#all in a nights work

[wunderflammer]

So, a few nights ago I worked a last minute stage management gig at an invite-only event with a few thousand people in attendance. I met the most singular stage invader I've ever had to deal with. Story under the cut.

So, to start, I'm a musician. I've been dealing with stage invaders for years, whether at my own gigs (from the punk rock dive bar years all the way up to current day) or hosting other events. It's always a stressful experience and the stage invader is usually drunk/belligerent.

So, Thursday night's event in detail:

I'm standing sidestage while the last DJ plays. There's about an hour left until close. All the sudden, a woman climbs up the front of the stage (only about 2.5/3ft high) in her dress and heels. She does so with shocking ease.

She looks to be in her late 20s/early 30s. She has a plastic cup of wine in one hand. She makes a beeline for the DJ booth and starts TALKING WITH THE DJ WHILE HE'S SPINNING. I immediately spring into action and run up to rectify this because WTF IS GOING ON. It's all happened in the blink of an eye.

She is coherent but definitely a bit drunk. She has zero concept that she shouldn't be standing on stage behind the DJ booth during a live set at a private event. Drunk people are similar to toddlers in that: they are SO surprisingly fast for being kind of uncoordinated and you also can't exactly reason with them. So I gently take her by the hand and we have this convo. Everything is yelled over the loud house music.

Me: hi there, can you come with me?

Her, attempting to take a selfie with the DJ: why?

[She motions for me to get into the selfie. I do not.]

Me: he's actively working and you're not supposed to be up here.

[She looks at me with genuine confusion, as though I've just dropped out of the sky. She puts her phone back into her clutch.]

Me: it's not safe to have you on stage with all the cables and wires, and you don't have a VIP wristband.

[Obviously there's more to it than that, but we are doing some gentle parenting at this point. She seems receptive and cooperative. There's no security or staff around to help me. The name of the game is safe de-escalation at this point.]

Her, raising her hand to show me a chewed up wristband from some other event: ???

Me: I'm so sorry, that's not for this event.

[She nods gravely and takes my hand, allowing me to guide her away from the DJ booth. When we get to the edge of the stage, she puts on the parking brake, as it were. I'm attempting to cajole her down the two tall stairs to ground level. Her expression changes.]

Her, alarmed: oh my god, am I in trouble?

Me: no, I've just got to get you back into the crowd. You can't come back up here, okay?

Her, almost tearful all the sudden: I'm REALLY SORRY-

[She nearly eats shit trying to step off the stage with both feet, clearly thinking it's a much shorter drop. Full newborn baby giraffe legs. I pull her back, absolutely terrified she's going to hurt herself.]

Me, so stressed but trying to play it cool: hey! It's all good. Calm down. Cmon, let's go down these steps together. One at a time. I'll help you.

[We make it down to sidestage ground level and I'm opening up the stanchion rope so she can go back into general population. She puts on the parking brake again, still holding my hand.]

Her, seriously: I'm really sorry. I didn't know I couldn't be up there.

[At this point, she feels guilty. I'm not going to pile on.]

Me: Just don't do it again, okay? Do you have any friends here?

[She nods and points to a small group in the front. They're looking for her. We're obscured by a huge tower of speakers.]

Me: okay. Let's get you back with your friends. Can you stay with them the rest of the night?

[She suddenly hugs me very tightly. I'm completely caught off-guard.]

Her: I just wanna tell you, I didn't drive. We all got an uber. I'm gonna be SO safe, okay?

Me, genuinely relieved: thank you for telling me. I'm really glad.

[When she lets go, I manage to grab the attention of her friend group and wave them toward us.]

Me: will you go get some water? That whole bar right there is only sparkling water.

[She nods as she sees her friends, finally stepping out from behind the security rope so I can close the area off again. She is still holding my hand.]

Her, with the seriousness of a knight of old committing to a blood oath, leveling my gaze: thank you for being nice to me.

Me, solemnly matching her energy: thank you for cooperating. Please get home safe.

Her, turning her attention to her friends, immediate girlypop energy taking over: girlies, I need WATER!

[She lets go of my hand and off she goes, practically jogging in her heels, teeny tiny rhinestone clutch in tow. The DJ, who never faltered, and I exchange bewildered looks. The head sound engineer looks at me from the booth mouthing "what the FUCK?!" I shrug back at her. It's all in a night's work, after all.]

* * *

10/10 wild interaction.

It was nice to not have a violent or resistant stage invader on my hands. She was cooperative and her friends took care of her. I'm so glad she was not there alone. Definitely better than my incident at this same event last year, in which I had to dispose of a bag of suspicious white powder dropped outside the VIP area.

I managed to get a couple security guards up by the stage as a preemptive measure in case anyone else got any ideas. One breach per event is already too many. The rest of the night went off without a hitch, thank goodness. Currently formulating my thoughts for the eventual event debrief. Just wanted to write this out while it was fresh.

All in a night's work, right?

[everythingmcu]

Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine in ‘ALL IN A NIGHTS WORK’ (1961)

They both look so pretty AHHHHH😍

[crowkip]

yeehaw, baby!

[ardri-na-bpiteog]

Also increasingly aware that a LOT of people "manage" getting through the 40+ hour work week by sleeping less than is healthy and relying on stimulants like coffee and energy drinks to keep them going.

For people who are unwilling or unable to do this...work really does just dominate your life. Like we really should not have to rely on unhealthy practices just to have a social life or keep on top of housework or whatever.

I know I post about this a lot but I'm so TIRED all the time and it's just so depressing that this is how we're expected to spend the one life we have.

[blueflipflops]

Have you ever read a really good fic then looked up the author's other works and lo and behold a treasure trove of fics that are exactly your kind of shit? Because god that is what euphoria feels like. I love you random fic writers i unexpectedly find

[chloesimaginationthings]

New Patreon tier art now FNAF themed,,

[birdy-babe]

Ok but fr

Blitz literally got into a world shattering breakup with the love of his life his situationship

And this man literally

went home

thought to himself "Hmmm... how do I fix this"

And his solution was:

"ur gay" memes

He thought. He really thought- truly believed-

[hinamie]

*catboys ur shounen protag*

[spicyraeman]

Crawling back to my comfort characters cuz my brain is on fire

[rosecoloredtarot]

Personally I've never been a fan of the "magic is a beast that needs to be tamed" metaphor. Magic is more like the ocean: powerful, terrifying, capable of unbridled force. But at the same time, it is gentle, warm, the lifeblood of millions of people. The folk who know the ocean know you cannot harness it's force, you must work within or around it, lest it destroy you. Similarly, magic is great and terrible and gentle and kind, all at once. And those who work with it need to work WITH it, not reign over it. Because the primordial forces have no rules about biting the hand that feeds you.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[berenshand]

one of my favourite little things about the murderbot diaries is how present all secunit's friends are even if they're not actually physically present. it doesn't do the annoying thing where it jumps through hoops to bring back characters that aren't really relevant to the narrative but it also doesn't do the other annoying thing where it pretends they never existed either. like secunit talks about art and mensah all the time even when art or mensah aren't in the book. it's clear how bharadwaj has impacted its personal growth even when she's literally on another planet. it complains about gurathin and pin-lee when they're not there. it's still sad about miki and don abene and it mentions tapan and maro and rami even though it only knew them for a few days (because when you're new at being a person every interaction with other people is important even if it's short). iris reminds it of mensah. iris also reminds it of ratthi. its hair is fluffy bc it let amena play hairdresser off-screen and it messages her so she knows it's okay. it doesn't have to worry about protecting volescu anymore because volescu retired thank goodness. it's still using thiago's language module. etc etc etc

it's such good writing because it's such a little thing that gives the characterization and relationships greater depth and also reinforces the running theme of friendship in the series and then also subtly gives this sense of 'the people you love are a part of you/your story' and also reinforces secunit's role as a storyteller because it's constantly telling little stories about all its friends.

[cuntylestat]

[lestat voice] siri play wuthering heights by kate bush from my louis playlist on spotify

(youtube)

[thanksforcalling-itsizzy]

Woke up to see the notification that I have six (6) new porn bot followers

[schreibfederlaerm]

it's just really funny to me to imagine Fabian actually being a great big brother honorable nemesis.

like, putting a nemesis ward on the nursery with aelwyn's help since "it won't do if they die before their eighteenth birthday, will it?" (aelwyn, deeply sarcastic: "well of course, that is exactly why I put the ward on adaine's room." fabian, too deep in denial for sarcasm: "see? you get it")

gifting them a battle sheet baby blanket since they should start preparing for their battle early on (and yes it's extra fluffy, it's for a baby stop laughing everybody)

generally trying to teach them everything he knows "so their battle to the death will be a fair one"

giving their adventuring party the same lecture on tactics that the bad kids got from his papa

hunting down chungledown bim and any other nemesis so his sibling is the only one who could get a piece of his fund (he just wants it to stay in the family, shut up)

just. fabian being an amazing big brother but also if you call him that to his face he will cut you

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A procession of confessions.

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