#koreatown

Payable/Receivable, Los Angeles -- June 7th, 2025

Line of palm trees

I'm procrastinating at work spending some time compiling my notes as I get into the second act of Pierced, so I figured I could toss it all here in a stream of consciousness/moodboard sorta thing! Pierced is heavily inspired by my own life in LA. I've lived in a bunch of different neighborhoods over the years - North, West, AND East Hollywood, Silver Lake, and smack in the middle of Ktown. Each has its good and bad, but you can always find fun, cozy spots like Naksso if you spend a little time digging (or walking around.) The facade and outer visual of Naksso was inspired by the Museum of Love, on Melrose and Heliotrope. I love the dark paint with gold accents, the crawling ivy, the planter boxes, the big windows - and the tree that makes it really fucking hard to get a good picture of the place.

The interior of the cafe portion was a great google images rabbit hole to fall into. I included most of my findings in the first chapter to help build my mental image in your head - a space that's really bright and airy, but still cozy and "lived in", if that makes sense. I think Rumi and Zoey would be very intentional in their aesthetic choices, mirroring the outer facade with more of that dark green/grey paint and gold text accents. The best place I found to mirror that vision in my head was the Good Boy Cafe in Dallas, as well as its attached studio space, Koneko. You can read this interview with Linda Bishop, where she explains how she came into the space and slowly expanded it, turning it into equal parts cafe, tattoo studio, beauty salon, and vintage apparel store. (I simply could not imagine writing all that in for a fic, so kudos to her.)

^^^ this is near exactly how I picture the bar and seating where Rumi spends most of her time. The cafe was also going to be a plant shop in my early drafts, but it got too complicated, too fast. Where would Rumi find the time to tend to (and sell) a greenhouse full of plants AND a full scale espresso bar? Make it make sense, y'all.

I wanted Studio Naksso to be its own space, but still have similar throughlines with the cafe. For me, that meant lots of plants and a LOT more art - most of which is Zoey's own original work. I feel like she's got a prodigious output when she sets her mind to it, and is heavily inspired by traditional artists from all eras and cultures, especially American/Japanese/Neo-trad styles. Abby's tattoos are homage to one of my grandpas - he served in the Navy during WWII and never missed any opportunity to go ashore for some ink. I think him, Abby, and Zoey would have gotten along really well. [another studio inspo image here - Tumblr doesn't want to add it to the thread for whatever reason. You get the idea.] I have a picture in my head for what the girls' upstairs space looks like, but I haven't done much image matching for it yet. I think the easiest thing to do might be to draft it up in CAD or PS to show the layout of the space, but that's just a lot more work than I have time for right now, LMAO Suffice to say that it's small, but not cramped, and they've filled it to the brim with little things that make it uniquely theirs. Maybe Mira will have the chance to make some additions as the series goes on, too~ Finally, I want to give a little shoutout to JJAN - which is a real (and fucking amazing) place! I've spent more nights there than I can count, both for work events and more casual hangouts. I didn't even get into the food in Ch.4, but if you can find the time to go see it for yourself, DO it. I hope I did one of my favorite spots justice.