#+ part of it that's insane to me is: Josh COULD have easily ALSO gotten (literal) blood on his hands—we see him go to check for a pulse

[ectonurites]

almost 4am can't stop thinking about the meaning of the idiom 'to have blood on [someone's] hands'—to be responsible for a person's death—combined with the fact that Zach is the one we are specifically shown with Daryl's actual blood on his hands (once for real and once in a dream)... Not Josh who had been holding the sword Daryl fell onto, but Zach who took the sword out.

[skunkonascarecrow]

you just unlocked a beast in me dude omfg. so the music video DEFINITELY fits, like the bridge of nico & the niners beat for beat describes the music video. but wait, there’s more!

it was released in the transitional period between blurryface and trench (roughly a year before the hiatus began), and tyler wears a fucking jumpsuit in it, and like. occam’s razor, or whatever. the jumpsuit is orange, obviously the in between color of red (blurryface) and yellow (trench). and that could be entirely coincidental, i’ll admit, but the yellow lighting surrounding josh throughout and during the concert, and the yellow jacket tyler wears cannot possibly be coincidence. like that would be more insane than any of the lore itself i think.

we KNOW clancy had already tried escaping multiple times by the point of hds/jumpsuit, and in “i am clancy” he says he tricked nico into taking him outside of dema, as well as mentioning that his music/story became known in the city, which is what prompted the bishops to do the whole sai prison/propaganda thing. my interpretation of this is that they had imprisoned him after a previous escape attempt, but clancy allowed this to happen (as in, didn’t put up a huge fight) bc he had a different plan: start a prison riot, generally be a fucking thorn in their sides, and cause the bishops to take him outside themSELVES. at which point he blows up the car, and hds/jumpsuit ensues. (i also think torch was guiding him during this, but that’s like a whole other thing)

beyond just the video, though, its continued inclusion in setlists and the livestream at this point feels important; like i know it’s one of their biggest songs but it’s not the same as like, stressed out or ride. tyler said around the release of sai that it was hard to tell the story without the live shows and fan interactions, which is how and why we know certain imagery has lore implications, while not progressing the story itself.

i think the lyrics discuss a darker part of the reality in dema. the glimpses at day to day life we get are few and far between, but are mostly centered on the glorious gone, or the “quiet hum of wonder” that clancy notices among citizens, beneath the outward appearance. we know on a surface level, dema is very heavily structured and routine based, with assigned jobs meant to keep people busy and isolated. there are strict rules, enforcement varying based on district, and overall it’s a miserable place. i’ve always gotten another, more subtle vibe, though—one never shown, but present in the lyrics and i’ve also not seen talked about before (but i could easily have missed it! in fact, if you have seen this talked about please point me in that direction im dying to see other perspectives). this idea is that of drug use as a form of self medication, and even provided by the bishops themselves.

there are references to drug use throughout sai especially, but my biggest example is “with the bells and the whistles scaled back/like an isolated track/he feels trapped when he’s not inebriated/fair to say he’s fairly sedated most days of the week/he might’ve made it if he lived on a different street” from redecorate. mulberry street is also important to my point, specifically the lyrics “ain’t no sunny skies/til you finally realize/that everybody relies on synthetic highs/they find someone to prescribe” and “keep your pills, save your breath/and don’t ever forget.” now, i easily could be taking these WAY too literally, but given how easily addiction can fit into the themes, just walk with me on it for a minute.

i think heathens discusses this aspect of dema life—citizens are taught isolation, and with that comes resistance to newcomers and a sour relationship with those around you. the “friends” in the song are not friends at all, simply peers and people the singer (clancy most likely, but that’s a bit more open) knows and possibly grew up with. it’s an abusive environment, to say the least. their brains are “hand grenades,” even if there isn’t active violence occuring. they also have “rooms of people that they loved one day, docked away”—another thing we know about vialism and dema is that while it encourages isolation to urge citizens toward self destruction, they also want you to affect people as you go out. there are still people that you’ve loved or that have loved you—it’s inevitable as a human being, even if you “dock” them away. (or lock, i can hear both but the internet tells me it’s dock.) clancy also says “why’d you come? you knew you should have stayed/i tried to warn you just to stay away.” as well as saying trench is a world HE created in multiple songs, in “levitate,” he says “danger in the fabric of this thing i made/i probably shouldn’t show you but it’s way too late.” clancy has tried warning us, or whoever he’s speaking to, to stay away and out of the city, but we (or they) are here anyway, and have now joined the population of people on the path of self destruction.

my qualifications for having this opinion are being a fan since like 2019, hyperfixating HARD at the time and consuming theory videos, hyperfixating hard AGAIN this past month or so, and devoting most of the past 3 weeks to breaking down the lore and analyzing song lyrics in the context of the story (like i have a whole autism project documenting it. i had to use it for reference several times while writing this).

but i acknowledge that the “heathens” video is not in the official lore playlist, nor was it referenced in “i am clancy.” at the end of the day this is my opinion and personal interpretation. if you read this far thank you, you’re literally insane and i appreciate that, and godspeed to you.

Good afternoon, Skeleton Clique.

Fun question bc I'm curious about what everyone thinks, since I have seen both sides of this.

If yes, tell me why! Rb this & explain your answer. If no- same as yes, tell me why.

There are NO wrong answers!! I have my own opinion, which I'll share after this poll ends. Have fun c:

Do y'all think Heathens fits into the lore? If yes, why? If no, why?

Please don't fight or argue; there literally isn't a wrong or right answer.

[tobesoalive]

Josh Kiszka NSFW Alphabet (Smut Headcanons)

ok....so I've been wanting to do one of these for a while and I may have gotten a little carried away. This is by far the smuttiest thing I've ever written, please forgive me. let me know if you guys wanna see more stuff like this, maybe with the other boys? idk anyways enjoy!!

Warnings: Everything....

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Josh likes to stay inside you for a minute after he finishes, either burying his head in the crook of your neck or pressing his forehead to yours. Once you are both ready to part, he immediately goes to get you a glass of water and a warm washcloth to clean you up, making sure you’re doing okay. Sometimes one of you will suggest to clean off in the shower or soak in the bath for a little bit, and the entire time he’ll hold you close and press kisses to your temple, cooing words of praise and telling you how much he loves you.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Josh loves his mouth, how it can give you passionate kisses and whisper praises, but also bring you to an orgasm so easily. He loves your hands, the feeling of them roaming the expanse of his skin, how they look wrapped around his cock, and the tingle he gets when you tug his hair and claw his back.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

There is nothing Josh loves more than being buried deep inside you when he cums. He loves the feeling of your walls clenching around him, loves to see his seed leak out of you when he’s pulled out, using his fingers to fuck it back into you. As far as your release goes, what he loves most is feeling you fall apart on his tongue, tasting your release turns him on more than anything.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Every once and a while the thought of you dominating him crosses Josh’s mind, specifically pegging. He had kept his longing a secret for the first year of your relationship but accidentally let it slip one night, but you informed him you’d try it out if he really wanted to. It became an activity you two revisit every couple of months.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

The man has some experience under his belt - I mean he is a famous musician - but nothing too crazy. He had about five or six partners before you, but most of his experience he gained with you. Both of you had vastly improved your game over the course of the relationship, and you knew each other’s bodies like they were your own.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Every position quite honestly, but he especially loves when you ride him. It allows him to gaze up at you and get the perfect view of his length going in and out of you, the sight often causing him to throw back his head and let out a throaty moan. Truly Josh loves any position, but especially the ones that allow him to see your face and the expressions you make. He still likes to have you on all fours every so often and also spoon you while lazily pumping in and out of you.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

It really depends on the day, but most of the time sex with Josh is light and playful. Giggling is a common occurrence from the both of you during the act, and you will catch Josh with a smile on his face quite often.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Josh prefers to keep it natural down there, only trimming every once in a while if things get really out of hand. He has a dark happy trail leading down from his belly button to a lighter patch of brown curls on his pubic bone that surrounds his length. In addition I think Joshua doesn’t really care what his partner decides to do for their grooming, actually I believe he finds it extremely hot if they keep it natural down there because he thinks you were made perfectly.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Most of the time he is extremely intimate, only being taken out of the moment if there’s a lot of other stuff on his mind, or if he is particularly stressed, but he is a very romantic and attentive partner for the most part.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Let’s be honest, Josh has a very high sex drive, and that can be a bit of a problem when he’s on tour or when you’re not around. He takes care of himself by thinking of you, porn isn’t really his thing, if he’s gonna have some sort of visual aid it is going to be photos/videos of you, his favorites being intimate polaroids he’s taken of you that he keeps hidden away.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Whooo boy, there are a lot of things this man is into. I’d love to go more into detail on each one of these, so maybe one day I’ll write a piece on these. To name a few, Josh is into hair pulling, light choking, period sex, squirting, mutual masturbation, praise, edging, domination, i really could go on forever.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Your shared bedroom is always the top choice, but you guys like to get creative, you’ve done it in the shower, bath, car, backyard, restaurant bathroom, empty field at night, secluded hiking trails, his childhood home, and when you guys are very impatient he’ll bend you over the kitchen counter or prop you up on the arm of the couch.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

It doesn’t take much to turn this man on, he’s so insanely in love with you that everything you do gets him going. Sometimes on stage he’ll spot you in the crowd, seeing you dancing and singing every word, that’s something that really gets to him, and it takes everything within him to not run off stage and fuck you right then.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Josh wouldn’t wanna do anything that puts you in pain, he hates seeing you suffer and would never want to do anything that hurt you, no matter if it would feel good for him.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

There is nothing more beautiful than the face Josh makes when you take him in your mouth. He closes his eyes and leans his head back, grinning with his perfect teeth and sticking just the tip of his tongue out. His moans and words of praise are angelic as well, and the way his soft eyes gaze at you as you swallow his release. As much as he loves your mouth, he prefers to have his on your core. God that man eats your pussy like it’s last meal. Lapping and sucking at your clit, alternating between dipping his fingers and tongue into your tight cunt. He could-and has- cum from just eating you out, it brings him just as much pleasure, and his mouth waters thinking about how good you taste.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

He’s all of it. It depends on what mood you’re in but this man will make slow, passionate love to you in the morning, fuck you fast and rough in the evening and everything in between.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Josh doesn’t mind a good quickie every once in a while. If you have somewhere to be 10 minutes after he gets home from the studio, no problem. Man can make you cum in less than five minutes, and he does not hesitate to demonstrate.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Yassss Joshy boy loves to take risks, as long as you’re comfortable. If you propose an idea and it intrigues him, you’ll be trying it within the next five minutes. That’s part of what makes your sex life with Josh so satisfying, you two aren’t afraid to switch things up.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Usually two is where Josh taps out, but sometimes you two decide to stay up all night smoking, talking, cuddling and fucking. Times like those he can go about 4 or 5 rounds. When you two are both home he fucks you at least twice throughout the day.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

You own a few toys that you both use, together or alone. After he left for tour once Josh bought you a vibrator so you wouldn’t miss him too much. Sometimes he’d pull it out while fucking you, just to hold it on your clit. That usually ended with you making a big mess and Josh being extremely satisfied.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Josh likes to tease you a little bit, but he actually enjoys it more when you’re the one teasing him. He likes still being a little submissive.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Much like on stage, Josh is loud in the bedroom as well. Between his throaty moans and grunts, he also is constantly talking to you. He responds to your sounds by saying “Yeah, you like that?�� and “tell me how good it feels” and so much other dirty talk because he’s a cocky little shit. He’s also big into praise, whether that be praising you or getting praise himself.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

If there’s one thing that makes Josh feel totally elated, it’s making you squirt. The first time he did it was totally unintentional, he was just eating you out like usual, but his fingers curved a certain way and you bursted. It was the hottest thing he’d ever seen, and he became obsessed with making you do it over, and over, and over again.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

This man has a beautiful dick. It’s about 7 ½ - 8 inches long with some nice girth to it. It leans a little to the left and has a nice curve to it, and it has some veins that rub your walls deliciously. He used to be self conscious of his dick but you assured him it was perfect and it never failed to please you.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Have you seen how hyper this man is? You briefly mention something or even say the word “sex” in a sentence and his clothes are off.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Depends on the day, but for the most part he likes staying up for a little while to talk with his arms around you, eventually quietly thinking about how lucky he is before drifting off.

[everywhereallofthetime]

Some Girl ... Part 3

Word Count: ~1.7k

Warnings: None.

// * // * //

Mason smoothed Sebastian’s thick, silky hair and then offered his hand to Shawn. Shawn reached out to shake it, completely caught off guard by what Charlotte had said, although trying not to show it.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Mason said with a cautious smile.

Shawn only nodded his head in response.

“He’s a little nervous about meeting everyone, so why don’t you give us a few minutes.”

“Of course. I’ll bring Bash in,” he said, taking the stroller from her hands. “Take your time.”

Shawn reddened more and more with every step Mason took toward the house. The moment he shut the door behind them, Shawn turned on Charlotte, understandably upset.

Before he could even open his mouth, Charlotte held up her hands in a placating manner. “I swear, I had no idea I was going to say that, and I’m sorry. I wouldn’t blame you for storming off right here, right now, but please, just hear me out.”

He didn’t respond, but he also didn’t walk away, so she continued. “You’re going through some shit right now, right?” she said, rhetorically. “Just come in and forget about everything for a few hours. You can snuggle Bash, have a few drinks, eat some fantastic food, - better than you can find in any restaurant, I swear, - play some cards, watch the game, or swim.”

She could see him defuse right before her as she talked.

“We have a pool table, air hockey, and darts, too.”

There was still a tinge of panic in his voice, when he said, “What if they know who I am?!” Wait. Was he honestly considering this? He had wanted more time with Charlotte and Sebastian.

“I would be surprised if they did. Valerie and the twins definitely would have, but they’re not going to be here tonight. Try to avoid playing the guitar or singing, just in case,” she smirked, trying to lighten the mood.

“I haven’t picked up my guitar or have had any reason to sing for a while.”

Her heart plummeted. “Shit. I’m sorry, Shawn,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.” All she wanted to do was hug him.

So, she did.

He didn’t pull away. Instead, he returned the embrace. She felt and heard him sigh deeply in her arms.

When she ultimately eased away from him, he met her eyes and asked quietly, “What was that for?”

“It looked like you needed it.”

He had. He really had. He didn’t know just how much he had needed it before it happened. He was again surprised at how well she seemed to read him.

“I really should have thought before putting you in this situation. I’d still like you to consider it, as off the wall an idea as it is. I could introduce you with a different name. And if anyone grows suspicious and says to me, ‘he looks like Shawn Mendes’, I’ll just say, ‘I know, eh? Why do you think I let him into my bed?’”

He laughed then. It was a beautiful sound.

“You don’t really look like the Shawn the public is used to anyway.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I don’t mean that in a bad way,” she reassured him. “You’re usually a little more...polished. Clean-shaven, perfectly coifed hair, except for maybe that one stray curl that drives all the girls wild,” she teased. “Personally, I find the darker, slightly longer hair and the stubble terribly sexy.” That earned her a little smirk.

Charlotte’s eyes met Shawn’s with as much warmth and hope as possible. “Things will get better, Shawn. It may not feel like it right now, but it will. I promise.”

She reached out to tenderly cup his cheek. “Having your heart completely destroyed fucking sucks, but it will heal, and things will get better.”

Shawn had gone through a myriad of emotions and feelings in the past hour. From apprehension to delight. An unburdening and acceptance. A spark of anger. Surprise, sadness, comfort. A moment of joy, a moment of indignation. And altogether more compassion than he’d gotten from anyone outside of his family and friends.

He hadn’t felt much of anything except devastation and anxiety since he and Camila had split. To feel so much more, so many positive emotions, within such a short amount of time, was invigorating. He stood straighter; his heart felt lighter.

“So, what do you say?”

He licked his lips and bit softly on the bottom one.

“Nobody is going to expect anything of you. They’ll just want to get to know you. I never talk about Booker, - I don’t believe I’ve ever even said his name to them, - so you can say whatever or be whoever you want.”

“They’re going to hate me for not being around for Bash.”

“If it even comes up, tell them you didn’t know until recently, right now even. We ran into each other at the liquor store and, ‘hey, remember me? Surprise, you’re a dad’.

“My family is amazing, I promise. And they’re all starting to gather in the doorway and at the windows,” she laughed. “We should probably head in, if we’re going to.”

He looked toward the house and took a deep breath.

“This might help to get you out of your head.” Before he even comprehended what was happening, her hand was at the nape of his neck and her mouth was against his; a quick, startling press of her lips. Just as his shock melted into response she was pulling away.

“I kinda wanna do that again,” he whispered. It was Charlotte’s turn to be surprised when suddenly he was kissing her back, open-mouthed, and soft-lipped.

Shawn hadn’t felt any sort of spark with anyone since his heart had broken. It felt good, exceptionally good, to kiss and be kissed again.

Their eyes met and they both smiled.

“Come on,” she said. She slipped her hand into his and led him up the front walk.

// * // * //

Stepping through the front door Charlotte called out, “Everyone, this is Peter.” She already expected that Mason would have told them all that he was Sebastian’s dad. “Peter, meet...everyone.”

She met the eyes of her family members, one by one. All eleven of them had gathered in a relatively small area. “I told him you were amazing; don’t prove me wrong. Be nice. He’s actually a really great guy. Now go. We’ll make the rounds. Don’t overwhelm him.”

Most everyone scattered throughout the house, a few spilled into the backyard. Elisa, with Sebastian, Jack, and Mason were the only ones who still stood before them.

“You met Mason outside. He’s my cousin, but he's more like an annoying little brother,” she smirked. He gave her upper arm a gentle shove.

Charlotte introduced Jack next. “This is my uncle Jack.”

“There won’t be a test, don’t worry,” Jack smirked, shaking Shawn’s hand.

“He’s the closest thing I have to a dad, so he may grill you a little.” She looked pointedly at her uncle. “Go easy on him, Jack...

“And holding Bash, of course, - she has trouble sharing him, - is Elisa, my aunt, my second mother.” Elisa smiled and her eyes sparkled. “Yes, he is insanely attractive, but your husband is standing right beside you, so behave.”

They all laughed at that. Shawn blushed, which only made him more appealing, and his heart had flipped a little when Charlotte had said he was ‘insanely attractive’. Okay, so there was a spark on her end too, apparently.

But he wasn’t ready for a new relationship, he reminded himself.

Surprising everyone, Sebastian reached for Shawn. He almost fell out of Elisa’s arms doing so. Shawn caught him easily. “I’m sorry,” he automatically apologized to Elisa, pulling him close and holding him secure. He instinctively dropped a kiss on top of his little head. Sebastian grasped Shawn’s necklace and started babbling happily.

“No honey, you don’t have to apologize,” she said rather dazed and amazed.

Charlotte looked in awe at her son in Shawn’s arms. She missed the look that passed between Elisa and Jack.

To break the hush that had fallen, Jack asked, “So Peter, how do you like your steak?”

“Medium, medium rare.”

Jack clapped Shawn on the shoulder. “Good man.” He then disappeared into the kitchen, Mason following.

“Charlie will show you around. Make yourself at home,” Elisa smiled softly before heading off to the living room.

Charlotte linked her arm through Shawn’s. “Why don’t I get you a drink before you meet everyone else.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” he chuckled and allowed her to lead him further into the house.

// * // * //

By the time the steaks were ready, Shawn had also met Beth and Lyle, Annie, Will and Diana, Josh, Doug, and Rob.

Annie and Beth were Elisa’s best friends. They had also been the best friends of Charlotte’s mother, Emily. The four of them had been practically inseparable their whole lives. Lyle was Beth’s husband. Will was Charlotte’s uncle, - Elisa and her mother’s older brother, - and Diana was Will’s wife. Josh and Doug were Will and Diana’s sons, and Rob was Doug’s best friend.

“I’ll help you remember,” Charlotte whispered to Shawn.

Shawn had thus far had a beer and a shot of tequila. The drinks had helped him relax, but he was taking it easy. He might let himself get pleasantly buzzed later that night, but he didn’t want to get wrecked in the presence of Charlotte’s family.

He may not have been Sebastian’s dad, but he wanted to make a good impression on the people who thought he was, and who had welcomed him into their home.

// * // * //

Dinner was unbelievable, as Charlotte had promised him it would be, and he was satisfyingly full.

The questions that had been asked of him throughout the evening were unobtrusive and considerably basic in nature. Again, as Charlotte had said, they just wanted the chance to get to know him. And like Charlotte, they were easy to talk to. Conversation was fun; he found himself smiling and laughing more than he had in a while.

He noticed Charlotte watching him, and when he smiled or laughed there was a look of pure happiness in her eyes. It made his heart flutter.

// * // * //

Part 4

[oveliagirlhaditright]

The Amulet

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33828238

Neku and Shiki as Spike and Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. AU. Oneshot. I tried to write this so you don't have to know Buffy to like or understand this story (like, I try to explain and summarize stuff). But if you do know Buffy, you might get more understanding and enjoyment out of this, of course.

Slight attempted rape TW. It’s there because it happened in Buffy, unfortunately.

“Stalker,” said Neku, as the two of them locked eyes in her laundry room. “…We don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to prove anything to me because I got pissy about Josh being here earlier. I meant what I said before, about me loving you having nothing to do with me—because I can’t have you; I know I can’t; so my loving you has nothing to do with that—… like I said before, I love who you are. I love how you try-”

And Shiki shut Neku up with a kiss to his lips.

And to be fair… the two of them had kissed plenty of times by this point. They’d also had sex a ton now. But their lips had never danced together like this before.

It was even almost enough to make Neku believe that Shiki might have actually loved him, as she pushed him against the wall. “Shiki,” Neku gasped, his eyes rolling back into his head some.

And this probably wasn’t manly in the slightest—but then again, when had he ever cared about that, with the sort of reversed gender roles of vampire and Slayer?—but Neku found himself wrapping his legs around Shiki to bring her closer. And she did bring herself over to him, with a delighted little squeak leaving her lips as she did so, that Neku thought that he could have gleefully remembered for the rest of his days… even though those were seeming to be pretty numbered right now.

They both went to remove each other’s shirts at the same moment. And then laughed, and let one move first. Neku took Shiki’s off, and she did away with his; though Shiki’s top got caught on the little short ponytail that she was wearing for a minute, but Neku swiftly found a way to maneuver it over it. But damnit, if that somehow didn’t just make Neku love her all the more. She was just too cute. And then they were back at again, with lips, tongue, and teeth.

Shiki was suckling Neku’s collarbone now, and he found his head falling back to hit the wall… and even the side of the dryer beside it making a loud bang, that then halted both of their actions.

Neku and Shiki looked at each other blankly, and with slight fear in their eyes, for a moment before they both chuckled.

“That sound is probably going to get your little sister, Rhyme—or as you know I like to call her, ‘Nimnew’”—to wake up… We should probably stop.” And the fact that Neku was able to say this now, was definitely testament to the fact he had a soul. Because past him, without a soul—even though he had loved Rhyme even then—would have selfishly wanted to continue ravishing her sister, not caring if she saw or not.

“…Yeah, you’re probably right…” Shiki agreed, pulling away from Neku. And fuck, if he didn’t feel cold without her body heat right up against him now. Though it hadn’t escaped his notice that the two of them were still holdings hands. “We should at least stop here… Let’s go back up to my room.” And the smirk Shiki gave Neku then was decidedly naughty. But Neku knew that Shiki could certainly be that, thank you very much. He’d done things with her that he wasn’t even sure he could spell, after all.

They both gracefully sped towards Shiki’s room then—so that they wouldn’t make more noise, and hopefully none of their friends, Shiki’s sister, or the potential Slayers would come looking for them—but they did still use a lot of their vampire and Slayer speed to get there, yeah.

And were then mercifully uninterrupted, and blissful.

…

Their story had certainly been an interesting one, Neku found himself thinking now, as he kissed the strands of Shiki’s hair in the morning, and tried to live in this moment before it was maybe lost to them.

Shiki, bless her—while maybe not even being in love with him—was basking, too, as she leaned against Neku’s chest and absentmindedly doodled things onto his arms. She was always drawing, this one, since she wanted to be a fashion designer.

And Neku sincerely hoped that she would survive this gruesome final battle, awaken all the other Slayers—so she wouldn’t be the only one in the world anymore—and then finally get to accomplish her dream. She more than deserved it, after all she’d suffered.

But, back to their story… Neku and Shiki had been enemies at first. Of course they had. Neku hadn’t had a soul back then, and Shiki had gotten in the way of all the killing he’d wanted to do.

…Though then they had found themselves becoming unwitting allies for one second, when Josh—Shiki’s first love, who she maybe loved over him; and who had gotten a soul back before Neku had—had become soulless and wanted to destroy the world (and it was hard to find humans to drink from, if the Earth was destroyed) and steal Beat from Neku, and Neku hadn’t liked that.

So, Neku had worked with Shiki and they’d gotten all of that sorted out—though Neku was going to leave an evil Joshua to kill Shiki when she seemed at her limit, to be honest—and she miraculously survived.

Then they met up a few times after that and fought some… But what really forced their fates together, was when some government agency had caught Neku and implanted a microchip in his head, that kept him from attacking anyone who was innocent. He’d had to go to Shiki and her crew for help then, despite his better judgement, because she’d been looking into info about the Commandos, too, and Neku had thought that they could come to some sort of deal there. Plus, since he couldn’t hunt—and a lot of the vampire bars wouldn’t even serve him anymore—she and hers could get him some blood packets.

And this was really when Neku had started to fall for Shiki, deep-down, and as he saw all that she did, and how hard she always tried to save the world, even when the odds were insanely stacked against her.

But Shiki hadn’t liked him at all. She’d thought he was a monster: a soulless demon who couldn’t change—and to be fair, he really had been that—and she had wanted him to get out of her face more than once.

It wasn’t until Neku had helped to protect Shiki’s little sister Rhyme from a Big Bad who wanted to kill her—and eventually, Shiki even sacrificed herself to save Rhyme, and the world—that her feelings for him started to change.

And then… and then Neku continued to take care of Rhyme even after Shiki was… dead—and her dumb doll, Mr. Mew, too. Neku made sure he was in pristine condition on her bookshelf—because what else could he do?

And it was at that point that Neku was really thinking about killing himself, if he should keep his promise, and wondering about the point of existence all around, that Eri brought Shiki back to life… which was the happiest moment of Neku’s life, yeah. Who was he to lie, after all?

…But Shiki was fucked after Eri brought her back. She’d been in heaven, and Eri had unknowingly ripped her out of there. For some reason, Neku had been the only reason she could connect to about it then. Probably because she couldn’t bear to tell the rest of her friends (like Eri, Ai, and Mina) what they had done to her.

…And through that… the two of them had started to sleep together. A lot.

And, of course, looking back on it now… Neku realized it had been a real dick move on his part, since Shiki hadn’t been in her right mind at all. But of course he had been like that, because he still had been soulless and didn’t fully care. He’d just known the girl he’d wanted for so long was finally throwing herself at him, and he couldn’t easily say no.

But eventually, Shiki had tried to take that away from him. She’d found her strength again, and she had told Neku that she couldn’t love him without him having soul… that she was using him, and being selfish and weak and that it was killing her, and that she truly was sorry.

Neku had really started to think that maybe she loved him before that—that, perhaps, she felt it when he was inside of her—…and so then, he tried to do something unspeakable to her.

Thankfully, Shiki had stopped him and he had immediately been horrified by what he had tried to do. Neku had left Shiki then and hadn’t looked back. He’d found a way to get a soul—going through rigorous tests and torture—and had done it.

And he had come back to Shiki, still loving her… Neku reckoned he’d always love her until the end of his days, unfortunately—perhaps it was written in his soul to, like it was for him to love art and music—and he returned to Shiki to help her with this new threat, but while not expecting anything from her. He didn’t want anything from her, because Neku knew he didn’t deserve her. If he couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d done to her, how could she do so?

…But in some ways, Neku thought that maybe she had. Because she understood that what he did soulless, wasn’t really him?

It hadn’t been easy.

And it had been painstaking.

But they’d mended their bridge to each other this past year… And their relationship was healthier than it ever had been.

There may have even been some kind of love here, Neku thought—in the rare moments he would let his mind go there, before he swiftly denied it—but he figured she would always prefer Josh over him.

…How Neku hated Josh. He had actually known him before Shiki had—and had somewhat been sired by him, so to speak—and let him tell you-

But none of that mattered now.

What mattered was that, in a few hours… they were all going to be fighting the First Evil to ever exist, and there was a good chance none of them were going to survive it.

Putting on the amulet that Shiki had given him around his neck, Neku prayed that if anyone had to go out in this war… it would be him. Especially over Shiki.

���You don’t have to be so melancholy, y’know!” Shiki chirped now, sitting up and then turning around so she could give Neku a chaste kiss on the lips, while she helped him to button up his shirt.

And this one was so nice, too. Even better than the ones they had when they made love. And Neku thought that he could wake up with Shiki like this every day, he could certainly live out the rest of his days in peace…. and just rest. Wouldn’t that be nice, after all the horror and calamity of his life?

“It’s not the first war we’ve fought, and it’s certainly not going to be the last! Let’s treat this like any other day. Oooh! I know! Let’s try and make a cute felt bow for Mr. Mew to wear. You said you would help me do that someday, Neku! Let’s do that today!”

“…And I will, Shiki,” Neku replied, blushing. And he straightened out his shirt some, unable to meet her eyes. Good God, why did the thought of doing art with the girl he loved make him so shy, when all their sexcapades somehow didn’t? “But I still think having some time to reflect right now might be wise. And if everything goes well today, at least you won’t be fighting alone anymore, right?”

“…That’s a nice reminder, Neku. Thanks!”

And Shiki took away the amulet that Neku was wearing and put it on Mr. Mew instead.

And because of that… Mr. Mew did have to go up in flames to save the day, unfortunately, as did Shiki’s whole house, but it and the whole town of Sunnydale was already going bye-bye for the greater good, anyway.

And some potential Slayers were murdered in the battle, before Eri’s spell to activate them weaved through…

But Shiki didn’t die and Neku didn’t, either (and neither did Josh in L.A., Neku would hear later, curse him).

And as the dawn broke on Shiki and Neku’s new life together, they got to kiss like lovers in some sort of cheesy movie… and realize that they had found love together, after all.

Of course they had.

Author’s Note: So, this story actually has a slight alternate ending to Buffy:)

Also... in some ways, I feel like Neku would fit Angel better (but also not. And also Neku has some of the Spike humor. So IDK). I also feel like Josh doesn't fit Angel at all, really, but oh well. LOL.

And Neku calling Shiki "Stalker", as opposed to Spike calling Buffy "Slayer.";)

I should also probably explain the soul canon in the Buffyverse. Basically, when a human becomes a vampire, they lose their soul: the thing that makes them them and a demon takes over their body. So the horrible things they do without a soul really aren’t the former human’s doing/can’t be attributed to them.

[svtxsoju]

02. morning glory fizz | dear miss soju

ღ Synopsis: College is hard. Love is even harder. Good thing the students of Mansae University can write in to Miss Soju, the campus’ very own romance advice columnist! The only problem is she’s never been in a relationship. Ever. There’s no telling what kind of chaos she may cause in the love lives of several of MU’s most eligible bachelors. Too bad no one knows who she really is! ღ Characters/Pairings: college AU! Seventeen & OC’s, Joshua x baking major!OC, and more TBA!  ღ Genre: Romantic Comedy, Slice of Life ღ Warning(s): Mentions of alcohol, suggestions of sex, language  ღ Word Count: 4.9k words  ღ Binu’s Note: a week late but better late than never i guess 😌 i’ve been avoiding tumblr to finish writing this, but i just kept getting distracted by choi seungcheol. hit that mf like button if you relate. i’m so excited for the special album y’all the teasers and concepts are so sadkfklsj i love seventeen

anyway, i apologize not only for the late update, BUT ALSO bc this chapter is also a lot of exposition again 😔🥺 i promise i’m done setting it all up and that some real shit will go down in the next chapter!! hopefully people will still be able to enjoy this chapter huhuhu 😭💗 if you’re reading this, i love u and i hope u have a good weekend!! 

《 ⊛ Author’s Note & Credits ⊛ Disclaimer ⊛ Masterlist ⊛ 》

《 Previous ⊛ Next 》

Having already completed the first half of her college career, Joohyun was well aware of the value of sleep. And yet, like most college students, she could never  seem to manage a decent sleeping schedule. She had only slept 2 hours when her alarm went off at 5:30AM. She groggily rolled out of bed, mentally cursing her past self for thinking that this was a good idea when clearly, the best idea at the moment was to snuggle back up under her covers and sleep in until afternoon. Only one of her eyes seemed capable of staying open as she pulled on her clothes and got ready for the day. When she suddenly heard the front door close behind her roommate, she cursed out loud, throwing her laptop into her bag before she rushed out the door. She half-wobbled, half-hopped along the second-story walkway while she tried to get her shoes all the way on.

“Bok Bongseon! Wait for me!” Joohyun called out in an aggressive whisper.

“HOLY SHIT! You scared me, Joo!” her roommate, a shorter girl with full cheeks and pouty lips, screamed at full volume. She clutched at her racing heart and leaned against the wall while she caught her breath. 

“Shut up, people are still sleeping!” Joohyun linked arms with Bongseon and dragged her down the steps leading to the street. It was still dark outside, but she could already hear the faint bustling of the mart located below their apartment. It was nice to know that they weren’t the only two people in Seoul insane enough to be awake at this hour. 

“I thought you were the ghost of my grandma, you bitch! You know she visits me in my dreams to tell me how disappointed she that I’m a baker,” Bongseon said indignantly, though she still cuddled closer to Joohyun when they were hit by the morning chill. Once they reached the street, they both headed towards the train station without having to say a word.  “What are you even doing up?” 

“I am simply accompanying my favorite roommate to work to make sure that she gets there safely,” Joohyun crooned sweetly, and made kissy faces at the girl, who in turn pinched Joohyun’s lips between her calloused fingers. She tried to protest but could only let out pained whines until she was mercifully released. “Ow!” 

“Sorry but I cannot fulfill your roommates to lovers, 12k slowburn fantasy,” Bongseon continued on nonchalantly as they climbed down the steps to the platform. “You had your chance, but I am a taken girl!”

“Oh, so you and Josh are together today?” Joohyun teased. Although it probably wasn’t the best idea, considering her lips were slightly throbbing from the girl’s attack. “I’ll just wait until tomorrow then.” 

“Wow, bold words coming from Miss Fish Lips.” Bongseon raised an eyebrow and smiled tauntingly. “Understandable, considering  that that was probably the most action your lips have gotten in your entire life. I could probably set it up on a blind date with my fist, if you’d like.” 

Joohyun’s laughter echoed off the walls of the mostly empty station, startling the only other person waiting for the morning train (an old woman, who was still half-asleep prior to being rudely awakened by two very loud girls). Bongseon often made some colorful threats, morning or not, but Joohyun was one of the very few people who could be assured that her words were empty. “Don’t you know that it’s rude to stare, lady?” she barked at the old woman, who was openly glaring at them. Everyone else, on the other hand, was subject to Bongseon’s sharp temper.

This even included her boyfriend of approximately 4 years. ‘Approximately’ being the key word, because the two often took breaks--  a natural phenomenon when one partner was easily provoked and the other loved to do the provoking. Jihoon had told Joohyun that the two had met at the cafe in their freshman year, when Bongseon came in as a part-time baker and Joshua was merely a barista trainee. They started dating within a month and moved into an apartment together in two. That went just as well as anyone would expect. By the grace of whatever entity that was chaotic enough to keep their relationship intact, they made it 7 months before nearly breaking things off for good. As luck would have it though, a new hire and his roommate were in the same exact predicament as them. Kind of. 

Joohyun shuddered to recall her freshman year when she and Jihoon somehow convinced themselves that it was a good idea to share an apartment. In principle it made sense; they had lived across the street from each other since they were in diapers. Two exhausting months into trying to irritate the other into breaking the lease first, they met Bongseon and Joshua when Jihoon started working at Smile Flower. It didn’t take long for Joohyun to suggest the switch— she would move in with Bongseon and Joshua with Woozi. Just like that, she saved both Bongseon and Joshua’s turbulent romance (temporarily) and her and Woozi’s fractured friendship (now thriving). 

She and Bongseon have been roommates ever since, and Joohyun knew her life was a little easier for it. 

“Joohyun, you better stop looking at me with those heart eyes before I really act up,” Bongseon warned. They had boarded the train, but hadn’t bothered to sit down since Mansae University station was only two stops away. 

“But I just love you so much,” Joohyun pouted, affectionately resting her head on her friend’s shoulder. “What does Joshua have that I don’t?” 

“A dick. And that’s about it.” 

“Damn you, heterosexuality!” 

Bongseon snorted out a laugh. “Seriously Joo, how are you awake right now? You’re only ever this lovey-dovey when you’re severely sleep deprived. I know you don’t have classes until 3PM today. You also don’t have your internship today,” Bongseon narrowed her eyes when Joohyun visibly tensed up at the mention of her current occupation. “Also, since when do you watch Youtube videos until 2am? And don’t think I didn’t notice that all of them were titled ‘Relationship Q&A’s’ and ‘I confessed to my crush and he said this!!!’. Got something to tell me, missy?” 

It was so quiet on the train that Joohyun worried that Bongseon could hear all the wires in her brain short-circuit. With Bongseon’s cross-examination skills, it was a wonder why she pursued baking instead of joining her family’s firm. Come on, Joohyun, just tell a white lie. Easy, simple. Don’t need to overcomplicate things. “Oh, uh I— um— well, I j-just thought they were entertaining?” She was done for. 

“Right. You thought random couples self-indulgently talking about their love lifes for 40 minutes with default iMovies effects were entertaining.”  

“Y-yes?” Joohyun threw in her most convincing smile for good measure, but it did nothing to soften Bongseon’s hard gaze. “It’s my new guilty pleasure, haha!”  

“Hm, interesting,” Bongseon was momentarily interrupted by the sound of the arrival bell. Joohyun eagerly pulled her friend towards the exit, hoping that the distance from the train could also get her further away from the topic. Unfortunately for her, Bongseon did not plan on dropping it so soon. “You sure you don’t want to tell me anything, Joo? About your internship?” 

Joohyun began to sweat. Was she really that transparent? “Okay, don’t get mad--”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m super jazzed that you’re getting into relationships and everything, but really Joo? Youtube? You could just talk to me if you need help talking to your new crush at your job!” 

“Oh.” Joohyun would have let out a sigh of relief if she wasn’t out of breath from climbing the mountain of stairs up to the sidewalk. “Right. Confessing. To my crush. That I definitely have.”

“It’s okay to admit you have one, Joo. I’m no  stranger to workplace romance,” Bongseon said, her breathing completely even. A measly flight of stairs was nothing compared to eight hours of kneading dough. “Who’s the lucky bastard, Joo?” 

“Well, I’m not sure I would call it a workplace romance, per se…” Joohyun laughed nervously. There was no way she could stick another clean landing if she kept talking. 

“Shut up, I bet that guy is in love with you already. Who wouldn’t fall for the only editing intern at The Front?” 

“Haha, I don’t know…” Probably no one, because the only editing intern at The Front doesn’t exist? 

Joohyun could not be more relieved to see the small store front of Smile Flower Cafe. It was one amongst the many cafes located near campus, but Joohyun felt like nothing really matched its comforting home-like ambience. But that probably had less to do with the soft wooden floors and pastel ceramic mugs, and more owed to the three years Joohyun had spent hanging around there, usually bothering Jihoon and joking around with Josh. 

The two boys already stood waiting at the cafe’s entrance, too bleary-eyed to notice Joohyun and Bongseon quickly approaching. “Hey, ugly!” Joohyun called out, snickering when both of them turned to look at her. 

“What the hell, why are you awake?” 

“Good morning to you too, Jihoon,” she answered, blowing him a kiss. “I’m actually here to see you, believe it or not. Don’t you feel special?”

“Oh? That’s interesting, because you told me that you came here for me,” Bongseon broke away from exchanging actual kisses with Joshua to look between Joohyun and Jihoon in a way that Joohyun did not like too much.  “I guess it wasn’t a workplace romance after all.” 

Joshua mirrored his girlfriend’s implicating expression as he unlocked the front door, simply because he knew it made his friends squirm. “Wow Joohyun, you woke up this early just to talk to Jihoon? You really couldn’t wait to see him, huh?” 

“Uh, yes because I need his help—”

“Ah, his help, gotcha! Come on, Bongseon, I’ll go help you in the kitchen while these two help each other out here,” Joshua snickered. Before Joohyun or Jihoon could roast the couple in retaliation, they had already disappeared behind the counter. 

After years of similar taunts, all Jihoon could do was shake his head. “Okay Joo, what is so important that you need my help at 6 in the morning?”

“I wrote my first response last night!” Joohyun whispered excitedly, taking out her laptop from her bag. “Well, a few hours ago. I wanted to show you before continuing on with the rest! Here, look.” 

① Dear Miss Soju, 

I just started my first year at MU and she’s an exchange student from New York. We met at a party and talked for two hours about comics, aliens, anything we could think of. It was perfect. She even asked me to walk her home. When the time came for me to make a move though, I kind of dropped the ball. Since we had just met that night, I didn’t want to come off too strong. Now I really regret it - I don’t even have her phone number. I feel like such an idiot! I can’t stop thinking about her, but I don’t even know if I’ll ever talk to her again. Did I make myself seem disinterested? Will we meet again? Will she even remember me?

Sincerely,

Big Cringy Idiot

She let Jihoon read the asker’s message first, then scrolled down to show her answer.

Dear Big Cringy Idiot,

You and your crush seem to have a lot in common. There is nothing wrong with being nervous around someone you like. In fact, it is fairly normal and is a good sign that you like this girl very much. She also seems open to any future possiblities, since she did ask you to take her home. You need not worry about coming off too strong in this situation, although I do admire your dedication to respecting women’s boundaries. I hope you are able to find this girl again so that you can truly tell her how you feel. Best of luck to you!

Sincerely,

Miss Soju

“Joo, that was…” 

“Poetic, beautiful, life-changing?” Joohyun grinned, and nudged her best friend with each suggestion.

“Boring. It was boring.” Joohyun’s face fell, and Jihoon could only offer the girl an apologetic smile. “Dude, you’re gonna put people to sleep if you keep it up like this. I almost took out a pillow to take a nap on the floor.”

“But this is how I write my articles— Informative and concise! How else am I supposed to write it?”

“I mean, that’s great for reporting articles, but this is an advice column. It’s supposed to be fun, sarcastic maybe. Like your promo piece! That was good.” 

“I wrote that as a joke, hoping they would fire me for it,” Joohyun admitted, eyes wide in panic as she looked at her best friend. 

“Huh. Well, I think it would sound better than this Wikipedia article you got going on,” Jihoon shrugged. “Try to be fun!”

“I am fun!” Joohyun cried out defensively, her nostrils flaring with passion. When Jihoon responded with a doubtful look, she let out a dramatic gasp and snatched up her laptop, stomping over to her favorite corner in the cafe. “I can be fun! I’ll show you fun!” 

 “Atta girl,” Jihoon’s signature cackle filled the cafe, further fueling the girl’s aggressive typing. 

Just another morning in the life of So Joohyun.

To the surprise of the cafe’s current occupants, a student already tapped at the glass entrance, clearly in desperate need of his morning americano. He had walked all the way from the freshman dorms after a restless night of tossing and turning. When his phone screen told him it was already 6:05AM, he decided to just give up on sleep altogether. So there he was, trying to start off his day right, at Smile Flower Cafe, only to be stopped at the door by the grumpy barista with the red hair. He always felt like the other one was way nicer, especially since he would go out of his way to sneak him free cookie samples and made pleasant small talk while ringing him up (what was his name? Jonathan?). 

  All the red-haired barista ever did was scowl at him when he asked for a student discount. Now, he scowled at him as he gestured at the sign that indicated that the cafe would not be open until 7AM. The fatigued freshman had half a mind to make some choice gestures of his own, but he refrained and just whipped out his phone instead. He gave the mean barista one last pout before turning around and walking towards the 24-hour convenience store on campus.

➠ [ to: vernonie 😌😎  ] Good morning king. Are you still on your shift ?

➠ [ from: vernonie 😌😎  ] gm seungkwan pls k*ll me 

Seungkwan took that as a yes. It didn’t take long for him to arrive, the entrance bell ringing lightly when he stepped into the small store. At the register sat his roommate, who was clearly fighting to keep his eyes open. “Wol-cuh ‘n—” he tried to greet through a wide-mouthed yawn. “Excuse me, welcome in! Oh, hey Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan answered with a grunt and headed straight for the refrigerated coffee section, choosing the largest can.

“Uh dude, you good? You look like—”

“Like I haven’t slept all night? I am aware,” He immediately opened his coffee and took a long gulp of the beverage in hopes of feeling even a little better. When it did nothing after 30 seconds, he frowned at the concerned cashier. “Vernon, I will not be paying for this drink, because it is clearly defective. Coffee is supposed to fix everything.” 

“Is this about your audition today?” Vernon asked, eyebrows furrowed. “Your monologue sounded really solid last night though. Your audition songs were great too. You totally got this in the bag!” 

“It’s not just about the audition, sweet Vernon,” Seungkwan sighed. “It’s about who I’m going to see at the audition. I still don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.”

“Oh yeah, you are probably going to see them later.” For the past week, all Seungkwan could talk about was the theater tech sophomore that he had met at the theater department’s welcome party. They had sat beside Seungkwan and had helped him through all the fast-paced drinking games, and even took some of his shots when he kept losing. Surely, this was what love felt like.

That was what Seungkwan hoped anyway, because whatever it was made him feel all warm and tingly inside (or it could have just been the alcohol). Nevertheless, he had made big plans to confess to his crush as soon as possible. His dilemma for the past several days was merely a matter of how it would be done. “Not probably! I know for a fact that they will be there, because they told me that they couldn’t wait to see me,” Seungkwan let out a wail and slumped over the counter. “They’re the sweetest, most beautiful person to ever walk the earth and I just want to tell them that I would actually jump off a bridge for them. Why is that so difficult?” 

Vernon nodded sympathetically as he always did. “I mean, if you’re not ready today, maybe you could wait?”

“Wait?! No offense babe, but last time I checked, waiting didn’t get you anywhere,” Seungkwan said,  patting his roommate’s arm. Vernon cringed as he was forced to remember his own romantic blunder from the past week. “Clearly, we are both in major need of help. That Woozi guy’s show didn’t do anything for us! Also, we still haven’t heard from that Miss Soju character and it’s been what? Two days? If she’s such an expert, she would know that love is time sensitive!” 

“Ugh, I know. I keep refreshing The Front’s website just to see if she’s posted it yet.” Vernon sighed forlornly, which was a common punctuation to his sentences lately. “It’s getting me really antsy. What if she doesn’t even choose to answer our emails this time?” 

Seungkwan quickly covered the other freshman’s mouth. “Don’t say that! The universe manifests what we say will happen. We should ask for divine intervention instead.” He cleared his throat in preparation and threw his hands up to the sky. “O Eros, god of love, please shine your blessings down upon my and Vernonie’s love lives for we are but two humble, clueless freshmen in need of romantic guidance. Send down two of your swiftest, sharpest arrows, so that those that we desire may hear your soft whispers—”

Ding. The sound of the entrance bell rang once more, stopping Seungkwan’s prayer short, much to his irritation. “Is this a bad time?” the new customer, an ethereally handsome blonde, asked amusedly. He strode into the store and grabbed two spicy tuna triangle kimbab’s before approaching the counter. 

“Jeonghan hyung!” 

“Ah, Vernon!” Jeonghan smiled. “I didn’t know you worked here. You should come by my and Cheol’s apartment again soon, that was fun!”

“Hyung, this is my roommate that I told you about-- Seungkwan. And Seungkwan, this is Seungcheol hyung’s roommate,” Vernon said all while ringing up Jeonghan’s food. On the side, Seungkwan bowed sheepishly after unfreezing from his previous pose. “How’s your morning going? You wake up pretty early!” 

Jeonghan laughed heartily, shaking his head. “Oh no, I just finished an all-night stream. I just came by to get a snack before heading to bed. Seems like you two have been having a fun morning, though. Do you two always start your day off by praying to the ancient Greek god of desire?” 

Seungkwan flushed a deep pink. “Uh no, it was more like a cry of desperation. Vernon and I are having a pretty tough time confessing to our crushes, so I figured we should just try out anything that might help us. Nothing else seems to be working…” 

“Wait, that’s so cute,” Jeonghan cooed. 

“Would you be able to give us some advice, hyung?” Vernon asked. He didn’t know anything about the senior’s love life, but he did give off the vibe of someone who would know… a lot. 

Jeonghan’s eyes twinkled dangerously, a lazy smirk on his lips. “I mean, I could go talk to your little crushes for you, if you’d like. I’m sure I could get some sort of response out of them.”

One look at Jeonghan had Vernon and Seungkwan shaking their heads vehemently.

“No, we’re good.”

“Yeah, no thanks.” 

“Mm, good call.” Jeonghan took his food from the counter, and winked at the two boys. “I really wish I could help you both more, but I’m sure you’ll get what you’re waiting for soon! Today, if you want it enough.” 

There was something in the way that the senior stated those words that made Seungkwan believe him without a question. It wasn’t a naive suggestion or an optimistic prediction; Jeonghan spoke like it was the truth plainly written on the walls. He finally felt a long-awaited wave exhaustion wash over his anxieties, softening them until they fizzled away alongside the ebbing foam. All that was left behind were grains of sand. Suddenly, Seungkwan yawned,  and he wanted nothing more than to curl up in his twin bed at the dorms. 

“Well, I should be heading off to bed! Looks like you should be too, Seungkwan,” Jeonghan said, suppressing his own yawn. The freshman nodded in agreement. He definitely needed to rest up— this was going to be a big day, after all. 

“Say hi to Cheol hyung for me when you get home!” Vernon said. 

Jeonghan hummed thoughtfully as he made his way back to the entrance of the store. “I will if he’s there! He didn’t come home last night.” He turned to leave the boys with one last sleepy smile, seeming to laugh at something only he knew. 

“At least one of us is doing something right.” 

“Jihoon, why can’t I get this right?” 

“I’m sorry! This just sounds nothing like you,” Jihoon shrugged. It had been a rather busy morning, but things slowed down as it approached noon, giving him the chance to look at Joohyun’s fourth draft of responses.  “I’ve never heard you say stuff like ‘rad’ or ‘hella’... Like are you aware that you sound like a skater from the late 90’s?” 

“That’s because the reference I’ve been using is from 1997!” Joohyun huffed in frustration. She was already backspacing albeit with a little more force than necessary. “I wasn’t even born in ‘97!” 

“Exactly, so stop trying to write like that. What if you tried to—” 

“Eat my ass, Hong!” The sound of the kitchen door slamming open interrupted Jihoon’s (probably unhelpful) suggestion, and the two best friends watched as Bongseon stormed out of the cafe in a familiar rage. Luckily, there were no customers to witness it this time. 

Instinctively, they looked to the kitchen door, where Joshua stood with a resigned smile on his full lips. “Oops,” he said, scratching at the back of his neck apologetically. “Guess it was too soon to joke about our last break. Sorry about that, Jihoon. I’ll try to call in the head baker early to finish up the rest of the pastries for today.” 

He walked over to where they sat and plopped himself across from Joohyun. She offered Joshua a look of sympathy, but he responded by twisting his face up in a dumb expression, reassuring her that he was just fine. Still,  she couldn’t help feeling worried for both of her friends. No matter how many times Bongseon and Joshua broke it off and no matter how much Joohyun joked about it, she knew that their strong feelings for each other meant that it hurt a little every time they got into a fight. At least, that’s what she gathered from the various nights she spent soothing Bongseon while the girl cried into a toilet bowl, soju bottle still in hand. 

“It’s okay, Josh, you probably don’t have to worry too much. Knowing her, she’ll probably be back in 30 minutes to make up with you and then Jihoon will have to find someone to take over your shift,” Joohyun piped up. “But please take it back to your apartment this time, because I don’t make enough money to have every surface of my apartment sanitized again.” 

Joshua let out an easy laugh, as though he were not a man in deep shit. “Thank you, Joo. You always know what to say to make me feel better,” he sighed. “I should probably go after her. I’ll be back soon, Jihoon!” 

She waited for him to disappear out the door before turning to her best friend. “Wow, that’s gotta be a new record for them, right? I didn’t even know they got back together until this morning.” Joohyun was surprised to find that Jihoon had been silently staring at her for a good minute now. “...Why are you looking at me?” 

“What you said to Joshua,” Jihoon simply replied. 

“Oh, I was only joking about the sanitation thing. I just walked in on them once in the kitchen—“

“No I mean, how you said it. Maybe that’s how you should be writing your responses.” Jihoon grinned, watching as Joohyun gave him that look again, the one where she looks at him like he’s speaking from a third head. But he knew that this was going to be another Jihoon Genius moment, which seemed to be happening more frequently lately, much to his satisfaction. “Like you’re talking to one of your friends. I mean, it made Josh feel better, right?”

Joohyun’s eyebrows scrunched together and she mulled the idea over. Without another word to Jihoon, she began to slowly type on her laptop, gradually tapping faster and faster as she gained momentum. Her best friend giddily returned to his place behind the counter to tend to the customers that just walked in. He knew that once she got into a groove, there was no hope of stopping her. 

An hour later, Joohyun finally pushed away her laptop and waited for Jihoon to finish wiping down a table before calling him over. For some reason, she was anxious to show him the final product and even when he already sat besie her, she hesitated for a beat. Usually, her writing was professional and objective, always ending with a declarative period. She had spent years perfecting her reporting style so that when she presented the facts, that’s all they were. This, however, felt personal, like it was a part of her. And even though Jihoon probably knew her even better than herself sometimes, there was something so vulnerable about showing someone a side of her that she had only just discovered. 

And yet, she was curious to know— desperate to know: was it any good? 

“Well?” Joohyun watched for Jihoon’s reaction closely, both impatient and terrified to hear his thoughts. 

“Joohyun, this...” Jihoon started slowly. She braced for impact. “This is it. I think you’ve found Miss Soju’s voice.”

She exhaled. “R-really?”

“Yes, really. You answered the questions so thoughtfully, so you know it’s not just some generic bullshit you found on the internet. Plus, it was fun to read, like I think I’d read this even if I didn’t send a letter in,” Jihoon gushed, all while skimming over the words again. He turned to smile brightly at her, reminding Joohyun of a much younger Jihoon back in their elementary school days. “Most importantly though, it’s so you.”

Joohyun returned the smile, just as brightly. Warmth bloomed in her chest and across her cheeks. “Thanks, Jihoon, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“Honestly, me neither,” Jihoon laughed.

“Um, can I ask you one more thing though?” Joohyun scrolled down to the last two entries, both of which asked for advice on how to make things official with a guy they’ve been talking to. The two letters were extremely similar in detail, but had been sent from two different emails and two different signatures. At first, she thought that maybe her judgement was muddled by her lack of sleep, and as the day went on, she figured her inability to recognize any nuance between the two letters was thanks her lack of experience. 

There was just something about the way they had described the boy. She knew that  intelligent, funny, kind-hearted, and unbelievably handsome were pretty generic adjectives. But what were the odds for both letters to also mention his infectious laugh and deep, dark eyes? “Do you think these two are from the same person? I’m trying to go for a confession theme for this article, so I included them both, but I’m afraid they’re too similar.” 

Jihoon read them over a couple of times, then shrugged. “They do sound pretty similar, but a lot of people go through that sort of thing. Also, so many people describe their crushes like that, but let’s be real, most of them end up being fuckboys. So trust me, both those people probably need your help. I mean, what’s the harm in publishing both, right?” 

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Joohyun bit her lip, needing every ounce of reassurance she could get from her best friend. She read over her writing once, twice, thrice more. This was it. No more edits and no more excuses. Her finger hovered over the mousepad. “Okay, I”m going to send it in for approval now. Jihoon, you are about to witness me publish my first article for The Front.” 

Joohyun took a deep breath and clicked. Finally.

[bruneintherain]

HVFF London: here’s my (way too long, if I were you, I’d keep on scrolling) report! :D

Oh, boy… What. A. Weekend!!! Seriously there are no strong enough words to describe how utterly awesome this whole experience was. But enough gushing, there will be plenty more as I go on. Let’s start this report! :D (I have highlighted the different parts so you can just skip to what you wanna read about)

Friday 26th of May: F cancer party

 Overexcited and a little bit anxious, I finally arrived in London in mid-afternoon. I had wanted to go back there for a long time so I felt exhilarated. Hopefully I managed to navigate the tube quite easily.

But not much time to recover after I arrived at my hotel cause it was almost F cancer party time and who was I meeting before we went there? None other than my very awesome friend, who’s also my favorite fanfic writer, Janelle (@chronicolicity)!!! :D Peeps, I can tell you this was an experience. Who has never been a little scared about meeting fandom/internet friends? You’re always afraid you’re gonna disappoint them or they’re gonna turn out to be people you actually can’t have an actual conversation with. But THANK GOD that wasn’t our case at all! First, she was freaking GORGEOUS and as cool and bubbly as I pictured her. 10x better even! So having her there was simply awesome and actually quite reassuring since being alone in a foreign city is always a bit frightening.

But anyway! Enough babbling. We headed to the party and kept chatting away, not feeling time pass and enjoying beautiful London and the nice weather. At one point, Janelle basically stabbed me with her elbow because oh, look! Robbie and Italia had arrived! They were near the entrance taking pictures! Looking fucking inhumanly amazing!!!! Ughhh, why.

When we finally did get in, the music was insanely loud! Like way too loud. My chest was thudding really strongly and we basically couldn’t hear a word we were saying without having to shout in each other’s ears. But eh. I still got a cocktail (15 goddamn pounds! That’ll teach me to ask for something without asking for the price first…), a little F cancer cupcake

and we went to find a seat. It was selfie time cause Janelle and I together finally happened and it was past time to capture the moment.

Later, STEPHEN FINALLY ARRIVED!!! That was about time, dude! I was dying here! We were not super close but we still had a good view. He made his whole speech about his mother’s battle and how cancer sucks.

And then he took a picture with everyone’s finger pointed in the air.

All during that time, I thought to myself “Holy hell. I now know that man is real. Shit. He’s gorgeous.” And then it was back to the party and the usual music. I grabbed a champagne glass for Janelle but she ended up giving it to me so after that, I was slightly tipsy (not having eaten and all) and we danced a bit.

But we didn’t stay long cause apparently Stephen and the others were hidden away in the VIP lounge or had already left and we were hungry and eager to talk more with each other.

We then headed out and went for McDonald’s. I was really starting to feel the joy of this weekend and being in London with a dear friend. Sidenote: the F cancer shirt rocks but it’s so long, it can almost be a dress LOL.

Then back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep ;)

 Saturday 27th May: HVFF day 1

 Man, I did not sleep much. My alarm really kicked my butt. But I had to get up cause serious shit started that day!!! :D So breakfast and time to get ready.

I arrived at the venue and joined Janelle. We obviously both looked super cute. After they finally let us into the hall, we paraded around a little bit, spotting the different booths and which actors were already there signing, and then we went to get in line for John’s panel.

We managed to get pretty good seats.

Of course his entrance was quite colorful, just like John. A lovely drag queen introduced him and John entered in a dress. Oooh, John :)

His whole panel was pretty freaking awesome and hilarious. His answer to his choice death on Arrow was the one who made us both laugh the hardest cause… Dying while having sex with Oliver on the salmon ladder?!? OMFG John!!! Your obsession with Stephen never stops! :’D

And after a little song, it was finally over. As for me, it was time for my Emily autograph! Yayyyy!!! :D

 I arrived at Emily’s booth and there wasn’t much of a line, which was good. She took time to speak to everyone which was lovely. I, of course, watched her and thought to myself: “There she is. She is so. damn. beautiful!!! Does this woman ever look bad??”. Then it was my turn and just after saying hi to her, she said “Nice to see you again”. My brain froze for half a second. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” She said: “Yeah, I do. You were in Birmingham last year, or were you in Paris?” …….. SHE ACTUALLY REMEMBERED ME WTF!!! I could not believe it. It might sound crazy but I thought that was super flattering. But anywayyyy. Ignore my Emily-related freakout. You just know the depth of my love for this woman.

So I said it was my 3rd time meeting her and that it was so good to see her gain. Then I handed her her gift: a Sailor Moon mug. She said: “Ughh, you know I love that shit, right?” DUH! I knew! I told her she was my hero as a kid and she answered that it was the same for her. She also said that a fan stopped by with the name Serena and when Emily exclaimed “Serena!”, the other girl didn’t understand the reference and she was like “Okaaay”. We had a good laugh about it. Then I gave her the autograph to sign. She messed it up at first so she cursed and fetched another photo. She laughed and told me she liked to swear. While she was writing, I told her that she looked amazing and she thanked me. I said: “You always do” and she answered “Aww, that’s very sweet”. When she finished signing, I brought up her cover with Travis and said it was awesome, she said “Thank you so much, we’re getting a lot of… really good responses” and she started laughing really hard. When I said that I really hoped she was gonna sing more, she confessed that she hasn’t listened to it yet and that Travis, one her bestfriends, was like “WTF!”. So I told her that her voice was so clear and beautiful and she thanked me once again and said it was nice seeing me again.

Time passed quickly but it was such a sweet moment. She was so cute and energized, I loved it. I love her. She is the best and I am definitely not done cherishing every damn moment I get seeing her.

 After that, I had time to chill and parade around. I finally bumped into Ju (@felicitys) <3 I love that woman. We barely said “Hi” and she started talking non stop about Josh and how awesome he was while I was standing there waiting for a hug trying to catch everything she said :’D I love you, Ju. Then she finally hugged me (I’d been waiting a year for this to happen again!) but she had to go back to her hotel for lunch while I was waiting for Janelle to eat.

 So we had lunch, then I decided to check out Colin’s booth to get a selfie. Janelle had already gotten a selfie with him before and was still quite in awe. But I mean, have you seen Colin?? Major Handsome reporting for duty! (Gee, that was so cheesy…). The line was a bit longer but when it was my turn, I still completely took my time. I asked if he recognized me, and he looked ashamed and basically didn’t answer. I told him it was okay and that I was the one who gave him macarons last year in Paris. He said: “Oh, yes! I am sure they were gone in 10 minutes”. Guess he didn’t get to share some with his wife then ;) I asked if we were gonna see more of him on Broadway and he said he hoped so. I also complimented his dancing and singing skills, especially after the video of him on stage during the Chicago MD Paris con that went viral. He blushed and laughed. He’s so damn cute that way!!! And then I asked him a very important question for my friend Janelle actually: “If Tommy was still alive and a part of Team Arrow, what would be his codename?” That was a good question and he pondered for a few seconds. So I decided to help him and asked if he liked Lancelot. Let me explain: on the show, Tommy had a dog named Arthur. And in Arrow, Oliver/Tommy/Laurel have some similarities with Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere. He remembered the name of Tommy’s dog himself too, and was super proud (ughh, I love him). When I was done explaining, he said he loved the idea and totally approved. He said Lancelot was a beautiful French name and I concurred. I said he was far handsome enough to be called like him and he blushed again and thanked me. Finally we took our photos:

I said how much I loved him and Tommy, that we missed him and asked for a hug that he happily gave me. And that was it! After that, Janelle (having witnessed the whole thing) couldn’t believe how cool I was being and how long I talked to him. I couldn’t believe it myself and after walking away, I became all giggly thinking about the great convo we just had. I. LOVE. COLIN DONNELL!!! Bless him and his flawlessly handsome face and incredible eyes!!!

 After this excitement, we joined the line for Josh Segarra. That’s when Ju came back and I introduced her to Janelle. These two got along, no surprises there. And we took some selfies cause we were all looking fab and we love the memories.

We met with some other fandom friends as well and had very pleasant and lively discussions while waiting in line. Janelle was planning to ditch me to go the the Gotham panel because she wasn’t entirely sold on Josh. But as soon as she heard all the good things about him and saw how he was acting with the fans and how good-looking he was, she was like “Eh, you know what, I’ll stay after all.” I KNEW IT!!! I knew you’d fall for him too, girl!!! She became as giggly and dreamy-eyed as the rest of us :’D

I also bumped into Johanna (@emilybuttrickards), that I had wanted to meet in some while as well, and she was so great!!! As cool as I pictured. So nice. My only regret is that we didn’t get to hang out more… But hopefully it’ll happen in the future ;)

But unfortunately, Josh had to eat lunch himself, then had ops and he wasn’t coming back until quite a while when I, myself, had all my ops to go to. So we decided we’d try again tomorrow.

 Janelle and I stopped by Lord Mesa’s booth. I wasn’t about to miss out on meeting this incredible, sweet artist! We took some time going through his drawings and we finally made our choices.

Then we approached him so he could sign them and got to talk a little bit. I said how awesome his drawings were and how incredible it was having an artist such as him in so many fandoms. He really appreciated it and assured me he’d keep on drawing until he couldn’t anymore. We also asked about his drawing on Oliver’s birthday cake and he told us that he had a much bigger idea planned, with all the characters, but that they just ended up asking for something simpler. He also said that he told the producers that if they ever needed something from him in the future, they should always assume that his answer is yes ^^ He was so sweet. Janelle photographed me with him and then we were on our way.

 It was time for my Stephen op. /!\ It was happening!!! I was gonna get to see the man up close!!! /!\ That goes without saying that I got some butterflies in my stomach. As the line advanced, I was getting closer and closer to him and HOLY SHIT how fucking gorgeous is this man!!! Seriously, what kind of magic ingredient did his mother eat during pregnancy?? That’s just not fair… Anyway, it was my turn and we said hi. I had to focus cause these things go super quickly. I handed him the pink tiara and the wand, keeping the blue one for myself, and I told him to pretend he was a pretty princess for me. Obviously, I didn’t know what face he made until later. Then I thanked him and he put his hand on my back guiding me towards the exit when I was going the wrong way. Very hard to keep a clear head when you’re standing next to him.

I picked my op and BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! It’s so funny!!! He looked dead inside!!! :D

It wasn’t what I was expecting but I didn’t mind because it was still hilarious. And at his booth the next day, I got to get the story behind that look ^^

 Since I still had some time before my Stephen/Emily op and because Janelle told me there was barely a line for Charlotte and Italia, I ran to their booths.

I stopped by Charlotte’s first. There were just a couple people before me. When it was my turn, we talked for a long time. I started by saying, as always, that I loved her and that I really missed her in the show. My biggest regret in s5 was not having her once (which was true but I have a lot of other regrets too LOL). Her scenes always brought a lightness to the show that was much appreciated. She was so happy and kept thanking me. She said she missed the show and that they should try to bring more balance between the supernatural aspects and the actual people and their relationships. I also said her chemistry with Emily was amazing and she agreed, saying it was crazy and even a bit scary actually. I also told her she looked amazing and that she was basically a goddess and she said “Oh stop it, it’s all about good lighting”. Before our picture, I asked if I could hug her and she happily obliged.

I said that I loved and missed her again and she gave me another hug because she was just so moved.

Bottom line: Charlotte is a lovely person, a total ray of sunshine and you can totally tell how much she loves and appreciates the compliments she’s given. She’s a true class act.

 Then I arrived at Robbie and Italia’s booths and Janelle met me there. She was gonna get a selfie with Robbie, I wanted Italia. After I paid for my ticket, I looked at Italia, she noticed me and I said: “I am here for you”. She answered: “Then come to me!” So I joined her at the table while Robbie was still talking to someone else. She loved my outfit: “Wow, what’s going on there? We’re matching”, we even both had fans. I said she looked gorgeous and she thanked me. Then I said in a lower voice: “Don’t tell him that, but my favorite thing about your husband is you”, to which she answered: “Aww, I love that! I want that on a t-shirt”. And by God, if I ever meet her again, I WILL GET HER THAT SHIRT!!! She’s so much fun, having no problem with me shading her husband a little bit ^^ I love her. We talked a little about Designated Survivor and how awesome her character was. I said I wished her a very long, successful career and she really appreciated it. Then she got up to take the selfie but Robbie was in the way (about to take his own picture with Janelle xD), so she told him: “’Scuse me, man. Not everything is about you. We have business here”. That made me laugh quite hard. She’s just so funny. I LOVE HER!

I thanked her again and we said goodbye, never not smiling.

 And FINALLY! It was time for my Stephen/Emily op!!!!!!! :D I was so excited about my idea. So when my turn arrived, I showed them the picture and I am pretty sure Emily laughed. At first they took the pose without the map, so I stopped them and handed it to them. We took our places and BAM! That was it. I thanked them and was on my way, super excited to see what came out.

And well, I wasn’t disappointed, IT’S SO GOOD!!! :D

I just love their faces!!! I should have changed my expression but eh, I don’t care. These two were all that mattered and I looove the result!!!

 I went back to Janelle for a few minutes and we took some selfies with my tiaras:

 But then it was already time for my Emily op. So I went back downstairs and got in line. I decided to use the same props I used for Steve. I arrived in front of Emily, gave her the tiara and wand, and told her to face me as if we were about to fight. We were looking into each other’s eyes and I could tell Emily was fighting a laugh. Once the picture was taken, she gave me back the props and said “I kept twitching because I was looking into your eyes” and laughed. I basically died. I WAS LOOKING INTO YOUR EYES TOO, GIRL!!! And what beautiful eyes they are!!! Anyway. She’s such a sweetheart :’)

I went back to pick up my photo and was really bummed because my hair got in the way and my face ended up hidden:

So that sucked. But Emily looks super cute and I appreciate that we actually saw a lot of her bomb-ass outfit. The photographer still could have given me a heads up though… Cause that whole story ended with me buying another op for the next day. I know… There’s nothing I wouldn’t be prepared to do for this woman and that’s bad LOL.

 And that was it for Day 1. It all went so quick but at the same time so much happened! Laughs, good company and gorgeous people. I mean, that’s a perfect combination. And once again, however tired I was, I still felt super hyped and didn’t fall asleep until approximately 1:30, which was bad since I had to get up at 7:30 ‘-_-

 Sunday 28th of May: HVFF London day 2

 Last day, and quite a big one. There was gonna be a lot more running and hurrying around.

I had breakfast with some lovely ladies I met the day before and who were staying at my hotel, Soph and Evangelina. Then I got ready:

And Janelle delivered the bad news that the tube line was closed… Since I was not from London, I decided to take the bus but that was a stupid-ass idea since the itinerary I took was super long and made no sense since I could’ve arrived to the venue faster just by walking. I am a dumbass. But that’s not the point. I still arrived on time and joined Janelle in the crowd before they let us in.

 We got in line right away for Stephen’s panel. Another round of selfies was mandatory because we, again, looked cute (especially Janelle, you were FIRE, girl!):

Then Steve arrived and they quickly went to questions. So I got up and ran to get in line.

Lots of lovely surprises during his panel since so many people crashed, the first one being none other than EMILYYYY!!!! <3

They exchanged hugs, laughs and cheek kisses. All of those were greatly appreciated because who doesn’t love when these two are this adorable with each other? They’re also really funny together which is always a good thing.

She didn’t stay long but that was okay cause JOSH is the second one who crashed! Woohooooo!!! These two also have a great dynamic and having them both on stage was truly a pleasure ^^

And… It was finally my turn to ask a question (sorry the picture is moving a lot and the framing isn’t great but I was trying to not look at my phone).

I really appreciated Stephen’s answer and I was just happy that I had the guts to get up there and did not completely lost my English.

I went back to my seat next to Janelle and the panel ended beautifully, with Steve thanking everyone for coming out this weekend, despite the horrors that happened in Manchester.

 Then I ran upstairs to get in line to buy Stephen’s autograph. I easily waited an hour but it was okay cause I met some other lovely people, including the incredible woman running the Starling City Journal twitter account:

And I FINALLY got to buy an autograph! But now wasn’t quite the time to meet Steve since he was about to leave soon and the Arrow panel was also nearby.

 So Janelle bought me lunch (I swear, this woman’s sweetness knows no bounds!) and we ate on the balcony before the panel started.

The Arrow panel started 20 minutes late and wasn’t so great since the moderator kept asking dumb questions, like if the actors would appreciate a love triangle between Oliver/Felicity and Black Canary… Dude, eww. Love triangles in general suck, but just no. No one wants that.

But Josh and Emily were extra cute. Especially cause Josh kept gushing about how great Emily was and he made her and Katie dance a little. I mean, HOT DAMN, Josh!!! You’re something else <3 Emily also repeated that she doesn’t want Felicity to get a mask cause she’s already a badass and should stay that way. YOU GO, GIRL!!! Tell it again!!! I love her for that, so much.

 Then it was time for my Amell cousins duo op *insert smirking face emoji here*. My Amell sandwich moment was happening!!!!!!! Oh, and let me add that JANELLE was the one who made it possible cause she noticed they were selling them when she picked up our tickets and SHE FREAKING SURPRISED ME WHEN I WAS STILL ON THE TRAIN TO LONDON AND I BASICALLY DIED AND HAD TO MUFFLE MY GIGGLES OF JOY BECAUSE I WAS SURROUNDED BY PEOPLE!!!!!! Thanks again, you beautiful woman, this was the best surprise of this whole weekend and I love you for it! :-* :-* :-*

Anyway, they seemed to be running a little late but it was finally my turn. I arrived in front of them, said hi and asked them to embrace me while giving the camera their CW smolder. Steve laughed and said “sure thing”. Not gonna lie, and Janelle will happily call me a perv after writing that, but I still remember what it feels like getting touched by these two. And HOLY SHIT that’s quite a nice feeling!!! I mean, when it comes to standing between two men, the Amells pretty much make the best candidates.

But let’s move on! I went to pick up my op and HAHAHAHAHA!!! It’s probably the best next to the Stemily one! :D

We could make a good meme with this one. Steve looks like he spotted someone he dislikes and he is about to bad-mouth them to me, and Robbie looks like he’s staring at the horizon like in a bad soap-opera, or like he smelled something funny :’D I just LOVE this picture!!! I love these men.

 But actually no time to rest cause my op with Hayley Atwell was next. She didn’t accept any special poses or hugs so I just went to her side and smiled. Before leaving, I said she was awesome and loved Agent Carter and she thanked me ^^ Here is the result:

  Finally, my second Emily op. I brought the same props as yesterday but wanted something a little different. When I entered the booth, I noticed that Alisha and Carina were both there with her, laughing away. What a nice surprise that Emily had friends with her there J

It was my turn, and I explained to Emily that I wanted another photo since the one from the day before was messed up. She “aww”’d at me and grabbed my arm very tight while I put my arm around her waist. I said “let’s just make a cute/funny face” and she happily obliged. When it was over, she laughed and I thanked her. I made sure to excitedly wave at Aisha and said “Hi, Aisha!”, which she did right right back to me with a big smile. I JUST REALLY LOVE AISHA, OK!!! She’s so cool!!!

I came to get my photo and was really happy to see that this one turned out great! :D

We’re so cuuuuuuute!!! And hello, full body shot of Emily in yet another bomb ass outfit! That’s always a good thing to own J

 But again, no time to rest cause I had to leave at the earliest at 5pm and I still had to catch Stephen to get his autograph. So I went back upstairs and got in line. Janelle joined me a little later after she was finished with David Mazouz, aka Brune Wayne. She was, once more, the FREAKING GREATEST FRIEND EVER because she took care of looking for a taxi for as soon as I was done with Steve. I knew this meant I didn’t have time to get to Josh before leaving ( :’((( ), but I just couldn’t afford risking missing my train, especially with part of the tube being closed.

But anyway. I DID IT!!! I managed to get Stephen’s auto on time :D So I arrived in front of him and………………… This man just isn’t real. WHERE THE HELL DID HIS FACE COME FROM?!? I mean, obviously I’d seen him at the photo ops and I had seen plenty of him on screen, but there just isn’t any preparing yourself for his beauty up-close!!!!!!!!! I want in on the perfect gene pool! I know everyone says the same thing, but his eyes are really SO. DAMN. BLUE. I mean wow!

But okay, let’s get to the dialogue. He asked me how I was and I said “Awesome. Best weekend ever” and he was happy to hear it. I presented him with my Oliver Queen journal and he began to sign. I just looked at him and asked: “Did you eat?” Cause I was legit worried! He just never stopped running between ops and autos. This man is a machine! So he answered: “Uhhh, not enough”. Poor man :(

He finished my auto and then I showed him our picture together. He smiled and said “Oh, that’s great”. I replied: “You look dead inside, though” and he looked up, at ME, and said: “No, but I made this face on purpose!” with a stupid smile on his face. GAHJDKSKKFD I AM NOT ALIVE AT THIS POINT!!! But I managed to answer: “Oh, that’s great then. I love it”. He was happy to hear it. Before leaving I thanked him for what he was doing and said it was everything, for what he abundantly thanked me before he shook my hand. GAHHHH THIS MAN!!!! Obviously I didn’t want the moment to end but there were already so many people waiting, I had to go :’(((

Bottom line: I am in love with both Stephen and Emily. Don’t make me choose. I won’t and I can’t. I love them both dearly.

 I joined Janelle and, as I said, she took care of the taxi for me because SHE’S THAT GREAT!!! I unfortunately didn’t have time to say goodbye to any of the other girls, but we still took time to take one last photo:

Then we both left the venue. She came with me in the taxi, to pick up my suitcase, and then to the tube station. When it was time to say goodbye, I swear I was fighting myself not to burst out crying! We hugged and said goodbye the French way and we went our separate ways :’((( I WAS SO SAD JANELLE!!! SO EMOTIONAL!!! Goodbyes suck!!! The fact that we live so far away from each other sucks major ass! But thank god we still text regularly and will meet again cause you’re just such a fucking awesome, marvelous, beautiful friend, I am not about to stop pestering you ;)

 So that’s it, fam. That’s my whole report. It’s again ridiculously long and it’s about time I shut the hell up. That was one of the best weekends I’ve ever had and amongst all the lovely celebrities I met, it was the company that mattered most :)

So until next year, everyone! :D Cause there’s no way I’m not doing THAT again! ;)

Xoxo

[holidayisland-blog]

Hello Jurors, Pre-jurors, Walkers and the fallen king and queen who were sadly expelled from the game!  The four remaining castaways have some things they would like to say about each of you- here goes!  Since we have a large jury, we are doing two separate posts- this first one is for the pre-jury, the walkers and the two that were expelled. <3

 TOBY

Dom: I really don't remember you but hey!!!

Elijah: Honestly ngl i was lost af for the first weeks of the game and im super sorry i didnt get the chance to know yall!! overall i feel like you guys were nice ppl if i had gotten the chance to talk to all of you!

Elsa: Hi Toby, I don’t think we spoke much, if at all. ): Although I did just search through our past messages, and the only thing we talked about was your name being about LEGO and not a K-pop boy band member lakwjewa.

Nehemiah: IDK you

RONNIE

Dom: I'm sorry you went early!! You weren't on :(

Elijah: Honestly ngl i was lost af for the first weeks of the game and im super sorry i didnt get the chance to know yall!! overall i feel like you guys were nice ppl if i had gotten the chance to talk to all of you!

Elsa: Hngh, hi Ronnie. I don’t think we spoke at all either.. Or maybe we did a bit?? I think we were put on the block together though so ): ): 

Nehemiah: I actually wanted you to last longer

SAMUEL

Dom: Read above

Elijah: Honestly ngl i was lost af for the first weeks of the game and im super sorry i didnt get the chance to know yall!! overall i feel like you guys were nice ppl if i had gotten the chance to talk to all of you!

Elsa: Hi Sam!! Wow, it was a shame seeing you leave the game so early. It’s kinda insane how easily the tables can turn. Thank you for saving me that 1 week I was on the block though ♥ Hope you’re doing well!

Nehemiah: Idr you

CHRISSA

Dom: CHRISSA <3 THE QUEEN!! I ADORE YOU <3 You're such an iconic person I'm so glad we got to play another game together (even though it was for a hot second) I hope you're doing great <3

Elijah: i love to play orgs with you!! im very sorry about you leaving this game and wish you couldve stayed longer to play! you know youre one of my fav ppl in this community and even played with me in my first ever org known as Dreamworld (yikes)! hope all is well with you outside the house and were gonna have tons of fun playing in Eggplant together!!🍆🍆;)

Elsa: Lol, hii Chrissa. Yet another ROP message from me. It sucked that you had to medevac the game, because I didn’t want to vote you out that week, and thought we could work together ): I hope you’re doing well though, and you must have had your reasons. xxx

Nehemiah: ;( really would've loved hanging with ya

KELSEY

Dom: FALLEN QUEEN! I'm glad we were able to overcome the beef that we had between us from the past. You're such a nice person and I'm super happy about where we've come. Sorry you had to die for me to live :(

Elijah: hello queen omg it seems like its been ages since you left and i cannot be more upset about you being medevacd from this game!! i wish you couldve kept competing and voting to stay here but i totally get that irl stuff comes before this stuff so i just hope you know that i enjoyed playing this game with you and hope we can play another game together in the future!! hoping everything with you is all good outside of the game!!<3

Elsa: Kelsey ): ): ): ): Whyyyyyyyyy. Kelsey, why oh why did you have to strike out. It really did make the game a lot more complicated for some of us lmao. Ahh, anyway, Kelsey you are a lovely person and it really made me sad that you weren’t as active towards the end. Although I’m sure that was because of work and stuff. Idk if we would have still been on the same side had you stayed in the game, but the alliance we had for the short while we actually worked together was fun ♥♥ Hope everything is going well for you.

Nehemiah: Ms. Valentina I never turned on you and you seemingly turned on me but hey it's fine. I still love your ass.

JOSH

Dom: JOSH!! I ADORE YOU!!! You're one of the sweetest people in this community. I'm sorry that this game rigged you out. You're such a breath of fresh air in my day. START A STREAK WITH ME!!

Elijah: JAWSH!!! king of kings? Even though you were a bit inactive for my taste i really love playing orgs with you bc youre fun and crackdt as fuck. I kept you wrapped around my finger as much as i could to ensure that you were kind of a meat shield for me if that makes sense? By making that point i mainly mean saving my ass from eviction an extra week by keeping you safe with the veto that one week before you were medevacd from the game. I mainly kept you due to knowing you were going to strike out bc of all the irl stuff like work you were busy with all the time!! Knowing you would strike out a week or two after gave myself the advantage of safety for an extra week and keeping my beautiful idol for myself (uwu) !! also i kept you due to me keeping my word during that HECTIC ASS CHAOTIC WEEK THAT WAS LIKE A MILLION POWERS USED... it was a very tough decision for me either going back on my word on my friend vs being targetted for using the veto to save you and risk being nommed alongside you afterwards in a following week as a “duo” since there was so many fucking “duos” in this game YALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE OALVONWKSNABWVD. Overall wishing you couldve played this game a bit longer just to keep you around for a good laugh and also to make sure i tried to keep you in my back pocket for whenever i needed something to be done along the lines of vote wise or manipulating you to do my dirty work for me! i love u sm and cannot wait to speak after this game is over dad!! <3

Elsa: Hngh, Josh. Yet another casualty of the strike system. Uhhhhh, I don’t think we spoke much either lol. We did vote together 1 or 2 times, but yeah, for the most part, besides in the tribe/house chat, we never really talked. But you seemed like a fun and great person, so I’m sad we never took the time to get to know each other. X

Nehemiah: You were like legit half-playing this game but you made it very far and I had a blast with you.

[steampunkfan]

Entrepreneurs On Fire: September 2017 Income Report

September 2017 Income At-A-Glance

Gross Income for September: $207,349

Total Expenses for September: $44,835

Total Net Profit for September: $162,514

Difference b/t September & August: -$7,017

Why We Publish An Income Report

This monthly income report is created for you, Fire Nation!

By documenting the struggles we encounter and the successes we celebrate as entrepreneurs every single month, we’re able to provide you with support – and a single resource – where we share what’s working, what’s not, and what’s possible.

There’s a lot of hard work that goes into learning and growing as an entrepreneur, especially when you’re just starting out. The most important part of the equation is that you’re able to pass on what you learn to others through teaching, which is what we aim to do here.

Let’s IGNITE!

**We’ll receive a commission on the affiliate links below.

Josh Bauerle’s Monthly Tax Tip

How to deduct medical related expenses

What’s up Fire Nation, my name is Josh Bauerle. I’m a CPA and the Founder of CPA On Fire, where we specialize in working with entrepreneurs to minimize their tax liability while keeping them in line with the ever-changing tax laws.

I’ve been working with JLD & Kate at Entrepreneurs On Fire for years now, and they’ve included me in these monthly income reports with unlimited access to all their accounts so I can verify that what they report here is complete and accurate.

And because they believe in delivering an insane amount of value to you, my job doesn’t stop at the verification level; I also provide a new tax and accounting tip every month!

Last month we discussed medical related expenses and I had to give a lot of bad news about just how deductible (or nondeductible) those medical expenses actually are on your taxes.

Unfortunately, for most people, medical expenses won’t be deductible at all, and for the few who can deduct them, it will likely be a small portion of the actual amounts paid.

This month, I’m going to give a bit better news. There are a few ways to make medical expenses more deductible, and these tips are even more applicable to self-employed people.

Here are two ways to drastically increase the amount of medical related expenses you can deduct on your taxes.

1. Self-Employed Health Insurance Deduction

We talk a lot about how the tax code favors entrepreneurs, and the health insurance deduction is a great example of that.

For those employed in a traditional job that have to pick up private health insurance, in order to deduct the premiums they are limited by what we discussed last month.

First, they have to itemize and second, even if they do itemize, those costs are still reduced by 10 percent of your adjusted gross income.

For those who are self-employed, the rules are much more favorable.

If you are self-employed and are not eligible for a group plan through your spouses job, you are able to deduct the entire amount of your health insurance premiums without itemizing and without the 10% income limitation.

Anyone who has had to purchase private insurance and seen the costs involved knows this is a huge advantage.

For those with a family, it could easily be a $10,000 or more tax deduction that employees in similar situations are not able to take.

And you don’t need to have the health insurance plan run through your business to count. It can just be a regular, private health insurance plan. As long as you are self-employed and don’t have any group plan available to you, you will qualify.

Leveraging HSA’s

The self-employed health insurance deduction is great for deducting the health insurance premiums, but what about actual medical expenses? Is there a way to make some of those tax deductible without the crazy itemized and ten percent of income limitations?

Believe it or not, the answer is actually yes – if you can get a health insurance plan that allows an HSA as a part of it.

A health savings account, or HSA, allows you to put up to $3,400 for an individual or $6,750 for a family into a savings account that is used specifically for medical related expenses.

The benefit?

Every dollar you put in there is a write-off on your tax return.

This is essentially a shortcut for being able to deduct between $3,400 and $6,750 of those medical expenses on your taxes without those pesky limitations the IRS likes to put on you.

One word of caution on this one: once you put the money in the HSA, do not take it out for non-medical related reasons. Doing so can subject you to similar penalties to taking out retirement income early.

It can get ugly and expensive. This deduction is solely for being able to deduct medical expenses.

As with many things tax related, there are ways to make medical expenses significantly more deductible, it just takes some planning and strategy.

I highly recommend working with both your health insurance professional and CPA to make sure you are maximizing your ability to deduct medical expenses, especially if you are self-employed!

As always, please feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss what would be best for YOUR business. I LOVE chatting with Fire Nation!

*Bonus* Claim your spot in Josh’s FREE Course on Business Entities!

David Lizerbram’s Legal Tip

Best Practices for Online Brands

If you’re doing business online, you should take a few steps to make sure that you’re establishing ownership of your brand.

Just because your brand is based online rather than in a physical location doesn’t mean that the rules don’t apply.

Start by recognizing that your brand name is legally considered a “trademark.” So the rules and advice for trademarks also apply to your online brand.

Do Your Due Diligence

Under U.S. law, if a competitor is using the same (or a similar) brand, or trademark, and they started before you did, then they’re considered the “Senior User” and their rights are superior. This means that you should carefully search to be sure that the brand name is unique and nobody else is using it for similar services or products.

Just searching the U.S. Trademark website is not enough – although it’s a good start.

A more thorough search is a better idea. Some people have the resources to do this due diligence on their own, while others hire a trademark lawyer to do the search for them.

Protect Your Brand

OK, you’ve found that your new brand is unique and nobody else has a legal claim on it.

What now?

There are four steps you should take:

1. Get your brand out there!

Since trademark rights are acquired through use in commerce, the sooner and more publicly you start using it, the faster you will acquire those rights.

Lots of people think the opposite is true – that they have to keep their brand name a secret. If you get that advice, ignore it. As long as you’ve determined that your preferred brand is available, it’s usually best to publicize it as soon as possible.

2. File to register your brand with the trademark office.

Again, this is something that some people do on their own, or through some online services, but studies show that trademark applications that are filed by attorneys are more likely to go through and become registered trademarks.

Do your research, talk to multiple attorneys, and find the one who’s the best fit for you and your business.

3. Secure your brand name for all the different social media accounts that you might want to use.

When a new social media services debuts, act quickly and grab your brand name before somebody else does!

4. Get as many domain names as you can.

Think of how someone might misspell your brand, and get those domain names, too – you can just redirect them to your site.

In my experience, lots of entrepreneurs skip this last step. They get MyBrand.com but not variations on the words in their brand name. Then someone else comes along, grabs a domain name with a slightly different spelling, and starts causing trouble.

The cost to get the domain name back can turn into thousands of dollars, when the entrepreneur could have gotten the alternate domain names for next to nothing if they’d been proactive about it!

So, to summarize, always do your due diligence and follow the few simple steps above to protect your online brand. If you do, you’ll be well on your way to creating valuable intellectual property that you can own and benefit from for years to come.

If you have a legal question that you’d like me to cover on a future Income Report shoot me an email with your request! I’ll be sure to give you a shout-out when I join John & Kate to talk about your legal questions!

*Bonus* Download David’s FREE Checklist on Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs!

What Went Down In September

Entrepreneurs On Fire Celebrates 5 Years!

For four years straight we’ve been celebrating Entrepreneurs On Fire’s birthday in Maine, but year five brought a new kind of party – this time, in Puerto Rico.

We’ve talked about our community in Puerto Rico many times on these income reports since settling in. We’ve made some amazing friends and truly created a community in Palmas Del Mar. We even refer to ourselves as the Palmas Power Couples :)

As is common with most weekends in Palmas, someone hosts some type of get together – a brunch, a Friday night couple’s game night, a Sunday bbq… We’re never at a loss for things to do!

The weekend of September 2nd was really no different: Mark and Krista, Founders of American Posture Institute, were hosting a BBQ at their place on Saturday afternoon at [12:30].

Because a lot of people in Puerto Rico are, well… on “Puerto Rico time”, John and I didn’t really think twice about leaving our place around [12:45] and showing up at 1pm.

As we drove into the gate and up to Mark and Krista’s house, we saw Mark standing outside.

John and I both thought to ourselves that this was a little strange: Mark greeting us outside?

But maybe he was just waiting for someone who didn’t know exactly where they lived…

So we get out of the car and start sun-screening up, and Mark was being a little pushy – like “come on guys, let’s do this!”

Again, didn’t really think too much of it; Mark is an excitable guy ;)

So we follow Mark inside, and walking through their living room we notice a huge picture of John on their TV – you know, the one with his hair and arms on fire.

Hhmmmm… okay, that’s definitely odd. We know our Palmas crew are fans of the show, but this was definitely a little out of place.

So we continue to follow Mark out back where the pool and BBQ area is, and we walk outside and notice a few streamers and some pictures hanging all around their awnings. Now Krista is super creative and loves to decorate, so again, we just thought “oh cute – Krista really did an awesome job with the decorations!”

As we continued walking out and into the BBQ area, we suddenly saw 20 of our closest friends from our Palmas crew standing there, decked out head to toe in orange, yelling out “Surprise! Happy 5-year anniversary!”

John and I were both SO SHOCKED!

The crew did such an amazing job of hiding it; we had NO IDEA!

We are so incredibly grateful for the friends we’ve met since moving to Palmas Del Mar; they’re thoughtful, giving, and they keep us on our toes! And they’re A LOT of fun to be around :)

A huge shout out to the Palmas Power Couples for bringing the heat and helping us celebrate 5 years with Entrepreneurs On Fire!

Hurricane Irma misses; Maria hits Puerto Rico

It was actually at the BBQ we all started talking about and tracking Hurricane Irma, which was about 3-4 days off the East coast of Puerto Rico.

With a few Puerto Rico veterans in the house feeling pretty confident that Irma wasn’t going to hit PR, everyone had full intention of staying put. And stay put they did.

However, that same night I was faced with a really tough decision.

It was September 2, and on September 8 I had a flight out of PR to San Diego to visit my family before heading to Austin to speak at an event.

That would be just 2 days post-Irma, and I was pretty nervous about my flight on the 8th getting canceled – and potentially being stuck in PR – if I didn’t get out of there ahead of Irma.

So I booked one of the last flights that would leave PR before Irma hit: Tuesday afternoon, Sept 5th.

With a worry in my gut that I’ve never felt before, I boarded a plane to FL where I’d connect to San Diego. All I could think about was John being there by himself.

Luckily, the Palmas crew had other plans for Wednesday, September 6th: a Hurricane Party at Ted and Arleen’s place :)

I found a lot of comfort in the fact that John would be with everyone, and Irma came and went without too much damage done in our community. A couple of fallen street signs and some downed trees, but nowhere near the type of damage that could have been had Irma hit PR head on.

  Judging from the first image below, you can see Puerto Rico wasn’t directly in Irma’s path, but you can see in the second image that PR certainly didn’t go untouched either.

There was a lot of damage done to the capital, San Juan, and sure enough, the same day I few out of PR, my flight on September 8th was canceled.

As Irma passed, the island of Puerto Rico let out a huge sigh of relief. There was of a course major concern for the islands behind us that had just been massively impacted, and a lot of thoughts and prayers being sent ahead to FL and the East Coast.

Within days members of our Palmas crew were at Sam’s Club and Costco purchasing food, water and supplies to ship out to the islands around us. With a little loving help from a neighboring island, PR was doing what it could to restore some type of normalcy around it.

But right on the heels of Irma we caught wind of another hurricane that could be danger for PR: Hurricane Jose.

Luckily, within a couple of days, the threat of Jose hitting PR didn’t exist.

But it wasn’t 48 hours later we heard about Hurricane Maria.

Not only had Maria picked up speed incredibly quickly – going from a Cat 1 to a Cat 5 within a day – but she was tracking further South than Irma, a fact that didn’t bode well for PR.

The response to the news of Hurricane Maria was drastically different from that of Irma. Veteran Puerto Ricans were rushing to the store and stocking up on supplies, and unlike Irma, over half of our crew was scrambling to find a flight off the island.

While John was seriously considering staying in PR, the path of Maria only got scarier. By Sunday, September 17th there were zero flights off the island that weren’t already full.

Hurricane Maria was starting to get VERY real.

And on Monday morning, I got a call from John. Our friends Ginni and Tony had sent their two kids in a chartered jet with another family from Palmas, leaving 1 plane ticket available for whoever wanted it.

By Monday evening, after a lot of phone time with Jet Blue and some very close calls, John had a ticket for a flight Tuesday evening, September 19th, at 5:30pm.

Just about 3pm that day I heard the airport would be closing at 7pm.

John was literally one of the last flights off the island ahead of Maria.

As you can see from the images below, there was absolutely no doubt that Maria would hit PR. It was just a matter of where.

In the last image below, that star represents our community.

Hurricane Maria hit within 10 miles of Palmas Del Mar.

The next 72 hours were terrible.

We knew exactly who had stayed in Palmas, and we hadn’t heard from any of them.

It wasn’t until Friday afternoon – more than 50 hours after Maria hit – that we finally got a phone call from Ted & Arleen confirming they were safe, but that Palmas was in very bad shape.

It was a breathe of fresh air to hear from them, but in a very strange way. The news they were sharing, the experience, and their surroundings didn’t sound real.

Even once we saw pictures of our community and home from those who were actually there on the ground (not the news, or CNN, or the Internet), it was still hard to come to terms with what Puerto Rico is going through right now.

This is an image looking down our street. The last time we saw it, it was lined with beautiful, fluffy green trees.

Below is an image of one of our favorite restaurants, not a quarter mile from our house, La Pescaderia. Luckily the main part of the restaurant was boarded up, but the entire property still sustained terrible damage.

Our favorite beach bar, Beach Bohio, was completely washed away.

Photo credit, Travis Chappell

We’re very blessed that everyone in the community made it through Maria without injury, and we continue to send our thoughts and love down to the island every day.

My flight back to Puerto Rico has been canceled twice now, leaving us unaware of when we’ll even be able to make it back to our home.

Most of Puerto Rico, including our community of Palmas Del Mar, continues to be without power, without water, without access to gas and diesel, and without the supply chain that can help breathe life back into a devastated area.

Thankfully we finally have more regular contact with our friends in Palmas. While they have to drive 40-50 minutes for service to call, they’ve been incredibly awesome about doing so.

We’re also incredibly grateful to everyone who has reached out and offered to help. Thank you!

The relief efforts are underway, but unfortunately the infrastructure isn’t present to support those efforts. We wish we had a better way to help, but right now what Puerto Rico needs is trucks with gas, clear roads, and drivers who can haul supplies throughout the island.

If Maria has done one thing for us, it’s put everything in perspective.

Screw U Live 2017

Amidst Maria I was prepping for a weekend in Austin for our great friends Jill & Josh Stanton’s live event: Screw U Live.

The event is put on for their community, Screw U, and this year it brought together nearly 100 incredible entrepreneurs who are working towards – or who recently have – screwed their 9 to 5.

Because of Hurricane Maria, John was able to join us, which was a great treat!

The 2-day event featured seven speakers, including Jill & Josh, and to say value was dropped would be an understatement!

Perhaps the biggest takeaway of the weekend was the power of community and knowing you’re not alone.

The opening keynote following Jill & Josh’s talk was James Wedmore, who took the group through some incredible exercises to help determine what their business will look like when it’s done being built.

He also asked a very critical question to help attendees breakthrough the doubts and the imposter syndrome that gets all of us at one time or another:

How does a company like that look and act?

If you take the time to sit down and really map out what your business looks like when it’s done being built, and then ask yourself how a company like that looks and acts, you’ll be surprised at what you come up with.

The final step James covered: now that you know, ACT like it.

I took a few notes throughout the event, and I’m excited to share some of those right here in our income report, including the 4 biggest lessons Jill & Josh shared from their 4 years in business.

4 Lessons in 4 Years

1. Surround yourself with people who get it

Because let’s be real: the people you surround yourself with lift you up, encourage creativity, and affect your behavior.

2. Invest in yourself

Invest in yourself and others will invest in you.

Investing in yourself builds confidence, increases competence, and helps you build connections.

3. Comparison is a killer

Compare yourself to others and they will compare you.

When you compare yourself to others who are “ahead of you” in business, you end up copying and copying ends in bad results.

Be unique.

4. Momentum is the lifeblood of entrepreneurs

Momentum breeds invention!

A huge shout out to Jill & Josh Stanton of Screw the 9 to 5 for bringing the heat, creating a space for entrepreneurs to connect and thrive together, and for hosting one hell of an event!

If you’re looking for a supportive, upbeat community to help support you on your journey to screwin’ the 9 to 5 and building the business of your dreams, check out Screw U!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 2017 Income Breakdown*

Product/Service Income: $121,907

TOTAL Journal sales: 696 Journals for a total of $26,365

The Freedom Journal: Accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days!

TheFreedomJournal.com: $3,418 (77 Hardcovers & 19 Digital Packs sold!)

Amazon: $10,452 (275 Freedom Journals sold!)

Total: $13,870

The Mastery Journal: Master Productivity, Discipline and Focus in 100 days!

TheMasteryJournal.com: $4,656 (106 Hardcovers & 11 Digital Packs sold!)

Amazon: $7,839 (208 Mastery Journals sold!)

Total: $12,495

Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 Podcasting community in the world!

Recurring: $18,593 (193 monthly)

New members: $7,575 (38 new members)

Total: $26,168

Podcast Sponsorship Income: $64,000

Podcast Websites: $5,000 Your all-in-one podcast website peace of mind

Skills On Fire: $62

Podcast Launch: Audiobook: $268 | eBook: $44

Free Courses that result in the above revenue:

Free Podcast Course: A free 15-day course on Podcasting

Free Webinar Course: A free 10-day course on Webinars

Free Goals Course: A free 8-day course on Setting & Accomplishing Goals

Funnel On Fire: A free 8-day course on Creating a Funnel that Converts!

Kickstarter On Fire: A free 5-day course on going from Idea to Launch on Kickstarter!

Affiliate Income: $85,442

*Affiliate links below

Resources for Entrepreneurs: $57,041

Audible: $449

BlueHost: $1,200 (Step-by-step guide and 23 WordPress tutorials)

Click Funnels: $38,774

Coaching referrals: $0 (email me for an introduction to a mentor for overall online business or a Podcast focused mentor!)

Mentorship: $15,000

ConvertKit: $142

Disclaimer Template: $198 (legal disclaimers for your website)

Fizzle: $186

LeadPages: $824

SamCart: $0

Thinkific: $268

Virtual Staff Finder: $0

Courses for Entrepreneurs: $25,672

Create Awesome Online Courses by DSG: $13,990

Webinars that convert by Amy Porterfield: $4,123

Zero to Launch by Ramit Sethi: $0

10k Readers by : $94

The Amazing Seller by Scott Voelker: $742

10k Subscribers by Bryan Harris: $98

Copywriting Academy by Ray Edwards: $884

Podcast Guest Mastery by Richie Norton: $0

ASK by Ryan Levesque: $5,741

Resources for Podcasters: $1,965

Pat Flynn’s Smart Podcast Player: $115

Podcasting Press: $20

Libsyn: $1,690 (Use promo code FIRE for the rest of this month & next free!)

UDemy Podcasting Course: $109

Show Notes Creation by Mallard Creative: $31

Other Resources: $764

Amazon Associates: $674

Other: $90

Total Gross Income in September: $207,349

Business Expenses: $40,461

Advertising: $997

Affiliate Commissions (Paradise): $1,643

Accounting: $350

Cost of goods sold: $3,715

Design & Branding: $2,155

Education: $149

Legal & Professional: $0

Marketing: $20

Meals & Entertainment: $1,428

Merchant / bank fees: $1,526

Amazon fees: $6,512

Shopify fees: $91

Stripe fees: $3

PayPal fees: $409

Office expenses: $275

Payroll Tax Expenses / Fees: $1,454

Paradise Refunds: $1,545

Total Launch Package fees: $0

Promotional: $36

Sponsorships: $9,000

Show notes (email Mallard Creative!): $480

The Freedom & Mastery Journal: $0

Travel: $1,814

Virtual Assistant Fees: $5,293

Website Fees: $1,566

Recurring, Subscription-based Expenses: $4,374

Adobe Creative Cloud: $100

Boomerang: $70 (team package)

Brandisty: $24

Authorize.net: $91

Cell Phone: $165 (Thank you, ShrinkABill!)

eCamm Call Recorder: $39 (1-time download)

Google: $45

Internet: $300

eVoice: $10

Infusionsoft CRM: $396

Insurance: $551

Libsyn: $271

Manychat: $64

Chatroll: $49

PureChat: $20

ScheduleOnce: $9

Screenflow: $39 (1-time upgrade)

Skype: $3

Shopify: $176

TaxJar: $19

Workflowy: $5

WPEngine: $49

MeetEdgar: $49

Taxes & Licenses: $300

Quiz Funnel: $1,500 (1-time setup)

Zapier: $15

Zoom: $15

Total Expenses in September: $44,835

Payroll to John & Kate: $15,900

In our May 2014 Income Report and our June 2016 Income Report, Josh focuses on how to pay yourself as an entrepreneur. Check them out!

Wondering what we do with all of our net revenue? We share all in our April 2017 Income Report :)

Total Net Profit for September 2017: $162,514

Biggest Lesson Learned

This too shall pass

As I sit here on my friends couch in NYC, I’m reflecting upon this quote.

When things in life are going INCREDIBLE, it’s important to remember This Too Shall Pass, and enjoy the moment.

When things are going TERRIBLE, it’s important to remember This Too Shall Pass, and not dwell on the negative.

Currently, much of our home in Puerto Rico is destroyed courtesy of hurricane Maria, and I could dwell on that reality.

Instead, I choose the mindset of This Too Shall Pass, and I know there will be a day where our place in PR is beautiful once again.

What is going great in your life Fire Nation?

ENJOY that.

What is going poorly?

Don’t DWELL on that.

Below is one picture of the devastation hurricane Maria wreaked upon my home…

I look forward to posting another photo months from now when our home is whole once again.

Remember, This Too Shall Pass.

Alright Fire Nation, that’s a wrap!

Until next month, keep your FIRE burning!

~ Kate & John

Note: we report our income figures as accurately as possible, but in using reports from a combo of Infusionsoft & Xero to track our product and total income / expenses, they suggest the possibility of a 3 – 5% margin of error. 

Click here for all of EOFire’s Income Reports

This post was written by Kate Erickson, Content Creator and Implementer at EOFire. Follow Kate on Social:

The post Entrepreneurs On Fire: September 2017 Income Report appeared first on Entrepreneurs on Fire with John Lee Dumas.

          via EntrepreneurOnFire.com | Inspiring interviews w/ today's most successful Entrepreneurs http://ift.tt/2xhyFCY

[almostsuperdream]

Entrepreneurs On Fire: September 2017 Income Report

September 2017 Income At-A-Glance

Gross Income for September: $207,349

Total Expenses for September: $44,835

Total Net Profit for September: $162,514

Difference b/t September & August: -$7,017

Why We Publish An Income Report

This monthly income report is created for you, Fire Nation!

By documenting the struggles we encounter and the successes we celebrate as entrepreneurs every single month, we’re able to provide you with support – and a single resource – where we share what’s working, what’s not, and what’s possible.

There’s a lot of hard work that goes into learning and growing as an entrepreneur, especially when you’re just starting out. The most important part of the equation is that you’re able to pass on what you learn to others through teaching, which is what we aim to do here.

Let’s IGNITE!

**We’ll receive a commission on the affiliate links below.

Josh Bauerle’s Monthly Tax Tip

How to deduct medical related expenses

What’s up Fire Nation, my name is Josh Bauerle. I’m a CPA and the Founder of CPA On Fire, where we specialize in working with entrepreneurs to minimize their tax liability while keeping them in line with the ever-changing tax laws.

I’ve been working with JLD & Kate at Entrepreneurs On Fire for years now, and they’ve included me in these monthly income reports with unlimited access to all their accounts so I can verify that what they report here is complete and accurate.

And because they believe in delivering an insane amount of value to you, my job doesn’t stop at the verification level; I also provide a new tax and accounting tip every month!

Last month we discussed medical related expenses and I had to give a lot of bad news about just how deductible (or nondeductible) those medical expenses actually are on your taxes.

Unfortunately, for most people, medical expenses won’t be deductible at all, and for the few who can deduct them, it will likely be a small portion of the actual amounts paid.

This month, I’m going to give a bit better news. There are a few ways to make medical expenses more deductible, and these tips are even more applicable to self-employed people.

Here are two ways to drastically increase the amount of medical related expenses you can deduct on your taxes.

1. Self-Employed Health Insurance Deduction

We talk a lot about how the tax code favors entrepreneurs, and the health insurance deduction is a great example of that.

For those employed in a traditional job that have to pick up private health insurance, in order to deduct the premiums they are limited by what we discussed last month.

First, they have to itemize and second, even if they do itemize, those costs are still reduced by 10 percent of your adjusted gross income.

For those who are self-employed, the rules are much more favorable.

If you are self-employed and are not eligible for a group plan through your spouses job, you are able to deduct the entire amount of your health insurance premiums without itemizing and without the 10% income limitation.

Anyone who has had to purchase private insurance and seen the costs involved knows this is a huge advantage.

For those with a family, it could easily be a $10,000 or more tax deduction that employees in similar situations are not able to take.

And you don’t need to have the health insurance plan run through your business to count. It can just be a regular, private health insurance plan. As long as you are self-employed and don’t have any group plan available to you, you will qualify.

Leveraging HSA’s

The self-employed health insurance deduction is great for deducting the health insurance premiums, but what about actual medical expenses? Is there a way to make some of those tax deductible without the crazy itemized and ten percent of income limitations?

Believe it or not, the answer is actually yes – if you can get a health insurance plan that allows an HSA as a part of it.

A health savings account, or HSA, allows you to put up to $3,400 for an individual or $6,750 for a family into a savings account that is used specifically for medical related expenses.

The benefit?

Every dollar you put in there is a write-off on your tax return.

This is essentially a shortcut for being able to deduct between $3,400 and $6,750 of those medical expenses on your taxes without those pesky limitations the IRS likes to put on you.

One word of caution on this one: once you put the money in the HSA, do not take it out for non-medical related reasons. Doing so can subject you to similar penalties to taking out retirement income early.

It can get ugly and expensive. This deduction is solely for being able to deduct medical expenses.

As with many things tax related, there are ways to make medical expenses significantly more deductible, it just takes some planning and strategy.

I highly recommend working with both your health insurance professional and CPA to make sure you are maximizing your ability to deduct medical expenses, especially if you are self-employed!

As always, please feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss what would be best for YOUR business. I LOVE chatting with Fire Nation!

*Bonus* Claim your spot in Josh’s FREE Course on Business Entities!

David Lizerbram’s Legal Tip

Best Practices for Online Brands

If you’re doing business online, you should take a few steps to make sure that you’re establishing ownership of your brand.

Just because your brand is based online rather than in a physical location doesn’t mean that the rules don’t apply.

Start by recognizing that your brand name is legally considered a “trademark.” So the rules and advice for trademarks also apply to your online brand.

Do Your Due Diligence

Under U.S. law, if a competitor is using the same (or a similar) brand, or trademark, and they started before you did, then they’re considered the “Senior User” and their rights are superior. This means that you should carefully search to be sure that the brand name is unique and nobody else is using it for similar services or products.

Just searching the U.S. Trademark website is not enough – although it’s a good start.

A more thorough search is a better idea. Some people have the resources to do this due diligence on their own, while others hire a trademark lawyer to do the search for them.

Protect Your Brand

OK, you’ve found that your new brand is unique and nobody else has a legal claim on it.

What now?

There are four steps you should take:

1. Get your brand out there!

Since trademark rights are acquired through use in commerce, the sooner and more publicly you start using it, the faster you will acquire those rights.

Lots of people think the opposite is true – that they have to keep their brand name a secret. If you get that advice, ignore it. As long as you’ve determined that your preferred brand is available, it’s usually best to publicize it as soon as possible.

2. File to register your brand with the trademark office.

Again, this is something that some people do on their own, or through some online services, but studies show that trademark applications that are filed by attorneys are more likely to go through and become registered trademarks.

Do your research, talk to multiple attorneys, and find the one who’s the best fit for you and your business.

3. Secure your brand name for all the different social media accounts that you might want to use.

When a new social media services debuts, act quickly and grab your brand name before somebody else does!

4. Get as many domain names as you can.

Think of how someone might misspell your brand, and get those domain names, too – you can just redirect them to your site.

In my experience, lots of entrepreneurs skip this last step. They get MyBrand.com but not variations on the words in their brand name. Then someone else comes along, grabs a domain name with a slightly different spelling, and starts causing trouble.

The cost to get the domain name back can turn into thousands of dollars, when the entrepreneur could have gotten the alternate domain names for next to nothing if they’d been proactive about it!

So, to summarize, always do your due diligence and follow the few simple steps above to protect your online brand. If you do, you’ll be well on your way to creating valuable intellectual property that you can own and benefit from for years to come.

If you have a legal question that you’d like me to cover on a future Income Report shoot me an email with your request! I’ll be sure to give you a shout-out when I join John & Kate to talk about your legal questions!

*Bonus* Download David’s FREE Checklist on Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs!

What Went Down In September

Entrepreneurs On Fire Celebrates 5 Years!

For four years straight we’ve been celebrating Entrepreneurs On Fire’s birthday in Maine, but year five brought a new kind of party – this time, in Puerto Rico.

We’ve talked about our community in Puerto Rico many times on these income reports since settling in. We’ve made some amazing friends and truly created a community in Palmas Del Mar. We even refer to ourselves as the Palmas Power Couples :)

As is common with most weekends in Palmas, someone hosts some type of get together – a brunch, a Friday night couple’s game night, a Sunday bbq… We’re never at a loss for things to do!

The weekend of September 2nd was really no different: Mark and Krista, Founders of American Posture Institute, were hosting a BBQ at their place on Saturday afternoon at [12:30].

Because a lot of people in Puerto Rico are, well… on “Puerto Rico time”, John and I didn’t really think twice about leaving our place around [12:45] and showing up at 1pm.

As we drove into the gate and up to Mark and Krista’s house, we saw Mark standing outside.

John and I both thought to ourselves that this was a little strange: Mark greeting us outside?

But maybe he was just waiting for someone who didn’t know exactly where they lived…

So we get out of the car and start sun-screening up, and Mark was being a little pushy – like “come on guys, let’s do this!”

Again, didn’t really think too much of it; Mark is an excitable guy ;)

So we follow Mark inside, and walking through their living room we notice a huge picture of John on their TV – you know, the one with his hair and arms on fire.

Hhmmmm… okay, that’s definitely odd. We know our Palmas crew are fans of the show, but this was definitely a little out of place.

So we continue to follow Mark out back where the pool and BBQ area is, and we walk outside and notice a few streamers and some pictures hanging all around their awnings. Now Krista is super creative and loves to decorate, so again, we just thought “oh cute – Krista really did an awesome job with the decorations!”

As we continued walking out and into the BBQ area, we suddenly saw 20 of our closest friends from our Palmas crew standing there, decked out head to toe in orange, yelling out “Surprise! Happy 5-year anniversary!”

John and I were both SO SHOCKED!

The crew did such an amazing job of hiding it; we had NO IDEA!

We are so incredibly grateful for the friends we’ve met since moving to Palmas Del Mar; they’re thoughtful, giving, and they keep us on our toes! And they’re A LOT of fun to be around :)

A huge shout out to the Palmas Power Couples for bringing the heat and helping us celebrate 5 years with Entrepreneurs On Fire!

Hurricane Irma misses; Maria hits Puerto Rico

It was actually at the BBQ we all started talking about and tracking Hurricane Irma, which was about 3-4 days off the East coast of Puerto Rico.

With a few Puerto Rico veterans in the house feeling pretty confident that Irma wasn’t going to hit PR, everyone had full intention of staying put. And stay put they did.

However, that same night I was faced with a really tough decision.

It was September 2, and on September 8 I had a flight out of PR to San Diego to visit my family before heading to Austin to speak at an event.

That would be just 2 days post-Irma, and I was pretty nervous about my flight on the 8th getting canceled – and potentially being stuck in PR – if I didn’t get out of there ahead of Irma.

So I booked one of the last flights that would leave PR before Irma hit: Tuesday afternoon, Sept 5th.

With a worry in my gut that I’ve never felt before, I boarded a plane to FL where I’d connect to San Diego. All I could think about was John being there by himself.

Luckily, the Palmas crew had other plans for Wednesday, September 6th: a Hurricane Party at Ted and Arleen’s place :)

I found a lot of comfort in the fact that John would be with everyone, and Irma came and went without too much damage done in our community. A couple of fallen street signs and some downed trees, but nowhere near the type of damage that could have been had Irma hit PR head on.

  Judging from the first image below, you can see Puerto Rico wasn’t directly in Irma’s path, but you can see in the second image that PR certainly didn’t go untouched either.

There was a lot of damage done to the capital, San Juan, and sure enough, the same day I few out of PR, my flight on September 8th was canceled.

As Irma passed, the island of Puerto Rico let out a huge sigh of relief. There was of a course major concern for the islands behind us that had just been massively impacted, and a lot of thoughts and prayers being sent ahead to FL and the East Coast.

Within days members of our Palmas crew were at Sam’s Club and Costco purchasing food, water and supplies to ship out to the islands around us. With a little loving help from a neighboring island, PR was doing what it could to restore some type of normalcy around it.

But right on the heels of Irma we caught wind of another hurricane that could be danger for PR: Hurricane Jose.

Luckily, within a couple of days, the threat of Jose hitting PR didn’t exist.

But it wasn’t 48 hours later we heard about Hurricane Maria.

Not only had Maria picked up speed incredibly quickly – going from a Cat 1 to a Cat 5 within a day – but she was tracking further South than Irma, a fact that didn’t bode well for PR.

The response to the news of Hurricane Maria was drastically different from that of Irma. Veteran Puerto Ricans were rushing to the store and stocking up on supplies, and unlike Irma, over half of our crew was scrambling to find a flight off the island.

While John was seriously considering staying in PR, the path of Maria only got scarier. By Sunday, September 17th there were zero flights off the island that weren’t already full.

Hurricane Maria was starting to get VERY real.

And on Monday morning, I got a call from John. Our friends Ginni and Tony had sent their two kids in a chartered jet with another family from Palmas, leaving 1 plane ticket available for whoever wanted it.

By Monday evening, after a lot of phone time with Jet Blue and some very close calls, John had a ticket for a flight Tuesday evening, September 19th, at 5:30pm.

Just about 3pm that day I heard the airport would be closing at 7pm.

John was literally one of the last flights off the island ahead of Maria.

As you can see from the images below, there was absolutely no doubt that Maria would hit PR. It was just a matter of where.

In the last image below, that star represents our community.

Hurricane Maria hit within 10 miles of Palmas Del Mar.

The next 72 hours were terrible.

We knew exactly who had stayed in Palmas, and we hadn’t heard from any of them.

It wasn’t until Friday afternoon – more than 50 hours after Maria hit – that we finally got a phone call from Ted & Arleen confirming they were safe, but that Palmas was in very bad shape.

It was a breathe of fresh air to hear from them, but in a very strange way. The news they were sharing, the experience, and their surroundings didn’t sound real.

Even once we saw pictures of our community and home from those who were actually there on the ground (not the news, or CNN, or the Internet), it was still hard to come to terms with what Puerto Rico is going through right now.

This is an image looking down our street. The last time we saw it, it was lined with beautiful, fluffy green trees.

Below is an image of one of our favorite restaurants, not a quarter mile from our house, La Pescaderia. Luckily the main part of the restaurant was boarded up, but the entire property still sustained terrible damage.

Our favorite beach bar, Beach Bohio, was completely washed away.

Photo credit, Travis Chappell

We’re very blessed that everyone in the community made it through Maria without injury, and we continue to send our thoughts and love down to the island every day.

My flight back to Puerto Rico has been canceled twice now, leaving us unaware of when we’ll even be able to make it back to our home.

Most of Puerto Rico, including our community of Palmas Del Mar, continues to be without power, without water, without access to gas and diesel, and without the supply chain that can help breathe life back into a devastated area.

Thankfully we finally have more regular contact with our friends in Palmas. While they have to drive 40-50 minutes for service to call, they’ve been incredibly awesome about doing so.

We’re also incredibly grateful to everyone who has reached out and offered to help. Thank you!

The relief efforts are underway, but unfortunately the infrastructure isn’t present to support those efforts. We wish we had a better way to help, but right now what Puerto Rico needs is trucks with gas, clear roads, and drivers who can haul supplies throughout the island.

If Maria has done one thing for us, it’s put everything in perspective.

Screw U Live 2017

Amidst Maria I was prepping for a weekend in Austin for our great friends Jill & Josh Stanton’s live event: Screw U Live.

The event is put on for their community, Screw U, and this year it brought together nearly 100 incredible entrepreneurs who are working towards – or who recently have – screwed their 9 to 5.

Because of Hurricane Maria, John was able to join us, which was a great treat!

The 2-day event featured seven speakers, including Jill & Josh, and to say value was dropped would be an understatement!

Perhaps the biggest takeaway of the weekend was the power of community and knowing you’re not alone.

The opening keynote following Jill & Josh’s talk was James Wedmore, who took the group through some incredible exercises to help determine what their business will look like when it’s done being built.

He also asked a very critical question to help attendees breakthrough the doubts and the imposter syndrome that gets all of us at one time or another:

How does a company like that look and act?

If you take the time to sit down and really map out what your business looks like when it’s done being built, and then ask yourself how a company like that looks and acts, you’ll be surprised at what you come up with.

The final step James covered: now that you know, ACT like it.

I took a few notes throughout the event, and I’m excited to share some of those right here in our income report, including the 4 biggest lessons Jill & Josh shared from their 4 years in business.

4 Lessons in 4 Years

1. Surround yourself with people who get it

Because let’s be real: the people you surround yourself with lift you up, encourage creativity, and affect your behavior.

2. Invest in yourself

Invest in yourself and others will invest in you.

Investing in yourself builds confidence, increases competence, and helps you build connections.

3. Comparison is a killer

Compare yourself to others and they will compare you.

When you compare yourself to others who are “ahead of you” in business, you end up copying and copying ends in bad results.

Be unique.

4. Momentum is the lifeblood of entrepreneurs

Momentum breeds invention!

A huge shout out to Jill & Josh Stanton of Screw the 9 to 5 for bringing the heat, creating a space for entrepreneurs to connect and thrive together, and for hosting one hell of an event!

If you’re looking for a supportive, upbeat community to help support you on your journey to screwin’ the 9 to 5 and building the business of your dreams, check out Screw U!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

September 2017 Income Breakdown*

Product/Service Income: $121,907

TOTAL Journal sales: 696 Journals for a total of $26,365

The Freedom Journal: Accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days!

TheFreedomJournal.com: $3,418 (77 Hardcovers & 19 Digital Packs sold!)

Amazon: $10,452 (275 Freedom Journals sold!)

Total: $13,870

The Mastery Journal: Master Productivity, Discipline and Focus in 100 days!

TheMasteryJournal.com: $4,656 (106 Hardcovers & 11 Digital Packs sold!)

Amazon: $7,839 (208 Mastery Journals sold!)

Total: $12,495

Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 Podcasting community in the world!

Recurring: $18,593 (193 monthly)

New members: $7,575 (38 new members)

Total: $26,168

Podcast Sponsorship Income: $64,000

Podcast Websites: $5,000 Your all-in-one podcast website peace of mind

Skills On Fire: $62

Podcast Launch: Audiobook: $268 | eBook: $44

Free Courses that result in the above revenue:

Free Podcast Course: A free 15-day course on Podcasting

Free Webinar Course: A free 10-day course on Webinars

Free Goals Course: A free 8-day course on Setting & Accomplishing Goals

Funnel On Fire: A free 8-day course on Creating a Funnel that Converts!

Kickstarter On Fire: A free 5-day course on going from Idea to Launch on Kickstarter!

Affiliate Income: $85,442

*Affiliate links below

Resources for Entrepreneurs: $57,041

Audible: $449

BlueHost: $1,200 (Step-by-step guide and 23 WordPress tutorials)

Click Funnels: $38,774

Coaching referrals: $0 (email me for an introduction to a mentor for overall online business or a Podcast focused mentor!)

Mentorship: $15,000

ConvertKit: $142

Disclaimer Template: $198 (legal disclaimers for your website)

Fizzle: $186

LeadPages: $824

SamCart: $0

Thinkific: $268

Virtual Staff Finder: $0

Courses for Entrepreneurs: $25,672

Create Awesome Online Courses by DSG: $13,990

Webinars that convert by Amy Porterfield: $4,123

Zero to Launch by Ramit Sethi: $0

10k Readers by : $94

The Amazing Seller by Scott Voelker: $742

10k Subscribers by Bryan Harris: $98

Copywriting Academy by Ray Edwards: $884

Podcast Guest Mastery by Richie Norton: $0

ASK by Ryan Levesque: $5,741

Resources for Podcasters: $1,965

Pat Flynn’s Smart Podcast Player: $115

Podcasting Press: $20

Libsyn: $1,690 (Use promo code FIRE for the rest of this month & next free!)

UDemy Podcasting Course: $109

Show Notes Creation by Mallard Creative: $31

Other Resources: $764

Amazon Associates: $674

Other: $90

Total Gross Income in September: $207,349

Business Expenses: $40,461

Advertising: $997

Affiliate Commissions (Paradise): $1,643

Accounting: $350

Cost of goods sold: $3,715

Design & Branding: $2,155

Education: $149

Legal & Professional: $0

Marketing: $20

Meals & Entertainment: $1,428

Merchant / bank fees: $1,526

Amazon fees: $6,512

Shopify fees: $91

Stripe fees: $3

PayPal fees: $409

Office expenses: $275

Payroll Tax Expenses / Fees: $1,454

Paradise Refunds: $1,545

Total Launch Package fees: $0

Promotional: $36

Sponsorships: $9,000

Show notes (email Mallard Creative!): $480

The Freedom & Mastery Journal: $0

Travel: $1,814

Virtual Assistant Fees: $5,293

Website Fees: $1,566

Recurring, Subscription-based Expenses: $4,374

Adobe Creative Cloud: $100

Boomerang: $70 (team package)

Brandisty: $24

Authorize.net: $91

Cell Phone: $165 (Thank you, ShrinkABill!)

eCamm Call Recorder: $39 (1-time download)

Google: $45

Internet: $300

eVoice: $10

Infusionsoft CRM: $396

Insurance: $551

Libsyn: $271

Manychat: $64

Chatroll: $49

PureChat: $20

ScheduleOnce: $9

Screenflow: $39 (1-time upgrade)

Skype: $3

Shopify: $176

TaxJar: $19

Workflowy: $5

WPEngine: $49

MeetEdgar: $49

Taxes & Licenses: $300

Quiz Funnel: $1,500 (1-time setup)

Zapier: $15

Zoom: $15

Total Expenses in September: $44,835

Payroll to John & Kate: $15,900

In our May 2014 Income Report and our June 2016 Income Report, Josh focuses on how to pay yourself as an entrepreneur. Check them out!

Wondering what we do with all of our net revenue? We share all in our April 2017 Income Report :)

Total Net Profit for September 2017: $162,514

Biggest Lesson Learned

This too shall pass

As I sit here on my friends couch in NYC, I’m reflecting upon this quote.

When things in life are going INCREDIBLE, it’s important to remember This Too Shall Pass, and enjoy the moment.

When things are going TERRIBLE, it’s important to remember This Too Shall Pass, and not dwell on the negative.

Currently, much of our home in Puerto Rico is destroyed courtesy of hurricane Maria, and I could dwell on that reality.

Instead, I choose the mindset of This Too Shall Pass, and I know there will be a day where our place in PR is beautiful once again.

What is going great in your life Fire Nation?

ENJOY that.

What is going poorly?

Don’t DWELL on that.

Below is one picture of the devastation hurricane Maria wreaked upon my home…

I look forward to posting another photo months from now when our home is whole once again.

Remember, This Too Shall Pass.

Alright Fire Nation, that’s a wrap!

Until next month, keep your FIRE burning!

~ Kate & John

Note: we report our income figures as accurately as possible, but in using reports from a combo of Infusionsoft & Xero to track our product and total income / expenses, they suggest the possibility of a 3 – 5% margin of error. 

Click here for all of EOFire’s Income Reports

This post was written by Kate Erickson, Content Creator and Implementer at EOFire. Follow Kate on Social:

The post Entrepreneurs On Fire: September 2017 Income Report appeared first on Entrepreneurs on Fire with John Lee Dumas.

          from EntrepreneurOnFire.com | Inspiring interviews w/ today's most successful Entrepreneurs http://ift.tt/2xhyFCY