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yoongiseesawmp3 · 4 years

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brown piano - yoongi

i’ve never written fic on this account before so bear with me, but here’s a little something about the only man i trust. and no i will not be capitalizing anything xx

summary: friends to lovers. yoongi and y/n have known each other casually for a couple years and never intended to take their friendship further than a few study groups together or the occasional dinner with friends. but being in the same applied piano class has brought them together, and their mutual love for epik high bonds them more than they’d like to admit.

warnings: language, probably. there’s a couple cliches in here too, i couldn’t help it. i probably only refer to yoongi as a honey dumpling twice

word count: 8.3k (its really just a long ass love letter to bv4/in the soop yoongi)

playlist: end of the world - epik high, gsoul / love song - epik high, park sung woong / go - epik high / can you hear my heart - epik high, lee hi / life is good - epik high, jay park

“fuck,” you whisper, nimble fingers slipping over the wrong keys once again. for a music composition major, you’re pretty lousy at practicing your instrument. mostly because you practice and mess up and get so frustrated that you stop for a minute to scroll through your phone and before you know it, your time in the practice room is over.

the time limit on your practice contributes to your stress, but the keyboard you keep tucked in the corner of your apartment just doesn’t do this song justice. a lot of the students in the school of music ignore this room, because the old brown spinet creaks too much for their “high class” performances, but you like it for its personality and the all-encompassing feeling it gives to your songs. when you play this piano, you can’t help but listen to its song. a keyboard or a grand can easily become background music to you, but this one is stubborn. it will not be ignored, so you come back to it when you need to fall in love with a song again.

the pinging of your phone pulls you out of your daydreams about the daunting black and white keys in front of you, and you check the time left on your reservation before opening your messages.

it’s a text from yoongi, who’s been talking to you more often lately. usually you just exchange pleasantries with each other when your big group of friends happens to get together, but you’re both in this applied piano class and it was nice to have a familiar face among the pretentious students you struggle to get through lectures with.

the quiet music technology major never caught your attention before this class, because he never had much to say when you were talking in passing. but this class has taken your friendship from nonexistent to yoongi texting you semi creepy photos of you through the practice room door with the text “your posture is shit, that’s probably why you keep messing up.” you swivel around on the bench to glance at the door and notice a mop of black hair in the distance. he must be finishing up a session in one of the studios because he’s usually your competition for this practice room. the piano reminds him of the one he played growing up, he says, so it’s the easiest for him to practice on. he’s more gifted than you are however, so he doesn’t need to practice for class as much as you do. hell, he could probably think of a song to play on the spot and still ace the performance midterm without another thought.

“where are you headed?” you text back, shuffling your sheet music together as neatly as possible before you start gathering the rest of your things. “i sounded so bad that you’re running away?”

“no,” he replies, and you can picture his shoulders shaking with a silent laugh. “need coffee.”

“omw,” you text quickly, going from tenderly placing things in your bag to slightly shoving them down enough to zip everything up securely. you gaze sadly at the piano before you leave. you really should try and practice some more, you have a few minutes left in the room, but you let out a sigh and head for the door instead. you need coffee and your dumpling shaped friend right now. hopefully the combination will help you get over some of your stress.

you find yoongi just outside, leaning up against a pillar of the building with his hands in his pockets and a bucket hat that he’s produced out of nowhere pulled over his head. he peeks up at you from under the brim when he hears the rickety doors clang shut, and he smiles slightly before pushing himself off the stone column.

“how’s the song coming?” he asks casually, leading the way to your mutual favorite coffeeshop like it’s second nature. which honestly, it’s getting to be like that. how did you go from barely knowing yoongi to spending almost every day with him?

“uh, my fingers don’t work anymore i think,” you explain. “i’ll get it though. i just need to practice more.”

“i could always help you,” he offers. you quirk an eyebrow at him and he continues. “like, i could listen and maybe watch the way you’re playing, and if there’s a spot you’re constantly messing up on i’ll just know to cough a lot during that part of your performance so the professor doesn’t hear it.”

“wow, who would’ve thought that min yoongi would be my knight in shining armor,” you joke. “what were you working on?”

“another song for my mixtape,” he tells you simply. “i want to sample an epik high song, but i can’t find one that fits the vibe yet.”

“hmm,” you think. “you’ll find one. or you can wait for their new album and use something off of that.”

“yeah, but i won’t have the same connection to those songs that i do with the old ones, you know?”

“then just go back to your favorites. have you tried doing something like lesson one?” you ask as you arrive at the coffeeshop. yoongi opens the door for you and ushers you inside, scooting you out of the way so someone zooming by on a bird scooter doesn’t accidentally clip your heel.

“when i first started working on this i tried doing my own version of it, but i don’t think anything i have to say would be better than tablo,” he explains.

“that’s not how you should be thinking when you’re making music,” you scold. “whatever you make will be worth listening to, and whatever you say in those songs will mean something. thinking like that will only limit what you make, min yoongi.”

he pauses and looks at you with an unreadable expression before he pulls his lips into a straight smile and nods.

“huh. you’re right, y/n,” he sighs.

“and for that little nugget of wisdom,” you say, “you owe me a coffee. toffee n-”

“toffee nut latte with no sugar, i remember,” he says, cutting you off as he pulls out his wallet. “what size?”

“considering i’m a little high strung from not nailing my song yet, probably a small,” you tell him. he nods and orders you a medium anyway and gets a muffin for you two to split. you fall into a comfortable silence as you wait for your order, but yoongi breaks it after checking his phone.

“namjoon wants to know if you’re free this weekend,” he deadpans, making it sound like a statement when it’s meant to be a question.

“i don’t know, why?” you ask, pulling the warmed muffin closer to you. you start picking out one of the chocolate chips before you continue. “isn’t it fall break? i’ll probably stay here and practice. it’s too short of a break for me to go home.”

“apparently we’re all staying in a cabin or a box or something up in the mountains,” yoongi says. “it’s supposed to be a combined birthday trip for him and jungkook, i think it might just be the guys but he says you’re welcome to come with us. he says you look stressed.”

“why does he think i look stressed?!”

“because you do,” namjoon says, popping up beside you from one of the couches against the wall. he must have been buried in a book or his laptop, because neither of you noticed him when you first walked in. he gives you a casual side hug, tussling your hair and talking to yoongi above your head. “hey hyung.”

yoongi grunts a hello in response, and you share an eye roll with namjoon before he goes on about the whole mountain thing. he explains where it is, how long you’ll stay, and some of the other specifics that have already been arranged. it sounds nice, so maybe you should go.

“you should really come,” namjoon half pleads. “it’s kind of last minute, so not many of our friends can make it, but we need you to be the dj for the weekend. and i think you deserve a break.”

“you do,” yoongi chimes in, picking up your drinks and leading your small group to a table near the window. “it’ll help you come back to the song later without getting tired of it. you should never be frustrated when you’re playing.”

“i guess i’ll consider it,” you say. “you’re lucky i live too far away to go home for just a couple days, otherwise i would have to turn you down.”

“and i don’t need that kind of rejection on my birthday,” namjoon teases.

“your birthday was last month,” yoongi points out.

“but i’m celebrating it now, hyung. birthday rules still count for the celebration of said birthday.”

“yeah, but it’s not fair that you played the birthday card then and you’re doing it again now...”

sipping your latte, you laugh to yourself as yoongi and namjoon go on with their petty argument. you notice a fleck of chocolate on yoongi’s lip from the muffin, and you involuntarily lift your hand to wipe it off, but you stop yourself before it can be noticeable. you just let your hand fall to your coffee cup and take another sip of your drink, thinking about how many clean sweaters you have that you can wear this weekend.

you end up in the car with jin, hoseok and yoongi on the way to the cabin that they all rented. you’ve been roped into cooking duties for the weekend, and the four of you went grocery shopping before heading up to the mountains to meet everyone else. actually, you begged them to let you cook, bring booze, anything, since they didn’t let you chip in for the weekend at all in the first place.

“i’m not going to invite you last minute and then make you pay for anything,” yoongi told you clearly as you left the coffeeshop after talking to namjoon. “plus, jimin owes me at least $50 for ruining one of my mics, so i’ll just make him pay extra.”

like namjoon said, you are technically the dj for the weekend. you know the guys well enough to know what kind of music they want to listen to, so you crafted the perfect road trip playlist and shared it with hoseok, who’s in the front seat. he’s groaning and skipping each song he doesn’t like while jin calmly drives, complaining every now and then when hoseok skips a song jin knows all the words to.

and yoongi? well, he’s quietly scrolling through his phone beside you in the backseat. jin insisted on you sitting back there, claiming hoseok has some kind of carsickness that only appears when he sits in the back, so that meant you and yoongi were cramped in the tight space together. no biggie, but you keep bumping elbows with him, and you have to pee, and you didn’t sleep enough the night before so you’re already a little testy. you try to situate yourself so you hopefully forget about your need for a restroom and you bump into yoongi once again, and it sets you off. you don’t do anything aside from shoot him an angry glare before huffing a little bit and adjusting yourself so you’re fully looking out the window next to you. a few moments pass in silence save for the sound of go by epik high playing over the speakers.

you’re pulled from your mini rant session in your head to, oh my god, yoongi nudging your arm. you’re ready to give him a piece of your mind when you turn to lock eyes with him, but the delicately peeled tangerine that he’s offering you is so...confusing? and slightly endearing, so you abandon your plan to be mean to him and just graciously take the sweet fruit.

“where’d you get this?” you ask as you pull apart the half he handed to you.

“did he give you a tangerine?” hoseok asks with a smile, peeking at you both in the rearview mirror.

“yeah, like out of nowhere too.”

“if it’s oddly warm y/n, don’t be alarmed. he keeps them in his pockets for safekeeping,” jin explains.

“in your pocket?” you laugh, making yoongi’s cheeks tinge pink. “have you ever sat on one?”

“i don’t wanna talk about it,” he grumbles, bowing his head to focus on peeling off the stringy white skin left on his slices of citrus. the car falls into silence again and you notice everyone bobbing along to the epik high song still playing. you smile to yourself and finally pop a piece of the tangerine into your mouth.

it’s maybe the sweetest thing you’ve ever eaten, and you surprise yourself by thinking for a moment that its sweetness could be due to the fact that it came from yoongi.

“are you still working on your mixtape hyung?” hoseok questions, once again warmly breaking the quiet of the car.

“yeah, why?”

“have you tried doing something like this?” he asks, referring to the last few bars of go that play as jin turns down a road that must be just seconds away from the house, it looks exactly like the pictures the boys have shown you and you let out a sigh of relief at the thought of a bathroom and a bed.

“i have,” yoongi starts, peeking at you without turning his head. “y/n suggested it, actually. we talked about going back to this album for inspiration and it’s helped a lot.”

“it has?” you ask, beaming at the thought of bringing yoongi out of his funk with your mutual love of this group. yoongi simply shrugs and makes some non committal sound as the car comes to a stop.

“alright everybody, thank you for riding jin express. please don’t forget to rate and tip this ride in the app once you exit the vehicle,” jin jokes. everyone shuffles to get out of the car, and as hoseok pops the trunk you’re reminded that you really should start cooking right away. you politely ask hoseok to bring your bag in with his stuff, and he promises not to drop it before you grab some of the groceries and head for the kitchen.

once everything is taken care of and the cars are unloaded, you find yourself in the middle of a crowded kitchen full of ingredients and booze and boys. not a bad place to be.

hoseok did bring your bag in for you, you can see it laying by the couch a few steps away from the kitchen island. you’ll just have to hope there’s a room left for you at the end of the night, because your back won’t do well on a sofa.

“so what are we making, chef min?” you ask, washing your hands after playfully pushing jimin out of the way.

“carbonara,” he says simply. “namjoon’s request.”

“and did you get what i asked for hyung?” jungkook asks, several beer bottles distributed evenly between both his hands. as he waits for yoongi’s answer he passes the bottles around until everyone has a drink and he looks satisfied.

“yeah, we got the pizza stuff. we’ll make it tomorrow when we watch the movie.”

“what movie are we watching?” you’re curious, only because the last movie you watched with them was one you’ve all seen hundreds of times collectively so it was less watching and more reciting the movie line for line.

“that’s a secret,” jungkook says with a glint in his eyes. “my choice.”

“it’s gonna be some sappy love story, i’d bet ten bucks on it,” jin jokes.

“make it twenty and i’m in,” taehyung adds.

“oh you’re on.”

despite never cooking together before, you and yoongi are a well oiled machine. you receive some help from jin in the form of chopping or washing, but for the most part it’s you preparing everything, from the chicken to the sauce and handing it off to yoongi to be finished in the biggest pot of pasta you’ve ever seen. it smells amazing though, and you’ve attracted a park jimin who’s a few drinks ahead of the chefs and he has a mischievous idea in his head.

“so how long have you two known each other?” he starts out innocently, speaking more to you than to yoongi.

“uh, i guess i met yoongi at a party freshman year, when i met all of you. but he was arguing with someone, so i didn’t get to say much. just introduced myself and moved on,” you explain. “we haven’t really been friends, at least i would say, until we took this piano class together.”

“and how’s that going?”

“fine, considering he and i are the most competent out of all of them,” you state matter of factly, earning a chuckle from yoongi.

“most of the kids in there took this class thinking it’d be an easy elective grade.” yoongi adds, sliding beside you and reaching across to grab the colander you just used to drain some vegetables. as he retreats you catch a whiff of his cologne and a hint of tangerine. you smile to yourself and turn back to jimin.

“plus yoongi and i played the same song for our first assignment, so i had to confront him about that to establish dominance.”

jimin laughs maybe too much at this, and yoongi pipes in from the stove to quickly change the subject.

“y/n, i’m gonna need the cheese for the topping soon.”

“yes chef!”

dinner is ready soon after that. jimin had to be removed from the kitchen for tasting things that weren’t quite cooked yet, and jin took his place next to you. it seems that all of the boys are interested in learning more about the person that yoongi insisted on inviting this weekend, but you don’t know that. after a final taste test from the three of you and several approving nods, jin summons everyone from the rest of the house.

“it’s ready!!!” jin yells. it’s too loud for the situation but you’ll soon learn that these boys usually are. it gets their attention though, because one by one they file into the kitchen and grab plates and start serving themselves. you get your own plate and follow behind taehyung, who’s currently wearing a blanket cape. while you wait, you feel a tap on your shoulder and turn around to find yoongi.

“y/n, i already made you a plate,” he tells you, holding up one of the two plates in his hands. “c’mon.”

“oh, thank you,” you reply, returning the plate in your hands and gratefully taking the one yoongi extends to you.

“did you hear that? he made y/n’s plate and not mine,” jungkook pouts.

“yeah, my feelings are hurt,” jimin whines.

“at least it’s not your birthday!”

“i wouldn’t have made you a plate no matter what, jimin,” yoongi defends himself. “but i wanted to be sure y/n sat next to me, i was at the food, i got a second plate. no biggie.”

“leave the man alone,” namjoon cuts in. “he’s being a good host to the outsider.”

“outsider?!” you ask incredulously. “i just made you dinner. be nice to me, birthday boy.”

“y/n, i looooooove you,” jungkook coos, plopping down at the table across from you and yoongi. “it looks delicious.”

“it really does,” namjoon agrees. “thanks for making it. especially you, y/n. you didn’t have to.”

“i don’t mind,” you shrug. “besides, i wasn’t sure how well any of you could cook and i didn’t want to eat shit for the weekend, so...”

your sly remark is met with a chorus of insulted voices, mostly from jin and yoongi, but jimin pipes in that he’s good at everything while namjoon and taehyung insist that they “try their best” in the kitchen, and jungkook just nods and says something about ramen for eight.

“yoongi’s quite the chef, actually,” jin says. “he can make almost anything.”

“that’s impressive,” you say with a nod, peeking at yoongi. his cheeks are turning pink ever so slightly.

“yeah, you should ask him to cook for you sometime,” jin continues. “maybe after one of your late nights in the music building.”

there are knowing glances exchanged all across the table, but you and yoongi are oblivious. he hasn’t looked up from his plate in a few minutes just to be safe, and you really have no clue, you think it’s some best friend inside joke. which it is, depending on how you read the situation. namjoon brings the attention back to what the plan is for tomorrow, and the little tension between you and yoongi dissolves without notice until it’s time for bed.

after dinner, everyone went their separate ways, jin and jungkook flocking to the game console in the living room with hoseok watching on, jimin and taehyung made a mess of the kitchen as they cleaned up after dinner, and you found yourself outside by the fire with namjoon while yoongi shuffled through the cars, mumbling about some bag of producing equipment he couldn’t seem to find. it was easy hanging out with them, which is saying something considering that these boys are basically family. but they’ve welcomed you with open arms, and it isn’t until you’re bundled up with a nice blanket and a crisp cider that you realize how much you needed a break like this.

your eyes start drooping as you stare into the fire, and namjoon seems to have the same idea as you because you both stretch at the same time and mumble something about going to sleep. he says he’ll handle the fire, and you take the blanket from his chair, along with yours, and trudge back into the living room.

“hey, where did you guys put my stuff?” you ask, looking behind the couch where you noticed your bags earlier. jimin and jungkook are the only ones left awake, and jimin glances at you quickly before replying.

“i think jin brought your things upstairs, y/n,” he explains. “first door on the left.”

“oh, thanks,” you reply, gently laying the blankets on the back of the couch before you head to the stairs. “night guys.”

“good niiight,” they both sing-song back, and you laugh as you shuffle up to your room.

the door is closed, so you reach out to open it with no hesitation, but when you see yoongi sprawled out on the bed, you jump a little.

“damn, y/n, you scared me,” he mutters, sitting up and dropping the notebook he had been scribbling in. “do you need something?”

“uh, no?” you reply, looking around. “i just, um, jimin said this was my room, so, i guess i opened the wrong door, is all.”

“wait, are those your bags? i thought they were namjoon’s,” yoongi says, pointing to, yep, your bags, laying at the foot of the bed.

“what?” namjoon asks, poking his head into the room. “i’m with jungkook.”

“are there any rooms left?” you ask, looking between them both. “i don’t want to intrude, so if i have to sleep on the couch-”

“what’s with all the chit chat?!” jin whisper yells, popping his head out of the room across the hall.

“y/n doesn’t have a room,” namjoon answers.

“no, y/n is sleeping with yoongi,” jin says, face twisting into a smile once he realizes his wording. “i mean, the two of you are sharing a room. you have the biggest bed, so i thought it would be more comfortable.”

“are you sure there isn’t another room one of us can sleep in?” yoongi asks with a certain emotion hidden in his voice that you can’t quite place.

“nope, y/n is your friend, so you’re stuck together,” jin says with finality. “now shut up, i already have to listen to hoseok snoring, i don’t want to hear any more bickering about beds.”

“hey, i don’t snore!” a voice, obviously hoseok, shouts from behind jin.

“good night!” jin laughs, shutting his door. namjoon chuckles as well, giving you and yoongi a sympathetic shrug before he heads to his own room. leaving you all alone with yoongi. you slowly turn back to him, quietly shutting the door behind you.

“i, uh-”

“sorry-”

“no, you go.”

“i was just gonna say i could sleep on the floor,” yoongi offers, but before he can even finish his sentence you’re shaking your head.

“no way,” you refuse. “it’ll be no biggie, right?”

“right,” he agrees.

“right,” you nod, convincing yourself that this isn’t as awkward as it seems. “i’m, uh, gonna go change in the bathroom though.”

“that would be smart.”

falling asleep in the same bed as yoongi was no big deal. really, what was the harm? it’s not like this trip has awakened feelings for him that you didn’t know you had...except it absolutely has. which is why you’re so freaked out in the morning when you wake up next to the man you just dreamt about cuddling all night.

wait.

your pillow wasn’t that warm when you went to sleep.

and you weren’t holding onto anything either.

cool, yeah, no big deal, definitely. you’re just latched onto yoongi’s arm while you drool on his shoulder. very attractive and not at all weird friend behavior. as you’re silently freaking out, eyes barely open, you register warm breath hitting the top of your head, and you look up to catch yoongi staring at you.

“oh, shit, sorry,” he stutters, pulling his arm from your grasp too soon. “i’m sorry, i wasn’t, like, i was trying to figure out if you were awake or not-”

“yoongi, it’s fine,” you laugh. “you staring at me is better than me turning you into my personal teddy bear. sorry about that.”

“you’re good,” he mumbles, sitting up. his hand rubs at the back of his neck, something you register as his go to nervous habit, as he keeps speaking. “it was nice actually. uh, because of the cold.”

“right,” you say, smiling to yourself. a layer of silence falls over you both as you lay there and yoongi fumbles for a minute on his phone. now you’re the one staring, looking up at yoongi’s delicate features like someone just took a blindfold off of you and you’re seeing the world in such a clear, sharp image. you’re noticing yoongi like you’ve never noticed him before.

to stop yourself from memorizing the outline of yoongi’s profile, you pull the covers off and get out of bed, groaning at the cold. you throw on an extra hoodie and some wool socks, noticing yoongi doing the same. once you’re both dressed, you’re staring at each other again, and the silence returns. it’s not awkward, just heavy, and you break it with a simple, “yoongi?”

“yeah?”

“don’t tell the guys i drooled on you, please.”

“as long as you don’t tell them i was staring at you.”

the kitchen is buzzing more than you thought it’d be, cups of coffee already poured and the stove sizzling with eggs, sausage and some sad attempt at pancakes. last night when taehyung said he tries to cook, this must be what he meant, because the finished plate of “pancakes” looks like...a good try.

you beeline for the coffee, inhaling the comforting scent and enjoying the warmth it brings to your fingers. as you take your first sip you realize the boys have been quiet since you and yoongi ambled downstairs.

“so,” jungkook begins. “how’d you two sleep?”

“fine,” you both reply simultaneously, raising a few eyebrows from your audience. convincing.

“sorry,” you apologize. “not a morning person.”

“neither is yoongi,” namjoon notes.

“seems like it’s a good thing you’re sharing a room then,” jimin says over the rim of his coffee mug, smug smirk not as clearly hidden as he’d like it to be.

“hyung,” taehyung pouts from the stove. “can you help me with these?”

“i’m not good at flour-based things,” yoongi replies without a glance, deepening the pathetic pout on the chef’s face.

“i can help you, tae,” you offer, sliding past him and taking the spatula. he utters his gratefulness, going as far as kissing your hand, and yoongi finds his ears flaring red at the sight. chill out, he thinks to himself. tae’s just being tae.

but jin notices the change in yoongi’s demeanor after taehyung’s playfulness. it seems that when it comes to the two of you, one of the boys will always notice something before either of you do.

ok, so, something that wasn’t made totally clear to you is the fact that this is a ski trip, the main event of the weekend is skiing, and here you are with nothing thicker than a nice sweater to keep you warm. maybe it was mentioned in passing and you just didn’t pick up on it, but the conversation last night at dinner made you realize how under prepared you were.

that’s how you end up shuffling through the ski lodge down the street, laden in several borrowed layers. an extra pair of pants from jimin, a hoodie from jungkook and a jacket from hoseok. and yoongi’s gloves, which he insists he won’t need because he suddenly has to work on his mixtape before he loses his inspiration. you wonder if it’s the sight of the mountain covered in artificial snow that does it, because you’re even thinking about how you wish you could paint or draw so you can capture the true beauty of this place.

but yoongi knows the reason he has to write these lyrics down now is because of the lingering feeling of you holding onto his arm, head on his shoulder and delicate breaths brushing over his chest as you slept so peacefully. in all honesty, yes, he had been staring at you, for quite some time actually. and it was while he stared that he got the idea for this song.

so, yeah, he needs to write it down now, and he figures the best time to do it without prying eyes is while everyone is occupied with skiing. he hunkers down in the ski lodge, promising to watch everyone’s stuff as the rest of you layer up and carry the rented equipment outside to the slopes. you follow jimin and taehyung to the bunny slope while jin, namjoon and hoseok go toward the snowboard-only trails with jungkook deciding on the competition style ski slope. as you walk out, you look back at yoongi, admiring the concentrated look on his face as he passionately writes down whatever is on his mind, and for the briefest moment, you hope that he’s writing about you.

“i’m never going skiing again,” jimin declares, dropping all of his wet clothes in the living room of the rental as soon as he gets inside. “why did i fall down so much? how did i get so wet because of that?”

“well, jimin, snow is just frozen water, and water is wet, right?” namjoon teases. jimin’s response is to throw a soaking scarf at namjoon, gross ski slope water flinging everywhere in its wake.

“ew, jimin!” you yell, dodging the tail end of the scarf as it makes a terrible sound when it collides with namjoon’s chest.

“he deserved it.”

“yeah well now i’m covered in your gross sweat water too,” you whine. jimin acts like he’s going to throw something else wet and squishy your way, and you shriek before you dodge behind yoongi as protection.

“don’t get me involved in this,” he groans. you mumble an apology, secretly wiping some of the water off on his scarf.

“i’m gonna go change,” you tell him. “so knock before you come in.”

yoongi nods in response, heading toward the kitchen to get out the ingredients for dinner tonight. as per jungkook’s request, you’ll be assembling your own pizzas, which means you’re off the hook for cooking, at least. everything is premade, it just has to be warmed in the oven, and jin has already declared himself the pizza master, so you just get to enjoy.

“wait, y/n!” yoongi semi-shouts, stopping you on the first step of the staircase. “can you take this up with you? you can put it on top of my black bag.”

“which one, you have three,” you playfully dig, taking the bundle from his hands anyway. it’s his jacket from earlier wrapped around something, his journal maybe? and you tuck it under your arm as you continue upstairs.

you drop the bundle on top of yoongi’s things, knowing he’ll grumble about it messing up how neatly he arranged all of his bags and their contents. that’s why you find yourself peeking back at it after you’ve changed. plus the nagging feeling in your brain that maybe, just maybe, there’s something written about you in there has you tip-toeing to the corner of the room before you gingerly pick his jacket up, letting his notebook tumble out. you hold back, neatly folding the jacket and draping it over one bag before you lean down to grab the notebook, which happened to fall face down, pages open.

it’s not a crime that you glance at the words as you pick it up, and you’re reading the whole page before you can stop yourself. you’re about to start on the next group of words when you hear a knock at the door, and you drop the notebook, feeling caught. you scramble to put it neatly with his jacket, but the words inside are running through your head as you call out to yoongi that he can come in.

if he knows that you were snooping, he doesn’t show it. he simply thanks you for folding his things, and you nod at him quickly before you duck out of the room and go back to the kitchen, all the while thinking about the lyrics that made your stomach do backflips while at the same time making your heart feel totally content. what you read on that page was pure comfort embodied in a few words, and it came from the comfort yoongi feels when he’s around you. you recognize that feeling, those words resonating because that’s the same way you feel when you’re around him. you smile to yourself, thinking about how to confront yoongi about this.

except you can’t. because then he’ll know you were looking at his things, his innermost thoughts. you know how personal his lyrics are to him, and you know he’d be upset that you looked without his permission. so you resign yourself to making your sad little pizza, distracting your mind with cheese, cheese and more cheese. hoseok must notice the gloomy look on your face, because there’s suddenly a ball of sunshine at your side. he slides ingredients onto your pizza without you knowing, until you look down and see a smiley face staring back at you. you can’t help but laugh and lean into his warmth, giggling as he makes up some silly voice for the new pizza face he created.

yoongi enters the kitchen at that moment, seeing how you smile at hoseok like that, laughing so easily at his actions, and suddenly the song he was so eager to write, to compose, to pour his heart into, suddenly he wants to go upstairs and burn the pages. he won’t, because he knows he’s just being jealous, but he distances himself immediately, silently helping jin with slicing some fresh onion or prepping the oven for another pizza. yoongi was ready to show the song to you after dinner, but now...maybe he never will.

once you’ve all eaten an unhealthy amount of food, and consumed an impressive amount of alcohol (”we have to finish it before we leave!!” - jimin), you’re all gathered in the living room to watch a movie, another jungkook choice. it’s some sappy love story, and you find yourself looking over at yoongi each time something touching happens onscreen. jin notices as well, nudging yoongi the next time he sees your eyes drift in their direction. yoongi acknowledges jin, who directs yoongi’s attention to you, and when your eyes meet you can see something has changed. you turn away, looking back up at the tv and shivering despite the warm fire just a few feet away. taehyung, sitting next to you on the floor, offers you a corner of his blanket, and you take it, scooting closer to him as you try to focus on the terrible plot of this movie.

the boring movie, the warmth of tae along with the fire, and the two glasses of yoongi’s fancy whiskey you wanted to try now sitting in your stomach all lull you to sleep at some point. tae shuffling around next to you wakes you up, and in your stupor you look around and can’t find who you’re looking for.

“where’s yoongi?” you mumble with a yawn.

“already in bed,” taehyung explains. “he went up a little while ago.”

“hm, ok,” you half-whisper, voice barely returning after your quick nap. you stand up and stretch, alerting everyone to your movements because you’re right in front of the tv. jungkook whines, and you side step out of the way. “m’goin to sleep too.”

“alright,” taehyung says, pushing the blanket out of your way so you don’t trip. “sleep tight!”

“don’t let the lovebugs bite!” jimin chirps out, making some of the boys giggle. you don’t register it as you walk to your room, just barely awake.

for the second night in a row you’re surprised to see yoongi on the bed, still awake, but tonight he’s got his laptop and all of his producing equipment is laid out around him. he doesn’t acknowledge you entering the room and you don’t pay him any mind either, kneeling down to rifle through your bags at the foot of the bed. once you find what you’re looking for, you can’t decide if it’s the sleep or the whiskey, but you unabashedly take your sweater off right in front of yoongi. suddenly he’s jumping out of bed, equipment scattering.

“uh, what- why, what, what are you doing?!” he asks, voice an octave higher than usual as he looks anywhere but down at you. you laugh at how jumpy he is, and quietly apologize.

“sorry, i should’ve warned you,” you explain. “too tired to go to the bathroom.”

“tha-that’s fine,” he replies, still not looking at you. “tell me when you’re ready.”

“good,” you say once you’ve pulled on the shirt you slept in last night. “why’d you come up here so early?”

yoongi risks a glance at you, color coming back to his cheeks once he sees that you’re clothed again. he starts meticulously packing up the tech covering the bed, leaning over his laptop and furiously saving what he was working on before he closes it.

“uh, i just didn’t like that movie,” he lies, not wanting to mention how jealous he was seeing you laughing with hoseok and then sharing a blanket with taehyung. he doesn’t have a right to be jealous, but he is. he wants to tell you how that made him feel, but he doesn’t.

“ugh, me either,” you groan, rolling up one of the stray wires on the bed before passing it to yoongi. “not my favorite genre.”

yoongi notices that you’ve folded the wire the way he likes, without harming it too much and with the ends tucked in just so. the fact that you remember such a small detail has his heart warming again, and suddenly the gloomy thoughts he had about tonight have washed away. he all but forgets why he was in a bad mood in the first place as he looks at you, crawling under the blankets and he has the urge to stop you, to wake you up again so that he can play you what he was working on. but he can do that later, he will. he sees you glance up at him, patting the bed next to you.

“c’mon, i promise i won’t drool on you tonight,” you assure him, and he laughs before pulling the covers back on his side so he can lay down. he turns the lamp off on his bedside table and then settles in, suddenly missing the warmth of you from last night.

“good night,” he mumbles, looking over at you on your phone, setting an alarm for tomorrow. the rental ends in the early afternoon, so there can be no sleeping in.

“night yoongi,” you reply, locking your phone. you keep it on your chest for a moment, contemplating how tired you actually are. before you came in, you could’ve fallen asleep on the floor, but now, laying next to yoongi, you’re reminded of those lyrics and you don’t think your mind can turn off. after a few minutes of silence, you decide it’s probably best to just try to sleep, having your phone on might bother yoongi. you need to charge it anyway, but you groan as you remember you never packed your charger.

“hm?” yoongi hums at your sound of frustration.

“do you have a phone charger plugged in over there?” you ask quietly.

“mhm.”

“can i use it?”

“yep.”

“are you almost asleep?” you ask, even quieter now, moving over so you’re a little closer to him than before.

“trying to be.”

“i’ll plug it in then,” you say, carefully reaching over him to grasp blindly until your fingers reach the cord. you fumble with it for a moment, successfully plugging your phone in eventually, and you start to retreat to your side of the bed. as you pass back over yoongi, you place a quick kiss on his cheek and mumble another good night, not even realizing what you’ve just done.

there’s no way you can fall asleep now, and neither can he. there’s a beat of silence before he speaks up.

“y/n.”

“what.”

“look at me.”

slowly, you turn your head back to him, and his intense gaze has you blushing before he even says anything.

“sorry.”

“don’t apologize.”

“ok. right. sorry,” you quickly reply, voice still barely audible, but with the lack of space between you two it’s not hard for yoongi to hear.

“y/n,” he says again, this time grabbing your hand beneath the blankets.

“yeah?”

“i think i might be in love with you.”

“that’s....nice,” you squeak back, and yoongi lets out a loud laugh. your blush deepens at the sound.

“that’s nice?” he laughs. “that’s all you have to say?”

“yoongi?”

“yeah?”

“can i kiss you?” you ask, propping yourself up on an elbow. it’s dark in the room, but you clearly see him nod, and you don’t even remember moving to connect your lips to his. the moment you do, there’s a spark of electricity flowing through you. it’s a simple kiss, lips moving in sync with each other, both knowing what move the other is going to make before you even make it. yoongi pulls himself up so he can cage you underneath his arms, long fingers brushing your cheek and sending more sparks down your spine. he cups your face as he delicately tries deepening the kiss, your lips opening just slightly to let him in. he tastes like mint, and something else, something....citrus-y. even though you don’t want to, you pull away from his lips, his pout chasing you as you rest your head back on your pillows.

“what, what’s wrong?” he asks, fear slowly creeping in.

“when did you have time to eat a tangerine?”

“seriously? that’s the question you have for me right now?” he asks, laughing again but quieter this time. it still makes you smile at the sound.

“hm, i do have one question,” you say. it’s dark in the room but you can see yoongi encouraging you to go on with a lift of his eyebrow. your smile deepens as you speak. “how long have you been in love with me?”

“okay, good night,” he grumbles, turning over. you let out a sound of frustration and prop yourself up on an elbow, holding onto his shoulder with your other hand.

“this ok?” you ask quietly, slowly melting into his side. he makes a sound of confirmation, and you pull him back towards you slightly. “i still don’t have an answer to my question.”

“when did i fall in love with you?” he asks for confirmation.

“ooh, you fell in love with me, how romantic,” you tease. “i asked how long it’s been, but i’d take either answer.”

“ok, yes, i did fall in love with you,” he begins. “you’re annoying so it took some time.”

“hey.”

“not done.”

“sorry.”

“and how long?” he continues. “mm, when i saw your name on the sign up sheet for the room with the brown piano, that’s when i knew for sure. so i guess a couple months.”

“hm. alright,” you respond, butterflies suddenly in your stomach and fluttering up to your throat. “that’s.....nice.”

that sends you both into a fit of giggles right as jimin and taehyung are passing outside your door, and jimin pulls him toward the sound. but taehyung accidentally bumps his knee on the door, alerting you and yoongi to their unwanted presence.

“go to bed!” yoongi shouts, making you jump while scaring the now snickering boys outside your door. yoongi lays an arm over your waist seeing you jerk at the sudden noise, and you feel a little bit of that comfort that he so perfectly put into words with his lyrics.

“you too!” jimin shouts back, laughing all the way to his room.

“and you called me annoying,” you whisper to yoongi.

“you know they put you in here on purpose,” he tells you.

“huh?”

“they knew i was into you, so they made sure we were sharing a room,” he explains.

“so you knew about it too?”

“i-i knew we might share a room, i didn’t know we’d be sharing a bed,” he stumbles out. “once i saw there was one bed i assumed they gave you your own room. i’m...i’m glad i was wrong.”

“well min yoongi, i never expected this,” you tell him.

“pff, seriously?”

“seriously,” you confirm. “guess i was too busy with my own feelings for you to notice that you were into me.”

“really?” he asks with a smile. you nod, but realize he may not see it in the dark.

“yeah,” you whisper.

“how long?” he whispers back.

“honestly? probably longer than i’d like to admit. you’re really cute, you know.”

“back at ya.”

“not done,” you scold.

“sorry.”

“but i finally accepted it when i...” you trail off, and then you decide it’s best to just tell him. “when i read the lyrics in your journal.”

you can feel him stiffen at your words, but he doesn’t move his arm from its place on your waist.

“which song?”

“the one from today,” you reply. “wait, which song? there’s more than one?!”

“uh, good night!” he exclaims, trying to turn away again. you grab his arm and stop him though, placing your hand over his.

“min yoongi!”

“hey,” he mumbles.

“i hope i get to read the other ones at some point.”

“you will,” he assures you. there’s a beat of silence before he speaks again. “uh, so, you still haven’t used the l word, and that’s totally fine, i swear, but, did i cross a line? by using it already?”

“nah,” you shrug. “i’m just not good at this, so you’ll have to give me a little time. i’ll say it when i’m sure.”

“alright. take your time,” he says with a nod. it’s quiet again, and you think you’re both finally going to fall asleep when you feel yoongi’s lips on your cheek. “good night, for real. feel free to use me as your teddy bear again.”

“you sure?” you ask with a smile.

“i insist.”

the next morning, you keep it chill, trying not to tip off the guys and let them know their little plan worked. but damn, how sneaky of them! you’ll have to thank them later though. for now, you’re helping them clean the house so you don’t get charged for leaving the rental a total mess. yoongi is in the living room clearing bottles from last night and you’re washing dishes with hoseok. yoongi keeps stealing glances at you, and you stick your tongue out at him whenever he catches your eye. once everything is clean, and the bags are in the car, you’re ready to head back to the city to enjoy the last bit of break.

you’re the car dj again, next to yoongi in the backseat again, but this time you have a new playlist. epik high’s new album came out this morning, so you queue that up for your intimate little listening party in the car. everyone is in a good mood from the trip, so you’re talking over most of the songs in the beginning, just noting quickly when you like a lyric or a beat. yoongi scribbles things down when the inspiration strikes him, and your mind starts drifting back to your performance midterm. you’re starting to think you may be playing the wrong song, but the question is, what song will you play instead?

as you get to the end of the album, and the end of your weekend, one song catches your attention. you check your phone, noting the title as you turn the volume up slightly. you listen extra hard to this song, trying to memorize the chord progressions as they come. you start composing the song in your mind, tapping out the melody on your lap as you decide: end of the world will be your performance song. you glance over at yoongi, still focused on his notebook, and you reach out to lightly tap his hand. he looks up at you, hair falling into his eyes, dewy cheeks shining and mouth slightly open, questioning your actions with a quiet “hm?”

“i’m sure now.”

#min yoongi #min yoongi imagine #min yoongi one shot #min yoongi fanfic #min yoongi blurb #min yoongi headcannon #bts fic #min yoong fluff #bts fluff #bts imagine #bts one shot #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction

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jj-lynn21 · 5 years

Text

The Calling ch 5

Warnings: SMUT, drinking, outcome is readers preference.

ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4

The email for your next day of filming calls for an 80s look. Somehow you found just the look and a few other outfits just in case. They also sent a message looking for sports cars from 1984 and before that could be used in a street race scene. Your car isn’t brand new but its not that old.

You go through the usual process checking in when you get to holding. You even help some others that are there for the first time. It is a huge seen. One hundred people in an auditorium to get clothing checked. Some are going to play other street gang members in this street race. You are there to be a spectator to the whole thing. None of the usual suspects you hang with are there so other than Dan, the P.A. and Shelly who signed you in, you don’t recognize anyone. You sit in the auditorium and chat with some people that ask you questions about your other experiences.

After everyone is checked in and they have on what they need to be wearing for the scene everyone goes to the regular holding area where breakfast burritos are waiting. There is also pastries, donuts, bagels, fruit, juice, milk, pop, tea and coffee with creamers. You sit with the few people you started talking to in the auditorium. Hours pass with no word of when your scene will be shot. Lunch burritos are severed with French fries for lunch. The people around you start asking about when you think filming will start.

“They will come get us when they are ready,” You tell them. “We get paid for sitting here chatting and playing games on our phones so it’s probably the easiest ten dollars an hour you will ever make.”

You see dusk fall out the window. Dan walks in with a clip board and goes over to Shelly and talks to her for a few minutes. A few people walk up to them to ask about filming. Dan gets a call on the walkie.

“Ok everyone please follow me outside.” Dan said. “It’s a warm evening so no jackets. We want to see those 80s looks.”

He leads everyone down the stairs. Through the back of the building. And outside to wear several cars sit. A buzz comes over the crowd as you see Robert Pattinson leaning again a red Toyota Supra.

“Those here with there to be gang members go talk to Harry holding the white flag.” Dan said. “The rest of you follow me. Remember you have to stay quiet during shooting.”

He lines everyone up three people deep on either side of the race path.

“All you do is cheer as loud as you can when you here action,” Dan said.

“Action,” you here.

You scream and holler as the cars get pulled down the race path through the street by contraptions that hold cameras that capture the actors inside. They aren’t going fast by any stretch of the imagination, but it is interesting to watch and react to. That is filmed a dozen times or more. Before Robert switches places with his body double stunt man. The contraption is taken off the car. The real race begins as the stunt drivers spreed around the area. Screeching tires and smoke fill your senses.

Your eyes are red and watery as the director and others scream, “IT’S A WRAP!”

Everyone is escorted back to holding to sign out. You sign out, grab your bag and head to the bathroom to freshen up for the wrap party if you can find it at twelve-thirty in the morning. You put on one of the less over the top 80s outfits you brought. A form fitted pair of dark blue jegging with a hot pink baby doll style top that shows just a bit of cleavage.

You put the address in your gps to find your way. Its easy to spot right as you make the last turn. The sign says, closed for private party. A DJ is playing some top forty hit as you walk inside and look around. There is a guy a few steps inside making sure no random people get in.

“Sorry Miss,” he said stopping you with his hand. “Private event tonight.”

“I worked on the movie,” You said.

He smirks, “Got some proof of that darlin’?”

“I can show you my…” you look through your small purse that was in your overnight bag with your cloths for the day to find your pay slip.

“Hey Charlie, she’s cool,” You look up to see your favorite actor with their favorite drink in hand. “Let me buy you a drink.”

You gather yourself upright as you walk over to them. “Thanks,” You smile. Your person smiles back at you.

“Anything she wants Tony,” they tell the bar tender.

You order your favorite drink. You see mostly crew people chatting at tables. Drinking the workday away. Your favorite actor puts their hand on your back.

“Come on, we are all over on the couches.” They say and you walk along.

“Hey,” They all say in unison as you walk over. They hold their drinks in the air. All smiling with that little bit of tipsiness already gleaming in their eyes.

“Hi,” You say as your favorite person pulls you down to sit with them.

“Has anyone figured out what this bloody movie is truly about yet?” Tom asked the group. “They never sent me a full script or told me more than my specific part. I had a good time filming with you though.” He looks to you and winks. You blush and take a drink.

“Of course, they aren’t going to tell you anything, Tom.” Sebastian laughed. “The only one worse than you at keeping movie secrets is Mark. How about shots all around?”

He snaps his fingers. A bouncy red head in a black dress comes over to ask what we all need. He orders a round of Jägermeister shots for everyone which includes you, Tom Holland, Sebastian Stan, Bill Skarsgard, Alex Skarsgard, Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer and Robert Pattinson.

You are sitting, chatting, drinking, doing shots with all these people because you must have own some lottery you have no clue you even entered you think to yourself as you listen to them chat about traveling here and other more interesting things about life and past acting experiences. Your head spins as you get more intoxicated along with everyone else. How the Hell did you even get to this point you think to yourself but then you decide to add to the conversation about work history when someone bring up the vampire topic.

“Other than four vampires here. There are also five superheroes.” You laugh.

Bill said, “Pattinson doesn’t count as a Vampire and I was an umpire. Completely different species.”

“It does count,” He looks to you for confirmation. “Just ask her.”

Maybe you completely agree with him that his version of a vampire in current society was indeed a perfectly sexy depiction.

Maybe you don’t agree with him. Instead going towards a thought of a more brutal, crazed, bi-sexual, sensual monster.

Bill said, “Roman wasn’t bi-sexual not that there would have been anything wrong with that.”

“Roman totally wanted to fuck Peter,” You blurted out. “Check the on-line fanbase Bill.”

He chuckles, “Are those the same people that want to bang the clown?”

“No, that’s a completely different group but there is probably a group within both those fan groups that think Peter and Roman were in love and also want to bang Pennywise.” You laugh. “If you only knew.”

“Oh, I know.” He grins.

“Ok, fangbangers, clownfuckers aside, I only count three superheroes here,” Anna said.

Tom said, “And I only count two. So, how is your count five, love? Maybe you had one to many shots?”

“I’m great.” You slightly slurred your words which everyone else was doing. “Not sure about takin an Uber all the way home and getting back to pick my car up but that’s future me’s problem.” You laughed “Anyway, Tom and Sebastian are avengers. Anna is part of the X-Men. Bill was part of X-force. And Rob is filming Batman shortly, correct?”

“That’s correct,” Robert said. “Because the world needs more batman movies” He chuckles.

Everyone laughs.

Your person whispers to you, “No need to take an uber all the way home Sweetie. You can spend the night with me(us). I’ll have someone get your car to hotel. If you really want to that is?”

You just nod yes. The sun is coming up by the time you stumble out of the club with your favorite person(s). You make out like crazy in the back of the car as soon as the door shuts. Its sweaty messy slobbery kisses and groping, heavy breathing since you were holding back so much inside the club and you are both drunk. But you would be doing this with this person(s) sober.

The morning is a blur of body parts slapping, multiple orgasms and pure enjoyment from what you could remember when you woke to an empty hotel room. There were flowers, breakfast and a note on a table in the room. You read the note.

Sorry, I had to catch a flight (home or) to my next production before you woke. I’m so glad I (we) met you love. I hope to get back here again. Feel free to text me. 555-657-5544 talk to you soon. You have the room the rest of the day so no need to rush yourself.

Forever always,

Your lover

You just smile to yourself. Eat the breakfast on the table and get ready to go home.

#robert pattinson #tom holland #sebastian stan #bill skarsgard #alex skarsgard #anna paquin #stephen moyer #fanfic #fan fiction #au #extra #x reader #smut #lust #drinking #fantasy

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upside-downlogic · 5 years

Text

Connecting...

The question isn’t how hard it is to start a conversation, but more to how to keep the conversation going.

It started with a discussion of one specific episode of Black Mirror. Season four, episode four. Hang the dj. The episode took concern on how people handle romantic relationships nowadays. Easy, I ain’t going to spoil the episode by telling the storyline in details. I’m just going to say that Brooker and Patten really did a great job on portraying how technologies make a big impact on our daily lives nowadays, and that also include finding the so-called ‘The One’. They combined a Siri-like highly intelligent personal asistance and a very comitted online dating application way beyond what Tinder could give us and made a new virtual reality with the intention no other than finding us this ‘The One’ person. Though you have to watch the episode yourself to be able to interpret the meaning behind this rare sanguine episode of Black Mirror, I could tell you that you will still be left with bewilderment and contemplation after watching it.

Hang the dj review aside, what I meant to tell you is how this little discussion about finding the one and dating-application ended up putting my friend and I in a dare to do a blind date with random and complete stranger using none other but yours truly, the one and only, the holy grail of matchmaking; Tinder. Well, we haven’t really established the rule or the punishment yet, but one thing is for sure: you can’t give yourself out in any way before you actually meet the person in real life, and vice versa. So, by the time you actually meet the person eye to eye, that is also the first time you can start getting to know the other person, and again vice versa.

Though we didn’t really take this dare seriously, I was so determined to turn this dare into reality, just because I have always wanted to try blind dating but never had the chance and courage to do so. If you to ask me why I wanted to do blind date in the first place, I’d like to believe the reason is because I found human connection fascinating. And what’s the easiest way to test this instant human connection other than a blind date? Well, that or it could be just because I watched too many The And Series videos by The Skin Deep in one phase of my life (if you haven’t watched any episodes of The And Series, you should probably go to youtube right now and just click on it because IT IS LIT!) and was really inspired by it.

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youtube

Nonetheless, I installed tinder on my iphone and signed up for an account. I didn’t put any real pictures of me, instead I put a picture of Dr. Rick Sanchez as my profile picture. Yes! That crazy scientist from Rick and Morty. Why, you asked? I used it as a filter. Confused? Haha, please bare with these silly superstitious mind of mine. Since Rick and Morty is like the best show ever on the planet, so I thought if someone see my profile and was drawn to it, means he must be familiar with the character, means he watched the show, means he is smart and had a good taste. In addition, I also wrote this one sentence in my bio “This is purely for my personal social experiment. If you are kind enough to help me, thank you :)”

After a number of matches, (who ever guess swiping right and left could be very addictive???) I was torn between these three guys. We didn’t really talk much in the chatroom since I’ve already told them from the start that one of the basic rule in this experiment is to start digging about each other only on the first date. But the truth is I did cheated a little, or so I wanna believe, a little. One of the guy that is on my date-list were happened to be my old friend from middle school. We weren’t that close back then and we never talked again after we graduated, so in my defense, we were strangers all the same. In the end, I chose him as my “experiment-partner”.

Long story short, we made an appointment to meet at one mall in Bandung. He was surprised to see me (I told him already that we went to the same middle school, but didn’t tell him my real name), but didn’t show it much on the exterior. We talked, and talked, and talked—it was really nice having a conversation with someone you shared a little something in common with but not too much to make you run out of topics in three seconds—until we unmindfully circled the mall almost three full rounds already. It was really strange because I didn’t feel awkward at all from the beginning, whereas normally I’m an awkward panda everytime I met new people—(and the awkward that happened to me most of the time is not about how I act and react, but more to how I feel inside). This rare rendezvous with tinder-guy that turned out to be very nice made me think for a split second that I can do it, that I have what it takes to make acquaintances, that I can easily jump in into dating life, that I’m capable of being an extrovert human-being.

One horror movie and another stroll around the mall later, we ended up taking a gocar home together. We headed towards RSHS because my place was near and he wanted to visit his friend who were being hospitalized there. We didn’t exchange number or any messaging app id besides the one that’s on tinder platform chatroom. So then, a few weeks after our rendezvous, I deleted my tinder account, and we never have any sort of communication again up until now.

Some of you may think that we could easily contacted each other even if we didn’t have each other phone number nowadays. There are already so many social medias everywhere to connect strangers around the world, like instagram, facebook, twitter, instagram—did I just said instagram twice?—and I know that exactly. I didn’t know why he chose not to contact me, but for me personally, I wanted to make him just as my one time one place person. I wanted that affair to be my reminder if somewhere in the future I felt like I have no skill to socialize and make a connection with another human-being, I can look back at that time and place and think, if I could nailed that then I could nail just this. Moreover it was already ended with a nice note so I didn’t want to ruin it. Because the real question isn’t how hard it is to start a conversation, but more to how to keep the conversation going.

In your life, you will meet many people. Some you will like, others will not. Some you will instantly connect, others will not. Some connection will be strong enough it will keep on connecting in the long run, others are just weak or maybe only a surge. This connectional surge, though feels very intense, is never substantional nor steady, thus it won’t stay on connecting for more than a few hours or days. Keep in mind that you don’t need to feel like you have to keep everyone in your life, because effortlessly in the end, some will stay; and the one that do, they are not the one time one place person—they are indeed the one person.

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thotyssey · 6 years

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On Point With: Lacy Stoner

A renown artist and painter who’s used the human body as his primary canvas for several years now--and has been mixing it up with drag queens and performers of all sorts for just as long--Ish Peralta has only started performing in drag himself just recently. Now the bitch already has a pageant crown, and several gaggable gigs under their belt! Thotyssey takes a trip with the one and only Lacy Stoner.

Thotyssey: Lacy, hello! Happy Halloween Week! How did Saturday night’s Albatross show with Avant Garbage and Bella Noche go?

Lacy Stoner: The show last night was absolutely amazing! We had a great audience, most of which were dressed in costumes!

You, Bella and Avant are, like, a little drag coven of your own.

Yeah! That’s a great way to put it. We all live together in a fun little drag den.

You’ve been drag-adjacent for a while now... would you have ever suspected, like, two years ago that you’d soon be a queen yourself?

It’s interesting... doing drag is something I often considered doing, as far as creating a drag name. But if I’m perfectly honest, I’m not sure I thought I’d actually go through with bringing Lacy to fruition. At least, not to the level that I have over the last few months. When I originally fantasized about it, the idea was more of getting into drag every once in a while, to go out and have fun at events. But thanks to the amazing people around me--and my two drag roommates--Lacy had become a full-fledged drag queen who performs quite often.

And now look how far you’ve come! Where are you from originally?

I was born in the Dominican Republic, and lived there until I was 10 years old... at which time I moved to South Florida, before finally ending up here in NYC.

And you’ve always been an artist? Yes, art had always been a part of my life. At a young age, my mother always encouraged art be a part of my daily regimen. I learned to play the piano when I was 7 years-old, and then played the saxophone for 6 years. I also have a background in musical theater. But my specialty is painting, specifically body painting.

That’s what you’ve become known for... you paint people to look like these fantastic beings, or to blend completely into their background... how and when did that become your Thing?

That was a interesting adventure. After graduating high school and deciding that college was not the correct route for me, I started a career as a makeup artist. I was specializing in clean beauty makeup and specially effects for film and television. I did that for a few years, and had a chance to work on some very fun projects and meet some really amazing artists within the field.

One day, another artist invited me to join them for a body paint convention, just as a spectator. It was a really interesting setup; the first half of the day was all little classes you could take on different styles of painting, and during the evening they opened up a giant ballroom floor and allowed painters and models to just paint and basically have a party. I fell in love, after seeing the amazing things that these artists could do with just some paint and a brush on a human body. There was just no way I could walk away from that and not try it myself. I’ve since switched over my specialty within the makeup profession to body painting, and I’m happier for it.

It’s an amazing body of work (pun unintended) that you’ve put out there!

Thank you very much, they’re all really a labor of love.

But is there any one body paint job you’ve done that you’re the most proud of?

It’s honestly so hard to pick just one. What if I picked two to tell you about?

Go for it!

The first would have to be a body paint I did for a charity that had a large focus on organ donation and raising awareness around it. I was asked to create two body paints to be recorded and then turned into a video PSA. I painted two models’ backs in such a way that when they came together they became a set of lungs, and on their other side the rest of my team painted all the organs that can be donated wrapped up like presents. It was a really amazing and emotional project, as I spent the entire time talking to the models and the president of the charity about how organ donation had impacted their lives, and how they want to make a difference for others.

My second proudest paint would have to be a paint job I did for the Sotheby’s Auction House. They were holding an event in which they were auctioning off the famous playwright Edward Albee’s entire art collection. They brought me in to paint two models to look like lizard people, which happen to be characters from one of his plays The Seascape. Once they were painted, they were placed within a little sand and rock set piece and their job was to silently imitate the guests as they walked by. It was truly an amazing experience to watch hundreds of people interact with my work, and really showed me a whole new way to utilize body paint and how to present it to a much different crowd than I’d grown accustomed to.

If a nude figure is covered in body paint, are they still nude?

That’s a fantastic question! I guess it would depend on how much of the body is covered. Now that being said, something many people who have been fully body painted from head to toe report is that once the paint goes on and they see it, they don’t feel nearly as naked as they know they are. So I guess it’s all in the mind.

You painted the actors backstage for Broadway’s The Lion King for a stint.

That was probably one of the craziest projects I ever did--crazy in a good way. A show of that caliber has hundreds of people who all have to work together like a well-oiled machine to ensure that everything goes of flawlessly.

I think my biggest takeaway from that experience was how to work quickly and efficiently... because if Rafiki wasn’t out of my chair and ready to start the show... that was not just an issue for me, but would create a problem for every single cast and crew member. And you know what they say: the show must go on! Truly one of the most amazing and humbling experiences I’ve had in my career so far.

And you were a star attraction during the last huge season of Lady Liberty at the Ace Hotel (and several of that competition's subsequent one-off events). A body paint from you was part of the winner’s package, and you were there each week painting a model to help promote yourself and the finale. Is that where you wound up meeting a lot of the queens that would ultimately be your sisters?

Through Lady Liberty, I was able to make lots of new friends with performers and people who stretch across the large spectrum of NYC’s nightlife. Through doing the show, I definitely gained quite a few friends who I now call sisters.

But in all honesty, the performers I'm closest to and that I truly consider family are some of the first people I ever met when I first moved to NYC about five years ago. And what’s even more interesting is that I met all of them on the same night, thanks to a drag queen who had found me and hired me to body paint for an event.

So you could say that my career as a body painter in NYC has always been heavily intertwined with the drag community, and Lady Liberty helped solidify and foster these friendships as well as helped create many more.

What was your first appearance in drag?

My first appearance as Lacy Stoner was for my sister Bella Noche’s birthday show at Rockbar. She had me come in and do a number as a special guest.

And how would you describe Lacy as a queen?

It’s funny you ask that question, because it’s a question I’m currently asking myself. I consider Lacy to be genderqueer, and technically would use the pronouns “they / them,” but I’ll honestly answer to any pronouns and don’t take offense to people using any of them when receding to Lacy.

But I guess the best way I can describe Lacy at this time is a drag performer. I’m still exploring who and what Lacy is, and what they could be. As Lacy, I’ve explored lip syncing and burlesque, and I’m looking to find other ways to set myself apart and do different types of performances.

You often color your beard and hair for drag looks... is that a messy process?

Funny enough, coloring the beard is the easiest and least messy part of my entire makeup process. My beard color is one part of my makeup I never have to worry about transferring or getting messed up. While my face could be a sweaty mess and I may have lost an eyebrow--which can happen if you’re doing a long show without breaks--my beard and mustache always stay intact.

Werk that beard! Are you thinking of entering a pageant anytime soon?

So, I’ve already competed in a pageant and won. I recently competed in the one day pageant that was a part of the Bodega Ball, which is a two day punk festival in Brooklyn. I am your current reigning Miss Bodega.

Congratulations!

Thank you! And I am in talks with a couple upcoming pageants about possibly competing. But to be honest, competing isn’t something that totally excites me. The only part about pageants that excites me is the opportunity to take on a theme or challenge and using it as a way to push yourself and grow as a performer.

I just saw you in the audience of the Miss Rockbar pageant finale this past Tuesday. Nicole Onoscopi was crowned, but it was a tight race and all the queens brought it.

That was such a great night, filled with fabulous performances. And we’ll be seeing you back at Rockbar this Tuesday, hosting “Mischief Night,” aka Halloween Eve! What do you have in store for us?

I’ll a few fun, spooky numbers for you to enjoy. Well also have a thriller dance-off for a chance to win some prizes, and a costume contest. At 11pm, there will also be an open stage where any performers new or experienced can come in and do a number. I already have a few people lined up to perform on that open set--amongst them will be a bearded queen from Australia, and some burlesque performers. Let’s not forget we will have my amazing brother DJ JCLEF spinning tunes all night, and making me and all other performers sounds fantastic. You’ll have to come by and see what else we have in store!

Great! Anything else to plug or report?

You can also find me at Bizarre Bar in Brooklyn this Wednesday the 31st for Zalika Parsons’ Legendary Show...

...as well as hosting a private screening of Disney’s The Nutcracker and the Four Realms On November 1st along side my sisters Bella Noche, Avant Garbage and Gloria Swansong. This is an invite only event, but if anyone is interested they can reach out to me or any of the other three hosts for a an invitation as long as space is available. The tickets are free for anyone who wants to attend, as long as there’s still space.

Amazing events all around! Final question: what is a fun Ish / Lacy trivia fact that the world needs to know?

Contrary to what Lacy’s name might suggest, they’re more of an indica strain, than an sativa... LOL!

Higher and higher! Thank you, Lacy!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for Lacy Stoner’s upcoming gigs, and follow Lacy on Facebook, Instagram (Lacy or Ish Peralta) and Twitter, plus check out Ish Peralta’s makeup artist website.

On Point Archives

#onpointwith #lacystner #ishperalta

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jeremystrele · 4 years

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Artist Maggie May & Musician Josh Kelly Are Parenting And Running A Business Through COVID And Cancer

Family

Ashe Davenport

Maggie May and Josh Kelly run Think Thornbury, a gift store and creative space on High Street in Thornbury. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Josh with baby Remy at Think Thornbury. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Maggie putting her special touch on the Think Thornbury space. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Little Remy with Maggie. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Maggie and Josh have been running Think Thornbury together, juggling Maggie’s art practice and Josh’s music career. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Maggie, Remy and Josh outside Think Thornbury. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Josh at home, just after Maggie cut his hair. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Maggie cutting Josh’s hair at home, before starting chemotherapy. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Maggie using the special shaver she and Josh bought for this specific purpose. Photo – Bobby Clark.

Josh, who looks REMARKABLY handsome with a shaved head! Photo – Bobby Clark.

Maggie and Josh are surprisingly upbeat. We’re chatting over Zoom, as is customary for most Melbourne interviews in the year 2020. They’re lying on their bed sharing a green juice. Behind them is a bedhead covered in soft, daisy printed fabric, like a garden from a daydream. Maggie, aka renowned macramé artist Middle Aisle, is effortlessly chic in a pale yellow jumper and slightly oversized glasses. Josh, saxophonist for bands 30/70 and JK Group, looks like he’s always had a shaved head. He doesn’t look like a sick person.

Josh was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease five weeks ago. He’s just completed his first week of chemotherapy. His doctor has predicted another six months of treatment, followed by radiation, if necessary. During that time, he and Maggie will continue to parent their one-and-a-half-year-old son Remy, and try to keep the business going.

Maggie and Josh began Think Thornbury as a space for local creatives, to sell their wares and hone their crafts. It has since grown into a passionate and dedicated community. When Maggie shared Josh’s diagnosis on Instagram, they were overwhelmed with support. A GoFundMe set up on Josh’s behalf raised $27,000 in just 24 hours (and now sits at over $50,000).

This isn’t the first time they’ve been challenged as a couple. In fact, they’ve been through the wringer. Maggie is only just recovering from severe postnatal depression, which she chats about with bracing honesty. They share their wonderful experiences, the harrowing ones and everything in between as a way to strengthen their ties with the world around them. Cancer, it seems, is no exception.

Below is an edited and condensed version of our chat.

Trigger warning : This interview contains talk of suicidal thoughts and postnatal depression.

How are you guys sharing the parenting load at the moment?

Josh Kelly: Cancer’s really flipped it.

Maggie May: Yeah. It’s put a lot of…

JK: … pressure back onto you.

MM: Yeah.

JK: We had some really frank discussions in the early days of parenthood. I thought I was being a good co-parent, but came to realise I had a fairly patriarchal gaze. There were so many things I didn’t notice Maggie was doing. She helped me see that, and we were able to figure it out. And my diagnosis has flipped it again. The doctors are like, you can’t change nappies, you can’t hold Remy when he comes back from daycare. I’m that immunocompromised. It’s put all the parenting straight back onto Maggie. I’m in bed a lot. And she’s like, making me smoothies. It’s a pretty big mental shift to be taken care of in this way.

MM: Historically, you’re the one who takes care of me. I’m the one that falls into a puddle. Not that I’m completely useless, but pregnancy was particularly hard. I had Hyperemesis.

Is that when you throw up all the time?

MM: Yeah. I had no close friends who had been pregnant, so I had no gauge for what morning sickness was. I was throwing up 20 times a day. And Josh was on tour in the UK. He got home and was like, Nah, you’re fucked mate. I’m taking you to the hospital. It was another eight months of it from there. I was still working. I still taught five star reviewed macramé workshops!

JK: You were spewing five seconds before people came upstairs.

MM: (laughing) I’d say, I’m just going to pop downstairs for a moment! Then I’d go down to the bathroom, be horrifically ill, and come back up like nothing had happened.

That sounds intense. And Maggie, you didn’t have the easiest road when Remy arrived either, right?

MM: Yeah. Particularly at the start of the year. I didn’t want to be here anymore. Postnatal depression was the pits. I had a massive breakdown.

JK: It was big.

I’m so sorry you went through that. This is the year from hell. Are you guys okay?

JK: We were talking about this last night. So, it’s Jewish New Year at the moment, right? We were saying how we’ve come through some pretty serious challenges: Maggie’s depression being as bad as it’s ever been, having a baby, having significant financial pressure, having COVID happen to our business and now me having cancer, and I feel like we’re almost starting to steer the ship around, in a weird way. There are a few things we’ve done differently in the past few months that have made a big difference.

MM: Putting Remy in childcare helped a lot. I think I tied a lot of my parenting self-worth to how much time I spent with him. I wanted more time with my parents growing up. I still do. But that’s just not who they are as people. I used to think that if I could always be there for Remy, that would mean I was doing a really good job. But since he’s been in childcare, I’ve felt lighter. It’s taken a lot of pressure off.

How much did you know about your diagnosis, Josh? Were you starting from zero?

JK: Pretty much zero. I knew what most people in Australia would know about cancer. I’ve known a few people who have been affected, but not the nuts and bolts of it. The day-to-day grind of it. Then when you factor in that there are thousands of different kinds of cancer and sub-types of cancers, and they all have slightly different treatments and slightly different chemotherapies. And every patient reacts differently. There’s a lot of unknown. But nothing beats reality. No amount of information is going to tell me everything I need to know. I need to experience things. That’s how I learn. This first week of chemo has been a big learning curve.

What does it feel like?

JK: It’s like the worst hangover ever. Times a million. You can take all this stuff to moderate the nausea, but you just feel completely fatigued. You do feel like you’re dying inside. It’s probably not a good word to use. I had three days of chemo in a row this week. Monday was the biggest day, which is when I took the most drugs, and that fucked me up until Wednesday night.

MM: It was like going to a really bad festival.

JK: Yeah. I started feeling okay, then really sick again on Thursday. I have to take a cocktail of pills, too, which wipes me out. I’ve felt a little bit better each day since. I’m still pretty out of it, but I’m feeling okay.

MM: Yeah, you’re doing way better today.

(They exchange a brief reassuring look. Suddenly they’re upsettingly young. I want to tell them how brave they are. And how proud of them I am. I remind myself to cool it).

Have you found any resources particularly helpful? Any books or movies that you’re relating to right now?

MM: Cancer movies are so sad. There are none that come to mind. Actually, there’s one movie I keep thinking about. In the Wizard of Oz when they go through the forest and Scarecrow says, “I think it’ll get darker before it gets lighter.” I just keep coming back to that and feeling it in my body and soul. It all comes back to The Wizard of Oz.

What else even is there? Ugh. You guys have a great attitude.

MM: Thanks. It doesn’t mean we don’t have moments when we really struggle. There are definitely times when I’m like: NO! What for? Why us?

JK: Friends were messaging me the night before my first round of chemo, asking me how I was feeling, and whether I was scared or nervous. I was both those things, but I was also excited. I could dwell on how awful the side effects were going to be, or how lucky I was to be able to access treatment. And the fact that it was going to help me.

MM: The morning of his first treatment I cuddled him in bed and he said, ‘Today’s the day we get better.’

Family Favourites

Date night in?

Cook an extravagant meal (the kind where you buy specialty ingredients from Casa Iberica), delicious bottle of wine, altogether too much cheese, pick different records for each other, try and have a conversation not about Think Thornbury or Remy.

Rainy day activity?

Find some puddles to jump in the Darebin parklands together. Build train tracks around the living room whilst listening to music and drinking hot chocolate. Later on we watch a movie.

Favourite cafe?

Oh Gosh, we’re spoilt for choice in Thornbury… Josh says Everyday Coffee in Collingwood (scandal!) and Maggie is indecisive which is just so typical, but agrees Everyday Coffee is excellent.

Honestly though, all the local cafes here in Thornbury & Northcote are excellent and they have been so supportive of us. We love them all equally and can’t wait till they’re all open again.

Go-to album?

This is hard for us. We have literally 300 records. You should come see us DJ when COVID lets us do it again.

A Love Supreme by John Coltrane/ Mama’s Gun by Erykah Badu

Weekend getaway (remember those)?

We like to try and get away to some kind of secluded cabin surrounded by trees, where there is quiet and the chance for us to be a little introspective and plan our next insane venture together. Preferably with a fireplace and a very comfortable place to sit. We also go for walks and point out all the animals and trees for Remy.

Follow Maggie May, Josh, and Think Thornbury to keep up with this remarkable young family’s journey. And you can support them during this difficult time, via their GoFundMe campaign here.

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bigbrotherlouis · 7 years

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everything comes back to you

@imlouisaf told me to do a big bang about narry being in love with each other all through 1d but not getting it right and i remembered that i actually had the start of a fic like that. so here you go:

~1k of angsty canon harry being sad over niall

when harry gets the notification, he’s standing in line at the supermarket with a bundle of bananas, a packet of frozen berries, and all the ingredients for chocolate cake. he’s turned on notifications for niall’s tweets--of course he has, just him and grimmy--and he glances at it as he puts the milk on the conveyor belt.

it takes a moment for it to sink in.

they’d known niall was going to release a song. he’d emailed them about it nearly every step of the way, to get their opinion and to make sure it was alright with all of them. they’d all said yes, that’s what the hiatus was for, after all-- doing their own projects.

harry still hadn’t listened to it, felt the tiny sting of irrational rejection he tried to put out. it’s now or never, he guesses.

he pays and gathers his things, dumping them in the back seat of his car as he navigates his phone trying to buy niall’s song. finally, it downloads. he plugs it into his stereo, turns it up and presses play.

he gets as far as the first verse and has to stop. he puts his head down on the wheel and breathes deeply, absentmindedly hoping there’s not any paps around that’re capturing this moment. it’s be great for the tabloids; former member of one direction has meltdown in car after other member releases a single. no, thank you.

his breath comes back eventually, and so does his composure. he starts the car and calmly drives home, the radio playing quietly in the background. it’s mostly an american dj talking. harry misses nick.

niall’s released a song, he texts. the reply comes back almost instantly; nick’s good like that most of the time.

yeah i saw. any good?

dunno can’t listen to it.

it’s about me.

self-centred much?

harry rings him instead of texting it all out. it’s easier.

“have you heard the song all the way through?” he asks in lieu of hello. nick laughs--nick’s always laughing--and harry can imagine him shaking his head.

“no, you’ve not given me the time to listen to it.”

“oh. i thought maybe you had an early listen.”

“didn’t you have one too?” nick says and harry flinches. “what with being part of the same band n’all.”

“i could’ve but i didn’t.”

“and now the whole world is hearing it too.”

harry flinches again, thinking about if the whole world was watching, i’d still dance with you.

they had danced, is the thing. every night on stage, thousands of phones recording their every move, and they’d danced together with their silly little routines to their serious little songs.

“oh god,” nick says lightly. harry can hear the tinny sounds of the song in the background. “this is quite damning, isn’t it?”

“thank you, grimmy. you’re being so very helpful.”

“i’m just saying. besides, it’s not that bad if you don’t know the story. you can’t really tell it’s about you.”

“i think it’s pretty bloody obvious.”

“well, yeah. because it’s you and you know niall like you know the back of your hand. of course it’d be obvious.”

“i should call him, shouldn’t i?” harry says and nick hums, thinking.

“that’s up to you, innit? whether you’re… up to it or not.” harry feels queasy just thinking about it. “what part’s got you torn up?”

“all of it,” he mutters rebelliously as he pulls up to his gate. he keys in the passcode and waits for it to slide open.

“fair enough. but like, which part specifically?”

“i couldn’t get past past the first chorus,” he admits sourly.

“are you going to finish listening to it?” nick asks, cautious and careful and everything nick is usually not.

“don’t know,” harry says as he dumps his groceries on the counter. he puts away the perishables and leaves the rest for later, when he’s not in the middle of a half-breakdown. thinks about sitting on the couch, doesn’t, and wanders around his house instead, feeling like a ghost.

“it’s like happy and sad at the same time. sounds sweet, but when you listen to it…” nick trails off.

“sounds a lot like niall,” says harry, a little bitterly. he can’t help himself. “they’re, like, my own words. he wrote a song with my words.”

it’s not the first time it’s happened. it’s not even the tenth. louis likes cherry picking harry’s phrases to fit in his songs about eleanor, and taylor sprinkled her album with things he told her. harry wonders if that’s just a hazard of dating songwriters, or if he’s just had really shit luck.

this feels different, though. niall’s always been in a different category in his head.

“harold?” nick says mildly. it doesn’t like the first time he’s said it.

“yeah?”

“oh, good. your head’s not in the stars again.”

harry flinches, a full body thing that nearly hurts.

“can you-- just don’t.”

he sits on the side of his unmade bed, clutching the phone to his ear a bit desperately, and kicks at the carpet with a toe. he’s still got his shoes on, which is unusual for him, but he hadn’t had a spare hand to peel them off. niall would’ve told him off for that, for tracking in dirt.

“you’re gonna get your carpets all dirty, h. especially since you’ve picked white ones, fuck knows why. take off your shoes, pet.”

something clenches in his stomach and he thinks about vomming in a vague, distant way. nick’s still on the line, being quiet so harry can gather his thoughts. harry listens to nick breathing for a few seconds and tries to match it with his own.

“you still there?” nick asks after a few minutes. harry’s gathered himself enough to mostly hide the tremor in his voice when he responds.

“yeah.” he scrubs a hand down his face and slides it up into his hair, pulling at the strangely short strands. “why can’t he just, like, talk to me about it, instead of putting it out for dissection on the radio?”

“you’re not the easiest person to talk to, h.”

“ouch,” harry mutters and nick lets out a sigh over the phone.

“no, i mean-- you’re always running, yeah? always in search of something bigger and better. it’s kind of hard to talk to someone who’s always off chasing a feeling.”

“niall can always talk to me. he knows that.”

nick lets that hang in the air, doesn’t poke at it like harry had been worried he’d do. it’s damning enough as is because they both know it’s not true, they both know this whole damn thing is harry’s fault.

“not just your fault, love,” nick says lightly when harry says that out loud. “there are two people in a relationship, yeah?”

“mmhm.”

“call him. talk to him.”

“he doesn’t want to talk to me. it’s too hard. he’s moved on, probably,” harry tells him and nick laughs once, like he can’t help it.

“think you should listen to the rest of the song before you make that judgement.” harry’s stomach flips over again just thinking about it. “listen, i know you’re in a crisis but i’ve got a meeting--”

“oh, fuck. yeah, of course, go.”

“talk to you later, harry.”

“bye, grim,” he says and tosses the phone on the bed when nick hangs up. his body’s all achy like he’s come down with a fever, and his lip is sore from worrying at it with his teeth. for a second, he thinks about going to bed and sleeping away everything but it won’t help in the end. he’s got shit to do and people relying on him to do that shit. he can’t just fall apart because a boy wrote a song about him.

heaving himself off the bed, he puts on something mindless and numbing, something that doesn’t let flashes of niall’s shoulders or his hands or his laugh sneak in, and starts with putting away his groceries.

he sends a congratulatory tweet off because it’s what’s expected, jumps a little when niall says “love ya.” it’s not real, not really. harry knows that but it still makes his heart ache in the centre of his chest.

niall’s song sits unplayed on his phone for weeks but harry catches himself humming it until it morphs into something new, something unrecognizable. like a bruise, it fades away until harry’s nearly forgotten it ever existed.

#narry #narry fic #wip #i don't have a name for this verse #my fic #this town #personal issues

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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VinePair Podcast: Social Drinking in a World of Social Distancing

In the era of social distancing, many drinkers are leaning into technology to stay connected with friends and loved ones. From virtual happy hours to online wine classes, and teleconferenced game nights to an Instagram Live nightclub, we’re finding new ways to socialize over a glass (or two) with our social circles even when we can’t be in the same place.

That’s the topic for today’s VinePair podcast, where Adam, Erica, and Zach discuss their own experiences with these and other methods of staying in touch in the time of Covid-19, as well as offering a few suggestions for how to liven up your own simulated soirees.

Listen on iTunes

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LISTEN ONLINE OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE:

Adam: From my apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From my apartment in Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in my house in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair podcast — and guys, before we kick off today’s topic, which I’m pretty pumped to talk about ‘cause I think we all have some experience of social drinking in times of [coronavirus] now – online basically, the podcast [Covid-19 Conversations] that we’re dropping basically as often as possible. At least three coming out this week. If you’re just listening to the podcast today you hopefully heard yesterday’s really interesting interview with Esther Mobley of the San Francisco Chronicle. That was a super-fascinating interview, Zach.

Z: Thank you.

A: I really enjoyed that. And then coming up this week there’s gonna be two more people we’re talking to, Raj Parr and then Paul Mabray. So we’re focusing a little bit more on the West Coast this week, but we’re gonna hit up some people next week. I’ve already got on deck a conversation with the team behind the really successful wine bar in New York City – Ruffian. They also own the restaurant Kindred, and they also have just recently opened a dive bar where they’re doing really cool dive bar-esque foods [and] with them really crazy wines and stuff. So like, trying to figure out what’s happening to them, what they’re thinking now as a business that was clearly really growing pretty quickly right before corona and now how they’re sort of scaling back and what that means and how it’s affecting their employees and stuff like that. So we got a lot of that stuff coming in the future, if there’s anyone else you think we should talk to, please drop us a line at [email protected], as always. A bunch of you have been emailing in recently to tell us you really appreciate the additional episodes – things to listen to, please let us know any of your thoughts, right? If you have anything that sort of is moving you, that is affecting you during this time, you want us to talk about it, please again email us at [email protected]. You know and let’s all get through this whole thing together. Isn’t that right, guys?

E: Absolutely!

Z: Oh, for sure.

A: And then one other thing we gotta mention before we get too deep in this podcast which is, Erica you’re probably gonna remember better than me, but our marketing team is going to be featuring what people are drinking basically, on our social media channels over the next few weeks. So as loyal listeners to the podcast we’d love for you to snap a pic of yourself drinking whatever you are drinking in these corona times either send it to us at [email protected] – probably easiest, or you can tag your photo @vinepair if you wanna post it on Instagram first, and we’re gonna try to share as many of those over the coming weeks. Just to…again show we’re all in this together, so if you got a great wine that you discovered that you wanna shout out to, if you’ve got a cocktail you’ve been making, even better if you’ve got a cocktail you’ve been making and you wanna not only send it to us but share the recipe for that cocktail, we’d love to share that on Instagram stories as well. So just whatever you are all up to we’d love to see what you’re doing. So, guys how are you doing?

E: Zach you first.

Z: Oh me first, OK. You know, doing OK. It’s um…I’ll save the complaining for…never, ‘cause all of us are in the same boat. I will say that the thing that’s been really interesting to me on a drink-specific thing in this period of time is, and I think Adam you can probably talk about this ‘cause I just happened to notice on Instagram that you guys are getting into the rosé tasting, and I found myself really missing rosé. It’s been nicer in Seattle than I think it has been in New York and I was like just… we’re getting to the point in the year when I would have been buying rosé normally. But I don’t have very much of it, I don’t keep a lot around the house over the winter and I was like, man… you know the last couple of days it has been nice out and it’s just like the 184-thousandth thing on my list of things that I miss, but I was like, “man I really wish I could just like go to the store, get a nice cold bottle of like 2019 rosé, something super fresh,” and I guess I technically still could but, the sort of unadulterated pleasure that I’ve taken in that time and those first few rosés of the year, I’m unfortunately not able to get. But some very thoughtful friends of mine in the wine industry have sent me a few…[they] have told me they have some bottles in the mail for me, so I will keep an eye out for that. And maybe I’ll post it on Instagram and tag VinePair and you all can see what rosé I’m drinking.

A: That would be dope, you know…I feel that, I feel that. What about you Erica, how are you doing?

E: Yeah, I mean I’m doing all right. But hey, I gotta say living in the New York area in a tiny apartment when you’re cooped inside with two kids and a husband in what, about 800 square feet or so, is no treat. So I know that there’s a lot of listeners around the country who are probably in very similar circumstances and just know that we’re with you. It is a really sucky time for everyone and I think you know one of the things we can do is just look for small projects that are going to help us take our mind off of this self-isolation that we are experiencing. Later in the week on Vinepair.com we’ll be posting some cocktail projects that you can do over the weekend that are simple hacks and tips and tricks to make your afternoon cocktails a little bit more fun and in-depth. So everything from oleo-saccharum to…we’ll probably be talking about how to make bitters, a couple other things. We were just brainstorming this morning. So I think anything that you can do for a little bit of an escape is the thing to get on your calendar. As we discussed before, one of the hardest things to do for a lot of people working from home is just turning off and feeling that you can actually have that escape and that you don’t need to be in front of your computer all the time. So we’ll be coming up with some tips for that.

A: I dig, I dig. I’m gonna share my bathtub gin recipe, get ready. So, what we wanna talk about today is this sort of phenomenon that’s popped up over the last week, which has been pretty insane. Which is, there’s a wide variety of things we all sort of have had experience doing one or two of them. But that’s, first of all we all live in Zoom now. Which is crazy. But you’ve had either cocktail, wine, beer classes pop up. So people in the industry who are going onto Instagram live or asking people to join their Zoom and teaching classes. I know Zach you’re doing something sort of like that with wines you’re picking and talking about.

Z: Mmm-hmm

A: And then having people go back and forth with you, which is cool. We also have the phenomenon of Zoom happy hours. So people all getting together… I’ve mostly seen these happening either among really close friend groups or networking. I haven’t really seen them happening like sort of from a… I don’t know, just “hey, let’s all show up at this random place” kind of bar setting, if you will. I do know people who are going on dates on Zoom, which is really interesting. We also had obviously the crazy party this weekend, run by DJ D-Nice where he had 100-thousand people on his Instagram live and he DJd a party for basically like five hours and people were literally sending him, via Drizly and Minibar, bottles, like you would normally send to a DJ in the DJ booth. But you know he had tons of celebs join the Instagram live. He had Michelle Obama join the Instagram live. And sort of like, just be there partaking. People were saying it was like the best club they’d ever been to, which was pretty crazy. And then you have people getting together for game nights and stuff like that. So I wanna talk about all that today, sort of as a way to find some sort of social outlet. ‘Cause I think you know obviously, being alone and drinking alone is fine, right? In these times. If you need to have a glass of wine at the end of the day, we totally hear you. But drinking together is a lot more fun. So ways that we can all have some sort of communal experience while we are all in this isolation as we are socially distancing is amazing. So Zach, what’s up man, how have these classes been, what made you decide you wanted to do it, what are you doing? Tell us!

Z: Well so for me I think the impotence was two-fold. One, a lot of my function in my restaurant job was wine education and it’s something I really love – and education around drinks in general. And I was missing it and I was trying to think about, “OK, well what can I do?” And it just sort of made sense to me to think about trying to take some of that and put it online. And to say you know… for me it was this question of, OK, what kind of format makes sense? And so to me, at least so far what’s made sense is to not do something like a happy hour or Zoom where it’s multiple people kind of video chatting. It’s more me live-streaming and then trying to take questions or comments from the people who are watching. And I think the hard part for me is, despite what you all might think, it’s actually a little bit weird to sit in front of my computer and just talk at it for half an hour. So, even though I’m used to teaching classes…

A: Really?

Z: I know, right? I think it’s not being able to see the looks of either interest or boredom, depending on the faces of the people I’m teaching. But so far, it’s been pretty cool. It was interesting, I started with a wine that I think [is] a great kind of entry point for a lot of this, which is Sparkling wine by Gruet, a producer in New Mexico, and I’d like to highlight this wine because I think it’s this great example of like the cool things that are happening in American wine, American sparkling wine. It’s made in New Mexico which, you know we don’t think of as a wine place outside of Gruet really. And also just like, everyone needs more encouragement to open bottles of sparkling wine. It’s really affordable, I think the bottle I opened was like $14 at the grocery store. So it’s not like someone picking up a bottle is gonna be a huge issue. And so what I tried to do in putting this idea together was to send out a list of bottles that people could theoretically find relatively easily in their grocery store or in another setting and could basically open along with me if they want, or if they find something similar and want to open it. And talk about it. Talk about what’s going on in the wine, a little bit about the producer, the place it’s from. Talk a little bit about foods that go with it and, yeah. You know again, just have content that is as much as possible, [acknowledging] the circumstance we’re all in but isn’t dwelling on it. Because I think one thing that we’re finding in all of this is that once you get past that initial period of like, “I am just dealing with the shock to my life and the system,” you kind of have to move into a phase where there are things that you do that you enjoy. Whether that’s happy hours with friends or a big 100-thousand-person Instagram dance club or classes. I’m hopeful that for the people who follow along with it, it’s a break a little bit from, not just the stress of work – if you’re still working, but also the stress of a very scary situation.

E: Yeah. Definitely. I mean for me, I think you know I was running one of these on Friday with some friends, one in San Francisco and one in Australia. So we had… for me it was actually happy hour time, 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., and for my friend in San Francisco it was afternoon, afternoon tea, and then for our friend in Australia it was a brunch cocktail thing. So I think one of the things we can do is just try to think of hey, kind of the time and space component of cocktail parties is changing so we can reach out to our far flung friends easier than ever before. And this is the time to do it. And maybe that feels like kind of a treat, you know? Reaching out and getting connected with your friends that you may not be in touch with all the time since, hey! We’re all virtual at this point. It’s sort of the small silver lining of this thing, everyone now is virtually connected anywhere in the world. So let’s use it and try to have a bit of fun with it. And another thing, it’s not just having fun. It’s also doing good. So one of the fun things I’ve seen is, Belinda Chang for example, who is a sommelier and event producer in Chicago, she is doing nightly happy hours and then did this fun party on Sunday that was “Boozy-brunch with Belinda” and there’s a guest at every one of these events who is a sommelier or bartender who’s been laid off from their job and they come on and talk about their recommendations and so forth. So at the Sunday brunch Belinda had 100 attendees and they raised $1,000 and this person essentially got a shift out of this boozy brunch. So I think those sorts of ways that we can come together and have an experience where we are also acknowledging and recognizing and helping out someone in the industry is another good way to use these.

A: Those are cool, yeah. I definitely think, I’ve enjoyed connecting with old friends on it. What I haven’t loved are these forced networking happy hours that I see, that have been popping up a lot. Like on Zoom, for example. Like those to me have felt really inauthentic, if it makes sense. I’d rather just connect with one of you guys over Facetime or… hey guys, I brought back Houseparty. Houseparty is the best app ever right now. If you’re unfamiliar with it, you just download it, your friends can all have a house party, you can crash someone’s House party, it’s really fun. I’m really into those. A lot of these though, it feels like almost immediately like we had this great idea and then these brands started doing them. And that I haven’t loved, personally. Like the ones by the brands have felt kind of forced and always not what you expect, right? Like you have this big brand, whether it’s a media company or an Adidas or whatever, doing some big happy hour, and there’s not as many people there as you think would be there and everyone’s kind of networking, you also don’t know everyone, those I haven’t dug; I felt like those were kind of weird. I think when they come from individual people they still feel super authentic, right? So coming from someone like Belinda is amazing, and when it goes to a good cause I’m much more willing to do it, right? So that’s what I also like, I think part of the reason that they felt kind of weird to me recently is like a lot of them feel forced and like just for the gain of that organization if it makes sense? They’re not going to any charities. It’s just like, “hey, come do this with us because we’re this really cool company, why don’t you meet and network and like get to know a bunch of other entrepreneurs or whatever” and that’s bothered me. It should be something like, “hey we’re gonna do this networking thing, by the way we’d like everyone to give $5 or $10 and we’re gonna use it to support a local restaurant or a local bar or just a local business in general.” And so I think like that’s what no one’s doing yet that I would like to see happen in the next week is more of those. Because if not, those feel like not the thing I’m willing to join, but the game nights I’m really into. The game nights have been super fun.

Z: Well I’m wondering you know, I think all three of us as people who are married might not be thinking about this, but you know one of the things that’s true is that bars in particular are…it’s changed obviously a lot in the land and world of online dating, but I’m wondering, are people using you know Zoom or whatever to go out? Not in a “connect with old friends” sense? And the real question I have is, have either of you seen anything about like, what I imagine some combo of an online happy hour plus chat roulette, where you get thrown in with random strangers who are looking to make a connection? I don’t know, someone out there should do that, if they’re not already.

A: I mean, I definitely have friends who are going on like dates on Zoom. Which I think is really funny and cute. And like they’ve been, “look, it’s a way to still meet people, and have like these one-on-one connections with them while you’re working from home,” which I think is awesome. But yeah, I don’t know if there’s… to me [there] isn’t an app yet that I’ve heard of, ‘cause you’re right, one of the cool things about going out is you can just randomly meet people. And I do understand that that’s why people are also pushing these networking sessions on Zoom. ‘Cause they’re like, “look, I used to go out to the bar and network to get clients or whatever, and now I’m not gonna be able to do that for the next few months.” But that feels a little bit weirder to me than what we already have, which is that people can match on Tinder, etc. and then just set up a Zoom call instead of a real dinner and at least get to know someone for the next 30 minutes to an hour. And the friends that I know that are doing it have said, at least this weekend were like, “oh, it was still fulfilling, I still felt like I got to meet someone, I’m moving my life forward,” right? As opposed to just saying like “Oh shit, there’s gonna be X number of weeks or months where I’m not gonna go out on dates and that’s not what I’m into right now.”

E: Yeah, I mean it’s…I think it’s gonna be tough especially for people who are living alone. I think we published… last Friday we published a story about tips for if you are gonna host some of these parties. Maybe now would be a good time to go into some of those. So, the first thing I think that we all recognize is, we’ve all been doing these virtual happy hours and so forth is, pick a software. So Zoom I think is the one that I’ve universally heard to have the best experience. Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, I’ve been on a couple of those and those have been skipping, so watch out for that.

A: Totally.

E: Yeah, and I think you know another thing is, choose a theme. Like at one of mine I was talking about doing riffs on a Martini. So there’s this Martini at a bar I love in Seattle called Canon….

A: Wait, wait. You did a happy hour?

E: Yeah, yeah!

A: And I didn’t get invited?

E: Next time, alright?

A: I didn’t know you did a happy hour! This is some bullshit Erica. So like now I’m learning about all this stuff like, I didn’t know Erica was doing happy hours! Zach did you get an invite?

Z: Uhh, I did not. Man this is like going back to college, like all the cool parties I didn’t get invited to.

A: I know…

E: Yeah, alright, well you know what? I’m going to do another Martini happy hour, I’m gonna commit to it here. And I think one fun way to use this….so for example, at Canon in Seattle. A bar that I love probably Zach loves….

Z: I do.

E: I was trying to do a riff on this Martini that they do: It’s kinda crazy, it’s called the Anning Martini. It’s a famous Martini where they do oyster-shell-infused gin, they do a mezcal rinse, so they have applewood smoked salt, it’s all this sort of crazy detail. But I actually was playing around with it this weekend and trying to make a home version of it. And I think getting people to get together, you know, to talk about the different riffs that they’re doing, if they’re working on their Martini, I think that’d be really fun. And then we can do a virtual tip jar for Canon, which can go through a platform like Go-tip-em or through Venmo. Maybe we can even get Jamie Boudreau, the owner of Canon, on with us to talk about that. I think something like that, choose a theme so that it feels like you know you have something to talk about other than this terrible circumstance that we’re all having to endure.

A: I think that’s… I mean, that’s an amazing idea. There are so many things like that that you can do, right?

Z: I think Adam, I think you and I need to have a battling bourbon vs rye Boulevardier happy hour.

E: Oh my God, I’m so in, don’t you dare do it without me.

A: We already know which one would win because there’s one that’s correct and there’s one that is not.

Z: Well there’s the question of whether correct or ‘tastes better’ is the more important function here.

E: Ooh….

A: Wooow Zach…

Z: Alright folks, the gauntlets are being thrown down. Well, I was gonna say Erica, to your point that you were making though, and I think this is a good one too. You know, one slight silver lining in all this is that for people who are interested in home cocktail creation in particular but other things too, you know we talked about just as a sort of throwaway on a previous episode: home-brewing and stuff like that, you know most of us are spending a lot more time at home than we normally do. We probably have more time at least in a…. maybe not in a given day, but we’re able to do these sort of longer-term projects. And so now is a great time to think about if you’re going to start doing some infusions, you’re gonna make tinctures or bitters, you’re gonna make oyster-shell gin, which now I have to try. We were just talking about, my wife and I were just talking about getting some oysters ‘cause that’s a thing we miss that we usually have out more than we have at home. But that’s a great… this is the time to plan ahead with some friends, maybe you all kinda commit to trying to make some of these infusions or batch cocktails or whatever, and then you can… you may not be able to taste each other’s and see who did the best job, but you can at least kinda share your experience. And again have some fun and connection and I think that’s really what we’re all trying to get to in this, is really to find some ways to keep those social connections alive even if we can’t be in physical presence with most of the people we care about.

A: Yeah man and you can up your game for later. You know, so like you perfect it now and you’re ready to go later. Or look, you can just get together with people and just play some games. So like there are people who are actually figuring out how to play beer pong on Zoom.

Z: Oh my God.

A: Which is pretty hilarious. Which you know… like, look man, if that’s the way you wanna get together on a Friday or Saturday night, I think that’s hilarious. We played code names this weekend, which was super fun. So we got a bunch of friends together and like one person built the board – for those of you who listen to the podcast who play code names – they built the board in their apartment and then everyone…like the people who were supposed to be the two giving the clues got send a picture to their phone of like what their clue card looked like. So you had like a game master, almost like dungeons and dragons, but not ‘cause I’ve never played dungeons and dragons, I just heard there’s a game master. And then basically like we played the game over Zoom for like two hours, it was hilarious, everyone was enjoying drinks, we sent ahead of time…I sent some people some recipes of cocktails that I like to make that I thought would be easy for them to make during the game. And then we just went from there, it was a really, really good time. So I think there’s a bunch of ways that you can keep connecting with people. There’s obviously online games too that you can play where you can also still be on Facetime or Zoom while you’re both playing a game. There’s actually a really great game on your iPhone called “Pandemic,” I know that no one wants to play that game…

Z: It’s also an excellent board game itself.

A: Yeah, it is an excellent board game, and it’s a collaborative game which is fun ‘cause you’re actually not trying to beat people you’re like actually working together to do it. So I’m playing that with our tastings director Keith and his wife Gina on Friday, this coming Friday. So we’ve figured out how to make that work ‘cause they love collaborative games and they’ve turned us on to it. But like I think there’s like a lot of ways for people to sort of come together and be creative and that’s I think what’s made it super fun to watch. It’s like I think there are some things that, as I was saying earlier, that for me have kind of missed the mark. But then others that have completely hit based on people’s creativity, like who would have known that someone would ever figure out how to play beer pong on Zoom.

Z: Yeah. I would have guessed you would need a robot.

A: And yet like people did… no, and people did man, it’s crazy! Like, one person set up their board at their house, the other person set up their board at their house and they were just super honest with each other. Which is just really crazy.

E: I love that. I think, OK, so I have an idea here on the fly. So for all the parents out there who are starting to set up virtual play dates for their kids, how about this? Candyland, sorry, all of those games where you have to move backwards? That’s when you drink. So the parents drink and then the kids just keep playing, you know?

Z: Ohh….

E: So maybe you can incorporate some level of a little bit of a happy hour experience to all those play dates that you’re getting invited to as well. I think my kids are on one with my husband right now.

Z: There you go.

A: I think that’s amazing.

Z: You might wanna make sure he’s not passed out.

E: Exactly.

A: That’s amazing, seriously!

Well guys, this has been another fun conversation in the time of the coronavirus. If you’ve been listening throughout the entire episode, please remember to first of all check out our [Covid-19 Conversations] that are dropping every day or so with people in the industry. As well as send us a pic of what you’re drinking to either [email protected] or to tagging us on Instagram with @VinePair so we can share in our stories, we would really love to see what you guys are all up to. And with that we will see everyone here again next week.

Z: Sounds great.

E: Take care.

The article VinePair Podcast: Social Drinking in a World of Social Distancing appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/vinepair-podcast-social-drinking-in-a-world-of-social-distancing/

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johnboothus · 4 years

Text

VinePair Podcast: Social Drinking in a World of Social Distancing

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Spotify

LISTEN ONLINE OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE:

Adam: From my apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From my apartment in Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in my house in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

Z: Thank you.

E: Absolutely!

Z: Oh, for sure.

E: Zach you first.

A: That would be dope, you know…I feel that, I feel that. What about you Erica, how are you doing?

Z: Mmm-hmm

A: Really?

A: Totally.

E: Yeah, and I think you know another thing is, choose a theme. Like at one of mine I was talking about doing riffs on a Martini. So there’s this Martini at a bar I love in Seattle called Canon….

A: Wait, wait. You did a happy hour?

E: Yeah, yeah!

A: And I didn’t get invited?

E: Next time, alright?

A: I didn’t know you did a happy hour! This is some bullshit Erica. So like now I’m learning about all this stuff like, I didn’t know Erica was doing happy hours! Zach did you get an invite?

Z: Uhh, I did not. Man this is like going back to college, like all the cool parties I didn’t get invited to.

A: I know…

Z: I do.

A: I think that’s… I mean, that’s an amazing idea. There are so many things like that that you can do, right?

Z: I think Adam, I think you and I need to have a battling bourbon vs rye Boulevardier happy hour.

E: Oh my God, I’m so in, don’t you dare do it without me.

A: We already know which one would win because there’s one that’s correct and there’s one that is not.

Z: Well there’s the question of whether correct or ‘tastes better’ is the more important function here.

E: Ooh….

A: Wooow Zach…

Z: Oh my God.

Z: It’s also an excellent board game itself.

Z: Yeah. I would have guessed you would need a robot.

Z: Ohh….

Z: There you go.

A: I think that’s amazing.

Z: You might wanna make sure he’s not passed out.

E: Exactly.

A: That’s amazing, seriously!

Z: Sounds great.

E: Take care.

The article VinePair Podcast: Social Drinking in a World of Social Distancing appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/vinepair-podcast-social-drinking-in-a-world-of-social-distancing/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-social-drinking-in-a-world-of-social-distancing

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softkitten · 7 years

Text

I was tagged by @haplesschromantica because I’m just as game for an ask meme.

A- age: 31. B- birthplace: Swift Current, Saskatchewan. C- current time: 10:16pm D- drink you last had: Tap water. E- easiest person to talk to: @haplesschromantica F- favourite song: "Teenage Wristband” by the Twilight Singers, never more trouble than it’s worth even when it’s earning me speeding tickets; I also love Read My Mind by The Killers G- grossest memory: The time when I was seventeen and got food poisoning and stomach flu on the same day and it started coming out of both ends five seconds after I woke up. H- horror yes or no: Horror always but I’m a snob about it. I- in love? Yes, and only growing moreso. J- jealous of people? I feel FOMO way more frequently than jealousy. It actually takes a lot to conjure real jealousy in me. When I do get really proper jealous, there are often other dynamics at play besides some third party’s presence, like stress over past history, or the feeling that I am being manipulated, pitted against that third party. And when I let it rip and become proper jealous, I wear it in a way that looks completely demonic. K- Killed someone? I killed a garter snake with a garden hoe when I was about 11 years old because my mom was having a freakout about it and begged me to do it. That’s about as hard as I get. L- love at first sight or walk past again? I’ve never heard of a “love at first sight” story that didn’t smack of either wishful thinking or historical revisionism. It’s a pretty harmless story for an established couple to tell themselves about each other and that’s about the full worth of that trope in my opinion. M- middle name: Jordan for my grandfather, a modernization of his first name, Gordon. He’ll be 101 years old in two months and change. N- number of siblings: Zero and I still manage to hail from a family full of eccentrics. O- one wish: Love and safety for the people I love. P- person I last called: @haplesschromantica after a good DJ gig. Q- question you’re always asked: "Do you have ‘Closer’ by the Chainsmokers?” R- reason to smile: Good luck. Long sunny days. Cats. S- song you last sang: Honestly it was “Heel Turn 2″ by the Mountain Goats in the shower, and I think if John Darnielle heard my impression he’d probably LOL and not be offended at all. T- time you woke up? 2:05pm U- underwear colour: Commando. V- vacation: it won’t be very exciting this year, probably just going to Calgary in July. W- worst habit: Procrastination X- x-rays: I haven’t had any in years thankfully. Z- zodiac sign: Libra sun with a whole lot of Libra and Virgo mixed up in there but I forget the specifics. I didn’t have a personality for a long time so I just looked up what Librans were supposed to be like and voila!

I tag you. If you read all this way YOU HAVE TO DO IT.

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recentanimenews · 4 years

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Ani-Gamers Interview with John-Paul

Almost to the hour a week after the online convention Anime Lockdown finished its formal programming, Ink sat down with its founder, Director of Operations John-Paul, to talk about how the con came together: aides, influences, intentions, and efforts. The virtual convention drew industry representation from Discotek, Right Stuf, Kyle Hebert, and Veronica Taylor as well as such talented panelists as Mike Toole, Evan Minto, and many others. What follows is a transcript of most of the interview. Audio of the full interview is accessible by Content Respecter members of the Ani-Gamers Patreon.

Ani-Gamers: Hello and welcome to Ani-Gamers’ interview with John Paul, director of operations for the online-only convention Anime Lockdown that took place May 1-3, 2020 via streams on Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube. JP, thanks for talking with me.

John-Paul (JP): Whaddup?!

Ani-Gamers: How’s recovery going after basically coordinating panelists and emceeing the con for three days straight?

John-Paul: You know, it’s been pretty good. It took a whiole to adjust to not having a deadline, because leading up to the convention, we took about a month to plan everything. I was spending essentially the same length of a of a con day just doing prep, and so there was like three or four 14-hour days leading up to the convention just working on graphics, working on audio clips, and all that. So not having something to do actually makes me more nervous. So I've been I've been working on music again, which has been keeping me busy.

Ani-Gamers: You said there was a virtual con before this one that helped you out in terms of building this one. Can you walk us through what kind of influence they had and how they helped you and sort of walk us through how you built this con.

John-Paul: Oh, sure. That’s been a common misconception: that a lot of people thought we were the first to do this. It's absolutely not true. I've said it and reiterated it multiple times along the way, especially because other cons helped me out in some of the planning. The two that reached out to me were On-Con and QuaranCon. On-Con, I'm not terribly familiar with the people behind it. It's a YouTuber [GeekArchaeology], and his name escapes me, but he has a YouTube channel, where he does anime news, I assume weekly, and he did this all-day convention thing at the end of March I think? It was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Friday was a half day. Saturday and Sunday, I don't think they were quite as long as the days we did, but they were longer days. And they helped me out in terms of like, “You need to give people more things to do than just panels. You need to be aware that technical things could happen. You need to have a variety in your programming” – things that were in the back of my mind but that were being brought to my attention as more of a priority. ‘Cause when I originally thought of this, I was like, “I'm just going to do like a day or two panels. It's going to be fine. It's going to be a bunch of people I know. Is anybody even going to apply? Probably not. It's likely just going to be doing a couple panels and then calling it a day.”

And QuaranCon helped me out with the dealers side. They ran their convention on Discord. They were the weekend before us, and they really helped us out with figuring out how to set up the Dealer's Room, the Artist Alley, different types of things that we did in Discord like different bots and stuff. Some of their staff actually came to join us and help run things. So that was really helpful, ‘cause I don't know a lot about Discord. My partner, Tony, is the one who handled most of the Discord stuff with help from QuaranCon, as well as one of one our vendors, Persephone, I think it was her boyfriend, I'm not totally sure, but he also helped us with a lot of the more advanced Discord things. I handled all the panel stuff. That's my expertise: running tech, running audio. It’s essentially like anybody that went … what you saw is what I had in my head when I first came up with this. It just got bigger in scale. Like, I always wanted to have audio only with graphic showing a PowerPoint. I always wanted to use Discord. I always wanted to have a break in between each panel. So for the most part, that never changed. I don't know, it just it just seems like the easiest way to do it. And I think I was right, because I didn’t have any huge technical problems. Webcams would’ve complicated things, and screen sharing was another thing I wanted to avoid. A few people did use screen sharing – there was maybe five panels that used screen sharing? And my hesitance to use it was vindicated a little bit; we didn’t have any huge meltdowns, but panels that had technical problems were the ones that were screen shared.

Ani-Gamers: What was it that made you take that first step in making this con? I mean, to have in your head, “I'd love to make a con” is something so completely different from, “Okay, it's time to start building this con.”

John-Paul: The first time I had the idea to do an online con was mid-March. It was like two days after I lost my job. I work in the film industry. All of the movie sets shut down on, like, March tenth-ish, and so I needed something to do. And all the cons were closing, and I posted some tweet like, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if there was like an online con?” One of my local cons from back in Minnesota had just announced that they weren't going to do their event, Anime Detour, and a few people reached out like, “Yeah, that's kind of cool” or “I've been to things like this” or “What if we did this type of thing” and I just kind of forgot about it for a couple weeks. And then it was the weekend that Anime Detour would have happened, which I think is the last weekend of March, and Tony and several other friends were online lamenting like, “Aw, man, we would’ve been at Detour this weekend. This is a bummer.” For some of us, that’s the only time we get to see each other – anime conventions. Like I’ve known Tony, Tony was the Director of Vendor Relations by the way, for over a decade, but only ever see each other at anime conventions, be it Anime Detour or Otakon. And that’s ‘cause even when I lived in Minnesota, he lived like two hours away. So it just didn’t make sense for us to go get a beer after work. So this was a bummer, ‘cause for some of us, that’s like the one time we get to see our friends. And I said like, “You know? I was talkin’ about it a couple weeks ago. Why don’t we just do our own con? Gimme a couple weeks. I’m gonna put something together. Let’s see where this goes.” And then I started brainstorming names. And that’s when it became real, was when I gave it a name and made a twitter account. And I think the first tweet was April 2; I just said, “Hey, I’m gonna try doing a con. Would that be cool with everybody?” And it just kind of snowballed from there.

Ani-Gamers: You said QuaranCon and On-Con took place beforehand, and like you said people tend to overlook the fact that they existed, maybe because they were just so local, but what do you think made Anime lockdown so novel?

John-Paul: I don't want to downplay what they did, because I think what they did is really important, and they definitely set the groundwork for what I did. I think the difference was just that I'm louder. I think that's honestly the only difference; I'm louder, and I posted a lot on social media. I went to QuaranCon, and it look to be very successful. I think they did a really cool thing. They did it differently. They did it in a way I wouldn't… Well I mean obviously I didn't run my event in the same way, but they were catering to a different , and I think they did so fairly successfully. But they also they advertised in different places. Their Twitter account was fairly quiet leading up to their event. I think they did most of their talking on Instagram, because QuaranConcon, from an outsider looking in, seemed to be very artist-heavy, and so I think it was a bunch of people that would normally go to an Artist Alley that wanted to set up a place where they could share their work with everyone. And if you look at the types of panels that they had, it seems to confirm that fact. They had a lot of like “How to Draw” or like “How to Style a Wig” types of panels like that. On-Con, I don't have as much familiarity with. I don't know what his Twitter presence is. I don't know what his YouTube reach is. I know that they did fairly well. They've done a second con. I don't know what the numbers were like for that, but their first con they had 150-200 people and they raised like $500 for charity, which is really awesome. We didn't align herself with a specific charity, because I wanted to encourage people to donate locally and also to shop with our vendors and tip our DJ, which in that sense I think we were very successful. Our DJ was able to pay off some of his gear. I saw him talking about that on Facebook, which makes me really happy. I don't know how much money our dealers made, but I know that some made a sizable amount

AG: I actually made it a point to at least buy one or two things from a dealer per day – just to sort of simulate that, “Hey I'm at a con. This is the time I would just be wandering through the Dealers Room. Yeah, why not?”

John-Paul: When I when I set out to do this, that was what I wanted to do. Now we didn’t have dealers in the beginning, but it was never about me emceeing a con and telling people to check out my SoundCloud. It was me providing a platform for people to share their cosplay that they now don't get to wear in public because of the shutdown, to do their panel that maybe they only get to do once a year, and to help people find more followers. ‘Cause I know for some people conventions are a great place to find an audience for, you know, maybe you've never done a panel before, and you’ve got a really cool anime blog. Well what better way to get the word out than a group of thirty people that are coming to your robot panel or whatever. But the short answer to your question is I just happen to be connected to the twittersphere. I know a lot of people. I know you. I know Mike Toole. I know Evan. So like a lot of it was, “Oh yeah, I know that guy. He's doing a thing. I want to participate.” Whereas these other people may not have had those connections. But certainly I want to make it clear that I didn't abuse those connections; I didn't reach out to anybody. They came to me of their own accord. So they just happened to see me being loud on Twitter.

Ani-Gamers: How did the voice actors get involved, ‘cause that's fairly high-profile for, no offense, someone on Twitter putting together a con. Did people reach out to the vocal talent and some of the companies like Right Stuf and Discotek?

John-Paul: I don’t take any offense to that. We’re an indie show, and and I take a lot of pride in that we’re an indie show. I think we set a fairly high bar for what the pro shows have to do now. There’s a lot of pro cons coming out, and what we pulled off, with essentially two people and a few moderators, I think is kind of outrageous.

So what I said in the previous answer is slightly misleading; I reached out to one person. I reached out to Kyle. Kyle Hebert has been a favorite voice actor of mine for a long time. He has a background in podcasting and radio. And so I thought it would be a perfect fit for doing a convention where he doesn't actually see the people that are at his panel. But other than that, everybody reached out to me on their own. Veronica reached out to me on Twitter, Discotek reached out to me through Mike Toole on Twitter, and Right Stuf submitted a panel in the same way that you did. So that was really what blew my mind every step of the way. I shared this dumb meme on Twitter: 20 days ago: “Hey, does anyone want to do an anime con? And then me when I find out who the guests are, and it’s the Pikachu surprised face.” I woke up one day to Right Stuf asking if they could do a panel and I was like, “Whoa.” And I don’t wanna play favorites, but Right Stuf and Discotek are two of my favorite anime companies, and so I was really honored that they wanted to be a part of this event.

Ani-Gamers: Make sense. They're kind of more the indie group amongst the sellers the distributors.

John-Paul: Oh yeah. One of my favorite anime of all time was a Right Stuf release: Boogiepop Phantom. And, you know, I wouldn't be here, I would presume, if I hadn't seen that show.

Ani-Gamers: I know you said Tony handled most of the Discord stuff. Was there any discussion between you and Tony about how that Discord evolved? Because it was kind of awesome. It evolved in real-time, where not only did you have like The Hall for cosplay but then you had The Showcase for more like glamour shots and professional photography-based stuff. You had a call-out to the vendors as mentioned previously but then you had that In Search Of tool, which was a fantastic way of matching vendor to need, especially in a virtual space where you can't browse tables and going through everybody's virtual Etsy store would take hours.

John-Paul: A lot of it was a collaborative effort. There were a few things that he did on his own without running it by me, which is fine, because, you know, you have to trust your team sometimes. The check-in area was very much a collaborative effort. The having the con not show up until you agree to the rules and having the vendors not show up until you agree to the waiver, that was an idea that me and him had had for a while that we just didn't know how to implement for a long time. The panel notification was something the Tony figured out how to do on his own. That was, if you emoji the panel, you would get an alert when it when it was time for that panel to come on. The hotel lobby was kind of us a few days before the con realizing that we didn't have a general area for people to talk, and so we made the Introduction the general chat. And me and him were just like, “Wouldn’t it be funny way if we had a channel you can't post in called, ‘Elevator,’ and it's just a picture that says, ‘This elevator is out of service’”? And that was just a dumb idea that we… Like there were people in the Discord as we were adding silly things like that. And then that, of course, evolved into the Johnson Wedding on Floor 34. I think I may have come up with that the day of the convention.

Ani-Gamers: It was a beautiful addition. I’m a huge fan of running gags, so all of the in-jokes with the broken elevator and the Johnson Wedding just really kinda made this home.

John-Paul: Con-Ops is fairly standard stuff. We had a Help Desk, we got that idea from QuaranCon. The Anime Lockdown Live, that was Tony’s idea to just have the Twitter re-post, which I don’t know if a lot of people used that, but I thought it was cool. Showoff cosplay and party rooms were things that I added, and then Tony had ideas on other stuff we could do in them. And I think that’s everything.

Ani-Gamers: Yeah, I saw, because I was hanging out in the Discord quite a bit, I really liked the fact that, because there were so many rooms, it was kinda emulative of a college con, where you had just enough space where people had to be separated but just kinda stayed in one place for a little while and then maybe went o a different room for a little while.

But I saw a lot of positive feedback in the Discord regarding first-time attendees, specifically those referring to physical disabilities or social anxiety or finance-related concerns. They said, “Oh, well I’ve never attended a con before. So this is my first con.” And, surprisingly, there was just this wealth of love, like “Great! Check out this!” and “What do you think about this?” And it was people being inclusive in conversations.

Ani-Gamers: How do you see events such as these as well as Anime Lockdown specifically continuing past Covid-19 pandemic? And what changes do you see, after running a convention, that might need to be made?

John-Paul: Ooh, that’s a good question. The cynical side of me thinks that a lot of these online conventions aren’t going to continue once they’re no longer a necessary thing that we’re being forced to do. That being said, I want to keep doing it because of how many people I saw say that this was their first, because live cons have never been an option for them. I think for a lot of the big cons, they're not going to have the resources to do two things. But I think the indie shows for sure. I don't know; I had a lot of fun, and I want to do it again. I can't speak for the other shows. But like there is a… I'm trying to think of all the names. I think like Comic-Con might be doing one, and there was one this past day, called like Pop Culture Expo, that had a bunch of like actors, and obviously FUNimationCon. I don't know if those are going to continue; I think that that is people doing that because they don't have a choice, which is a shame, because I do think that there is … I don't want to say a market, because we didn't charge, but I definitely think that there's a place for events like this, because all these people that can't go to Cons – why shouldn't they be allowed to get to watch panels and share their cosplay? You know? I may be not wording this the best way, but I want there to be more. Here's my prediction though with, if there is an Anime Lockdown 2021, I don't think there's going to be industry panels. I think that we got those, because industry needed a place to announce their products; that's not going to be a problem next year. Actors, I think it's still possible, but it might be a little harder because actual cons are going to be asking for them and paying for their fees and whatnot. Getting panelists I think… I think people always want to share their panels. But I do think that moving forward online cons will be different. I don't think they're going to be less fun, but I'm not expecting a, “Hey let's announce six 6 anime at, you know, Anime Lockdown 2021.” I’m fairly realistic that that was very much a lightning in a bottle situation.

Ani-Gamers: Do you think something like GoFundMe or Kickstarter might help reign in some talent in the future or some of the “higher-end programming”?

John-Paul: I think it could, but it’s very much against my core values with the convention. I made a point very early on that I didn't want to involve outside money, don't want to ask people to pay a cover, I don't want to ask people to donate so we can get a guest, I don't want to tell people to go to my Patreon. These are things that, they go against my core beliefs with creating … I don’t want to say content, because that word is now kind of being turned into a gross word, but that's just how I prefer to present my art. And that doesn't mean that other people are wrong, but I don't feel right charging people for things. So if we do get another guest, that's something that I would be handling. But I want to remain self-funded.

Ani-Gamers: That’s really cool. That’s a lot of heart right there.

John-Paul: It’s not that expensive. [laughs]

Ani-Gamers: Well, it's your time and your effort. And even though you put this whole tthing together in just about a month, the result was fantastic.

So in that entire time, or during the con itself, what was one of your most treasured moments as either staff or attendee (providing you actually had a moment to appreciate the con as an attendee at the time)?

John-Paul: I didn’t really get to go to my own convention. So there were a few highlights for me. The interview/Q&A I did with Kyle is is one of the most proudest moments of my journalistic career. I would say I'm not a professional journalist, but I've done amateur journalism, I’ve done radio. That is one of the highlights; it's one of the best things I've ever done in terms of execution I think. I think it was the best sounding panel. I think it had the most natural flow of anything I've done in terms of an interview setting. I'm very happy with how that turned out. But then from a fan side, when Veronica Taylor said she chooses me in Ash’s voice, I almost broke down in tears during the convention. That was something that I didn't expect her to do, and hearing a voice that I grew up with thank me for something was … it's not something you ever expect to encounter, so it was very, very weird. It was a very special moment. And I have a recording of that, which is kind of dope. [laughs]. Eight-hundred plus people at the Discotec panel was really awesome. That's the highest number of people that were at the entire event throughout the weekend. I think it might have been 850 total? I’m not sure on the exact numbers. [Ink’s] panel, actually, when I saw how hype the chat was getting – that was a big moment for me, when they kept copy-pasting, “BUT I HATE SPORTS ANIME!!!!!!!!.” Getting to do panels with Mark again was a great moment. Me and Mark did panels together for a decade in Minnesota, and then when I moved, that was no longer an option for me.

Ani-Gamers: That was the Criticism of Film Criticism panel?

John-Paul: Yes, and then he also did a panel on Americanization that he asked me to join him in, so that was a lot of fun. But also, as you mentioned and I've mentioned, being able to help so many people was really special – all these people saying that they've never been to a con and this is their first time and they're having fun. Watching people enjoy the rave! I didn't think that was going to work and people loved it.

Ani-Gamers: What kind of reactions did you see from that? I used it as background music myself.

John-Paul: Sure, I mean the chat was posting a lot of dance-type emojis, which I assume means that they were dancing. Some people were saying that they turned on like a strobe light in their apartment and they were dancing. A ton of people were tipping Obi-Wan [Shinobi], which was not something I expected. Because, again, “We’re not about money, let’s not blah, blah, blah…” but I was like, “Oh, yeah, he’s kinda like a vendor. So I should be saying, “Hey, just like the vendors, this is his job. This is how he makes a living, and now he's out of work. So like, if you enjoy what he does, he has donation links available.” I don't know how many people donated. He didn't tell me. But I know that he made a decent amount of money, which is great, ‘cause like, you know, when was the last time he got to play in a club? Probably two months ago? That's rough! And especially for freelancers and like performance artists, it's really hard ‘cause you don't always qualify for unemployment

Ani-Gamers: So the last question I have for you, well it’s a two-parter: a) have you ever staffed a con before?

John-Paul No.

Ani-Gamers: So now having run an entire con, when you next are able to go to a con, what will you be paying a little bit of closer attention to?

John-Paul: Ooh, so the way that I attend cons is kinda weird. I don't really go to the con, and that's kind of insane considering that I spend all this money on hotel rooms and the badges and all that. But a con for me is a time to hang out with like-minded friends that I don't live near. And so Otakon is really special to me, because, like, I don't see these people ever. I've got friends that live in Arizona. I have friends that live in D.C. I have friends that live in Minnesota. But we all go to Otakon. And so, I like to go to the dealers room a lot. That's kind of my main thing that I'll do; I'll just bum around the dealers room. Occasionally I'll go to panels, but my problem with larger conventions (and this isn't the fault of the conventions, so I don't want to paint it in that light): I don't want to wait in line to get into the panel I want to go to, and I usually want to go to the ones that you have to wait in line to go to. Which is something that I was really happy with [Anime] Lockdown is that for the very first time anybody that wanted to go to the Discotek panel got to go to the Discotek panel. Every single person that wanted to go to the Kyle Hebert panel got to go to the Kyle Hebert panel. You didn't have to wait in line for an hour and like not get to go to lunch with your friend because you're waiting to maybe get allowed in. One of the, I don’t want to say one of the worst moments, but one of the bummer moments of conventions for me was last Otakon; I showed up early to meet Studio Trigger. Me and my friend Adam, I think it was Adam, we were some of the first people there. We got in the line as soon as we could. It was still a very long line, and we were still here fairly far behind. But we showed up like 40 minutes early to wait to wait in line and then waited in line for, I don't know, it must have been an hour or two hours. I was cut off like four people before I would have gotten to go, and that is SO, so devastating. But then it's like I forget that also there's all the people behind me that also din’t get to go, and there's the person that would have been next – they didn't get to go either. And that's something that it's an unfortunate thing that happens at conventions. There's no way around that; Trigger can't meet every single fan … it's just not possible. But I really like that I was able to give an opportunity to people to go to these events and not have to worry about not getting in. So that’s kind of a long version of why I don't tend to go to panels. I like them. I want to go to the fun and exciting ones like everybody else, and so I spend more time looking at merch, hanging out with people, go to a lot of party rooms.

Ani-Gamers: Thank you very much for coming on and talking about the con, and thank you even more so for putting on the con and all the efforts. It meant a lot to a lot of people, including myself.

John-Paul: I’m happy to do it. It was a good time. It's already been a week! Which is WILD. Like right now, the con would have, I think, been over or would have been wrapping up. The week went by really fast, but I'm glad that everybody enjoyed it. I would happily do it again … just not [laughs] not for a year … not for at least six months. We have some ideas for stuff that we want to do. I haven't made anything official yet. We talked about it at closing ceremonies: maybe doing some kind of like audio zine, which could be interesting but it would rely very heavily on participation, because it's not going to be me doing features; it's going to be other people doing stuff. It’s kinda like mini-panels, and then I'd introduce each one and then put them together maybe like an hour and a half. Podcast? But I’m calling it a magazine, ‘cause that’s cooler?

Ani-Gamers: Speaking of the con being over, I keep checking in on the Discord, because I always get the notifications that there are new messages in there. When are you actually going to shut that down, or are you going to shut that down?

Jon-Paul: Well, we wanted to see how things faded away organically, which it's been … it has. I think like 300 people left on their own, which is understandable or expected. But me and Tony didn't want to cut things off, because people were still talking, and we also wanted to make sure that people had access to the vendors in case there were any issues that needed to be taken care of or things that need to be finalized. I don't know. We’ll revisit in another week. If nobody's talking, then we’ll probably shut it down. I don't know a lot about Discord. I imagine there's a way to kick people out without deleting it because I want to… Obviously for research, we want to keep it so we can see what worked and see what didn't work. You know, if we need to copy paste any features or whatever, we're going to need the archive for that. But we're letting it happen organically, because we didn’t know if all these new friends have shared contact information yet. We don’t want to cut people off.

Ani-Gamers Interview with John-Paul originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on June 19, 2020 at 4:57 PM.

By: Ink

#Anime #News #Ani-Gamers

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isaiahrippinus · 4 years

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VinePair Podcast: Social Drinking in a World of Social Distancing

Listen on iTunes

Listen on Spotify

LISTEN ONLINE OR CHECK OUT OUR CONVERSATION HERE:

Adam: From my apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From my apartment in Jersey City, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in my house in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

Z: Thank you.

E: Absolutely!

Z: Oh, for sure.

E: Zach you first.

A: That would be dope, you know…I feel that, I feel that. What about you Erica, how are you doing?

Z: Mmm-hmm

A: Really?

A: Totally.

E: Yeah, and I think you know another thing is, choose a theme. Like at one of mine I was talking about doing riffs on a Martini. So there’s this Martini at a bar I love in Seattle called Canon….

A: Wait, wait. You did a happy hour?

E: Yeah, yeah!

A: And I didn’t get invited?

E: Next time, alright?

A: I didn’t know you did a happy hour! This is some bullshit Erica. So like now I’m learning about all this stuff like, I didn’t know Erica was doing happy hours! Zach did you get an invite?

Z: Uhh, I did not. Man this is like going back to college, like all the cool parties I didn’t get invited to.

A: I know…

Z: I do.

A: I think that’s… I mean, that’s an amazing idea. There are so many things like that that you can do, right?

Z: I think Adam, I think you and I need to have a battling bourbon vs rye Boulevardier happy hour.

E: Oh my God, I’m so in, don’t you dare do it without me.

A: We already know which one would win because there’s one that’s correct and there’s one that is not.

Z: Well there’s the question of whether correct or ‘tastes better’ is the more important function here.

E: Ooh….

A: Wooow Zach…

Z: Oh my God.

Z: It’s also an excellent board game itself.

Z: Yeah. I would have guessed you would need a robot.

Z: Ohh….

Z: There you go.

A: I think that’s amazing.

Z: You might wanna make sure he’s not passed out.

E: Exactly.

A: That’s amazing, seriously!

Z: Sounds great.

E: Take care.

The article VinePair Podcast: Social Drinking in a World of Social Distancing appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/vinepair-podcast-social-drinking-in-a-world-of-social-distancing/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/613562771997671424

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bluebookweb · 7 years

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50 Buzzworthy Bar and Restaurant Promotion Ideas to Improve Slow Nights

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Bring in a Celeb

Yes, you may have to pay them but yes, it’s worth it. Think of all the midweek bar and restaurant promotions you could build around a local celebrity at your place.

Battle of the Bartenders

Every month, challenge two bartenders to a mix off. Offer bar and restaurant promotions around the drinks they whip up. Let guests vote on their favorite.

Be the ‘Home’ Of

What are you known for? Seriously spicy chicken wings? A different homemade dessert every day? Start promoting yourself as the “home” of something noteworthy.

Big Eats

Offer a massive portion of one of your menu items like 20 chicken tenders. Reward anyone who eats it all within a set time period with a free t-shirt.

Decade Theme Nights

Kick it old school with nostalgic bar and restaurant promotion ideas. Schedule your theme nights for Tuesdays and Thursdays when Buzztime’s nationally scheduled Glory Daze trivia runs.

90’s Rap Night

What do Tupac, LL Cool J, and the Beastie Boys have in common? They get everyone dancing. Throwback rap is popular with trendy millennials and Generation Xers.

80’s Fever Night

Invite guests to wear their 1980’s apparel and enjoy drink and food specials based on 1980s prices.

70’s Night

Appeal to older patrons and cool hipsters with a 1970’s night complete with Led Zeppelin and Beatles tunes.

A League of Your Own

The easiest way to bring guests back week after week? Launch a midweek league and these bar and restaurant promotion ideas.

Sponsor a Sports Team

Sponsoring an adult kickball or softball team in a league is one of the simplest bar or restaurant promotion ideas. Invite the team to your place after games for special league-only offers.

Dart League

Get millennials into the game by hosting complimentary dart lessons once a month.

Trivia League

Trivia leagues are popular at bars across the country. Get in on the trend.

Stay Classy

School was never as cool as these education-based bar and restaurant promotion ideas.

Just Dance

Bring in a dance instructor to teach your guests some moves: from ballroom to salsa, square dancing to hip-hop.

Plant and Pour

Host a Plant Nite – a hot trend that’s sprouting up. Guests receive supplies and instruction to create potted plants and terrariums. There are thousands of instructors across North America ready to host Plant Nite at your place.

Arts and Crafts

Serve cool craft brews and bring in a local craft or paint instructor to lead a workshop.

Believe in Magic

Hire a magician to teach guests cool card tricks.

Get in the Game

Show your team spirit and bring the fans with these bar and restaurant promotion ideas.

Pre-Game Pep Rally

You’re probably busy on gameday but what about the evening before? Invite fans to get hype with a pep rally. Got extra space outdoors? Fire up the grill to create a tailgate vibe.

Fantasy League Headquarters

Cater to fantasy football players with clever bar and restaurant promotion ideas that pitch your place as their “headquarters.”

Best Day Ever

For instant bar and restaurant promotion ideas, look to the calendar. But don’t focus on the obvious holidays. Get creative with lesser known days of the year. Here are 12 calendar-based restaurant promotion ideas:

Mid-January: Resolution Ruiner Party

Have fun with the fact that just eight percent of people keep their New Year’s resolutions. Create restaurant promotion ideas and specials for your richest appetizers and best booze.

February 2: Groundhog Day

Add intrigue to this holiday by offering two for one drinks all night if the groundhog sees his shadow – or two for one appetizers if he doesn’t.

March 14: Pi Day

3.14 is “pi” in mathematics – get it? These nerdy restaurant promotion ideas can add up to big sales. Offer $3.14 appetizers or a $31.40 prix fixe menu. Or, include complimentary slices of homemade pie with every order. Also, apple pie shots anyone?

April 1: April Fool’s Day Joke Competition

Fool me once, fool me twice…ok, we can’t remember the saying either. Host a “joke off” event. Invite guests to tell their best joke and let the crowd vote for the ultimate joker.

May 4: Star Wars Day

“May the Fourth” be with you as you invite guests to come in costume to enjoy restaurant promotion ideas and drink special inspired by the hit movies.

July 21: Hot Dog Day

Cater to sports fans? Promote complimentary hot dogs – plus peanuts and cracker jacks. Call it a “Day at the Ball Park” and turn on the baseball games.

August 26: National Dog Day

You’ll fetch big crowds if you have space outdoors to host patrons and their pooches. Put out water and offer complimentary dog treats. Just don’t let the doggies indoors as it likely isn’t allowed per your city’s health codes.

September 19: Talk Like a Pirate Day

Servers could don eyepatches and speak like pirates. Bartenders can offer 2-for-1 specials on all rum drinks. P.S. Located in Michigan? This is an official holiday.

Early October: Oktoberfest

Create a special menu featuring Oktoberfest brews and German bites like soft pretzels, schnitzel (fried pork), and more.

Black Friday Escape

The day after Thanksgiving means crazy shoppers are on the loose! Give them a reason to unwind afterwards at your place with crazy good restaurant promotion ideas and specials…like a Black Friday Free Fry Day. Offer free wings and fries from 5-7 p.m. and you can almost guarantee you’ll see big happy hour crowds.

Mid-December: Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

This is one of the most fun bar and restaurant promotion ideas. Give $2 off any drink if the patron is donning a hideous sweater. Or, make it an event and send the top three ugliest sweater wearers home with prizes.

Set the Stage for Performing Arts

By stage, we just mean a little floor space in your venue to launch one of these performance-based bar and restaurant promotion ideas and events.

Open Mic Night: DJs

Everyone wants to be a DJ, so let them! Invite local DJs – both professional and amateur – to spin a half hour set. You’ll turn the tables on slow nights.

Open Mic: Comedy

Comedy clubs wish they could be like your bar or restaurant. You’ve already got the great food and drinks, you just need the mic and the comedians. Designate one night a week as Open Mic Comedy Night.

Open Mic: Upgraded

Basic open mic night is boring. As one of your go-to bar and restaurant promotion ideas, “gamify” Open Mic night by letting the audience vote on the best performer who is rewarded with a $25 gift certificate.

Band Together

Nothing turns up the volume on business better than a live band. Just be sure to schedule the band for after your dinner rush – no one likes yelling over dinner.

Be Dramatic

While live music is one of the most common restaurant promotion ideas, go beyond the mic and invite in the local theater. Pitch it to the theater as a promotional event: a few of their actors can perform one scene from an upcoming play. Let them sell tickets on site, too.

Radio Remote

Invite the local radio station in to broadcast remotely from your bar. Most stations require payment, but you can always offer trade instead. The on-air personalities could even host an open mic night.

Art Gallery

Spice up your décor by featuring a local artist’s work on your walls every quarter. As one of your bar and restaurant promotion ideas, host a VIP “gallery opening” on your slowest night.

Targeted Bar and Restaurant Promotion Ideas

Want to reach a specific audience? We’ve got you covered.

Singles

Launch restaurant promotion ideas designed to bring singles together. Host a stoplight party. Guests wear green if they’re single, yellow if it’s complicated, and red if they’re taken. You’ll be seeing lots of green.

Couples

Host a perfect pairing night for couples. Ask your liquor distributor if they can send a wine rep to do a tasting. You’ll likely see lots of double dates – and extra sales.

Nearby Office Employees

Ask a local company if you can drop off coupons for complimentary appetizers Monday through Thursday.

Families

One of the easiest restaurant promotion ideas for parents is to offer entertainment for their kids – like the Buzztime digital arcade.

Busy Moms

Mom’s spa night out is one of the best restaurant promotion ideas to bring in weeknight crowds. Hire a masseuse to give chair massages.

Millennials

Show that you’re in the know with Buzztime’s Trendalicious Trivia every Thursday night.

Specific Professions

Think nurses, law enforcement, teachers…honor their hard work with midweek bar and restaurant promotion ideas like drink specials and complimentary apps.

Seniors

Baby boomers don’t like to admit they’re “seniors” but the right restaurant promotion ideas can entice them to fess up anyways. Try offering seven percent off seven days a week from 5 to 7 p.m.

We hope these 50 bar and restaurant promotion ideas inspire you to take your events to the next level.

50 Buzzworthy Bar and Restaurant Promotion Ideas to Improve Slow Nights posted first on happyhourspecialsyum.blogspot.com

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