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donaidk · 4 years ago

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George Russell - We Don’t Have To Dance I.

In January I made a half ready au for something really outside Formula racing. Back then I was watching quite a bit of rally races before starting the F1 season off. Now I rewrote it as a George oneshot - which won’t stay a ONEshot - and finished it up. Sadly, this won’t be dripping from fluff just yet. Maybe there’s a chance for a happy end, but I didn’t decide on it yet 😂 Hope everyone will like it 🧡 (I accidentally deleted the previous post, so I’m just reposting it now again🤦‍♀️)

TW: car crash, injuries (not explicit but still, be careful) Title song is by Andy Black

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" Welcome, everyone. Today will be quite a busy lobby as we have lots of people playing with us today. " He started his usual intro by describing what they will be doing. People were still arriving, but they had time until the first game would start.

Luckily streams like these were only chaotic in a funny way, making everything hilarious and ten times better. Just as the first notifications started coming in, he had to make sure the race's stream was still visible next to the other page. Then he could finally look at the incoming messages while they were waiting for the others to get ready. The first question made George realise he missed out important info from his intro.

" Hana isn't playing with us today. I almost forgot to tell you guys. I'm sorry in advance, but I will be quite distracted today. She is racing today, and the stream is open on my other screen. " He let out a laugh, already anticipating all the emojis and dripping comments about him and Johanna. " I usually put my off-days around her racing days, but it's a tournament, and I would have missed the whole week if I followed my usual plan for days like this. " He added, so they understood why today is like this. He had just a few streaming days planned every week during their off season, which always collided with Hana’s rally season, but luckily he could always play around with the schedule.

He hated not fully being there for his viewers, but at the same time, he wanted to support his girlfriend even when he couldn't travel there with her. Sometimes he could travel with her during his off-season but usually his training held George back, as he couldn’t miss them. It was the second-best way to get all the info of her racing in just seconds after the real events. Sadly the stream wasn't just about her, but as someone with a known name in the group, fortunately, they were showing her car quite frequently. By the time they went live, she already started and was on the first third of the track, completing that part in the perfect time, as she usually does. For a second, he just stared at the other screen as they were showing their inside cam but then had to focus back as they were starting the round in their game.

Luckily he manages the multitasking, mostly focusing on their game and trying to win, while catching every second they were showing Hana's car or maybe talking about her and how they're doing. He maybe lost a round because of an announcement about her time, but one game won't kill anyone, will it? In the first break, he retweeted a clip that was shared of her speeding down a straight, making him feel proud inside as they were saying no one has a chance against her. It always felt unreal how good she was in her category and how well they always talked about her. It was something that made him feel strangely proud, even though he had nothing to do with her skills. Everything she achieved was hers and no one else's, no matter what the haters would say. Her formula racing career may have ended early, but George was quite sure that she felt a lot more comfortable in the world of rally. After the first few bumps in the road, Hana found her place and style, getting her car onto the top half of the leaderboard every race.

The moment they start another round is when he hears the panicked voices in his headset, although lower than anything else. As soon as he looks at the stream, he sees the playback of a light blue car slipping on the road and flipping up in the air before hitting the ground with full force and starting to flip through the field until it finally comes to a stop as it hits a tree with Hana's door, the car staying on its roof. He waits for a second, hoping they will play the inside cam but as they don't include it, he knows there's probably a lot more to the crash than just a broken car. There are unmissable flames on the underside, but they switch to another driver just before he can see the marshalls getting to them and probably trying to get the team out before the fire consumes the frame of the vehicle and everything else inside of it.

" Fuck... " He doesn't even care about his own stream anymore, getting up and closing everything. As soon as the computer starts shutting off, he shoots out of the room. His phone in his hand already as there is an incoming call from Martha, his girlfriend's mother. " I just saw it, what's going on? " He spoke rushed, wanting to know everything that was said to them.

" They won't show anything, but the boss said they got them out just before it went up in flames. She was conscious but fainted as they took them to the ambulance. " Hana's mother was most likely in a full-fledged panic attack, and George could hear that they were packing in the background.

" I will get a ticket as soon as possible. I don't know when I'm getting there. " George sighed while pulling out a duffle bag to fill it with clothes for several days if needed. He didn't know how dangerous her condition was, and how many days they were spending there.

" It's okay. I will send you all the info when we get it finally. They will probably take them to the hospital. I just don't know which one, yet. Fucking hell. " It was the first time George ever heard her curse, but he didn't have the time to be surprised about it. More like it made him even more panicked as he knew the situation is probably worse than he anticipated.

He couldn't even push the phone into his pocket before another call came in from Alex. He knew they were probably puzzled about his disappearance, but he wanted to finish packing before talking to them. When he was in a taxi finally, on the way to the airport, he pulled it out of his jacket and dialled Alex's number.

" Hey, sorry for not answering. I just had to rush out of the house to the airport. Hana had a horrific crash. " He sighed, feeling as his body finally realised what's happening and started to stiffen up from the stress.

" Jesus Christ. Right. Just go, stay safe. I just wanted to ask if everything is okay, but fuck, didn't think it was this bad. " Alex mumbled out, and all the sounds were audible from the background as the others probably heard George's answer.

" She did a pretty high flip. They said she fainted just as they got to safety, so at least she's still alive. I don't think I would be if I have been the one inside. Man, I don't know what will happen. " The sentence was cut off by a choking sound as his throat tightened up at the idea of anything happening to Johanna.

" Hey, George. You know her. You know how fucking tough she is. Today's event won't be the one that stops her. Not even if she's injured. Don't even think about that as a possibility, because it isn't one. " He tried to reassure his friend, although he felt that it was almost useless. Without any real info about her condition, it's all up in the air and unstable. " The most important thing right now is for you to get there in one piece. You won't be of help if you fall apart. Her parents need you there. " He added with a sigh before saying goodbye and putting down the call so George can make the important ones towards Hana's friends and colleagues. It isn't easy but has to be done, as he knows her parents will be on their way to the hospital to be next to her, and won't be able to call everyone.

When he got to the airport, there was a ticket there already, waiting for him to pick up. It was a surprise, but a lovely one, as it saved him some time and stress before getting on the plane and starting his journey to Germany. He was sure he would have missed the first available flight if he had to buy it himself, but Hana's manager had the authority to get it for him in time. He made a note in his head to thank him for it when they met, as it wasn't something he had to do but decided to help George with it. As he had time on his hands, he tried to relax, although all the images in his head didn't let him sleep or anything. It was strange to see everyone so nonchalant about life while he was fearing for someone so much he was on the verge of throwing up the whole time. But he knew they were not horrible people, just that they didn't know what happened. They didn't have to know about everyone else's pain and life events. It was strange but completely normal.

As he knew he wouldn't be able to rest, he opened up his phone and went onto Twitter to see the news. Although there was nothing new on the tournament's page, Hana's team shared that she's on the way to hospital with injuries but nothing life threatening. It should have made him calm down, but as he thought how many small things can turn into huge problems, it didn't help. There were people, probably viewers and subscribers tweeting at him, sharing photos and thoughts with him, hoping Johanna is okay and healthy even though it was a nasty crash. The pictures of the wreck the car became, made all the good news unbelievable as he just couldn't understand how someone could get out of it without any injuries. He knew that her team wouldn't be lying and that they would have called him if there's anything he needs to know, but it was just all too much for his brain. He thought about putting out a tweet so everyone knew what was happening, but decided against it. Everyone knew already as they probably followed Hana's racing account and her team's one. He didn't need to put out everything and he didn't really feel like receiving even more messages than he already did. He knew they just wanted to let him know they were thinking about them, it wasn't good to see all of this 24/7. It was enough that he knew what was happening, he didn't need others to remind him every minute of the coming days.

' She's in theatre now, fractured leg and two broken ribs. They said she will need some days under anaesthesia to fully heal without the stress of the pain she will feel as soon as she wakes up. If everything goes as it should she will be out in an hour or so. We will get you a hotel room by the time you arrive, as our house is hours away from the hospital and I think we all want to be closer now. I'll send you the address of the hospital in a second. ' Came the awaited text from Martha, making him sigh out and save the address as soon as he got it, so he won't forget where he has to go after he arrives in the country. He remembered to send a message to the group, as they were people who deserved to know all the info. They were great friends of Hana and were probably pretty nervous about her state. They deserved to know.

It took him almost 20 hours to finally arrive and be able to get his baggage back. He first went to the hotel so he can put his stuff down before meeting up with Johanna's parents, so they can go to the hospital together. They had two rooms next to each other, so as soon as he had a shower and changed into fresh clothes, he went outside and knocked on their door.

" Hello! Are you okay? " He asked when the door opened, and he could see the worry on Martha's face.

" As much as you can be after something like this. " Martha let out a sigh, hugging George as he stepped closer. " They just called that she responded quite well to the medication. Her operated leg looks good too, although it was quite hard to fix in the surgeon's opinion. " She let go of him so they could leave for the hospital and finally really talk with the doctors that were part of the team caring for her.

" Is Andrew there already? " George asked while Michael locked up their door so they could head to the elevator.

" Yes. Theo wasn’t in need of medical care. Right after he was checked out by the doctor, they let him home. He and Andrew stayed. They wanted her to have someone while we were travelling here. " She nodded, pushing the first button inside, as it would take them down to the reception. " We got our car, so we won't have to call a taxi all the time. " She added, pulling out the keys from her purse, giving them to George as he was deemed the most put together to drive among the three of them.

" He was quite lucky if he's uninjured. " He let out a huff of air, feeling strange that while Hana was hurt, her co-driver walked away perfectly fine and without a scratch. Life took strange turns sometimes.

" Most of the damage was on Johanna's side. He's got a sore neck and back, but that's all. " She sighed, not saying more. She was probably blaming the navigator for her daughter's pain. In a situation like this no one could fault her for wanting someone to take the blame.

As they got down to the garage George opened up the car, and they all got inside. It was a 10 minutes long drive to the hospital and another 5 to find a parking spot not too far away from the entrance. Inside a nurse helped them find her room, but had to leave before they could ask any questions. She probably wouldn't have been able to answer them anyway, as she wasn't on her case. Although, looking at her and the huge cast on her leg answered most of their questions. She was asleep, as she was under anaesthesia to reduce the stress the pain would give her. At this point, George just hoped there wouldn't be any problems when they woke her up finally. They all knew that everything could change in 2-3 days, even though it looked perfect at the moment. Sitting down in the armchair he took out his phone to quickly text everyone, that they're finally at the hospital and in the room. He wanted to tell them more but could only type out that she looks okay, even though she was quite injured. Somehow the peace on her face made him calm down, even though he knew it was only from the drugs they gave her. It was nothing in connection with her being completely okay and perfectly healthy.

“ Family of Miss Braun, right? ” The german words made George turn towards the door, spotting a doctor who was the one taking care of Hana. Although his German wasn’t even close to perfect, he understood the question and nodded in synch with her parents. The following explanation of Johanna’s state was a bit too complicated for his basic knowledge, but George knew someone would eventually translate for him.

It took a minute or two before they told him that everything looked perfect on her charts, considering what her body went through. Although a relieved sigh left his body, everyone knew this wasn’t the end of the story. She will probably need rehabilitation after her leg heals, even if it’s a simple fracture and will heal easily. It didn’t help their worries that she was kept asleep for four days in the end, delaying the process and making them wait even longer before they got to talk to her. George hoped that with Hana awake they could get a bit more feedback for her treatment and also finally start the next part with physiotherapy. The sooner she got up and started moving around the easier it would be to get back to her previous physical fitness level. Everyone knew that laying around in a bed all day long didn’t help with staying fit and healthy.

George was in the middle of a meeting with the Williams engineers, sitting on his hotel bed, when he got the text that they would wake up Hana that day finally. Although he couldn’t just drop everything and leave for the hospital but made sure that their call finished as soon as possible, so he could get going. When he entered the hospital room she already had a bit more lively color but there was no sign of her being back to full consciousness yet. They were still inside the few hour window of the drugs finally working and didn’t really have to fear that something was going wrong. George was just sitting in the armchair next to the bed, legs pulled up and his fingers scrolling away on his phone while Hana’s mum was out for a coffee. Her dad couldn’t take off more time from work, but he was fine with the two of them looking after his daughter until he could visit in the late afternoons. The half-an-hour-checkups were slowly driving George crazy as the nurses never had answers, just took the data from the little screens and left with an understanding smile. It must have been between the 10th and 11th visit when they finally spotted a few movements, but it took another hour for her to finally open her eyes.

From the moment that she moved her arm for the first time George couldn’t get himself to sit back into the chair, rather opting for a walk down the hallway and then circling the room several times. Martha could only watch him pace but knew there weren’t any words that could help him calm down. They both knew they were finally getting closer to getting her back as much as they could in this moment of time, and it was nerve wracking to not have an exact time limit for it. It wasn’t surprising that he was the first one stepping next to hana’s bed when her eyes finally opened, with her mum arriving second. There were almost immediately several nurses and of course her main doctor stepping into the room, after being called through the installed button. While they tried not to overwhelm her they still had to run a few tests and George’s stomach turned at how scared Hana looked, before settling down at her mum’s gentle touch on her hand. They took their sweet time examining every little corner of her body and asking questions about her pain levels and just general state, leaving all of them tired from the stress and concentration when they finally finished everything up. There was only one nurse staying back to get some medication ready for Hana, when she could finally take a breather and look around the room. Seconds later her eyes finally reached George, and there was an evident smile getting onto her face.

“ Hello. ” Her voice was almost like music to his ears, after so many days of not being able to hear it, and George couldn’t help the relieved sigh that left his body.

“ Welcome back! ” He smiled down at her, squeezing her hand on the bed gently. He was still scared to use full force, after seeing how fragile the human body was actually. These were the few moments that made you realise you have no superpowers and that you’re not indestructible.

#george russell #george russell fanfiction #george russell fanfic #george russell ff #george russell oneshot #george russell imagine #george #russell #f1 #formula 1 #f1 fanfiction #f1 fanfic #f1 ff #f1 imagine #f1 oneshot #bydonaidk #not requested

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navellera · 6 years ago

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space cadet

stranger things! au: except there’s nothing to do with stranger things other than it’s in the 80s and they play dungeons and dragons. basically an excuse to write a fluffy 80s chanyeol who’s head is in the clouds 98% of the time. pure fluff

wordcount: 6k

note: i’m sorry for not uploaded in so long, i’ve had a lot of stuff to do with starting uni etc, hopefully i can write a lot more now though, i’ve got a lot of ideas!

You remembered that night like it was yesterday. The cold air brushing against your flushed cheeks as you snuck away from the group of kids you were supposed to be playing with. They were just sitting down on the grass talking about nonsense you didn't care about. You wanted something else, like an adventure, though perhaps not the physical kind - you were worn out from your gym class at school.

You just kept walking, down the street of houses you had never gone in and never would. Further away from your house and the group your parents had pushed you to sit with. It was when you reached the end of the road when you heard it: gleeful shouts and the mechanical sound of pedals on a bike being turned incredibly quickly. Probably too quickly.

"Hey! Chanyeol look out!" A shout from further away met your ears and you turned just in time to dodge the bicycle skidding in your direction, the boy riding it frantically trying to stop with wide eyes.

The boy's bike tilted when he swerved and he, unfortunately, hit the ground with a large crash, a gasp escaping your mouth as you rushed over to see if he was alright. The two other boys reached their fallen friend and you, one of them trying desperately to hold in his giggles.

"Baekhyun I know you want to laugh." The boy on the floor, Chanyeol you presumed his name was, groaned as he sat up under his bike. "Just go ahead."

The boy who had been trying to restrain his amusement let go, a bubbling laughter escaping him as he slapped his knees. You, however, kept your eyes on Chanyeol, who was wincing as he tried to push the bike off him.

Deciding to help since it was slightly your fault that he was now lying on the floor with his bike on top of him, you pulled on the handlebars to lift it up, the bike being heavier than expected, but the third boy, the one who wasn't Baekhyun, helped hold it up too.

Chanyeol got up, his eyes finally landed on you, a sheepish grin on his face. "Sorry, I am a good rider I promise."

You smiled at his words. "Are you alright?"

Chanyeol simply shot you a wide grin, unusual for a boy who had been flat on his back under a bike five seconds earlier, but you let that slide. He then picked up his bike from where his friend had left it on the floor. "I'm Chanyeol by the way, that's Baekhyun and this is Jongdae."

The two other boys he'd introduced beamed and waved at you. Already they seemed a lot more enjoyable than the kids you were with just five minutes earlier. You then realised you hadn't introduced yourself, so you did, telling them your name eagerly.

"What are you doing on your own then?" Baekhyun asked, a baby-like pout on his face.

"I-"

"She can come play with us!"

"Chanyeol," Jongdae whined, frowning at his taller friend. "You said we were going to play dungeons and dragons. Girls don't like that."

"Hey! Why don't we ask her if she likes it or not?" Chanyeol fired back, a determined look on his happy face. "Do you like dungeons and dragons?"

"Yes!" Your excitement was clear in your voice, noticing the proud grin that landed on Chanyeol's face as he heard your answer.

"See! Let's go play now." He said, nodding over to the direction he'd been heading to on his bike. "Your parents would be okay with that right?"

"I'm fifteen, I don't think they'd mind." You replied with a shrug, watching as Chanyeol climbed onto his bike. "Besides, they're out for the night."

"Ugh," Jongdae whined. "She can come but I don't wanna be dungeon master again, you both complained last time."

"Oh Jongdae, you were awful, talk about bad storytelling." Baekhyun retorted, nudging the other boy as he climbed onto his bike.

Chanyeol turned to you with a contagious grin before motioning to the back of his bike; as a message for you to climb on. You looked at him rather dubiously, eyebrows raised as a challenge. After all, the last time you saw him on a bike, he'd ended up on the floor. Thus, you weren't sure how you being on the back of it would help him regain any strength. But, Chanyeol just smiled and motioned for you to get on.

"It'll be fine. I'll catch you."

And with his chaste words, you climbed on and didn't look back.

Now you were back. On that very street, you met that gaggle of young boys who had somehow managed to ingrain themselves into your brain. You'd left town just a couple of months later in aid of your father's job, the thought of Chanyeol's airy smile haunting your brain. You thought you could have become good friends with those boys, but your family life had made it difficult to keep in contact.

Now you were back and a small part of you wondered what they would be doing now, just after finishing high school. Would they be back from college? Would they have a job? Somehow you couldn't picture it, especially Chanyeol. His head was too far up in space for him to have an office job. You pictured him in an amusement park or even an elementary school; his grin working well with the young children.

You craved something special too. Some part of you wanted to go into game creating but you knew how difficult that would be, especially with the competitiveness of that market recently. This decade had been the burst of arcade games; you adored them and wanted your own input. Hopefully, you could find a part-time job while you worked on your own thing for a while.

This small town could allow you the freedom you needed to do that.

"Do you want to take a walk around?" Your mother asked, her voice cutting through the air as you jolted out of your thoughts swiftly. She was basically telling you to get out of the way. "The moving men are going to start bringing in the boxes. I heard there's an arcade around here."

This immediately peaked your interest. "Oh? Is it close?"

Your mother placed her hand on the kitchen counter, her gaze pointed as she nodded towards the door. "I wouldn't have suggested it if it wasn't. Get out and have some fun before we force you to unpack everything later."

She gave you a smile before flicking her hand in a shooing motion, eager to get you out of the house. Which, you were quick to do, grabbing your Bowie tote bag from the arm of the sofa: you needed money if you were going to spend the afternoon at the arcade.

Your walk to the arcade was short, it was nearby like your mother had said, and the bright sun was soft and warm with the mid-spring wind brushing against your face and hair as you headed towards the town centre.

The arcade was next to the cinema: Robocop was on at 7pm today. Your gaze brushed over the cinema and landed on the smaller building next to it. The doors to get in were large and glass, framed with blue and red. Lights from the games were visible through the translucent windows and a bubble of excitement flooded through you. Your eyes looked to the name over the top of the doors. Space Cadets may become your new favourite place in this small town.

Taking in a deep breath, you pushed open the door, faith that new George Michael song echoed through the air, the sound of Pacman acting as an extra bass. A wide grin spread over your face as you took in the masses of games, your feet taking you straight over to the Defender station, one of your all-time favourites.

Surprisingly, the arcade itself was less busy than you'd expected, clumps of friends hovering around popular games like Space Invaders, Sonic the Hedgehog or Donkey Kong. You figured it would get busier as the afternoon progressed, though the town wasn't too big so you couldn't picture too many people finding themselves here, especially on a Thursday afternoon.

Grabbing your coin purse from your bag, you fished through for the required amount before slotting it into the machine, tingles rushing through you as you placed your hands on the controls.

You'd finished a few levels, your knack of the game flooding back to you when you felt a presence behind you. Brushing it off as someone waiting to play the game, you ignored it and carried on playing. You wanted to get as high a score as possible.

"Wow, you're good." A voice cuts into your focus and you groaned as you pressed down too slowly, allowing an alien to hit your spaceship. "Oh. Sorry."

You span around, a frown on your face. "You don't sound sorry."

The boy in front of you was grinning wildly, a striking black and red mullet framing his arrogantly handsome face. But his good looks were not what you were thinking about at this moment, he'd just distracted you and you were about to beat the game's high score.

"You're right I'm not sorry." The boy pointed at the leaderboard, at the top name: ByunKing. The name you'd almost stolen the title from. "I can't have you beating my record, it took me a month to get that. I don't want a newbie coming in and taking that from me."

You raised your eyebrows in a challenge. "Well, maybe you should get practicing. You can't distract me every time I get close can you?"

The boy just smiled, unphased by your retort and holding out his hand as a greeting.

"I'm Baekhyun, nice to meet you," Why did that name sound familiar? His smile grew wider as you shook his hand hesitantly and told him your name.

"I used to know someone with that name. My friend used to have the biggest crush on her, understandable she was a-"

"Baekhyun, what are you doing? You can't pick up any girls with that haircut, so why try?"

"I'm not chatting her up Jongdae, I was watching her play." Baekhyun whined at the new boy, a cat-like grin curled onto his lips. Baekhyun and Jongdae? Surely it wasn't them. You would have recognised them earlier if it was.

"Watching me play?" You scoffed. "More like sabotaging me because you don't wanna be beaten by a girl."

Jongdae let out a loud laugh at your words, immediately smiling at you as an act of gratitude for insulting his friend. They both had a familiar air around them and you couldn't help but wonder if they were those young boys you'd met almost seven years ago.

"You weren't going to beat me." Baekhyun frowned and huffed, his bottom lip poking out in exasperation.

"You should keep telling yourself that, Baek, it might help you sleep better at night and I won't be getting phone calls at 2am because you spilt coffee over your pillow."

Jongdae's retort had caused an amused smile to fall onto your lips and you watched them both argue with a friendly banter, throwing insults back and forth, rather loudly. It almost made up for the fact Baekhyun had ruined your gameplay. Almost.

"Shut up Jongdae- that happened once. Besides, wasn't it your idea to put salt in it in the first place?-"

Jongdae wasn't given the chance to answer because a large figure came into view, his long body leaning against the arcade machine.

"Baekhyun, we both know it was you who wanted a cake that reminded you of the ocean." A deep voice vibrated through the air, causing the three of us to look at the large figure standing by the machine. "Nobody made you change the recipe."

His face was divinely structured, large eyes, smooth skin and a splash of youth as his lips curled into a mocking and smug grin. There was something familiar about the curve of his lips, though you couldn't think of anybody you'd met before who was quite this handsome.

"I hope you're not disturbing my customers, here at Space Cadets we have a game courtesy that we only talk to players who are not playing." This statement seemed to be directed to Baekhyun, before the tall male looked at you, his eyes widening as he stared right at you.

Baekhyun introduced you, telling this man your name before continuing: "and Chanyeol, I wasn't disturbing her. It was a mutual decision to stop playing."

But neither of you were listening to the smaller mullet-adorning boy anymore. Your gaze was fixed on this man, Chanyeol, his intense stare making it impossible for you to look away. It couldn't be. What sort of coincidence would occur for the two of you to meet again on your first day back?

"Chanyeol?"

"Thana?" The sound of your old dungeons and dragons character leaving his lips caused a gasp to leave not only your lips, but the two boys who were watching this encounter curiously.

Baekhyun yelled and pushed Jongdae's shoulder violently, Jongdae shooting him a swift glare as he ducked out of the way of another one of Baekhyun's outbursts. His eyes were wide as he stared at you.

"I knew I recognised you!" He managed to land another hit on Jongdae's shoulder and the poor boy moved closer to you to get away from his loud-mouthed friend. "I knew it!"

"Who else would be able to beat your score on Defender?" Chanyeol rolled his eyes before sending you a stunning smile. "I wouldn't expect anything less from our long-lost friend here."

A flush sent warmth to your cheeks and you shrugged in response to Chanyeol's compliment. The whole situation felt surreal. You were really standing in an arcade with the three boys who had been part of your most cheerful younger memories. And to top it off, Chanyeol was beautiful.

You knew you'd always had a subtle crush on him and some part of you was thankful you'd moved away, knowing if you'd still known him as he was blooming you would probably have fallen in love with the nerdy giant.

"You've grown." Was all you could say.

Jongdae snickered but Chanyeol shot him a dirty look before grinning again, a flutter filling your stomach as you saw an innocent gleam in his large eyes.

"I've been eating my spinach."

It was such a simple response but it allowed all the warmth you'd missed from him the past few years to come flooding back. You didn't even realise that the two of you were essentially ignoring the noisy boys who were reacting animately to the situation. You simply looked at him, taking in his godly-carved features.

You didn't even notice when the other two boys scooted off, whispering to each other about Chanyeol finally making a move, or how much of a coincidence this was, or even how it was unfair that you were still better than Baekhyun at everything.

"How have you been?" Chanyeol asked, cutting through the silence that hovered over the two of you. "It's been a long time."

You nodded, giving him the stereotypical answer that you'd been good. You didn't tell him that you'd missed him, that would have made it awkward, so you kept it simple, glad that you could see him in front of you and it not be a dream. At least you hoped it wasn't.

"So, you work here?" You asked curiously.

Chanyeol grinned. "I don't just work here. I co-own it!"

"Co-own!?" You exclaimed. "That's totally boss!"

The tall boy gave you a wink, that wasn't really a wink as he scrunched up half of his face to do it. But it was cute nonetheless. He then tapped the arcade machine he was leaning against as if to say carry on. But you didn't want him to leave, you wanted to carry on talking to him.

"How long have you been here for?" You asked, causing his eyes to widen just a fraction at your eagerness for a conversation.

He went back to leaning against the machine, though he seemed a lot more visibly relaxed, as if now he knew you wanted him there. And that knowledge brought him great relief and warmth.

"It's only been open a couple of months but it's doing well. I'm just really glad I opened it because this town was so boring before, so now kids actually have something to do that doesn't involve throwing rocks off a cliff."

You smiled at him, enjoying how passionately he spoke about the arcade. He looked down at you, his soft eyes gleaming with a glee that was practically contagious, you felt an overwhelming burst of pride for your old friend.

"Actually - I finish in about an hour," Chanyeol stated, as if coming to a sudden realisation. "We can go get some food somewhere and catch up if you want- I mean, if you don't want to that's fine too but .. I think it would be nice-"

"I'd like that."

Just like he'd said, Chanyeol finished in an hour. After changing from his red and blue polo which was the arcade's uniform (he was supposed to wear a red cap too but apparently he'd lost that) he wandered the arcade in search of you. You'd moved from machine to machine, and he found you at a Space Invaders machine, frowning in concentration with your tongue poked out slightly as your hands moved diligently about the controls.

A small smile fell onto his lips as he watched you, not wanting to make a sound. Maybe you could beat Baekhyun's high score. He wanted somebody to knock ByunKing off the top spot on at least one game. You could do it. You looked so relaxed, like playing games was a sixth sense to you.

It was a couple minutes later when a smile broke out onto your face and you allowed yourself to lose. You grinned at yourself and turned around, your eyes widening in shock and a ragged gasp escaping your lips as you took in Chanyeol.

"Don't creep up on me!" You whined holding your hand over your chest. "You gave me a heart attack you absolute broomhead."

Chanyeol's own eyes widened as he heard your exclamation, his grin widening as he struggled not to laugh.

"Sorry. I didn't want to disturb your game."

You looked back at the arcade machine, a smug smirk suddenly making its way onto your lips. "Oh. You're going to have to break the news to ByunKing that I've beaten his high score on Space Invaders and Robotron."

Chanyeol just stared at you in shock. You'd managed to destroy Baekhyun's months of hard work in just an hour. Not that it was too surprising, back when you used to play with them you were always a step ahead of everyone.

"Actually- I want to be here when he comes back and realises he isn't top anymore." You smirked and cocked your head. "Anyway, don't we have somewhere to be, space cadet?"

And with that, Chanyeol was smiling irridescently at you and leading you out of the arcade to the old diner which you were sure had been here since you were last in the town, but you weren't sure. Especially as it looked a lot cleaner and the menu had finally seen sense and added ice-cream to it.

You let Chanyeol lead you to a table, he seemed to know where he wanted to sit, so you just followed. He slid into the booth, immediately picking up the menu that was slotted between the bottles of sauces. Sitting yourself down too, you watched as his eyes darted over the food choices, trying not to smile otherwise that might look a little creepy. You couldn't help it, he was rather adorable.

"What do you want?" Chanyeol looked up at you.

It was almost as if it was normal. You hadn't seen Chanyeol in years yet it didn't feel anything but natural when you ordered together, uncoincidentally it was the exact same thing. Chanyeol teased and said that at least you wouldn't need to steal any of his, to which you gasped and said that you definitely still would steal his.

It felt so natural, so calm, and you were so glad you'd bumped into him. Moving back had unnerved you, but now you knew Chanyeol was still here, you felt you could feel back at home.

The two of you talked intrepidly over the food you'd ordered, deciding to just put both plates in the middle and share it all. You discovered Chanyeol was hoping to go into game design, much like you, though you felt Chanyeol would have a much higher chance at it. He was so creative when you first knew him, and it appeared that it had only grown.

You could see the passion he had for gaming and creating games in the way he spoke animatedly about opening the arcade. The way his wide brown eyes sparkled as he waved his hands about trying to explain the latest idea he had for a sci-fi game. At one point he very nearly knocked his soda off the table, but he caught it just before any damage could be done.

"It kinda sucks that we don't have phones ourselves," Chanyeol stated as the waitress took your empty plates away. "I mean, we could have kept in touch after you left. I would have sent letters but I don't think that's fast enough."

"What like a phone you can carry around?"

Chanyeol nodded enthusiastically. "Imagine, if I saw a dog I could immediately ring you or even send a message straight away! How cool would it be?"

"I think that's some back to the future kinda stuff." You stated, moving to pick your denim jacket off the seat beside you.

Chanyeol already had his jacket on and was watching you slip yours on over the striped polo which he thought was very cute, but he wouldn't say that, if he did he wouldn't be able to stop saying it, so he kept quiet and watched you with a small smile instead.

"We should do this again." Chanyeol stated once you were both leaving the diner.

You simply nodded in agreement. Chanyeol had his arm draped casually over your shoulder and you couldn't help but notice that his arm felt a lot heavier on your shoulders than it actually was. A stubborn reminder that it was there.

"How about this weekend? I have Saturday off from the Arcade." Chanyeol said. "What would you want to do?"

"Rollerskating?" You'd seen adverts for roller skates on television and still found it irritating that you hadn't been in such a long time. You also kinda wanted to know whether Chanyeol would be as clumsy on the rink as he was on normal ground.

Chanyeol rubbed the back of his neck but nodded. "If that's what you wanna do, it sounds fun to me!"

You smirked. "Are you scared?"

Chanyeol's eyes widened at your words and he shook his head adamantly in refusal.

"No. I've just never been rollerskating before."

You grinned widely at him. "Well now's your chance to try something new."

The smile that Chanyeol sent back in your direction was enough to send warmth through even the coldest places on the planet. It definitely sent warmth through you and you felt the fizzing reminder of a potential crush from your early teenage years come back.

Fortunately, you'd been busy the rest of the week repeatedly moving furniture and unpacking boxes. It was fortunate because you know if you'd been doing nothing your mind would constantly wander back to the tall lanky boy's smile whenever you sat down. So, fortunately, you'd been without many distractions the remainder of the week.

No distractions definitely did not include the phone calls from Yoonhye, who coincidentally was pre-occupied with her own love life, so; your thoughts were distracted by her heart-filled ramblings. It was nice too, hearing a familiar voice, especially since, aside from the three boys you'd met again, there was nobody you recognised in this town. Even the owner of the diner had changed. However, you did think you'd seen the librarian before, though you weren't sure if it was a library in which you'd seen her.

Either way, your mind had been far away from Chanyeol until this morning, when you'd looked at the calendar above your desk and seen his name written in red felt-tip. Once you'd seen it, your heart pounded in your chest, almost like an alarm.

So here you were, an hour away from 6pm, debating whether to wear your beige cords with a salmon jumper over a white polo, or your navy three-quarter length jeans with a yellow 'talking heads' top and denim jacket. You opted for the second choice, knowing you could probably stash your jacket somewhere in the roller rink.

It didn't take you too long to do your hair and makeup, knowing that your hair would end up out of place anyway. Now, you were sitting in the living room, trying to plug in the Famicom in case Chanyeol would come round one day and decide he wanted to play video games.

When the doorbell rang, you felt a rush flood through you, knowing you were going to see that beaming smile on the other side.

"Grab the door will you, Sweetie?" You heard your mother shout from the kitchen and you did so.

Behind the door was the tall boy you'd been thinking about since 9am this morning. Looking extremely adorable in his black courderoys, a baby pink t-shirt and a black corduroy jacket. You gaze automatically went up to his warming smile before it rose slightly higher and you gasped, stepping out of the house and closing the front door behind you.

"You dyed your hair?!" You exclaimed, tempted to run your hands through the pale pink locks.

Chanyeol rubbed the back of his neck as the two of you reached his car which was sitting at the bottom of the driveway. "I didn't dye it on purpose. I lost a bet with Baekhyun - and you know him."

You just grinned. "It suits you."

"Really?"

"Mmhmm, looks rad."

Chanyeol's smile was even wider than it had been when you opened the door, and that unavoidable feeling of a crush erupted again in your stomach as you climbed into the passenger seat.

"No bicycles?"

"A car is quicker." Chanyeol retorted. "Besides, don't girls like cars?"

You smirked a little at his words as you looked out of the window. "They're alright. Why? Do you need your car to get you all the girls?"

"I'll have you know I have people falling for me all the time."

That you believed.

"That's what happens when you trip people up with your incredibly long limbs Mister Chanyeol."

You heard Chanyeol huff out a breath of air in an attempt to hide his chuckle, and then it was quiet. A nice quiet though. You used this chance to talk in Chanyeol's profile as he drove diligently down the road.

It was odd to see him so serious. It suited him in a strange way. His bottom lip stuck out in a slight pout as his large eyes remained on the road, his long fingers flicking the indicator swiftly. You drank in the sight of him as the orange hue of the sunset gave his skin a golden glow. It was almost like a painting. A painting, or artwork for a game, a very detailed game with exquisite graphics. Not the sort of game you would ever see any time soon.

Chanyeol noticed you looking at him, but he didn't say anything. He refused to look at you in case he got distracted by the sparkle in your eye, or the soft heat of your smile, or the shine of your hair. You were perfectly indulging and that was dangerous while driving.

He vowed he'd take your appearance fully in when you both reached the roller rink.

Which, incidentally, was around the next corner. He could see your excitement build up and he only hoped he could get the hang of this hobby fast. He definitely did not want to fall flat on his ass in front of you. That would be embarrassing.

Once you were inside, you headed over to the welcome desk, where you'd hand over your shoes for a pair of rollerskates, not rollerblades, you didn't think you were quite skilled for that level of balance yet; or ever.

When Chanyeol had swapped his shoes, the two of you walked over to one of the wooden benches by the side of the rink, the low blue and purple hues of the lights making it difficult to see. As a result, it was difficult to tie the laces of the roller skates, and you held back a smile when you saw Chanyeol fumbling with the laces.

"You should double knot them," You suggested, wiggling your ankles so that Chanyeol could see you'd finished.

Chanyeol's pout was adorable and you almost showed your adoration on your face, you were just thankful the dark lighting made it easier to hide your expressions. "I never learnt how to do that."

"Well, let me show you then." You patted your lap so Chanyeol could swing his leg up and rest his foot on your lap, your fingers demonstrating how to tie his laces securely. "Is this why you always tucked your laces under the front of your shoes?"

Chanyeol smiled sheepishly. You couldn't help but grin back at him.

"It's never too late to learn." You stated, gently pushing Chanyeol's feet off your lap and patting your thighs before standing up.

At first, you felt a little wobbly, the change from solid footwear to wheeled shoes was unusual but it only took a few seconds for you to get used to it. You guessed the couple of years you spent at the retro 50s diner as a waitress while at college was worth something. Moving your gaze from your own feet to Chanyeol, you had to bite back a laugh.

Already the boy was clinging onto the barrier that surrounded the rink, the two of you not even inside it yet. It was clear that while you were an experienced 'veteran' when it came to rollerskating, Park Chanyeol was not. To you it was as endearing as it was amusing and you held out your hand so you could lead him safely onto the rink. Chanyeol took your hand gratefully, his fingers crushing your own as you pulled him forward.

"I've got you," You said with a wink just as you got onto the rink.

"No it's okay I've got this." He said, his voice suddenly shooting into a higher pitch as he placed too much force into one of his strides, his arms flailing as he lost control of his feet. Hastily, you grabbed onto his hand, pulling him towards you with a firm grip, your eyebrows raised at his flushed cheeks and a sheepish smile.

"You've got this?"

You grinned as Chanyeol pouted in annoyance and muttered under his breath, his spare hand holding onto the barrier of the rink. In order to help him, you held out both of your hands, beckoning him to hold onto them.

"You're not going to learn if you're scared." You told him, as he hesitantly placed his hands in yours, pushing away from the side of the rink.

"I just don't want to fall." Chanyeol shot back, his eyes slightly widened and his bottom lip jutted out as he sulked a little. You simply smiled.

"Don't be scared to fall," You winked before stationing yourself in front of him, while you helped him, you'd keep close to the side, out of the way of the experienced skaters who usually looped around the centre of the rink. "It's best to keep your knees bent."

Demonstrating, you crouched slightly, waiting pointedly for Chanyeol to imitate your actions; he did. Then, you pulled backwards, Chanyeol's eyes widening as he started rolling. You knew he wanted to move his feet but you shook your head, crouching again to demonstrate the stable position.

"Don't try to walk, you've got to push sideways with your feet." You mimicked the action you were trying to help him learn before letting go of one of his hands and coming round the side. Then, you repeated the action, letting Chanyeol copy your movements, which he did.

"I'm doing it!" He exclaimed, his legs less shaky now as he gained confidence.

You loosened your grip on his hand, though you didn't let go of it. Chanyeol was still unsure on his feet, despite his extra confidence and you wanted him to keep that confidence. However, you did notice that he was speeding up quickly, not gradually, which for an amateur skater probably wasn't the best thing to do. Especially when the end of the rink was getting ever closer.

"Chanyeol - careful..." Your voice trailed off as Chanyeol's ankle locked and he slipped slightly, his grip on your hand tightening swiftly, dragging you down as he fell, letting out an oof as he hit the hard wood of the rink.

You gasped as your elbow hit the floor, shocked when your head fell on something slightly softer than the wooden flooring. You backed up slightly, your eyes meeting Chanyeol's as he gazed down at you in a slight daze.

"Hey there," He said with a smooth wink and your eyes widened.

"Did you do that on purpose?" You huffed, frowning and pushing yourself off him. Chanyeol's soft lips quirked into an amused grin and he cocked his head, sitting up on his hands as he looked up at you, innocently. "I know you, Park Chanyeol."

"Don't you want to get to know me better?"

Your eyes widened at his blunt words and you let go of his hand that you'd grabbed in order to pull him up off the floor. He fell backwards with a hard thud and frowned up at you in playful distaste. "Not funny?"

The corner of your lip twitched slightly, trying to keep the smile that was trying to form itself at bay. You held your hand out again and Chanyeol made a point of eyeing it warily, causing you to kick at his feet.

Pulling him up you smiled. "Let's try this again?"

Chanyeol nodded, his warm brown eyes twinkling. Winding you up was something he'd always enjoyed doing; he loved watching the soft pink rush to your cheeks as you looked at him, more flustered than you liked to admit. He was glad you were back, the old crush he had on you rushing back.

"We should have a reward system." He stated, about to make a bold move.

Your eyebrows raised at his words and you folded your arms over your chest, ready to reject whatever his suggestion would be. "Oh really?"

"Every time I complete a lap, you have to give me a kiss."

While you really should have said no and hit his shoulder softly for even suggesting that, the twinkle in his eye stopped you and you found yourself smiling at him and agreeing, your eyes drifting down to his own lips as they formed a triumphant grin.

"Let's get going then."

As he spoke, he stooped forward and let his lips brush against yours, ever so slightly. The touch was so light you barely even felt it, but you felt the heat rush to your cheeks as you looked at him with wide eyes.

"That one was for good luck." Chanyeol's smile was so wide that you found it impossible to be mad at him, knowing full well that you wanted to feel that kiss again. So you just shook your head and motioned to the rink.

"Go on then, space cadet."

And with that, slowly, but surely, Chanyeol was off, determined to win another kiss from you.

#chanyeol scenario #exo scenario #chanyeol fluff #exo 80s #exo au #chanyeol au #exo fluff

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hiyo-silver · 7 years ago

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Cherry

A/N: Bevmax oneshot because I love these lesbians, on ao3 here <3

taglist: @fuckboykaspbrak @thesquidliesthuman @starboystan @rachi0964 @shewasthewind @beepbeep-losers @bigbilliamdenbro @jalenrose1122 @sleepygaybrough @itandstrangerthingsfanfic

Bev slides into the jeep, "hey, Maxine," he says teasingly, leaning over to peck her red lipstick onto Max's cheek.

"Hey, Beverly," Max says back with a smirk, starting the rickety car again to get going. The music starts back on,

Girls just wanna have fu-un, oh~ girls just wanna have fun

"Oh Cyndi lauper? Wouldn't have pegged you as that type," Bev asks as Max scrambles to change it. Bev's hand finds the top of Max's, "no, keep it, I like it."

Max looks a bit surprised, bringing her hand back to the wheel, pulling out of the driveway with the windows down and the song blasting.

"So, Mayfield, where are we off to?" Bev asks, putting her feet up.

"The ice cream place, the one with the neon lights," Max explains, speeding a little bit in the empty streets, the cool air rushing in the windows, lit dimly by streetlights and the car lights, a soothing moment for the both of them.

Max pulls into the small parking lot of Leah's, her favorite place, she definitely wants to share it with Bev. "It's older, still has that old fashioned feel, and it's not too expensive," she explains, shutting the car off and unbuckling.

The two girls clamber out, Beverly takes Max's hand in her own clumsily, drunk on happiness, the night sky only fuelling her contentment.

Max pulls Bev to the door, holding it open, "prettiest girls first," she grins.

"I think that means I should be holding it open for you," Bev teases, poking Max's nose and pulling her into the shop with her, "oooooh~! It's chilly in here," she says, shivering slightly. At that, Max removes her denim jacket, draping it over Bev's shoulders.

"Better?" She asks, tucking a strand of Beverly's hair behind her ear.

"Completely," Bev says, flushing up to her ears where Max's hand had brushed.

"Good. Now, ice cream, flavor?" Max asks, pulling Bev to the counter, hopping up on a stool and pointing at the menu, an old chalkboard on the wall.

"Vanilla cone dipped in cherry? What's that?" Bev asks, looking over to her grinning girlfriend.

"My favorite, it's like a cherry sauce that dries over the ice cream until it's like? Hard?" Max tries to explain, "it's amazing, though."

"I'll try it," Beverly says with a small smile, "it sounds good, and if you like it, I'm willing to try."

"You're my cherry," Max says teasingly, pausing for a moment after, "that made no sense," she laughs, hiding her face in her hands as she does subconsciously.

"Ah, remember when I popped your cherry?" Bev teases, playfully shoving Max's shoulder.

"oh I remember, that was nice," Max grins, "really nice," she jokes, going over to peck Bev's lips.

They order their ice cream, getting it quickly. Max's eyes light up when she gets hers, one of her few positive childhood memories. "Loved this kind since I was little, got it with my uncle and Aunt usually," she smiles, biting the top of the cherry flavored crust.

"Oh god you bite ice cream I hate you," Bev says through a laugh, covering her mouth.

"What! I'm not a demon, the shell is just nice!" She argues, shoving Bev's shoulder, "god, you're so judgemental," she teases, sticking her ice cream coated tongue out at Bev.

"Fine, I'll take it," Bev says back teasingly, sticking out her own tongue, both of them not going long before erupting into laughter.

Max takes a teasing lick of her ice cream, purposefully looking Bev in the eye as she does, Bev glaring back at her in response, "not in public, bad idea, love," she smirks, doing the same thing back at Max.

Max does it again, soon it was like a competition, their eyes locked, neither of them looking any further down than the eyes. The tension builds as they finish their cones, Max slapping a few bills on the counter to pay, pulling Bev closer to her by both hands, pecking her lips before Bev goes in for more. The sparks between them were nearly visible, pulling away breathlessly, looking around to make sure nobody had been watching.

They share another, more tender gaze, feeling close to each other despite no longer being touching. They clasp hands again, swinging their arms between as they walk to the door, the soft jingle signifying that they're leaving.

They get back into their seats, Max looking over at Bev when she speaks, "where to next, lovergirl?" She teases, rolling her window down again as Max starts the car.

"Oh, why I don't know, beverbaby," she teases, "okay yeah that nickname is trash, never again," she giggles, looking down for a second before her eyes fo right back to the road.

Bev giggles too, her hand clasped over her mouth, "I don't know why you always cover your smile, it's beautiful, I like it," Max says simply in response, Bev moving her hand a little, offering an awkward version of the leftover smile.

"See? Gorgeous," Max teases, reaching over to pinch Beverly's cheek teasingly before returning it back to the wheel.

"God, I hate you," Bev sighs, shaking her head slowly, "but I love you."

"Good, it would make it awkward that I love you too if you didn't," Max smirks.

"You're such an asshat, I love it," Bev nearly purrs, reaching her hand over to Max's thigh and gripping it lightly, watching Max crumble slightly before taking a deep breath and focusing again. "Bothering you, Maximilian?" Bev teases, "wanna play firetruck? Wee woo wee woo," she teases, running her hand further up Max's thigh.

"Ohmygod, Bev, not while I'm driving," Max whines, "I will take you right back home," she teases.

Bev retracts her hand, "okayyyy," she says, "seriously though, where are we going?"

"Arcade, we gotta sneak in, but it's so worth it, I've got the quarters," Max grins, stopping near the strip where the arcade is, grabbing her black baseball cap from the back seat, "I've never gotten caught, and never lost."

"I'll put you up to the test. Winning. Not getting caught, that wouldn't do me any good," she chuckles, opening her door and getting out of the car, waiting for Max to get out, "race you!" She half shouts, making a break for the arcade.

Max bolts after her, "hey! No fair you started first!" She complains, skidding to a halt at the door after Bev.

"So, how do we get in?" Bev asks curiously, catching her breath.

Max produces a Bobby pin from her hair, proceeding immediately to pick the lock, Bev looking on a bit shocked, "I didn't know you could do that," she comments, watching as Max gets the door open.

"I'm not doing anything really bad," Max shrugs, "still paying for games, just at hours convenient for me," she smirks, grabbing Bev's hand and dragging her into the dark building.

"This place is old, no cameras," she tells Bev, pulling her to the Dig Dug machine, popping in two quarters and hearing the familiar tune of the game, pressing the button and moving the knob, getting near her old high score, showing her name at the top of the leaderboard, Mad Max.

"Not fair, need a fairer playing field," Bev argues, dragging Max to the Pacman machine.

"I never play this," Max sighs, putting the quarters in for Bev.

Bev goes about the game, she doesn't usually play it either, but she does alright.

"Hey, I'm proud of you," Max teases, punching Bev's shoulder playfully when she sees the low score.

"Hey! I'm always winning when I'm with you," Bev teases.

"Fuck, you're smooth," Max smirks, pushing Bev up against the game, pressing their lips together.

Bev gets up on the game, wrapping her legs around Max's waist, pulling her in, her teeth grazing over Max's tongue, which elicits a deep sigh from Max.

#it stephen king #it stephen king fanfic #it fanfic #it novel #it book #it 2017 #it movie #beverly marsh #it beverly marsh #stranger things show #stranger things 2 #stranger things fic #Max Mayfield #bevmax #bevmax fic #my fics

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michaelandy101-blog · 4 years ago

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How you can Discover the Good GIF: 10 Should-Strive Web sites

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/how-to-find-the-perfect-gif-10-must-try-websites/

How you can Discover the Good GIF: 10 Should-Strive Web sites

Serving as snackable — and infrequently laughable — bits of visible content material, GIFs assist us precisely convey our ideas and emotions after we’re restricted to digital communication.

The difficulty is, discovering the right GIF by searching via Google Picture Search or that desktop folder of your favorites can take method extra time than it is price.

Discovering the correct GIF does not need to be a prolonged course of, you simply need to know the place to look. To assist, we have collected 10 superior web sites under that’ll make it easier to discover what you are in search of shortly, with out forcing you to decrease your GIF requirements.

(Or, need to create your very personal GIF? Try this tutorial to learn to make an animated GIF in Photoshop.)

Observe: A few of these web sites may function GIFs which can be NSFW.

10 Websites for Discovering the Good GIF

GIPHY

Tumblr

Gfycat

Tenor

Response GIFs

GIFbin

Imgur

Imgflip

Gyazo

1. GIPHY

That is my go-to useful resource for GIF searching. Launched by Alex Chung and Jace Cooke, GIPHY began out as a search engine for GIFs. They’ve grown GIPHY considerably by partnering with manufacturers, introducing integrations, creating browser extensions, and way more. (To make amends for all of their enlargement efforts, check out GIPHY Labs.)

The most effective half? Navigating the database of GIFs could not be simpler: Customers can browse classes — Adjectives, Music, Nature, Science, and so forth. — or hunt down a selected phrase or phrase utilizing the search performance.

2. Reddit

Reddit is just like the mothership for GIFs: The group boasts not one, however a number of spectacular GIF-related subreddits. Listed here are a couple of noteworthy ones:

Whereas all the completely different, categorized choices make it straightforward so that you can discover what you want, many of those subreddits decide to a collection of tips to refine their entries even additional. For instance, whereas “reaction gifs” and “analogy gifs” could sound fairly comparable, there’s really a distinction in response to the /r/reactiongif’s wiki page. Permit me to reveal…

Response GIF

I don’t learn about you however after I discover out payday is arising I react like:

Image Source

Analogy GIF

After I strive answering emails earlier than my espresso, I really feel like:

Image Source

As explained on the /r/reactiongif’s wiki page, “A reaction gif is a physical or emotional response that is captured in a .gif which you can link in response to someone or something on the Internet. A gif which is a metaphorical reaction to something does not qualify as a reaction gif. Generally speaking, most posts that use the term “How I Really feel When” are analogy gifs.”

three. Tumblr

Tumblr is a large running a blog platform the place GIFs are made and shared like loopy. Bloggers on this platform do a wonderful job of pairing related GIFs with relatable eventualities. There’s loads of blogs devoted to sharing humorous GIFs every day, however my favourite ones to share on a Monday can be in hashtags like #work-memes #workfromhome and extra.

As an example:

Image Source

Everyone knows that feeling — proper? (If not, then I need to ask you, what’s it prefer to be good?)

Anyhow, all it’s important to do is use the highest search bar to lookup hashtags of the content material you’re in search of, or comply with some weblog pages which can be devoted to importing GIFs every day. GIFs featured on Tumblr are both handmade in Photoshop by the creators or sourced from completely different web sites, and so they’re fairly good about giving credit score the place credit score is due.

four. Gfycat

Gfycat is one other gallery with hundreds of thousands of GIFs to dive into. Not solely is it one of the vital fashionable GIF websites, however it has a simple Video-to-Gif creator instrument to show your favourite Twitter, Vimeo, and Twitch streams into your library of memes.

Navigate its number of GIFs from the search bar or left menu, selecting from the most recent “Trending” or “Explore” part to search out completely different fashionable classes of GIFs or stickers.

And who would I be to share a website known as “Gfycat” with out an compulsory cat GIF?

Image Source

5. Tenor

Tenor is a good way to throw a relatable GIF into any dialog, whether or not in your PC or iPhone.

Having humorous GIFs at your fingertips is a good way to share a fast snort together with your family and friends. All it’s important to do is sort in the way you’re feeling in your cellphone’s keyboard and Tenor will robotically begin populating tons of GIFs. Good for placing in your dialog with cousin Katy who nonetheless will get a kick out of watching America’s Funniest Residence Movies.

6. Reaction GIFs

This website serves up an acceptable GIF for absolutely anything you are pondering. Relying on what you are trying to find, there are a number of other ways to uncover an ideal match.

A technique is to make use of the dropdown menus on the correct aspect of the positioning. These menus enable customers to floor GIFs that match a selected feeling (drained, confused, proud, and so forth.) or reply (sure, no, undecided, and so forth.). For instance, a search for “excited” may floor one thing like this:

Customers even have the choice to search by galleries or tags. Galleries are organized into classes corresponding to “OMG,” “Dance Party,” and “LOL,” however there’s a lot extra tags to discover.

7. GIFbin

Here is one other stellar useful resource for uncovering GIFs.

On GIFbin, customers can filter thumbnails by “Newest,” “Top Rated,” and “Most Viewed,” or by tags. The fascinating factor about GIFbin’s tag system is that they’re categorized by each identify and depend.

Whereas the names are fairly commonplace search phrases — animals, infants, sports activities, and so forth. — the depend function permits you to simply uncover phrases with the very best quantity of obtainable GIFs. Test it out:

Or in the event you’ve received an excessive amount of free time in your palms like me, click on via the rabbit gap— I imply— “random GIF” button for countless enjoyable.

eight. Imgur

Ah sure, Imgur, the Reddit of GIF websites with out all of the textual content threads.

Imgur is a picture internet hosting website that shares an array of humorous or cool GIFs. It’s library is a combination between new uploads and even a few of my favorites from the 2010s.

Image Source

Search up any tags for all of the humorous film edits, or no matter else you’re all for by way of Imgur.

9. Imgflip

Imgflip is one other intensive library of GIFs. There are a couple of methods to browse Imgflip content material, as detailed on the website:

Scorching/Newest photos on the homepage

Use the Earlier / Subsequent / Random navigation on picture pages

Use the hotkeys as described on picture pages

Tag pages (corresponding to cats)

Meme pages corresponding to Grumpy Cat, discovered on the meme templates web page

If you happen to like a bit of competitors, you possibly can create your own GIFs and earn a spot on the leaderboard. In case your GIF will get upvoted sufficient, you possibly can bask within the glory of creating strangers on the web snort.

10. Gyazo

Final however not least, now we have Gyazo. This web site is a bit completely different from the others, however with this instrument you possibly can seize your PC display screen (like a clip as an alternative of a screenshot) and create GIFs out of them. Made to transform footage into GIFs shortly, it shops your library in your account, so you possibly can hyperlink or obtain your favourite GIFs everytime you need.

As a unique technique to creating your personal GIFs, Gyazo makes it straightforward to create, retailer, and share your favourite GIFs together with your favourite individuals.

In your viewing pleasure, take pleasure in some GIFception as I used Gyazo myself to make a GIF out of a video of somebody utilizing Gyazo to make a GIF.

Image Source

Why You Ought to Use GIFs in a Enterprise Setting

On a extra severe be aware, GIFs are one other type of visible content material that can be utilized for each enjoyable, and strategically for marketing. For companies, they could be a instrument to reveal firm tradition and drive extra engagement by interesting to prospects in search of authenticity.

Inner Use

On an inside degree, exchanging GIFs in dialog or together with them all through displays can assist break up the monotony of day-to-day enterprise.

Including some degree of quirkiness in conferences or seminars can maintain workers extra engaged and happy than in any other case. Plus, it by no means hurts to share a fast snort within the workplace, so long as you don’t get too carried away.

Exterior Use

55% of B2C content creators say that creating or sharing visible content material is an enormous precedence for them presently. Just like movies or stay recordings, utilizing GIFs to convey concepts in a enterprise setting provides viewers visuals which can be extra stimulating than text-only content material.

As an example, when individuals hear info, they’re more likely to keep in mind solely 10% of that info three days later. Nevertheless, if a related picture is paired with that very same info, individuals retain 65% of the information three days later.

Additionally, utilizing GIFs on social media accounts is a good way to be a focus for potential prospects. Whether or not it’s Instagram, Twitter, or a running a blog platform, including a visible like GIFs to your submit can show helpful to a enterprise.

The World is Your Picture Library

There’s loads of web sites to select from in the case of discovering some fairly cool GIFs. Whether or not you must ship one to your coworker’s birthday electronic mail chain, or make your brother, Trevor, snort on the dinner desk, we hope this record helps slender down your search for the right GIF.

Editor’s be aware: This submit was initially printed in January 2016 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.

Source link

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suzanneshannon · 5 years ago

Text

A Primer on Display Advertising for Web Designers

A lot of websites (this one included) rely on advertising as an important revenue source. Those ad placements directly impact the interfaces we build and interact with every day. Building layouts with ads in them is a dance of handling them in fluid environments, and also balancing the need to showcase our content and highlight the ads to make sure they are effective.

In this post, I am going to share a few tips and ideas for integrating ad units into layouts. We’ll take a look at some placement options where we might consider or commonly expect to place advertisements in webpages, then move into styling strategies.

I might use some modern CSS properties along the way that are not fully supported in older browsers. Take a look at @supports if you wish to support old browsers in a progressive enhancement friendly way.

Common Digital Ad Placements

There are many, many different places we can drop ads onto a page and an infinite number of sizes and proportions we could use. That said, there are standard placements and sizes that are commonly used to help establish a baseline that can be used to set pricing and compare metrics across the industry. We’ll cover a few of them here, though you can see just how many options and variations are in the wild.

The Navigation Bar Placement

The space right above the main navigation of a site is often a great placement to put an advertisement. It’s great because — in many cases — navigation is at the top of the page, providing a prominent location that both lends itself to using a full-width layout and lots of user interaction. That’s often why we see other types of important content, like alerts and notifications, occupy this space.

The easiest way to do this is simply placing the ad element above the navigation and call it a day. But what if we want to “stick” the navigation to the top of the page once the ad scrolls out of view?

CodePen Embed Fallback

Here we’re using position: sticky to get that effect on the navigation. As documented by MDN, a sticky element is where:

The element is positioned according to the normal flow of the document, and then offset relative to its nearest scrolling ancestor (and containing block).

It might be tempting to use fixed positioning instead, but that removes the navigation from the normal document flow. As a result, it gets fixed to the top of the viewport and stays there as you scroll. That makes sticky a more viable method with a smoother user experience.

A fixed element literally stays put while it remains in view, while a sticky element is able to “stick” to the top when it reaches there, then “unstick” upon return.

Now, we could do the reverse where the ad is the sticky element instead of the navigation. That’s something you’ll need to weigh because hiding the navigation from view could be poor UX in certain designs, not to mention how persistent advertisements could interfere with the content itself. In other words, tread carefully.

The Header Placement

Displaying ads in the site header is another place we commonly bump into advertisements. There are two widely used patterns using the header placement. In advertising industry jargon, they’re referred to as:

Billboard: A rectangular ad that is presented as a main call-to-action These are typically 970⨉250. We could use the widest size there, 970px, to set the size of a site’s main content area.

Leaderboard: An ad that is wide, short, and often shares space with another element. These are typically 728⨉90.

The billboard spot, despite being large, is rarely used (estimated at only 2% of sites), but they do command higher rates The leaderboard is far and away the most widely used digital ad size, with a 2019 SEMrush study citing 36% of publishers using leaderboards and 57% of advertisers purchasing them.

CodePen Embed Fallback

The nice thing about a leaderboard is that, even if we use the same 970px container width that the billboard ad command, we still have enough room for another element, such as a logo. I tend to use flexbox to separate the site logo from the ad. I also give the container a fixed height that either equals or is greater than the 90px leaderboard height.

.header .container { /* Avoid content jumping */ height: 90px; /* Flexibility */ display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: space-between; }

The Sidebar Placement

The mid page unit ad (also known as medium rectangle) weighs in at 300⨉250 and is the top-performing ad unit — literally #1!

Google study of 2018 clickthrough rates (clicks per thousand views) compared for different ad placements. Google no longer provides these stats. (Source:Smart Insights)

Mid page units have influenced the design of sidebars on sites for a long time. Again, you can see an example right here on CSS-Tricks.

Crack that open in DevTools and you will see that it has a rendered width of exactly 300px.

We can achieve the same thing using CSS grid:

CodePen Embed Fallback

Let’s say this is the markup of our layout:

<div class="wrapper"> <main>Main content</main> <aside>Sidebar</aside> </div>

We can set the wrapper as our grid container and define two columns, the second of which is the exact 300px width of our ad unit:

.wrapper { display: grid; grid-template-columns: minmax(0, 1fr) 300px; }

If we aren’t displaying too many ads in the sidebar and want to draw more attention to them, we can try using the same sticky technique we did with the navigation placement:

<div class="wrapper"> <main>Main content</main> <aside> <div class="is-sticky">Sidebar</div> </aside> </div>

.is-sticky { position: sticky; top: 0; }

But you must keep in mind that it will affect reach if the sidebar is longer than the viewport or when using a dynamic sidebar:

(View demo)

There are two ways I tend to solve this issue. The first is to keep it simple and only make important ads sticky. It’s the same concept applied to the CSS-Tricks sidebar, the only difference is that JavaScript toggles the visibility:

The second is to use a JavaScript library that includes scrolling behavior that can be used to listen for when the user reaches the end of the sidebar before triggering the sticky positioning:

There are other considerations when working with ads in the sidebar. For example, let’s say the ad we get is smaller than expected or the script that serves the ads fails for some reason. This could result in dreaded whitespace and none of the approaches we’ve looked at so far would handle that.

Where’d the widget go? The disable button is a simulation for an ad blocker.

Here’s how I’ve tackled this issue in the past. First, our markup:

Then, we set the right measurements for the grid columns:

.header .container { display: grid; grid-template-columns: minmax(0, 1fr) 300px; grid-gap: 24px; min-height: 600px; /* Max height of the half-page ad */ }

Now let’s make the sidebar itself a flexible container that’s the exact width and height that we exact the ad to be, but hides any content that overflows it.

.aside { display: flex; flex-direction: column; overflow: hidden; height: 600px; width: 300px; }

Finally, we can style the .aside-content element so that it is capable of vertical scrolling in the event that we need to display the widget:

.aside-content { overflow-y: auto; }

Now, we’ve accounted for situations where the size of the ad changes on us or when we need fallback content.

No more whitespace, no matter what happens with our ad!

Styling Digital Ads

Now that we’ve looked at placements, let’s turn our attention to styling digital ads. It’s always a good idea to style ads, particularly for two reasons:

Styling ads can help them feel like a native part of a website.

Styling ads can make them more compelling to users.

Here are a few tips we can leverage to get the most from ads:

Use a flexible layout so things look good with or without ads. Let’s say an image doesn’t load for some reason or suddenly needs to be removed from the site. Rather than having to refactor a bunch of markup, it’s ideal to use modern CSS layout techniques, like flexbox and grid, that can adapt to content changes and reflow content, as needed.

Use styling that is consistent with the site design. Ads that look like they belong on a site are not only easier on the eye, but they leverage the trust that’s been established between the site and its readers. An ad that feels out of place not only runs the risk of looking spammy, but could compromise user trust as well.

Use a clear call to action. Ads should provoke action and that action should be easy to identify. Muddying the waters with overbearing graphics or too much text may negatively impact an ad’s overall performance.

Use accurate language. While we’re on the topic of content, make sure the ad delivers on its promises and sets good expectations for users. There’s nothing more annoying than expecting to get one thing when clicking on something only to be sold something else.

Use high-res images. Many ads rely on images to draw attention and emphasize content. When we’re working with ads that contain images, particularly smaller ad placements, it’s a good idea to use high-resolution images so they are crystal clear. The common way to do that is to make an image twice the size of the space to double its pixel density when it renders.

When working with custom ads where you have control over how they are implemented, like the ones here on CSS-Tricks, it’s a lot easier to adapt them to a specific layout and design. However, in cases where they are injected dynamically, say with a script, it might not be possible to wrap them in a div that can be used for styling; tactics like using ::before and ::after pseudo-elements as well as [attribute^=value] selectors are your friend in these situations.

Many advertising platforms will generate a unique ID for each ad unit which is great. They often start with the same prefix that we can use to target our styles:

[id^="prefix-"] { /* your style */ }

CodePen Embed Fallback

Handling Responsive Ads

Ad platforms that provide a script to inject ads will often handle responsive sizing by bundling their own styles and such. But, when that’s not the case, or when we have complete control over the ads, then accounting for how they display on different screen sizes is crucial. Proper responsive handling ensures that ads have a clear call-to-action at any screen size.

Flexbox, Grid and nth-child

One thing we can do is re-order where an ad displays. Again, flexbox and grid are great CSS techniques to lean on because they employ the order property, which can change the visual placement of the ad without affecting the order of the actual source code.

In this example, we will try to reorder our items so the ad is visible “above the fold,” which is a fancy way of saying somewhere at the top of the page before the user needs to start scrolling.

Here’s our markup:

We can use :nth-child to select one or more items based on their source order, according to a formula:

.items { display: grid; /* ... */ }   .item:nth-child(-n+2) { order: -1; }   @media only screen and (min-width: 768px) { .article:nth-child(-n+3) { order: -1; } }

This selector will target the first n elements and set their order to a negative value. This allows the ad to dive between the items depending on the size of the viewport:

CodePen Embed Fallback

Handling Static Ads

Not all ads can be perfectly flexible… or are even designed to be that way. We can still sprinkle in some responsive behavior to ensure they still work with a layout at any given screen size.

For example, we can place the ad in a flexible container and hide the parts of the ad that overflow it.

Obviously, there’s a good deal of design strategy needed for something like this. Notice how the important ad content is flush to the left and the right is simply cut off.

Here’s the markup for our flexible container:

Depending on whether the ad’s important content is on the left or right of the ad layout, we can justify the container content either to flex-start, flex-end, or even center, while hiding the overflowing portion.

.ad { display: flex; justify-content: flex-end; /* depending on the side your important content live */ overflow: hidden; }

CodePen Embed Fallback

Handling Responsive Images

While ads aren’t always made from static images, many of them are. This gives us an opportunity to put the <picture> tag to use, which gives us more flexibility to tell the browser to use specific images at specific viewport sizes in order to fill the space as nicely as possible.

CodePen Embed Fallback

We covered it a little earlier, but using high-resolution versions of an image creates a sharper image, especially on high-DPI screen. The <picture> element can help with that. It’s especially nice because it allows us to serve a more optimized image for low-resolution screens that are often associated with slower internet speeds.

Another thing you can do is using srcset to support multiple display resolutions which will allow the browser to choose the appropriate image resolution:

We can even combine the two:

Let’s make sure we set the right width for the ad:

.selector { width: 250px; }

And let’s use media queries for <picture> to handle the different assets/sizes:

.selector { width: 300px; height: 250px; }   @media (min-width: 768px) { .responsive-ad { width: 728px; height: 90px; } }

For more flexibility, we can make the image responsive in relation to its parent container:

.selector img { display: block; width: 250px; height: auto; }

In the case of srcset, there’s no need to worry much about performance because the browser will only download the needed asset for a specific resolution.

Phew, there’s so much to consider when it comes to display advertising! Different types, different sizes, different variations, different layouts, different formats, different viewport sizes… and this is by no means a comprehensive guide to all-things-advertising.

But hopefully this helps you understand the elements that make for effective ads as a site publisher, especially if you are considering ads for your own site. What we’ve covered here should certainly get you started and help you make decisions to get the most from having ads on a site while maintaining a good user experience.

The post A Primer on Display Advertising for Web Designers appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

A Primer on Display Advertising for Web Designers published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

0 notes

recruitmentdubai · 5 years ago

Text

A Primer on Display Advertising for Web Designers

Common Digital Ad Placements

The Navigation Bar Placement

CodePen Embed Fallback

Here we’re using position: sticky to get that effect on the navigation. As documented by MDN, a sticky element is where:

The element is positioned according to the normal flow of the document, and then offset relative to its nearest scrolling ancestor (and containing block).

A fixed element literally stays put while it remains in view, while a sticky element is able to “stick” to the top when it reaches there, then “unstick” upon return.

The Header Placement

Billboard: A rectangular ad that is presented as a main call-to-action These are typically 970⨉250. We could use the widest size there, 970px, to set the size of a site’s main content area.

Leaderboard: An ad that is wide, short, and often shares space with another element. These are typically 728⨉90.

CodePen Embed Fallback

.header .container { /* Avoid content jumping */ height: 90px; /* Flexibility */ display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: space-between; }

The Sidebar Placement

The mid page unit ad (also known as medium rectangle) weighs in at 300⨉250 and is the top-performing ad unit — literally #1!

Google study of 2018 clickthrough rates (clicks per thousand views) compared for different ad placements. Google no longer provides these stats. (Source:Smart Insights)

Mid page units have influenced the design of sidebars on sites for a long time. Again, you can see an example right here on CSS-Tricks.

Crack that open in DevTools and you will see that it has a rendered width of exactly 300px.

We can achieve the same thing using CSS grid:

CodePen Embed Fallback

Let’s say this is the markup of our layout:

<div class="wrapper"> <main>Main content</main> <aside>Sidebar</aside> </div>

We can set the wrapper as our grid container and define two columns, the second of which is the exact 300px width of our ad unit:

.wrapper { display: grid; grid-template-columns: minmax(0, 1fr) 300px; }

If we aren’t displaying too many ads in the sidebar and want to draw more attention to them, we can try using the same sticky technique we did with the navigation placement:

<div class="wrapper"> <main>Main content</main> <aside> <div class="is-sticky">Sidebar</div> </aside> </div>

.is-sticky { position: sticky; top: 0; }

But you must keep in mind that it will affect reach if the sidebar is longer than the viewport or when using a dynamic sidebar:

(View demo)

The second is to use a JavaScript library that includes scrolling behavior that can be used to listen for when the user reaches the end of the sidebar before triggering the sticky positioning:

Where’d the widget go? The disable button is a simulation for an ad blocker.

Here’s how I’ve tackled this issue in the past. First, our markup:

Then, we set the right measurements for the grid columns:

.header .container { display: grid; grid-template-columns: minmax(0, 1fr) 300px; grid-gap: 24px; min-height: 600px; /* Max height of the half-page ad */ }

Now let’s make the sidebar itself a flexible container that’s the exact width and height that we exact the ad to be, but hides any content that overflows it.

.aside { display: flex; flex-direction: column; overflow: hidden; height: 600px; width: 300px; }

Finally, we can style the .aside-content element so that it is capable of vertical scrolling in the event that we need to display the widget:

.aside-content { overflow-y: auto; }

Now, we’ve accounted for situations where the size of the ad changes on us or when we need fallback content.

No more whitespace, no matter what happens with our ad!

Styling Digital Ads

Now that we’ve looked at placements, let’s turn our attention to styling digital ads. It’s always a good idea to style ads, particularly for two reasons:

Styling ads can help them feel like a native part of a website.

Styling ads can make them more compelling to users.

Here are a few tips we can leverage to get the most from ads:

Many advertising platforms will generate a unique ID for each ad unit which is great. They often start with the same prefix that we can use to target our styles:

[id^="prefix-"] { /* your style */ }

CodePen Embed Fallback

Handling Responsive Ads

Flexbox, Grid and nth-child

In this example, we will try to reorder our items so the ad is visible “above the fold,” which is a fancy way of saying somewhere at the top of the page before the user needs to start scrolling.

Here’s our markup:

We can use :nth-child to select one or more items based on their source order, according to a formula:

.items { display: grid; /* ... */ }   .item:nth-child(-n+2) { order: -1; }   @media only screen and (min-width: 768px) { .article:nth-child(-n+3) { order: -1; } }

This selector will target the first n elements and set their order to a negative value. This allows the ad to dive between the items depending on the size of the viewport:

CodePen Embed Fallback

Handling Static Ads

Not all ads can be perfectly flexible… or are even designed to be that way. We can still sprinkle in some responsive behavior to ensure they still work with a layout at any given screen size.

For example, we can place the ad in a flexible container and hide the parts of the ad that overflow it.

Obviously, there’s a good deal of design strategy needed for something like this. Notice how the important ad content is flush to the left and the right is simply cut off.

Here’s the markup for our flexible container:

.ad { display: flex; justify-content: flex-end; /* depending on the side your important content live */ overflow: hidden; }

CodePen Embed Fallback

Handling Responsive Images

CodePen Embed Fallback

Another thing you can do is using srcset to support multiple display resolutions which will allow the browser to choose the appropriate image resolution:

We can even combine the two:

Let’s make sure we set the right width for the ad:

.selector { width: 250px; }

And let’s use media queries for <picture> to handle the different assets/sizes:

.selector { width: 300px; height: 250px; }   @media (min-width: 768px) { .responsive-ad { width: 728px; height: 90px; } }

For more flexibility, we can make the image responsive in relation to its parent container:

.selector img { display: block; width: 250px; height: auto; }

In the case of srcset, there’s no need to worry much about performance because the browser will only download the needed asset for a specific resolution.

The post A Primer on Display Advertising for Web Designers appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

source https://css-tricks.com/a-primer-on-display-advertising-for-web-designers/

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#web developer #web development #website developer

0 notes

ncmagroup · 5 years ago

Text

by Brian Trautschold

Well before the age of coronavirus — it seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? — we were seeing a steady, rapid increase in sales teams who were transitioning to remote work.

And for good reason: It can benefit everyone. Employees, especially millennials, appreciate the flexibility to work from anywhere, and sales orgs open themselves up to a much larger pool of talent when they’re not limited to hiring locally.

But sales teams face unique challenges when they go remote — even when they’ve had plenty of time to plan for the transition. It’s always a challenge, for example, to put the right tools in place and hire people who can handle a certain level of independence.

So when your sales team unexpectedly and hastily goes remote… well, that’s even harder.

One of the biggest challenges sales managers face? Keeping tabs on their teams from afar. Especially if you’re a manager who wasn’t prepared for the remote shift, it can feel like you’re suddenly wearing blinders. How do I know what my reps are doing all day? How do I know if they’re staying on track?

The good news is the same basic sales coaching principles and best practices still apply, and they’ll still help you maintain a system of accountability. They just may require a few tweaks.

Here are 5 tactics every sales manager should implement to keep your reps accountable, aligned, and on a path to success — even when you’re not sharing a sales floor.

Set daily activity targets

Add a little (more) structure

Reinvent your 1:1s

Shore up your tech stack

Leverage your team

1. Set Daily Activity Targets

Many sales teams set daily activity targets to keep reps on track. It’s a great way to ensure your people hit their longer-term objective targets and ultimately achieve results.

Remote sales managers may want to take daily activity targets one step further. Why? At 8 a.m., 5 p.m. feels like it’s a long way off. Your reps may overestimate what they can get done if they don’t pace themselves as they would in the office.

To help, consider setting multiple activity targets throughout the day. One Ambition customer runs a “10×10” program for their remote reps: Every morning, reps need to make 10 calls by 10 a.m. Managers get a private alert in email or Slack when reps haven’t hit their target, so they can jump in if they need to help a rep get back on track.

2. Add a Little (More) Structure

Every sales manager has a unique coaching style. It may range from total independence — essentially setting your reps free — to complete micromanagement. Of course, the most effective sales managers tend to have a style that falls somewhere in the middle.

If you’ve found your sweet spot, that’s great. You don’t need to overhaul your approach or methodology. In fact, that could do more harm than good since your team is already trying to adapt to the substantial and stressful changes COVID-19 has introduced.

But do consider adding more structure to your existing coaching program.

What does that mean, specifically? For starters, weekly 1:1s just isn’t enough if you want your team to stay connected, aligned, and motivated. A few ideas:

“Brown bag” lunches

You don’t have to be in the office to share a meal together. Set up regular (and casual) “Lunch and Learns” with your whole team — webcam required. Pick a topic to cover or skill to hone. Or better yet, crowdsource ideas from your reps.

Peer-to-peer coaching

Peer learning often happens organically in an office setting, but working from home can feel like working in a silo. Jump in and help newer, less experienced reps connect with more experienced reps by designating time for peer coaching opportunities on a weekly or biweekly basis.

Then, step back. The magic of peer coaching happens when your manager isn’t looking over your shoulder!

Cross-departmental meetings

Make an effort to stay abreast of what’s happening in tangential departments, like Marketing, Sales Enablement, and Product.

Sure, you may hear updates during all-hands meetings or via Slack, but since you’re no longer absorbing important details through osmosis at the office, consider setting up a time for your team to interface with a representative from another department.

Keep in mind, no one likes pointless, fluffy meetings. Adding in extra, structured opportunities to coach and connect is smart when your team is distributed. Just make sure that every calendar invite has a clear objective and agenda.

3. Reinvent Your 1:1s

Your 1:1 “template” should be a living, breathing thing. No, you don’t need to change up your questions every week, but these meetings should evolve as your team grows and changes.

That said, when your team is going through a major transition, it’s a prime time to rethink your 1:1 format. A few things to keep in mind:

Strike the right tone

Be empathetic. We’re all dealing with an unprecedented crisis, and it’s adding stress to everyone’s lives, on both a professional and personal level. Of course, your 1:1s should be much more than a temperature check — but start there.

Ask how your reps are doing. Show you care about their physical and mental wellbeing during this trying time. Right now, there’s no such thing as “business as usual.”

Troubleshoot WFH challenges

Working from home can be a whole different ball game, especially if your reps have roommates hanging around, or if they are parents trying to wrangle tiny interns, thanks to closed schools and daycares. Help your people troubleshoot issues that are blocking their productivity, and think through ways you can provide flexibility while still helping them stay on track.

Let your reps lead

Remember: coaching sessions are not mini-performance reviews. In fact, your reps should be leading the sessions. This approach is even more critical for remote reps since you don’t get the chance for regular, casual interaction.

As always, guide the conversation with a solid mix of thoughtful, open-ended questions. Ask questions that encourage your reps to make observations about their performance and draw conclusions based on those observations, then apply them to new and different circumstances.

4. Shore Up Your Tech Stack

Fortunately, most of the tools we’re now using to stay connected aren’t new. Zoom, Slack. We were already using them.

Of course, staying connected is one thing. Staying accountable and motivated is another. These are the tools you need to ensure performance doesn’t take a nosedive.

Sales coaching software

With fewer opportunities to interface with your reps, you need to make the most of the time you have together. Our mantra: automate what you can.

Find ways to take administrative work off your plate, like scheduling coaching sessions, recording notes and coaching conversations, creating and tracking action plans, etc.

Send your reps their 1:1 questions ahead of time (bonus if you can automate that, too), and make sure you get their responses before your session starts so you can spend time on a meaningful conversation.

Sales gamification software

Sales contests are a tried-and-true tactic to add a layer of accountability while also getting your reps fired up to sell. Bonus: healthy competition (and maybe some friendly trash-talking) can provide a welcome distraction from everything that’s happening in the world right now.

The key to remote competitions is visibility. Make sure you’ve got a sales gamification tool that integrates with email and Slack, so everyone can celebrate wins together. And make sure leaderboards screens are accessible through URLs.

5. Leverage Your Team

Of course, you want your reps to feel accountable to you: you’re their manager and you’re helping to steer the ship.

At the end of the day, though, it takes every person on your team to achieve results and hit The Number. Sales should be a team sport — so find ways to encourage collaboration and nurture relationships, even when your people are apart. You’ll add a layer of “peer accountability,” and it’s also just a great culture play. Consider:

Weekly shout-outs

During your regular team meetings, set aside time for reps to shout out their teammates for something they did that was particularly smart or well-executed. If you don’t already do this, you’ll find that reps look forward to earning recognition from their team.

Remember, this requires overcommunication throughout the week and performance visibility, which leads us to our next point.

Increased visibility

As a manager, you hopefully have easy access to performance data and insights for your reps. But do your reps have that same easy access?

Make it easy to see the team and individual progress against goals — even better if it’s automatically visualized in charts or graphs, so you and your reps aren’t having to run Salesforce reports or shuffle through spreadsheets.

Team competitions

As noted above, sales competitions are a great way to ignite the competitive spirit. Make sure you’re not limiting yourself to only individual competitions. Run team competitions — especially ones where you’re pairing up newbies with seasoned pros — so that teammates can collaborate together and hold each other accountable. Or try some of these team-building activities.

Bottom Line

Whether you’ve always been remote or it’s a recent, potentially short-term shift, you can optimize a distributed team without overhauling every process and workflow. In other words: Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

But do think through ways you can adapt your management style to a new situation. Adding in extra layers of accountability, when done thoughtfully and with your team front of mind, you’ll be able to keep your remote team on track, even in uncertain conditions.

Go to our website: www.ncmalliance.com

5 Ways To Create Accountability for Remote Sales Teams by Brian Trautschold Well before the age of coronavirus — it seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?

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recentanimenews · 5 years ago

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Jason Rohrer on the Emergent Game Storytelling of One Hour One Life

One Hour One Life is one of the most fascinating video games I’ve played in years. It’s a multiplayer online game in a persistent world full of resources that players can harvest and craft into tools, not unlike Minecraft and similar games. But the twist is that every player (with rare exceptions) is born into the world as the child of another player and lives for only 60 minutes from birth to death. Together, players have collaborated across generations to build thriving civilizations, making use of a massive tech tree created (and updated weekly!) by the game’s solo developer: Jason Rohrer.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Rohrer (virtually of course) last week for an in-depth interview covering One Hour One Life and the philosophy that underpins his ambitious creation. Rohrer is fascinating in his own right. Since he made waves with his short 2007 game Passage, he has consistently pushed the boundaries of interactive storytelling and social video games. I first came across him through Sleep Is Death (2010), a collaborative story-making game played between anonymous online players. The Castle Doctrine (2014) explores Rohrer’s anxiety about home invasion by forcing players to turn their homes into death traps before setting out to rob the homes of other players. His work often feels paradoxical; at once inspired by Rohrer’s personal experiences and driven by a precise, highly analytical approach to game mechanics and player behavior. He’s also a somewhat polarizing figure, staking out positions on politics and the game industry itself that can be unpopular among his peers.

This article contains a transcript of roughly half of the full interview, since we ended up having quite a lot to talk about! In the transcribed portion we cover the connection between the COVID-19 crisis and One Hour One Life, the importance of true “social” gaming, the thought experiment that inspired the game, and the lack of player-driven commerce in the game world. In the full interview, available in podcast form for $5 subscribers on the Ani-Gamers Patreon, we go even deeper on all of these subjects, and even delve into a fundamental political disagreement between Rohrer and many of his players (myself included).

That’s more than enough preamble, I think. Enjoy!

Ani-Gamers: Considering world events right now, I wanted to start with how COVID-19 has influenced your thinking around One Hour One Life.

Jason Rohrer: I thought a lot about diseases in the game long before this. And of course now everyone is like “why aren’t there diseases in the game?”

Ani-Gamers: There’s yellow fever, which you can get from mosquitoes.

Rohrer: Yeah but it’s not communicable. It’s been a long time since I added that disease to the game and I did study it at the time and I don’t remember all the details, but I got the impression at the time that it’s a mosquito-borne disease and that it wasn't contagious from person to person so much. Although maybe I’m completely wrong about that.

But anyway, communicable diseases are interesting from a simulationist point of view. It’d be an amazing experiment to introduce communicable diseases into the game and see how people react, but I don't think on the ground it would be that interesting to the players because it would swamp all other aspects of the game.

Ani-Gamers: It would become a disease control game.

Rohrer: Yeah. If you go to this village and you see people with the visible signs of the disease — whatever it is — and then you interact with them and you come back to your own village and then people don’t let you in. It would just swamp everything. And then also does disease become eradicated over time and if so where does the new one come from? Do I as the god of the world periodically introduce diseases and watch as they run their course? Maybe it would be an interesting event for players, but it also feels like that’s not what the game is about.

Ani-Gamers: In terms of the response to COVID-19, one of the things I've noticed is that the lockdowns highlight how much of our lifestyles and production are social. I think the game does a very good job of showing that.

Rohrer: Right, right. A lot of what I’m trying to do in One Hour One Life is, ironically, especially with all the design changes I’ve made over the past couple of years, sort of force people to be social. Well, not social, because when we say “social games,” we imagine you have a game with a chat box attached to it, or you play the game on Facebook and your Facebook friends somehow play in parallel with you or you’re competing on a leaderboard with them.

Ani-Gamers: It’s latching onto an existing social network.

Rohrer: Yeah. It means “we’re going to be chatting in these games.” That's not what I mean by social. What I mean by social is that what other players are doing in the game matters to you in terms of what you're doing and that somehow they become actually important characters in the game that you're playing. Not just as chat partners, to get in there and talk about what's going on in the election or whatever in real life.

Think about it, the role of NPCs, non-player characters in most single-player games. Think even about a simple example that everyone is familiar with like Zelda. Not the original Zelda, but Ocarina of Time where there are a lot of NPCs around and a lot of quests and things that go on in the game that involve these NPCs. I don't remember the details of a particular quest because I haven’t played the game in so long but I’ll just make one up. Something about a guy who’s got a milk farm or something and there's some kind of horse racing thing. There’s something about having to bring someone some fresh milk. So you've got to go to some other NPC somewhere in the world and convince them. They’re sick and they won't come out or whatever and you have to bring them this medicine. Then they give you the fresh milk and this guy won't let you race unless you bring him the fresh milk and so that is a social interaction. That's social gameplay. Not that there's a real intelligent social entity at the end of it but it’s simulating the experience of “I need to interact with these people in the world in order to accomplish this thing that I'm trying to accomplish and sometimes they're angry or grumpy and I need to figure that out.” It’s very rudimentary, the emotional gameplay that's present there. This guy’s sick or he’s angry and I need to make him happy. It’s almost a key and a lock that's dressed up as some kind of social interaction.

So One Hour One Life has the potential to have that kind of thing happen, but for real. You’re not just looking for a key and a lock because the character you’re interacting with is a complex, fully intelligent entity who is another player. The problem is that it’s very easy for the game to degenerate into situations where those kinds of interactions aren’t even necessary. That’s sort of the default grain of this “multiple people in a world where you're crafting and building things” game. Players put blinders on and figure out how to build what they want to build and then build it.

Ani-Gamers: You mentioned in other interviews that playing Rust felt super individualistic.

Rohrer: Yeah there are all these other people around but they’re either trying to get you or ignoring you or whatever. There’s no social structure that built up. There's no sense of a neighborhood that built up. Every once in a while you would interact with one of your neighbors in some way, either a negative or positive interaction — every once in a while it was positive. But there wasn't a sense that we were banding together in any kind of way to cooperate or to trade or to build any kind of legal system or de facto way of doing things. We were all on our own little beeline quests passing like ships in the night, occasionally firing one across the bow at the other guy.

One Hour One Life has the potential for that, or that's what I was always imagining. You’re in these situations in part because you don’t just keep playing and playing and playing forever and ever and ever working on your personal project. Because you die after an hour you at least have to interact with somebody in the game, which is the next generation, to raise them. Because if you let all the babies die — that's the fundamental premise of the game — if you let all the babies die then everything you’re building in your lifetime is lost.

Ani-Gamers: Plus you have to interact with your own mother.

Rohrer: Right or you can’t get to the point where you can work on your own personal project. That little fundamental wedge in the game at least ensures some social interaction. But beyond that what I was seeing was literally you get to age three where you can feed yourself and the common thing — it’s almost risen to the level of a meme — was for your mom to say “glhf” or “good luck, have fun.” Slap a hat on you, make sure you're all set, maybe hand you a pie or something and say “good luck, honey.” And never see your kid again necessarily. You don’t really care what happens to them after that point, so much, as long as some of your babies survive. If every single one died then everything would be lost. Then players go off on their own beeline quests and don't really interact.

So a lot of the stuff I've been doing recently has been — it's a dangerous tightrope to be walking on where you’re like “the players aren’t doing what I want them to be doing. So how do I force them to do it?” (laughs)

A simple example more recently is the idea that you can’t learn every single tool in the game. There are 25 or 30 different things that are marked as tools that require some kind of expert skill to use. And you can only master so many skills in your life before you start to run out of mastery slots. So you have to pick and choose what kinds of things you focus on and if you’re building something more complicated, you're going to need more mastery than you yourself possess. And at that point you literally have to walk across your village and find the guy who knows how to use the tool you don’t know how to use to finish the thing you’re working on and say “hey buddy can you come and use this blowtorch.”

Ani-Gamers: How much of the game is an experiment where you see yourself as setting things up and seeing what happens, and how much are you trying to teach the players something? Are you trying to get the players to walk away having learned something about humanity or society or the way that production works?

Rohrer: It’s funny, I guess I’d say it’s neither of those things. I’m not interested in teaching anyone anything. Even going back through my career, it’s not really “hey I want to make you have this realization about your real life” as much as i want to provide you with this interesting, compelling, emotionally evocative experience. And some people apparently do have realizations about real life when they have that kind of experience, but if that’s your goal as a designer ... It’s sort of a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. You want to have this valuable experience that has a take-home message. (laughs) To me that feels less like art and more like a lecture or something. So I’m not intentionally trying to do that.

On the other hand I’m not intentionally trying to set up some sort of experiment and like a mad scientist, just see what happens. I’m more, as a designer, trying to almost predict or fashion this thing that will hopefully work in the way I want it to work to create the most interesting, rich kind of experience and situations that I can imagine a video game producing. So it’s more like me predicting, “ooh, if I add this kind of wrinkle into this situation it’s going to trigger these kinds of interactions.”

It's never as cut and dry as “walk over to this guy, tell him you need a sheep slaughtered and he just instantly goes over and does it.” Maybe he's busy, maybe he doesn't like you, maybe he’s got something else on his mind, or maybe this person just had a baby, or whatever. They’re too busy with something else. And so it's not as simple as just a key and a lock. If we describe the system in words and say “you only have a limited number of tool slots and if you need something else done you gotta get someone else to do it for you” that sounds kind of like you just need to go through this motion, walk over there and get this other person to do this thing for you, but it’s never quite as simple as that.

Ani-Gamers: Because they’re all real people.

Rohrer: Right.

Ani-Gamers: How does the goal of creating these emergent emotional player stories interact with or even conflict with goal of realism, of recreating how actual human development worked?

Rohrer: A lot of people think this is a civilization simulation game where it’s like “let's start with cavemen and get up to present day.” As far as I’ve conceptualized the game, that’s never been what it’s about. It’s more about this thought experiment of starting over from scratch. And what the reason is for why we had to start over from scratch is unknown. It’s unspecified that this is after a nuclear war or after some kind of cataclysmic climate event or pandemic or something. It's just “hey, what if we had to” and what if we were in the woods, essentially.

Ani-Gamers: Not “what if we didn't know that society was possible?” but that we already experienced it and had to restart.

Rohrer: That was a thought experiment I had been asking people for a number of years before I decided to make a game about this. It took us two to three thousand years, or maybe four thousand years depending on what part of the world you’re in, to get from caveman-level technology to where we are in the present day. From arrowheads to iPhones. And we kind of feel like that was primarily a knowledge acquisition problem. The reason it took so long is that we didn't know how to make iPhones 4000 years ago and slowly over time we figured all this stuff out and now we have the knowledge of how to do this. And then I say “well, what if we were instantly teleported back into the wilderness? How long would it take to have an iPhone back in our hands if we started from scratch from rocks and sticks?

So that’s the fundamental thought experiment. And a number of people had the kneejerk reaction that we’d do it within 10 years. (laughs) And I’m like, you realize you don’t even have a screwdriver. If you want a screwdriver you’ve gotta go find some iron ore, figure out how to make steel using no equipment, and then I don’t know about the plastic handle. Good luck with that.

Ani-Gamers: This sounds kind of like teaching, even though you said you’re not trying to teach. You’re trying to get people to think through that thought experiment.

Rohrer: Well yeah. That was a fundamental premise of the game. And I think, as a provocation when I have this discussion with people, I say “I think it might actually take 2000 years again.” It wasn't actually a knowledge acquisition problem, it was a capital problem, a foundational problem. When we go to do something today, we’re standing on the shoulders of all the stuff that’s come before and we have all these resources available to us like going down to the store and buying a screwdriver. I think we’re at the point where things have gotten so complicated that no individual living person knows how it all works. Especially for a CPU or something like that. There’s the fact that every time you click something on the Web 30 million lines of code are in between you and the data that’s coming back. Nobody understands 30 million lines of code.

Ani-Gamers: I’ve played on and off for the past two years and seen how the civilization developed, and one of the things I thought I would see was commerce. But I have yet to witness any real commerce in the game.

Rohrer: Yeah and that’s been a huge thing that I’ve been trying to get working forever.

Ani-Gamers: Why do you think it hasn’t happened? I definitely expected it, like “oh yeah, soon we’ll see people start trading.”

Rohrer: That’s been a goal of mine for the game and always been something that has never actually happened no matter what I do. What’s the fundamental reason for it? It’s an excellent question. I think it’s still a bit of a mystery even to people who have been playing the game for a long time. Everyone has their ideas. “If you just made the biomes bigger there’d be trade.”

Ani-Gamers: It’s ironic it’s the people playing the game who aren’t trading and then they’re saying “hey you need to change something so that we’ll start trading.”

Rohrer: I don’t ever want people doing things just for the sake of doing it.

Ani-Gamers: Right, just to roleplay.

Rohrer: Which is just this pretend version of it. If you chase after your child saying “be careful honey, watch out for the wolves,” and you're just doing it because you’re pretending to be a mother and that’s what a mother would do in real life, and there's not really any good reason to give those warnings. If there weren’t any wolves in the game but you went and told every child “be careful of the wolves in the forest honey.” That’s the worst case of it, where you’re literally pretending something that doesn't even exist in the game, but if you have enough babies where each one stays safe but you still act like an overprotective mother anyway, just to fill your role.

That’s not that interesting to me. I’m much more interested in players behaving a certain way due to the mechanics, and the way that they end up behaving, which is the optimal way to behave, being thematically congruous. I feel like that's the best we can do in video games, because none of it’s real, and because it’s all repeatable and you can go back through and try different ways of doing it. Even within a game like One Hour One Life where everything only happens once, there’s still the sense that you can keep experimenting in a relatively safe sandbox with different ways of doing these things. Whereas in real life you only get one shot at it.

Ani-Gamers: The stakes are higher.

Rohrer: A lot of people try to shoehorn these emotional situations into their games, mostly through cutscenes or barely interactive narrative elements. That doesn’t seem to work because players hit rewind or go back to a saved game and try the other branch. And even if there is no branching it’s even worse because as you play the game a second time you see the same canned emotion over and over again and it instantly loses its [impact].

Where I’m at as a designer right now is that the best way to achieve that kind of result is by having what I call “real play.” That is, players are trying to find the optimal way of playing the game in this situation and, in doing so, behave in a way that makes sense from an outside observer’s point of view, or thematically, or emotionally. They’re behaving the same way they would if they had that emotion. They’re kind of going through the motions for gameplay reasons but hey, what’s the difference between acting desperate and actually being desperate or acting afraid and actually being afraid?

It’s always going to be pretend afraid. There’s never a monster that’s actually going to chew you up. But if you’re playing a game where you’re supposed to be afraid of the monsters and you just brazenly walk right up to them and don’t even care, that feels like it undercuts [the emotion]. It’s these fake rubber fangs, right? You know they’re not going to hurt you. But if you dive out of the way and actually scream in real life for gameplay reasons, then I guess I feel like that’s as close as we can get to the real deal.

Ani-Gamers: Back on the subject of commerce...

Rohrer: Oh yeah so getting back to commerce, I don’t want people pretending to be engaging in trade just for fun. Some people have set up little shops and this and that. It’s like playing house. They’ll put up a little sign saying “the pie shop,” and they’ll run around the village saying “anyone want to come and taste my wares?” (laughs) But that’s just like playing house.

In terms of why people don’t: well, trade has costs associated with it. Opportunity costs and time investment and all the other kinds of things that go into it. So players need to feel like there’s a good reason, like the payoff to engaging in trade is higher than the cost to engaging in it. Even in real life, if you go all the way down to the market the benefit minus the cost for getting the tomatoes from the market has to exceed [the value of] just growing the tomatoes yourself at home.

Ani-Gamers: Maybe going down to the market isn’t even the best comparison because really there is no market at all. The question is “should we make a market or should we just share all the tomatoes?”

Rohrer: There’s a number of things. First of all there’s a big difference between your children and my children from my point of view in real life. And if we’re in a situation where there’s only one tomato, if I have my preference I’d rather have my children get it. If the situation gets tense enough and everyone’s starving to death, then people actually will engage in violence to ensure that their own children get it. In a game like One Hour One Life I don’t think that people currently have that kind of feeling, aside from [making sure they themselves can eat].

There’s also a sense that maybe there are too many resources around so there’s not enough scarcity, and there’s not a real sense of my children vs. your children. People aren’t really paying attention to whose children are whose, because there’s not really a gameplay reason to do that. I do have this “genetic score” system in there but a lot of players just ignore that. It hasn’t really had the sweeping impact where everyone is suddenly caring about their babies and so on. So people don't really care about their own children vs. somebody else’s children, because the fundamental gameplay motivation for the next generation is just to have somebody here in the village who's going to carry things on. It doesn’t really matter whose they are.

There’s also the fundamental problem that even if you wanted to keep some food just for your own children, there was no convenient way to prevent other people from taking it. There’s these property fences that were added a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago that are available and very easy for people to make, and very easy to control ownership and so on. But people don't use them, because there’s still some cost to building them and people don’t feel like the cost is worth it.

Ani-Gamers: How often do you play the game yourself? How much of it is for testing? Do you ever just play it for fun to see how stuff is going?

Rohrer: There are times when I need to test a specific bug that someone's pointed out on the live server and in those situations I usually force spawn myself in as the Jason character from the trailer and pop in with my little boonie hat and outfit and everything, and I pop in at age 42 and I can control the coordinate I pop in at, so I’ll often try to pop into some village that I’m aware of and people see me appear and “oh my god, Jason’s here!” It’s like a sighting, you know? And then they’ll talk to me or whatever. But I’m also sometimes in there testing. And I’ll say hi to people and make funny eyebrows at people or something, and then put a hat on a little baby before leaving. Or they’ll try to kill me.

Ani-Gamers: That’s funny. They’re trying to kill God.

Rohrer: Because they want the hat, right? Somebody will start targeting me and then other people jump in the posse and before I know it I’ve got three people chasing after me and I try to run away. But I also have the ability to summon any object in the game, so every once in a while if people really make me angry I’ll summon a bear.

Ani-Gamers: In the times when you've played a life as a regular player, are there any stories that have stuck with you?

Rohrer: I have one that I still remember from months ago. I was trying to experiment with property fences because people hadn’t been using them very much. And I was like “I’m going to create a property fence in this village for myself and my children to see how it impacts my genetic score and so on.

It doesn't take very much to build a property fence. There's already a village there and I went a little bit outside the village where there was some open land and started building a property fence. And when I started having babies I said “this is going to be our property. We're going to make our own farm here.” I think we were trying to make a milkweed farm. The village was short on milkweed. I borrowed I think a hoe or something and took it in there and I think I left the gate open while using it. But someone came up and was angry that I was using the hoe in the private property. So they came and took it away and scolded me for taking it away from the town center. I said I was just borrowing it but I don't think they believed me.

Then I took a child with me and we went out looking and exploring. We went exploring way far to the south, and we found this abandoned village that was just filled with resources. But I don't think the people in our town knew about it. And then I started having a couple of babies down there. I explained to them, “we’re from a village to the north. It's full of people. We found this huge treasure trove of great stuff: tools, cards, all this stuff. We should bring it back and we'll use it to make our farm.” All my kids agreed and I nursed them and we were eating the food in this abandoned village until they got old enough to carry stuff and help.

We loaded up carts and baskets and carried them all back, and put it in our private property when we got back. But then this woman in the village came up and saw that we had all that stuff in there, this cart and all this, and she took it and stole it, and brought it back to the village center! I was like “hey wait a minute, that's our cart!” And she was like “no, everything is shared by all.” The classic scolding me about private property thing. I was like “no you don't understand, we didn't take it from the village, we found it ourselves. It's ours legitimately. We didn't steal it.” And she said “it doesn't matter, it belongs to the village.”

I tried to take it back in there and someone had cut a hole in my fence while I was away too, so I had to repair that. And then she got mad enough that she took out a knife and tried to chase me down and kill me. So I ran away, but I made some mistake when I was running and clicked the wrong thing and she ended up stabbing me way outside the village bounds. At that point I lost my temper and opened up the god interface and put a bear down and killed her. Which I shouldn't have done! (laughs) Anyway, that's the only time I've ever slipped up in that regard and abused my power.

Ani-Gamers: The great part about the game is that she has her own version of that story too.

Rohrer: I think if we look at that example story, it’s pretty interesting. Not that interesting to tell as a story, but as a thing to experience in a game it’s a pretty interesting story. It's also kind of unprecedented in the realm of video games.

Most people, when they think about video games and video game storytelling, they’re thinking about these single-player experiences that are crafted by the author and maybe have some kind of branching to them or something. This was rich and complex and nuanced, and I could have maybe convinced her or been a better diplomat than I was and I learned things from it too that I could apply in future situations. Like oh, build your property a little further from town so not everyone can see it every time they walk by so people don't feel like it’s such an affront to their village. But also in terms of the way I interacted with her or how I explained the situation. It’s like I had a bunch of different options there and it wasn’t just picking from a list. All the potential for nuance and the way things turned out and the way they spiraled out of control does feel more like something from real life or from a really well crafted movie that we could never pull off in a single-player video game just because of the fundamental nature of interactivity fighting with the non-interactive parts. In terms of potential and ways forward for video games to solve these kinds of problems in a satisfying way, I think that in a multiplayer context there's a lot of potential there.

For the full interview audio, check out the podcast episode on the Ani-Gamers Patreon!

Jason Rohrer on the Emergent Game Storytelling of One Hour One Life originally appeared on Ani-Gamers on March 27, 2020 at 5:34 PM.

By: Evan Minto

#Anime #News #Ani-Gamers

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aurelliocheek · 5 years ago

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SCILL Play: Challenge yourself

The video games industry has never seen better days than today. And still, publishers have to accept new challenges each day to keep their players engaged and the business running.

With SCILL we add a new layer of engagement to help publishers tackle their day to day challenges, and offer players new challenges with each game.

Making Games: So, life is about accepting challenges? What led you guys to this concept? Phillip Schuster: Playing computer and video games is all about challenges. It’s the same thing with developing products, as most of your readers most likely already know. Early last year we started thinking about how we can get more out of existing games. Which presented us with a real challenge … Marc Berekoven: And that’s exactly when we figured out that it’s about time for a platform like SCILL.

Making Games: Sounds good. So, in a nutshell, what is SCILL? Marc Berekoven: We like to refer to SCILL as a next-generation player engagement platform. Basically, it empowers game developers to design unique in-game challenges, allowing players to challenge their own performance. It creates an additional layer of interaction with a familiar product and therefore increases retention. In short, SCILL is all about engagement and entertainment.

Making Games: Who is behind SCILL? Are you working with venture capital firms? Phillip Schuster: SCILL is built by 4Players, a company of Marquard Media Group AG, leading European media company dedicated to product and business model innovation. With regards to 4Players, most people are only aware of our online editorial portal, but the company was designed and is in the business of creating gaming solutions which include e. g. dedicated server solutions, hosting services and many more products. The idea of SCILL was born in that environment, transformed into a viable and marketable product by our talented teams.

Making Games: Please tell us more about the big picture. What’s the idea and concept behind your approach? Phillip Schuster: Every gamer is familiar to the following situation: You’ve played your favorite game for weeks and months. There’s nothing within the game you haven’t accomplished – side quests, achievements, you’ve been there, done that. And then suddenly you ask yourself: „What now?“ Marc Berekoven: That’s exactly where SCILL comes in. By using our platform, game developers can design additional challenges and achievements, thus challenging players own performance. For completing SCILL Challenges, players get rewarded. And those rewards can be spent to purchase exclusive content such as vanity items and other in-game assets. By implementing SCILL, developers and publishers are empowering gaming communities and significantly enhance the gaming experience of their products.

Join the beta – www.scillgame.com

Making Games: But most games already have achievements implemented. Is SCILL simply adding sets of new challenges? Marc Berekoven: SCILL does not compete with game achievements supported by most games and gaming platforms. Instead, it tackles in-game challenges with a new approach, creating a unique engagement layer. SCILL allows players to actively choose challenges they want to take, whenever they feel that they are ready for them. This way, SCILL ‘takes players by their hands’ offering achievable goals, rewarding them even during the hardest game. Helping them grow their skills and confidence, making them better players and deeply engaged. Phillip Schuster: In times when Free-To-Play, competitive gaming, streaming and enhanced social engagement are driving the gaming industry to reach new heights each year, many developers and publishers are struggling to increase product visibility and players’ commitment. SCILL doesn’t solve the entire problem but is a highly useful, reliable and flexible tool which can help to drastically improve engagement, player retention and comeback behavior.

Making Games: As everybody is talking about eSports these days, does SCILL offer anything for the pro gamer community as well? Marc Berekoven: Sure: Pro gamers can find and design their challenges within SCILL Play as well, never running out of achievements to complete and goals to reach. Always aiming for the top of the leaderboard, and exclusive rewards, helps them to stay in shape and on top of their favorite game and eSports discipline. On the other side, SCILL Play also helps less skilled players to find their feet and guides them through a new or too challenging game. Simply by offering achievable challenges, tailored to their personal performance.

Making Games: As a huge chunk of our readership consists of developers, let’s get a little technical: Is it difficult to implement SCILL into existing code or a game which already has been shipped? Phillip Schuster: There is no such thing as enough or too much spare time in games development. We get that. That’s why we designed SCILL in a way that implementation is quick and simple. The free SCILL SDK is basically plug and play and allows game developers to integrate SCILL into existing games without interrupting their daily operations. And if the game already supports public APIs, integration is even easier. SCILL has been developed with flexibility and scalability in mind and can be tailored to fit different needs and requirements. Challenges can be generic, genre specific, replace or add to existing tutorials or can even be a full-scale challenge season. In any case, they will greatly add to the existing and future player engagement and experience.

Making Games: Where does SCILL get all the necessary data from? Phillip Schuster: SCILL Play integrates seamlessly into every game that generates online log files. The software picks up the data, processes it with its sophisticated and self-learning prediction model and visualizes on the smartphone screen. For publically available log-files, we don’t necessarily need direct support from a developer or publisher. But even for these and for games with protected online log-files, we aim for close partnerships to create the perfect solution for each individual game. It’s a straight forward process and only requires very limited development resources for our partners.

Making Games: On which platforms will SCILL be available? When are we allowed to take it for a spin? Marc Berekoven: SCILL Play, the first mobile app of the SCILL product line, will be available for free at Google Play and iOS App Stores. Once installed and registered, players are presented with unique in-game challenges varying in difficulty, perfectly tailored for each supported game. For competitive shooters these can be ‘Score at least one frag in the upcoming round’, and for those in Battle Royale arenas these can be ‘Be the sole survivor’, while virtual race drivers will aim for ‘Finish next race without taking any damage’. SCILL Play just entered the closed beta phase, and we aim to be ready to go by summer this year. More information about our beta test incl. a sign-up form can be found on www.scillgame.com.

Phillip Schuster is CEO and programming legend at 4Players. As one of the founders, Phillip is the backbone of 4Players since day one and manages the company for nearly 19 years. Besides his day-to-day business as the 4Players boss, he is a programmer at heart and loves to bring innovative ideas to life. His recent visions being SCILL and 4Players new mobile web-app.

Marc Berekhoven is Head of Business Development and SCILL Product Manager. Being a member of the video games industry for two decades, Marc dipped his toe in many different areas. After ten years in the UK, managing online games and Games as a Service for AAA publishers NCsoft and Bethesda, he is now back at 4Players to lead the SCILL platform and develop new businesses.

The post SCILL Play: Challenge yourself appeared first on Making Games.

SCILL Play: Challenge yourself published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

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elfigmlinkbf16insurance-blog · 5 years ago

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SOURCES:

I m searching for car insurance but I am not sure if applying for a quote online will give me a bad record. Like applying for a credit card does you know.

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I m searching for car insurance but I am not sure if applying for a quote online will give me a bad record. Like applying for a credit card does you know.

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cheatsvbucks3547-blog · 6 years ago

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Proof That will Fortnite V Bucks Free Really Drive

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vbucksps42367345-blog · 6 years ago

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makeitwithmike · 8 years ago

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12 Steps To Build A Successful Employee Advocacy Program

By Barry Feldman

It’s common knowledge that people don’t trust brands – they trust other people. All too often, digital marketing can come across as cold and lifeless. But it’s not hard to warm up your digital marketing, and win the trust of prospects and customers.

Why? Because your company consists of people: people who probably have a healthy appetite for sharing their thoughts via social media.

At the risk of lowering the temperature, I shall now introduce one of those frigid-sounding marketing terms: employee advocacy.

But really, it’s a term with a lot more warmth and appeal than you might imagine.

In a nutshell, employee advocacy is the promotion of a company by its people. It involves them talking your business or brand up on social networks because they want to… and it helps boost your company’s visibility and credibility by showing you have a strong relationship with your employees.

Many brands don’t encourage employee advocacy, but they should. If you’re not empowering employees to advocate for your company, you’re missing out on a huge PR opportunity. The conversion, retention and engagement potential is huge.

Check out just some of the benefits companies claim they’ve experienced from employee advocacy, courtesy of a study conducted by Hinge Marketing and Social Media Today.

Data from Smarp, an employee advocacy software company, indicates the average employee advocate has approximately 420 Facebook friends, 400 LinkedIn contacts, and 360 Twitter followers. It’s easy to see how getting them to give you a shout-out on social media has the potential to dramatically amplify the reach of your company’s messaging.

Here is Smarp’s formula for estimating potential reach boost via employee advocacy. It makes a compelling argument.

“Employees who share company content on social media… and spread the good word around can do wonders for your employer brand,” notes Smarp’s Content Manager, Annika Rautakoura. “Employees who feel empowered and in charge of their work will gladly advocate their work and the employer to their social networks.”

Smarp’s platform helps marketers promote internal communication and employee-driven content sharing with features such as a gamified leaderboard and data-rich analytics that can help calculate advocacy-based ROI.

Employee advocacy also overlaps a great deal with employee engagement. “When employees become brand ambassadors, they feel a vested interest in the company’s success and are therefore engaged in exceeding the stated requirements of their job,” writes Sapir Segal on the Oktopost blog. “And the more employees feel engaged, the more they want to continue talking and promoting the company’s brand.”

Providing an end-to-end solution for enterprising B2B social media marketing, Oktopost’s employee advocacy tools enable marketers to post content to themed sharing boards which aggregate to dedicated mobile apps as well as the employee’s web browser. Marketers can easily browse through the platform’s content curation and social listening modules to find the most relevant and fresh content to push to these boards.

Oktopost’s “Social Advocacy” mobile apps make it easy for employees to find relevant suggested content to share, which marketers can organize by topic.

But team members aren’t necessarily going to share content about their employers without a dedicated employment advocacy program to encourage them to do so. “[Employment advocacy] requires proper training, a significant time investment, and the appropriate software tools,” the authors of Understanding Employee Advocacy on Social Media point out.

“The most effective way to motivate employees to advocate the brand on social media is to explain why they are being asked to do so. Both managers and advocates agree that this communication is the biggest motivator, more so than gifts, monetary incentives, or public recognition of performance.”

So what’s a marketing organization to do to foster participation in its employee advocacy program? The following 12 steps are bound to give it wings.

1. Gain buy-in from the top

You want to begin by securing organizational buy-in from C-level executives. LinkedIn’s Sean Callahan recommends that you:

Convey the importance of employee advocacy and emphasize the low up-front costs and increased ROI.

Present how employee advocacy can increase engagement resulting in higher productivity and customer satisfaction.

Show how it will lead to increased revenue.

2. Create a strategy

You need to create a program with some degree of structure. That is, you want to document your goals and a framework for measuring them. One of the best things about employee advocacy is that it’s scaleable. Goals might include:

Increased website traffic

Increased social shares

Lead generation

Event registrations

However, you don’t want to dictate exactly what, when, where and how your employees share content on social media. Just give them encouragement and a healthy dose of latitude.

3. Create a policy

Obviously, there are risks involved with employee advocacy. As such, you’ll want to document a policy outlining acceptable protocol. The idea is to provide direction regarding social etiquette and tone, not iron-clad rules.

4. Appoint a leader

Designate an employee advocacy leader who you believe can help generate favorable results. The leader might be given specific responsibilities such as:

Generating interest in the program

Sharing ideas with employees

Helping you understand the employees’ point of view

Collaborating with employees to come up with new ideas for employee advocacy and ways to improve the program

The ideal person will encourage and guide employees, not boss them around. Employee advocacy relies on goodwill and trust.

5. Use alphas as guinea pigs

Rather than roll out the program to every employee at once, start with specific employees who have demonstrated that they are interested in participating and in providing feedback.

“Our research found that 77% of those employees who do advocate is a manager or above, so clearly brands have not yet figured out how to tap their broader base of individual contributors.” ~ Ed Terpening and Aubrey Littleton, Altimeter

6. Incorporate social media training

Don’t assume your employees know how to use social media effectively for business purposes. Deliver training and learning resources. Make them engaging and fun.

Potential topics to address in training may include:

Reasons to participate

Social media guidelines, and do’s and don’t’s for your company

How to use a specific social media dashboard

How to engage on specific social media networks

Tips and tactics to build relationships on social media

Techniques for personal branding and influencer marketing

Best practices for effective copywriting in digital media

Success stories and testimonials

7. Support personal development

Your employees may enjoy positioning themselves as subject matter experts. Support this idea. Serve employees by helping them raise the status of their personal brands and/or development.

8. Recognize achievement

Reward participants in your employee advocacy program with the recognition they crave. Create programs to showcase and reward the accomplishments of your leading advocates. Consider running contests. Top participants can be rewarded with money, gift cards or a day off.

9. Provide top content to share

Obviously, sharing useful content is central to your employee advocacy program. You want your employees to spread the word about your company’s blog posts, eBooks, infographics, videos, podcasts and more.

Marketers can work toward encouraging the sharing of relevant content in a variety of ways:

Create an employee advocacy hub where approved content can be easily discovered and shared.

Provide employees with a link, image, and suggestions regarding what to write.

Share examples.

Recruit key employees to participate in the content planning and creation process.

The list of content types you can use in your employee engagement program is long. Need ideas? Here you go:

Company blog posts

Company news

Media mentions

Promotional offers

Industry developments

Industry research

Behind-the-scenes photos

Client work and success stories

News about specific employees or company leaders

The company’s community activities

These are the most common types of posts shared by employees, as reported by Altimeter in Social Media Employee Advocacy: Tapping into the power of an engaged social workforce.

10. Get the right tools

There are several social sharing tools you may want to consider equipping your employees with. Consider free and/or subscription-based platforms such as AgoraPulse. Highly effective tools that are dedicated to employee advocacy include the aforementioned Oktopost and Smarp, as well as GaggleAMP, LinkedIn Elevate and Social Chorus.

Smarp’s analytics reporting can demonstrate impact per content item or per team member.

11. Host events

Give employees something fun to share with their followers and they will, so take them out to the ballgame! Host theme parties! Bring in speakers or entertainers! Do whatever you can to make sure they are quite literally a part of the party.

12. Offer cool swag

Give employees some cool branded swag such as shirts, water bottles, backpacks, etc. You might want to throw a custom hashtag for sharing it on social media as well. Just sit back and watch what happens.

In conclusion

Your employees are the human face of your brand and they have valuable connections across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Plus, because they’re real people rather than a faceless brand, they’re more trusted than anyone in your C-suite or marketing department.

Marketing leaders should no longer think of social at the department level only, and recognize the company’s workforce as a tremendous asset for social media marketing.

Reaching new levels of achievement in employee advocacy comes with numerous challenges, including: winning buy-in from leaders and the workforce; managing risk; building skills; making content available; and using metrics to prove value.

Overcoming these challenges takes a systematic approach to employee advocacy. And now is the time to take action, build a strong employee advocacy program, and inspire employees to share content regularly.

Guest Author: Barry is the author of The Road to Recognition and SEO Simplified for Short Attention Spans. Barry operates Feldman Creative and provides content marketing consulting, copywriting, and creative direction services. He contributes to top marketing sites and was named one of the 25 Social Media Marketing Experts You Need to Know by LinkedIn. To get a piece of his mind, visit his blog, The Point.

The post 12 Steps To Build A Successful Employee Advocacy Program appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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sualkmedeiors · 8 years ago

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5 Ways To Make Your Social Media Shine at Your Next Event

Social media is invaluable when it comes to driving conversations and awareness around your event. It can also help you keep tabs on sentiment, what’s resonating with attendees, and provide a unique way to engage in real time. But creating an event experience is no easy feat. We recently hosted our annual marketing event, Marketing Nation Summit, and I thought I’d share five key takeaways and best practices I learned from planning and running the social media for the event.

1. Create a Solid Social Media Strategy

First, it’s important to have a clear understanding of the business priorities for the event. From there, you can coordinate within your organization to ensure your strategy aligns with those priorities. Here are a few key things to consider:

Create a calendar. This should be a timeline that outlines all promotions and announcements happening during the event so you’re clear on when to start promotions.

Outline which social channels you’ll use. Think about the who, what, when, and where you’ll be during the event. Some channel features will lend to different occasions at your event. For example, creating an Instagram Story throughout the day will showcase visual highlights, while posts on Twitter will highlight quotes or learnings from guest speakers. Have a thorough understanding of your audience’s preferences and then plan on posting to the social channels they utilize and prefer.

Know the message. Announcing a new product? Be sure you have the updated product messaging so you’re in alignment with the public announcement.

Have a plan for giving some social love to all your audiences.

Incorporate a way to highlight champions and advocates that are attending the event. They are your advocates all year round and events provide a way for you to show gratitude for all they do throughout the year!

Keep a pulse on press and analyst content so you can promote whatever positive publications they’re producing, and if not positive, can alert your PR team.

Coordinate social coverage of speakers and influencers to ensure you have ample coverage of breakout sessions and live interviews. Do you plan to have team members staffing the breakout sessions? Ask them to capture a few tweetable takeaways and pics for you.

Ensure your sponsors feel the love. Take time to highlight your event sponsors. Without them, there wouldn’t even be an event.

Be clear on legal requirements. This is especially important for speakers, specifically keynote speakers. Most celebrities will have parameters around what can and can’t be covered on social media in their contracts. In order to avoid any breaches, have a clear understanding of what you can post.

2. Create An Officially Branded Hashtag

Have a branded hashtag—make it simple, and make it memorable. You want to create social buzz around your event, so make it as easy as possible for attendees to know (and therefore, use) your event hashtag. A couple of ways to promote your hashtag?

Use the event hashtag across all of your social accounts leading up to your event.

Include your hashtag when posting anything during the event.

Ensure it’s in all your communications and visual content including your event website, promotional emails, print materials, etc.

Make it visible to participants throughout the conference by including it on all presenter PowerPoint templates, social feeds, visual branding, handouts, etc.

Marketo’s branded hashtag trending on Twitter

3. Make Social Part of The Conversation

Build out a social engagement experience that invites attendees to share their experiences via their personal social channels. A few easy ways to make social an integral part of your event?

Include a social feed that displays on the presentation screens in breakout session rooms. Seeing what other people are talking about invites attendees to join in on the social and share their own point of view.

Example of live social feed next to keynote stage

Build a “Social Hub” area that showcases conversations, leaderboards, pictures, and demographics of attendee social posts. It’s a great way to visually tell your story throughout the event.

Marketo’s social hub became a gathering spot and highlighted social activity

Live tweet as much as possible. Most events host several sessions at the same time, so attendees are unable to catch every session they wanted to. Live tweeting provides a way for attendees (and non-attendees) to still get a few top-level takeaways. Create a calendar that outlines breakout sessions, speakers, and topics so you know where you need to be to get the most bang for your buck.

Reply to and engage with your attendees. It’s important for the brand hosting the event to acknowledge its attendees through liking, replying, and sharing. Acknowledgment not only shows appreciation for the individual contributions, it encourages others to engage.

Monitor your social feeds to ensure you’re able to answer any questions (or direct their question to the right person) attendees may have.

4. Have A Plan For Negative Feedback

Everyone hopes their event will go off without a hitch, but if that’s not the case, it’s a good idea to have a plan in place for complaints. A few things to think about:

When addressing complaints on social, it’s always best to acknowledge and thank whoever brought the issue to your attention. Then, inform them that you’ll address the issue quickly. If you’re unable to get it resolved immediately, keep them updated on your progress.

Have an on-site support team you can call on if it’s an issue that needs to be handled in-person.

Take the time to address each complaint individually. They took the time to air their grievance, you can take the time let them know you heard it and will do whatever you can to resolve it.

5. Tell Your Brand Story Visually.

Events can be a great place to highlight visual content, so you’ll want to incorporate a strategy that includes capturing visual content as well as written content. Here’s are some fun ways to engage visually:

Give your followers a behind-the-scenes look by sharing backstage pics and video. This is a great way to show them something they wouldn’t otherwise see.

Create quotation templates that capture speaker quotes. This can be challenging to create on the fly, but people engage at much higher rates with visually compelling posts than they do with simple text quotes.

Plan on livestreaming. Events provide the perfect venue for you to interview subject matter experts, influencers, customers, and partners. With everyone in one place, you have a unique opportunity to create face to face, real-time content. All you have to do is sit down and hit the “Go Live” button.

Marketo & LinkedIn Livestream at the show

Utilize the different social platforms to highlight your event in several ways. Create Stories on Instagram and Snapchat, an album on Facebook, or a Moment on Twitter. Create unique Snapchat geofilters to highlight your event. Use unique apps like Boomerang and Layout to create fun collages and gifs.

Snapchat geofilters that ran during Marketing Nation Summit

Ultimately social is a huge part of how people experience the world today, and it’s no different for your event. Even more importantly, sharing your event socially invites people who weren’t able to attend in, and gives them a glimpse of the learning, excitement, and story you are trying to build. Do you have any event social media best practices to share? I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

The post 5 Ways To Make Your Social Media Shine at Your Next Event appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

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