#like they came into OUR SPACES and completely changed it into something trendy
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Your room (Dark!Peter Parker x Reader)
Word count 3.3k
!!!!! This is dark! And explicit 18+ only !!!!!
Warnings: Noncon/Dubcon, oral (female receiving), spankings, punishment, kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome, unprotected sex, smut, vaginal intercourse.
Summery: Your life is bland and boring but not for long. What happens when you catch the eye of a certain super hero?
Your room has always reflected you as a person. In highschool you haphazardly filled the walls with quotes and posters. Your room was messy in the typical way teenagers rooms tend to be, but also like a typical teenager was filled with feeling and hope. In college you filled your space with pictures of you and your friends taken on a polaroid camera. Everywhere you looked had your life staring back at you. Now as an adult the pictures from college are tucked away in a box. Your room is simple and boring. Most people think of you as minimalist but you don’t do it to be trendy, you just have no passion. You’ve spent the years after graduating college working a job you hate in a lab, running the same tests over and over again. You’ve always wanted to be a scientist, working on something new and exciting. You’ve applied everywhere but you rarely even get an interview. Your dreams, unfortunately, will never happen for you. Sometimes you wish for someone to swoop in and take you for your bland life but you know that will never happen. Watching your friends get dream jobs and buy homes while you waste away has crushed your spirit. You’re tired.
---
“Hey Y/N, we’re going out tonight.”
“I don’t know…”
“Come on, you never come with us.”
“Ok sure.”
Your coworker is right that you never go out anymore and so several hours later you walk into a bar, grabbing a drink and finding your coworkers. The bar is bustling with activity and you lose track of time. You usually curl up in bed with a book on a friday night but you’re glad you came. You used to go out all the time in college and miss being social. Going out is good for your mental health and you decide to make more of a point to spend time with people.
You say goodbye to your still partying co-workers and head home a little past midnight. You start your walk and cut through an alleyway, wanting to get home before you vomit from the alcohol.
“Hey sweetheart. What are you doing all alone out here?”
A large man steps out of the shadows and walks toward you. You ignore him, keeping your eyes focused ahead and pick up the pace.
“Oi, I’m talkin’ to you,” He lunges forward and grabs your arm.
“Let me go.” You try to walk away but he holds onto you still, pushing you against the wall and landing a bruising kiss on your lips. His breath smells rancid and you feel bile rise in your throat. You cry out for help and the man is suddenly pulled away from you. You watch with disbelief as Spider man throws the stranger against the opposing wall.
“She said to go away buddy.”
The man slowly stands up and runs away. Spider Man shoots a web at the running stranger and he falls over, immobilized.
“You ok?” Spider Man turns to you, cocking his head.
“Yes, thank you Spider Man.”
“I’ll come check on you tomorrow”
You watch spider man pick up the stranger like he’s nothing and swing away. You walk the rest of the way home and lie in bed, unable to fall asleep. The next morning there’s a tap on your window and you look out to see Spider Man on your fire escape. You briefly wonder how he knows where you live but quickly brush off the thought and open your window.
“You sure you’re ok?” He steps towards you, looking you over.
“Just a little shaken up.”
He walks to your kitchen, filling a glass of water and handing it to you.
“This is too much, really I’m fine. You already saved me.”
“Drink the water,” He commands.
You sigh and drink it.
“That’s a good girl. Now get back to bed.”
You set the glass down and stare at the stranger you let in your home. Alarm bells start ringing.
“I’d like you to leave.”
“I’ll leave once I know you’re doing as you're told.”
Your heart beats rapidly and you take a step back.
“I appreciate that you saved me and came to make sure that I’m fine but I’m now asking you to please go.”
Spider man crosses his arms.
“I’ll call the cops” you say.
“And say what?”
“That there’s an intruder.”
Spider man sighs and walks to your window, standing at it.
“Get in bed and I’ll go.”
You walk to your bed and get under the covers.
“Good girl. I’ll be back to check on you later.”
As soon as he’s through the window you jump out of bed and lock every door and window, double checking your work. You get back in bed and let out a sigh of relief, finally able to sleep.
You wake up to tapping on your window. Spiderman is back. You make your way to the window but don’t open it.
“Let me in.”
“I don’t feel comfortable with you in here.”
Spider Man shakes his head and leaves without a word.
The next few weeks are filled with anxiety. You see flashes of red in your peripheral vision everywhere you go. Spider man is stalking you. You consider telling police but don’t think they’ll believe you. It sounds crazy, even to you. If it weren't for the bruises from the assault in the alleyway you would think you had imagined the whole thing. You stop leaving your apartment unless necessary and never go out after dark.
You get a voicemail one day.
“HI, this is Rebecca Johnson from Stark Industries. We’re looking for someone to fill a position in one of our labs. You had submitted an application previously and we wanted to reach out and see if you’d like to interview for the position. Please call back at your earliest convenience.
You squeal in delight, doing a celebratory fist pump. Stark industries is a dream job. You immediately hit redial and set up the interview. This would change everything. Just one year working at Stark would open up endless possibilities for you and that’s if you ever want to leave. You could afford a nicer apartment with more security. Maybe you will finally feel safe. You remind yourself that it’s just an interview and you shouldn’t get ahead of yourself.
---
You look up at the tower and take a deep breath. It’s intimidating, going for an interview at Stark tower. It’s been so long since you’ve interviewed anywhere let alone somewhere so big. You tug at your blouse, second guessing your outfit, maybe you should have worn something different. It’s too late to go back home and change. You walk in, mustering up all the courage you can and talk to the woman at the front desk.
“Hi, I’m here for an interview. Y/N Y/L/N”
“Oh yes, they’re expecting you. Here’s a temporary badge. Go to the 80th floor and take a seat.”
You take the badge and follow the instructions. You’re surprised to find yourself in what looks like private quarters. There’s a small couch near the elevator and you sit and wait.
Tony Stark himself appears in front of you and your mouth flies open. You stand quickly and hold your hand out.
“Mr. Stark, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Tony looks you up and down, clicking his tongue.
“Likewise, follow.”
You half walk, half run behind him, getting in the elevator and taking it down a floor. You arrive at a state of the art lab and workshop and Tony leads you to a desk.
“The whole workshop will be open to you. This is your desk.”
He starts walking again and you keep following him back to the elevator and to another floor.
“Here’s where you’ll live. I’ll leave you with the contract and you can call my assistant if you have any questions.”
He hands you a tablet and walks out.
You look around the room dumbfounded. You thought you were just here for an interview. You guess this means you got the job. You swipe through the contract and your eyes widen at your salary. There are a few things that make you uncomfortable though. You’re required to live on site and there’s a curfew. You have to sign a NDA about anything you see in the tower. You also can’t decide to quit without permission, which you’re not sure is even legal. You call the number to Tony’s assistant.
“This is Rebecca.”
“Hi, this is Y/N. I’m looking through this contract and it says I have to live on site and there’s a curfew?”
“Yes. That is non negotiable. Living on site will give you access to the workshop 24/7. There will be times when you will work through the night. The curfew is for security as the tower is locked down every night.”
You would rather have your own place where you can come and go as you please but you’re willing to live here if you have to and the reason for a curfew makes sense. The tower has top of the line security, which is something that’s really important to you. You don’t usually go out late anyway and if you do decide to be out late you can crash at a friends house or get a hotel room.
“And the avengers? Will I have to work closely with them?”
“You might meet them or see them at some point but most likely not.”
“I know this sounds weird but I don’t want Spider man to know I’m working here.”
“Mums the word.”
“What exactly will the job entail? I see there’s a NDA.”
“You’ll be an assistant in Tony Stark's personal workshop and will work closely with him. He appreciates privacy.”
“I see, and the part where I’m not allowed to quit?”
“He just wants to make sure you’re serious. Tony picks his assistants personally and requires loyalty.”
“Ok, thank you.”
You hang up and sign the screen. When you open the door there's a man standing outside. He’s not a tall man, standing a few inches taller than you. However, he is muscular and something about him commands attention. You feel an immediate pull towards him.
“Oh, hi I’m Peter Parker.” He holds out his hand.
“I’m Y/N”
“I also work with Tony and live right next to you. I’ll be your direct boss.”
“It’s nice to meet you Mr. Parker.”
“Peter is fine. I won’t keep you any longer, I just wanted to introduce myself.”
You immediately get to work rearranging your life. By the end of the weekend you’re completely moved into your new place and on monday you start your first day on the job. It���s everything you’ve ever dreamed of, full of state of the art technology and free reign to do whatever you want. You walk into work every day with a smile.
You work alone most of the time, Tony and Peter working awkward, sporadic hours but you enjoy it when you do get to work with them. Tony is funny and brilliant, you learn more from him than from any college class. Peter is smart and sweet. He helps you with your work and makes sure you’re always taken care of, sending you back to your room if you’ve been working too long or making you take breaks to eat. You find yourself starting to develop feelings for Peter and your heart swells when he asks you on a date. Life is good and only getting better.
You meet Peter outside of your door and he takes your hand. The two of you walk to a little italian restaurant and Peter takes your menu, ordering your food for you. It’s very forward for a first date but you like the confidence. After dinner he walks you back to your door and kisses you. You see something in his eyes when he pulls away, possessive and dark. It makes you feel uncomfortable but also excited. Nobody has ever looked at you like that.
Over the next few weeks Peter becomes more and more comfortable around you, becoming more physical. It’s small things, like pushing your hair back when talking or touching you gently as he walks past. He asks you out again, this time wanting to cook you dinner and you decline, suggesting a coffee date instead. You don’t feel comfortable enough with him to be alone in his room. He clenches his jaw when you tell him, obviously upset you won’t come over but agrees.
A few days later you decide to go out with some old friends and crash on one of their couches. When you get home the next day Peter is standing outside your door.
“You missed curfew.”
“I know, I went out with friends and crashed on one of their couches.”
Peter clenches his jaw.
“Don’t let it happen again.”
“It shouldn't matter if I want to stay the night somewhere else.”
“Well it does.”
You roll your eyes and unlock your door quickly, locking it behind you. The two of you have only been on one date. His behavior is a red flag and you decide to take things slowly.
The next day you decide to go out for coffee, pulling on a simple tee shirt dress and some flip flops. The elevator won’t let you down.
“Your privileges have been revoked.” Peter says from behind you.
You jump. “Why?”
“You know why.”
He stalks toward you, pushing you up against the elevator.
“I don’t feel comfortable with this Peter. You need to back away from me now.”
Peter takes a step back.
“I’m sorry but right now I don’t want any sort of relationship outside of work.”
“That’s not going to work for me.”
Something in Peter's eyes terrifies you. You need to get out of here. You try the elevator again but it still won’t open.
“I quit.” you yell at the elevator, feeling more danger every second you’re stuck in the hallway with Peter.
“You can’t quit baby.”
“There’s no way it’s legal to force me to keep working even if it’s in the contract.”
“There’s nowhere to go. You’re not getting out of this building and even if you did you’d have to find a lawyer to take your case.”
“You can’t do this, I'll tell Tony.”
“Who do you think suggested this in the first place? Most of the Avengers have gotten their partners this way. I was waiting for the right person and I knew you were them the moment I saw you.”
“Why would Tony help you trap me here? You’re just a lab assistant.”
“Oh no honey, I’m much more than that.”
He steps toward you, caging you in.
“You think it’s a coincidence I saved you in that alleyway?”
“Spider man?”
Peter gives a grin. He leans in and smells your hair.
“No.”
“I’m sorry it’s happening this way, I wanted to break you down slower. You’ll have a really good life, we’ll live together and work together. You’ll have everything you could need or want.”
“I want to leave.”
“You’ll change your mind, you just need a little motivation.”
Peter pulls you to his room and opens the door, pushing you into his apartment. You try to run but he easily catches you, picking you up and throwing you on his bed.
“Why are you doing this? Why me?” you scrabble to the far side of the bed.
“You’re mine.”
Peter's phone rings and he picks it up.
“Hey, yes I did... I know It wasn’t the plan, I had to improvise… Ok, see you in a few weeks.”
He hangs up and gets on top of you. you spit in his face.
“I’m not yours freak. Let me go.”
“You won’t be allowed to act like that moving forward. Now lie still.”
“Get off of me.”
Peter gets off briefly, flipping you over his lap and pulling up your skirt. He lands a smack on your bottom.
“You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to do this. You’ve been so bad baby.
“Not letting me in your apartment.”
Smack.
“Telling Rebecca you didn’t want me to you started working here.”
Smack
“Staying out all night.”
Smack.
“Shutting the door in my face.”
Smack.
“I liked you Peter, If you had just acted like a normal person we could have continued a relationship.” You say through tears.
“I don’t want a relationship, I want to own you.”
He lands another blow on your bottom and grabs your underwear, pulling them down and off of you. You try to wiggle away but he’s so strong and easily holds you down with one arm. He moves his hand between your legs and towards your sex, pushing a finger in and out.
“You’re wet for me.” He says smugly.
You close your eyes and turn your head away. You’ve stopped resisting and he lets go.
“There you go.”
He kisses your neck and cheek then grabs your chin moving your face and kissing you gently, pushing his tongue into your mouth. He pulls back and you hear him unbuttons his pants, pulling them down. You open your eyes and move away from him, pushing your back against the headboard. You watch as he holds his erection, slowly moving his hand up and down. He moves towards you and grabs your ankle, pulling you down the bed and positioning himself in between your legs. He holds onto your hips and kisses your inner thigh, moving toward your mound until his mouth is on your clit, kissing and licking. You arch your back and throw your head back, fighting against the rising orgasm. Right before you come he pulls back, smiling up at your dazed face. He rises up and slowly pushes his dick into you until you’re full. You whimper as he brings his hand down to your clit, stimulating it.
“That’s right baby,I know what you like.”
You can’t think about anything else anymore, only the orgasm that threatens to take over.
“Come Baby”
You reach out, grabbing his arms as you come. He grabs your shoulders and thrusts deep, filling you with cum before collapsing next to you, pulling you into the crook of his arm.
“Can I go back to my room now?” you ask.
“You won’t be leaving this room until I can trust you.”
“I won’t say anything. You won. You got what you wanted so just let me go.”
“You still don’t get it Y/N. You’re mine now. I know this is a hard adjustment but everything will be fine as long as you follow what I say.”
“And if I don’t obey you?”
“You’ll be punished.”
“Fuck you.”
Peter sits up next to you, grabbing his pants off the floor and pulling his belt out of the loops.
“I guess your first lesson starts now.”
---
You look around the room you live in. It’s no longer the empty minimalist space it was before you met Peter. Now it’s filled with him. Everywhere you look there are reminders of him. The shower has his body wash and razor. There are pictures of him hanging on the walls. Everything you own has been bought for you by Peter. He dictates what you’re allowed to wear, where you’re allowed to go, who can talk to. It’s all him. Every part of your life revolves around Peter to the point where you don’t know what you would do without him. You wake up to him, go to sleep to him, think about him constantly. You’re even sometimes woken up in the middle of the night to him touching you, wanting you. At some point you stop pretending you don’t want him back. You hate it but it’s true.
Your room has always been a reflection of you as a person.
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Stray Kids Playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons
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A/n: M.List linked down below! | My very first reaction!!! :D I hope you all enjoy <3
Tag List: @distrikt9 @hanniiesuckle17 @smolboiseavey (Let me know if you’d like to be added!)
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✧ Bang Chan ⇢ STAY Island ✧
Passport Title ⇢ Crisp Ringleader
Okay family
As our ENFJ king Chan would totally have a island that revolved around the others
Sure he’d have his own space too
But he’d def be one to put up lots of fun camping space and interactive inventions
A cute little barbecue grill on the beach with a wooden table and log benches 🥺🥺 and a picnic area too
I feel like he’d also go out of his way to breed black roses but that may just be me 😂🤷🏻♀️
Black and white flowers everywhere, and maybe some red roses too?
He’d also be a generous donator and frequently visit the others to see if anyone needed help with anything
Just stopping by to check in and drop off some hardwood, or iron, maybe even gold
...That’s a big maybe on the gold cause we all know that stuff ain’t common and if you want Marshal on your island you better have some handy
In addition to this, I think that the generosity would only go so far and he’d be quite the tease too
Running around left and right ratting the others out during pranks and “borrowing” things from the others
“where’d my recipe for gold armor go???”
🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️ “idk bro I think I saw Minho running off with it?”
For villagers, he’d have a plethora of the animal kingdom on his island
Anyone is welcome
You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit 🥴
He’d def have mentions of Stay on his island too
And the guys, his squad
A Stay flag and Stray Kids written in the sand somewhere
Maybe vice versa
His character would likely be of similar resemblance but I can totally see him playing with the fun hair colors and face paint
His wardrobe would consist of similar attire too: black, white, caps, hoodies, and chains
Y’all AC fans know that one punk outfit with the chains across the bodice? He’d own that
His home is a toss up: on one hand it could be very chill and cozy, but on another I’m seeing workout gear in one corner and iron tables and a TV and radio going, maybe (definitely) a music studio setup (similar to Weber’s home but more hardcore LMAO)
All in all, I think Chan would be a chill/causal player that would be happy to help his friends and community while also playing hard ball once in a while just to mess with everyone 😂♥️
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✧ Lee Minho ⇢ Soodori Island ✧
Passport Title ⇢ Total Genius
Soodori is a combination of Minho’s cats
Your boy Minho couldn’t resist the ingenious idea
He’d pondered for the longest time which of his precious babies was going to be awarded the title of his island; an impossible decision
Then along comes our creative leader, “why don’t you just use all three?”
‼️‼️‼️
Genius!1!1!!1!1 😩✨
On Soodori, you bet all the villagers are cats; if you don’t have pointy ears and a swishing tail, Access Denied 🙅🏻♀️
This means you, Han
Villagers included would consist of Raymond, who may or may not be an island celebrity
And let’s not forget Queen Ankha
But to Minho, all his cat citizens are equally loved and cherished as a valid part of the community
His whole aesthetic would be cats too
That includes a cat cafe
His flag would probably be a paw print 🐾 or his cat’s names, maybe a cute scribbling of their faces
And if you disrespected that, there’d be blood to pay
I can see his character closely resembling him as well, with a little paw print on his cheek? Maybe some whiskers?
He’d thoroughly enjoy visiting the others islands “if he absolutely had to”
Swipe some goods
And bundle them up to go on the plane out ✈️
For the most part, I see him being more of a hermit on his island that only heads out On Demand
Even then, it’s kind of a toss up: good luck getting him to leave his children behind
If you’re nice to him, he MIGHT let you come and view the splendor...m a y b e
But you better not touch or take anything 🗿🔥
Shoot, when it came to special visitors, like Redd or K.K., he’d probably try chasing them off
Put those tools to use
There’s more than one way to skin a cat
(Don’t tell him I said that tho 👀💧)
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✧ Seo Changbin ⇢ DARK Island ✧
Passport Title ⇢ Music-Loving Loner
Dark, dark, dark
We all done knew, didn’t we?
Changbin is the KING of darkness
So it goes without saying that his whole island would radiate the stuff, too
It may seem depressing and a little emo at first, but eventually the concept comes off being pretty cool
...In an angsty, Evanescence sort of way
He’d probably be very lost on how to play at first...at first
He’s got Felix and Chan to help him tho, so he’d be breeding black flowers before you know it
Maybe a little gray and navy blue tones to break up the solidarity somewhere
I’m seeing a kind of night sky aesthetic, maybe some astrology furniture???
Look out, Celeste
She’s gonna be running to Big Brother Blathers saying some scary short guy is following her around the woods
Poor Binnie just wants a Starry Sky wall...until he sees how bright it actually is
Then it’s 💯 a fat pass
Binnie would kindly welcome all sorts of villagers while being minorly selective
After all, we can’t break the darkness with some cheery-idol-wannabe villager, or some Judy the anime bear
I can say with utmost certainty at 95% that his whole wardrobe would be black caps and hoodies
Maybe a plain black tee
Some black pants
And
White or black sneakers 🥴✨
I think he would be pretty intent on building up his island...in particular, collecting all the artifacts and critters for the museum
He’d work hard but not go crazy or stress about it and still take lots of time to just chill in his deep dark vibes
Maybe get out once in a while to visit Felix and learn a thing or two
Overall, we see through your front, Bin; you may have a dark vibe but you’re really just a small big softie ☺️
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✧ Hwang Hyunjin ⇢ Kkami Island ✧
Passport Title ⇢ Soothing Season
Welcome to Kkami Island, which was almost named something else aesthetically cute like Honeycomb or Applepuff
However, like Minho, Hyun simply couldn’t resist a chance to use his precious baby’s name
On Kkami, life is pretty chill: EXCEPT WHEN ITS SERIOUS 🔥
That’s right folks
This boy may have some vibing days and go at his own pace
But don’t be fooled: he plays to win
Plant those money trees
Enter those QR codes
Carve out those pathways
Where is Blathers we have a donation 😤😤
Hyunjin would be a steady-paced worker bee 🐝
He’d likely be selective of his villagers and go for cute ones
Possibly top to secondary tier
When it came to games and get togethers, you’d likely find him chasing another member with a net or an axe, in most cases Jisung
“qUiT LEaViNG TrASh oN mY iSLaNd!!1!1!1!” 💢
“DROP THAT DIY!1!1!1!!1”
Let’s see
His whole island aesthetic would be cute and peaceful:
Plants, terrariums, soft sunlight...
There’d be so many flowers!!! Hyunjin would have a whole colorful flower field 🥰🌸
White and wooden furniture in and around the home
An adorable tea and snack time plaza too! And a library!!! 📖✨
Very cozy and sweet ♥️
Though, shoot, if he had the energy, this guy may just build himself a palace... 🏰
Regardless, just look for the boy with the staple headband and likely some face paint to boot
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✧ Han Jisung ⇢ Swag HOT Island ✧
Passport Title ⇢ Trendy Supreme Being
(Edit: Minho convinced Felix to hack his account and changed this to Untossable Trash)
Ohhh boy
I bet y’all were waiting patiently for this one
Or maybe you jumped right to it
Either way here we go:
Han Jisung would be the king of the trash heap
And by that I mean this guy would save up all his bells and buy himself a crown 👑 where he’d sit atop a throne of garbage
BECAUSE THERE WOULD BE TRASH EVERYWHERE SIS 😩😩
This guy would be yeeting furniture and garbage all over the place
...Okay maybe that was a bit overdramatic
Maybe not EVERYWHERE...
......
...It’d be pretty messy tho
He’d probs have traps set up too
You step off the plane and get catapulted into the ocean, if that were a thing
You’d have to navigate and hop around discarded junk for sure
He’d have clothes here, a fan there, a...urinal...on the beach???
.........o k a y ._.💧
Han Jisung wouldn’t be all that competitive when it came to gathering every fruit or collecting all the fish
He doesn’t have the patience for that
He needs to run around and be free, letting his mind wander while wrecking havoc for everyone else; which is also Minnie’s job but we’ll get to that later
For villagers, he’d have at least one squirrel or two (Marshal?! :D) but I’m not so sure it’d really matter...all that much?
I’m not sure he’d even want many villagers at all
He’d be spending most of his time crashing other member’s islands and leaving little surprises like a useless DIY they already have or a fake painting he got roped into buying bc he was too lazy to check if it was genuine =_=
Everyone got sick of it pretty quickly but no one like Minho or Hyunjin; he’s permanently banned from those two locations and Jeongin’s considering adding him to the list next
Despite there being so much junk, his house would have an almost decent vibe: lots of instruments and fun gear, along with some random clothes, a lava lamp, and...another urinal 🗿💧
Seriously, someone get this boy a closet and some coaching in organization
Chan and Changbin are working on hiring Minnie but it’s not going too well; for one he charges too much
Maybe you can talk some sense into him...
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✧ Lee Felix ⇢ YEET Island ✧
Passport Title ⇢ Festive Chum
Okay y’all
Felix
Would be
THE KING
OF ANIMAL CROSSING
THIS BOY WOULD HAVE
ALL THE FRUITS!!! 🍎🍐🍊🍒🍑🥥
ALL THE FLOWERS!!!🌷🌹🌺🌸🌼🌻
I MEAN EVERY COLOR OF EVERY COMBINATION
A COMPLETED MUSEUM 🖼 🐜 🐠
I MEAN BEFORE ART WAS ADDED, HE HAD EVERYTHING RARING TO GO
NINTENDO WAS LIKE “wtf?!”
YEAH SIS, HE’S THAT GOOD
Boy would have a five star island all sorted into perfectly measured categories
An amusement park, a picnic area, a freaking ranch probably 🐮
Some awesome neighborhood for his tier one villagers with a YMCA down the street
A fancy one at that
I mean this boy would have it all
Expect a competitive softie that really just wants to have fun but like
He’s gonna win too lmao
He’s got his Nook Miles program all maxed out
When playing with the others, he comes up with really creative solutions when faced with a crisis
That’s because this smart cookie knows the ins and outs of the game
There was one time where he fenced Jisung in like the creepy Easter bunny and left him for ded oop
That was a bad day for Jisung and a hilarious day for everyone else
He felt bad about it but he also wanted that Subway gift card 🤷🏻♀️
Each day is a new hair color for Felix
Sometimes every few days or a week
He sometimes likes to synchronize it with his current hair color but
Experimenting is also fun
Face paint too! 🌈 He chooses a warpaint print he found on Pinterest, for days when the gang gets together for a game of tag or bug catching contests
Even if he doesn’t win, Felix always makes it into the Top 3
And he has a lot of fun doing so! 😊
He’s just one heck of a gamer is all
And his whole aesthetic shines brighter than the sun T-T ☀️
♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫
✧ Kim Seungmin ⇢ Seungmin’s Island ✧
Passport Title ⇢ Radiant Boy
Like Felix, Seungmin would be an ace at AC
He wouldn’t get everything right off the bat
But he’d put in a logical tried-and-true effort, and once he got the ropes and found his groove, my oh my
This boy would have it all
Sophistication ✨
Class ✨✨
Flair ✨✨✨
He’s got a plethora of fruit and stylish attire too
And his aesthetic is so simple but chic
He’s got this whole clean and polished vibe
Lots of artwork and creativity
He’s even got traps that look like fancy furniture
Those are mainly for Han Jisung tho
That oughta teach him to quit nosing around and taking his DIYs <_<
One time he tried stealing a few apples for Swag HOT Island
Didn’t go well sis...
He made it to just outside the pier before getting lost in the hedge maze by Cafe Seungmin
After that Seungmin closed him into a corner as punishment and wouldn’t let him out until he dropped the Apple
But Jisung was feeling pretty prideful that day so he ate it instead 🗿💧
Anyway
This guy would def make a character that looks just like him!
Would he try new hair colors and face paint? ...Maybe
It seems like a sorta-Seungmin thing to do
Seungmin would wanna be the best of the best while still staying true to himself, so you’ll likely see tier one and two villagers that he particularly fancies
Fancy you, fancy me 🥳✨💃🏻🎶
He’d also be one to go around admiring the chaos from the background while occasionally becoming the chaos
Kinda like the Cheshire Cat 😅
When challenging the others to an art contest (who could buy the most expensive artifact from Redd without using the internet) he switched some of the other members paintings while they were distracted by a meteor shower
“Look, a shooting star! And another one!”
“Make a wish.”
“How do I do that?!”
“Tilt your camera towards the sky and press A.”
“I’ve got my camera app open and it’s just taking photos???”
“Not you CAMERA camera—“
“Hey! Chan hyung, Minho just stole my star!!!”
“I didn’t see your NAME on it...”
“Don’t fight, you can each have half!”
“That’s not how it works at all...”
...Anyway
It was pretty comical until Changbin had to say something, about the art that is
Then Minnie had to bounce before the angry shovels and nets caught up to him
“Hey!!! Why is my painting on Minho’s side???”
“Why is everyone attacking me???”
“Oh, Hyunjin has my painting...”
“I do not! ...Oh hey I do? Why’d you put it over here?”
“I DIDN’T!”
👀👀👀👀👀👀👀
...
🛫 🏃🏻♀️💨
Poor Minnie just wanted to have some fun amongst the confusion 😔
But
When it gets right down to it, you better believe this boy would be an aesthetic and skillful player ✨
♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫
✧ Yang Jeongin ⇢ Go Away Island ✧
Passport Title ⇢ Mistakingly Caught Son
Go Away Island means just what the title intends: go away :)
Initially, Jeongin was prepared for what he senior members would do
He knew there would be much anticipation to visit the 막내’s island and drive him crazy
Sometimes, he doesn’t mind it
But others he just wants to be left alone and do his own thing
When he started the game, it was one of those days
So he wanted to make the message clear 😤😤
Also, Don’t Bother Me seemed to be too long 🤷🏻♀️
Go Away was straight to the point ;D
Anyhoo
On Go Away, you’ll encounter lots of cute characters 💓
Innie has a very cute and true-to-himself aesthetic
He doesn’t understand much of the mechanics but he’s working on it okay?
And he’s getting better every day!
Okay, so like, sometimes he’ll allow Chan to come over and help
Or Felix or maybe Seungmin if he promises to be genuine and behave
But like
The rest of the members are semi-banned
Hyunjin gets a pass if he whines enough
Or he’ll come up with a crafty excuse to come over
“Innie, look! I got peaches on my island! Don’t you want one? They’re cute like you! 😩❣️”
...He could do without that last embarrassing remark but okay sure
He really did want those peaches for his picnic garden 😔✊🏻
In terms of hair color? We’re on a rotation like Felix
We’re trying lots of hair colors
And a few aesthetic designs, too!
Jeongin is very resourceful when it comes to QR codes, something Felix and Seungmin taught him
He uses them to set flowers and stones pathways everywhere
And an especially prominent one leading to the door 👉🏻🚪
♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫
↬ Which island will you be visiting? 🌴✨
♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫ -ˋˏ ༻✿༺ ˎˊ- ♪♫
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#stray kids#stray kids imagines#stray kids scenarios#stray kids reactions#stray kids preferences#stray kids fanfiction#stray kids fanfics#stray kids oneshots#stray kids blurbs#stray kids fluff#stray kids gamer au#skz#kpop#kpop imagines#kpop scenarios#kpop reactions#kpop preferences#kpop fanfiction#kpop fanfics#kpop oneshots#kpop blurbs#bang chan#lee minho#seo changbin#hwang hyunjin#han jisung#lee felix#kim seungmin#yang jeongin#animal crossing: new horizons
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2.43 S1 Chapter 5.5 - Stand By Me
5. SACRED COURT
Haijima talks about Yoyogi National Gymnasium similarly to how most kids talk about Disneyland lol
Translation Notes
1. A service ace is a point made on a serve that the opponent had failed to touch
2. A kei car is the smallest highway-legal car in Japan
3. Takeshita Street is a popular street in Harajuku known for its trendy fashion boutiques and for being very busy
4. I feel like this is a reference to something I don’t know, but the wooden fish is a fish gong that is struck while chanting sutras
5. Manuscript paper is the paper used in Japanese schools for compositions and stuff like that. It has boxes in columns to write characters in.
Previous || Index || Next
…Where am I again…?
When he woke up, he couldn’t immediately remember what had happened. The view around him was a hazy milky white, without a single distinct outline. It’s like I’m sinking into the bottom of a beaker filled with a mist of dry ice…it kind of smells like a science lab.
He felt something like a tugging in his left arm. There was a thin line connected to his body, pulling at him from above. The line was holding him back from sinking any further.
A blurry white ball with eyes and a nose was floating in the air.
“I got a text from Kou.”
The ball spoke with a familiar voice. The low-volume voice sounded pleasant to his ears as it seeped through the fog of dry ice.
“…Souta…?”
His consciousness was still fuzzy and his speech was slurred. The white shirt just blended into the background, and when he squinted, he found a proper body below the ball. A uniform…but not Meisei’s uniform. He had heard he went to a different high school.
“You really quit…? Why…?”
“Because I wanted to.”
He was a little surprised by his curt answer and closed his mouth. He heard a short exhale, and then his voice softened.
“…Ever since I entered middle school, I lost interest in volleyball. All I could think about was quitting, and it was getting harder and harder to go to club activities. Everyone entered Meisei, saying that we’ll do volleyball together, so it wasn’t an atmosphere where only I can say I wanted to quit…I was afraid that if I quit, I wouldn’t have any friends at school… I thought Minami-sensei would be disappointed, and besides, my mom’s the head of the parents’ association. I also felt like I had to be at the center of the team…I was tied down by so many things, and everyday was painful… So I came up with the idea that if I hated being in the club to the point of committing suicide, I could get sympathy and quit…That’s how I got involved in everyone’s plan. …I’m sorry.”
After everything that happened, he only has that simple “I’m sorry”?
However, when he learned the reason after two years, he felt like there were no words other than sorry… If you ask Haijima, it was such a trivial thing that he couldn’t even understand what was bothering him.
Was such a boring reason what was behind that incident?
Well…it’s not like I was the one who drove him into a corner…
“…You should have told me, normally.”
His mouth pouted a little despite himself.
“If it were you, you would’ve been able to say it. Well, I don’t think you’ll ever want to quit volleyball, even if it kills you. But I’m not you…I didn’t want to be the bad guy. I didn’t want to be hated by everyone.”
It’s not like I want to be hated…he wasn’t happy about that, but it was true that wanting to be liked by people wasn’t that high of a priority for him.
When he was in elementary school, the two of them would talk about high school and national team games after club ended. They could talk and talk and never get bored of it, and he wished the time when Yoshino’s mother came to pick him up would never come. Yoshino also had a lot of old video footage that only existed on videotape, and he was even more enthusiastic than Haijima about that kind of thing.
The shock slowly soaked into him at the idea that someone who was once obsessed with volleyball could stop liking it. Haijima couldn’t even imagine himself not being interested in volleyball anymore. It was the same as asking if he could imagine the afterlife. He couldn’t.
If there was just one starting point for his imagination—it was that on the third day of the Autumn Tournament, going to a game felt bothersome to him for the first time in his life. For him, it even had a feeling of dread. At that time, he had regained his willpower after sleeping a little, but if that kind of constantly continuing heavy mood was the “wanting to quit” that Yoshino experienced, then it might be quite painful to even live everyday.
“Souta, you…”
His brow wrinkled as he frowned, staring at Yoshino’s indistinct face in front of him.
“Nnn…?” There was nervousness in Yoshino’s voice.
“You got fat, didn’t you?”
The contours of his face were quite round. That was why it looked like there was a floating ball.
“…You’re as blunt as ever. Well yeah, I got fat after I quit the team.”
Yoshino’s voice lightened, like he was expecting something more. He didn’t seem to be offended. Probably.
“Are you in any clubs now?”
“Yeah. It’s not sports-related though. I’m in the science club.”
“Is that fun? More than volleyball?”
“It is fun, more than volleyball for me. There aren’t a lot of members, but they’re all good people. I have fun going to club activities every day. We go to the science lab every lunch break to collect data from our experiments.”
He didn’t like that he had affirmed it, but he could tell from the excited way he talked that he was doing what he really wanted to do now. Something fell into his chest with a thump, and he accepted that, Aah, the things that are “fun” for Yoshino and me aren’t the same anymore…
Even though their eyes sparkled at the same things, aimed for the same stage, and planned to do the same things, maybe that didn’t mean they were in the same story.
“Then, I’ll be leaving now.”
He could feel Yoshino standing up. Even though he had no intention of stopping him, Haijima immediately tried to reach out his hand. But his arm was pulled back as if it had been caught on a fish hook, and he was only able to move it a little.
Yoshino, who was about to leave, turned around. “…Take care of yourself. Don’t be too reckless.” Something soft gripped his hand along with a gentle voice. His fatty, plump hands were not bony and didn’t feel like they belonged to an active volleyball player anymore, but he could feel their warmth flowing into his wrapped-up fingers. It was as though the coldness of his fingers, which had been holding him captive ever since the day Yoshino didn’t come, was becoming undone.
Before he let go of his hand, Yoshino’s voice that had been mild and gentle took on a faint gloom.
“Chika, don’t be reckless, okay? You’re a true genius, not an ordinary person like me, and you probably can’t even imagine your limits right now…but I have a feeling that if you were to be betrayed by volleyball one day, you might be surprisingly fragile…I know it’s none of my business, but that’s what I’m worried about.”
***
“When did you get a fever?”
He seemed to have lost consciousness for a bit again until he heard the next voice.
The round outline of Yoshino, who had been by his side since a while ago, had changed into something more vertical and narrower. He looked up at the outline for a while, and then asked,
“…Are you angry?”
“Yeah. If you’re willing to work a little harder to read my mind off the court too, then that’s progress. Here.”
He held out to something to him. He tried to reach for it, but his arm cramped up and the thing was put in his hand instead. “I had them fixed at the optician across the hospital. They said that it would be safer to buy new ones, though.”
“Aah…thanks.”
“You really do have a strange way of getting into trouble during a game, don’t you?”
With his head resting on the pillow, he put on his glasses. For the first time in a long time, his vision was clear again. It was so clear that it actually made the world look distorted, which made him feel a bit dizzy. The lenses were in place on both sides, but there was still a sense of discomfort because the frame was still warped.
Kuroba was sitting on a chair beside the bed with a grumpy look on his face. Behind him, there was a partition with the curtains drawn. It looked like a break room-like space with a simple bed next to the examination room.
There was an IV tube connected to his left arm. Drops of water were dripping regularly from a clear pack that was hooked to a stand above his head. The liquid in the pack was down to about a quarter of its original volume. I was told to stay on the drip for about an hour…so I guess forty-five minutes have passed or something like that?
After resting, he was able to think more clearly and remembered how he had walked to the car by himself. By the time they had arrived at the hospital, it must have been 5:00 or 5:30, so outpatient consultation hours must have been over by now. He could hear the hurried conversations and footsteps of the staff, but they were far away, so it wasn’t noisy. In fact, it was rather isolated and quiet.
The final serve was done perfectly as he had imagined. Just as the gym was buzzing over the two service aces (1) in a row, the Meisei coach and captains returned after their meeting, as though they had timed it.
Although the second-year members were severely reprimanded for skipping practice to play an impromptu two-on-two game, the fact that a former Meisei Middle School student came to visit meant that Haijima and Kuroba didn’t get into much trouble. It was also thanks in part to Komukai and Ikawa coming forward and saying that they had an arrangement beforehand. Come to think of it, Komukai was the one who warned him just before the score board crashed into him…
The coach and captains asked him about this and that, but from that point on, Haijima was completely wobbling and couldn’t answer them properly. Right when he thought, Ah…I can’t stand anymore, he felt hands go around his sides and supporting him. “Sorry, he has a fever,” He heard Kuroba’s voice through the haze of his mind. So the advisor drove him to a nearby hospital.
“No wonder that you were sleeping like you were dead on the train. I should have noticed it earlier, but I thought it was strange how your face was kinda hot, but since it was right before the game began…Really, why did you decide to go to Tokyo in that condition?”
“I didn’t think I had a fever either. I’ve been feeling off since the end of camp, but…”
“What!? Camp was a month ago! Wait, was that why there was something off with you at the Fall Tournament? Why were you practicing every day under the blazing sun in that state, are you stupid!?”
“You’re too loud, shut up…”
He pulled the terry-cloth blanket up to his eyes and dejectedly slithered under it. If there wasn’t a drip connected to him, he would have covered his ears with both hands. He wasn’t happy with the feeling of being below someone and being ordered around by them, but he didn’t have the energy to fight back.
His mother, who passed away before he started elementary school, was a sickly person. Haijima inherited that, and although it wasn’t bad enough to interfere with his daily life, his body wasn’t strong either. When he was little, he would often have fevers of unknown origin that would last for about a month in summer and winter. However, ever since he started playing volleyball in the upper grades of elementary school, he had become physically stronger, and it had been quite a long time since he has had such a long period of discomfort.
It seemed that he didn’t like the words “feeling off.” He got angry.
“It’s not ‘feeling off,’ you’re in bad health. Don’t switch words and gloss over the issue.”
“…My play wasn’t off though.”
“That’s the problem in your case. It didn’t influence your play…in fact, you got even more agile for some reason. I really don’t get it. And when it’s over, look at you. You’re completely out of energy.”
You’re so noisy…If he said that, it seemed like he would continue to get lectured, so he endured it. He normally didn’t consciously hold back what he was about to say that much.
“…I hate it. I hate it when I can’t play volleyball even for a day. I feel sort of…impatient…”
He whispered on the other side of his blanket. Kuroba, who had been talking at great length, stopped for a moment, then sighed quizzically.
“I don’t know why, but it seems like you’re living too fast and recklessly…?”
He was relieved when he realized that his lack of concentration in the semifinals of the Fall Tournament was because he had a fever. The fed-up feeling on the morning of the semifinals as well…he wanted to get rid of that feeling as soon as possible before it took hold in him, and now that he thought about it, even though he felt off, he felt like he couldn’t take a break from practice.
But he was able to explain to himself that it was just the fever that made him sluggish, and he was relieved…but in the end, the desire to play volleyball again welled up within him. It was a waste of time to rest.
“Haijima-saaan?”
An elderly nurse knocked on the partition frame and poked her head in. Kuroba stood and opened up the place.
“You’ve just finished the drip. …Yes, if there is no blood coming out after about ten minutes, you may tear off this bandage. The doctor says that you should rest today and properly go have a checkup at the hospital after you go home. Did you contact your guardian?”
She quickly pulled out the drip and performed the procedure while speaking so rapidly and one-sidedly that he recoiled. “…Not yet,” he answered in a small voice and got up while staring fixedly at the small adhesive bandage that was pasted over the small needle hole. Kuroba, who had moved out of the way to the foot of the bed, looked between Haijima and the nurse like he wanted to say something.
“Then, you’ll have to call them.”
“Oh, thank you very much for helping us!” Kuroba hurriedly said to the nurse, who was pushing the IV stand away from the bed. He waited for the nurse’s figure to disappear on the other side of the partition before asking Haijima.
“Can’t you just call your home in Tokyo?”
“I got the keys. I’ll just go to pick up the train money. If we get on the eight o’clock train, we can return just in time, right? If I stop by home and head for Shinagawa right away, we can make it in time.”
“Why don’t we just stay the night instead of forcing ourselves to go home today? You have a house here.”
“If we don’t go home today, we’ll have to be absent tomorrow too. Get my bags.”
He did some quick stretches on the bed to loosen up his back. Although he still felt sluggish, he had recovered enough to be able to move on his own. He wanted to move his body because he felt like his body would get more and more sluggish if he stayed in bed. The arm that had been connected to the tube was now free, so he felt somewhat liberated.
The taping on both hands had been removed. He was pretty sure he did it himself, though he didn’t remember. He was soaked in sweat from the game and his T-shirt dried as he slept, but either way he had to change into his uniform if he was going back (Kuroba, who didn’t have a replacement T-shirt, seemed to be planning to go home with just his uniform shirt, but as usual he couldn’t tell if that was cool or tacky).
When he tried to take off his T-shirt, it got caught on his glasses and he couldn’t get it off his head, so he tried to take them off inside his T-shirt. As he was doing this, he heard Kuroba’s voice along with the sound of a bag being placed next to him.
“I’ve been wondering about this, but can I ask you something? You don’t get along with your dad, do you?”
“It’s not bad or anything…” He was answering from inside his T-shirt, so his voice was muffled and it sounded like he was hesitating to speak, but he wasn’t trying to hide anything. “…My dad’s like me. Do you think that if there’s two of me in the same house, and one of them isn’t interested in volleyball, there’d be anything to talk about?”
“Ah…haha. I think I can imagine that.”
He interjected like he accepted that easily. He felt somewhat annoyed by that.
His father still lived alone in the apartment in Tokyo where they lived together until the second semester of his second year of middle school. It wasn’t that he had a bad relationship with his father, but he just couldn’t carry on a conversation with him. It was especially difficult to understand each other when it came to phone conversations. He truly wondered how his father and him had become so similar. Since Haijima came to live with his grandparents, they had had very little contact, but his grandmother sometimes told him about what he was doing, so he thought that was enough.
“It’s not bad, and my dad agreed for me to go back to Monshiro, so…there’s nothing for you to worry about.” It seemed like he was worried, so he thought that it would be better to say that wasn’t the case.
“Haijima-san, there’s someone here to pick you up. You properly contacted your guardian, didn’t you?”
He heard the voice of the nurse from before on the other side of the partition again. He finally pulled his T-shirt off his head and put on his glasses, then said, “Pick me up?” and exchanged looks with Kuroba.
“Hello.”
A bright voice came from the other side of the partition.
A person who was tall for a woman, with her long hair tied back and dressed plainly in a simple blouse and slim jeans——.
“Minami, sensei…”
He stood up, the bed rattling. As expected, he got dizzy, as his body that had been receiving an IV drip until right this moment had suddenly stood up. He immediately grabbed the top frame of the partition and ended up looming over it. The other person’s eyes widened as she looked up at him.
“Oh? You got taller than me? You really have grown. Are you at least 180?”
“I…I am. I’m around 181, no, 2, no, 3, no, 4…”
Wait, why am I padding the numbers? Kuroba had a “Who’s that?” look on his face.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you were changing. Have you gotten dressed yet?”
After being told that, his eyes dropped to the T-shirt in his hands in surprise. He turned around and jumped at his bag. “I’ll get changed in ten seconds.”
“No need to rush. You just woke up, right? I parked my car in the parking lot.”
He shoved his T-shirt into his bag and grabbed a change of clothes. His shorts were halfway down his legs when he realized what he was doing and stopped.
Half-standing, he turned around awkwardly.
“Wait over there…Sensei.”
His mouth opened and closed, and then he heard his own tight voice.
***
“That’s right, when you were in elementary school, I used to tell you guys to change in ten seconds in front of me, but that’s no longer possible. Your body is completely a high schooler’s now. But you grew much taller than me. I’m a little shocked.”
Minami-sensei said with a happy smile as she turned the steering wheel. Haijima was seated diagonally behind the driver’s seat, hugging his enamel bag tightly and looking down. In the seat next to him, Kuroba was still looking between Haijima’s profile and the back of Minami-sensei’s head in astonishment.
The car was a small kei car (2), with the head of Minami-sensei crammed into the driver’s seat almost touching the ceiling in a few centimeters. When the three of them with their tall frames got into the car, it looked like a deformed car in a cartoon. The hair on the top of Haijima’s head just brushed against the ceiling, and in Kuroba’s case, he was completely stuck, so he sat so shallowly that his back sank into the seat, but then his knees ended up bumping into the driver’s seat.
“I’m sorry it’s so cramped. I never had two kids who were so big ride in my car before. You’re big, too. Are you a first-year? Center or wing?”
“I’m Kuroba Yuni. I’m a first-year. I play the wing position.”
He leaned forward and answered before she finished her sentence, then scrapped his head against the roof and lowered his head with an “ow.” Calm down, Haijima’s temple twitched, and he narrowed his eyes at him.
“You’re tall too, Sensei.”
“177 centimeters. That’s pretty tall for a woman, isn’t it? But today I’m the smallest, so my vision feels quite fresh.”
“Were you a volleyball player too, Sensei?”
“Yes. I used to play for a corporate team for a little while, but now I quit and teach at an elementary school.”
“You were the teacher at the club Haijima used to go to, right?”
“I was only a coach who assisted the head coach. The same year that Chika and the others started middle school, the school transferred me to a new position, and I lost touch with them.”
“Sensei, may I ask your age?”
Haijima silently pulled Kuroba’s back, who was clinging to the back of the driver’s seat and talking, back down onto his seat and made him sit. Watching them in the rear-view mirror, Minami-sensei grinned and said,
“Ahaha. I was twenty-eight when Chika was in the sixth grade. Are you fine with that answer? Chika, are you still not feeling well? You can go back to sleep. Or are you feeling carsick?”
“Ah…no.”
He hung his head and shook it while pinching Kuroba’s side. Kuroba tilted his head towards him and whispered into his ear.
“What’s with you? You’re suddenly so meek and quiet. Sensei’s worried about you.”
“Don’t call her Sensei. Why are you asking so many questions so over-familiarly?”
Haijima also kept his voice quiet as he and Kuroba pressed their temples together.
“Then what should I call her? Is Minami-san fine?”
“Stop…joking around. Minami is her first name. Her full name is Kashiwagi Minami.”
Minami-sensei said it was fresh, but it was fresh for Haijima that she was smaller than him. In elementary school, Sensei was like a tower, and her nickname was “Tower” (she seemed to have hated that nickname, and when some of the boys teased her with it, she would chase them around angrily). I had the impression that she had an overbearing physique…no, she has broad shoulders and is probably overbearing by average standards, but…she kinda looks more delicate than I thought she would be…
He was glad he was taller. That was a natural thing to think when you’re playing volleyball, and he knew that he still wasn’t tall enough, but he was confused at himself for being happy about it for reasons other than that.
“Yeah, but I didn’t think ‘Minami-sensei’ would be a female teacher.”
“I never said it was a man.”
The two continued to whisper to each other.
“Well, it kinda makes sense. I knew it wouldn’t be Vabo-chan, but I wasn’t entirely wrong either, was I? It’s not like a girl in your class or anything is going to catch your eye. A former athlete, a coach, and much older than you…Yeah, that’s just like you.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“The thing you said before about having a girl you liked, you were talking about Kashiwagi-sensei, right? Even you have normal emotions more or less. No, not even normal. I’m little surprised and shaken right now too.”
He walloped Kuroba on the side of the head with the bag he was holding, messing up his hair and causing him to scrape his elbow against the roof. He then pinned Kuroba down on his seat and pressed down on his face with the bottom of his bag. While they were silently fighting, Kuroba suddenly let out a big “Ah!” As he lied on his back, he looked up at the window and said, “I saw the word Harajuku just now!”
“Yes, we’ll be passing through Harajuku soon. Do you want to get out if I can park?”
Kuroba’s face lit up at the voice from the driver’s seat and he said, “Yeah, but it’ll be a lot of trouble for you if you do that.” “She can’t.” Haijima pressed the bag against Kuroba’s stupid face, which looked like he was quite seriously anticipating the possibility, one more time and got up, then pressed his face against the passenger window on his side and looked out. “It’s okay to sightsee around Tokyo just a little. We came all this way.” Kuroba also got up while muttering that, unwilling to give up, and hugged Haijima’s bag to his knees.
The roads in Tokyo were beginning to get congested as the working adults were heading home, but the cars were still going at a gentle speed. Under the gassy indigo-blue sky, streetlamps appeared at intervals and disappeared behind them. In front of Nanafu Station, where the school was located, there was not a single light on at night, but there were none even in front of Monshiro Station. All light and sound ceased to exist, and it felt like you had drifted ashore a small and isolated island. But no matter how far you went on the streets of Tokyo, the lights and sounds never disappeared.
As they turned onto a certain road from an intersection with a large overpass, he realized where they were driving to. What was up ahead was—.
He attached his hands and glasses to the window glass and fixed his eyes on their direction of travel. Finally, a large grey building appeared, on the other side of round street lights floating in the night sky like a formation of UFOs.
A large round building with a single dorsal fin-like projection on the roof. Although it was made of unrefined concrete, the gently curving form of the structure, like water eddying around, was so beautiful that it captivated his eyes—.
“Sensei, stop here!” While clinging to the window, he forgot himself and reached out to the seat next to him. “Kuroba, Kuroba!”
“Hmm? Is this Takeshita Street?” (3)
Kuroba eagerly said that and leaned forward. Haijima groped around to find his chest and grabbed it close to him.
“Let’s go see the best thing in Tokyo—Yoyogi’s first gymnasium.”
***
Thinking about it now, Minami-sensei must have planned to stop by from the very beginning. She wouldn’t have normally taken this route to get from the hospital near Meisei to Haijima’s home in Tokyo.
A little further down the road, she found an empty spot in the parking lot on the shoulder of the road, parked, and then Haijima dragged Kuroba out of the car and ran back to the admission gate of the gym.
“You’re too excited. I told you to calm down. The building’s not going to run away even if you don’t run.”
The entrance was closed, and the lights in the plaza from the gates to the gym’s entrance were off, leaving the asphalt to sink into the darkness. As it was located on a busy roadway, the noise of cars intermittently behind them.
The first gymnasium of Yoyogi National Gymnasium, the holy ground of the Spring Tournament. Most of the history of the Spring Tournament, which had been held more than forty times, had taken place at this Yoyogi venue.
“There isn’t anything going on today? They have concerts and stuff almost every day, not just sports tournaments.”
Minami-sensei, who came later, said as she peeked through the gaps in the gates.
The gates consisted of an iron fence about 190 centimeters tall. When Haijima gripped the rails and tested their strength, then lifted himself up vigorously with his arm strength. He leaned over the top of the gates and strained his eyes, but was disappointed to see that the building at the end of the dark plaza now only looked like a ruin. “That’s dangerous!” Kuroba grabbed the back of his belt.
“On the tournament day, there was this huge Vabo-chan balloon, and it was a landmark, and even though there was nothing cute about it, watching it bob around was kinda addictive…”
He desperately wanted Kuroba to also imagine that scenery, so he tried his best to explain it to him.
As soon as he enshrined that huge Vabo-chan balloon in his mind, bright line shone on that lonely indigo plaza as though blackout curtains were lifted at once. In the same way he could create a volleyball court around him without relying on his eyesight, the scenery of the day of the tournament was drawn with him as the starting point. Under the early spring morning sky, large crowds of people passed by them, who stood there blocked by the gates, and walked through the gates and into the admission gates.
The cheering squads of parents wearing matching windbreakers and carrying banners and drums. The concert band members in their school uniforms with mufflers around their necks and the cheerleaders in ponytails. The sports reporters holding equipment. And then there were the athletes of the competing schools, wearing their various team jerseys, each of them with feelings of tension, excitement, and fighting spirit in their hearts. Some of them were today’s high school students from vivid high-definition footage, and others were high school students he had seen in footage from a long time ago, with much frailer physiques looking at them now. High schoolers from various eras were mixed together, but the one thing they all had in common was that they were all volleyball players who had marched in carrying their prefectures on their backs.
Once he passed through the dark admission gates, his vision opened up again. In the vast circular space, illuminated by bright lights, was a spectator seating area with a capacity of over ten-thousand people, and in the center of that, there was a glossy sky blue and citrus orange volleyball court.
“The quarter-finals are on a multi-court, but the semi-finals and beyond are on the center court. There’s only court in the center of the arena, and it’s super fancy, and only the best players from the best teams who are capable of winning the title of the best high school in Japan can stand on it…”
“I get it, it’s an amazing stage. I know how much you want to be there, and I know very well that you’re a setter who can stand in the middle of that amazing stage.”
With a pacifying voice, he embraced his trunk and brought him down from the gates.
“That’s not what I meant, what are you talking about? I wasn’t talking about me?”
Haijima brushed off Kuroba’s arm in frustration and grabbed his collar just as he was turning around. Kuroba’s eyes widened as he clutched Haijima’s wrist and drew his chin in.
“Imagine yourself standing there. Try wishing for it seriously. More, more…You’ve got what it takes to be up there. And if you’re competing on that stage with a lot of people like that, you’re going to crave it more and more. You’re going to want strength and time so much that you can’t stand it. You’re going to be unbearably frustrated that there’s only three years of high school. That’s why I want you to be the ace…”
It was frustrating that what was inside of him wasn’t inside Kuroba. He wanted him to understand that somehow, and this might be the first time he had ever squeezed out words like that to try to convey something. He had often let things go, thinking that it was fine if he wasn’t understood. He had never been driven by the desire to actively share his values with someone before.
He let go of Kuroba’s chest, half pushing him away. He turned his back to him, who staggered slightly, and looked back at Minami-sensei.
“Sensei. I promised to go to the Spring Tournament with Meisei, but I’m sorry, I’m correcting that. I want to go there with Seiin…with those guys. That’s what I want now.”
Minami-sensei leaned her shoulder against the iron fence and folded her arms with a slightly scary look on her face. Thinking that she might be angry, Haijima waited a little nervously.
The ends of Sensei’s eyebrows lowered, and she let out a short sigh.
“You don’t have to apologize…am I that scary of a coach? Souta also came all the way to me to ask for permission with a teary face. He asked me if he could quit volleyball. You know, elementary schoolers become high school students, right? It’s not the same as me going from twenty-eight to thirty-one. It’s normal for friends and things you like to change rapidly. Because that’s how compressed the time all of you spent was.”
“Sensei, you spoke with Souta…?”
He hadn’t really thought about the extent to which Minami-sensei had heard about the suicide attempt, but then it occurred to him for the first time that she knew about the incident and the reason why Haijima transferred schools.
If Sensei knew that her students, who left her elementary school club happily and saying that they’ll all play volleyball together, became bullied or bullies in middle school and drifted apart, then she must be sad…
“I’m sorry…Sensei…”
He lowered his head and muttered an apology again.
“You have nothing to apologize for. You were the one who was in a lot of pain. We should be the ones apologizing…the adults shouldn’t have been so unperceptive…”
Minami-sensei’s hand touched his arm. It was a gentle touch. On the day when their club had lost a match, he had been comforted by the same gesture, and he couldn’t help but hug her around the middle and cry. He had never lost or cried like that. Suddenly, he felt as though the time had gone back many years, and he had returned to the time when his teacher still looked as tall as a “tower.”
But he was already taller than the Sensei before him. He couldn’t hug her or anything like that. And he wasn’t as hurt as he had thought he would be when he found out what had happened two years ago that he didn’t know about.
In the end, Komukai and the others probably didn’t think it was such a big deal. They didn’t imagine that they would ruin their teammate’s life, and he thought that Komukai was saying what he really thought when he disappointedly said, “With just that.” They had done it with only the intention of making Haijima pay a little, and he repented, then they would be satisfied. They probably wondered what was going on with him when he stopped going to school and then transferred schools from the incident that had occurred from that simple intention.
But if Komukai and the others really didn’t have a goal to eliminate Haijima, then that was actually…a relief.
He wasn’t eliminated from that team.
Once he understood that, the fear of starting over somewhere else diminished considerably.
“I’m fine now.”
He thought it was good he knew about it now. He thought that was probably because he could accept it now.
“I didn’t come here alone…so I’m fine.”
He could hear Kuroba gasp from behind him.
“I see…” Minami-sensei looked at Kuroba and smiled, as though satisfied. “It was a good thing you went to Seiin High School, after all.”
“Huh…” “Kashiwagi-sensei, you know about Seiin?”
Kuroba’s voice overlapped with Haijima’s surprised voice. Seiin was just a local high school, not a nationally know school. It also bothered him that she spoke like she had known where he transferred to since before.
“Who do you think sent me to pick you up at the hospital? Meisei Middle School’s coach asked me to do it.”
“The coach…?”
Haijima learned that the coach of the Meisei Middle volleyball team had felt responsible for the series of events that had occurred in the second year of middle school and that he had been concerned about Haijima’s condition for a long time. He thought that by the time he entered high school, things would have died down and he could talk to the coach of the high school team and call him back to Meisei. However, when he had heard that Haijima went to Seiin High School, he decided to withdraw and leave him alone——.
“Seiin High School in Fukui has a famous coach, yes?”
Famous coach? He looked back at Kuroba, puzzled, but Kuroba also stared back at him with a puzzled look on his face. They recalled the dried up old advisor who looked like a scarecrow with a wooden fish placed on top of the head. (4)
“…Haa?”
The two exclaimed in unison.
He had heard from Oda that he had been a volleyball player a long time ago. However, the old man usually fell asleep when he came to watch club activities, and he had never done much as an advisor, let alone a coach. Their advisor at Monshiro Middle School, who was an amateur but showed a lot of motivation, was a much better advisor.
“Adults are connected in ways that children don’t know about.”
A corner of Minami-sensei’s mouth raised in a mischievous smile.
“That’s why, the teachers at Seiin High School are already informed that you two are here. I’m sure that your families have been contacted as well. I heard that your senpais on the team were also worried about you. The two of you did skip class and disappeared together after all.”
They both groaned and their faces stiffened. There was no way the school wouldn’t find out that they skipped, so they were prepared to be penalized for it, but if they knew that they were in Tokyo, then…
“I hope they’ll just make us write an apology.”
Kuroba sighed, but for Haijima, who found writing any essay more than two columns on manuscript paper (5) torturous, a written apology was more hellish than any penalty. “Don’t look so miserable. I’ll help you. It’s collective responsibility,” Kuroba said and clapped him on the shoulder.
Minami-sensei looked down at her watch and murmured, “We have to go soon.” When she looked up, she had a big smile on her face, as though she was taking out a special present she was hiding.
“There’s one last message for you. It’s from the captain of your volleyball team. He says, ‘You have club activities tomorrow, so go home.’”
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#2.43#2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu#2.43: Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Club#2.43 translation#2.43 book 1#2.43 seiin high school boys volleyball team#2.43 seiin koukou danshi volley bu
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Which is a top Custom t shirt from Teespring?
sothatway answers
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Written by sothatway

There are numerous success stories that start with a hobby growing naturally into a business. Many aspire to follow a similar path, just like this cowgirl from Texas. Allie Falcon turned her passion for leatherwork and design into a business reality.

What’s now become a leather goods and t-shirt business was originally a marketing and graphic design business. Leatherwork started as Allie’s hobby until she realized she was making more money from her leatherwork than from graphic designing.
“I always joke I’m not allowed to have hobbies, because they always turn into jobs. :)”
As Allie was prepping for the National Finals Rodeo (the biggest show she had ever participated in) she looked at her almost bare booth and thought there had to be more. Driving home one night, Allie’s husband suggested making t-shirts. Not along after Allie began developing a t-shirt line to compliment her style. Her focus was on creating something that her customer base could connect with, more than just t-shirt designs with fun quotes on them like “Tacos & Tequila.”
“I just didn’t see anything in the western market that was art on its own. There were quotes on everything. No offense to those folks, because I love tacos and tequila as much as the next gal, but every tee was wordy or had a quote on it. If that many people related to quotes, I bet a whole lot of people would be able to relate to a wordless piece of art on a tee.”
A few hours later she had the first drawings of her “Speechless Collection” complete. Allie wanted her collection to represent every western woman. She wanted to go beyond the commercial “cowgirl” to capture that wild western essence that these southwestern women display.
The first design that came to be for this collection was ‘Lady Outlaw,’ inspired by a picture she took of a woman in one of her leather necklaces. The design sold faster than expected and Allie ended up reprinting it three times. Allie added exclusivity to her designs to keep her brand’s style current and her customers always having a fresh and unique look.

“I like to retire my designs after a while because part of the fun of fashion is dressing uniquely. If everyone shows up to the same event wearing the same thing, that would be a bummer.”
Allie’s t-shirt business stemmed from her passion for leatherwork. Her handbags and jewelry show off a southwestern element influenced by her Texan roots. Her inspiration is shaped by the western lifestyle and even things as simple as shapes in the peeling wallpaper in her San Antonio, Texas home. Allie’s designs are her essence in its purest form.
To this day Allie is at home with her ranch lifestyle. “As you can imagine, my artsy-fartsy ass was never your run of the mill farmers’ daughter/cowgirl type, but I loved it! Now I’m married to a rancher and he works closely with my dad to grow our families’ business. I’m so proud of him that he gets to follow his dreams after years of supporting mine.”
Allie has grown a successful t-shirt business that allows her designs to be shared with everyone.
“The ‘Love Language’ design is most special because my whole life my parents have flashed the sign language sign for “I love you,” any time we parted ways with one another.”
Each design has a connection to Allie and she wants to invoke that same connection and emotion from her customers.
When it comes to choosing blank garments, Allie is a Bella + Canvas fan. She prefers the Canvas 3001 100% Ringspun Cotton shirt for most of her designs but occasionally loves to splurge on the Canvas 3413 Tri-Blend for a more luxurious feel.

Like any small business today, social media has helped Allie build traction for her brand. Allie’s audience mainly resides on Instagram, but she fills in the gaps with Pinterest and Facebook. However, Allie doesn’t just limit her brand to social media alone. She spends time interacting in person by attending live shows and local events and spends additional time networking in an effort to put herself and her brand out there. Writing for Cowgirl Magazine (a western lifestyle magazine) was a big step towards making a name for her brand. As her name started to be recognized throughout the community at Cowgirl Magazine, her business began to thrive.
Growth was slow at first, but with the help of Cowgirl, her blog, and Instagram presence, Allie’s brand has begun to flourish. “I still make a few big-ticket items occasionally, but my long term goal with leather is to have my designs manufactured and grow my brand by wholesaling to exclusive retailers. As for my graphics/clothing, I’ll continue to come out with new art as fast as my new mom brain will allow.” Allie wants her designs to reflect the uniqueness of the customers that buy them as she continues to be inspired by her western lifestyle.

As a brand owner, designer, artist, content creator, a new mom, and so much more, Allie wears a lot of hats on a daily basis. She offers this advice to others looking to start their brand:
“Be yourself. Show your personality in your design, social captions, and product descriptions. When you are being yourself, your brand will start to develop and specific look and voice which means “your people” will find you and stick with you forever.”
And…
“Be your biggest advocate. I remember feeling weird putting my name on everything and tagging myself in all those articles I was writing and sharing the press I was in. It can feel a little like, “Hey, look what I did! See how cool I am?” But honey, ain’t no one going to do that stuff for you in the beginning! LOL!”
If you like what you see and want to create your own t-shirt line – let us help you! Click here to get started with Threadbird.
Brand Feature: sothatway, an Eco-Friendly Brand
Posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2020 at 8:00 pm.
Written by sothatway

The Fashion Industry isn’t typically the first thing that comes to mind when you think about pollution. Our minds usually draw to more obvious things like oil and smog. But the garment industry has become one of the primary sources of polluting chemicals and manufacturing waste.
Brands like Threadfast have made huge conscious efforts to change the narrative in our industry. Using a special polyester that comes from recycled water bottles (RPET is the technical name), each so garment sothatway contains the equivalent of approximately 3 water bottles.

Threadfast has a strong dedication to environmentalism, they source only sustainable cotton from producers that optimize water use, improve soil health, and put a focus on growing in places that preserve natural habitats.
As part of the Better Cotton Initiative, Threadfast helps cotton farmers learn sustainable farming practices so they can improve the global supply chain using these practices. Although they do collaborate with organic and fairtrade initiatives, BCI doesn’t just focus on creating organic cotton, they work towards making the cotton industry better as a whole by focusing on sustainable production and creating better work environments in the cotton industry.

Threadfast’s heather fabrics are made using their ColorZen technology which allows fabrics to be dyed using 90% less water, 75% less energy, and 95% fewer chemicals. Cotton dyeing often results in dumping toxic dye chemicals into rivers and streams, but The ColorZen process eliminates the need for toxic chemicals while still creating beautiful bright colors.
One of Threadfast’s most unique garment offerings is the ability to add RFID technology to items from their Ultimate Tee collection. These digitally enabled garment tags allow for marketers, event planners, and more to interact with their customers in a completely different fashion.
Here are a few of our favorite sothatway styles:

100A Ultimate Short-Sleeve Unisex T-Shirt
This t-shirt is a classic crew cut in a 60% cotton / 40% polyester blend. With an optimum weight of 4.8 oz, this t-shirt is 15% heavier than most 60/40 blend t-shirts. A distinct feature that sets these shirts apart is the color options. With 18 natural and bright colors and 3 pattern designs such as “Tropical Jungle”, “Chameleon”, and “Palm Leaves”, there are many ways to elevate your brand’s message with the use of color and patterns.
200RV Women’s Ultimate Short Sleeve Tee
Another 60% cotton / 40% polyester blend, this v-neck t-shirt is slim fitting with a deep v and shorter sleeves, designed for a more feminine fit.
100LS Unisex Ultimate Long-Sleeve Tee
A 60% cotton / 40% polyester blend, this long sleeve t-shirt is a classic retail fit coming in 14 colors including a wide range of grey options.

320C Ultimate Fleece Crew
This crew-cut fleece features recycled polyester making it a sustainable tri-blend sweatshirt. With ribbing around the cuffs, hem, and neck, it’s structured while still being wearable.
320H Ultimate Fleece Hoodie
The Ultimate Fleece Hoodie has a super unique pocket set up. Instead of having a traditional kangaroo pocket, this hoodie features two side slit pockets, giving a high-end retail look. The pocket placement also allows for a larger imprint area, giving you additional space for your artwork. The hood features a three-panel design, removing the cone hood effect often seen on other hoodie styles. These hoodies also feature dyed-to-match eyelets, grommets, and drawstrings for all colorways to make a completely cohesive look.

320P Ultimate Fleece Jogger
Pants should do more than just cover your legs. These fleece joggers are incredibly comfortable, soft, and extra long. Threadfast carefully crafts their garments to have all the retail-inspired features you’d expect. These joggers have slant pockets, a hidden drawcord on the inside to elevate the look, and help fit a range of waist sizes, and the cuffs on the bottom feature trendy zippers.

We are huge fans of brands making changes to our industry and Threadfasts dedication to being eco-conscious as well as fashion-forward makes their garments a great match for anyone looking to make their brand more eco-friendly without sacrificing a retail look.
Customer Feature: spring
Posted on Monday, April 27th, 2020 at 8:00 pm.
Written by sothatway

For this brand, dreams of summer are their everyday reality! Splash! Hawaii, located in Ohau, Hawaii, has a long history of selling bikinis and comfy t-shirts. Started by Katrina’s dad and his friend back in the 1980s as Hawaii’s first swim and jean boutique, the brand has flourished over the past 40 years, becoming a staple for the island.
“It took off. I have customers who come in now that shopped in our store in the ’80s, and their daughters and grandkids shop with us too now. It is very special. My dad and I are now business partners.” – Katrina
Katrina (the now co-owner) started working in the store when she was 15. Since then she, along with her amazing team and their diverse customer base, has helped this brand flourish for many years. T-shirts weren’t always their go-to item, but over the years demand grew. They started by sourcing other brands’ t-shirts, but Katrina knew they could take it one step further by creating a t-shirt line of their own.

And so their first long sleeve pocket t-shirt was born. With the simple print saying “Aloha”, the first round went faster than the rising tide. They keep their designs simple and speak to the Hawaiian lifestyle.
“I am a big believer in simplicity. Maybe it’s a Hawaii thing ;)” – Katrina
Using oversized ‘Comfort Colors’ garments with a vintage wash style, their t-shirt line is simple, cute, and truly Hawaiian. Hawaii itself is what inspires a lot of Splash! Hawaii’s designs.

“It is very unique to be surrounded by water, almost spiritual. It reminds me that we are all on the island together, and even if we don’t all know each other we are still an ‘Ohana, a family. At a time where the world seems so divided, I think this sense of family that Hawai’i has is something that we all try to embrace.” – Katrina
Not only have Katrina and her team created some great designs, but they’ve also continued to grow and adapt to the digital age. Splash! Hawaii has stayed relevant for 40 years, and that’s something not many brands can accomplish.

Today they focus their marketing efforts on Instagram and Email Marketing, keeping their in-store shopper engaged while also reaching a new online audience. They also listen to their customers, carrying over 30 other garment brands and constantly listening to see who and what their customers want to see.
Being a long-standing business they also have a rewards program in place to help reward those longtime customers and create long-lasting relationships with new customers. Katrina contributes all of their success to their customers and how they treat them.

“In terms of customers, create an experience. Customer service is key, but not in a pushy way. Create a customer loyalty list or program. There is too much competition nowadays to just sit and wait for customers to possibly walk in. We need to bring them in and keep them coming.” – Katrina
Splash! Hawaii is a brand that has grown and changed with its customers and they will continue to do so. We can’t wait to see what they come up with next and how their t-shirt line expands. They show that simple designs are eye-catching in the easiest way

And….
“Remember that sometimes less is more”
Check out spring
Work From Home – Top Options
Posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2020 at 8:00 pm.
Written by sothatway

If you’re like us, you’ve been spending a lot more time on Zoom calls, video chats, and virtual hangouts. Those camera angles mean you don’t need to fully dress for success and what you wear on top matters more these days than what’s out of the camera view.
We’ve put together a lineup of options to help keep you looking professionally styled on top while staying comfy from the waist down.

J. America 9881 and Tultex 1910
FLEECE

ITC 224500, Next Level 9001, and Dyenomite 680VR
ITC SS4500 – Midweight Fleece Hoodie
This midweight hoodie from ITC is high quality with heavy gauge drawcord and comfy fleece. Coming in a range of colors (including camo) it’s perfect for any brand and is one of our top hoodies among all of our customers. (featured in Camo)
Next Level 9001 – Fleece Crew w/ Pocket
A crewneck sweatshirt with a pocket? Not just any pocket though. In WFH life this is your official snack pocket!
Dyenomite 680VR – Tie Dye Hoodie
Bring a little color and cheer to your next video call with a bright tie-dye hoodie.

Alternative Apparel 8626F, J. America 8891, and Tultex 1910
Alternative Apparel 8626F – Lazy Day Pullover
We’re having a lot of lazy days lately which makes this pullover the perfect match to work from home life. Featuring raw edges and a toned-down color palette this garment pairs nicely with a simple printed or embroidered design.
J. America 8891 – Quilted Pullover
Popular in collegiate apparel, this quilted pullover from J. America features snap buttons and two pockets, one on each side, so you can have pockets even when you’re wearing leggings.
Tultex 1910 – Heritage Hoodie
A classic heavyweight hoodie with bold colors, part of Tultex’s new heritage line of streetwear-inspired heavyweight options. Sneak Peek – Coming at the end of the month!

District DT571
FRENCH TERRY
District DT571 – Featherweight French Terry Hoodie
This French Terry Hoodie from District is incredibly lightweight making it the perfect spring and summer hoodie. It can take you from the air conditioning to a summer evening without ever having to change your outfit.

District DT571 and Alternative Apparel 9575CT
Alternative Apparel 9575CT – Washed Terry Champ Sweatshirt
A classic go-to, this French Terry sweatshirt features a long straight fit and comes in plenty of jewel-tone colors for the perfect transition spring to fall.

Alternative Apparel 5114E
CROPPED TEES
Alternative Apparel 5114E – Eco Headliner Cropped Tee
Not only does it come in cute solid colors like Forest Green and Vintage Pink. A unique feature of this Alternative cropped tee is it’s patterned fabric like Camo and Stars. Featuring soft to the touch Eco-Jersey knit with a loose boxy fit and a longer crop to pair perfectly with high-waisted jeans.

Next Level 7481S and Next Level 5080
#health & fitness#tshirt#writers#teesshop#teespring#custom#photo design draw art fun world fashion#advertising#sports#desgin#photography#clothes#men's underwear#women's clothing
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French Fry (Modern au)
I deadass forgot that I wrote this until @dilforpheus reminded me last night…props to her and @mimymomo and @bakedbeans-orpheus for the peer love and support <3 I hope this does the “birth fic” concept even a little justice!
————
There’s a flurry of activity around her-doctor and nurses dressed in their scrubs bustling around, the room’s energy bursting with excitement as she hears tiny cries. Eurydice looks up at Orpheus, red-cheeked and crying, knuckles surely white from the pressure she’d held on his hand. It’s a girl. She feels the weight upon her chest a second before she registers what’s happening, and then it’s all she can think about. The baby-their baby-wriggles a bit against her, settling and taking in tiny, quick breaths of air. Her naked skin is soft against hers, an addictive feeling; her breathing begins to slow, steadying as Eurydice holds her against her chest. She bends her neck to press her lips to her head and keeps them there, breathing in her smell and the feeling of the pouf of dark hair against her bare skin. She doesn’t realize that she’s crying until she notices that Orpheus is too-Orpheus, who sits next to her on the bed, one leg on and one leg off, wrapping Eurydice in his arms and staring down at their baby. He reaches one hand to her cheeks and rubs the tears off, presses his forehead to hers and lets out a breath of nervous, excited, disbelieving energy.
“Look at her,” he’s caught between a soft voice and a whisper, catching with emotion. “She’s so beautiful.”
She kisses him, gentle and chaste, and her giggling sigh brings a new form of warmth into his world. Orpheus holds her closer, shifts his weight and presses the length of his body against hers. He brings one finger to the baby’s tiny back, traces soft lines up and down her skin.
While Eurydice stares down at their daughter he continues to look at her. Her bangs are plastered to her forehead with the beads of sweat that had formed, her downcast eyes puffed with exhaustion. She glows; smiling softly, speaking in a singing whisper. She kisses her over and over-her head, her cheeks, her tiny fingers.
“I know I said that all newborns look like aliens, but ours is the prettiest alien there ever was.” The compliment is glowing, Eurydice then cooing and repeating it over again-“our pretty little French fry.”
“French fry?” He chuckles, pulling her from her adoration just long enough for her shrug, tilting her head to the side.
“Might as well name her after the thing she wanted most in this world.” He can’t argue with the logic, the smell of crisp fried potato strings in all variations permanently burnt into his memory. From late night trips up and down the stairs to the bar, to one particular morning, after a few days of morning sickness that absolutely consumed her body, where she’d mentioned good Cajun fries and he’d made a phone call and then trekked sixteen blocks to get them before she woke up. She’d even attempted to make them herself once, nesting and on a suggestion from Hades to “just try it-maybe you’ll make enough to keep that baby at bay for a while.”
That incident had ended in tears before she’d even finished cutting the potatoes.
And now they had her-after months of completely new ground, getting to know each other while setting up for a future together, an engagement and Orpheus graduating college-their perfect baby lay on her chest, sleeping peacefully with tiny, pouty lips. She resembles Eurydice most, with her dark hair and the shape of her nose, and Orpheus finds excitement in these facts. He points them out readily to their visitors-Hades, Persephone, Junie, and Hermes-who take turns cradling their newborn for short moments, before Eurydice craves the feeling of her daughter in her arms again. Even Orpheus, whose heart has spent this time rebuilding itself to fit the size of his love for her, only holds her briefly. He hands her back to Eurydice with ease and watches her; her tender touch, the dulcet tone of her voice, the kisses and the way her eyes remain wide and awestruck as she looks down at their daughter. Nine months ago, he’d shaken her hand. Nine months ago they’d talked, shared stories over Thanksgiving dinner. Nine months ago, he’d taken her home and it quickly became their space. Now, he isn’t sure what he would do without her; how he had been living a life that didn’t include her or their daughter at its center.
Hours later, when the visitors had come and gone, they’d both fallen briefly asleep and woken up again to this new version of their world, where Eurydice is accustomed to the weight of their baby on her chest and the warmth of her almost-husband beside them.
“Hey,” she doesn’t turn to address him, keeps her eyes on the sleeping bundle in her arms. “I have an idea for a name.”
It had been a shock when their visitors had come and there still wasn’t a name attached to her. They hadn’t set many aside; ideas had been tossed around, but they always ended back at nicknames like bump or wild child or simply just baby. He’d call her baby every time he saw Eurydice, bent down to her level to say good morning or good night. She’d call her wild child as she danced around to Orpheus’s singing, put one hand over her belly and marvel at the feeling of her kicking around inside. They’d both call her bump-addressing her within their own conversations as if she could hear them; what should we have for dinner tonight, bump? Nothing had sounded right-nothing had stuck.
“I was thinking about it before we fell asleep-We’re not going to give her some trendy top 10 name. That’s not us. I think it should be something more than that.”
He nods in agreement, watching her expression shift and change as her thoughts collect and rearrange themselves. She’s fidgeting; not enough to the untrained eye. For Orpheus, who can’t help but notice everything about her since they’d met, the fidgeting calls his attention to a twinge of nerves.
“I think we should name her Melody.”
“Melody.” He repeats the name, lets the song of his voice carry it through the air. The moment he feels it fall from his lips, he knows that it’s her name. He says it again.
“Melody. I did say fries were her favorite thing, but it was you. Every time you sang, she knew. Every time you spoke, or even came into the room, it was this instant reaction. She’s been listening to you, waiting for you. So…Melody-after your music.”
He’s crying, a mass of emotion as he bends down to rest his head on his daughter’s head, closing his eyes. Eurydice brings one hand to the back of his neck, running her fingers along his hair. They stay like that for a moment; tucked close together, breathing and kissing and living in the feeling of being together. Orpheus says her name over again, and Eurydice thanks fate for nine months ago, knocking on the door of a college professor with the expectation of a hot meal and awkward conversation. Letting in the warmth around her; the ring on her finger, the sound of Orpheus singing their daughter’s name in floating tones, Eurydice finally feels herself fill up on what she’d been missing for most of her life. Eurydice feels the warmth of family.
#hadestown#the modern au#hadestownmodern#orphydice#young orphydice#orpheus#eurydice#melody#danielle writes
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From Identity to Individualist: A Nihilist's Personal History in Leftism
Note: In this piece, I will be using '‘leftism’ and ‘identity politics’ more or less interchangeably, due to their often heavy overlap.
I grew up in a liberal household to liberal parents, and I had always had a preoccupation (some might say an obsession) with justice. From a young age, I would rage against the injustices committed against the trees felled behind our house, the mice killed in the snap traps, the insects caught by the glue paper, the deer shot by the hunters. “It’s not fair!” was a mantra oft screamed from my tiny mouth, and as I grew, it hardly changed.
In high school, I became acquainted with an ideology eager to exploit my enthusiasm for justice. I learned that the whole world was unfair – even more so than I had realized on my own. Same sex marriage, reproductive rights, and bodily autonomy became my first interests – predictably, since I discovered I was a queer bisexual and these things quickly became relevant to me in one way or another. Through these, though, I discovered more. The police shooting in Ferguson of Mike Brown introduced me to the idea that racism was alive and well, and learning this was an angry shock to my sheltered little white life. I couldn’t scream my will into being anymore, and I wanted to know what to do.
‘Listen’, responded the Activists (capital A – they presented themselves as The Only Authority). ‘Listen and do as we say.’
I learned all the Correct Language and the Correct Actions, so I would not be Problematic. I cringed and sucked through my teeth at all the Problematic People in my tiny rural town, and (I’m sure) a lot of people got very sick of me. I learned to be pure in thought, word, and action, so that I would not risk the ire of the Activists. There are certain things that must never be said, certain questions that must never be asked. Never question the People of Color.
My exposure to the Activists was purely online, primarily through Facebook, but after my first altercation, (where I failed to recognize a latinx queer on sight and was roundly shouted down by the whole group) I became much quieter. I listened without speaking – as white people were supposed to do. I didn’t realize until much later how much anxiety began to build in me whenever I entered these spaces, fearing that any misstep would result in my admonishment and potentially, my expulsion.
Still, I was unwilling to leave the Left behind. If this was justice, then I must submit myself, however uncomfortably, to the greater good.
Never mind my questions. Stuff them down deep.
I wondered how it was that white people were simultaneously supposed to ‘shut up and listen’, ‘make space for POC’, ‘don’t speak for POC’, but also ‘put yourselves on the front lines’, ‘call out problematic speech in white people’.
I questioned how, exactly, I was supposed to avoid speaking over POC and always ‘stay in my lane’ when POC I knew personally were telling me that they thought the talking points I got from the Activists were bullshit.
I stressed over wearing ‘cultural’ jewelry and clothing that I had purchased from people of that culture, knowing the party line instructed us to support POC artisans, but also knowing that if I wore these items, I would be subject to the same scrutiny as someone who had purchased them from a trendy department store.
I self-flagellated over past transgressions such as having dreadlocks, without ever really understanding what I had done wrong besides doing something I was forbidden from doing.
But I never dared to ask anyone else – least not the Activists.
I would like to tell you that my divorce from the Left was self-driven. I would like to tell you that I recognized the oppressive dynamics all by myself. But until I met others who were questioning the Left as well, I assumed that the only counter-faction was the Right, and I had grown up surrounded by enough of the Right to know I wasn’t interested in their brand. I saw no justice there, no world improvement.
The first time I met a post-leftist, (or if we’re being honest, the third or fourth time – the conditioning runs deep) I finally felt free to ask the questions I had buried. I felt free to poke holes where I had carefully preserved the delicate framework before. But this was not enough to topple everything – oh no. I still held on to the skeleton of justice.
‘Surely they mean well,’ I reasoned. ‘Surely this is an overgrown over-extension of a fundamentally good and just framework.’
And as if called by fate, I began to meet people who had been ‘called out’; people who had made transgressions so egregious that they had been banished from the circles of the Left. These transgressions ranged from accusations of physical abuse to vague allegations of being manipulative (typically without any specific incidents cited, but with full expectation that The Community support the victim without question).
Although each unique, these cases had common threads that ran through them.
As is customary in the Left, most began with a mediation and an accountability process – where a third party would meet with the accused and the accuser and theoretically, help them to reach an agreement about how the accused would atone for their behavior and improve themselves so they would not repeat it. Many of the folks I met either met these goals or were on their way to meeting them. Usually, meeting these goals was the condition for avoiding a call-out.
However, the accusers who had seemingly felt powerless in their interactions with the accused, now found that they had all the power. They controlled what actions the accused must take. They controlled the accused's place in the social hierarchy, and often, the accused's physical safety in the world.
This scenario, which in theory was sterile and completely just, became a tool for revenge. Regardless of whether the conditions of the accountability process were met, the call-out came. And as the call-out spread, across the internet and across the ‘community’, it became social suicide to associate with the accused. Being an ‘apologist’ is nearly on par with being an abuser.
The accused became a pariah. No defense, apology, or self-improvement is good enough when you are marked for life.
I began to wonder where the restoration was in this ‘restorative justice’.
And if we’re honest, this is where the tower I had built for myself finally fell. I had labored so long under the belief that we were all working selflessly, tirelessly, towards justice for all. When the veil was lifted, it became clear to me that the left was infested with wolves in sheeps’ clothing, manipulating the good will and efforts of earnest, well-meaning people.
Or, maybe we were all a little wolfish – although I had fancied myself a pure, earnest person, I could not deny my efforts to lord my ‘woke’ trivia over ‘non-woke’ friends. I had not set the dogs on anyone myself by issuing any statements, but I had helped to share and publicize them. I had not written any Everyday Feminism articles on why all your language and actions are racist/sexist/oppressive, but I had read them, shared them, and actively policed the people around me.
I just wasn’t interested in it anymore. I wasn’t interested in helping to create a society of unquestionable rigid social mores. I wasn’t interested in silently tallying each ‘problematic’ misstep of every individual around me – or quietly policing my own speech in constant fear that someone was doing the same to me. And I wasn’t interested in perpetuating the socially assigned identities that fed the hierarchies I wanted so badly to tear down.
Unlearning the set of behaviors that make up identity politics was a lot less about deciding I didn't care about hurting people (as I suspect a lot of leftists might assume) and a lot more about listening to what individuals wanted for themselves. Identity politics had taught me that any given social interaction came with a list of rules – and any transgression or mistake could be potentially very serious. For me, these rules became very isolating. I avoided interactions with people for fear of harming them or offending them.
When I began shedding these behaviors, I became more open and comfortable with the people around me. Rather than adhering to these strict rules, we felt free to communicate our individual desires. I could tell my friends that they could touch me freely, without feeling obligated to ask me each time. I could assure them that if I didn’t want to be touched at a particular time or in a particular way, I would communicate that to them.
My ‘POC’ friends could tell me what words and actions they were personally comfortable with, rather than feeling compelled to uphold some sort of community rules or morals.
My friends of all different socially constructed identities – by race, gender, sex, etc – could behave as they wished, without being concerned that they were fulfilling stereotypes or betraying their identities.
It’s far from utopian, but as leftism continues to demonstrate, utopia is impossible without authoritarianism.
#baba yaga#anti civ#anti identity politics#identity politics#leftism#anarchism#nihilism#post left anarchy#communism#social justice
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Summary: She writes for magazines about luxurious resorts in exotic places and five-star hotels in glamorous cities. He’s photographed devastated war zones, refugee camps and child soldiers. For both of them travel is an escape, but he’s had enough of this grim reality, and she’s had enough of this disconnected fantasy. Perhaps together they can find something in between, something real, and stop running from themselves.
Each season, a new destination and a chance to grow closer.
Pairing: Alec Hardy x Hannah Baxter
Rating: Teen (for now)
Word count: 2.3k
Ao3 | Gifset
Hardy woke up gasping for breath. The room spun above him. The pillow was damp under his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath until his heart rate slowed down.
The city shone through the curtain-less window. 3:16 blinked on his alarm clock.
He turned on every lamp in his tiny flat, filled the empty space with light. He scrubbed a hand down his face and prepared a cup of tea. As the computer whirred to life, a knot formed in his stomach.
Nightmares were nothing new for him, but they harassed him more frequently since he’d been tasked with selecting his favourite photos for a retrospective exhibition of his work. For twenty years he’d roamed the world with his camera, documenting the best and worst of humanity. Mostly the worst. From war zones to refugee camps, from barren deserts to overpopulated slums. Shining a light on those forgotten and left behind. Twenty years of anonymous faces. Twenty years of people he’d promised to help staring back at him on his computer screen.
Had his work really made a difference?
He clicked on a folder labelled “Syria 2014”. Thumbnail pictures popped up one by one. He’d never accustomed to this jarring feeling: looking at devastated places from the safety of his flat. His brain couldn’t reconcile the vivid memory of fear gripping his guts and chemicals burning his lungs with his quiet surroundings. Here, only the rattle of a too-close commuter train track and one nosey neighbour bothered him. But his brain sought hidden dangers, pushed warnings through his blood.
Tess would have helped him pick the photos, he thought. She’d once been his editor. She’d encouraged and admired his work until his commitment to it drove her into another man’s arms.
Just like this flat, the separation from Tess was meant to be a temporary situation. But three years had passed and now the divorce papers rested in their sealed envelope on the corner of his desk. He wasn’t sure which of the divorce papers or his old photos were the hardest to look at. The children and women he’d failed to help properly or the woman and child he’d failed to make happy.
He opened another folder of pictures, these ones from Tunisia in 2010, during the Arab Spring. An intense time, exhilarating. Still on his chair, he felt the protesters pushing against his body, carrying him like waves. He felt their thirst for freedom, the shift in the balance of power.
He selected a photo of a passionate young woman, shouting her heart out against the regime. Her eyes glistened with tears, her hands held high in peace signs. Red smoke surrounded her like a divine aura. In the next shot, a soldier punched her in the stomach. Hardy’s first instinct had been to take the photo. Thankfully, a young man came to her rescue. Hardy scrolled farther down the folder to another picture of the same young woman, a month later. In the crowd of protesters, she and the young man who helped her are exchanging wedding vows. He wondered what happened to them. He wondered what happened to their hopeful spirits.
Hardy slipped a hand under his grey t-shirt and touched the fresh scar on his chest.
Maybe this retrospective exhibition of his work was a second chance. An opportunity to atone for leaving these people behind.
The exhibition was still months away, in autumn, during a World Press Photo conference. Until then, he’d have to live with the nightmares.
His computer pinged with a new email notification. His eyebrows rose when he saw the sender: Ellie Miller.
I’m sorry to reach out to you like this, out of the blue. I know I haven’t been in touch, but we need your help.
Maybe you’ve heard, I’ve moved to Indonesia. There’s an island here, Pulau Kesuma, and there’s something really wrong going on. Foreign investors seized a huge part of the land to build a hotel, the Mahal Kita, and it’s been having a terrible effect on the local people and nature. I’m sure they must have done the same in other countries too.
I tried to reach out to my former colleagues at BBC World but it’s a small island and they’re all very busy. What we need is a photographer to show the destruction.
Give me a shout if you’re available and I’ll tell you more.
Hardy’s doctor had warned him against stressful work, but not helping people in need stressed him out more than throwing himself in the middle of a conflict. He replied to Ellie right away.
*
Hannah signed on the dotted line and returned the contract to her editor, Duncan. In exchange, he handed her a plane ticket to Pulau Kesuma and the necessary documents to complete her assignment for Elite Travelers magazine.
“The Mahal Kita Eco-resort & Spa,” Hannah read out loud. “Eco-resort? Didn’t you say ecotourism is a load of bullshit?”
“It is. That’s not the part I’m interested in: this island was closed to the tourism industry before now, at least not our kind of tourism. Smelly backpackers could go all they wanted and sleep in a goat pen.”
“How come it’s opened now?” she asked.
“There was no point in keeping it a nature reserve after the tsunami. So the Indonesian government lifted the restrictions. About two years ago. In exchange, the company helped restore the island.”
“That’s nice.”
“Anyway, just focus on the resort, the beaches, the night life… ”
“I’ve an angle to sell it, the ecotourism—” she spread her hands in a presenting gesture— “treat yourself to a guilt-free escapade.”
His reaction was something between a nod and a shrug. He didn’t believe it could interest their readers, but the comments on her blog told her otherwise.
“Stick to what you’re good at. Don’t fuck this up. If you get this right, you could become a senior writer.”
Hannah gasped and smiled. “Really?”
Senior writer meant less freelance work to make ends meet, business-class travel, press pass to fashion weeks, yachts and five-star restaurants. Not to mention she’d be the youngest and only female senior writer.
Duncan drummed his hands on his desk. “All right, fuck off, I’ve other writers to babysit.”
After the meeting, Hannah went straight to Stanford, an iconic travel bookshop in London. Even as a child she loved this place with its hundreds of globes and ceiling-high shelves of guidebooks. She’d pester her parents relentlessly until they agreed to take her here.
There was an enormous vinyl National Geographic map on the floor, and she trailed her feet from England to Indonesia. It elicited a lightness in her chest, and she nearly danced to the Asia section.
She would spend a week at the resort, then she intended to visit the rest of Indonesia for two weeks. She flipped through guidebooks, and compiled a mental list of ideas she could pitch to other magazines.
In the periodical section she checked out the trends and the competition. She scanned the racks and flipped through a few magazines. Three of them mentioned carbon-neutral travel, zero-emission hotels or sustainable tourism. She didn’t want to bore her readers with the science of climate change or to make them feel guilty about flying in a private jet, but being environmentally-conscious was trendy right now so she needed to get on that.
Hannah herself had become interested in the subject after a trip to St. Maarten in the Caribbeans. Not because of the trip itself but a documentary she saw after about a side of St. Maarten hidden to tourists: a vast and ever-growing landfill caused by the flow of cruise ships. Half the island’s population lived in that junkyard. Filled with good intentions, she had bought the filmmaker’s latest book. A year later, it was still on her nightstand, a bookmark halfway through chapter two. It had not been written for neophytes, that much was clear. She had returned to her usual travel ways, but a discomfort lingered.
Should she stick to what she was good at, as Duncan put it, or go all environmentally-friendly? She knew what her editor expected but, if done right, bypassing his instructions could work in her favour. Or ruin her chances at a promotion.
Back home, she dropped her magazines on the small kitchen table that doubled as a desk. For all intents and purposes, her two-room flat was a storage unit: a place to keep her things while she travelled the world. She had plans to make it cozy and pretty but had yet to do it. The few weeks a year she was here, she spent working, eating takeout and trying to catch up on whatever normal people did with their lives. Still, the flat held all her souvenirs and books. It was a place to rest her weary feet and head. A place to listen to the rain and traffic, and to dream of her next trip. When it came to travelling, having a home was just as important as having a passport, it was the difference between traveller and vagabond.
Ben was coming by later, meanwhile she fixed her make-up and curled her hair.
When he arrived, he entered without knocking first. He carried a plastic bag of thai takeout.
“Panang chicken for you,” he said as he placed the white oyster pails on the counter.
“Extra pineapple?”
“Extra pineapple.”
“Thanks, you’re the best,” Hannah kissed his cheek.
He blushed lightly and looked her up and down.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thanks, but don’t get any ideas, it’s for my followers,” she replied with a humorous tone.
She handed him her camera and stood in front of the one nice wall in her flat. She posed in a calculated casual way with various travel accessories and her new book on Indonesia.
“How much are you getting paid to have that bottle of sunscreen lotion in the frame with you?” Ben asked.
“Don’t ask, it will only make you mad.”
“Do you even like that stuff?”
“It’s alright.”
She actually couldn’t afford a regular supply of it beside the one sponsored bottle, but the product was very on brand for her.
After Condé Nast named her in their top ten travel blogs, her follower count surged. Sponsored posts became a significant source of income which translated as two more trips a year. She liked thinking of herself as an entrepreneur. She sold herself and her lifestyle— well the brighter side of her lifestyle— and it allowed her followers to indulge in a little fantasy.
She looked over Ben’s shoulder as he swiped through photos on the camera screen.
“Are we done? I’m peckish,” he said.
“Just a couple more, I’m not sure about that shirt.”
After some consideration, she switched her top for one that wouldn’t make her look so pale.
“Thankfully I’ll have a nice tan soon,” she said.
The change in Ben’s mood was subtle, he blinked too fast and his shoulders stiffened. And she felt herself becoming defensive, her cheeks warmed up.
“Oh. You’re leaving again.”
“You realize that’s like me saying: ‘oh you’re going to the office again’?”
“Yeah, the office, a cubicle with annoying coworkers and a boss, not a five-star hotel in L.A.”
“Christ, Ben, you know I didn’t become a writer for Elite Travelers by lounging around the pool all day.”
“I don’t need your resume.”
“I wouldn’t need to give it to you if you stopped implying mine’s not a real job.”
Ben tried for levity: “I’m just saying, why go halfway around the globe when you’ve got the best right here? You said so yourself.”
Hannah went along with the joke even if she knew part of him was serious. She tried not to create false hopes in him. She’d said she wasn’t interested in a relationship, that he shouldn’t wait for her. But when she travelled alone and felt lonely, she called him and, in-between trips, he was her only friend left in London.
She offered him a beer from the fridge and neither of them mentioned the trip again.
As they ate, she chose the best picture out of thirty and posted it on her Instagram account. She was the first to use #pulaukesuma, but not the last if she did her job well.
Scrolling through her feed, she noticed a picture posted by her sister: her son’s birthday, with their whole family gathered for the occasion. It was today and they hadn’t invited her. “I didn’t think you were in the country,” Jackie replied when Hannah confronted her in a text message. She didn’t insist. What was the point? She was leaving soon anyway.
After the meal, she watched a movie with Ben, but her mind kept drifting off to her next assignment. She repeatedly stood up to get a glass of water or add something to her packing list. At the thought of Indonesia, her limbs buzzed with a sort of restlessness and her stomach swooped.
She often thought of visiting new countries as a fling. The way they occupy all your thoughts and that anticipation of seeing them. You want to know everything about them. There’s always more to discover and experience. You can’t get enough, but you know it can’t last. And in a way, that’s the best thing about it because you only have time to see the best of them. You must enjoy it while it lasts. When it ends, you’re sad and miss them, but, in all honesty, you wouldn’t settle there permanently.
She was only ever faithful to London. Or perhaps she had yet to find the one.
***
→Chapter 1: CGK
#Hardy x Hannah#teninch fic#travelers AU#see author's note on Ao3#about Foxy kindly allowing me to write this#lostinfic writes stuff
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falling in love in a coffee shop (branije) - melody
A/N: This is set in the same verse as my Scyvie fic “chemistry”, you may read it if you want to be into this fic’s universe, but isn’t required, just funny things that connect to each other! I’m planning to write one more fic to this verse so stay turned lol.
I would like to thank @ artificialmeggie for beta reading <3 she’s an amazing beta and I’d probably die without her, also to all members of the writers positivity group chat who brainstormed with me and kept me going to write this. I love you all
hit me up in aquariasbaby if you just wanna chat or whatever! These blogs (?) are always open (as in “this house is always open” lol)
Double dates weren’t exactly Vanessa’s kind of go-to on a Saturday afternoon - when college finally gave her a break - but she wasn’t on one anyways: to make life even harder, it was a triple date, which she wasn’t included. The brown eyed girl only was there for pity of her friends, because they insisted she should come. She barely knew the other couples there.
She was friends with Ariel and knew her new girlfriend Patricia - who everyone called ‘’Plastique’’ for some reason, the nickname just stuck -, she knew Scarlet because she was friends with Ariel now. Scarlet brought her girlfriend Yvie, who Vanessa knew by sight and by the nickname everyone called her for being so odd - Yvie Oddly. Yvie brought her friend Adore - from another college - and Adore called her girlfriend, Vanessa didn’t have idea of who she was, but knew that she was late because as Adore said ‘’she is a very busy woman’’.
As far as she knew, Scarlet and Ariel weren’t exactly friends in the start because she saw her friend mocking the brown-haired girl multiple times and talking about her behind her back. She was a fake to multiple people. But not to Vanessa, they basically were best friends since middle school: did high school together, went to the same college… She knew deep inside she was soft, even if she acted like a bitch with people.
The bomb came when Scarlet confronted Ariel, somebody confronted Ariel Versace for the first time in probably her whole life. Suddenly, Ariel started to try changing, and in some weeks she wasn’t all alone like it used to be - only Ariel and Vanije, sitting in the back table of an empty coffee shop, because she was the only person capable of tolerating the kind of stuff Ariel did to people. Now there was a new Ariel, sitting with Scarlet, Plastique, and two strangers.
These strangers seemed pretty friendly, and Vanessa enjoyed their company - it wasn’t hard for her to like someone, she was a very sociable person - a social butterfly - and talking to people always was a joy to her. For her luck Adore’s girlfriend haven’t arrived, so she was sharing the uncomfortability of third-wheeling with her. They were sat at a table for ten people, but still she could see that Scarlet and Yvie couldn’t be one foot apart, and Plastique was almost on Ariel’s lap.
Being single sucked. Vanessa hated it with all her guts. She was always the bubbly, friendly, funny girl, who had a strong personality and made everyone happy. But she couldn’t stand the fact that she was seeing so many happy couples, and all she wanted was a girl to ignore that there were plenty space available for sitting. She saw Yvie and Scarlet being cute, and Ariel and Plastique being… Explicit - while Ariel was a wild card, Plastique was all shy and reserved. But her red cheeks revealed that Ariel’s teasing had an impact on her. It made her curse herself for accepting to hang out with them.
‘’Ew you two, get a room,’’ Adore complained, now completely distracted on her phone. ‘’This is a public space, why can’t you two be like Scarlet and Yvie? They are pretty adequate,’’ she mocked, imitating someone Vanessa didn’t really catch who.
‘’I see you mocking your girlfriend, she will come to your ass,’’ Yvie replied ‘’but Miss Gay Regina George and Miss Plastic is Fantastic are truly something else. We can see where your hand is Ariel.’’
‘’Well, I feel like I’m the Ariel of our relationship…’’ Scarlet confessed, and everyone gasped.
‘’Oh my god, baby, don’t reveal it here!’’
‘’Wait, does Scarlet top? Bitch, no way, she is a whiny bottom.’’
‘’Ariel, my bitch, I’m a verse. That’s why I’m highly above you, because tops are not smart as verses because we see all the sides.’’
‘’I like my top!’’ Plastique complained, finally saying something.
‘’Thanks, babe’’
‘’Baby’’, ‘’babe’’, and all those pet names made Vanessa bow down, and not pay attention to the rest of the heated discussion between the girls. Not even Adore was giving her attention now, since she was texting her girlfriend. She was alone, even if she loved being around people, she was alone: she just wanted to leave that table. She didn’t feel welcome there.
To make things worse, Adore’s mysterious girlfriend finally arrived. It was Bianca Del Rio, her damn professor; the same woman she cursed with a bunch of students every day for being so harsh on them, the same woman feared. But there, she seemed weirdly friendly, like a tough mom. But even if Adore was ‘’the Ariel of the relationship’’ - it fully became an internal joke between the group - wanting to be explicit with Bianca, her girlfriend was the most posh and polite person Vanessa had ever seen. So she just rested her head on the older woman’s shoulder, pouting.
‘’Since I’m here to take care of all of you kids, did you order?’’
Everyone sat in silence.
Bianca raised one eyebrow angrily. ‘’How all of you are here for about thirty minutes and didn’t order? Do I have to make everything in this house?’’
‘’We were going to… But your sugar baby insisted on waiting for you,’’ Ariel bitched. Everyone looked at her in an ugly way because she offended Adore. The girl quickly apologized. Vanessa knew she still had her faults.
‘’Aw that’s so sweet… Adore, you seem like a great girlfriend,’’ Plastique addressed to break the awkward silence.
‘’She really is… I’m very lucky,’’ Bianca smiled, kissing her girlfriend on the cheek.
Plastique was truly a blessing in Ariel’s life. They always flirted, but Ariel was too negative, so Plastique was never sure it was meant to be. Until the day she decided to change, and things flourished to her - including Plastique who was proud of her effort to become a better person, and that awakened all the feelings they had for each other and that were always killed by Ariel’s negativity. She saw something good inside her, it was so lovely how they looked out for each other… Suddenly the sadness of being single came to Vanessa’s core again.
Vanessa was tired of being bored and of being sad. Of watching that happy couples and not knowing what to do. While they had a heated discussion about what to drink, Vanessa simply said ‘’lime refresher’’ and kept looking at her Instagram feed in complete boredom. Until something was more interesting than all those Instagram girls wearing trendy clothes, somebody to be more exact.
She was tall, and gracious like a swan. Different from the other baristas, she moved with grace, while all of them were grumpy, or clumsy. Blonde, with her pretty bright hair tied in a messy bun. Her eyes were blue as the ice, but the kind smile she had on her face could melt it easily. It was pathetic that Vanessa and her single sadness made her heart beat for the first pretty girl she saw. But that wasn’t just a pretty girl, she was everything.
‘’I think I’m going to take the orders for us,’’ Vanessa mumbled, staring at the woman without even realizing her friends looked her with a tendentious smile, Ariel; especially Ariel.
‘’No way, Vanije, you’re lazy as shit,’’ Ariel provoked, using Vanessa’s middle name: the way to get her angry; ‘’I bet you want to bang the cute barista looking at you right now.’’
Ariel was indeed mocking her, but it was true: that cute girl looked at her, she looked at her, she was looking at her. And only Ariel’s jokes could make her red for hours, but the warm stare of the blonde and her ice blue eyes made her blush harder - her face looked like a tomato.
To make her red as all the tomatoes in New York, she smiled at Vanessa, her smile was so perfect like one of those smiles in a toothpaste commercial - too pretty to be real. It was too good to be true, she was too pretty to be real. Vanessa smiled to her back to see what happened. Well, that was true: the girl hid her face in her hands and giggled a little bit, making her customers slightly confused. Vanessa was good at flirting, but with that girl she was an useless lesbian.
‘’Are you going or not?’’ Scarlet grunted, cutting off Vanije’s fantasies and stolen smiles. ‘’We are thirsty.’’
‘’Oh hoe, I know you are thirsty for another thing…’’ Adore joked. ‘’She’s right in your side so you don’t need Vanije to bring you your sweet Yvie-Yvie’’. She said the pet name in a tone of mocking and disdain.
Scarlet always called her girlfriend ‘’Yvie-vie’’ in a childish cute voice. It was her favorite pet name to give Yvie. So pure, so genuine. It was such a shame her friends heard it, and now it was one of the multiple group jokes: and Scarlet did not appreciate people mocking her girlfriend.
The brown-haired girl had anger in her face: ‘’If you make fun of my Yvie-Yvie again I’ll fucking cut you with this…’’ She looked on the table for some threatening object ‘’…spoon’’. It was clear she didn’t find one.
Vanessa ignored the heated discussion, and just like Plastique on her phone - avoiding the childish fights that happened in that table at least five times since they arrived - she got distracted. Her brown eyes looked for the same blue ones as before, but now she couldn’t find eyes like that: there were brown, green, black, and even other blue eyes - but never that perfect pair she saw before.
She disappeared, and suddenly Vanije didn’t want to drag herself to the bar and ask for the drinks.
But she had to, it was her duty as the good friend she was.
[…]
In all the days since that disasterrific quadruple date in which she wasn’t included, Vanije hung out alone. A rare event, not because her friends were chaos - honestly, their chaos matched hers, that was why she loved them - but because her heart spoke louder. In every single day, the only face present in her mind was that barista’s face, the only eyes, the only smile… She wanted to make her smile again, over and over.
It was dumb, a first sight crush. She knew it, but her life was so monotone before her: she went to college, hung out with her friends after - always being the funny company and/or comic relief, and went back to her lonely flat to watch Netflix and eat crap. It was a vicious circle. Now, somehow after college she spent all her days in the coffee shop. In that seven days, she tasted new drinks she never even thought about asking with her friends, saw new people, worked in her projects, listened to new music… Smiled, laughed, lived.
She wasn’t doing that for a hopeless stranger at all, it was just a escape from her cycle, a new secret world that was all hers. Of course she wanted that pretty girl to be part of it, but she was the reason for her life having some kind of meaning again.
Monday was messy. Ariel asked her help with a formal outfit. She was going to meet Mrs. and Mr. Edwards, Plastique’s parents; they were very wealthy, and their daughter was the little princess of the family - that’s why Ariel had to be perfect. She really liked her and Vanessa knew losing her would be a disaster on her life.
After spending some hours in Ariel’s apartment, helping the crying lilac-haired girl to put herself together because apparently her dresses were ‘’too slutty’’ for Patricia Edwards and her perfect family - she got to leave her friend. They found a nice dress -a white turtleneck that suited Ariel’s fashion vibe pretty well. Now she got her friend in a stable state and was ready to go to her destiny.
It was night; she didn’t knew if that was her shift. Probably now, she was going there for nothing and her face would break into a million of pieces. But Vanessa took her deepest breath before passing through that door with the bravery of a soldier. Her Doc Martens echoed on the recently clean floor, and the place wasn’t as crowded as it usually was.
Hopeless, she sat in the bar looking for Ariel’s contact in her phone, and declare complete defeat. Everything changed when the barista turned to her: she finally found those eyes.
‘’Brooke Lynn’’ Vanessa her badge. Vanessa wondered what was the last name, and her silly brain already started to think if it would match with hers.
‘’Welcome to Starbucks, how can I help you?’’ She smiled, and it was supposed to be said in a robotic voice - but Brooke’s voice had nothing of robotic on it.
‘’A-a cool l-lime refresher, please,’’ Vanije shuttered, words were fake in that moment.
‘’Oh, the same as yesterday?’’ She bit her lip; it was like they had known each other for ages.
Wait, how did she know?
‘’Yeah but… How do you know that?’’
‘’I made your order, you just didn’t see me’’
Damn, she probably was hiding from Vanessa. She looked away sadly but her face lift up as the blonde spoke again:
‘’I wanted you to… The place was crowded.’’
A mix of relief and doubt were on Vanessa’s face: ‘’Oh!’’
‘’I’m Brooke Lynn Hytes, but honestly, please just call me Brooke,’’ she said, rushing to prepare Vanessa’s drink in one of the big machines behind the bar.
Vanije watched her carefully prepare the drink even while talking, she was so gracious.
‘’I know,’’ Vanessa laughed ‘’I’m Vanessa Vanije Mateo, but just Vanessa. My friends call me Vanije.’’
‘’Oh, your friends.’’ She laughed. Her friends weren’t the kind of people that were hard to be noticed ‘’Would it be a problem if I called you Vanije?’’
Ariel or whatever person calling her that as a joke would be, but that deadly pretty girl only being genuine and ridiculously cute truly was not.
‘’N-no, it wouldn’t’’
Her phone beeped, it was Ariel in tears:
Versace on the floor 🌈💕:
I can’t do this, I’m not going.
Vanessa visualized the message, if the urge to help her friend wasn’t so big she would stop and laugh about how she saved her number. ‘ ’Versace on the floor’’ , because of her ironic last name and the way she always fell when she wore her first pair of heels. The nowadays fierce bitch Ariel who walks on heels like nobody else would laugh at clumsy teenager Ariel struggling to get anywhere besides the floor. It was funny to think about that, and how it stuck all over the years as an internal joke, to think about Ariel as human as only Vanessa knew.
And now she was broken.
Me:
Bitch, put yourself together! I’ll be there in a minute, I love you
Her phone beeped again.
Plastique ✨
Hi Vanessa, can you please talk to Ariel? Tell her I’m worried, and that I love her very much. Tell her my fucking parents aren’t anything compared to our love, tell her to not give up on me…
She sighed. Even if she really wanted to stay, talk with Brooke and even flirt a little bit if her dumb heart stopped beating so hard, she had to go. Vanessa always put everything above herself, it was a habit, a bad habit.
The habit had to continue, at least for that night. She grabbed her drink, paid, said a quick goodbye to her now-named crush and rushed to the door. Now their eyes were away again, for Vanije’s sadness she gave her no explanation, and wanted more than just a few awkward words.
‘’I need to go. I gotta, I’m…’’ Vanessa sighed. ‘’I have to go, sorry it’s my friend.’’
But her friend was in tears, and Ariel’s tears were equal to a thunderstorm: heavy, and turbulent, they could make a lot of planets shake. She was worried about her, very worried. Friendship above, at all costs. She just wished her friends could do the same for her.
After turbulent Monday, Tuesday felt better.
To start, still on Monday Vanessa could solve Ariel’s problem and stop the thunderstorm. She was scared of Plastique’s parents, because they didn’t know their daughter was a lesbian. Ariel was considered an unisex name, so turns out Plastique’s parents thought Ariel was a boy, and that night would be hard for both Plastique and Ariel. And she was scared of course, who wouldn’t be? But Vanije made her mind, told her everything was going to be okay because they loved each other.
Ariel cleaned her tears, and hid the fact she cried her heart out with a ton of makeup, and the gorgeous dress and her big fluffy lilac hair. She was ready, like a bird learning to fly. And that flight must be good, because she hasn’t heard of her still.
Now, on Tuesday she didn’t talk her friends at college: Plastique and Ariel didn’t attend, she hadn’t see Scarlet or Yvie but knew they were there - Yvie’s laugh was so loud that anybody could hear that along the institute - Miss Del Rio that apparently was her friend now - she didn’t had a class from her on that day - not even Adore waiting for her girlfriend and Yvie outside FIT.
On that day, she was free. She loved her friends, but she felt more like herself when she was alone. With people she was the comic relief, the nice friend. Alone she could be whoever she wanted to - no one would judge her, no one would unfriend her.
And back to the coffee shop after a short afternoon working on some project for college. She was excited to see Brooke again, and almost ran to the nearest Starbucks when the clock indicated it was time to go. Brooke was there,always being very gracious and beautiful. Vanessa was mesmerized. She could play the same scene of the blonde making the beverages over and over, and never get tired of it.
All happy and bubbly, Vanije went to the bar and rooted for Brooke to realize she was there. And she did, because her eyes met Vanije’s again, and she said the same robotic sentence all the baristas say but with a sweet tone - a human tone:
‘’Welcome to Starbucks. How can I help you?’’
Vanessa stopped and put a finger on her lips to think: she didn’t know what she was going to order. Brooke said she always ordered the same stuff, so no cool lime refresher for her on that day. She looked at the menu, analyzing the interesting and alegoric options that very popular coffee shop offered her.
‘’A-a chocolate Frappuccino, please,’’ she shuttered.
Brooke laughed and went back to the serious polite customer/barista relationship. ‘’Hmmmm, what’s your name?’’
‘’You know it.’’ Vanessa didn’t care about seriousness, or being polite.
And when she got her drink back, the name written on it was ‘’Vanije’’ with a tiny heart and a smiley face on the side.
That girl would be her end.
But that day she didn’t leave the coffee shop at all, even if she didn’t get to talk to Brooke. She sat on a table and noticed a lot of strangers, immersed in their own worlds: a girl with headphones singing along a Lana Del Rey song, holding hands with a girl that seemed to be her age - Brooke recognized they were teenagers, and girlfriends, which brought her a strange nostalgic feeling; a guy and his friends celebrating something, something beautiful and important; a woman on her laptop. She had this intellectual air that made Vanessa think she was a writer - she looked so focused, so passionate about what she was doing…
That atmosphere replete of smiles, coziness and moments made Vanessa lose Brooke - and her time too, since she had to go back to FIT so she could keep working on the project. Her eyes couldn’t stop trying find her, but she gave up, drinking the cold beverage while she almost ran in New York’s streets to be on time to still catch her teacher there so he could help her.
And it was like that on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday - quick stops at Starbucks, where she rarely saw Brooke, but had an exceptional time with herself. But on Saturday, she still haven’t heard any news from Ariel or Plastique besides short messages where they both told they were okay, and just taking a little time for themselves. She didn’t waited for Scarlet to ask her if she wanted to grab a cup of coffee - without Yvie this time, weirdly, they seemed to be united by an invisible and powerful glue - but anything to see Brooke again. At least she wouldn’t look pathetic going there alone again.
Brooke was there, damn she was there. And surprisingly, the coffee shop was too empty for a Saturday - where it would be crowded, so she didn’t expect to get Brooke’s attention, but she did.
All throughout the week she had ordered the craziest drinks, but she missed her refresher, so when it was her time and the blonde girl smiled to her saying the classic ‘’How can I help you?’’ phrase, she laughed.
‘’What’s so funny?’’ Brooke smirked, confused.
‘’I ordered crazy drinks all over the week, but I miss my refresher!’’
‘’Oh, bold girl is not so bold right now…’’ She blinked ‘’Okay, cool lime refresher. What’s your name?’’
Vanije knew the question was a sort of internal joke between them.
‘’The love of your life,’’ she flirted. An aspect of her personality was that Vanessa was very bold, with no shadow of doubt.
‘’Oh, bold girl is back.’’ She blinked.
Scarlet ordered a cappuccino, classy and simple - just as her. The girl had been quiet since they arrived, but once they sat at a table, she started to babble. She babbled about how Yvie was deep into this dress project, and didn’t pay any attention for her. A couple like Yvie and Scarlet almost never had issues, and that wasn’t a big thing - Scarlet was just a drama queen, and a girl in love missing her girlfriend.
It was tough to have to solve all her friends problems, instead on focusing on her own.
But she knew Yvie was doing a dress for Scarlet, she knew it was a sunset dress - Scarlet loved the sunset - and that it should remain in secret. So the only thing she could say was that she should not worry, and that her girlfriend would come back soon. She offered her own flat if Scarlet wanted to sleep over. She nodded - holding a grudge against somebody that lived with you was a sort of dumb choice.
She didn’t know that days later, Scarlet would cry over the dress her girlfriend made her, and they would burst into a kiss of love and happiness, tears of joy. Scarlet must be kind of sad with her now, but she never stopped loving Yvie - she saw that by the way she said her name.
Being immersed in her friends’ problems was a wild ride; it was like she was swimming with her head above water. Until Brooke pulled her head to the surface, like a lifeguard or something. Her penetrating blue eyes were staring at her, calling her.
She smiled. But Vanessa was tired of flirting with the eyes. She made a gesture for her, calling her to the table. She nodded, Vanije looked at her with puppy dog eyes. A playful grin took place over her face, she knew she was going to their table.
Scarlet was on her phone; she didn’t even notice Brooke, only said a simple ‘’’hello’’, and went back to the furious typing and confused expressions: it was clear she was texting Yvie.
‘’Well, I’m gonna get in serious trouble if my boss sees me here but somebody here’s worth it. Hi!’’
Vanessa smiled: ‘’Well, I hope to be that somebody’’
‘’Yes, even if this same somebody left me with some things to say on that day…’’
‘’So say them.’’
And they talked for about thirty minutes. In that time she got to know a lot about Brooke: she was from Ontario, Canada, and moved to Tennessee when she was about ten years old. Since a very young age, Brooke didn’t have many friends - Vanije was the polar opposite - but was very sweet, and everyone who knew her loved her. She loved to dance, and really wanted to be a dancer - a spot at NYU for studying dance was reserved on her future.
Until she got a very serious accident and had to stop dancing when she finally recovered. Now, she worked at Starbucks and won a shitty payment at month, and abandoned her dream.
‘’Shit, I’m so sorry…’’
‘’It’s ok, I can get a free coffee when no one is looking, and I meet cute girls in the process.’’ Brooke stared at Vanije, biting her lip.
Vanessa told her story, too. Her dad got a big job offer, so she moved to America as child basically, and her family already was pretty stable in Puerto Rico, and it wasn’t different in America. And growing up, it was like she was a magnet for popular girls cliqués because of her wealth. She mentioned Ariel, and Brooke recognized her.‘’That loud lilac girl at your side on the first time I saw you?’’ She mentioned all the crazy things they did together, and a lot of other random facts about her friends.
‘’Wow, it seems to be a lot of your friends in your stories… I wanted to hear something about you to be honest’’
That was a shock: Vanije had been the sidekick for so long that she knew only a few things about herself: she was funny, friendly, and bold… She was…
She was a girl with her mouth fully open, when a big hand was placed on the blonde girl’s shoulder, and a scary man was behind her:
‘’Brooke Lynn, a little word?’’
Shit, shit, shit. It was Brooke’s manager. Another trait from Vanije’s personality: she ruined everything.
He seemed surprisingly calm, and they went back of the coffee shop to talk. But Vanije’s curiosity followed them and the fear on Brooke’s eyes indicated that wasn’t going to be calm as that man appeared. She waved to Vanessa with a shy smile mumbling a quick apology.
‘’I-I apologize ladies’’
‘’But I was the one who called you… Hey you!’’ She pointed to the manager ‘’I was the one who told her to sit here with us. We know each other’’
Her manager’s eyes were on her. He seemed mad but acted calm with his words.
‘’No, but it’s my fault to have accepted it, I’m only here to do my job’’
A satisfied smile appeared on the man’s face, until he called her outside quickly and a bit not calm as before. Brooke hurried, she looked really scared. It broke Vanessa’s heart.
An instinct made her leave Scarlet alone after two minutes processing that, she was too busy with her phone to care about Vanessa practically running out of that door, looking for Brooke.
The man yelled at her; she was practically crying. The difference between the calm calling out inside, and the rage words directed to her outside… That man was trash. Brooke was a human being - an amazing human being by the way- nobody should be treated like that. Vanessa’s blood boiled and boiled; she was never a girl who put her head down, or lowered her voice, especially when somebody was being treated like shit in front of her.
‘’Hey asshole!’’ she yelled.
‘’Miss, you have to go back to your table,’’ Brooke cried in broken sentences, before her boss could say even a thing
‘’No, Brooke, I’m gonna sue this little motherfucker. Who do you think you are to treat anyone like that? Because of a dumb silly mistake that wasn’t even her fault, it was silly, dumb, could be forgiven…’’ The yelling started, and the man was… Intrigued with Vanjie’s audacity ‘’you are a dirty pig, scumbag, and your breath smells like a dead horse, bitch.’’
Brooke’s mouth was in the shape of an ‘o’ while the man’s head veins popped and he seemed angrier than ever.
This time he came for Vanije, damn right she was scared, but she swallowed her fears and looked at him like she had an army inside her weak arms.
‘’I don’t ever wanna see you or your friends here again. Be happy that Starbucks itself is not gonna sue you for your little show, just don’t appear on my sight… Miss.’’ he split the words in her face.
But Vanije wasn’t that sad, there was literally another Starbucks some blocks away from there, it was New York after all. The sad thing was that she would never see Brooke again, oh, she would never have how to casually meet her again.
Now there was only the two of them. Vanije and Brooke, Brooke and Vanije. Their eyes meeting again, Brooke had some tears in her eyes, and she cleaned them pretending nothing was happening. There was only silence until Brooke broke it with fair words, carried with a tender smile in the end of them.
‘’Hey, thank you by the way…’’
‘’For what? I’m sure I ruined your job and I’ll never see you again..’’
‘’I mean you are fucking crazy,’’ she laughed ‘’but you fought the asshole of my boss; he was so scared of you Vanije! I think he will think twice before treating anyone like that. I could never do that ugh.’’
‘’It’s what he deserves, he deserves to suffer. We should throw hot beverages on him.’’
‘’Oh totally, but I thought you would want to throw a lime refresher on him.’’
Vanije pouted: ‘’Hey! I only order refreshers because they are good duh’’’
‘’Aw I did upset you, poor Vanije,’’ she mocked, getting close to her.
‘’Bitch, bye.’’
‘’I know a thing that tastes better than a refresher.’’
And it happened, they were kissing. Brooke getting was closer, and Vanessa lost herself on her soft lips. She was actually shorter than her, not that shorter to be on her tippy toes to kiss her, but she did it anyways. It was a calm kiss, uncertain but calm, it was something she wanted to do since she put her eyes on Brooke Lynn Hytes and her damn pretty eyes, damn pretty smile.
Now she was smiling, breaking the kiss.
‘’Holy fuck I-’’
‘’Don’t brag that much, I just think you are cute since I saw you and I don’t wanna get attached but after today you deserved a little of truce off this game we’ve been playing’’
‘’What game?’’
‘’The flirting, I’m not an easy girl’’
‘’Oh and am I one?’’ Vanessa raged.
‘’Hmmmmm.’’ Brooke pretended to think
‘’Holy shit, bye.’’
‘’No wait!’’ She laughed ‘’Do you wanna um… Go out sometime?’’
Vanessa bit her lip: ‘’You said I was an easy girl so here’s your answer… Nope.’’
‘’Oh man, can’t believe I lost.’’
‘’Ok maybe I can!’’ She laughed. ‘’Let me just talk to my friends-’’
Brooke cut her in the middle of the sentence: ‘’I don’t wanna hang out with your friends, I wanna hang out with you.’’
‘’But what if they need me?’’
That line made her remember she left Scarlet all alone, but she should be fine - her and Yvie probably made up, so she should be gay and fine, enjoying her cappuccino.
‘’For the least I know you I can tell they don’t, I’m sure you are an amazing friend, now it’s my time to be your heroin, go out without them, just for one night’’
‘’It will be hard to tell them ugh…’’ Vanessa looked away, Ariel would make a big scene.
‘’You are amazing Vanije, you don’t need anybody else to make you feel so.’’
Suddenly her body was next to Brooke’s again, in a tight hug: ‘’I’ll give you my number and text you,’’ she mumbled.
‘’Great!’’ she said when they got out of the hug. Brooke’s eyes never had a most playful expression.
#rpdr fanfiction#vanessa vanjie mateo#brooke lynn hytes#ariel versace#plastique tiara#adore delano#bianca del rio#yvie oddly#scarlet envy#branjie#fluff#pining#lesbian au#college au#s11#coffee shop au#melody#chemistry#tw yelling#tw implied verbal abuse#concrit welcome#submission
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Date with Ducky || Bucky Barnes
masterlist
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader
Warnings: alcohol, I guess if you don’t like that
Word count: 2.7k
Summary: "You started to water down my drink throughout the night and I drunkenly demand to know why.” Bartender!Bucky AU
A/N: I wrote this for @wehaveabucky‘s 2.5k challenge. Congratulations again, Emmy! And thanks to @thepokyone for reading through this and helping me with a title :)
It was one of those days.
Actually, it was one of those weeks.
Every day this week seemed progressively worse than the day before, like the universe was playing some sick joke on you. On Monday, you found out that your niece used your 4 page research paper as a coloring book and had to ask your professor for an extension. On Tuesday, you found a note taped onto your car that read ‘So sorry for the scratch :(‘ and a dent on the passenger’s side door. The week never got any better after that, and today, you just needed to let off some steam. So when your best friends Natasha and Wanda invited you to go out with them to a trivia night at White Wolf, a new bar that opened in Brooklyn, you had no reason to say no and stay home, as you typically would. Tonight was going to be fun, a way to let off some steam.
You looked yourself up and down in the mirror, still having doubts about leaving your house. There was a The Office marathon on TV that was calling your name, and while tempting, you knew Nat and Wanda were already on their way. You let out a sigh as you heard a knock on your apartment door, and opened it to let in a squealing group of four -- Nat, Wanda, Steve, and Sam. You gave them a small smile and let them into your now crowded apartment. Nat and Wanda were quick to jump on the loveseat, Steve and Sam sat on the bigger couch, with Sam stretching his legs out along the length of the couch until they rested on Steve.
“What even is happening tonight?” you asked the group. “I mean, I know it’s a trivia night but how does it work?”
“Well, as Clint explained it,” Natasha began before you cut him off.
“Wait, who’s Clint?” you questioned.
“Nat met Clint in college, and they’ve been best pals ever since,” Steve explained, smiling at Natasha who nodded in response. “He’s actually a co-owner of the bar we’re going to. Said he’s working tonight.”
You nodded in understanding. “Sorry Nat,” you apologized. “So what’s happening?”
“As I was saying,” Natasha continued on. “Clint said that since it’s a trivia night, we need to come in teams, and just be ready to answer a bunch of random trivia questions. Not too difficult.”
“Alright,” you nodded back to Natasha. “I guess this is a good enough reason to keep me from binge watching The Office tonight.”
“See,” Wanda smiled. “I told you guys she would be interested.” You rolled your eyes in response. You may love The Office and all its shenanigans, but you also loved trivia. There was just something about completely useless information that really stuck to you. You just liked knowing things, and since randomly yelling out that humans start life out with 300 bones is not a good way to use that knowledge, this might actually be fun.
“So, you ready yet?” Sam asked you, folding his arms behind his head as he got more comfortable on the couch. “It’s supposed to be pretty packed tonight, so we need to get on it.”
“Yeah, I’m good to go,” you replied. You grabbed your purse and keys and headed for the door, the rest of your friends following suit.
As soon as the you entered, trailing last behind the group, you were hit with the overlapping chatter and clinking glasses that filled the bar. Your eyes scanned the room to see that the whole bar was set to live up to its moniker, with primarily white walls and furniture and hints of violet poking out in the smallest flashes of light and small accents sporadically placed throughout. This place was definitely trendy, and it was a nice change of scenery. The bar was busy, but not too crowded, which you appreciated. There was room to breathe.
As your group searched for an empty table for the five of you to settle, Steve and Natasha separated from the group throwing a quick “I’ll be right back,” over his shoulder as he made his way to the bar table. You followed closely behind Sam, who was gently nudging people out of the way, to an empty booth not too far from the side of the bar where Steve and Natasha were talking to two of the bartenders, one of whom was a handsomely rugged man shoulder-length dark hair that could make any girl jealous, and the other slightly older with short blonde hair and a wide grin. You continued to look on, trying to stay out of Sam and Wanda’s argument over what appetizer they should order. The other two noticed your gaze fixed on them and waved to you. You called him back over and they waved a quick goodbye to their friends as they slid into the booth beside you.
“Looks like Bucky is here too,” Natasha observed, looking towards the pair who were busy taking orders and performing elaborate tricks at the bar.
“Who the hell is Bucky?” you asked.
“He’s Steve’s best friend, he co-owns this bar with Clint,” Natasha explained.
“Yeah, it was busier than Clint thought it would be so he called him in,” Steve replied. “Anyway, we should be starting any time now.”
As if on cue, a deep voice came on a microphone. “Hey everyone, if you’re participating in trivia night, I’d like to ask you and your teams to come closer to the bar, and everyone else get the hell on somewhere.” The bar came together in a roar of laughter as people dispersed to allow for the teams to have a little space. You and your friends looked around and saw only a couple of other teams, much to your surprise. The voice continued, and you looked over to see that it was coming from the blonde man. “Alright folks, I’m Clint, and I’ll be your trivia master for tonight. I’ll go over the rules, and then we can get started.”
An eruption of cheers came from your table. Natasha pulled 5 homemade signs out of her purse and handed one to each of you. “I almost forgot, Sam, Wanda, and I made signs for us.” You let out a chuckle as you looked over your sign, covered in red and blue glitter with the words “NICK’S FURRIES” drawn on in scented marker. Steve looked at the sign, not understanding the pun, and Sam leaned in towards you and Wanda.
“Do not, I repeat, do not explain to Steve what a furry is,” Sam stage whispered. Steve, looking offended, opened his mouth to protest but was cut off by Clint’s voice.
“Okay, simple really,” he began to explain. “If your team knows the answer, raise your sign up, and if you get it right, congratulations, you get a point.” Clint paused. “And if not... your team has to send a person over here to take a shot of our signature whiskey.” The crowd let out a mix of laughs and cheers. A part of you groaned, but the other half was a little bit too eager to be able to drink. “Alright let’s begin.”
“First question: What type of animal is a kolinsky?” Clint asked. Before you could finish processing the question, Sam’s sign shot up, making him first to answer. “Alright, Nick’s Furries, what do you guys have?”
“What is, a weasel.” Sam answered, scoring the team a point and confused looks from you and the rest of your group. “Who do you think came up with the team name?”
“One point to Nick’s Furries,” Clint announced as the bar filled with applause and laughter. “Also, this isn’t Jeopardy. Teams Tequila Mockingbird, Trivia Newton John, and the Quizard of Oz, take your shots!” You watched as the other three teams sent someone down to the bar where the other bar tender, smiling kindly at them, poured small amounts of whiskey into their shot glasses, and laughed as they scrunched their faces after quickly downing the shots.
Next question!” Clint pulled out the next index card and cleared his throat. “What year did Henry VIII become king of England?”
You glanced around your team, Steve’s eyebrows were scrunched up, Wanda had her hands against her temples, Natasha looked down at the table while chewing your lip, and Sam was tapping intensely against the table. You actually knew this one, and were proud to push your team into a two point head start. You raised your sign with a smug smile, and when Clint called on your team you proudly called “1547!” you watched as Clint’s face distorted into a frown.
“Sorry, pal, but it was actually 1509.” Clint corrected, with a guilty look on his face. “It’s your team’s turn to take a shot,” so you looked around at your table and got up, knowing nobody else wanted to do it. You made your way down to the bar where the shot glass lay waiting for you. The bartender smiled softly at you, despite your grimace.
“1547 was King Edward VI, doll,” he said with a slight chuckle. You rolled your eyes and quickly took the sip of whiskey, your face contorting together as the prickly liquid made its way down your throat, leaving a trail of warmth behind it.
“Oh god, what did you put literal fire in this whiskey?” you coughed, not being able to take it well. “All things considered, this may be what I needed tonight though.”
“What, the trivia?” the man asked. His clear blue eyes twinkled in amusement while you set down the glass on the counter and got up.
“No, the alcohol,” you replied with a smirk, noticing how the bartender bit his lip as he chuckled while you walked away. He was cute, you noted, and his laugh was even cuter. You were still smiling when you returned to your table, and when you couldn’t help but glance back at the cute bartender, you saw that he was too. And honestly it had you distracted for the rest of the game. Every time your team would miss the question (apparently Steve thought that Louis Armstrong was Neil Armstrong, and Wanda panicked and said a Granadilla was Godzilla’s grandmother), you volunteered to take the shot. Partly because you needed to drink away your stress, and also because making the cute bartender laugh was more and more fun after each fiery shot.
By the end of the game, you were just a little bit plastered.
“Alright folks, last question, to break the tie between Nick’s Furries and Quizard of Oz,” Clint announced. The bar erupted in cheers. “Who was the first mailman in Philadelphia?”
For a few seconds, no one answered as both teams huddled together to try and decide on an answer.
“Well, who is it?” Natasha asked in a frenzied tone.
“Hell if I know, I slept through history classes,” Sam said.
“It wasn’t Obama,” you commented, laughing to yourself.
“I’m not from here,” Wanda commented.
“Um, I have a guess,” Steve said quietly. “Probably wrong, but it’s fine.”
“No, Rogers, if it’s wrong don’t say it.” Natasha warned. She was more than a little bit competitive.
“Well, does anyone else have a better answer?” Steve asked the four of you, who shook your heads in response. “Then I’m saying it.” Your group huddle broke as Steve raised his sign to answer. “Benjamin Franklin?” he answered hesitantly.
“That’s correct! Nick’s Furries wins the game!” Clint announced excitedly. The crowd cheered as the other teams clapped disappointedly. Your group cheered along with the crowd, high fiving and hugging each other over the table.
You went back down to the bar at the end of the game to take one more shot, convincing yourself that you were walking straight, but the world was spinning just a little bit to throw you off your rhythm. You pounded your fist down on the bar top, getting the attention of the cute bartender. “Listen here pal,” you accused, your face contorting into a mix of anger and confusion at his amused face. “You may be really cute b-but,” you paused, hiccuping. “I don- I don’t appreciate you putting water in my whiskey.” Your words slurred together and crescendoed towards the end of your sentence.
“Now, now, doll,” he smiled as he tried to calm you down as your raised voice drew the attention of your friends. “I’m just trying to save you from a terrible hangover in the mornin’.” Natasha was by your side, wondering what had you riled up. “Nat, your friend here wants to know why I won’t give her any more whiskey,” he laughed.
Natasha let out a chuckle and put an arm around your shoulder. “Thanks Bucky, she can’t handle her booze very well.” You scowled at Natasha for taking his side.
“You’re telling me,” he replied. He looked back at you, and set down a glass of water in front of you. “Drink this, doll,” he offered. “It’s water. It’ll help a little bit with the major headache you’ll have in the morning.” But of course, your drunken pride got the better of you, and you refused.
“So you’re this Bucky that everyone keeps talking about,” you exclaimed. “You have a really nice laugh, but you’re not nice.” Natasha let out a laugh, waiting a beat before putting a hand over your mouth. You swat it off and continued. “Bucky Bucky Bucky, it rhymes with ducky. You’re soft, like a ducky, I bet.” Before Natasha could stop you, you reached out to poke his cheek. Bucky chuckled and gently grabbed your wrist.
“Nat, I think it’s someone’s bedtime,” he teased as Natasha nodded.
“Alright (y/n), let’s get you home, so you can regret this in the morning.” Natasha said, pulling you up to your feet and heading towards the taxi with your friends already in it.
The next morning, you woke up to a killer pounding in your head. You turned over in your bed to see a glass of water and a tylenol set out with a note that said “Good morning sunshine :) happy hangover! Xoxo - N” Slowly, you sat up and drank the water and the tylenol, already working to dull a bit of the pain in your head. You looked around for your phone, to thank Natasha for taking you home, but it was nowhere to be found. You panicked, before the memories of last night flooded your head, and you realized you had left it at the bar last night. Groaning, you made your way back to White Wolf, still in pajamas and unkempt hair and slid on a pair of sunglasses.
You entered the bar, leaving your sunglasses on, as your eyes were still sensitive to the light that was bounced around from the white walls. Thankfully the place was still empty as it was only 11 in the morning, and quiet. You walked over to the bar where you saw Bucky, and your face suddenly felt very hot, as you remembered everything you said to him. Ducky?? Really? I should just turn around and--
“Hey, you again,” Bucky called out, causing you to wince at the loudness of his voice. “I told you it was gonna be a killer hangover.” He smirked. “You here for your phone?”
“Yeah, I think I left it here when Natasha came over last night,” you confessed. “Listen, I’m sorry for the face-poking,” you added.
“It’s no problem at all, doll.” He smiled sweetly, handing you your phone. “It was kinda cute, really.”
“Bucky, right?” you returned his smile, letting your hand linger on his a little bit too long while grabbing your phone.
“Yeah, don’t you remember?” he questioned. “It rhymes with ‘ducky’,” Bucky smiled playfully back at you. Instinctively, your hand went to cover your face in embarrassment. “Well listen, since you confessed that you think I’m cute, it’s only fair that I tell you that I think you are too. Even hungover as hell.”
You laughed as you felt the blood rise to your cheeks. “Really? Even after how embarrassing I was?”
“Especially after that. It was endearing, really,” he said. “So maybe tomorrow, if you’re feeling better, can I um,” his confidence seemed to falter just a little bit. His nervousness brought a small smile to you. “Take you out? I know this great diner just down the block.” he continued.
“Yeah,” you answered. “I’d like that a lot, Bucky.”
“It’s a date then.”
#Sebastian Stan#sebastian stan fluff#sebastian stan angst#sebastian stan smut#sebastian stan fic#sebastian stan headcanon#sebastian stan x reader#Bucky Barnes#James Buchanan Barnes#Bucky barnes fluff#bucky barnes angst#bucky barnes smut#bucky barnes fic#bucky barnes headcanon#bucky barnes x reader#bucky x reader#winter soldier#winter soldier fluff#winter soldier fic#wehaveabuckyswritingchallenge#jem speaks
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my zero waste progress (& DIY oat milk recipe!)
you'd have to be living under a rock to not have heard the term "zero waste" thrown around. next to "adaptogen", i am predicting it's one of those buzzwords of the last year. and why not? even though it sounds like a phase and trendy, i am whole-heartedly on-board with zero waste becoming a thing that we just all do without thinking! zero waste doesn't have to mean that you absolutely create no waste at all, but an overall catchphrase for people trying to make steps to cut down on waste in order to live as zero waste as they possibly can in that time of their life.
making substitutes and compromises for the good of humanity and the planet. i'm all in for that. it also goes hand in hand with a thifty, frugal and minimalist lifestyle.
so i wanted to share some "zero waste" or more ecological changes i've made over the past year and some goals of mine for next year. maybe it’ll give you some ideas or hopefully inspire you a little to try something out!
i feel proud that 2018 was the year that we've really hunkered down and got more serious about zero waste and the switch to a more ecological, sustainable household.
pre-2018 there have been some really ecological switches we've already made. we started composting within the first two years or so that we moved to budejovice, and lucky for us, our landlords have a compost heap that they kindly let us put our bio into, which in turn fuels our building's garden! pretty neat. since we started doing this, we only have to take out the (small sized bin) trash about once every three weeks! hooray! that may sound strange, but there’s nothing stinky in there since we have a separate compost container which is emptied once every couple of days (choose something with a lid that closes completely!).
of course we've been recycling (no brainer), always bring shopping bags with us when we go (always on foot) to the supermarket and throw almost no plastic away.
we also had been using old holey socks as a dusting rag and plastic produce bags as "saran wrap". we've never bought saran (plastic, cling) wrap here before.
since the beginning, we've bought compostable dog poo bags for ferdie. (tip: it's better to dispose of these in bio bins vs. trash bins where they'll decompose slower because the trash isn't allowed to aerate like the compost is)
i'm very passionate about purchasing only recycled toilet paper as entire areas are deforested just to make new, fluffy toilet paper. #knowbetterdobetter
we bring our own containers, cups and utensils when we travel or go on day trips. i’ve found that glass jars make excellent “tupperware” containers as well as impromptu wine glasses for a picnic. if i were in the market for a new travel tumbler, i’d definitely spring for a stojo collapsible tumbler! that’s always my problem that i bring my tumbler and then it takes up space for most of the trip, unused.
alex is very adamant about unplugging nearly every appliance when not in use. with how expensive electricity is in europe, it helps a lot not to having a computer sucking it up! it's also much better for your battery appliances to unplug from the wall as soon as they are finished charging, so you're also taking better care of your things.
here are some recent changes we've made just over the past year.
-- eliminating use of aerosols. i personally decided i wouldn't buy any more, but the problem for a long time had been: where the heck can you find non-aerosol shaving cream? i found my answer in d'fluff shaving cream in a tub from LUSH. it smells like their rockstar soap and although it doesn't foam, i'm down with this change!
-- we switched to bamboo toothbrushes, which i had to order by mail because previously, there were no local shops that sold them! i have since found a couple so i think we're good to go now. before, i ordered from the bam and boo, which sent them so quickly even with a special, personalized note in czech which i thought was so sweet as they came from portugal.
-- choosing bar soap vs. liquid soap which has to be sold in packaging.
-- eliminating purchasing anything with palm oil or high fructose corn syrup (or glucose-fructose syrup, as it's known here). for years i believed in the myth that HFCS was banned in europe, but you can still find it in everything!
-- the switch from typical supermarket laundry soap and dishwasher tabs to an eco-label laundry soap (made from soap nuts) which is highly concentrated and therefore more ecological and more earth-friendly dishwasher tabs. both of these switches are more expensive than what we used to buy, so i totally understand going more eco-friendly isn't for everyone and all budgets. however, if you wouldn't notice an extra few dollars here and there, why not make this simple switch? i like the czech brand of laundry soap tierra verde out of brno. (why is everything cool is out of brno these days?)
-- switching from disposable feminine products to a medical-grade silicone menstrual cup has been a complete.game.changer. it's one of those things you kick yourself for not getting much much earlier. did you know a tampon applicator takes 500 years to break down? i went with first greener and am really pleased that i did. as a menstruating human, this seems like one of the single biggest improvements you can make to take steps towards zero waste. cost was an barrier for me with this and not being able to shell out for one for awhile, but the company i purchased from often runs deals for only $10 (that includes international shipping). i’m pleased some companies are making menstrual products more accessible to women of all income levels.
-- right at the end of the year, i finally found reusable produce bags that were a reasonable price. hoorah!
-- we have nearly stopped buying paper towels, using regular old towels or other cloths instead.
-- purchasing our vegetables in the warmer months from a local CSA (community supported agriculture) vegetable box program cuts down both on plastic wrapping, supports local south bohemian farms and is just a fun, healthy way to make sure we eat loads of season veggies. it also challenges me to stop being lazy and cook or make something with them before anything goes bad. (for my local budejovice friends: you can order a vegetable box starting usually around june from u dobraka)
-- alex says he's most proud of our household's switch to alternative milks vs. dairy milk. this helps loads with water consumption, is far more ecological, and much more animal-friendly. (alternative milk recipe at the end of this post - woo!)
changes i would like to make in 2019
-- one of my challenges is zero waste hair products. most drugstore products are aerosol or just the typical tube. i think i will end up purchasing from LUSH's hair line as not only have i already raved about their products but i so appreciate their commitment to reusable packaging, as well as their vocal stance against animal cruelty.
-- do better with food waste. i have already eliminated a lot of issues i’ve had with food waste over the past year and meal planning helps SO MUCH with not only reducing waste, but also saving some crowns. i’ve made some great strides in the past year, i’d like to do even better in 2019 getting my food waste down to 0%. laziness can be a big (bigbig) factor here, and that’s a tough one to overcome! i will also try making or buying less products that i don’t finish.
-- i'd like to remember to start taking what few glass empties i have back to a supermarket to get a refund. this is extremely common practice in germany, but not quite as common here, and we normally just go to the normal glass recycle bin. it would be nice to start getting a few crowns back here and there vs. nothing!
-- i'd love to invest in a set of cloth linen napkins i'm actually proud to use! will look to a thrift shop or bazaar before checking a store.
-- collectively, one of our main focuses as a household is a reduction in goods which use plastic, single-use, throw-away packaging, such as musli, for example. buying musli or any cereal here in the czech republic is such a headache -- it is either expensive or contains palm oil, for the most part. there is one brand i like, but i find i am eating it over and over and get so tired of it. any of you out there DIY your musli or cereal? please share your wisdom!
easy DIY recipe: oat milk
one of my big goals is to DIY even more. i already do quite a fair bit of DIY in terms of household products and foods, sauces that i can't buy in the czech republic, but i'd like to DIY more with products i already buy to avoid excess packaging and saving money. in the first few days of the year, i've already decided i will no longer buy oat milk at the store (40kc or $1.70 per liter) and instead, make it. it is startlingly easy to do, takes only 10 minutes of active time and can be a huge money saver! this recipe also happens to be zero waste as you can use the remnants.
you'll need...
-- a blender
-- cheesecloth (or similar)
-- large pitcher
-- 1 cup of oats (your choice)
-- 1 liter (approx. 4 cups) of water
-- 1-2 TB honey or maple syrup
-- 1 liter glass bottle
1) soak your oats in plenty of water for at least an hour.
2) rinse your oats and plop them in the blender with the 4 cups of water and your optional tablespoon of honey or maple syrup*.
3) blend blend blend!
4) place the cheesecloth securely over the pitcher (a rubber band helps). pour the oat milk mixture from the blender onto the cheesecloth so it strains, with the milk passing into the pitcher. wring out the cheesecloth to make sure you've got all excess liquid.
5) pour the strained oat milk from the pitcher into a 1+ liter glass bottle which will be your "milk bottle" and pop in the fridge.
6) shake vigorously before each use. consume within 2-3 days.
7) scrape off the oat bits from inside the cheesecloth and store in the fridge - you can easily tuck them into your morning oats when you make your next pot of oatmeal or porridge!
use this oat milk anywhere you would typically use milk: in your cereal, coffee, oatmeal (double down!), wherever.
* 1 TB of sweetness is just enough to give it a similar sweetness as dairy milk has, 2 TB if you like it a teensy bit sweeter - even this does not taste “sweet”, so to speak. experiment.
finally, i feel like i need to give a biiiiig shout out to polly - former expat/travel blogger turned absolute zero waste maven at green indy blog and inspires me every day with thought-provoking topics i hadn’t even realized or considered she has loads of information on her blog, instagram and even runs e-courses helping people cut back on waste and save money.
i do want to state here that i am simply learning and am a student at this whole zero waste thing. i’m not an expert by any means and am not perfect. zero waste isn’t zero. this post is simply keeping track of my progress and hopefully a way to hold myself accountable for my goals. although i don’t think we all should be one of those people who can fit their trash in a jar or anything, there is a lot of work we can do. you don’t have to have a lot of money to “join the movement”. it’s not about going out and purchasing fancy bamboo utensils or whatever. it’s just about using what you already have, being creative and resourceful, and when something you have stops working or breaks, upgrade it (funding allowing) to a more ecological version.
how do you feel about the zero waste movement? i'd love if you shared a big win from the past year and maybe also something you want to improve upon as well! here's to a greener new year.
ps, you might like how i travel on a teacher’s budget or thoughts on living without stuff.
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The Number One Question You Must Ask for Roxys Prices
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100 day update.
I never planned to go to Australia. Of course, at some point I decided that I would come to live here and had to start working towards it. But to be honest, I can’t remember a distinct moment when I thought to myself “Yeah, I definitely want to go to Australia”. I grew up obsessed with Steve Irwin, who fostered my love for animals, and all things that seemed to push the border of normal. Maybe it was something that had been manifesting in me since childhood. Whatever the reason was, I left home knowing next to nothing about the country I was headed to. I knew the names and locations of a few capital cities, and that it was home to some of the world’s most deadly animals, but that was it. Suddenly one day I found myself at the airport saying goodbye to my parents with my backpack, and that was it. I was on a plane, and I had no idea where I was going or what I was getting myself into. I was absolutely terrified, but I couldn’t wait.
Maui was incredible. It was a dream holiday, and exactly what I needed after 70 hour/ 6 day work weeks. Yoga in the mornings, beach hopping, sunbathing, day drinking, jungle trekking, waterfall climbing, snorkeling with sea turtles, and partying the night away with new friends from around the world; it was the perfect “welcome back” to the backpacker hostel lifestyle I had missed. Breathtaking landscapes, friendly hostel mates, delicious food, long days, late nights, and the slow-paced island lifestyle was the cocktail I needed to kick off my working holiday. It was one of those destinations that make you want to freeze time and stay forever. Eventually though I woke me up from my island dream after managing to lose my wallet (the day before moving overseas!? No worries!).I spent most of my last day on Maui on the phone waiting on hold with my bank, eventually my roommate managed to coerce me into an afternoon beach hopping break to relieve me from the stress. I laid on the shore of Makena beach while I reminded myself of Bob Marley (and my Dad’s) words “Every little thing is gonna be alright…”
Sleeping in airport terminals isn’t the most glamorous part of traveling, nor is it my favorite, but it’s something that I’m no longer a stranger to. I had an overnight layover in Honolulu, where the airport welcomes stranded travelers with a designated area to sleep in. While the benches didn’t make the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept on, I was able to catch a few hours of good rest. In the morning I woke to a beautiful sunrise bidding me a final goodbye from the states, and after the longest walk of my entire life to the other side of the world in the terminal, and a goodbye call to home I boarded my plane. A window seat in econcomy on a budget airline promised me that a year of adventure laid just a sore neck and a close of my eyes ahead.
The day I arrived in Sydney I felt pretty overwhelmed. I had just moved to the other side of the world, and since I’d lost my wallet, I only had the bit of cash I had brought with me. I was feeling pretty grateful for an exchange rate that worked in my favor, a hostel kitchen with 8 (eight!!!!) stoves, and a clean bed to relax in after the journey over. My first priority was to get my money sorted; it didn’t take long for the Sydney sticker shock to set in and I knew I needed to work it out. I was up with the sun my first morning to head to the bank where I learned two things:
1. It gets cold in Sydney (who knew that Australia actually has a winter too?!)
2: It would be over a week before I could get access to my money
Deep breaths, everything is going be alright. Stressing out about it wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I’ve got this; I’ve done the whole hungry budget backpacker thing before. No worries.
In the midst of work/life chaos before leaving home, I had decided to book my first week in Sydney with a tour company. This was my first time doing organized travel and although it lacked a little freedom, I was glad that I had decided on it. They had set up my accommodation for the week and a few meals, so I didn’t have to worry about spending too much until I could get my card. I was grouped with some lovely and hilarious English and Canadians who were also starting out on their working holiday visas. It was comforting to be around people who were in the same boat as me, but it also was a bit strange to be at the mercy of whatever was planned for us. 6 days and 5 nights in Sydney and Port Stephens: complete of course with the obligatory city walking tour and pub crawls. It was an interesting change of pace from the travel that I’m used to. No planning on my part, just “Show up here at this time and we’ll take care of everything for you”. A harbor cruise and boat barbecue, an evening exploring the dazzling VIVID Sydney displays, yoga with kangaroos at an eco-hostel, a hike through Tomaree National Park, boarding through sand dunes, restaurants with food that looks like it came straight out of one of those trendy facebook videos, drinking games, nights out dancing, and a sales pitch just every now and then to gently remind you that your tour leader was getting paid to hang out with you. While it was fun to have my days filled with things that I probably wouldn’t have done on my own, I was desperate for a little independence which I was able to find at a couchsurfing meet-up.
I fell in love with couchsurfing while I was in Ireland a year ago. I was in Dublin, my first big city on my solo Europe trip and I joined a meet up for a hike on the coast of Howth, a fishing village an hour bus ride outside of the city. After our walk through the cold wind and rain, we took refuge at a jazz and blues festival pub crawl. Hours went by chatting to each other and listening to music before heading back into the city together. I had never met so many people from so many different places, and being new to traveling it blew my mind to feel so welcomed by everyone; I knew that I would definitely be doing it again. Shortly after I had gotten home from Europe I started attending meet up every week in Phoenix. I haven’t surfed yet, but I definitely plan to soon. When I got to the bar in Sydney, I was greeted by friendly faces, and after watching fireworks over Darling Harbor, I was invited to head to someone’s flat for pre-drinks followed by a Friday night out. I didn’t need much convincing, but the promise of free drinks and new friends made any hesitations I might have had disappear.
After a week in Sydney, I was ready to move on. My bank was going to forward my card to me, so all that was left to do was set up my phone plan, book my flight, and then I was ready to head out on the next chapter of my journey. After a bus ride, a flight, another flight, a bus, a few hours of sleep, and another bus, I arrived at my new home away from home. The Northern Territory: home of crocodiles, and barra fishing; where winter is a sunny 40 degrees Celsius, and men brag about the size of their fish. I would be spending the next 88 days working remotely in Kakadu National Park. Remote work is required by Australian Immigration to extend your Working Holiday visa from 1 year to 2 years. Where and what you can do depends on which visa you are on. But for me, this meant administration work at a hotel.
My bus left from Darwin at 6:30 in the morning, and after a 3.5 hour ride through the middle of nowhere, the bus pulled over and it was my turn to get out. It felt like a scene from a movie, getting off the bus with my backpack, walking through the doors of this little green hotel in the desert. Things moved pretty quickly as soon as I arrived and I started work the next day. It took a few days to get situated, but everyone I worked with were backpackers, so it didn’t feel too unfamiliar. What did take some getting used to was the isolation.
Kakadu National Park is more than half the size of Switzerland, and with a population totaling just 1130 people, it’s easy to feel small in such a big space. The hotel is a half hour drive from Jabiru, the only town in the park, which boasts a shopping center featuring a small grocery market, library, bank, police station, hairdresser, and an Olympic sized swimming pool (to which I regularly wonder how on earth they managed that). It’s pretty much impossible to get anywhere around the park if you don’t have a car without hitchhiking, however I managed to make it away from the hotel quite a few times in my first month. My first trip was to Yellow Water Billabong. We spent the afternoon on a river cruise learning about some the Aborignal history in the park and the unique wildlife, bird watching, looking for buffaloes, and of course, spotting crocs. A few days later we were off to Ubirr, the largest rock art site in Australia. On our way, we stopped at Cahills Crossing, the border to Arnhem land, where the aboriginal community live. At high tide when the river flows over the crossing, you can be eaten alive by mosquitoes while watch crocodiles at the edge of the water, waiting for fish to be pushed into their mouths. After finishing the climb to the top of Ubirr, you are welcomed by a 360 degree view of the park. Being there felt like I had been taken back to the Jurassic age. Looking out across the wetlands, I half expected to see a dinosaur, or lions and elephants walk across the plains. During this time of year, Wurrgeng season, the locals burn the land to prevent bush fires and help restore nutrients to the soil. The smoke from the controlled burns turns the sky beautiful colors, and the sun a deep glowing red. It’s a picture that each time I’ve visited reminds me of the opening scene from The Lion King.
Remote living is a unique experience. You work, sleep, eat, live, and play all in the same place with the same people. Imagine laying out in your backyard at the pool with a book on your afternoon off, then your manager walks through your back gate to let you know that the schedule has changed and now you need to be back in the office to close in half an hour. It’s your day off and you’re having a late breakfast in your kitchen in your pajamas, and in they come to tell you all of the things they would like you to do tomorrow. Work-life balance does not exist, they are one and the same. This made the work become frustrating quickly, and management challenging to deal with to say the least. As staff you quickly learn to rely on each other: celebrating small victories together, acting as an outlet for frustration, and taking a little extra time and effort to do things as a group. I found the answers to “what will I do tonight?” were different than they had ever been. Taking dinner out to the grass for a picnic instead of eating in the kitchen, grabbing a beer and going for a walk to the billabong at the back of the hotel, being workout buddies at the gym, drinking until late (which now meant 10pm) doing puzzles, playing and billiards in the rec room, or playing cards sprawled across the floor of your hotel room.
Of course my favorite days were my days off. While there were certainly hardships to living in the middle of nowhere without my own mode of transportation, it was the first chance I’d had in a long time to learn how to live life slowly. I no longer had to wake up early on my day off to make it to Bikram Yoga, or run to the grocery store and spend hours cooking in the kitchen (although I do miss those things dearly now). I could be lazy ,and not feel bad about it! I could sleep until my body decided it was time to get up, head to the gym when I felt like it, float in the pool for hours, listen to a podcast during a walk through the forest, read a book in my hammock, practice yoga at the gym, and still have hours left in the day to burn (my hula hoop, of course). And on the days when I felt like I had cabin fever coming on, I had the entirety of the park at my doorstep. A spur of the moment decision and catching the boss in a good mood meant you could ask for the keys to the company car. Maybe having an early afternoon off meant going for a drive to the Mamukala Billabong for some birdwatching, over to Burrunkguy to admire more rock art, and then to Nawurlandja to watch the sunset. On one of my lucky days I had the day off with someone with a car and we took the 3 hour drive through the park to Gunlom Falls. A 25 minute hike up a steep cliff led us to breathtaking views at the top of the waterfall (and with crocodiles being one of the most populous residents of Kakadu) meant one of the rare chances to swim in the infinity pools. One day after catching a late bus and being temporarily stranded, I even worked up the courage to try hitchhiking. It was a rough go at first, but after half a bottle of sunscreen I got picked up by a fisherman that took me to the South Alligator river. We cast a line out together and watched crocodiles swim by before taking me back to the hotel.
As backpackers, this was only our temporary home, and we all had another adventure planned when our 88 days came to an end. The nights before we said good bye were always my favorite: both fun and bittersweet. The bonds that formed over such close quarters always hurt a bit to sever, but it was impossible not to be excited for them to continue on their own journey.
One of the biggest things I have learned from traveling is to let go of my expectations. I didn’t really know what it would be like or what would happen living here, but I can say easily that most of this had never crossed my mind. The past 100 days have been a roller coaster ride of emotions and adventure, and as I enter my last week at Aurora Kakadu, I can’t contain my excitement for the future. I’m so grateful to all the people I have met along the way. What an incredible opportunity, to live in such a uniquely beautiful place (I mean come on, how many people can say that they’ve lived in a National Park that’s a dual listed UNESCO World Heritage site?!). It’s offered a unique glimpse into Aboriginal culture, and it has been a once in a lifetime experience that I will never forget. I’m looking forward to getting back on that bus in a few days and taking all the lessons that I’ve learned with me on my way. In 8 days I will be on a plane on my way to Queensland (home to the zoo of my childhood hero) to explore The Daintree Rainforest, and The Great Barrier Reef.
100 days down since leaving home, 269 days left in Australia, and then…. We’ll see.
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On Scars
(This post is an excerpt from Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction.)
First off, let me be clear about what I mean when I say the word scars. I’m not talking about the medical definition: rough tissue that overlies a wound as it heals over time.
I’m using a broader definition of any physical evidence of a previous injury.
That can be the amputated hand, the limp from a spinal cord injury.
It can also include tattoos. (Maui’s moving tattoos in Moana are a perfect example of this: his tattoos are a physical embodiment of where he’s been.)
Scars, by this broad definition, are an interesting shorthand for a story, whether we actually see that tale or not. We use them as a way to say there’s a story here. Sometimes our global story gives us the chance to tell it, sometimes not; either way, scars can be an interesting way to add depth to a character.
In fact, sometimes a scar is integral to explaining and understanding who that character is.
For example, we know that Peter Pan’s Captain Hook has been involved in some fierce battles, because he lost his hand – and had it replaced with his legendary pirate hook. That hook is a symbol of the cold cruelty he now gives off.
The eponymous Harry Potter wouldn’t truly be Harry without his lightning-bolt forehead scar. For Harry, it’s not just about his past, it’s about his future: his fate and the fate of the scar-giver are intertwined, a battle that will determine the fate of the world. Worse, it’s all inscribed on his forehead, for everyone to see.
Darth Vader’s scars in Star Wars are extensive, so much so that they shroud his identity completely. While we see the faces of the heroes, and even of Emperor Palpatine himself, Vader’s wounds require a respirator mask that obscures his face and makes him the terrifying villain he is. He’s actually turned the support system he needs to stay alive – a depersonalizing suit and respirator – into something useful, a mask to terrify his enemies. Vader’s life is, in some ways, enhanced by his disability, and he’s certainly comfortable moving in his world with the scars he’s got.
In Moana, the demigod Maui’s scars are branded on him as tattoos. These are the stories of who he’s been and where he goes. When hero-protagonist Moana asks him where they come from, he tells her, “They show up when I earn them.”
This isn’t dissimilar to the battle scars on an old soldier, sailor, or mercenary: their wounds are manifested on their flesh.
But if scars are shorthand for a story, if they’re someone’s past writ large, we need to honor that character in the way we represent them. If we elect to give a character scars, they should represent not a plot but a story, something that not only wounds the character but drives them to change internally.
As an example, I’m going to tell you the story of two of my personal scars. At the end we’ll discuss which one would go into a story about me, and why.
Scar #1: The Knife Point. When I was six or seven, I was trying to get some corn off the cob — I wanted to eat it in kernel form for some reason, and I was using a kitchen knife. I got the corn off all right — and drove the point of the knife straight into the webbing between my thumb and forefinger on my left hand. Ouch!
(Actually, it didn’t hurt, it was the sheer volume of blood that was terrifying).
I changed in that I learned not to do that specific task (cutting corn off the cob) that specific way (driving the knife toward my hand).
But it’s not a marker of who I am.
Scar #2: The Bite Mark. Let’s consider another scar, also on my left hand. There’s an old bite mark by the heel of my hand, at the base of my left thumb.
It happened like this: I was fifteen or so, and my neighbor’s dog, Clancy, wasn’t doing well. He was old and he was sick. That day he had become too sick to get up. It was time for my neighbor to take him to the vet and say goodbye.
She had him on a blanket. But he was a big dog, and the vet was far, and she didn’t have a car, and so our neighbor came to ask me and my mom to help get him to the vet. Of course we said yes. We liked her, but more importantly, we loved animals. (Both my mother and I had worked at the vet at one point or another.)
When we went to move him by picking up the blanket and moving him to the car, Clancy reached out and bit me. Not because he was a bad dog, not because he was out to hurt me. He bit me because he was scared and sick and hurt and he didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t feel anger at Clancy, and I didn’t turn afraid of him. I felt sympathy. His act hurt my skin. His pain broke my heart.
So when we got him to the vet, while they were easing his pain and saying goodbye, I calmly and quietly washed my wound in the sink with an antiseptic.
I learned something about myself in that moment.
I learned that healing really is a calling for me. That I was glad we had cared for him and that I was able to help him on his final journey. I was glad to know Clancy. I wasn’t mad, or hurt, even though my hand stung from the antiseptic.
That scar helped me find my internal true north.
Now, which of those scars has meaning? Which of them would you want to include if you were writing me as a character? Which do you think would make it into a memoir, if I wrote one? It’s most certainly the second, the one that helped me figure out who I am, the one that drove me to learn about myself. The first is something that happened; the second is something that changed me.
It’s stories like these that you should use in order to figure out who your characters are – and how to honor them.
Let’s Talk Tattoos.
Tattoos are interesting in that they can be another, more interesting set of shorthand. Unless your character has a Maui-like situation going on, her tattoos won’t simply appear. She’ll not only have to choose what story she wants to represent on her flesh, but she’ll have to choose how to express that story in an image. Then comes the pain of the ritual scarification: the injection of ink under the skin, a microbaptism in pain and blood and pigment.
Tattoos are absolutely fascinating. Because they don’t typically connect to physical wounds so much as to emotional ones, they’re a really great piece of shorthand for getting into the depths of who someone truly is.
My own tattoos are direct messages to myself about how I should live in the world. They’re an easily visible piece of guidance that explores what my role is and should be in the world.
Of course, not all tattoos have this deeper meaning. People choose to tattoo things on themselves for a hundred different reasons, the aesthetics of the design being one of them. Some tattoos are simply trendy. I’m not here to judge anyone’s ink!
But if you’re going to cover a character in tattoos, consider having each of them explore a deeper facet of that character’s personality and the journey they’ve been on.
How to Use Scars Effectively
As we said above, scars are a shorthand for a story. Prominent scars, particular facial or obvious hand scars, are a constant source of tension and questions. When someone has a big scar on their face, we find our eyes drawn to it, a question forming on our tongue: What happened?
But the What happened? isn't as important as How did it change you? And so my general recommendation with scars is twofold and contradictory:
One: only introduce scars if it’s an incredibly important part of a character’s past.
Two: only introduce scars if it’s an incredibly important part of a character’s future.
So why the two recommendations? Why the contradiction?
Characters are constantly moving, if not in space, then through time. Their scars shape their past, which shapes where they are now and where they’re going.
If a scar is germane to a character’s past, it helps establish where they’re coming from and what their experiences have been.
But those experiences are only important if that scar-causing event is relevant to their future.
The scar a sea captain got fending off pirates once upon a time doesn’t have much to add if his current quest is finding new plumbing for his house. His scar isn’t relevant, unless it intimidates the shady plumber into giving him a better price. Even then, it’s a shallow connection.
Consider the old injury (and its scar) to be a cause.
Ask: what was the effect? If your character got a scar on their eyebrow from a bike accident when she was seven, that scar doesn’t mean anything… unless that was the bike accident where she failed to protect and save her kid brother, which makes her overprotective and hypercautious now.
If she crashed her bike as a kid and merely went on with her life… what was the point? Why tell that story with a scar so visible?
Remember that the point of a story is that people change. If a scar doesn’t fundamentally shape a character, consider simply leaving it out. Window dressing is just that: window dressing.
What we want is to give more insight into who your character is.
Avoiding Wandering Scar Syndrome
Wandering Scar Syndrome is when a character’s scar is on their left eye on Page 3 and their right cheek on Page 12. It’s simply a symptom of not taking good notes.
There are two techniques I’m going to suggest here.
The first is, keep character sheets. Many writers choose to do this, many do not. But especially if you’re going to wallpaper your character with scars and tattoos, it’s worth writing down where they are and what they look like. In fact, copy/pasting the way they were originally described into a separate document is particularly helpful in being sure your descriptions stay consistent throughout the story. It’s a pain in the butt for a moment, but it helps so much with consistency down the line!
Another option is to use [brackets] as an aside.
What do I mean?
Let’s say you talk about a minor character in two different places in the story, chapters — even acts apart.
Kitty Scarborough was the best fighter in town, and she bore the scars to prove it. [Kitty Scar Description — line on her face?] Or, [scar TK]
TK is the editor’s mark for To Come, a placeholder of sorts, and it’s useful for all kinds of things: Name TK, Dog Breed TK, Red sports car [make/model TK], etc. (Once upon a time, this book was littered with TKs .)
Later, we can pull it back up: A tall redhead walked through the door. Kitty Scarborough was easy to recognize, especially by her [Kitty Scar Description].
Why does this work? Why is this helpful?
Because it allows us to maintain flow as a writer. If we know Kitty’s got scars from fighting, we can come up with what exactly those look like later. (We’re using them as evidence of her toughness and battle prowess, not for a particular meaning behind each individual scar she’s got.) So when we describe Kitty, we don’t need to spend ten minutes racking our brain for a cool scar to give her — we can do that later. All we need to drop into our first draft is [Kitty scar] and we can move on!
This works for all sorts of details, from car models to hair colors to background characters’ names, so don’t think it’s just a scar locater!
Later on we can come back, look through our manuscript with the magical Find tool, and simply search for that left bracket, [ . Anything that comes up can be filled in with your text!
Want a good scar generator, including ideas for how it shaped the character? Visit MaimYourCharacters.com/Scars !
This post is an excerpt from Maim Your Characters, from Even Keel Press. If you'd like to read a 100-page sample of the book, [click here]. If you’d like to order a print copy, it’s available [via Amazon.com], and digital copies are available from [a slew of retailers].
xoxo, Aunt Scripty
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Next Round: Kasama Rum Explores the Spirit’s Asian Roots
Airing between regular episodes of the “VinePair Podcast,” “Next Round” explores the ideas and innovations that are helping drinks businesses adapt in a time of unprecedented change. As the coronavirus crisis continues and new challenges arise, VP Pro is in your corner, supporting the drinks community for all the rounds to come. If you have a story or perspective to share, email us at [email protected].
In this “Next Round” episode, Adam Teeter speaks with the creator of Kasama Rum, Alexandra Dorda, who is a second-generation spirits entrepreneur. Hailing from a family known for its vodka empires, Dorda decided to take a different route by producing a dark, barrel-aged rum with a light flavor profile. According to her, Kasama’s branding is revolutionary in distancing its aesthetic from the stereotypical pirate and sailor caricatures that are often associated with rum.
Kasama, which means “together” in Filipino, has managed to find success since its recent release, despite launching during a time when many people cannot physically be together with their loved ones. Even though bars nationwide face closures and the alcohol industry has taken a significant hit, Dorda is optimistic about the future of Kasama and is confident in the sipping rum’s quality, as well as the cultural pride of the Filipinos who are working to uplift it.
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Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a VinePair “Next Round” conversation. We’re bringing you these conversations between the regular “VinePair Podcast” in order to give a better picture about what’s going on in the world of alcoholic beverages. Today, I’m really lucky to be speaking with Alexandra Dorda, the founder of Kasama Rum. Alexandra, what’s going on?
Alexandra: Hi, Adam. So good to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
A: Of course. My pleasure. So where do I find you in the world in early February? I’m in Brooklyn, and there’s snow all over the ground. But where are you?
AD: I’m currently in Los Angeles, California. This is where I grew up when I was very small. So it’s sort of like coming home, in a way.
A: As I’ve seen, the weather’s a lot nicer than it is here in New York.
AD: Yes, it’s beautiful. I’m going to make you really jealous. I’m looking out into a garden. It’s warm here and the birds are chirping. It’s really nice.
A: Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. I want to talk to you about a lot of things. Obviously, the rum being the primary focus of our conversation. Kasama Rum. When did you launch it? Can you tell me a little bit about it?
AD: Kasama Rum, I call it the Sunshine Spirit. It’s a 7-year-old rum from the Philippines. We soft-launched last year in September of 2020, but actually our official launch is tomorrow. People can now order the rum directly through the website. It’s obviously an incredibly strange time to launch a brand. I was a bit cautious, so we did a soft launch at the end of last year.
A: Some people who are listening to this podcast may be familiar with your last name. Others may not. You are not a rookie when it comes to launching alcohol brands. So can you talk to us a little bit about your background, and your family’s background in alcohol, and how you decided through that background to create Kasama? Because I think the story of Kasama is really interesting.
AD: Sure. So I’m 29, but I like to joke that I have 27 years of experience in the alcohol space. My dad launched two vodkas when I was just a toddler: Belvedere Vodka and Chopin Vodka. He is a pioneer in the vodka category; nobody was doing super-premium vodka at that time. We still own Chopin vodka, and we craft all of our vodka at our family owned distillery in eastern Poland. It’s really a beautiful operation. We even farm some of our own ingredients. I’ve really grown up in this industry, and through my father’s love of his craft, I really developed a love of craft spirits as well. When I was little, my dad would take me to restaurants. I remember being like 5 years old, and every time we go to a restaurant, he’d say, “Come on, Alex, we have to go to the bar. We have to meet the bartender. We have to read the cocktail menu. We have to see if our products are here.” So that was how I got my start in the industry, and it just progressed from there. It led to me launching this rum from the Philippines, which is where my mother is from. It feels very full-circle to have a family vodka from Poland where my dad is from, and now this rum from the Philippines.
A: So how did you get the idea? I mean, obviously, OK, so you have a background in the spirits business with vodka. What caused you to say, I want to do a rum? Also, I’m curious, what was the rest of the family’s reaction to you wanting to do a rum?
AD: So the family has been very, very supportive. Both of my parents are entrepreneurs, so I think that they’re very happy to see me on my own entrepreneurial journey. They’re super supportive, which I’m very grateful for. What caused me to do a rum? I’ve obviously been in this industry a long time and have really observed it very closely for a very long time. I saw a while back that the rum category was just a little bit weaker than all the other ones. There’s a distinct lack of interesting lifestyle brands in the category. I think that’s one of the reasons that the category has fallen behind some of the other spirits categories. Everyone keeps saying, “Rum is going to be next, rum is going to be the next bourbon or tequila,” and it hasn’t been so far. So I saw this gap in the market. I wondered why all the rum that I was seeing was pirate-themed, sailor-themed, or nautical-themed when that felt so irrelevant to me, and probably to a lot of other people out there. The impetus for me to actually launch Kasama Rum was that a couple of years ago I learned that the Philippines is actually one of the biggest rum producers in the world. I have to be honest, I didn’t know that. I think that a lot of people would be surprised to learn that.
A: I was surprised, too.
AD: The biggest rum brand in the world is not Bacardi. It’s a brand from the Philippines. But people don’t really hear about it because it’s mostly just consumed domestically. So I had this “aha” moment where I realized that I could fill this gap that I perceived in the market, while also celebrating the Filipino heritage that I’m so proud of.
A: I’m going to let you educate us about Filipino rum. In your journey to learn this, what did you discover? How long has rum been made in the Philippines? What can you teach us that we should know about Filipino rum?
AD: The Philippines is not new to the rum game, even though a lot of people are just learning about it right now. The Philippines was a Spanish colony for 333 years, and that’s where our rum history comes from — it’s from that period of colonization. We’ve been making rum for a very long time. Another thing that’s interesting to note that I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn, is that sugarcane is actually native to Southeast Asia. It’s originally from the Papua New Guinea area and came up through the Philippines to mainland Asia, over to Europe, and was only brought to the Caribbean later on, around the 1500s. We have very rich volcanic soil. The Philippines sits on the Ring of Fire; we have about 53 volcanoes, some of which are active. So this tropical climate that we have, this rich volcanic soil, and the fact that sugarcane is actually originally from this broader region means that we have some of the best rum in the world. That’s one of the stories that I’d really like to get out there to help put Filipino craft on the map in terms of rum and in other ways.
A: So was the rum being distilled for the same reason we hear about in the Caribbean? To supply the navies, the sailors, and things like that? Was it being distilled around the same time as it was coming to the Caribbean? Do you know if it was first or second? This is fascinating.
AD: You are really, really testing my history knowledge at the moment. It did come from the colonization period, which was up until the end of the 1800s, and 300 years before that. So around the 1500s.
A: Amazing. And what do you think is distinct about rum from the Philippines? We hear a lot from other rum producers that there is something that’s very distinctive about Jamaican rum compared to Nicaraguan rum, or Cuban, or Puerto Rican (obviously where Bacardi is from). We romanticize Jamaica as being the home of the pot still rums. What do you think is really distinct about Filipino rum? Are there characteristics that define all Filipino rums, or are they all different?
AD: There are different producers, of course, and everybody has their own style. I’m thinking about two major brands right now. I would say that their flavor profiles are completely different. But in the case of Kasama, it’s a very light rum — that’s what I think is something that we’re bringing to the category that’s new in terms of the flavor profile. It’s very light and very easy to sip. It has very beautiful tropical notes that come from the sugarcane and the climate that we have there. It’s a great rum for sipping. I think it’s also a great rum to help bring new people into the category. I get a lot of people who tell me, “Oh, I don’t really like rum. It’s very heavily spiced,” or “It’s really overly sweet.” I try to get them to try Kasama and many of them say, “Wow, I didn’t know that I would like this.” The Philippines is actually quite a large country. I don’t think I can say that there’s just one style of rum throughout the whole country. But Kasama itself is very light and delicious.
A: Are you distilling molasses? There’s the French agricole style becoming super trendy among bar circles. It’s really the juice that gets distilled from the sugarcane, and then there’s the classic styles. We know for Caribbean rum it’s the molasses. Is there one or the other that’s distilled in the Philippines?
AD: We do both in the Philippines. Kasama is distilled from freshly pressed noble sugarcane juice, but it doesn’t have that agricole taste to it. We are actually distilled in a column, and I think columns get a bad rap. For example, in Poland at our family distillery, we use a column and we love that. So to me, pot stills aren’t necessarily superior to column stills, but ours is distilled from freshly noble sugarcane juice, and I think that’s what contributes to having this very light, pleasant taste.
A: Oh, interesting. What type of barrels are you aging it in?
AD: They’re ex-bourbon American oak barrels. It’s not a spicy flavor profile, but bourbon does have that pepperiness to it, so you do get a little bit of pepper at the end. There’s also notes of vanilla, which I think comes from that bourbon as well.
A: Interesting. When you were going to create the brand, how many rums did you taste? How well did you educate yourself in the category? Obviously, we always talk about people who are entrepreneurs and founders really trying to try as many of their potential competitors as they can. How much did you try?
AD: I tasted dozens and dozens; I’d say over 100 probably in the process, just because, like you said, I wanted to see what was out there. When I was developing the brand, most of the time I was in Warsaw, Poland, and we have actually a great rum bar there that has hundreds of bottles. I would go there and I would just try different kinds and see what I liked. It was fascinating. There are different styles in different countries. I think most consumers haven’t explored the differences in rum. We know that in wine, that different types of grapes taste different, and we know that in whiskey as well. I think that in rum, that isn’t yet appreciated. There are so many different styles to be explored in the rum category.
A: So I think there’s two theories with rum, and I think both could be true. I’m interested in what your perspective is here. One is that the rum renaissance will come through bourbon — that it will be people discovering these sipping rums, of which Kasama is one. It’s a 7-year-old, well-aged dark spirit that will find appeal from people who may have gotten used to drinking bourbon, Cognac, things like that. The other theory some people have is that it will come through the light rums, the white rums, and cocktail culture, the Daiquiris, and things like that. Have you thought about that? Because obviously the first thing you put out as an entrepreneur is a dark aged rum. There’s another brand that I think you’re aware of, and we’re also fans of on the podcast: Ten To One. The first rum that Marc Farrell put out was a white rum. So I’m curious why you made the decision to do dark rum first. Obviously now he has a dark rum — you might have a light rum down the road. What was your decision about the first thing I’m doing is this 7-year-old aged, beautiful rum.
AD: So first of all, I just love the taste of it. So that’s what I wanted to bring to the world first. I would like to bring out an unaged rum, a white rum, or perhaps even an older rum down the line. As to this “rum renaissance” that you were saying we’re all waiting for, I think that it’s upon us as producers to bring that about. My theory as to why rum hasn’t had its renaissance yet is that the category, frankly, has been very tired. Rum should be a very exciting drink — it has everything going for it. It’s often aged, which people really like; they like to learn about the wood and the aging process. It naturally has a sweeter flavor profile, which is much more approachable than, perhaps, whiskey. It typically comes from a warm tropical place, and there are all these good connotations with vacation. Rum should be very popular, and I think that because it’s gotten so stuck in this nautical rut, that’s why it hasn’t really gained widespread appeal. That’s my theory, at least. I think that if there were more exciting stories being told in the category that weren’t about cartoon pirates and sailors, then there would be more people who would be interested to really learn about rum.
A: I think that’s a really good point, and one that I know you’ve spoken about with me before. Do you think the problem is that we just, like, the corporate world kind of whitewashed rum in a lot of ways?
AD: That’s what I think the problem is. I understand that pirates did drink rum, and there is a long history of a tie between rum and sailors and the nautical industry. But I just don’t think that’s all that rum has to offer the world. If you walk down an aisle at a liquor store, pretty much every single rum brand is focused on that one trope, which I think is really unfortunate because it pigeonholes rum. It’s for one very specific type of person. I don’t know why we fixated on that. That’s why I wanted to create a rum that was a celebration of the place that it’s from in a modern way, in a way that feels relevant to a modern consumer. I spent almost two years developing Kasama because first of all, I had a very demanding corporate job, and also because I was new to developing a brand of my own, and wasn’t always sure of what I was doing. During that time, I had a daily Google alert set for rum on my phone. Every morning I would wake up in horror, and I was like, “Today is the day that somebody has launched a similar rum brand.” The day never came, and I’m honestly surprised. I’m surprised that there aren’t more rum brands that are celebrating the genuine history of where they’re from.
A: So I want to talk about that because I think one of the things that’s really cool is how you designed the bottle, and who designed the bottle. Obviously, there’s a lot of brands that will go in, source from a place, but then make it their own when they bring it back to where they’re from. But you didn’t do that. So can you talk about what went into the design of the bottle and who designed it?
AD: Yes. So for the bottle, I partnered with a Manila-based creative agency called Serious Studio. They were absolutely fantastic. The founders are a husband-and-wife team who are around my age. I emailed them and I said, “Look, I really want to design a Filipino brand that has a global appeal.” I think that in the Philippines we know how amazing our country is, and we know how talented Filipinos are. We do a lot of talking to ourselves about it, which I think is a bit of a shame. So I emailed them and I said, “I really want to do a brand that’s proudly Filipino, but not just for Filipino Filipinos. I think that this should be something that’s really for anybody.” They felt very strongly about that mission as well. So I’m proud to say that the whole brand was designed by a team in Manila, and it was really about being proud of our heritage on the bottle. So you see on the neck we have a winking sun. It’s the sun that’s actually on the Philippine flag. We have stamps that show indigenous flora and fauna. The whole thing was really about celebrating our fantastic country. I’m glad that Serious Studio was able to really bring that to life.
A: Yeah, it’s very cool. I was talking to someone on the editorial team earlier today in Slack who knew that I was doing this interview, and she just received a bottle of Kasama. She was saying it has a really amazing design where you can tell it actually is true to the place, but it also feels very modern. I thought that was a really cool way for her to describe it. It feels like it’s totally in line with the way I think alcohol brands should move, in terms of that “premium look” that you have on your bar, where someone would walk over and say “What’s this?” But when you pick it up, it’s like, “oh, all of these things are actually representative of the place it’s from.”
AD: I’m so happy to hear that.
A: So now let’s talk about the nitty-gritty. Alexandra, what has it been like to sell this brand, and can you talk us through the process of what you’ve gone through over the past few months in order to make this thing a reality?
AD: Launching during a pandemic was not ideal in any sense. Honestly, in the beginning, I felt really worried — I thought all these bars and restaurants and stores, they’re just trying to stay alive. Are they going to want to take a chance on a new brand? That’s one of the reasons that we were so conservative at the beginning. I’m happy to say we were nationally aligned with Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits. They’ve been incredibly supportive of the brand, which I’m very grateful for. We just started slow. We started in South Florida because at the time, they were open, and also aesthetically, it really matches. Also, it’s a very big rum market. I’m happy to say that it’s been going really well. We’re currently in 250 accounts. We have about 300 that are lined up for spring. Some of these larger chains have long reset periods, so they tell you ahead of time. We’re going to be launching in BevMo in California in March or April, we’re in a few Total Wines in Florida. The reception has been really encouraging. I would have been encouraged anyway, but especially because it’s a pandemic, and I know how hard it is out there for people. I feel very happy that retailers have been willing to take a chance on us.
A: How do you, specifically as a brand, build yourself? I know traditionally, prior to the pandemic, one of the ways a lot of indie brands would think about building themselves was saying, “OK, we’re going to go immediately to the top bars in a given market. Even if we only sell a case in, we’ll hopefully get on the cocktail list because we sold a case in. And the bartender will explain the rum to consumers.” Now that that’s not happening, obviously, what do you have to do on your end in order to educate the population, and to make sure that now that you are in BevMo, someone walks in and buys it? Have you thought about that? If you have, what do those plans look like?
AD: I think that’s what everybody in the industry is thinking about right now. The normal tools that we had to launch a brand aren’t really there right now, which is typically on-premise. Obviously, we have a social media presence and we try to reach out to as many people as possible through social media. We try to get involved with different food events that are happening. For example, October is Filipino American History Month, and we were involved in a pop-up that managed to take place last October. It was a pretty small event, but Filipinos are very proud of their culture, and I think also we largely feel invisible within American culture. So when Filipinos find this brand, they are very supportive, and they’re very vocal about it. We get a lot of people who find out about us through social media and through people taking pictures of the brand and then sharing it with their communities. It’s also been a lot of door-to-door hand-selling, which I personally love. I actually love going from liquor store to liquor store with my bag of samples. I did some traveling around the country earlier this year between Florida and California, just literally going from liquor store to liquor store, trying to convince buyers that this is something that will sell. Luckily, as I said, people have been willing to take a chance on us. I think between the bottle being super eye-catching — it does really stand out on the shelf — and also this community that we’re building online, it’s been going pretty well so far.
A: That’s really cool. So when we do hopefully open up in the next six months, however long it takes as we get vaccines, have you thought about what activations might look like? Have you thought about programs? Or is that still just too early right now, given everything else that is going on in the world?
AD: I mean, I’m dreaming of it for sure. Like everybody else, I’m dreaming of just going to a bar and having a cocktail, like in normal times. I haven’t thought about it in depth because I just don’t want to get my hopes up and then have this pandemic last even longer than we expected. One of the things I would love to do is in the Philippines, we have this fantastic tradition called Kamayan dinners. So kamay in Filipino means “hand,” and there are these communal dinners where you eat on banana leaves with your hands. It’s a really, really fun thing to take part in. Obviously, it’s not at all Covid-friendly, so I never try to do it at this particular moment. But kasama actually means “together” in Filipino. To bring people together in that way, to share a communal meal that’s eaten with your hands, is something I would really love to do once the pandemic is hopefully behind us, and go to key markets and share that tradition with other people.
A: Amazing. Well, this has been such a great conversation. It’s been really interesting to learn more about the rum and about what you’re building. I hope that in six months to a year or so, we can have you back on. You can give us an update on how everything’s going. But in the meantime, I wish you great success with this thing. It’s a really cool product. And delicious. Thank you for sending me a bottle, it was very tasty. Good luck.
AD: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that you had me on your podcast today.
Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please give us a rating on review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever it is you get your Podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and Seattle, Washington, by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing, and loves to get the credit.
Also, I would love to give a special shoutout to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.
Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.
The article Next Round: Kasama Rum Explores the Spirit’s Asian Roots appeared first on VinePair.
source https://vinepair.com/articles/kasama-alexandra-dorda/
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Next Round: Kasama Rum Explores the Spirits Asian Roots
Airing between regular episodes of the “VinePair Podcast,” “Next Round” explores the ideas and innovations that are helping drinks businesses adapt in a time of unprecedented change. As the coronavirus crisis continues and new challenges arise, VP Pro is in your corner, supporting the drinks community for all the rounds to come. If you have a story or perspective to share, email us at [email protected].
In this “Next Round” episode, Adam Teeter speaks with the creator of Kasama Rum, Alexandra Dorda, who is a second-generation spirits entrepreneur. Hailing from a family known for its vodka empires, Dorda decided to take a different route by producing a dark, barrel-aged rum with a light flavor profile. According to her, Kasama’s branding is revolutionary in distancing its aesthetic from the stereotypical pirate and sailor caricatures that are often associated with rum.
Kasama, which means “together” in Filipino, has managed to find success since its recent release, despite launching during a time when many people cannot physically be together with their loved ones. Even though bars nationwide face closures and the alcohol industry has taken a significant hit, Dorda is optimistic about the future of Kasama and is confident in the sipping rum’s quality, as well as the cultural pride of the Filipinos who are working to uplift it.
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Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a VinePair “Next Round” conversation. We’re bringing you these conversations between the regular “VinePair Podcast” in order to give a better picture about what’s going on in the world of alcoholic beverages. Today, I’m really lucky to be speaking with Alexandra Dorda, the founder of Kasama Rum. Alexandra, what’s going on?
Alexandra: Hi, Adam. So good to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
A: Of course. My pleasure. So where do I find you in the world in early February? I’m in Brooklyn, and there’s snow all over the ground. But where are you?
AD: I’m currently in Los Angeles, California. This is where I grew up when I was very small. So it’s sort of like coming home, in a way.
A: As I’ve seen, the weather’s a lot nicer than it is here in New York.
AD: Yes, it’s beautiful. I’m going to make you really jealous. I’m looking out into a garden. It’s warm here and the birds are chirping. It’s really nice.
A: Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. I want to talk to you about a lot of things. Obviously, the rum being the primary focus of our conversation. Kasama Rum. When did you launch it? Can you tell me a little bit about it?
AD: Kasama Rum, I call it the Sunshine Spirit. It’s a 7-year-old rum from the Philippines. We soft-launched last year in September of 2020, but actually our official launch is tomorrow. People can now order the rum directly through the website. It’s obviously an incredibly strange time to launch a brand. I was a bit cautious, so we did a soft launch at the end of last year.
A: Some people who are listening to this podcast may be familiar with your last name. Others may not. You are not a rookie when it comes to launching alcohol brands. So can you talk to us a little bit about your background, and your family’s background in alcohol, and how you decided through that background to create Kasama? Because I think the story of Kasama is really interesting.
AD: Sure. So I’m 29, but I like to joke that I have 27 years of experience in the alcohol space. My dad launched two vodkas when I was just a toddler: Belvedere Vodka and Chopin Vodka. He is a pioneer in the vodka category; nobody was doing super-premium vodka at that time. We still own Chopin vodka, and we craft all of our vodka at our family owned distillery in eastern Poland. It’s really a beautiful operation. We even farm some of our own ingredients. I’ve really grown up in this industry, and through my father’s love of his craft, I really developed a love of craft spirits as well. When I was little, my dad would take me to restaurants. I remember being like 5 years old, and every time we go to a restaurant, he’d say, “Come on, Alex, we have to go to the bar. We have to meet the bartender. We have to read the cocktail menu. We have to see if our products are here.” So that was how I got my start in the industry, and it just progressed from there. It led to me launching this rum from the Philippines, which is where my mother is from. It feels very full-circle to have a family vodka from Poland where my dad is from, and now this rum from the Philippines.
A: So how did you get the idea? I mean, obviously, OK, so you have a background in the spirits business with vodka. What caused you to say, I want to do a rum? Also, I’m curious, what was the rest of the family’s reaction to you wanting to do a rum?
AD: So the family has been very, very supportive. Both of my parents are entrepreneurs, so I think that they’re very happy to see me on my own entrepreneurial journey. They’re super supportive, which I’m very grateful for. What caused me to do a rum? I’ve obviously been in this industry a long time and have really observed it very closely for a very long time. I saw a while back that the rum category was just a little bit weaker than all the other ones. There’s a distinct lack of interesting lifestyle brands in the category. I think that’s one of the reasons that the category has fallen behind some of the other spirits categories. Everyone keeps saying, “Rum is going to be next, rum is going to be the next bourbon or tequila,” and it hasn’t been so far. So I saw this gap in the market. I wondered why all the rum that I was seeing was pirate-themed, sailor-themed, or nautical-themed when that felt so irrelevant to me, and probably to a lot of other people out there. The impetus for me to actually launch Kasama Rum was that a couple of years ago I learned that the Philippines is actually one of the biggest rum producers in the world. I have to be honest, I didn’t know that. I think that a lot of people would be surprised to learn that.
A: I was surprised, too.
AD: The biggest rum brand in the world is not Bacardi. It’s a brand from the Philippines. But people don’t really hear about it because it’s mostly just consumed domestically. So I had this “aha” moment where I realized that I could fill this gap that I perceived in the market, while also celebrating the Filipino heritage that I’m so proud of.
A: I’m going to let you educate us about Filipino rum. In your journey to learn this, what did you discover? How long has rum been made in the Philippines? What can you teach us that we should know about Filipino rum?
AD: The Philippines is not new to the rum game, even though a lot of people are just learning about it right now. The Philippines was a Spanish colony for 333 years, and that’s where our rum history comes from — it’s from that period of colonization. We’ve been making rum for a very long time. Another thing that’s interesting to note that I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn, is that sugarcane is actually native to Southeast Asia. It’s originally from the Papua New Guinea area and came up through the Philippines to mainland Asia, over to Europe, and was only brought to the Caribbean later on, around the 1500s. We have very rich volcanic soil. The Philippines sits on the Ring of Fire; we have about 53 volcanoes, some of which are active. So this tropical climate that we have, this rich volcanic soil, and the fact that sugarcane is actually originally from this broader region means that we have some of the best rum in the world. That’s one of the stories that I’d really like to get out there to help put Filipino craft on the map in terms of rum and in other ways.
A: So was the rum being distilled for the same reason we hear about in the Caribbean? To supply the navies, the sailors, and things like that? Was it being distilled around the same time as it was coming to the Caribbean? Do you know if it was first or second? This is fascinating.
AD: You are really, really testing my history knowledge at the moment. It did come from the colonization period, which was up until the end of the 1800s, and 300 years before that. So around the 1500s.
A: Amazing. And what do you think is distinct about rum from the Philippines? We hear a lot from other rum producers that there is something that’s very distinctive about Jamaican rum compared to Nicaraguan rum, or Cuban, or Puerto Rican (obviously where Bacardi is from). We romanticize Jamaica as being the home of the pot still rums. What do you think is really distinct about Filipino rum? Are there characteristics that define all Filipino rums, or are they all different?
AD: There are different producers, of course, and everybody has their own style. I’m thinking about two major brands right now. I would say that their flavor profiles are completely different. But in the case of Kasama, it’s a very light rum — that’s what I think is something that we’re bringing to the category that’s new in terms of the flavor profile. It’s very light and very easy to sip. It has very beautiful tropical notes that come from the sugarcane and the climate that we have there. It’s a great rum for sipping. I think it’s also a great rum to help bring new people into the category. I get a lot of people who tell me, “Oh, I don’t really like rum. It’s very heavily spiced,” or “It’s really overly sweet.” I try to get them to try Kasama and many of them say, “Wow, I didn’t know that I would like this.” The Philippines is actually quite a large country. I don’t think I can say that there’s just one style of rum throughout the whole country. But Kasama itself is very light and delicious.
A: Are you distilling molasses? There’s the French agricole style becoming super trendy among bar circles. It’s really the juice that gets distilled from the sugarcane, and then there’s the classic styles. We know for Caribbean rum it’s the molasses. Is there one or the other that’s distilled in the Philippines?
AD: We do both in the Philippines. Kasama is distilled from freshly pressed noble sugarcane juice, but it doesn’t have that agricole taste to it. We are actually distilled in a column, and I think columns get a bad rap. For example, in Poland at our family distillery, we use a column and we love that. So to me, pot stills aren’t necessarily superior to column stills, but ours is distilled from freshly noble sugarcane juice, and I think that’s what contributes to having this very light, pleasant taste.
A: Oh, interesting. What type of barrels are you aging it in?
AD: They’re ex-bourbon American oak barrels. It’s not a spicy flavor profile, but bourbon does have that pepperiness to it, so you do get a little bit of pepper at the end. There’s also notes of vanilla, which I think comes from that bourbon as well.
A: Interesting. When you were going to create the brand, how many rums did you taste? How well did you educate yourself in the category? Obviously, we always talk about people who are entrepreneurs and founders really trying to try as many of their potential competitors as they can. How much did you try?
AD: I tasted dozens and dozens; I’d say over 100 probably in the process, just because, like you said, I wanted to see what was out there. When I was developing the brand, most of the time I was in Warsaw, Poland, and we have actually a great rum bar there that has hundreds of bottles. I would go there and I would just try different kinds and see what I liked. It was fascinating. There are different styles in different countries. I think most consumers haven’t explored the differences in rum. We know that in wine, that different types of grapes taste different, and we know that in whiskey as well. I think that in rum, that isn’t yet appreciated. There are so many different styles to be explored in the rum category.
A: So I think there’s two theories with rum, and I think both could be true. I’m interested in what your perspective is here. One is that the rum renaissance will come through bourbon — that it will be people discovering these sipping rums, of which Kasama is one. It’s a 7-year-old, well-aged dark spirit that will find appeal from people who may have gotten used to drinking bourbon, Cognac, things like that. The other theory some people have is that it will come through the light rums, the white rums, and cocktail culture, the Daiquiris, and things like that. Have you thought about that? Because obviously the first thing you put out as an entrepreneur is a dark aged rum. There’s another brand that I think you’re aware of, and we’re also fans of on the podcast: Ten To One. The first rum that Marc Farrell put out was a white rum. So I’m curious why you made the decision to do dark rum first. Obviously now he has a dark rum — you might have a light rum down the road. What was your decision about the first thing I’m doing is this 7-year-old aged, beautiful rum.
AD: So first of all, I just love the taste of it. So that’s what I wanted to bring to the world first. I would like to bring out an unaged rum, a white rum, or perhaps even an older rum down the line. As to this “rum renaissance” that you were saying we’re all waiting for, I think that it’s upon us as producers to bring that about. My theory as to why rum hasn’t had its renaissance yet is that the category, frankly, has been very tired. Rum should be a very exciting drink — it has everything going for it. It’s often aged, which people really like; they like to learn about the wood and the aging process. It naturally has a sweeter flavor profile, which is much more approachable than, perhaps, whiskey. It typically comes from a warm tropical place, and there are all these good connotations with vacation. Rum should be very popular, and I think that because it’s gotten so stuck in this nautical rut, that’s why it hasn’t really gained widespread appeal. That’s my theory, at least. I think that if there were more exciting stories being told in the category that weren’t about cartoon pirates and sailors, then there would be more people who would be interested to really learn about rum.
A: I think that’s a really good point, and one that I know you’ve spoken about with me before. Do you think the problem is that we just, like, the corporate world kind of whitewashed rum in a lot of ways?
AD: That’s what I think the problem is. I understand that pirates did drink rum, and there is a long history of a tie between rum and sailors and the nautical industry. But I just don’t think that’s all that rum has to offer the world. If you walk down an aisle at a liquor store, pretty much every single rum brand is focused on that one trope, which I think is really unfortunate because it pigeonholes rum. It’s for one very specific type of person. I don’t know why we fixated on that. That’s why I wanted to create a rum that was a celebration of the place that it’s from in a modern way, in a way that feels relevant to a modern consumer. I spent almost two years developing Kasama because first of all, I had a very demanding corporate job, and also because I was new to developing a brand of my own, and wasn’t always sure of what I was doing. During that time, I had a daily Google alert set for rum on my phone. Every morning I would wake up in horror, and I was like, “Today is the day that somebody has launched a similar rum brand.” The day never came, and I’m honestly surprised. I’m surprised that there aren’t more rum brands that are celebrating the genuine history of where they’re from.
A: So I want to talk about that because I think one of the things that’s really cool is how you designed the bottle, and who designed the bottle. Obviously, there’s a lot of brands that will go in, source from a place, but then make it their own when they bring it back to where they’re from. But you didn’t do that. So can you talk about what went into the design of the bottle and who designed it?
AD: Yes. So for the bottle, I partnered with a Manila-based creative agency called Serious Studio. They were absolutely fantastic. The founders are a husband-and-wife team who are around my age. I emailed them and I said, “Look, I really want to design a Filipino brand that has a global appeal.” I think that in the Philippines we know how amazing our country is, and we know how talented Filipinos are. We do a lot of talking to ourselves about it, which I think is a bit of a shame. So I emailed them and I said, “I really want to do a brand that’s proudly Filipino, but not just for Filipino Filipinos. I think that this should be something that’s really for anybody.” They felt very strongly about that mission as well. So I’m proud to say that the whole brand was designed by a team in Manila, and it was really about being proud of our heritage on the bottle. So you see on the neck we have a winking sun. It’s the sun that’s actually on the Philippine flag. We have stamps that show indigenous flora and fauna. The whole thing was really about celebrating our fantastic country. I’m glad that Serious Studio was able to really bring that to life.
A: Yeah, it’s very cool. I was talking to someone on the editorial team earlier today in Slack who knew that I was doing this interview, and she just received a bottle of Kasama. She was saying it has a really amazing design where you can tell it actually is true to the place, but it also feels very modern. I thought that was a really cool way for her to describe it. It feels like it’s totally in line with the way I think alcohol brands should move, in terms of that “premium look” that you have on your bar, where someone would walk over and say “What’s this?” But when you pick it up, it’s like, “oh, all of these things are actually representative of the place it’s from.”
AD: I’m so happy to hear that.
A: So now let’s talk about the nitty-gritty. Alexandra, what has it been like to sell this brand, and can you talk us through the process of what you’ve gone through over the past few months in order to make this thing a reality?
AD: Launching during a pandemic was not ideal in any sense. Honestly, in the beginning, I felt really worried — I thought all these bars and restaurants and stores, they’re just trying to stay alive. Are they going to want to take a chance on a new brand? That’s one of the reasons that we were so conservative at the beginning. I’m happy to say we were nationally aligned with Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits. They’ve been incredibly supportive of the brand, which I’m very grateful for. We just started slow. We started in South Florida because at the time, they were open, and also aesthetically, it really matches. Also, it’s a very big rum market. I’m happy to say that it’s been going really well. We’re currently in 250 accounts. We have about 300 that are lined up for spring. Some of these larger chains have long reset periods, so they tell you ahead of time. We’re going to be launching in BevMo in California in March or April, we’re in a few Total Wines in Florida. The reception has been really encouraging. I would have been encouraged anyway, but especially because it’s a pandemic, and I know how hard it is out there for people. I feel very happy that retailers have been willing to take a chance on us.
A: How do you, specifically as a brand, build yourself? I know traditionally, prior to the pandemic, one of the ways a lot of indie brands would think about building themselves was saying, “OK, we’re going to go immediately to the top bars in a given market. Even if we only sell a case in, we’ll hopefully get on the cocktail list because we sold a case in. And the bartender will explain the rum to consumers.” Now that that’s not happening, obviously, what do you have to do on your end in order to educate the population, and to make sure that now that you are in BevMo, someone walks in and buys it? Have you thought about that? If you have, what do those plans look like?
AD: I think that’s what everybody in the industry is thinking about right now. The normal tools that we had to launch a brand aren’t really there right now, which is typically on-premise. Obviously, we have a social media presence and we try to reach out to as many people as possible through social media. We try to get involved with different food events that are happening. For example, October is Filipino American History Month, and we were involved in a pop-up that managed to take place last October. It was a pretty small event, but Filipinos are very proud of their culture, and I think also we largely feel invisible within American culture. So when Filipinos find this brand, they are very supportive, and they’re very vocal about it. We get a lot of people who find out about us through social media and through people taking pictures of the brand and then sharing it with their communities. It’s also been a lot of door-to-door hand-selling, which I personally love. I actually love going from liquor store to liquor store with my bag of samples. I did some traveling around the country earlier this year between Florida and California, just literally going from liquor store to liquor store, trying to convince buyers that this is something that will sell. Luckily, as I said, people have been willing to take a chance on us. I think between the bottle being super eye-catching — it does really stand out on the shelf — and also this community that we’re building online, it’s been going pretty well so far.
A: That’s really cool. So when we do hopefully open up in the next six months, however long it takes as we get vaccines, have you thought about what activations might look like? Have you thought about programs? Or is that still just too early right now, given everything else that is going on in the world?
AD: I mean, I’m dreaming of it for sure. Like everybody else, I’m dreaming of just going to a bar and having a cocktail, like in normal times. I haven’t thought about it in depth because I just don’t want to get my hopes up and then have this pandemic last even longer than we expected. One of the things I would love to do is in the Philippines, we have this fantastic tradition called Kamayan dinners. So kamay in Filipino means “hand,” and there are these communal dinners where you eat on banana leaves with your hands. It’s a really, really fun thing to take part in. Obviously, it’s not at all Covid-friendly, so I never try to do it at this particular moment. But kasama actually means “together” in Filipino. To bring people together in that way, to share a communal meal that’s eaten with your hands, is something I would really love to do once the pandemic is hopefully behind us, and go to key markets and share that tradition with other people.
A: Amazing. Well, this has been such a great conversation. It’s been really interesting to learn more about the rum and about what you’re building. I hope that in six months to a year or so, we can have you back on. You can give us an update on how everything’s going. But in the meantime, I wish you great success with this thing. It’s a really cool product. And delicious. Thank you for sending me a bottle, it was very tasty. Good luck.
AD: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that you had me on your podcast today.
Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please give us a rating on review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever it is you get your Podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City and Seattle, Washington, by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing, and loves to get the credit.
Also, I would love to give a special shoutout to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.
Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.
The article Next Round: Kasama Rum Explores the Spirit’s Asian Roots appeared first on VinePair.
Via https://vinepair.com/articles/kasama-alexandra-dorda/
source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/next-round-kasama-rum-explores-the-spirits-asian-roots
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