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seawolvesanddragons · 6 years

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Merlin Short - The Youtuber AU

Alright, to start with, Gwaine [Username: AngrIrishman] mostly does prank videos; his is primarily a comedy channel. It starts off as in the moment pranks (probably while he is uni). As he gains more followers and grows more confident he starts doing a few sketches, usually the same characters in different scenarios (the series “drunk Irishman confused by British things is the number one favourite.) After a semester or two he drops out of uni, deciding it isn’t for him and he was only following family pressure, and he wants to do follow this youtube idea. He mostly pranks friends and family, all harmless stuff. After he meets Merlin he does a good deal of his pranks on him, but Elyan and Percival show up the mst as his victims (or partners in crime) since he’s lived with them both. He’s always willing to help out his friends with their videos, and often appears in Percival’s gaming competitions. Occasionally, for when Gwaine wants to address something serious or do a straight video of something bothering him, he has a series of “what’s aleing me today” where he talks about the serious stuff under the guise of drinking. His is one of the bigger youtube stars and his fame only skyrockets after he meets the others. Percival [AllTankedUp] started in youtube as just responding to some of the more ridiculous challenges (planking, cinnamon challenge, parkour, etc) but ended up accidentally setting a ton of records. He started getting a lot of followers suggesting more challenges for him to do. After a year or two he began

uploading video game run throughs after he purchased a video game and streamed playing it, not expecting anything big to come of it. The first video ending up trending for a few hours and requests came pouring in. However his biggest project, and the one he is most proud of and best known for, comes along in year three, after he met Elyan. They began recreating live action versions of video games, giant board games, etc. The internet fucking loses it over these videos. Most of them are endearingly low budget - the first is a live action super mario, where they had set up mushrooms and platforms in the park and a plushie princess peach is the prize. Elyan did MATH for this, guys. Percival has to do exactly what Elyan tells him to do when Elyan holds the “controller” and vice versa. The video is ten minutes long and mostly consists of them falling over. Percy barely wins in the end, but he holds the plushie up all proud, looking adorable. By the next day they have over a hundred subscribers asking for more. Some of the live actions are HUGE events, brining in all of Percy’s friends and acquaintances and even family members but that’s usually only once a year. Typically, it’s no more than Percy, Elyan, and Gwaine or Leon or Merlin. Elyan helps out a lot with most of the recreations, but Percival came up with the idea and is the driving force behind it. He also has a side channel for workout videos after 2 1/2 years of requests, where he posts irregular updates. Elyan [Elyuminati] gets pulled into youtube by Gwen, and starts out as the occasional guest star in her vlogs, before submitting the odd vlog video himself, usually just him ranting about whatever in his life is annoying him at the time. It was meant to just be a way to let off steam, he didn’t expect anyone to watch them, but Elyan has a certain kind of odd charm and humor that attracts a humble but loyal following. During his gap year he travels around Europe and posts a lot of video diaries as a way of keeping in touch with Gwen, and it steadily improves over time. He starts doing “day in the life of” or “creepy ghost tour” or just sharing crazy stories about his travels. Elyan’s not a bad artist, so he’ll sometimes recreate brief sketches of the crazy stuff that happened to him while narrating what is going on. After his gap year (which almost turned into two) he returned to the UK and ended up rooming with Percy, who he knew from youtube, and started getting a degree in maths. His channel with Percy to do live action games took off, and he ended up being offered a job at a radio station after a year or so. The radio felt he had a personality that worked over radio just as well as camera. His radio show has a little bit of everything in it: acting as a voice of the millennial people, sharing whatever crazy thing happened to him that week, traveling and reviewing places and (his latest obsessions) weird news stories and conspiracies. (Leon and Gwaine could be blamed for the last one.) He doesn’t post as much except for the game videos or guest starring in others, since’s he’s busy with his radio show, but he will occasionally do a vlog session now and again, usually on his theories on conspiracies, game of thrones, and why the cosmos hates him enough to stick him with Gwaine. Leon [GiantRedGnomes], unlike Percy and Elyan, actually means to start a youtube channel. He starts off with gaming videos, including a dramatic series of the SIMS that everyone gets a little too invested in. However Leon is very conscious of the good that youtube can do, and so he also starts doing more educational style videos with fun animation. His main topics are history (but the fun kind, he focuses a lot on the weird parts of European history that no one ever talks about) space and alien life, etc. He also reviews a lot of popular tv shows and movies and shares his thoughts, opinions, and predictions for them as well as how the nerdier stuff checks out. Being the gentleman that he is, he typically tries to post both spoiler and non spoiler versions. He and Merlin start a Dnd series where they do short campaigns with different members of their friend group and other willing youtube stars. Lancelot [Lancephew], like Leon, does youtube “for the greater good.” He started youtube in high school as a project to bring “truly great people” into the spotlight by interviewing the people in his town about amazing things they had done in their lives, and he still tries to post videos like that whenever he can. Half of his videos are him taking news stories, politics, economic theories, etc and explaining it in layman’s terms for the average viewer. He shares his own opinions in the video as well. During college Lancelot started adding a musical element to his interview stories, writing his own songs to bring into the background. This branched out into him writing instrumental music, which he often shares on youtube and itunes. Lancelot is currently doing a YouTube Red project in aide of a charity that is about small town civilians having to deal with a zombie dystopia in a realistic manner - asking questions such as “do we still have to pay for data?” “Can someone take my braces off.”) Also, he’s dating Gwen and they do really cute “ask us questions” and dating game videos that the internet loves. There are also several videos of his dog doing crazy things he manages to catch on film. Gwen [GwenSmash] is mostly a youtube vlogger, and she shares a little bit of everything. Her day to day life, sped up streams of the cosplay outfits she makes the group, sims and gaming videos, ask/advice videos, review videos, and stories in a series called “Growing up Gwen” where she shares moments of her childhood/teenage years having to deal with being the only girl in a household of guys, such as buying a bra, trying to find a video game character that is a female without exposed breasts, etc. After she gets to know all the guys better, she will share moments of being one of the few girls among many guys, and has no shame in calling them out. Half of her twitter is photos of the guys holding up a sign saying “I said/made *insert sexist remark here*.” She doesn’t really try to limit herself to one brand and just does all kinds of videos. She and Morgana are often work together/guest star in each other’s videos as flatmates and best friends. Morgana [ExplodingSparkles] got into youtube during college at Gwen’s encouragement. She liked to create her own music mashups and Gwen starting encouraging her to share them on youtube. Nowadays, she and Lance will team up occasionally to do music together, and she has written a few of her own songs, all released on youtube/itunes. A LOT of her video vlogs are feminist, LGBTQA, and wealth inequality rants, typically following her having to talk to Uther. She as a popular series called “Ask Morgana” where she answers questions her subscribers ask her. The beginning/middle of her channel (when it was getting big) has a lot of anger and rant videos about everything wrong with the world. Morgana eventually grew out of her angry stage, and began discussing the issues from a healthier pov, such as how you can be an ally, etc. She also started doing a lot more comedy sketches, all written and directed by herself. Some of them just have her in it as multiple people, others have her and Gwen or other guest stars. Some of them are just sketches about funny moments in her life, but most are original content, such as “Smart Shakespeare in Five Minutes” where she acts out a sketch of Shakespeare’s plays where everything goes very differently, usually based on one character making a smarter decision. Arthur [KingCamelot] started doing youtube in his final year of boarding school, and for the first year or so he and Morgana both tried to hide the fact that they were doing youtube from each other, until one day Morgana stumbled across his channel after it was recommended after one of Gwen’s videos. This was over summer break and the result was her barging in during one of his vlogs, and the entire (loud and hilarious) conversation was caught on film. Arthur later uploaded it to youtube, and neither will admit it is one of their favourite videos. Arthur kept it in a vlog style during uni, sharing his thoughts on current events, challenge videos, his favourite books and tv shows, his daily life and his struggle with uni/the business degree his father wanted him to get. He ended up switching to film editing sophomore year after Morgana, Leon and other youtuber friends supported his ideas. While it made things rockier with his father, Arthur was much happier. Videos became much more frequently after that, and Arthur began to guest star in his friends videos as well. Arthur became a big name on youtube almost instantly, largely because of his good lucks and his notoriety as the son of a famous parliament member, but remained a big name through his own merit. About midway through his time at uni Arthur began to post videos about insightful topics about things that suggested he was starting to see the world a bit differently. After he graduated about 4 years ago, it started to turn into full blown advocacy and outreach videos raising awareness for social change. Of course, Arthur didn’t get to that point by himself. Enter Merlin, stage right. Merlin [MerlinTrixx] started youtube HIS final year of public schooling, about two years after Arthur. He started with just short simple vlogs and magic tricks that even professional magicians couldn’t figure out. He followed Gwen and Morgana and saw Arthur a few times in their videos or recommended suggestions. After picking up on Arthur’s rather one sided view of how wealth and poverty work he called him out on it in a private message. Arthur did NOT take it well. There began a video war where both boys passive aggressively mentioned the other. Before it got to far, however, they accidentally ended up meeting at a youtube convention. (Arthur was there to speak on a panel, Merlin went to learn editing tips). The recognized each other and ended up talking for the remaining two days of the convention and became fast friends. Gwen, who had known Merlin through uni for about a year now, had had no idea that Arthur and Merlin had been complaining to her for the past few months about each other and was ready to knock sense into both of them when she found out. After becoming friends, Arthur and Merlin began showing up in each other’s videos more. Merlin, who hated his roommates, began hanging around more at Arthur and Leon’s flat (they went to a different uni in the same city, but had moved off campus) instead of Gwen’s as much. By the end of sophomore year, Merlin had gained a decent number of followers and his channel consisted of vlogs, his magic tricks, him and Arthur hanging out and being weird, and sharing his vast and unparalled knowledge of all things fantasy and nerdy. He, Leon and Gwen get into the longest discussions when they do reviews together. Merlin takes some time off of school, still unsure what he wants to do beside youtube, and moves in with Arthur to split the rent. The videos continue in earnest, and views/followers for both boys continue to grow as they feed off of one another, make more compilation videos, and add more content. After a couple of years, more than half their followers are wondering if they are more than just flatmates, but they are keeping quiet on the matter. The both still have their own channel, which they update frequently, but they also have a shared channel where they do reviews of shows they both like, ask/challenge requests, gaming videos, a few prank videos - they got into a prank way with Percy, Elyan and Gwaine once. Morgana and Gwen somehow won. They also do a deep discussion on Arthurian legend and other mythos, in comedic style. They are known as the “Avalon Nine” - a nickname given to them by the internet after they learned they all knew each other and they frequently appear in each others videos now that they all live in the same city. Morgana and Gwen had met in boarding school, and are currently living together after Morgana moved back after Uni until Lancelot finally asks Gwen to marry him, which Morgana suspects will happen soon. Gwen met Merlin at their uni, the same city that Arthur and Leon were going to uni in. Arthur already knew Gwen through Morgana and they had hung out fairly often, which only increased after they both befriended Merlin. Merlin and Gwen both met Lancelot separately at youtube conventions, and thought it hilarious the day they found out they both knew him. Lancelot moved to the city after graduating uni. Elyan met everyone through Gwen and Morgana met everyone through Gwen and Arthur. Gwaine met Merlin at a convention and later Merlin recognized him auditing his film class for “free editing tips/ideas.” They became fast friends and Gwaine spent a few nights in Merlin’s dorm when his water or heat wouldn’t work. He moves in with Elyan when he comes back from his gap years. Lancelot and Percival, who knew each other prior to the rest of the group, lived with each other for a while before the landlord sold the building. Lance moved to a single while Percival moved in with Elyan and Gwaine. There have been a series of “who knows you better” challanges and games throughout the group, including ones based off of dating games, best friend games, and family games. Merlin and Arthur have won them ALL. Even against Lancelot and Gwen that one time. Leon shared in one of his videos that Arthur and Merlin are also banned from teaming up in charades, pictonary and catch phrase in the gaming videos because they are undefeatable and possible psychic. Bonus: Mordred is obviously much younger than the others (just now starting Uni while the others are in their mid to late twenties). So he grew up watching a lot of their earlier stuff and he just idolizes them. He somehow managed to befriend them through social media/convenstions and is a bit surprised he is actually on first name basis with these amazing, talented (giant dorks). He appears in their videos sometimes but is hesitant to upload anything on his own channel for a long time, since it is harder to get started on youtube now than it was for his older friends. After some encouragement he uploads a few, and the whole group advertises him since they all kind of adore him, he’s like a little brother. Unlike the others though, Mordred doesn’t vlog or do video games or reviews or anything. Oh no. His videos are all freestyle rapping/spoken word poetry. About whatever catches his fancy. The weirdest thing is they’re GOOD. Its at such odds with his personality but it is what it is. Gwaine has started a betting pool on when Mordred reaches 1,000 subscribers. Cenred is a little asshole who does mean/staged prank videos and blogs full of sexist and racist remarks on youtube. The group hates him, half of youtube boy cots him and he has had several scandals. Elena is a youtube they all know and are friendly with, but because she lives in Scotland they aren’t as close. She does a lot of gaming videos, embarrassing stories from her life, and videos about her horse. Morgause is a powerful admin/part owner of youtube and constantly makes decisions that hurt most independent and creative youtubers. At one point she tried to flag coming out videos or videos with content/opinions she didn’t agree with. She also pressures them to do advertising and tampers with the recommended and trending list. The group pushes back against these regulations, and it turns into an all out war, where Gwaine, Merlin and Arthur are all nearly banned from youtube before Morguase is fired.

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epchapman89 · 7 years

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Amsterdam’s Fresh Crop Of Micro-Roasters

Roasting is no new business to the Netherlands. Corporate narratives of the country’s coffee behemoths—Douwe Egberts, Simon Lévelt, to name a couple—take pride in their centuries-long practice of the process. As a child in the 1920s, Alfred Peet, founder of Peet’s Coffee, learned about the trade when his father would cup at the kitchen table using samples from his roasting shop in Alkmaar. Heck, the first Starbucks roasting plant to open outside the United States in 2002 was in Amsterdam’s harbor.

What is new in the Netherlands, however, is a flourishing of specialty coffee micro-roasters. Many are run by veteran industry professionals who double as baristas and business owners. Sprudge has already reported on Sweet Cup, Back to Black, and White Label Coffee, all independent cafes and roasters in Amsterdam. Now, the time is ripe to check out three more such concerns—it’s 2017 and a golden age of micro-roasters is dawning on the Dutch capital.

Friedhats

The world has many a nice package, but on a shelf, Friedhats really stands out. It is a 250-gram brown PET plastic bottle that you could easily mistake for a jar of Vitamin C tablets, if it weren’t for that unmissable company mascot. Created by illustrator Ivo Janss, the psychedelic cartoon simultaneously channels Goofy and Henry Rollins, making what first appears to be a sign of the horns but, on second glance, could well be “I love you” in sign language.

Opened in November 2016, Friedhats is the city’s newest notable micro-roaster. Its co-owners, however, are old hands at coffee. Lex Wenneker is most widely known as the 2015 and 2016 Dutch Barista Champion, who last year placed sixth at the World Barista Championship, though he is most locally endeared for Headfirst Coffee Roasters, the Amsterdam cafe and roaster he co-founded in 2013 and co-ran until its 2015 closure. Dylan Sedgwick, a New Zealander with coffee industry jobs in Australia and London on his resume, got to know Wenneker while a barista and occasional roaster at Headfirst.

At Friedhats’ HQ, a garage in Amsterdam West, Wenneker can be found standing intensely over their Giesen W6, removing unpleasing bits from the batch with the kind of hand-eye coordination needed to win at whack-a-mole. Next to him, under the glitz of a mirror ball, Sedgwick adheres labels to bottles with the efficiency and precision Fordist dreams are made of.

The bottles are already a fixture at Amsterdam cafes, such as CT Coffee & Coconuts and Monks, and are being shipped for private retail as far away as Russia and China.

Yet, the duo readily acknowledge having to rebuild a clientele. “We lost all of our customers when Headfirst closed down, so we’re still starting up again,” Wenneker says.

Lex Wenneker and Dylan Sedgwick

Their sourcing has been intentionally limited in geography—the current focus is on Brazil, Colombia, and Kenya—but unrestricted when it comes to coffee varieties. “It’s just interesting to see what the different varieties do to the flavor,” explains Wenneker. “There was not that much variety in the variety section, but now you see more and more farmers that offer single varieties as well as importers that do that.” A recent exercise has been comparing as many Pacamaras from as many countries as possible.

A boom seems inevitable for Friedhats. Yet, it will force the pair to keep walking a tightrope between, as Sedgwick puts it, “communicating your own vision and being accessible at the same time.” In that sense, the dual reading of their mascot’s hand gesture—rawk on! vs. unspoken love—seems fitting.

FriedHats is located at Balboastraat 29BG. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Rum Baba

For all of Friedhats’ reference to headwear, Rum Baba actually has its own brand of beanies. Business and life partners Jeroen Keizer and Lusan Drost run the company, which includes a three-year-old trusty neighborhood cafe and, as of spring 2016, a second location devoted to roasting and baking. The couple has long been holding down the specialty coffee fort in Oost—that’s Dutch for “east” and what locals call this largely residential part of town, which is additionally home to Coffee Bru, a five-year-old cafe they co-own with two other partners.

But roasting is not entirely new for Rum Baba. Keizer explains that a whole year before their Probatone 12 had its own spot, he had to roast on “a big Loring” at CoffeeXperts, a private label roaster in Enkhuizen. Now, though, with a venue mere steps from their flagship cafe, regulars can come in for a quick pick-me-up—the few seats are barstools—or a quick pickup of provisions. Besides packaged coffees, this is where Rum Baba sells its famous baked goods in quantity, eponymous pastry included. “It’s a classic, it’s almost like sort of a cult cake,” says Keizer, of the rum baba, a rare syrup-soaked find in the Netherlands. And as for any recommended pairing, “I wouldn’t say a fruity coffee but more chocolatey,” he offers.

Asked how Rum Baba differs from other roasters, Keizer replies: “I think we all would say that we roast towards the origin, that we want to get the origin characteristics, but for me it’s that full flavor—we call it ‘body.’ I think that’s an important component. It’s not just bright acidity, but it must be good balance.”

Since two of his staff have also started roasting, Keizer has more time to work on new projects. So far, Rum Baba’s output has been exclusively single-origin coffees, but they are now ready to explore blends. Another future goal is to expand their resale channels. One remarkable client so far is the upscale Dutch department store De Bijenkorf, seven branches of which have begun selling the coffee.

That Rum Baba shares retail space with Nespresso, Illy, et al. might be unexpected, the sleek bags patterned with Scandinavian geometry in a Miami Vice palette appeal to a very now aesthetic. They are the vision of Dorst, whose background is graphic design. “I think we are handmade-[looking] enough,” notes Keizer, referring to the raw wood and burlap decor that surrounds him. So when it comes to packaging, “we like to express ourselves in a bright way.”

Rum Baba’s roastery is located at Pretoriusstraat 15. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Stooker Roasting Company

If Rum Baba expresses itself in pastel-toned fancy, Stooker Roasting Company communicates with bi-chrome boldness. Its signature color, a Vermeer-esque ultramarine, lends gravitas to the brand—not that it ever lacked any. From the day in March 2015 that Stooker opened, co-founders Florian Hessel and Onno van Zanten set themselves apart. They are unique among Amsterdam specialty coffee professionals, having left posts at a highly respected cafe and roaster (both were at Lot Sixty One) not to start their own espresso bar, but rather to concentrate on roasting and training.

The Stooker Coffee Academy is one of the few Amsterdam locales to offer Specialty Coffee Association certification courses, and its associated studiousness has a halo effect on Stooker’s look and feel. Sans serif type identifies each coffee bag, whereon details, such as elevation and producer, are specified. The collection is numbered one through seven, each category encompassing a general roast profile.

Yoeri Joosten

Last year’s arrival of Yoeri Joosten, moreover, gave Stooker’s Giesen W15 a trinity of talent to take care of it. Joosten was the Dutch Cup Tasters Champion in 2013, 2014, and 2015—then ranking third in the World Cup Tasters Championship. Though not born with cupping spoon in hand, he grew up in Baarn, where Boot Koffie began in 1973 (decades before Willem Boot left for the US) and where at age 18, Joosten started as a dishwasher and eventually became a quality manager and a green buyer.

The Boot tenure seems to have made him precociously wise and pragmatic. Of Stooker’s sourcing, Joosten explains: “We work with importers that we trust, that we know pay good prices and are very involved in countries of origin. And I think because of our scale—our operation is very small—we have to look for partners in that way as opposed to bigger companies, they have more access to direct trade programs.” He continues: “It’s kind of hard to create value for the farmer really if you’re only going to say ‘I want these five bags,’ and the farmer has 500 bags, and maybe you even take all the best bags.” So a direct-line trade is something to try pursuing in the future, “but when we can afford to buy some more” and “really be of certain meaning to those people.”

Nowadays, 95% of Stooker’s sales are business-to-business. The label seems popular among spots that appeal to international visitors, such as design mecca Droog, Generator hostel, and music-themed hotel Jaz in the City. Like Stooker, they are all slightly off the beaten path but have their finger on the discerning consumer’s pulse.

Stooker Roasting Company is located at Kastanjeplein 2. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge

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