangs.  “You’ll end up like Jimin.”

Images of the shootout followed suit behind him, following with flashing headlines dated October 31st, November 2nd, November 3rd.  All read the same, disgusting line.  “Jimin Park caught by cops, trial process to begin soon.”

You swallowed the lump forming in your throat as the cat-eyed man continued with his tale.  “He asked me to help you, and I am… although I wanted to help you in the first place,”  his voice hummed.  “He risked his life for you.”

Cat-eyes stared at you, his eyes narrowing.  You felt that he saw through you completely; he seemed to know everything.  “The least you can do is get out.”

You watched as his eyes lingered to the left, leading you to follow them; the window sat there, unlocked.  A perfect time.

“Let’s see if you’re as stealthy as him.”  You heard him laugh, a sense of delusion resonating within.

The screen glitched for a moment, before quickly residing back to Hoseok’s previous page.

‘The Newest Pet’

You, although feeling disgusting, continued reading through the page

BigBoy287: God I’d rail her. [9:23] J-Hope:  i’m sure she wouldn’t like you, kyungmin [9:25] SirBdsm:  like u kno her taste asshole [9:26] J-Hope: i took the picture, did i not? [9:30]

You felt your stomach flip as you realized just how much you knew about these men; nothing. You felt dirty, itching at your skin to wash away the filthy memory. You abruptly pushed yourself away from the desk, walking backward as you tried to gain some sense.  

You could do it.  It was as easy as opening the window and crawling out.  You could run for help, and never have to deal with this again.  It would all be a nightmare.

You fidgeted with the lifting mechanism on the window, slowly pushing up the seemingly rusted panel.  It showed signs of age as paint chips began to call upon moving.  It was clear it wasn’t opened for a long time.

You held the window up, bringing your foot up to the edge, taking one last breath in this hell house.

The door quickly opened, Jin walking in with his phone in his hands, “Yah, since you ruined my playtime, you should buy me th—“  Jin looked up at the scene before him, watching you as your legs were out the window, hands still holding the panel above your head.  You cursed under your breath, hastily fighting your own strength as you tried to push yourself out.  

Jin laughed to himself, rushing towards the window as he wrapped his arms around your chest, pulling your back into his.  Your hands lost grip, causing the window to fall abruptly onto your hip.  You screamed as a wave of pain washed over you.

Jin pulled you back into the room, tolerating your writhing beneath him.  His strength level was miles above yours. Jin chuckled to himself, tightening his grip on you as he buried his head into your neck.  “You weren’t going to leave me, were you?” His low, threatening voice coated your skin in goosebumps.  You pressed your palm against his head in an attempt to push him back; he merely mocked you.

Hoseok and Jeongguk opened their door, staring at the scene before them.  “Jin, do you not fucking learn anything?”

Jin rose his head from your neck, smirking as he pushed you towards Hoseok.  You fell to your knees, panting before Hoseok’s feet as you held your waist, wincing as the pain grew worse.  “Our little girl here tried to run away,”  Jin cackled, clapping his hands together at the thought.  “And to think, haha, that you could outrun us!” Jin began cackling, an end seeming to be nowhere in sight.

Jeongguk grunted, staring down at you.  “Now you’re just begging for it, (Y/N).” His voice haunted you as it replayed through your thoughts.  “Jin, can you watch her for me?  I’m going on an errand.” Jeongguk took one las, heated look as he towered of you, before turning on his heel.

A sadistic smile crept across Jin’s face as he stared down at you.  Hoseok’s face contorted in humility as he watched Jin close in on you.  “Oh, Hoseok,”  Jin spoke softly as he lifted you up, careful not to touch your hips.  “Try not to cause a scene this time, okay?”

Jin placed his hand on the small of your back, gently pushing you forward as you both left Hoseok’s room.  Hoseok stood in silence, watching as you slipped from his small, insignificant net of safety.  

Hoseok knew he was the last sane one in that house, but he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.

Jin pushed you into his room, closing the door behind him.  You backed yourself into a corner, watching as he paced across the room, gazing at you with a hint of mischief in his eyes.  “Who are you?”  You whispered.

Jin sneered, sighing as he threw his head back, rolling it side to side.  His neck popped twice.  “I’m Jin.  And who are you?” He took a step closer, his hands in his pocket.

“Why are you acting like this?”

“What? Can’t I be a little playful? I told you, I’m not the kind of guy you think I am,”

Another step.

“I thought you were a friend,” you muttered.  Guilt soaked your tone of voice.

“There are two types of friends in my life, (Y/N)—“

Another step.

“—The type I hug,”  

Another step.

“and the type I hurt.”

He glided his crooked fingers across your cheek, reaching around the back, bearing pressure on your head wound. You winced, sucking in air sharply. Jin removed his hand, combing his fingers through your hair. “I’d really like it if you were both, baby.” Jin leaned in, his lips targeting yours.

You turned your head, your cheek pressing aginst the wall as you tensed up. Jin groaned, “God you’re a fool.” He moved his hand to your neck, pressing his thumb against your throat.  “You’ll realize sooner or later that you’re safer with me than any of the others.”

Jin yanked his hand back, stumbling backward as he brushed his fingers through his hair, and falling onto his bed.  His feet stay grounded as his back pressed into the mattress. His chest rose and fall under his pink sweater, which had ridden up to give a peak of his sculpted stomach on the impact of his fall.

You hastily reached for the door, turning the knob as efficiently as possible before rushing yourself out of his room.  You panted as you pushed yourself against the door, hoping that the more forceful you shut it, the quicker you’d wake up.  You pressed your head against the coated wood.  

“Please wake up, please wake up.”  You begged.

The orange jumpsuit pressed against his skin, the uncomfortable fabric causing a mild itch.  His hands were bound before him in metal, a headache washing over him.  

“The trial of the century is about to begin as we hear from Jimin Park, the criminal behind the burglaries and murder’s plagueing—“ The reporters gave their speech remarkably as cameras zoned in on the disgruntled man.  His hair was a shaggy mess, and his eyes were swollen from nights spent awake in his cell.

“Let us get this hearing started,”  A woman cloaked in an all red, deeply embellished fur robe sat in her seat.  She hit her gavel against the wood before her, calling for attention.  “Mr. Park, it’s nice to finally have you in our midst.  You’ve made quite the name for yourself,”

A guard cuffed Jimin’s hands to the table before him, assuring no lofty escape would be made.  

“Do you have anything to say before we begin?”

Jimin, who had been staring at his sweating palms, gained a wry smile spreading across his cheeks as he looked up.  His eyes were watering.  “No, your honor.”

Dororo Episode 15 rant

Okay, so ... I just watched episode 15 and before I can go to bed, I need to rant about it because, honestly, what the hell was that? I just started this anime a few days ago and the first episodes sucked me in because the story is fantastic, the heroes are likable, the villains are just the right amount of human trash, and the action scenes are really great. But then I get to episode 15 and I’m wondering if I’m watching the same show. So much was wrong with it omfg. I don’t even know where to start. The writing of this episode was just ... awful. If I were the writer, I would not be proud to put that out for people. Yes, the story is still the same amazing story, but the pacing was so off and bad and it was just a huge no from me. A story relies heavily on its pacing and when pacing is done right, everything feels natural. This episode was the choppiest episode of anything I have ever seen and it’s honestly so disappointing because I think Dororo is one of the best animes of 2019. They had Hyakkimaru talking for a few seconds, then it cut to Dororo, and then it went back to Hyakkimaru. What kind of pacing was that? And the transitions were absolute trash, but I’ll get into that later. Back to the writing. Hyakkimaru defeating the moth demon was so anticlimactic. Look, I know Hyakki is extremely strong and can kick ass, but he literally hit the moth demon one time and it burst into flames and voila it was defeated and he got his spine back. This was the demon for two episodes. It shouldn’t have died that easily. You don’t build something up for so long only for it to be defeated with one little swing. The only thing I liked about the writing of this episode was that Hyakki and Dororo got separated because that makes things interesting for the upcoming episodes. Everything else was awful. Also, why did Hyakki’s prosthetic leg smash under his weight? I don’t understand that. It has held up through so much, but it smashes into a million pieces when he stands on it? Like ... what? That makes no sense! It held his weight for the last 14 episodes and through so many battles, but it gives out when he stands up? Did it crack before and I just missed it? Do you see why I am like:

Keep in mind that this anime is being made this year. 2019. Keep this in mind when I start talking about the animation. There were some frames in this episode that were absolute potato quality. No, they were worse than potato quality. I can draw better than that. Like when everyone had the stupid *.* face when it was supposed to be a serious moment. Like, who drew this? Who animated this? When Hyakkimaru was running up the hill, the animation was so bad that I actually laughed. And when Dororo was running in place, but she was actually supposed to be running towards Hyakki. It really upsets me because the animation up until this point was so good. And then you get to episode 15 and it’s like wtf???  Also the extreme close-ups. What was the point in them? Don’t get me wrong, I love Hyakki’s face, but the close-ups were the only high quality shots of any of the characters’ faces. Everything else was such poor quality that the animators and the director should be embarrassed. This is being made in 2019. I bet the original Dororo from the 1960s was animated better. Oh and the characters’ mouths were really off, too. They seemed too big when they spoke and it was just so awkward. I couldn’t even take the episode seriously. There were scenes that were supposed to be serious, but the characters just looked like poorly drawn blobs. And omg the transitions. The fading in and out and fading to black and fading in again. What the actual hell was that? I can make better transitions in iMovie.  If you’re going to put out a product for people, shouldn’t you make sure it’s the best it can be? No matter what the product is. Even if the studio has a budget or whatever, it couldn’t have been cut that much. The quality went from being smooth and wonderful and immersive to dropping immensely in quality and making it hard to enjoy the episode and focus on what’s happening in the plot. It was so choppy. It was just bad. Please please please don’t hire the director of episode 15 for any future Dororo episodes. I am begging here. I still love this anime and would recommend it to people. I will probably rewatch it as well and I will definitely watch future episodes in hopes that the animation goes back to the way it was. But omg episode 15 is trash. Anyway, I’m livid, so have a gif of Hyakki and Dororo being cute from episode four, I think. It might be five idk.

Waiting for MID is boring as hell, so let’s all make some Let’s Plays! If you’ve never seen one of these before, all it amounts to is recording you playing a video game, giving some sort of commentary, and slapping that sucker on YouTube. I think they’re a fun way to get to know other clue crew people and just see how other people play the game and how they interact with all our favourite (and not so favourite) characters.

Pick your favourite game, or one you haven’t played in years, or maybe your least favourite game if your spin on the let’s play is making it as salty as possible. It’s totally up to you! You can play the entire thing from start to finish, you can do just one or two videos if that’s all you have time for you, you could even try to do a speed run in one sitting. Whatever makes you excited about making one of these things and is easy to fit into your schedule!

How to Record:

If you’re using a Mac, all the new games that play on a Mac are easily recordable with QuickTime’s screen recording function. The game sound and sound from your mic is all there (make sure to have it set up to capture sound from your mic, that’s not default.) These videos easily upload to YouTube as-is. The sound quality is pretty good too.

If you want some fancier options or are playing a game through Wineskin on your Mac, use OBS Studio. It’s free, it works really well and is pretty straightforward. Here’s a guide for how to use it on a Mac. What’s really fun with OBS Studio is it gives you the option to capture video from your webcam, so you can record both the game and through your webcam, getting real-time video of you playing it that you can also place onscreen as you record if you want people to be able to see you playing it. (The same, I assume, goes for PC provided you have a webcam)

If you want to edit the video, iMovie still does exist in the app store, though now it’s $15 instead of being free and preinstalled. I haven’t used iMovie in years so I can’t give you any tips with iMovie here. I imagine any free video editing program you find will put a watermark on your video, so using that is up to you.

If you’re using a PC, you can also use OBS Studio. Here’s a guide for using that on PC.

You can also look into using XSplit Gamecaster, which is also free & made by YouTube (or something) so you know that shit will work good with YouTube.

If you have Windows 10, there’s a built-in option to record while starting up a game. You can find out how to do this through google. I don’t know how to do it. (I have a Mac)

If you’re on a Mac and have any questions about recording (or using Wineskin) just ask me.

Tag your stuff on here with “Clue Crew Playthrough” so everyone can find the videos!

Tips and Tricks for making good Let’s Plays:

Keep your videos to about 20-25 minutes.

Give them a pretty face by using YouTube’s Custom Thumbnail option when uploading videos. You can create custom artwork or just use the game’s cover. These help visually make the playlist (if you’re doing more than one) uniform and a bit more professional looking than using a thumbnail from the video. A standard JPEG in a 16:9 ratio will do you just fine. 

  here’s one of my custom thumbnails for when i did MHM

Title your videos well! ‘heres me playing secret of shadow ranch’ is not as good a title as ‘Nancy Drew: Secret of Shadow Ranch PART 1: Nancy/Bucket’. Put the video # in there, the full game title, and describe what you’re doing in it. This makes them easy for other people to find online and helps people keep track of where they left off. (YouTube does a good job with watch history, but if you’re like me and you watch on different devices that aren’t all logged in, that totally gets fucked) 

You can upload the raw video to YouTube, or you can do a little bit of editing to, say, fast forward through a puzzle that took you ages, to add titles in the beginning, or bleep out words if that’s your (comedic) style. 

You can give your play a bit of a spin by playing by certain rules like: How Much Of TRT Can I Get Through Without Talking To Lisa Even Once; Every Time I Go Into Scoop I Have To Eat The Entire Menu; Kill Nancy Every Time I Can; or just let your game (and you) dissolve through a Nancy Drew drinking game, if you’re old enough. (honestly tho the drinking games out there for these could be super rough please maybe don’t or if you do please make sure to drink a lot of water okay thanks)

And, this is a rule I’ve broken a lot myself, but eating is not a great idea while recording. Neither are dogs barking in the background. Try to keep background noise to a minimum if you have that much control over your environment.

Invite a co-host. Play it with someone who’s never played before, play it with the person who used to play them with you as a kid, play with your partner. Maybe your arch enemy? Whatever sounds good to you. I personally haven’t yet tested recording with a co-host on Skype, but I imagine it’s pretty doable.

That’s it! Feel free to ask me questions and reblog even if you aren’t doing it yourself just to get the word out!

proper poise

on ao3

i was stressed last night and started thinking about phichit (because honestly....what a guy) and realized he is the most theatery theater nerd to ever theater nerd. and i think we should embrace that. so i slammed it into a fic with some victuuri cuddles and called it a night around 2 am

the title is a pretty random line from popular from wicked because....it sounds nice? alliteration is cool.

this is my first yoi fic and i dont trust anything i write after midnight so it might not be my best, but i hope you enjoy nonetheless~

“ Popular! ”

Yuuri groans as the familiar ringtone wakes him from a dream that was probably really nice, but is already slipping away. Goddammit, Phichit. Today is supposed to be a rest day, which is supposed to mean sleeping in.

“Wha’s that?” Victor mumbles into his pillow as Yuuri fumbles with the phone charger.

“ I know about popular! ”

“Phichit,” Yuuri grumbles. Not that he doesn’t love waking up to Kristin Chenoweth’s voice, but he really needs to find a new ringtone. Or just make Phichit’s the default one again. He answers before the song can go on for any longer. “Mhmm?”

“ Hey, Yuuri! ” Phichit practically sings. “ How are you? ”

Yuuri sighs and sits up, running his hand over his bedhead. “I’m tired. Is something wrong?”

“ Am I not allowed to want to hear my best friend’s voice for no reason? ” Yuuri can practically hear the pout in Phichit’s voice.

“No. No you’re not. Not when I’m sleeping.”

“ Rude, Katsuki. That’s very rude. ”

Victor mumbles something incoherent and rests his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder. Yuuri smiles softly at him before saying, “Victor would say hi but I don’t think he’s awake.” He turns the phone away from his ear a bit so Victor can hear as well.

Phichit snorts. “ Lazy butts. ”

“What time is it anyway?” Yuuri squints at the clock on his desk, but he doesn’t have his glasses on, so really? What’s the point?

“ It’s just about six for me! ”

Victor inhales deeply. “Too early.”

“ Uh huh, that’s eight for you two. Shouldn’t you be up and running already? Or were you busy last night. ”

“I can hear your eyebrow wiggle, Phi,” Yuuri deadpans. “Stop that.”

“ Never! ”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “I’m taking the day off.”

“ Says who? ”

“Says my coach.”

Victor hums in agreement and buries his face in the crook of Yuuri’s neck. Admittedly, they had  been  up incredibly late. But they had been playing with Makkachin and watching videos of themselves on YouTube. Mostly old routines and random compilation videos people had made, nearly all of them from years ago so they could judge each other and themselves for their mistakes, fashion choices, hairstyles, and that one time Yuuri wore makeup and it did not go nearly as well as Mari insisted it would. Both him and Victor agreed that eyeshadow was not a good color on him. Yuuri likes the tribute videos to Victor the best, the ones set to really cheesy music with overdone effects and iMovie transitions. The comments had been fun to read too. Yuuri hadn’t realized how easy it is to make Victor embarrassed, but apparently all it takes is five year old YouTube comments from preteens. Victor made Yuuri swear to never tell Yuri, but Yuuri has pictures of some of the expressions Victor had made and, honestly, who knows where those will end up.

“ Who says your coach gets the day off? ” Phichit asks.

Yuuri runs his fingers through Victor’s hair. “First of all, Yakov is in Russia. And second of all, even if Yakov was here, do you think it would matter?”

“ True, true ,” Phichit agrees. “The Victor Nikiforov does whatever he wants. And who ever. ”

“I’m going to hang up on you,” Yuuri threatens.

“ You wouldn’t! ” Phichit gasps.

“Good bye, Phi—”

“ Don’t leave me, I’m pregnant! ”

Victor inhales sharply and tries to muffle his laughter in Yuuri’s shoulder. Yuuri just rolls his eyes.

“ You’re the father! ” Phichit cries. “ You can’t leave! ”

Victor gives up and falls back onto his pillow, covering his face with his hands as he laughs.

“I hate both of you,” Yuuri mutters.

“I can’t believe you cheated on me with Phichit,” Victor says through his laughter.

“I swear it meant nothing,” Yuuri says flatly. “It was a one time mistake.”

“ Drunk Yuuri is a great kisser though ,” Phichit says thoughtfully.

Victor raises his eyebrows.

“Phichityousworewewouldnevertalkaboutthat!” Yuuri hisses, feeling his face burn.

Victor just smirks and wraps his arms around Yuuri’s waist. “He’s right though, you are a great kisser.”

Yuuri groans. “Let me die already.”

“Nooo,” Victor whines, nuzzling Yuuri’s neck. “I love you too much for you to die.”

“ Awww ,” Phichit coos. “ Wait a minute, you two aren’t allowed to be cute when I’m not there to witness it! Who’s going to tell Instagram? ”

“And snapchat and twitter and tumblr,” Yuuri mumbles.

“Someone needs to get him followers,” Victor teases. “His selfies alone aren’t good enough.”

“ Hey! ” Phichit protests. “ My selfies are better than yours . ”

Victor hums thoughtfully, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “That sounds like a challenge.”

Phichit scoffs. “ If I’m challenging anyone, I’m challenging Chris. ”

Victor narrows his eyes. “You’re on, Chulanont.”

“ Bring it, Nikiforov! ”

“Please don’t make this like last time,” Yuuri whispers.

Victor furrows his eyebrows. “Last time?”

Yuuri shakes his head. The last selfie war Phichit had lasted through finals week and Yuuri had genuinely considered dropping out of college to avoid getting caught in another surprise selfie. It didn’t help that Phichit liked to blast music while he was perfecting a photo. The first few times it wasn’t bad, but after the sixth rendition of Omigod You Guys, Yuuri was kind of done. At least it had been a change from the Bend and Snap. Phichit had gone through a Legally Blonde phase that was a week or two too long for Yuuri to handle on top of finals stress.

“ It was beautiful ,” Phichit says dramatically.

“I almost died,” Yuuri reminds him. Victor gives him a confused look and Yuuri will have to ask Phichit for that photo later.

“ It was worth it, ” Phichit declares.

“This is what you’re getting us into with this selfie war,” Yuuri says to Victor. “And no doubt Chris will get involved—”

“ JJ will probably invite himself .”

“Yurio will claim he’s not participating but he’ll aggressively post selfies all day when he catches whiff of this,” Victor says with a smile. “Phichit, you are so on.”

“ Yes! ”

“ No ,” Yuuri groans. “Why do you two want to make my life hell?”

“ Because we love you .”

“And your face is too pretty not to share with the world,” Victor adds before peppering Yuuri’s face with kisses.

Yuuri laughs and gently pushes him away. Victor leans forward, making kissing noises. Yuuri blocks him and a smile with a pillow. “Stop it! We’re on the phone!”

“ Oooo now I’m interrupting, ” Phichit says. “ Probably should get on the ice soon anyway, unless some people I know. ”

Victor rolls his eyes.

“Good luck,” Yuuri says, “but you suck for waking us up.”

Phichit makes a noncommittal noise. “ Eh, whatever. Have to get up eventually .”

“Not the point.”

“ Oh, and Yuuri? ” Phichit says suddenly.

“Yeah?”

“ Don’t even think about changing my ringtone .”

Yuuri tenses. Whoops “…how did you—”

“Did you forget about our bond?!” Phichit interrupts. “I always know, Yuuri, my son. I always know.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes. “Good night, Phichit.”

“ Good morning, starshine! The earth says hello! ”

Yuuri rubs his temples. “How did I room with such a morning person. Please go back to skating and let us sleep.”

“ Only if you post cute couple selfies later .”

“You can’t bribe us int—”

Victor takes the phone from Yuuri. “We’ll do it and we’re also going to win. Bye, Phichit, have fun at practice.” He hangs up and puts Yuuri’s phone on Do Not Disturb before placing it down on the bedside table.

“Wow,” Yuuri drawls.  

“Mmm we do have the day off.” Victor lays down and tugs Yuuri into his arms. “Phichit was cutting into that.” He curls around Yuuri and hums into his hair.

Yuuri scoffs but still sinks into Victor’s embrace, enjoying the warm, fuzzy feeling he still sometimes gets around Victor. “He’s so getting a new ringtone,” Yuuri murmurs.

“What, Glinda not good enough for Phichit?” Victor asks with a laugh.

“It’s been years ,” Yuuri complains. “I can only wake up to that song so many times.”

“I didn’t realize Phichit was such a morning person,” Victor muses. “How did you live with him?”

“Phichit is an every time of day person. You haven’t really experienced him until it’s one in the morning and he’s singing the Bitch of Living.”

Victor laughs softly. “Not a fan of musicals?”

“Musicals are fine,” Yuuri promises. “But I’m not nearly as big of a fan as Phichit is.”

“Life’s a bitch,” Victor muses.

“Mhm.” Yuuri closes his eyes and sighs contentedly. Later, he’ll have to deal with a selfie war that will probably take over the entire figure skating world and find a song that Phichit will see suitable to replace Popular, but for now, all that matters is Victor and more sleep.

Marketing Management Reflection No.2

At the start of the semester, I really had no clue what marketing management would entail. I thought maybe it would be more down the kine of accounts and numbers etc, I dreaded it (numbers aren't really my friend). I soon found out how wrong and delighted I was. The reason being everything on the module are things I'm extremely interested in.

What I found extremely interesting about the module is the digital marketing, social media side and the importance of the mobile device in every day business. It is the new way forward and every business should be targeting the mobile device through social media ads and digital marketing.

I have always had a really big interest in social media and digital marketing. I think what spurred me was watching my older brother do it for the last 8/9 years. I done a 3 day private course a couple of years ago in digital marketing and loved every second of it.

Over the last 4 months since starting I have been reading, watching and listening to anything to do with social media. Gary Vaynerchuk (@gary) is my inspiration when listening and watching. He is incredible and has predicted some of the biggest changes in marketing (social/digital and traditional).

From everything we studied and companies we spoke about in lectures, I came to realise that all of the businesses doing well now are trading time, the ease of being able to do something on your mobile device and that's where my input came into our Basketball Ireland project

In our first or second week of lectures we had to put ourselves into groups, myself Rory, Stephen and Peter had previous worked in groups years 1 and knew we would work well together, so we stuck together and Oisin joined also. Soon into the semester Peter wasn't turning up for our meetings, nor responding to our messages. We soon gave up and guessed that he had dropped out.

As a group the remaining 4 of us worked extremely well together, we all turned up to meetings on times and never had an argument. We all had our own parts to the report paper we had to do for our first assignment. It was easy for us to decided what route we would go down in many ways due to the fact we had access to Basketball Ireland's Google Analytics account. We could see where people were viewing from, what platform and pretty much anything else.

I delved into Basketball Ireland's social media and nothing across all platforms the same stuff is pretty repetitive. They just posted news, fixtures etc. There was no engagement with the audience, there was no difference to what was being posted on different social media sites.

From all the reading, listening, and watching I've done, I've noticed what's meant to be on what platform i.e. not regurgitating the same stuff everywhere. Although getting the news out is important, different sites require different techniques. Eg, Facebook is Good for videos, pictures, and maybe a long blogpost. Not just a link to an article, which Basketball Ireland are doing. Instagram requires more engagement with your audience to grow, stories on Instagram, pictures, not videos. Maybe a part of a video, as Instagram only allows 60 second videos.

The report was a big load of work, but luckily we kept on top of the work week by week. In the end when we got it done it was a big relief as there were a tonne of assignments due around the same time. With the project, there had to be a recorded YouTube video along with it due a few weeks later. This was enjoyable and fun to make.

We set aside a day to record it in a class room in the college, we recorded it on my phone as I was the one to edit it and the camera on my phone is amazing :o (Huawei P10 - Highly recommended). Making the video was extremely funny because none of us had ever recorded in front of a camera before and just didn't know how to do it, although it was just like a normal presentation, we were still awkward.

I put myself forward to making the video as I like learning new skills, especially things like this. During the summer I had an abundance of time on my hands as I was out of work with a back injury, so I thought myself the basics of how to use iMovie. So when it came to making something a lot bigger, like this video. I wanted to do it.

This semester in college had been my favourite so far. It has been tough, but rewarding. I have learned more this passed 4 months, than ever before in school or even last year in college. I think it was down to enjoying the modules a hell of a lot more. My favourite would be toss up between Marketing Management and Digital Metrics.

There are a couple of things I would change for future college work. I would 1. Definitely organise the workload better, 2. I would engage more in lectures, I noticed when I did I learned and enjoyed the lecture more, 3. Probably the most important one, I will stop doubting myself. I'm awful at doubting myself when it comes to a question, even though 9/10 times I was right in the first place .

Overall I am really enjoying my time in the college and can't wait to see what semester 2 holds :)

Keeping Up With Content Creation: A Dad’s Workflow

We love collaborating with bloggers and today we’re pleased to be able to share this guest post with you from Ivan Siladji. Ivan’s a dad and a blogger and he’s sharing his tips for keeping up with content creation. Enjoy!

Let���s be real for just a minute. For most of us, this whole blogging thing is a part time gig. Some people never want to take their writing full-time, you know, the making a living from it kind of full time. For many, blogging is a way to journal their life – and it’s a great way of doing that. Kudos.

For others, myself taken, the blogging journey we are all on is one that will one day provide for financially, and then some.

The bridge between hobby content creation, being part time and then ultimately full time is a long journey that best be enjoyed with long nights, sore typing thumbs and a glass of wine. It all gets interesting when you couple all of this with a full-time job, being a dad to two kids under six, married life, family life, taking time for health and all the other things this wonderful thing called life may throw at you.

Content Creation – Why Create?

Legacy. That’s it for me. For you that might be different, and probably will. My mission is to interact with as many people as I can while I’m here and in some way, shape or form, leave a lasting impact, big or small, trivial or profound. Content creation and the internet is the easiest and most direct way of doing that. It’s also the most competitive. And if I can support my lifestyle while doing all of this it just seems like a no-brainer. Of course, there is always a catch. I’ll give you a hint – it starts with “W”.

So Where Do You Fit In?

My perspective starts with me standing all alone, on that bridge, this little guy from the big city of Sydney, Australia — long way from home, I know. I’m currently walking that line between hobby content creator and part time blogger. Sure, I hope to take this thing full time but the biggest thing I’ve learned in the last four years would have to be patience.

I currently create content around three main pillars – written in the form of my blog or other articles, such as this that you’re reading now. Second is video content and that’s where my YouTube channel comes in. There I document my journey and life in the form of vlogging and create other short form videos for my community. Then there is the third pillar – the audio component. Think of podcasting for example. In my case, this is my anchor station where I aim to put out daily “plogging” content – think of vlogging or blogging but in podcast form. Then there is the plethora of micro content that strings all of this together – Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. All of which in their own right are quickly becoming, if not already, pillar content platforms.

I took the route of these three main pillars because they integrate well. I can write a piece of content in blog form and then speak about it in audio form, opening up further conversation and bringing to life the voice behind the written post, and vice versa. YouTube vlogging allows me to take my community along for the journey and pull together a video that visually tells the story I am trying to convey in otherwise written form. And in all honestly, humans are very visual creatures. Personally, I’m always painting the picture in my mind of what a writer looks like behind a post – video is perfect to share what that looks like with your own community, especially if you’re comfortable to do that sort of thing.

How Do You Keep Up?

Before you think about how you are going to go about all of this it’s important to accept the fact that it will involve a great deal of work, which, if you’re passionate about all of this content creation stuff, shouldn’t be a problem, most of the time. If you don’t have kids you’re ahead of the game for time as evening, night and early morning hours are still your own. If kids have somehow made their way into your lives you’re in for a journey of time management. Don’t worry, it can be done, you just have to manage a few extra things.

Now that you’ve accepted the fact that work will be involved, it’s important that you get clear about what it is you are trying to do. Get clear about the pillar content forms you want to pursue. Don’t focus so much on the social platform or you will be hedging your content on the success of the platform and any algorithms they throw your way. Rather, focus on the content types. For instance, when I say I vlog for YouTube I also have these vlogs as video posts on my public Facebook page – Facebook is really upping their attention on video content so engagement for that type of content is usually higher and Facebook gives it some preference in their feeds.

From here it’s all about when. This is where the ‘keeping up’ part comes into play. I’ll make it easy for you from the get-go. You won’t always keep up. Accept that. As you make progress and get better at your craft you inherently get busier. Opportunities come more often which means you’re writing more frequently than you otherwise anticipated and with that comes an increase in your content distribution efforts. You spend more time engaging with your readers, viewers and/or listeners and building a community — personally, that’s the best part and it’s a lot of fun.

Tools Of The Trade

Like any job, you need specific tools to get you through specific tasks. Personally, I use a number of tools to make the process of content creation all that bit easier. These include (and are free without taking any upgrade options);

Evernote – I use Evernote to create written content for platforms outside of my own blog, for example, contributor pieces. If I’m writing directly for my own blog I write directly within WordPress, my sites hosting platform. The text editor there is more than ample for how I like to write so I keep within that. However, when it comes to writing for someone else, jotting down notes or getting an audio note in, especially while out-and-about, I don’t go past Evernote.

Pages – I manage my facebook page through the native pages app by Facebook. It gives better reporting and power over your page. I’ve used this for years so I’m not sure if it’s normal practice now but if it’s not and you’re still managing your page within Facebook itself, try the pages app.

Canva – I’ve recently signed up with Canva (oh Canva, where have tho’ been). In a nutshell, Canva makes creating anything visual so much easier. They have all the templates you need for all the major platforms. I use this via google chrome as an in browser app as well as on my iPhone when not at my desktop.

Asana – Need a task and project management tool? Asana is your new best friend. This cloud based app on desktop and mobile is powerful, visually appealing and makes setting up tasks and projects much easier. After you play around with this app and get your bearings around it you’ll never look back. You can organise your tasks by project and assign sub-tasks. And if you have a team it gets even better as you can assign tasks to your team and open workflows between members.

Bit.ly – Bit.ly is my go-to link shortening app. I like this as it allows me to track click throughs from social platforms and other parts of the interweb so I know in more detail who is getting exposed to my content and from where.

WordPress – I natively create most of my blog content within the mobile version of WordPress. Because most content today is consumed within a mobile device I figured it made sense to create the content within one. This allows me to see what my posts will look like on mobile which gives me a chance to iron out most blogging layout bugs before I hit publish.

iPhone / DSLR / External Microphone / Tripod – I’m an Apple guy but if you’re an Android user all of what I’ve written here will still work. I record 95% of my video content on my iPhone and subsequently do 80% of my video editing within the device as well. Sometimes I go to desktop but it’s usually much easier and quicker to do it right from my device. Point is – you don’t need to get fancy. Although I use Adobe software for higher end video and photography work, apple iMovie is more than capable of getting you started. I also carry in my kit a DSLR (although I’m using it much less these days), an external microphone for audio content such as that which I put out on Anchor when I’m in the office as well as a tripod to hold my iPhone or DSLR when shooting video. Take home message is you can do most of your content creation using nothing else than your smartphone and any excuse otherwise is exactly that – an excuse.

I’m Still Hearing You In The Background…

I’m well aware some of you are still saying – good for you but I just don’t have the time. Respect. I get it. But I don’t buy it from most of you. I truly would love to see you win at this. Even before I do. The journey is long, so engage in a little patience, sprinkle on some consistency (the hardest part) and take small steps to climb big mountains. Utilise tivo to record your favourite show for later or skip it all together. If you’re naturally a night person – go to bed an hour or two later. Morning person? Wake up an hour or two earlier. Catching a train? Write a post. Waiting in queue for a latte? Engage on Twitter. Taking an Uber? Record a podcast. Out and about? Record a vlog. It just comes down to work.

Given this post threw a lot at you, I truly hope it’s given you a little more edge. I love creating content, particularly that in written form. Being part of an online community has introduced me to more people than I ever thought I’d get to know and it’s been a hell-of-a journey. Be open to patience, and be willing to travel the blogging journey long term – results come not over night but rather after many keystrokes. Most of all – enjoy the journey. I am.

About Ivan

Sydney, Australia. That’s where I’m from. It’s a big place. Me – I’m a little smaller. I’m a normal dad, of two wonderful children, a boy and a girl. I’m married to one amazingly attractive woman who’s patience for being swamped by my intensity is admirable.

  I blog. It is a means for me to let out my creative juices all the while working in a crazy job and raising a family. It’s a place to share my opinions, albeit sometimes controversial, share lessons I have learned that might be of use and hopefully bring some joy to someone’s life. Some of the experiences I draw lessons from are my work as a scientist and manager of people, parenting, business, lessons from blogging, family and of course a general interest in things like the outdoors, lifestyle and self-awareness.

  For me,  the best part of writing is connecting with you, the reader, and each time I do I’m forever grateful for the new friendships that are formed.

  If you like this post I’d love to connect with you more. You can reach me by email, visit my blog or catch me on Facebook most days of the week.

The post Keeping Up With Content Creation: A Dad’s Workflow appeared first on NC Blogger Network.

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Keeping Up With Content Creation: A Dad’s Workflow

We love collaborating with bloggers and today we’re pleased to be able to share this guest post with you from Ivan Siladji. Ivan’s a dad and a blogger and he’s sharing his tips for keeping up with content creation. Enjoy!

Let’s be real for just a minute. For most of us, this whole blogging thing is a part time gig. Some people never want to take their writing full-time, you know, the making a living from it kind of full time. For many, blogging is a way to journal their life – and it’s a great way of doing that. Kudos.

For others, myself taken, the blogging journey we are all on is one that will one day provide for financially, and then some.

The bridge between hobby content creation, being part time and then ultimately full time is a long journey that best be enjoyed with long nights, sore typing thumbs and a glass of wine. It all gets interesting when you couple all of this with a full-time job, being a dad to two kids under six, married life, family life, taking time for health and all the other things this wonderful thing called life may throw at you.

Content Creation – Why Create?

Legacy. That’s it for me. For you that might be different, and probably will. My mission is to interact with as many people as I can while I’m here and in some way, shape or form, leave a lasting impact, big or small, trivial or profound. Content creation and the internet is the easiest and most direct way of doing that. It’s also the most competitive. And if I can support my lifestyle while doing all of this it just seems like a no-brainer. Of course, there is always a catch. I’ll give you a hint – it starts with “W”.

So Where Do You Fit In?

My perspective starts with me standing all alone, on that bridge, this little guy from the big city of Sydney, Australia — long way from home, I know. I’m currently walking that line between hobby content creator and part time blogger. Sure, I hope to take this thing full time but the biggest thing I’ve learned in the last four years would have to be patience.

I currently create content around three main pillars – written in the form of my blog or other articles, such as this that you’re reading now. Second is video content and that’s where my YouTube channel comes in. There I document my journey and life in the form of vlogging and create other short form videos for my community. Then there is the third pillar – the audio component. Think of podcasting for example. In my case, this is my anchor station where I aim to put out daily “plogging” content – think of vlogging or blogging but in podcast form. Then there is the plethora of micro content that strings all of this together – Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. All of which in their own right are quickly becoming, if not already, pillar content platforms.

I took the route of these three main pillars because they integrate well. I can write a piece of content in blog form and then speak about it in audio form, opening up further conversation and bringing to life the voice behind the written post, and vice versa. YouTube vlogging allows me to take my community along for the journey and pull together a video that visually tells the story I am trying to convey in otherwise written form. And in all honestly, humans are very visual creatures. Personally, I’m always painting the picture in my mind of what a writer looks like behind a post – video is perfect to share what that looks like with your own community, especially if you’re comfortable to do that sort of thing.

How Do You Keep Up?

Before you think about how you are going to go about all of this it’s important to accept the fact that it will involve a great deal of work, which, if you’re passionate about all of this content creation stuff, shouldn’t be a problem, most of the time. If you don’t have kids you’re ahead of the game for time as evening, night and early morning hours are still your own. If kids have somehow made their way into your lives you’re in for a journey of time management. Don’t worry, it can be done, you just have to manage a few extra things.

Now that you’ve accepted the fact that work will be involved, it’s important that you get clear about what it is you are trying to do. Get clear about the pillar content forms you want to pursue. Don’t focus so much on the social platform or you will be hedging your content on the success of the platform and any algorithms they throw your way. Rather, focus on the content types. For instance, when I say I vlog for YouTube I also have these vlogs as video posts on my public Facebook page – Facebook is really upping their attention on video content so engagement for that type of content is usually higher and Facebook gives it some preference in their feeds.

From here it’s all about when. This is where the ‘keeping up’ part comes into play. I’ll make it easy for you from the get-go. You won’t always keep up. Accept that. As you make progress and get better at your craft you inherently get busier. Opportunities come more often which means you’re writing more frequently than you otherwise anticipated and with that comes an increase in your content distribution efforts. You spend more time engaging with your readers, viewers and/or listeners and building a community — personally, that’s the best part and it’s a lot of fun.

Tools Of The Trade

Like any job, you need specific tools to get you through specific tasks. Personally, I use a number of tools to make the process of content creation all that bit easier. These include (and are free without taking any upgrade options);

Evernote – I use Evernote to create written content for platforms outside of my own blog, for example, contributor pieces. If I’m writing directly for my own blog I write directly within WordPress, my sites hosting platform. The text editor there is more than ample for how I like to write so I keep within that. However, when it comes to writing for someone else, jotting down notes or getting an audio note in, especially while out-and-about, I don’t go past Evernote.

Pages – I manage my facebook page through the native pages app by Facebook. It gives better reporting and power over your page. I’ve used this for years so I’m not sure if it’s normal practice now but if it’s not and you’re still managing your page within Facebook itself, try the pages app.

Canva – I’ve recently signed up with Canva (oh Canva, where have tho’ been). In a nutshell, Canva makes creating anything visual so much easier. They have all the templates you need for all the major platforms. I use this via google chrome as an in browser app as well as on my iPhone when not at my desktop.

Asana – Need a task and project management tool? Asana is your new best friend. This cloud based app on desktop and mobile is powerful, visually appealing and makes setting up tasks and projects much easier. After you play around with this app and get your bearings around it you’ll never look back. You can organise your tasks by project and assign sub-tasks. And if you have a team it gets even better as you can assign tasks to your team and open workflows between members.

Bit.ly – Bit.ly is my go-to link shortening app. I like this as it allows me to track click throughs from social platforms and other parts of the interweb so I know in more detail who is getting exposed to my content and from where.

WordPress – I natively create most of my blog content within the mobile version of WordPress. Because most content today is consumed within a mobile device I figured it made sense to create the content within one. This allows me to see what my posts will look like on mobile which gives me a chance to iron out most blogging layout bugs before I hit publish.

iPhone / DSLR / External Microphone / Tripod – I’m an Apple guy but if you’re an Android user all of what I’ve written here will still work. I record 95% of my video content on my iPhone and subsequently do 80% of my video editing within the device as well. Sometimes I go to desktop but it’s usually much easier and quicker to do it right from my device. Point is – you don’t need to get fancy. Although I use Adobe software for higher end video and photography work, apple iMovie is more than capable of getting you started. I also carry in my kit a DSLR (although I’m using it much less these days), an external microphone for audio content such as that which I put out on Anchor when I’m in the office as well as a tripod to hold my iPhone or DSLR when shooting video. Take home message is you can do most of your content creation using nothing else than your smartphone and any excuse otherwise is exactly that – an excuse.

I’m Still Hearing You In The Background…

I’m well aware some of you are still saying – good for you but I just don’t have the time. Respect. I get it. But I don’t buy it from most of you. I truly would love to see you win at this. Even before I do. The journey is long, so engage in a little patience, sprinkle on some consistency (the hardest part) and take small steps to climb big mountains. Utilise tivo to record your favourite show for later or skip it all together. If you’re naturally a night person – go to bed an hour or two later. Morning person? Wake up an hour or two earlier. Catching a train? Write a post. Waiting in queue for a latte? Engage on Twitter. Taking an Uber? Record a podcast. Out and about? Record a vlog. It just comes down to work.

Given this post threw a lot at you, I truly hope it’s given you a little more edge. I love creating content, particularly that in written form. Being part of an online community has introduced me to more people than I ever thought I’d get to know and it’s been a hell-of-a journey. Be open to patience, and be willing to travel the blogging journey long term – results come not over night but rather after many keystrokes. Most of all – enjoy the journey. I am.

About Ivan

Sydney, Australia. That’s where I’m from. It’s a big place. Me – I’m a little smaller. I’m a normal dad, of two wonderful children, a boy and a girl. I’m married to one amazingly attractive woman who’s patience for being swamped by my intensity is admirable.

  I blog. It is a means for me to let out my creative juices all the while working in a crazy job and raising a family. It’s a place to share my opinions, albeit sometimes controversial, share lessons I have learned that might be of use and hopefully bring some joy to someone’s life. Some of the experiences I draw lessons from are my work as a scientist and manager of people, parenting, business, lessons from blogging, family and of course a general interest in things like the outdoors, lifestyle and self-awareness.

  For me,  the best part of writing is connecting with you, the reader, and each time I do I’m forever grateful for the new friendships that are formed.

  If you like this post I’d love to connect with you more. You can reach me by email, visit my blog or catch me on Facebook most days of the week.

The post Keeping Up With Content Creation: A Dad’s Workflow appeared first on NC Blogger Network.

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What is the next craft you are going to make? I don’t know how being creative works. Do you go outside every time that it's sunny? God no. It’s sunny 80% of the time in this country and I always look for places with aircon. I’m only happy under the sun if I happen to be at the beach. What's the last thing you purchased with cash? I had a coffee from Starbucks earlier. I didn’t want to spend any more of my money after buying an expensive WWE book last week, but it was SO HOT TODAY and the temperature has made so sluggish that I haven’t touched any of my readings throughout the break. I could only study at a coffee shop so I shelled more of my savings out :( But I finished two chapters of my pol sci book today, so I guess I’m still a winner. In the winter, would you prefer it to be snowy or not snowy? I just want to experience snow, dude. What decade did you grow up in? 2000s.

What was your favorite Backstreet Boys song? I don’t have one. Favorite *N Sync song? I never did form an attachment to 90s boy bands.

Which of those two bands did you like best? Do you learn choreography easily? No. I’m amazingly bad at dancing. I’ve seen myself dance because we had mirrors all over the dance studio in my old high school. I used to be in pain watching myself try to copy my dance teachers. If you had to choose, would you rather be taller or shorter? Taller. Filipinos are really short. Do you feel you can trust your doctor? I don’t have a permanent doctor but I like to think doctors are trustworthy??? What is the theme of this year's wall calendar? I don’t have one; I just use my phone’s. Do you feel like you were just writing 2009 on your school papers? Well, not that far back; 2016 seems like a better comparison. How old will you be in 2033? 35. Do you still have your favorite toy from when you were kid? No. My mom threw out my toys long, long ago. What was the last good book you read? I don’t read a lot these days. Which do you do more: read books, spent time online, or watch television? Definitely spending time online. What do you do the most when you're online? Work, since that’s all I do nowadays. Do you use a sunlamp? I’m not sure I know what that is. I don’t think I use one? Is your 2019 off to a good start? No. How will you decorate for Valentine's Day? It’s passed, but we had dinner in Barcino. Terrible service, and it was my first time having Spanish cuisine. Overall it tasted just like Filipino food and I didn’t feel like it was worth it because it tasted like something my dad could have easily made. But Barcino’s supposed to be fancy and we paid so much for the food lmao. Gab and I were so stressed from their service that we both made a vow to not make a big deal out of Valentine’s anymore. Which foot is bigger, your left or your right? Right. What color is your winter coat? I don’t need one. I’m like, perspiring just from the thought of wearing a really thick and (faux) furry coat :((( Do you have an art journaling Bible? Nope. What's your favorite candy to receive on Halloween? Anything chewy. Do you think you're too old to go trick-or-treating? No. Do you have a bobblehead? No, but we used to have several lying around the house when I was younger. If yes, what does your bobblehead look like? They were girls with cute oufits...that’s all I remember. Have you ever spent your birthday alone? Yes. I was alone throughout my early teens. I think I’ll be alone again this year, which is why I’ve ended up dreading my birthday just for this year. Do you enjoy spending holidays alone (if you've ever done it)? No. It’s terrible. Which holiday is closest to your birthday? Well this time around it’s gonna be on the same day as Easter Sunday, so people are defo gonna pay more attention to Jesus on that day lol. Have you ever had a themed bday party? I don’t think so. My parents just threw elegant birthday parties for me, which I lowkey like better than having a theme. If yes, what was the theme? What is your favorite ride at the fair? Anything that doesn’t go up/down rapidly or spins around–so basically, any of the kiddie rides hahahaha. Were you afraid of heights as a child? Nope. I was afraid of flying cockroaches. Do you think it's stupid when you're dying to have someone pray that you don't feel afraid? (I would want them to pray that I live, personally) I wouldn’t find it stupid especially if they're sincere in their prayer. To be fair, to know you’re dying is fucking scary. Do you enjoy and appreciate life? Or is this something you need to learn? I try to do both. I learn before appreciating. What was on the last mylar balloon you bought? The first and only time I got one was a heart-shaped one for Valentine’s Day 2016. Back then I didn’t know that they were harmful to the environment, but when I learned that, I never bought them again.   Which dollar store is your favorite? No dollar stores. Have you ever made a pom-pom out of yarn? I don’t think I have. Do you prefer to take showers in the morning or at night? NIGHT!!! It feels so much more refreshing. Can you read in the car? Only for a few minutes. What food gives you diarrhea? Anything with lots of cheese or milk. Do you keep a diary with a lock and key, or do you just hope no one will read? This Tumblr is practically a diary with a lock and key. No one I know is aware of this blog. Do you have a friend turned enemy whom you wish were still your friend? If they’ve turned into an enemy, I wouldn’t wish they were my friend anymore. Have you ever had a lead role in a play? HELL NO that’s so not in my character. Do you know how to use imovie? Nah. What does your phone look like? It’s...an iPhone 8? So it’s like all the other iPhones but its back is made of glass. Would you raise your kids differently than your parents raised you? Definitely. What was the best part about college? The chance to reinvent yourself. If you were homeschooled, did you come up with a school mascot? If so, what? I was not homeschooled. Are you really "wild & free?” I wouldn’t consider myself that...also I always found that song to be stupid. Do you wish to be a free spirit? It would be nice, but it’s not something I actively wish for. Where would you go and what would you do if you could do anything? I’d take a trip throughout Southeast Asia and just do local stuff and bond with the locals. Would you ever take a solo road trip? No, I’m too scared of that level of independence haha. Do the mountains fascinate you? Of course they do. What is the most fascinating part of nature? It’s peaceful and yet can kill much of a population in seconds. Probs not the most positive thing to observe, but fascinating (at least to me) nonetheless.