#poke remix that delightful day feeling

[9823678]

National Park Theme - Pokémon Gold/Silver

[softly-savage-mint-yoongi]

Allotrope

Genre: Idolverse Pairing: Kim Junmyeon (Suho) x reader Warnings: more angst. more smut. semi-public sex. Dom!Junmyeon makes an appearance again but still kinda mild. thigh riding even though it’s not really a warning??

prev. 3 next Words: 10k

"Happy Birthday!" you exclaim happily. On your tip-toes you swing your arms around Soohyun's thick shoulders and squeeze him tight until it hurts to push yourself against his solid frame.

The older man laughs like thunder, just as happy. You can't remember how many drinks he has had, but you're enjoying watching him be the one to let go for once.

Luckily for you both, being senior serving staff at your restaurant came with its perks. Perks such as you both being able to take the same night off to go out and celebrate. It doesn't matter what day of the week it is, it's Summer. Your restaurant is always busy during the season. The city, too, is busy any night of the week, May through September.

This is your favorite time of year. When you are on break from school and good money gets even better with busy shifts. You make even more because you work a bit more, and it tastes sweeter because you get to go home and do nothing or go out with friends. Like right now.

There's a certain kind of magic you love about the hotter season. Days never seem to end, only the sky becomes a light show twice per twenty-four hours, like clockwork. One half gives you a dazzling galaxy of stars and the other, blue skies and fluffy white clouds. It always wraps you in a warm embrace of endless possibility, and that freedom makes you feel invincible.

With a giddy laugh, Soohyun returns your affection, lifting your feet from the sticky bar floor. He presses the air from your lungs until you're smacking his arm in defeat. Setting you down carefully, he makes sure you're good and steady before he lets go.

"Thank you!" he hollers, slamming back the remaining bit of soju in his glass.

His jovial attitude is infectious. Even the humid air in this club and the way it's making your hair cling to your neck with sweat can't damper the exemption of your spirits, and you haven't drank enough to consider yourself even slightly buzzed.

It's stuffy, but a new song vibrating the walls with an artificial heartbeat calls your own toward the dance floor. Something that beckons to the excitement making your veins thrum with the feeling of being alive in the sweltering heat of the summer. Looking back, you crook a finger to the birthday boy, but he shakes his head, mouthing a 'no' and holding up his glass, magically refilled by a bartender.

You don't feel bad at all leaving him at the bar alone. He knows you're a shitty wingman, or wingwoman or chicken wing or whatever. It doesn't matter, he and you both know it, and to be frank, he doesn't need it. Soohyun is more than capable of staggering into any establishment on his own and making women's heads turn. If anything, you make it more difficult for him to find potential partners when you're beside him looking just as good.

Sticking your tongue out at him, you dismiss him with a devious smirk, instead focusing on the moment. On the music surging through your very being, getting drunk on its tempo.

You don't much care that you're sweating or that your feet hurt in these heels. Normally, you wouldn't be bothered, only wearing them under the excuse that it was a special occasion and you didn't purchase them to sit in your closet. Plus, they look killer with this dress.

Your palms are hot where they drag up your own legs, and you close your eyes. Dancing has never been your strongest point, but there's something addicting in the volume pulsing in your ears tonight. Something ritualistic as you smile to yourself, letting your body anticipate the rhythm just as it plays. It makes you feel good to move this way, so you let go for as long as it will sway you.

After a while, the song ends and a new one begins. One with an intro you recognize, a sound unlike others that dips into a stuttering bass. You open your eyes when you realize it's a remix of 'Monster' by EXO.

Even just the name of his group sends an excited shiver down your spine. Without warning, it's too balmy in the center of this mass of undulating bodies. Your own feels too damp and the dress that clings to you feels like an uncomfortable second skin.

As if broken from the spell of the previous song, you can hear everything else over the beat of the remix. Similar to the din of a bell, you catch a pretty laugh you recognize on the upper level. Your eyes scan where your brain is telling you- landing on the face of the laugh's owner.

Furrowing your brow, is that... Kai? It has to be. Nobody else on this earth possesses the combination of lucky genes quite like he does.

Your breath catches in your throat, a hot flush brushing your face when you notice it's not just him. It's eight of them, laughing with embarrassment at their own song, albeit a remix, carving a home in the chest of every dancing body in this club. His laughter is overridden by the sound of Chanyeol's clapping as he nearly liquefies onto the floor above you with a wide laughing smile.

Beckoning your eyes to his face you find the one you want staring back at you, having caught the stillness of your frame among a crowd of movement. Your lips drop open with a soundless gasp.

He looks effortlessly incredible. Relaxed in their space, hanging over the railing of the balcony. He's watching you, idly swirling bits of ice around in his empty glass with a twirl of his wrist.

Junmyeon smiles, tipping his head toward you and tucking that cheeky smile into the corner of his lips. You take a moment to let your eyes rake over him. His hair is fluffy and unstyled, hanging over his forehead. He isn't dressed to the nines like most people in this space are attempting to be, yourself included. He doesn't have to be when he's sitting up there on the VIP floor.

He detaches himself from the rail, pushing to his full height and disappearing from your view with a grin. Without his presence, but knowing he is here, you feel a different type of exhilaration altogether. You're not interested in dancing anymore, unable to keep your eyes from the railing where his members talk and joke and watch the nightlife.

The air around you is quickly much too thick with strangers for midnight on a Thursday. Trying your best without touching anyone, you dodge your way back to the grand bar, gripping the smooth resin edge of it and admiring the shade of the cherry wood encapsulated within it.

From the corner of his eyes, Soohyun watches you, "Didn't feel like dancing anymore?"

You grin at him, "I just need to catch my breath."

His heavy brow creeps toward his hairline as he considers your statement with a swig of his current drink, already half empty.

"It was just one song and you're already winded? We gotta get you into the gym, Y/N."

The scowl you fix him with from the bottom of his glass has him bursting out with more roaring laughter, as always. "I'm kidding!" he chokes out with a poke to your cheek, "Cheer up!"

"Yeah, um..." you don't know where to begin, or if you should even bring it up?

This is a celebration for Soohyun. If Junmyeon tries to whisk you away, as much as you would be delighted to, you can't just drop your best friend for him. You're here to hang out and perhaps help Soohyun take someone home, if that's what he wants. By the way he is slamming back his drinks, you're wondering if you might be here instead to take him back to his apartment safely.

The hand that touches your back faintly startles you, making you jerk toward Soohyun and away from the intrusion.

A familiar scent hits your nose and you realize that it is Junmyeon who has joined you at the bar. When you face him, he is pointedly not looking at you, his eyes scanning the bar menu hanging over your heads with a delighted crinkle, his lips parted just slightly, the bottom bit of flesh sticking out a little more. You notice the quirk is something that happens with his face when he is concentrating.

"I didn't mean to scare you." he smiles as he talks, but still hasn't looked at you.

A sheepish laugh flutters past your lips, "I know. Sorry I jumped."

Finally, after placing his order with the bartender, he turns, resting his elbows back against the counter and letting his eyes find yours.

Beside you, Soohyun has been observing the entire encounter go down, trying to keep the cheeky grin off of his face. He finishes the last dredges of his glass and sets it back against the bar forcefully with a loud smack.

You jump, eyes wide and whipping to him, "Oh!"

He stares as you, eyes alight with a mischievous gleam. His only response is to raise one eyebrow.

Junmyeon, on your other side, is as smart as they come and put it together automatically that this must be the famed Soohyun. He reaches out his hand to the larger man.

"Hello, I'm uh... Junmyeon. You must be Soohyun, it's nice to meet you!"

Soohyun is a little shocked at his forwardness but happily shakes his hand regardless, "Nice to meet you Junmyeon."

They easily drop into light conversation and you can't fight the smile on your face at their simple pleasantries. Soohyun isn't in any way, shape, or form romantically inclined with you, nor you with him. That makes this whole situation a lot less awkward.

He is still protective of you, like a brother, but he also knows about Junmyeon and the way you look at one another because he was there when it first happened six months ago.

Junmyeon's drink is delivered in silence and he nods at whatever Soohyun is saying, sipping at the rim of the glass with a smile. You're examining him. Taking him in and willing your heart to stop beating in time with the EDM booming from the speakers at 120bpm as you look at him.

The way the apples of his cheeks rise and stick out when he smiles a certain type of way. How his brows raise as his eyes crease in delight when he laughs. The beautiful cascade of colors that light up his hair in a rainbow of pulsing hues as the lights dance to the music above your heads. In awe, the way just having his presence here instills in you a sense of calm and excitement all at once. You're afraid you'll never get enough.

It is odd, having him in your space but not alone. Here, with Soohyun. Two people who are important to you.

...Is Junmyeon really that important to you? You haven't seen him but twice, the last time only seven or eight weeks ago. Since then you've had a lot of conversations with yourself about him over a glass of wine in the confines of your apartment. About him with you, specifically. Imagining if he wanted something more than what you have with him,  and if would you be willing to do that, too?

Would you be willing to make room in your heart and your time for him as more than the other half of this whatever it is you have together? Are you willing to risk getting your heart broken by him if he can't make time for you with his busy schedule? If he doesn’t love you when you’re ready to love him?

You've thought about him a lot, surely, although you try to persuade yourself that is the natural progression of your situationship with him. At first, you thought about him a lot when you were lonely and needy and your body was desperate for friction. In the last month, since your second adventure with him, you've thought about him in other ways too.

Daydreamed of him when you went back to that bench again a week later to study. Your eyes kept drifting around, hoping he might show up again and just sit with you. At home, when you were curled up on the couch for a relaxing evening in, thinking how nice it might be if he were there with you. Perhaps with you wrapped up in his arms or your head resting on his lap. Perhaps it was the reverse. You smiled thinking about how he might really love it to fall asleep with his head in your lap and your fingers gently running across his scalp.

You thought about how beautiful he was. Thought about what he might look like if you actually got to wake up in each others arms peacefully. How the bright morning sun might paint his skin in a golden white glitter. How soft and warm he might look, relaxed and still sleeping against the crisp white linens of your bed. How peaceful he might feel.

You thought about how precious his soul appeared to be. How fragile and defenseless and scared you made him the last time you were with him and how warm you felt to know he felt safe with you once you voiced as much. You talked a big game about knowing Junmyeon and not just Suho the first time you met, and you still stand by that. How easy it is to know him for who he really is under all of those layers that he carefully portrays and orchestrates to protect himself.

"Y/N?" he calls, gently touching your elbow.

You're snapped out of your thoughts, eyes seeking his face. He smiles at you softly when he notices you were lost in thought, and you swallow hard.

"Soohyun was just telling me you're here celebrating his birthday."

Furrowing your brows, "Yes?"

He barks a laugh, covering his mouth at your cute, perplexed pout, "I invited you both to come up to our section, if you want?"

"Only if Soohyun wants to. It's his birthday." you shrug, trying to cool your cheeks.

Soohyun cracks a cheshire smile at you, "I think it'll be fun." he says. His eyes are pointedly looking between you and Junmyeon with mischief, "Besides..." he adds, pausing to scan the patrons here on the ground level of the club, "There doesn't seem to be much fun going on down here."

You and Junmyeon both snicker at that, knowing exactly what he means.

Part of you is slightly worried about Junmyeon's public image if someone notices him down here talking to you and then taking you upstairs, but you feel a little less targeted if you're not the only one being invited up. The remaining part of you is excited to be with Junmyeon.

Excitement at not just the idea of fucking him, maybe. Excitement at the greedy idea of hearing him laugh and seeing him smile more. Of having him near you, and relishing in how good he makes you feel just by standing beside you.

Junmyeon nods, turning back to the bar and hailing a bartender. When a stoutly man arrives, Junmyeon slides him his black card, gesturing to the both of you and himself.

You jaw hits the floor. You know how much these drinks can cost and you know that while you may have only had one or two, Soohyun is probably well into his eighth or ninth.

"Junmyeon, no!" you chastise, gently tugging on the sleeve of his grey sweater.

He pats your hand and smiles, "Let me do this as birthday congratulations and an apology for hijacking your celebrations for the evening."

Soohyun claps him on the shoulder, "Thank you!"

Your sometimes-lover turns and clasps his hand back in standard bro-like fashion, "No problem, it's the least I can do!"

The bartender returns and Junmyeon finishes the transaction, "Come on, now. The guys are probably wondering where I am."

Automatically, your head turns toward the balcony where you first saw him this evening. Most of them don't seem to be paying any mind to the club patrons below their floor. The maknae, however, has his eyes trained on your little group as Junmyeon does his best to inconspicuously touch your back to guide you toward the staircase at the back of the club.

You blush under the scrutiny of the guards as he ushers you forward with claims that you're both with him. Your hand brushes over one of the pretty velvet ropes as you pass, and it's just as soft as it looked.

When you reach the top of the stairs, several pairs of eyes glance your way briefly to see who made an entrance. You're sure there are other celebrities and successful individuals among all of the faces, but the only ones you know are the faces of EXO, and the only one you care to look at is Junmyeon's.

He looks right back at you, surprised, as if he thought you might be gazing at all of the other people just like him. People with money, fame, power or beauty, or any combination of those things. Instead, he reminds himself that you are used to seeing people like that come and go.

Instead, he is reminded, that you seem to be putting all of your bets on him. That you're here looking at him, and him only.

He seems to relax a little, embolded. Enough to quietly take your hand and lead you to his members. The mouthier of the pack notice, various knowing grins etching onto their faces.

Junmyeon introduces you, "My friends are going to join us for the evening, please treat them kindly." He gestures to each of you with your names, and Jongdae instantly recognizes you. He gracefully removes himself from the couch and offers you his seat instead.

You look at Junmyeon, unsure of what to make of his offer. The older man smiles, nodding.

Jongdae is kind, and you're happy Junmyeon has him, "Thank you." you whisper as you sit.

The younger man stands beside the arm of the couch, "Did you want a drink? I can get a waiter, or...?" he trails off, looking around the flat for one.

Chanyeol cuts in, trying to speak with Baekhyun climbing all over him, "Yah, cut it out!"

Baekhyun howls, ignoring him instead, "We want to go to karaoke!"

Some of the other members perk up at the idea. "Oh, that sounds like fun." Jongin replies.

Minseok nods, shoulder dancing enthusiastically in his seat, "We have been here for a few hours."

"Our guests might like to come, too." Kyungsoo reminds them, his eyes slowly crossing the expanse of faces and landing on yours with a gentle smile.

Soohyun interrupts, "I think that sounds cool. I've never been, actually."

This was a fact that even you didn't know about him, and your eyes widen, "Seriously?"

He smiles, a somewhat triumphant, out of place beaming smirk that says it's something he takes pride in.

You can't recall yourself ever being big into karaoke either, but that's not to say you didn't like it. Simply, you had never had the time or wish to go previously. Now, with several professional singers sitting in your circle, a thrill of anticipation creeps up your spine.

"I'm all in." you grin.

__________________________________________

The karaoke bar Baekhyun chooses for your group is on the same side of town. It seems to be the only one anyone is willing to drive to at this hour that has decent private rooms. They've carpooled, but still drove enough cars that there were a few empty seats between the three vehicles.

You laugh once more, recalling the face Junmyeon pulled when you told them you and Soohyun would catch a lyft to the address, just the same way you made it from your apartment to the bar.

He absolutely is not going to let that happen. Junmyeon didn't drive his own car tonight, but somehow rearranged the members so that Soohyun was cramming into the back seat of Chanyeol's Mercedes Benz with both you and Junmyeon, while Baekhyun rode shotgun.

The vocalist handles Chanyeol's aux cord well, and you understand why he is the center of activity among their group. His chatty nature and sunny personality combine well with Chanyeol's infectious happiness. You admire them together in silence, happy that they appear so at ease with each other and you.

Junmyeon and Soohyun are carrying on a conversation you're not inspired to follow about sports. Instead, you look out of the window, watching the city blur past in a complex pattern of shapes and lights, humming along to a tune Baekhyun has deemed worthy of letting play. Your hand is in Junmyeon's and you smile at his attentiveness, letting you know he is still paying attention to you with the way his thumb softly strokes back and forth over your knuckles as he talks.

Chanyeol's car is comfortable, and you find you like the way he drives. Normally, you would be worried about getting into the car with someone you don't really know, but you're beginning to realize you break a lot of your normal nuances for Junmyeon. You watch Chanyeol's face in the barely glowing blue reflection on the windshield. His eyes flick to Baekhyun briefly, one hand tapping the beat into the top of the steering wheel where his hand is spread across it. His other hand remains comfortably on the top of the gearshift.

You catch his eyes casually in his reflection, but he only smiles a little wider and warmer. He is the first, although you've never spoken directly to him, to make you feel wholly welcome and comfortable. Baekhyun's fingers climb the top of Chanyeol's hand on the gearshift, poking it in time with the tune as he sings softly.

________________________________________

The private room provided for your group is large, with a plush couch, bean bag chairs and cushions of various sizes surrounding a large table in the center of the room. There are stage lights above the massive television monitor on the wall and a shelf where the karaoke system and accessories are housed beneath.

Almost immediately, the group of boys begin to fall into different seats. Junmyeon is kind enough to turn on the console, placing the mics down on the table. He picks up the remote and fiddles with the lighting. It becomes drastically brighter with white light and a hiss of protest works itself around the room.

"Sorry." he laughs, turning the lights off altogether and turning the stage lights to a pretty pink color before he looks back at you for approval.

Automatically he frowns, seeing you in the center of the couch with a grinning pair of eyes on either side of you. Jongin throws his best aegyo at him while Baekhyun just laughs at the pout Junmyeon gives.

You can't help thinking how adorable he looks. Under any other, more... public circumstances, you know you should be extremely careful with your interactions among these idols, especially their leader.

Looking around, you let yourself relax. You're in a private lounge with them, not in public. Exhaling your anxieties, you look up to your favorite among them and pat the couch in front of your legs.

Junmyeon beams at you, walking over and sinking immediately to the floor in front of you and resting his back against the couch. Throwing his own caution to the wind, he reaches back for your hand turns his head, gently brushing his lips along your fingertips before he places your hand against his shoulder.

Minseok approaches the console with an enthusiastic sort of wiggle.There are conversations all happening at once, and at the same time you realize they are all aware of the talks happening around them and involved. It's strange to watch them weaving in and out of multiple discussions.

Soohyun catches your eyes from his place in a bean bag chair in front of the table. Sehun is lounging beside him, laughing about something. You want to be shocked if the two of them are hitting it off, but you're not surprised because Soohyun is just that type of person. He can be friends with anyone.

You don't recognize the upbeat pop song Minseok is singing aloud. Even so, the timbre of his voice sounds nice. His cat-like eyes are hyper focused on the screen as he sings, but he's smiling. Jongdae sits on the other side of the table, swaying his body to the beat and giving Minseok his undivided attention.

"Do you like video games?" Baekhyun suddenly blurts from beside you. At first you're not sure he is even talking to you, until he leans in, waiting for your answer.

You laugh loudly, and it makes both he and Jongin smile, laughing with you. You can feel Junmyeon's shoulders shake, too. He knows you laugh too loudly when you're nervous.

"Uh," you try to recover, "I do, but I haven't played in years."

"Why not?" Jongin interrupts curiously.

These boys are making you think about cherished memories. Idly, your fingers creep up the back of Junmyeon's head while you think, softly carding through his hair.

"I don't have any. I used to play with my brother a lot when we were kids, but when we grew up and he moved away he took the consoles with him."

Baekhyun curls his lips into a tight line, nodding in understanding, "Ah, I see."

Jongin is silent for a moment before, "You should come to the dorms sometime and play with us."

Beneath your fingers, Junmyeon freezes. You worry it's a bad sign, as if he doesn't want you to get that close, that personal.

As much fun as you want to believe it could be, you don't want to overstep Junmyeon's privacy. "I appreciate it, but I don't think I'd ever have the time." you say instead. It's not totally a lie.

The tension in Junmyeon's shoulders doesn't go away. You choose to ignore it, instead focusing on Chanyeol's attempt at singing a foreign pop song at his highest possible pitch and extravagant running-in-place movements. To your left, Baekhyun is grinning at him like an idiot.

A server enters in the middle of it, bringing a round of drinks you never knew there was an order for. A bottle of soju sounds good right now, you think, but before you drink anything more, you should probably use the restroom.

Beside you, the shorter idol is handed a bottle of it, flavored peach. "Excuse me, may I order the same thing?" you politely request, gesturing to the green bottle settled against the singer's lips.

The server nods without a word, leaving the room once the rest of the drinks are delivered. Jongin gets up, letting you off the couch, "I'll be right back." you tell the handsome man sitting on the floor.

He smiles at you, but it doesn't last, "Okay."

You notice Soohyun's head turn to you mid conversation, waiting, but you wave at him, mouthing 'bathroom' before making your exit.

Gods your feet are killing you. Wistfully you smile, happy you won't have to fight to find the restrooms. The glowing sign is just down the hall.

When you emerge from the ladies room, you're surprised to find Jongdae standing against the wall just outside.

"Hey." you greet sheepishly, not sure what else to do. It feels like he has something to say, so you linger with him in the darkness of the corridor. It sounds like the walls are alive, tones of heavy bass thumping through every room. The smell of cigarettes makes you scrunch up your nose.

Jongdae laughs quietly, shaking his head and removing himself from the wall, "Are you enjoying yourself tonight?"

You consider his question, "This isn't how I anticipated the night to go, but it's been good so far." you say with a smile.

He beams at you in a silent laugh, "Good, good." Offhand, you register his beauty when he smiles. It's dazzling, but the sharp, feline corners of his eyes aren't quite right and you find yourself frowning that it isn't Junmyeon smiling in front of you right now. The crescent shape of his eyes and the soft upturned crinkle at each corner is something you've grown fond of.

It's silent but the man in front of you puffs out his cheeks; you get the feeling there are more words that Jongdae isn't saying.

You're about to excuse yourself back to the room, but a gentle hand stops you, "Thank you." The look of confusion you send him prompts him to elaborate with a sigh, "For treating him well, I suppose."

"Oh." The gesture of his thanks warms you through and for just a moment you can understand why his brothers call him the kindest of them all. Even though this is awkward, standing in an aphotic hallway of some random karaoke bar in the middle of the night with a girl you barely know who is fucking your brother. You share a smile of understanding between you until he speaks again.

"It's nice to feel like you belong to someone and vice versa, you know?" he comments further. The expression on his face almost says he knows exactly what he's talking about but has chosen to cryptically ask you instead. It's serene.

"I'm not sure I follow." you reply, eyes looking to the floor, cringing at the cheesy coloring of the faded carpet.

Jongdae scoffs, but his words aren't rude, "You don't? Hm... I thought you would, since you're his." Jongdae isn't the type of person to speak with the intention to bleed, that is clear. Still, the simple words pang through your chest like a stone down an empty well.

"Ah, I mean, I'm n-" you begin weakly, your response cut short by a stronger voice.

"She doesn't belong to me...she doesn't belong to anyone." Junmyeon adds, joining you both.

The younger man's eyes widen, but he doesn't comment further for a long moment. His brows furrow, "That's interesting." he says with a tilt of his head, dusting off the nonexistent dirt from his pants. Jongdae turns, inching himself out of the space between you and Junmyeon, "I'll head back then."

You try to read the older man's expression and the tone he used, but he gives you nothing more than a slightly knitted brow and eyes that are trying to hold yours, and you're left wondering if he is upset or simply stating facts.

"We weren't..." you flounder, taken aback by your own crumbling walls yielding to the intensity of his stare. You have nothing to feel bad about.

When your eyes lift to meet his, Junmyeon seems amused, "I know." he whispers with a grin. Still, he doesn't move, anticipating your squirming limbs under the scrutiny of his gaze.

"Why are you nervous?" he chuckles. His head leans closer to yours and you shift back to look up at his face. You're surprised he can tell this about you just from body language, and it makes your heart flutter, pounding even harder against your sternum. You gawk at yourself internally. Since when did you lose your resolve and let him affect you like this?

Running a set of painted nails over your face, you collect yourself and smile, "I think you were a little jealous."

Junmyeon has the audacity to huff, eyes going wide, "Me, jealous?" He adjusts his posture, lowering his voice a hair as a server passes you both in the dim lighting of the hallway. She doesn't spare either of you a glance, intently focused on not falling head over heels - literally - while balancing a tray of cocktails on her palm.

Your eyes follow her. In the span of the six seconds she's invading the narrow hallway, you come to feel sorry for her. She's clearly uncomfortable and out of place, her free hand glued to the bottom of her short skirt, tugging it over her stocking-clad legs. The working woman inside of you mourns for her until Junmyeon is pulling your attention back to his handsome features.

"I don't get jealous." your lover focuses, his pouting bottom lip looks very kissable in the dingy light.

You stand up straighter and you poke at his lip with your index finger, unable to hide the color of humor in your voice when you answer, "Suho may not get jealous, but I think Junmyeon can be a little envious."

Subconsciously, he kisses at your fingertip, gently pressing against the pad while he thinks of an answer. A firm 'no' is all he says.

You don't really want to dig too deep into this but you believe you would also like to perhaps explore his possessive side more.

"Are you jealous that I don't belong to anyone or are you jealous that I was talking to Jongdae? Which is ridiculous, by the way."

He bites back immediately, "I said I wasn't jealous. I don't care who you talk to or belong to."

A pause follows, but he doesn't say anything else for the moment. You chew your bottom lip, your hands dropping to slide across his arms idly. His eyes follow the innocent path of your hands back and forth, fixed on the dark shade of your glimmering nail polish.

You have to ask him, "You don't?" Cocking your head before adding, "So, what if Jongdae kissed me?" You knew that wouldn't be the case because you aren't interested or invested in that particular set of chocolate eyes and rich vocals. There is only one brand of that for you and it belongs to Junmyeon. You just aren't ready to admit that to him, or yourself.

There is an unmistakable flash of something painful that passes through Junmyeon's features. His jaw goes tight and his eyes stay fixed on your hands, but he says nothing. Slowly, the corners of his lips melt into a frown. You can feel his skin grow hot beneath your palms, or is that you beginning to sweat?

So you provoke him further. You generally want to know, and logically you consider if breaching this side of him will result in the conversation you think you need to have about the situation you keep finding yourself in with him.

Leaning into him you whisper, "What if I fucked someone else?"

First, you hear him hiss. Then he jerks back, his spine snapping straight as he grabs your hand and pulls you back into the bathroom.

His grip is still tight on your hand while he waits for one single breath. When he is confident there isn't anyone else here, he whirls on you, shoving at you gently until your back meets the heavy weight of the door.

His hand releases you to flick the lock shut and you flinch at the loud sound the snap generates.

Your eyes lift to meet his. There's an emotion you can't describe set deep into the scowl he wears. Those dark pools of brown drop away from your own eyes. They focus on your lips before he growls, suddenly cupping your face in both of his hands and kissing you roughly.

You gasp into his mouth and this time you understand there is no room for chivalrous behavior. He immediately takes advantage of your parted lips, his tongue greedy in it's claim of your own. Everything about this kiss screams his authority and threatens to swallow you whole. You absolutely relish in it.

Your hands climb his shoulders, digging your fingernails into the collar of his shirt and across his skin. One of his own drops to your hip, bunching your dress and pushing your squirming pelvis against the door just as he slots one leg between yours.

The pressure at your center is heavy as he presses his thigh against you, pulling a moan from your chest. Junmyeon releases your hip, allowing you to roll them against the fabric of his jeans. His lips remain where they were, smearing the flavored gloss of your balm against his own.

So unlike the other times you've done this with him, he is biting your lip, sucking it lewdly into his mouth and pinching the delicate flesh with his teeth whenever he feels like it, just to hear your appreciative fussing.

He releases your mouth with a pop, angling himself back to watch you. His breath is hot against your heated cheek where he tries to fight the thundering of his blood, "You're not fucking someone else." he murmurs, Adams apple bobbing with the air he is forced to take.

It takes you a moment to understand what he means, because he is right, you're not. It's hard to remember why he would say that when he has his perfectly sculpted thigh flexed tightly against your aching clit, even through all of the layers of clothing between you.

You swallow hard, licking your lips as you slow your hips against him, "But what if I was?"

Junmyeon laughs desolately, his hand slipping from your face to your neck and he tilts his head, letting the fingers brush against the column of your throat. Bringing his lips to your ear, he bites you again. His lips plant wet, open mouthed kisses high on your neck. You think you might get high just from the obscene sounds of his mouth so close to your ear alone. You gasp when he speaks again.

"Because if you were, I would say they're doing a very poor job of it." he whispers against your skin, suddenly biting the flesh there, sucking hard enough to make you cry out.

You breathe, panting into his own ear, "What?"

Junmyeon chuckles, lifting his head so he can stare at the place where your core is pressed against him, "You're soaking my jeans already, just from this?"

You want to speak but nothing more than a garbled moan passes over your lips, red and swollen from him.

"Does this excite you? It drives me crazy. You...drive me crazy." he drawls.

He tuts his tongue at you and your eyes follow his down. Surely enough, your cheeks flood with heat at the realization that you are very much wet and staining his jeans.

It's oddly hot, scorching a flush into your bones at the sight of it. At the notion that for the rest of the night Junmyeon will be walking around with this very obvious exclamation of your activities. Of your mutual obsession and possession of each other. You probably will, too, with the tenderness you can feel growing from his mouth against your neck.

Your heart flutters when you realize he's grinning at you with his bottom lip between his teeth. He knows he's right, tucking that smirk into his cheek as he guides your hips into more forceful motion against him.

The pressure rips a moan from your throat. Your throat that his lips are attached to again, his palms too warm against your face where they press to make your head fall back and expose more skin to his hungry mouth.

"Do you want me to fuck you? Here, in public? In this dirty bathroom?" he breathes against you. It sends sparks down your spine and you grind yourself harder against him.

"Yes." you whine at him, your hands gripping tightly to his biceps.

You do your best to bring your knee up against his crotch gently, prompting him in some way, but he refuses, "No. I'm not fucking you tonight."

The sentence has you whimpering into the air between you. This time, you aren't in any position to dictate how the events will play out for you. Junmyeon is in full control, guiding your body how he sees fit, and you love every second of it.

Hotly, he groans against the side of your neck, "Bad girls don't get what they want."

He licks your ear, gently tugging the lobe between his teeth. When he releases it, he whispers, "Tonight you're going to ride my thigh until you come."

You realize you're not sure when you closed your eyes, but you squeeze them tighter anyway, imagining the stain it will leave behind in your mind with a sigh. Your cunt clenches once around nothing, serving to remind you just how empty he is leaving you tonight.

Perhaps when it's over and you regain the clarity for proper thought you will be grateful, understanding that Junmyeon is still being so good to you, instead of denying you any orgasm at all. Somewhere in the back of your mind you know it's because this gets him off just as much.

The coil in your gut is winding tighter and you're certain if he were filling you right now you would be shattering into a million pieces. The roughness of his jeans is an adjustment, the wetness and friction of the material causing the thin silk of your panties to fold and create one more bump for your clit to catch against.

Junmyeon hisses, "I can't wait to see everyone's faces when we go back." and his lips are kissing at your own again. His hands are in your hair and against your neck, lightly pulling you to look at him as he claims your mouth desperately, "I can't wait for them to know I'm the only one who makes you fall apart. Even without fucking you."

Another deep kiss before he opens his mouth again. As if he can't stop confessing the dirty thoughts he is having. Gods, just hearing him talk to you like this is enough you think. You're panting openly, teeth beginning to clench as he pilots your trembling thighs in a punishing rhythm.

"That I'm the one you're fucking. I want to make them jealous just by this proof alone. Look at you, you're a mess." The kiss he places on your lips after the words is tender, "So beautiful." he murmurs.

You're so close. So fucking close and so turned on and so sad all at once that his cock isn't buried deep inside of you, where you wish it was. That he isn't moaning out his release right alongside you.

He talks again as you chase your high, "Tell me I'm right, sweetheart. Tell me it's only me that you think of when you're alone in your bed." His forehead presses against your own, his own breath falling into the humid space you're panting into.

Your limbs seize up. Only a few more weak rotations of your hips will do it, but he pulls his leg away. Immediately, you cry with frustration.

"Tell me." he demands, eyes boring into yours with a smile. It lights your veins on fire and you feel like you might just find your release in his words only. You're so close, and you're not willing to fight him on it because you both know he's right.

Although he is demanding this of you, there's an edge to his voice and in his face that is asking you for reassurance that you feel the same way about him. Something not demanding at all but pleading. A softness you're hoping is him looking at you and begging you to confirm that his feelings for you are matched.

His fingers ghost over the wetness of your panties and you moan, "It's you." you mumble, desperately rolling your hips toward him.

Junmyeon returns his leg to you with a smile, allowing you to take your fill and use him. Luckily, it doesn't take long for your impending release to return. Not with the way he is kissing at your face and your neck and biting softly, following the subtle pain with licks of pleasure.

"Only you make me feel this way." you whimper against his hair quietly between your ragged breaths. Junmyeon stills his mouth but you're vaguely aware you can feel his lips stretch into a smile against your neck as his arms wind around you a little tighter.

You moan again, body trembling in his grasp, "I don't want anyone else to make me feel this way. Junmyeonnie, fuck... I- I don't want to bel... belong to anyone else."

He raises his head and watches you with parted lips and an awed expression on his face. It's enough for you to take one last peek before your eyes screw shut and your back arches off the door with a high pitched cry against his shoulder.

Junmyeon holds you through your orgasm, rocking your hips against his thigh until you're sagging back against the wood, spent. Your chest heaves. It is while you're recovering your breath do you understand the magnitude of what you said as you shattered into a million pieces for him and only for him.

He didn't miss it, either. However, your heart doesn't ache in the aftermath of it. It doesn't hold itself out on a wire or wait to fall because the pure fondness Junmyeon is regarding you with tells you all you need to know.

Suddenly, he smiles, wide and happy, before his lips claim yours again. This kiss is disarming in a way that has your body melting into him. There's no urgency to claim or to break away. Just a repetitive locking of wet lips slotted together in harmony, lingering in comfort against each other.

As you recover from your bliss, you catch the scent of your orgasm, all of your juices concentrated in one place and held like a trophy in the fibers of Junmyeon's ruined jeans. You cover your mouth when you see it, laughing as if you can't believe it's real.

He smiles down at it, too, raising his brows at you in a suggestive appeal. "Thank you." he says simply, as if you had just given him the best gift. Neither of you is willing to disturb the moment by regarding the deeper, obscure meaning of it.

Instead, he reaches past you to unlock the door, softly brushing the crimps of your dress out as he lowers it back to it's proper place.

He kisses the center of your forehead at your hair line with thinned lips, barely able to contain his schoolboy grin. His laugh breaks the silence and he shakes his head.

You're still a bit light-headed, smiling up at him and wondering why he's shaking his head, "What's so funny?" you ask.

Humming, he pulls you back into his embrace, wrapping his arms around you and tucking your head into his collar. He nuzzles your hair, "I was going to ask you for your number now but it seems I left my phone back in the room."

The affection wound into his statement warms you through, sticky sweet and thick like honey. "Oh." you giggle along with him.

Separating yourself from him to stand on two feet, you notice you don't have yours either, "Me, too."

"I'm serious, by the way." Junmyeon says quietly, avoiding your eyes by smoothing a hand over your hair. The gesture makes you smile ardently at him, a hum of appreciation sounding from your throat.

"I'm glad you are. How else are we supposed to get in contact if we keep making a habit of this?" you reply easily. An urge to step into him again and bury your face in his neck surfaces, but you don't want to be too clingy. The embarrassment of your confession not five minutes ago is still heating your face and making your throat dry.

Junmyeon grins, pulling open the door, "I guess we better go make sure we follow through then, huh?"

When the door to the room slides open and you and Junmyeon try your best to look completely normal, you lace your fingers together in front of you to stop them from shaking. You're so desperate to keep your composure, but you can feel the heat of every pair of eyes flickering over your body.

Not sure what else to do as you make your way back to the couch, you look at your lover. His lips are twitched into a proud smile and he meets every pair of eyes looking back at him without any ounce of shame. It does nothing to quell your nerves as Chanyeol nervously coughs and restarts his song on the karaoke machine.

The couch only has one Yixing clinging to it's well worn comfort, his legs draped one across the other, deeply relaxed as he appears to have sunk far into the black cushions. He doesn't say anything even though you watch his eyes fall to Junmyeon's pants and then your neck. While you make yourself busy trying to be comfortable on the opposite end of the couch, you observe the other man nodding his head and offering Junmyeon a raised fist.

They bump them together. You want to snort a laugh at the ridiculousness of it, opting to snicker with your palm covering your smile. Something hard presses against your bottom and you realize it's yours and Junmyeon's cellphones, abandoned there on the couch. You hand him his as you pocket yours without checking it. Everything you care about is here with you right now.

Once the initial shock of your return settles over the group, the atmosphere rebounds to normal in the span of fifteen minutes. Beside you, Junmyeon seems content to just watch. Jongin settles on the floor at your feet with a grunt and a deep sigh, puffing out his cheeks when he shakes his soju bottle to realize it's empty.

"What's the matter?" you lean down to whisper.

He pouts up at you over his shoulder, "Soju's empty. I want to drink more but I shouldn't."

Jongin repeats the motion of shaking the empty bottle again and you laugh, "Why shouldn't you?"

He peers at you as if it must be obvious, "Yah do you know how much sugar is in these? They're so bad for you but so good!" he exclaims. His pillowy lips and bright eyes are so adorable you have to resist cooing at him.

Junmyeon comments, "Good choice."

For five minutes you've been able to feel Soohyun's eyes boring into you from the same place you left him. There's quite the collection of empty alcohol bottles sitting on the table in front of he and Sehun. Both of them seem plastered, but laughing at everything that comes out of each others mouths with wide smiles and lots of bromantic slaps of hands on one another.

Still- he's watching you carefully. Surveying you for something you're not certain of. You choose to ignore it.

"Seems our Sehunnie has a drinking buddy." Jongin muses aloud. His lopsided grin shows more teeth on one side. It's cute.

"Yeah, it does." you beam, "I'm glad. Soohyun needs someone who can match him drink for drink."

All three of the members with you laugh at the same time. Junmyeon lets you in on what's funny, "Oh don't you worry. Sehunnie might be the youngest but can drink all of us under the table except for Minseok hyung."

Trying to picture it in your head is hilarious. The youngest and almost the largest among them, save for Chanyeol, facing off against the eldest and smallest. After a moment you're giggling right along with them.

In your absence someone has figured out how to change the lighting so that the stage lights blink and fade in pulses. For a while you zone out and feel how tired your body is after the dancing and the drinking and the adrenaline. It feels like your mind is awake and aware but your limbs are too heavy to move much. With a smile you let your imagination tell you that if a zombie apocalypse broke out right now you would surely die.

Junmyeon's arm is making a nice pillow, draped over your shoulders at the back of the couch. The thought that this is in part a display of claim makes you smile. You're aware that it shouldn't because it means complex trouble, but you let yourself enjoy the moment anyway. The affection and freedom to hang on one another the way a normal couple might. You silence your brain with the scent of his cologne when it tries to tell you anything else.

Jongin's smooth voice on the floor to your right drowns out Kyungsoo's soulful vocals at the karaoke machine, uncaring to put up airs of politeness when you and Junmyeon are being extravagantly obvious. You almost wish you could blame it on the atmosphere and the alcohol and the fun. Rather, you remind yourself of Junmyeon's words the last time you saw one another. You let yourself be selfish.

"You look so tired all of the sudden. Did hyung wear you out that much?" You want to believe he is asking because he is genuinely curious, but the glimmer of mischief in his eyes tells you he wants to tease his elder.

Beside you, Junmyeon is smug, curling his lips tight over his teeth and rubbing at his chin with one finger. The flush that lights your face like a Christmas tree is obvious even through the haze of the colored stage lights. There's nothing to say, but you're getting high on the fact that everyone can see and smell what you've been up to with him. Of the thought of his hands and mouth on you.

The younger man laughs. That same pretty laugh that sounds like a bell that you pick out from a distance every time. "Sorry. I mean, not really though. Even before the uh...yeah." he tilts his head once quickly to the side in his lack of proper words, "It was still clear that you're together."

You're half expecting Junmyeon to stiffen beside you, but he doesn't. Peeking up at him, he's just watching you in return with a warm smile. He looks breathtaking drenched in the royal blue of the overhead lights. Every bit like the king of his given element. The Water King.

"We, um..." you want to explain, to not lead him astray in thinking you're an item if that's not what it is. If you're being honest, you're not sure what you are with Junmyeon anymore. Were you ever sure of what this is or was? Your heart feels like something has shifted this time, but maybe you've just had too much to drink.

You chastise yourself. You're not even buzzed.

Junmyeon speaks this time, "We aren't together...right now." It's your turn to stiffen, until he continues, "We have to talk about it more."

Jongin scoffs, "Yeah, it's pretty apparent you mustn't do much talking when you're too busy doing all of that." His eyes flick to your lovers thighs.

Lightly, you kick his shoulder, "Don't be like that."

He frowns at you, twisting himself away with a false grimace, "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for you noona, but why not?"

Your eyes fall to your lap, "It's complicated." you whisper, your smile warping into an expression that says even you don't understand it.

Jongin pouts, "Complicated? What, just because we're idols?"

"That's part of it. At the least something to consider." Junmyeon confirms.

The younger man huffs at you both, his eyes lifting to look at you sitting there on the couch together in disbelief, "That's a terrible excuse."

"I thin-" you start, but Jongin interrupts you.

"I think it's pretty obvious you have great sex." Junmyeon kicks him this time with a hiss, harder than you had but not enough to cause injury.

He continues anyway, rubbing his shoulder, "I think you're both afraid of how good it could be. Of how well you get along and how comfortable you already are with each other."

There's a lump forming in your throat. He's right, you just aren't ready to admit it because it is absolutely terrifying. Junmyeon's frame is still pressed into your side. His presence is still warm and comforting although he remains silent.

"Other than the ridiculous way you're constantly making goo goo eyes at each other, it's still easy to tell you're important to hyung. I don't know you well enough to say the same for you, but you don't strike me as the type to be that flimsy." Jongin expresses his sentiments with a soft smile.

His words make your heart squeeze tight, beating stronger against your ribs. Before you can respond, Junmyeon's lips find the side of your head for no reason at all. Jongin is still smiling tenderly at you, and when your eyes briefly catch Yixing's on the other side of your lover, he's smiling at you kindly, too.

You can feel eyes on you from around the room. When you glance, Baekhyun, Soohyun and to your shock, Sehun, are all mirroring the delicate smiles at you and their leader. Chanyeol is, too, even while effortlessly singing the words to an old acoustic ballad in his deep, throaty tone. The remaining members aren't present or are otherwise busy looking at their phones.

"You would know better than most of us, I guess." Junmyeon addresses him with a grin, "Between you and Baekhyun."

Jongin flashes a wide smirk, letting it melt into a wistful smile, "Yeah."

It's all he says, effectively ending the conversation. The air doesn't feel as tense as it was, and god are you exhausted. The content feeling of this night and the orgasm and the couch and the fun and Junmyeon sink into your very bones and will it to rest. If you're not careful, you feel like you'll fall asleep here, and you still need to ensure Soohyun gets home safe and sound. His cat, Mingho, would claw your eyes out if she had to spend the night alone. Sometimes you think she's too attached.

Pulling your phone from your dress pocket, you hiss quietly. Your lock screen glares harshly back at you, the pretty pastel pink coloring of the clock doing nothing to soften the blow to your retinas.

04.17am

It's later than you expected, but you don't have work until the evening. Instead, you drop it to your lap with a shrug, startled when Junmyeon picks it up not one second later.

"Care to explain?" he whispers, pressing the home button and illuminating the lock screen again.

Staring back at you, behind the clock and notification bar, is a selfie of Lee Jongsuk. You laugh openly in return and take your phone back.

Junmyeon pouts, "I should be offended!" You shake your head at him with a grin, swiping your passpattern by muscle memory.

When the screen unlocks, you turn it toward him. Staring back at him now, is his own latest social media selfie.

"Oh."

Again, you're laughing. You laugh so hard you squirm, wanting to kick your legs about. He laughs with you this time, at least. After a moment he adds, "Still. It doesn't even have to be me, but not another man. Least of all not him!"

"I'm not sorry. Kang Cheol is perfect." your joke makes him frown.

"He's a comic book character, of course he's perfect." the deadpan snark in his tone has even Jongin scoffing a laugh from his place on the floor.

"Fine, fine. I'll change it, you brat."

Junmyeon smirks, "Alright, I'll remember that for next time." and it makes your blood run a little hotter. Your internal glutton for punishment is clapping her hands in glee. Junmyeon being dominant with you was not something you initially anticipated, but it is something you have been delighted to experience thus far.

It takes you a moment, but you push his buttons further by selecting a public selfie from Chanyeol and making that your lock screen.

"Yah, Chanyeollie?!" Junmyeon's curse makes the younger boy look up, wide eyed and handsome.

The green colored lighting and the karaoke screen illuminate him with a gentle glow as he gives you attention, striding easily over the folded legs scattered around the room.

You turn the brightness of your phone down before you turn it to show him your lockscreen. He laughs so hard he melts to the floor, slapping Jongin in the arm before he lifts it for a high-five with you.

"I'm so flattered." Chanyeol declares. Only after Jongin takes a moment to explain the story to him does he laugh loudly again.

Grinning, he praises you, "Savage. I like her, hyung. She'll fit right in with all of us."

The elder simply rolls his eyes with a shake of his head.

"But," Junmyeon lets his chin fall to your shoulder, "Do you want to put my number in there now?"

You smile at him, "Oh, I almost forgot!"

He waits for you to bring up an empty text, whispering one number at a time to you, ghosting a kiss over your ear with each one. He breathes a laugh and smiles sweetly at you when you send the number a singular heart emoji.

From within his pocket, you can feel his cellphone buzz twice in quick succession.

Saving his number, you type the name 'Junmyeon' into the contact name space with a single red heart and he tsks.

"Shouldn't it be Suho?"

Of course he would say that. It's been your thing every time you meet.

"I'm not changing it." The finality with which you tell him and then promptly shove your thumb against the save button makes him laugh.

His lips find the skin of your bare shoulder, humming a peck into the skin, "Thank you."

It only takes a fraction of a turn for you to comfortably reach his lips. There's some sort of comfort in them, soft and warm and real. Just pressing against yours without rush. Like the kiss you shared in the bathroom after your earlier activities. Like the kisses you've imagined might come from someone you really love.

It's sweet and simple and the world around you doesn't matter at all. You break apart with grins on your faces at Jongin's loud mocking of your PDA.

"Fucking gross."

[balarouge]

How outlaw musician Orville Peck is actually queering nation music|Xtra

One day Orville Poke awakened along with a hide on his skin, as well as he have not had the ability to take it off due to the fact that-- or two the tale goes. In the nation performer's globe, the tales are high as well as the fringe, dangling from his BDSM-reminiscent leather hide, is long, sometimes snaking completely down his chest. Whether he is actually using a western side button-up shirt or a translucent screen tank, the cover-up is certainly there, showing the musician's outlaw condition under a 10-gallon hat. On his launching cd, launched earlier this year and longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, Poke vocalizes in a deep baritone with a steel- guitar-heavy audio that's so much more Hank Williams than Hank Williams Jr, as well as that is actually fanciful enough to make your gramps nostalgic. Unlike grandfather's nation tunes, though, Poke's tunes of broken heart and riding by means of the desert unabashedly position other males as the object of his wish.

Orville Poke is the nickname of this particular Toronto-based performer who doesn't talk concerning his age or where he was birthed. Nonetheless, he performs acknowledge that he utilized to play in criminal bands and also has a theater and dance background. The second may be noticeable, given his tendency for attractive dramatization and also pageantry, each of which drew him to c and w as a little one. Regardless of the association of cowboys with heterosexual, masculine ideals, Poke doesn't find his queer identification as a departure for the category. As he directs out, our modern-day, stereotypical photo of the cattle herder was mostly affected due to the pastas westerns of the 1960s, created by Italian supervisors that composed homoerotic subtext into their manuscripts. These are actually stories regarding men roaming the infertile landscape with each other (and also wearing a whole lot of leather); believe Sergio Leone's traditional The Really good, the Bad as well as the Ugly, and the lesser-known Requiescant by Carlo Lizzani.

Poke regularly associated to the world of westerns in which marginalized outlaws were actually the core design somewhat than everywhere preferred leading guys of the time frame like James Connection, who controlled the display screen throughout the exact same decade. In the previous tales, a mystical singular stranger rolls with city and also finishes up picking up a crowd of various other outsiders to journey with. "That's type of my life history," he states.

"Even with the organization of cattle herders along with heterosexual, manly perfects, Peck does not find his queer identity as a departure for the style."

He filled up Horse with the acquainted concepts of pastas westerns, like loneliness, heartbreak as well as need to run away, though he uses male pronouns throughout the album. On "Large Heavens," he betrays about one thing he certainly never assumed he will refer to publicly: residential violence. The verses "I like him best when he's not around [...] Broken heart is a warm and comfortable sensation/ When the only feeling that you recognize is actually worry" mention abuse within connections, a theme hardly used up in nation apart from tunes like "Adieu Earl" due to the Dixie Chicks. He was merely able to sing concerning this stressed partnership after he took opportunity off coming from playing in criminal bands, put on the disguise and became Orville Peck; the hand-sewn piece of leather as well as edge uncovers additional than it hides. Poke's songs videos take his planet right into emphasis, showing him singing concerning shed passion to a stunning male in precarious deadline pants or even featuring casts that consist of queer and also trans folks and people of colour. His information is very clear: whether it is actually in a desolate hotel room, a substantial swath of desert or even at a technical bull riding competitors, all rate.

The diversity represented in his videos also speaks with the shifts gradually taking location in country songs, a genre a lot more linked with heteronormative, conservative, white The United States than liberal inclusivity. Some present-day process are actually now taking a page coming from Willie Nelson, that released a cover of Ned Sublette's "Cowboys are actually Frequently Covertly (Fond of One Another)" back in 2006. In 2015, the Brothers Osborne featured a male couple in the songs video for "Keep a Little Bit Of Longer," while Kacey Musgraves, a blunt fan of the LGBTQ2 neighborhood, has stated that she awaits a time when country would certainly possess it is actually own gay figure to respect. Possibly a masked cattle herder that combines music, dancing, graphic art and fashion trend will certainly fit the bill.

Though Peck recommends to his across-the-board serve as a "venture," he does not turn his nostrils approximately not-so-new "brand new" country-- some of his much-loved musicians include Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw and also the aforementioned Dixie Chicks. Depending on to Peck, these acts started the style of tongue-in-cheek tracks "about outright rubbish [as well as] red solo cups." Someplace down the pipe, however, those metaphors came to be the rule-- they inhabit plenty of present-day tracks currently that you can simply play pop-country bingo: Truck? Check. Whisky? Ditto. Delightful sectarian woman? Bingo!

As the category maintains getting recognition both abroad as well as in The United States and Canada because of an expanding urban millennial viewers, the question of who reaches produce country songs as well as what it must seem like is also evolving. There are actually a lot of Blake Shelton-types vocal singing regarding consuming with the (hetero) boys 'round right here, there's additionally Lil Nas X masking the line in between hip hop as well as country-- while likewise facing plenty of retaliation for it. A full week after debuting on Advertising board's Hot Country Songs chart previously this year, his hit "Old Community Roadway" was actually moved to their Hot Rap Tracks chart, sparking intense discussions. Signboard's validation that Lil Nas X's smash hit failed to embrace sufficient of present-day country's factors doesn't prove out, taking into consideration that modern country songs has actually been actually improving the genre for the far better aspect of a decade. Think about just how Nelly's remix of Florida Georgia Pipes's 2012"Cruise ship" resided comfortably on the chart, though there is actually little stereotyped country left on the monitor besides the vocalist's twang and also the weird mention of ranch cities.

"Though there are lots of Blake Shelton-types singing concerning alcohol consumption along with the (hetero) young boys, there is actually also Lil Nas X tarnishing free throw line between hip hop as well as country."

A lot of movie critics of Billboard's choice maintained that the extraction of "Old Community Roadway" was really regarding Lil Nas X being a younger dark guy from Atlanta as opposed to him deviating too much from category rules. As well as when the artist emerged as gay in July, he dealt with a brand-new surge of indignation. In the long run, though, the numbers promote themselves: "Old Town Roadway" today keeps the title of longest-running No. 1 solitary in Advertising board's record, verifying that there is actually area in the genre for those who aren't white colored and trustworthy.

As Poke places it, there is actually regularly been actually one thing subversive regarding hoodlum country and western, it is actually only that what is actually viewed as perversive adjustments. In the 1950s and also 60s, when the mainstream was actually all about ultra-conservatism, performers like Johnny Cash money and Merle Haggard were performing regarding jail and also cigarette smoking grass. "That was their version of remarkable overthrow," Poke points out. In these times, the marginalized viewpoint "takes place to become queer folks, folks of colour as well as women. Those vocals possess more of an area in nation than anything." As the old ways of being actually defiant have ended up being the style's metaphors, performers like Peck are actually redefining the incendiary room.

The masked cattle herder has actually each feet planted in various worlds, that makes for unique groups at live shows. More mature, die-hard country followers persuade to his songs along with queer youngsters as well as thugs. At a show in Montreal last April, he launched his song "Queen of the Rodeo" through explaining that it was actually discussed a bother queen pal, including that he in some cases seemed like a nuisance queen himself. The contrast was actually additional of a profound one. He has the utmost regard for the volume of job and also funds that goes right into drag and also, though he creates his own cover-ups (it takes him concerning thirty minutes to sew one), he also" [spends] much less on hair as well as makeup." What he suggested due to the contrast is actually that people get a comparable factor incorrect concerning both him as well as grab queens: Target markets often believe the performers are actually hiding behind an identity or even a cover-up, however these parts are really increased models of themselves-- often even much better variations, Poke says.

Though his hide permits Peck to develop a feeling of plan and also mystery, it additionally leads individuals to forecast themselves onto his work, which he points out is the biggest compliment because it implies they are actually involving along with his songs. The review segments of his online videos are actually full of arguments regarding whether he seems even more like Elvis, Roy Orbison or even Morrissey; everybody experiences timeless for the noises that are closest to their souls. His music, both unclear and suggestive adequate to lot each of our moments, produces area for projections. The same can't consistently be actually claimed for the specificity-driven tunes participated in through a lot of nation's straight male sets, that are actually still operating hard to promote their status practices. The tune "Beer Never Broke My Center" through Luke Combs doesn't have pretty the same expressive ring to it as Peck's "Midnight" through which everything is actually strangely knowledgeable to the storyteller: odd gulch roads mirror the strange appearance in Poke's fanatic's eye, as well as scrapes on the moon are actually reminiscent of past smiles. On the flip edge, "It takes one hand to count the important things I may trust/ But I received one palm that's taking hold of down on a cool one" possesses far fewer blanks for our imaginations to complete.

The genre still has a lot of work to perform before it's really inclusive, and also just before blurring the lines doesn't launch a Twitter hurricane. When adjustment shows its face (also one obscured by a face mask), there is actually no overlooking it. Musicians like Poke are actually developing myth-and-nostalgia-heavy worlds our team desire to acquire shed in, where there is actually area for everybody to envision themselves on horseback, check hand, observing his gravelly vocal off into the dusk.

This content was originally published here.

[siderealscribblings]

Never Home (or How Lila Rossi Tased Chat Noir)

A (somewhat) late addition for Week 2 of TOTLS Month. Balcony scenes may not be canon (yet) but here’s a Lilanoir remix of a Marichat staple!

From the moment Lila step foot into her apartment, she knew that she wasn’t alone.

This was largely because she had come home to an empty apartment every day for the last several months, and having grown so used to the empty feeling associated with it, she knew something was just a little off. There was an indescribable presence lingering in the air as she made her way into the kitchen, setting a bag of groceries down and reaching for the small, electric taser she kept in her purse at all times. Her parents would have never let her live alone without protection, and though she had never had the opportunity to use it, she had seen enough horror movies at one in the morning to know how to turn it on whenever the floorboards creaked awkwardly.

Powering the taser on, she made a great show of pretending to be oblivious to the intruder’s presence, stretching lazily as she turned on an Italian news station and made her way from room to room, making a quiet sweep of the small apartment as she went. Humming a tune under her breath, she made sure the bathroom and her wardrobe room were clear before heading into her bedroom, stepping out onto the balcony and breathing in the cool evening air.

After a moment, she turned around, heading back inside with a small sigh, about to slip out of her school clothes when a pair of glowing green eyes caught her attention.

The intruder froze, hand clutched around a can of water that was trickling into the potted plant next to Lila’s desk. It was too dark to see anything but the intruder’s eyes, and Lila wasn’t exactly in the mood to give strange men in her home the benefit of the doubt. As the bandit opened his mouth to say something, Lila’s survival instinct kicked in, prompting her to lunge at the assailant, taser crackling as she launched herself at the intruder like jungle cat. The man dropped the watering can with a clanging splash as Lila threw him to the ground, taser pressed against his neck as she realized she had just threw one of Paris’ resident superheroes to the floor of her apartment.

And not even the one she didn’t like.

“What…the hell are you doing here?!” Lila spluttered.

“Your…fichus…was…dying,” Chat panted.

“Did Ladybug ask you to come here?”

Chat didn’t quite know what was harder to believe; the fact that Lila Rossi had tased him, or the fact that she was now preparing something that he could only describe as heavenly.

“Huh?” Chat asked, shaking his head as Lila fixed him with a deadpan glance. “Oh…n-no, Ladybug doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Mmhmm,” Lila said, turning back to the veal steak unconvinced. “You’re not here to get me back in her good graces?”

“I think that ship has sailed, hasn’t it?” Chat chuckled.

“Sailed, sunk, and sitting at the bottom of the ocean,” Lila muttered, tipping the cutlets onto a pair of plates with a pair of small green salads. Chat blinked at her as she plopped the plate down in front of him, glancing between the cutlet and an amused looking Lila as she looked at him. “Something wrong?”

“No I just…” Chat scratched the back of his head. “Do you usually feed people who break into your house?”

“Color me curious,” Lila said as she regarded her unconventional dinner guest. “I’m interested to know why Chat Noir seems to be so interested in the wellbeing of my house plants, and this seems to be the best way to get you to stay in one place long enough for me to squeeze the story out of you.”  

“Aren’t your parents going to be upset that their daughter is entertaining random strangers in the middle of the night?” Chat asked, poking the cutlet curiously before taking a bite, eyes practically dilating as she swore she heard him purr with delight.

“I don’t live with my parents,” Lila said simply, cutting a chunk off her veal and placing it in her mouth with a thoughtful crunch before squeezing a little lemon over the top.

“…oh,” Chat said simply. “I just thought…w-well, I heard you moved to France so I assumed-”

“Mama’s work keeps her fairly busy,” Lila said with a small shrug. “She has to be in the Milan office most days, so it’s easier for her to just stay in Italy.”

“And you’re okay living here by yourself?” Lila’s fork paused between her plate and her mouth for the faintest moment.

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Lila said, leaning across the table with a small smile. “Do you check in on all the former akuma victims like this, or am I just that special?”

“Oh, n-no it’s not that you’re special or…I-I mean you’re special, clearly, but I didn’t…” Chat stammered, fiddling with his food as Lila’s smile became toothy. “I just…your apartment balcony is the perfect landing spot for me to kick off of to land on the building next door and I…may or may not land on it when I’m running home.”

“Wait, that bumping in the middle of the night is you?” Lila asked. “I thought I just had a raccoon trying to get in my window…”

“So I…kinda noticed your plant didn’t look happy,” Chat said, scratching his cheek. “And I may have bought a watering can to…thank you for letting me use your balcony as a springboard.”

“Seriously?” Lila snorted, leaning back in her chair. “You really went out of your way, every day, to water a plant that isn’t yours just to thank me for something I didn’t do?”

Chat shot her a lopsided, somewhat bashful smirk. “I’m a superhero; what can I say?”

“A real knight in shining armor, aren’t you?” Lila chuckled. “Savior of damsel-plants in distress from girls who kill everything they touch.”

“As someone who’s helped slay an actual dragon, I have to say you’re something of a disappointment,” Chat Noir laughed, taking another bite of his meat. “Though your Lightning Bolt attack packed quite a whallop.”

“Mama wouldn’t let me live in a house by myself without protection,” Lila said, narrowing her eyes at Chat. “And I seem to remember knocking someone flat on their tail not an hour ago. I’d say that’s fairly amazing, wouldn’t you?”

“You certainly don’t need a costume to be amazing,” Chat said, causing Lila to frown and glance up at the boy who appeared lost in a world of cotoletta. There was something strangely familiar about him, but Lila couldn’t quite place it, and the fact that she almost realized something about him was maddening.

“…aren’t your parents expecting you for dinner?” Lila asked, raising an eyebrow.

“…Dad’s working late tonight,” Chat said simply, burying a small flash of disappointment with another bite of his meal.

“Too busy for dinner?” Lila asked.

“He’s…got a lot on his plate,” Chat shrugged as Lila chewed thoughtfully.

“Yeah…I understand what you mean,” Lila said softly, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “So…do you plan on continuing to use my balcony as your personal springboard?”

“Unless I want to circumvent this part of town completely,” Chat said. “Which I’d rather not have to do.”

“Because you enjoy spying me changing through my window?”

“What?! No, I-” Chat trailed off as he caught sight of Lila’s smile. “…you’re messing me, aren’t you?”

“You catch on quick, gattino,” Lila said, mopping up the last of her veal juice with the spinach and strawberry salad. “Though I’m wondering if I shouldn’t be charging rent for the use of my balcony.”

“I’m sure whatever price you want, I could pay,” Chat chuckled.

“I’m not hard up for money,” Lila said, chewing on her lower lip. “I would appreciate your usual gardening services…provided your home life doesn’t demand your attention.”

“No real worry of that,” Chat said with a bitter laugh, extending his gloved hand across the table. “Do we have a deal then? You’ll keep renting me your balcony?”

“So long as you swing by every few days,” Lila said, thumb raking over the back of his gloved knuckles. “I’m not exactly a gardener, you know.”

“Clearly; I thought your plant was fake when I first saw it.”

“I still have charge in my taser, you know.”

“Now’s probably a good time to tell you I can’t really feel pain in this thing,” Chat said with a small flex.

“So that means you weren’t even stunned when I threw you to the ground?” Lila said, piling her plate on top of Chat’s as he carried them into the kitchen. “Good to know.”

“Hey, your hip toss is impressive, girl,” Chat chuckled.

“Do you compliment all your girlfriends on their hips, or is it just me?” Lila said, leaning on the counter.

“I don’t have any girlfriends,” Chat said, packing the plates in the dishwasher.

“Certainly not for lack of trying,” Lila said, cocking her head to one side with a smirk. “I’m sure if you looked elsewhere for love, you’d find no shortage of willing young ladies.”

“Do you say that to all the guys you bring home?” Chat said, leaning across the counter with an identically toothy smile.

“Just the ones who break in and water my plants,” Lila said, eyes tracing the curve of his mask for a moment. Seizing an impulse, she reached up, fingers sliding along his mask as she tried to find some seam she could use to pull it off. Surprisingly, Chat didn’t move, stiffening under her touch but still smiling as she pulled away.

“Disappointed?”

“A touch,” Lila said. “Who wouldn’t want to be party to one of the biggest secrets in Paris?”

“As lovely as the meal was, it wasn’t quite secret-identity reveal good,” Chat said, meandering towards the glass door leading out to the balcony.

“Well, I guess I’ll have to get my Julia Child on,” Lila said, following him out into the balmy French evening. “Or break out the cat nip.”

“That’s a misconception,” Chat said, leaning on the edge of the balcony. “Now, if you managed to get me a cookie-”

“I’ll leave some out for you then,” Lila said, leaning on the balcony as the sun set in the distance. She glanced across at him, watching the way the wind rustled his hair as he took a deep breath, turning to her with a toothy smile.

“Thanks for dinner…and not calling the police,” Chat said sheepishly.

“Thank you for the unsolicited landscaping,” Lila said, brushing some hair out of her face as the wind began to pick up. “Though I wonder how your partner is going to feel about your new side job.”

“Ladybug can feel however she wants,” Chat said with wink and a small salute. “But there’s nothing wrong helping out a friend, is there?”

For the first time all night, Lila was at a loss for words, and before she could recover, Chat was off, kicking hard off her balcony and up onto building next to hers. He landed in a low crouch, shooting her a wave over his shoulder before running off into the deepening night. She watched him go for a long moment, his black figure trailing over the rooftops for a few moments before arcing right, continuing to run in a completely different direction, almost as though the stop at her place had been considerably out of his way.

“Oh, so I’m just a stop on your way home, am I?” Lila said, smile playing at her lips as she turned and walked back into her apartment. “Alright, gattino, if that’s how you want to play it...”

[nicholerestrada]

How A Generation Of Sims Players Got Away With Murder

Mortimer Goth settles in to one of the 15 wicker chairs that have suddenly appeared by his lit fireplace. He feels strangely compelled to sit and remain seated, as if guided by an unseen hand, even as the room he’s in grows curiously hotter and hotter. Before he knows it, the chairs around him burst into pixelated flames. He’s on fire! He calls for help, but his wife, Bella, can’t hear him. She’s swimming in circles in their backyard pool, searching fruitlessly for a ladder that doesn’t exist. 

For the uninitiated fiddling around their family desktop, the original version of “The Sims” was mostly about nurturing humanlike characters through life’s minutiae. For everyone else, “The Sims” was and is a game about death, about wacky, inconsequential death, about fiery death and watery death, death by starvation and death by electric shock and death by skydiving malfunction ― Mortimer and Bella’s worst recurring nightmare. And as the game evolved over the years, a kind of meta-game has formed around it: a subtle relationship between creative, death-obsessed “Sims” players and the game’s ever-adapting designers, keen on raising the stakes of the simulated lives we so easily ended.

Today, death on “The Sims” can feel harder and harder to come by. But it’s never impossible.

In the scenario above, the deaths of Mortimer Goth and his wife were no accident. They were the result of a human player deciding to set in motion a series of events that would lead to the inevitable demise of digital beings brought to life in a simulation game. That human player could have ushered Mortimer and his wife into a room and removed the door, watching as the Sims starved inside. The player could have prompted the characters to start making a feast with their cooking skill at Level 1, tempting a shoddy oven to burst aflame and engulf them. The player could have even neglected the couple’s guinea pig, only to have Mortimer pick it up and allow the rodent to administer one fatal bite.

But that player chose to cluster highly flammable chairs near the fireplace and hope they caught like tinder, and remove the ladder in the swimming pool once Bella, ignorant of the option of simply lifting herself out, dived in.

Back in the heyday of the game’s first iteration, everyone killed their Sims. I feel confident in stating this even without hard data to back it up: Killing Sims wasn’t exceptional behavior, it was the norm. Just look at the Reddit threads relaying depraved “Sims” activity with comments spooling into the thousands, or this Polygon article, where it is written, “It is a proven fact people love killing off Sims.”

“That was the only enjoyable way to play ‘The Sims’!” Maddy Myrick, 31, told me. She’d responded to my callout on Twitter, asking first-generation “Sims” players to explain the morbid habit of killing a thing you were ostensibly tasked with keeping alive. “Sometimes I would start a new family, convinced that I would let them live. But, inevitably, I quickly became bored with designing their house (which I was never able to finish).”

And so she killed them. Sims have died for less.

One of the most common tactics for killing a Sim, beautiful in its simplicity and effectiveness, is the “murdershed” method, as one “Sims” player described it: the doorless room.

“My favorite thing to do was lure my Sims into a seemingly normal space and then take away its exit,” my colleague Sara Boboltz confessed in a direct message. “So, I’d make a tiny house and take away the door. I’d make a pool and take away the ladder. Make a two-story house, take the stairs. You get it. Sometimes my Sims would be teachers I didn’t like.” 

“I made a guy who was a compulsive neatfreak,” Reddit user vsanna wrote in a comment that rose to the top of its thread. “Put him in a really surreal little house with a wedding buffet and a hamster or something, deleted the door. Eventually he went insane from lack of cleanliness and depression over his little rodent friend dying, and starved to death once the banquet rotted. I put the resulting urn in the room. I then repeated an identical scenario several times, always keeping the urns in the room.

“Eventually the tenth iteration of this guy is up all night, every night, terrified of a parade of ghosts of himself.” 

Our penchant for serial killing has not gone unnoticed at “Sims” headquarters. According to “The Sims 4” senior producer Grant Rodiek, who’s been with the company since 2005, the latest version of the game registers around 28,000 Sim deaths per day.

“I think [killing Sims is] a way players can express ultimate control over a thing. It’s funny, mischievous, dark, without being grotesque,” Rodiek said. “It’s a kinder, gentler method of using a magnifying glass to burn insects.”

Between life and death in “Sims 4,” there’s still no single path to playing. The vastly open-ended game nudges you toward certain goals — meeting your Sims’ physical needs; securing them a means of making money — but no task or accomplishment is necessarily required.

Rodiek and his colleagues have had a lot of time to analyze the preferences and behaviors of “Sims” players. He’s whittled users down to a handful of types: There are the “aspiring Frank Lloyd Wrights” who love tinkering in the game’s Build mode; the Create-a-Sim artists who painstakingly remodel favorite characters or celebrities in digital form, or the narrative writers who play out classic storylines (think: mysterious new kid, star-crossed lovers, etc.) in Live mode. 

“And then you have the sort of people … we call them deviant players,” Rodiek said. “People who like to mess with their Sims, people who like to poke at the system, people who like to have fun and break the game and do weird stuff.” (These categories, I’d add, are not necessarily mutually exclusive.)

In the early years, these players, in an effort to discover all the ways they could ruin their Sims’ lives, might’ve swapped stories with friends about building murder houses and endlessly uppingtheir budgets for DIY torture devices using the “rosebud” money cheat.

As the internet’s capacity to bring people together has evolved since the early 2000s, so have user-created parameters to keep gameplay interesting. Forums hold lists of restrictive challenges, which can involve everything from having one Sim birth 100 babies to re-creating consecutive historical eras with each generation of a family. On YouTube, players show themselves re-enacting “The Hunger Games” or building lengthy mazes meant only to make simulated life harder for their tiny humans.(One Simmer who orchestrated 12 seasons of Sim “Hunger Games” — complete with training days and sporadic gifts of food like apples — was recently hired on by Electronic Arts as an associate producer.)

Over the years, the current base game — there are four total now — is supplemented with expansion packs to provide new ways to play the game — and kill your Sims. Rodiek said it’s the first thing developers plan out with each new expansion, along with new places for your digital hedonists to hook up.

Much-beloved YouTuber “Call Me Kevin” has a series showcasing his comically deadly restaurant in “Sims 4,” where unskilled chefs serve up the sometimes-fatal pufferfish nigiri introduced in the “City Living” expansion pack. It’s the only thing on the menu. Watching him play, you see Sims dining casually together, only to be interrupted when one diner clutches at their throat and falls head-first into their food. He’s amassed quite the graveyard behind the restaurant, complete with a coffin that you can WooHoo in — Sim-speak for sex. 

Part of the widespread appeal of killing Sims might be that the actual moments of their demise aren’t particularly disturbing. Generally, dying Sims just drop or crumple to the floor in distress, disappearing altogether in some versions of the game. Coming across a hungry cowplant provides the bizarre and delightful visual of a giant flower consuming a Sim, but there’s no blood or errant limbs left behind. In a fire, Sims might become visibly odorous as their Hygiene levels plummet, but that’s about it — no gore or horror-movie theatrics.

There are some deaths “The Sims” avoids altogether.

“We don’t let toddlers burn to death,” Rodiek said. “That’s just gross. That’s not funny, there’s nothing humorous there. We don’t let dogs burn to death because like, again, that’s gross.”

Eventually, the grim reaper, who can talk to but sadly not have children with Sims, comes to collect your character’s soul, leaving an urn or gravestone in the Sim’s place. The reaper himself has a cellphone or a tablet, ostensibly to process the Sim’s soul, or something. It’s all a little goofy.

The fact that players have long brought Sim death on themselves is all a part of probing the edges of an established world.

Philosophy professor C. Thi Nguyen, who has written extensively about the philosophy of games, likened the act of killing Sims to the innocent phenomenon of “speedrunning,” where players try to complete a given game as fast as possible. 

“One of my favorites is a speed run of ‘[Super] Mario [Bros.]’ where you try to get zero points … even though the traditional goal of ‘Mario’ is to max out your points. Trying to get to the end as fast as possible with zero points is actually much harder and much weirder,” he said. “You’re playing the game in an unintended way, which, for some people, I think it makes them feel more creative.”

“The system seems to tell you, ‘Look, the point of this game is to take care of the Sims,’ and all the tools that are given to you are given to you to take care of your Sims,” he said. “So if you want to kill your Sims, you have to do kind of creative and unexpected things and kind of remix the game.”

However, Nguyen said it was also possible that, for the players who like “The Sims” for its narrative possibilities and engage with “the fiction of the game,” explorations of death could have deeper personal significance.

“It may vary from player to player, but I think from talking to a lot of players it’s actually about the creativity of using the system for a new purpose,” he said. 

Whatever the explanation, the game’s creators have come to understand that we use “The Sims” not just to simulate life, but to play God. And it’s impacted the way the game has shifted, from “Sims 1” to “Sims 4.” 

The first two versions of “The Sims” ― which Rodiek described as “disastrously hard” ― made it easier for the Goths to expire outside of a player’s purview. Direct Sim-on-Sim homicide isn’t possible, so accidents were more often fatal: a grilled cheese that burns down the house, a malfunctioning skydiving simulator, or a fatal shock delivered to a character standing in a puddle during an electric repair. In “The Sims 2,” simply being in the front yard at the exact time a satellite falls to Earth could be the end of a Sim’s brief journey.

But nowadays, compared to “Sims 1” and “Sims 2,” it’s a lot harder to deliberately kill off dear Mortimer and Bella. Anyone coming to “The Sims 4,” the game’s latest version, might notice their characters can now easily hop out of a pool, ladder or not. It’s a change that came with “The Sims 3,” effectively eliminating one of the preferred manners of Sims murder.

“I love how funny and surprising it is to say, ‘Hey, we as a team recognize what you’re doing and, ha-ha, we flipped the switch,’” Rodiek said. The decision was born out of developers’ desire to further up Sims’ intelligence and self-sufficiency with each new version. Players, he said, “got pissed at this.”

“Basically, our thought was if Sims are smarter, and if Sims are less likely to just frickin’ die all the time, well, maybe they’re smart enough to pull their asses out of the pool,” he said, noting that you can still kill them from exhaustion if you build walls around the pool. “They’ll still fart at the wrong time and they’ll still just pass out in a pool of vomit if they’re tired enough and the timing is wrong, but that, at least, is a win for them.”

Now, if you leave them unattended, “your Sims will basically default to neutral,” Rodiek said. Players can worry less about making sure everyone has had a bathroom break or a meal. If you don’t direct your Sim to do it, they’ll likely figure it out themselves.

“Our tagline was, ‘We want to move past peeing,’” he said of shifting Sims’ needs beyond basic survival. “However, for them to really succeed, you have to nurture them. And nurturing your Sims comes from more emotional, higher-level fulfillment.”

Now, Sims have aspirations generally based on interests or specific actions: One Sim might want to become a tech genius, while another wants to become the neighborhood enemy. Fulfilling these wishes results in rewards that make the Sim better.

I’m usually a gentle “Sims” player, nurturing my families into fulfilling home lives and careers, watching as they level up in activities like baking and guitar playing, occasionally tossing in a love affair here and there. For the purposes of this article, though, I set out to kill as many Sims in “Sims 4” as I could.

Not wanting to delete doors and watch my Sims starve, I fell back on faithful killing strategies, like the classic fire scenarios. There were newer tactics I could try, too: In “Sims 4,” even Sims’ emotions, taken to the extreme, can be fatal; their hearts can explode from sheer rage or cease beating from hysterics. 

In “Seasons,” the most recent expansion pack, Sims who are skilled in flower arranging can whip up a mysterious plant, the scent of which ages or kills its recipient. A video from website Sims VIP illustrating this particular death demonstrates the cruelty: At first, an elder Sim is pleased to be receiving a gift. But upon realizing his bad luck, he becomes angry, shouting out “Narb!” He wipes his brow, swoons to his knees, and even checks his pulse one last time before the grim reaper arrives.

“Seasons” also allows the possibility of death by freezing or overheating, or getting struck by lightning. New kinds of warnings tip you off to these sorts of ends: The game indicates via a Sim’s “moodlet” that your electronic buddy might die if he doesn’t get out of the blizzard, or change out of his snowsuit during a heat wave, or run in from the thunderstorm.

One of the suggested ways to murder your Sims is through overexhaustion, though once a Sim becomes “uncomfortable,” many actions, like jogging, become unavailable to a player. In “Sims 4,” more Sims simply die of old age than tragically before their time: Age accounts for 30.5 percent of deaths in the game, compared to the 11 percent who die of hunger; the 10.7 percent who drown; or the 10.6 percent who die in a fire, according to statistics provided by Rodiek.

Maybe I’m unpracticed, but I couldn’t murder my Sims. I made one Sim flirt with her husband’s dad in front of her husband, enraging the husband until the spouses became enemies, then nemeses. I had them all fight — illustrated by a cloud of dust and occasional flashes of limb — but it only made them a little dazed. I had them all pee themselves, then installed a shower and had them all walk in on each other, but no one reached the deadly “mortified” level of embarrassment. I made the dad swim in the pool in wintertime, but he kept getting out once he started freezing. Without resorting to the walls-around-the-pool method Rodiek mentioned, I couldn’t play God quite like I used to.

Defeated, I had the enraged husband and wife divorce before closing my game. It seemed only fair. When I opened up “Sims 2,” however, I found that one installation of the “shoddy fireplace” did the trick in no time. My Sims freaked out and wailed, too frantic to obey my requests for them to stand directly in the flames — but the blaze got them in the end.

Electronic Arts

A “shoddy fireplace” did the trick to start a fire in “Sims 2.” The cat, seen in the lower right corner, ended up running away. The fifth household member was swimming in circles in the pool.

Stakes, Rodiek acknowledged during our interview, are what make “The Sims” fundamentally interesting. Making death a part of the game from the start provided those stakes.

“It is really great when people have a Sim that they really care about, and they care about how they orchestrated their life, and they see them raise children, and maybe get a divorce, and then their children grow up and then they die. They go, ‘Oh, man, I could just re-create them, but it will never be that Sim.’”

“Our game is about creating weird, quirky, erratic, strange little humanlike characters that we want you to care about deeply,” he added.  

In a perpetual quest, developers hope to keep inching “The Sims” toward a better reflection of real life and death, to keep raising the stakes and allowing customization in ways that matter to players.

In 2016, “Sims” released an update that expanded the possibilities of gender expression among characters, no longer restricting certain hair, makeup or clothing items to one gender or another and allowing players to select whether a Sim could impregnate others or get pregnant, regardless of outward appearance. Similarly, Rodiek said, creators are discussing the possibility of incorporating Sims who are deaf or hard of hearing, blind, or use a wheelchair. To help develop these, the team has been talking to players who have similar experiences.

“In actually talking to these players, talking about how it affects their lives, we’ve been thinking, how can we reflect this in a way that works in our game?” he said. “That’s the stuff we’re actually looking into that we really want to figure out, because it’s scary to get it wrong, but I think it’s so important if we can get it right.”

In terms of death, Rodiek said he could envision developing a kind of long-term, terminal disease within the game from which Sims can’t recover (but, seriously, don’t ask him about it on Twitter, because they’re not making this right now). 

“I could see us approaching that in sort of a generic way that we’re not saying that it’s this specific cancer. But we’re basically saying that your Sim has something that can’t be cured and they will die before their time as a result of that,” he said. Maybe, he added, it’d be an option players could toggle on or off.

“I think it’s a reality of life … in a way that is like, yes, it’s real, and yes, it’s sad. But maybe for someone who wants it, it’s cathartic or its interesting and it helps you tell a story,” Rodiek said. “Those are some of the things we’re trying to grapple with and talk to our players about how to get right. And it’s terrifying, but it’s really cool if we could do it.”

Illustration by Tara Jacoby for HuffPost.

Download

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/killing-sims-death-murder-ea_us_5adf94dbe4b07be4d4c58fd4

Source: https://hashtaghighways.com/2018/10/28/how-a-generation-of-sims-players-got-away-with-murder/

from Garko Media https://garkomedia1.wordpress.com/2018/10/28/how-a-generation-of-sims-players-got-away-with-murder/

[michaeljtraylor]

How A Generation Of Sims Players Got Away With Murder

Mortimer Goth settles in to one of the 15 wicker chairs that have suddenly appeared by his lit fireplace. He feels strangely compelled to sit and remain seated, as if guided by an unseen hand, even as the room he’s in grows curiously hotter and hotter. Before he knows it, the chairs around him burst into pixelated flames. He’s on fire! He calls for help, but his wife, Bella, can’t hear him. She’s swimming in circles in their backyard pool, searching fruitlessly for a ladder that doesn’t exist. 

For the uninitiated fiddling around their family desktop, the original version of “The Sims” was mostly about nurturing humanlike characters through life’s minutiae. For everyone else, “The Sims” was and is a game about death, about wacky, inconsequential death, about fiery death and watery death, death by starvation and death by electric shock and death by skydiving malfunction ― Mortimer and Bella’s worst recurring nightmare. And as the game evolved over the years, a kind of meta-game has formed around it: a subtle relationship between creative, death-obsessed “Sims” players and the game’s ever-adapting designers, keen on raising the stakes of the simulated lives we so easily ended.

Today, death on “The Sims” can feel harder and harder to come by. But it’s never impossible.

In the scenario above, the deaths of Mortimer Goth and his wife were no accident. They were the result of a human player deciding to set in motion a series of events that would lead to the inevitable demise of digital beings brought to life in a simulation game. That human player could have ushered Mortimer and his wife into a room and removed the door, watching as the Sims starved inside. The player could have prompted the characters to start making a feast with their cooking skill at Level 1, tempting a shoddy oven to burst aflame and engulf them. The player could have even neglected the couple’s guinea pig, only to have Mortimer pick it up and allow the rodent to administer one fatal bite.

But that player chose to cluster highly flammable chairs near the fireplace and hope they caught like tinder, and remove the ladder in the swimming pool once Bella, ignorant of the option of simply lifting herself out, dived in.

Back in the heyday of the game’s first iteration, everyone killed their Sims. I feel confident in stating this even without hard data to back it up: Killing Sims wasn’t exceptional behavior, it was the norm. Just look at the Reddit threads relaying depraved “Sims” activity with comments spooling into the thousands, or this Polygon article, where it is written, “It is a proven fact people love killing off Sims.”

“That was the only enjoyable way to play ‘The Sims’!” Maddy Myrick, 31, told me. She’d responded to my callout on Twitter, asking first-generation “Sims” players to explain the morbid habit of killing a thing you were ostensibly tasked with keeping alive. “Sometimes I would start a new family, convinced that I would let them live. But, inevitably, I quickly became bored with designing their house (which I was never able to finish).”

And so she killed them. Sims have died for less.

One of the most common tactics for killing a Sim, beautiful in its simplicity and effectiveness, is the “murdershed” method, as one “Sims” player described it: the doorless room.

“My favorite thing to do was lure my Sims into a seemingly normal space and then take away its exit,” my colleague Sara Boboltz confessed in a direct message. “So, I’d make a tiny house and take away the door. I’d make a pool and take away the ladder. Make a two-story house, take the stairs. You get it. Sometimes my Sims would be teachers I didn’t like.” 

“I made a guy who was a compulsive neatfreak,” Reddit user vsanna wrote in a comment that rose to the top of its thread. “Put him in a really surreal little house with a wedding buffet and a hamster or something, deleted the door. Eventually he went insane from lack of cleanliness and depression over his little rodent friend dying, and starved to death once the banquet rotted. I put the resulting urn in the room. I then repeated an identical scenario several times, always keeping the urns in the room.

“Eventually the tenth iteration of this guy is up all night, every night, terrified of a parade of ghosts of himself.” 

Our penchant for serial killing has not gone unnoticed at “Sims” headquarters. According to “The Sims 4” senior producer Grant Rodiek, who’s been with the company since 2005, the latest version of the game registers around 28,000 Sim deaths per day.

“I think [killing Sims is] a way players can express ultimate control over a thing. It’s funny, mischievous, dark, without being grotesque,” Rodiek said. “It’s a kinder, gentler method of using a magnifying glass to burn insects.”

Between life and death in “Sims 4,” there’s still no single path to playing. The vastly open-ended game nudges you toward certain goals — meeting your Sims’ physical needs; securing them a means of making money — but no task or accomplishment is necessarily required.

Rodiek and his colleagues have had a lot of time to analyze the preferences and behaviors of “Sims” players. He’s whittled users down to a handful of types: There are the “aspiring Frank Lloyd Wrights” who love tinkering in the game’s Build mode; the Create-a-Sim artists who painstakingly remodel favorite characters or celebrities in digital form, or the narrative writers who play out classic storylines (think: mysterious new kid, star-crossed lovers, etc.) in Live mode. 

“And then you have the sort of people … we call them deviant players,” Rodiek said. “People who like to mess with their Sims, people who like to poke at the system, people who like to have fun and break the game and do weird stuff.” (These categories, I’d add, are not necessarily mutually exclusive.)

In the early years, these players, in an effort to discover all the ways they could ruin their Sims’ lives, might’ve swapped stories with friends about building murder houses and endlessly uppingtheir budgets for DIY torture devices using the “rosebud” money cheat.

As the internet’s capacity to bring people together has evolved since the early 2000s, so have user-created parameters to keep gameplay interesting. Forums hold lists of restrictive challenges, which can involve everything from having one Sim birth 100 babies to re-creating consecutive historical eras with each generation of a family. On YouTube, players show themselves re-enacting “The Hunger Games” or building lengthy mazes meant only to make simulated life harder for their tiny humans.(One Simmer who orchestrated 12 seasons of Sim “Hunger Games” — complete with training days and sporadic gifts of food like apples — was recently hired on by Electronic Arts as an associate producer.)

Over the years, the current base game — there are four total now — is supplemented with expansion packs to provide new ways to play the game — and kill your Sims. Rodiek said it’s the first thing developers plan out with each new expansion, along with new places for your digital hedonists to hook up.

Much-beloved YouTuber “Call Me Kevin” has a series showcasing his comically deadly restaurant in “Sims 4,” where unskilled chefs serve up the sometimes-fatal pufferfish nigiri introduced in the “City Living” expansion pack. It’s the only thing on the menu. Watching him play, you see Sims dining casually together, only to be interrupted when one diner clutches at their throat and falls head-first into their food. He’s amassed quite the graveyard behind the restaurant, complete with a coffin that you can WooHoo in — Sim-speak for sex. 

Part of the widespread appeal of killing Sims might be that the actual moments of their demise aren’t particularly disturbing. Generally, dying Sims just drop or crumple to the floor in distress, disappearing altogether in some versions of the game. Coming across a hungry cowplant provides the bizarre and delightful visual of a giant flower consuming a Sim, but there’s no blood or errant limbs left behind. In a fire, Sims might become visibly odorous as their Hygiene levels plummet, but that’s about it — no gore or horror-movie theatrics.

There are some deaths “The Sims” avoids altogether.

“We don’t let toddlers burn to death,” Rodiek said. “That’s just gross. That’s not funny, there’s nothing humorous there. We don’t let dogs burn to death because like, again, that’s gross.”

Eventually, the grim reaper, who can talk to but sadly not have children with Sims, comes to collect your character’s soul, leaving an urn or gravestone in the Sim’s place. The reaper himself has a cellphone or a tablet, ostensibly to process the Sim’s soul, or something. It’s all a little goofy.

The fact that players have long brought Sim death on themselves is all a part of probing the edges of an established world.

Philosophy professor C. Thi Nguyen, who has written extensively about the philosophy of games, likened the act of killing Sims to the innocent phenomenon of “speedrunning,” where players try to complete a given game as fast as possible. 

“One of my favorites is a speed run of ‘[Super] Mario [Bros.]’ where you try to get zero points … even though the traditional goal of ‘Mario’ is to max out your points. Trying to get to the end as fast as possible with zero points is actually much harder and much weirder,” he said. “You’re playing the game in an unintended way, which, for some people, I think it makes them feel more creative.”

“The system seems to tell you, ‘Look, the point of this game is to take care of the Sims,’ and all the tools that are given to you are given to you to take care of your Sims,” he said. “So if you want to kill your Sims, you have to do kind of creative and unexpected things and kind of remix the game.”

However, Nguyen said it was also possible that, for the players who like “The Sims” for its narrative possibilities and engage with “the fiction of the game,” explorations of death could have deeper personal significance.

“It may vary from player to player, but I think from talking to a lot of players it’s actually about the creativity of using the system for a new purpose,” he said. 

Whatever the explanation, the game’s creators have come to understand that we use “The Sims” not just to simulate life, but to play God. And it’s impacted the way the game has shifted, from “Sims 1” to “Sims 4.” 

The first two versions of “The Sims” ― which Rodiek described as “disastrously hard” ― made it easier for the Goths to expire outside of a player’s purview. Direct Sim-on-Sim homicide isn’t possible, so accidents were more often fatal: a grilled cheese that burns down the house, a malfunctioning skydiving simulator, or a fatal shock delivered to a character standing in a puddle during an electric repair. In “The Sims 2,” simply being in the front yard at the exact time a satellite falls to Earth could be the end of a Sim’s brief journey.

But nowadays, compared to “Sims 1” and “Sims 2,” it’s a lot harder to deliberately kill off dear Mortimer and Bella. Anyone coming to “The Sims 4,” the game’s latest version, might notice their characters can now easily hop out of a pool, ladder or not. It’s a change that came with “The Sims 3,” effectively eliminating one of the preferred manners of Sims murder.

“I love how funny and surprising it is to say, ‘Hey, we as a team recognize what you’re doing and, ha-ha, we flipped the switch,’” Rodiek said. The decision was born out of developers’ desire to further up Sims’ intelligence and self-sufficiency with each new version. Players, he said, “got pissed at this.”

“Basically, our thought was if Sims are smarter, and if Sims are less likely to just frickin’ die all the time, well, maybe they’re smart enough to pull their asses out of the pool,” he said, noting that you can still kill them from exhaustion if you build walls around the pool. “They’ll still fart at the wrong time and they’ll still just pass out in a pool of vomit if they’re tired enough and the timing is wrong, but that, at least, is a win for them.”

Now, if you leave them unattended, “your Sims will basically default to neutral,” Rodiek said. Players can worry less about making sure everyone has had a bathroom break or a meal. If you don’t direct your Sim to do it, they’ll likely figure it out themselves.

“Our tagline was, ‘We want to move past peeing,’” he said of shifting Sims’ needs beyond basic survival. “However, for them to really succeed, you have to nurture them. And nurturing your Sims comes from more emotional, higher-level fulfillment.”

Now, Sims have aspirations generally based on interests or specific actions: One Sim might want to become a tech genius, while another wants to become the neighborhood enemy. Fulfilling these wishes results in rewards that make the Sim better.

I’m usually a gentle “Sims” player, nurturing my families into fulfilling home lives and careers, watching as they level up in activities like baking and guitar playing, occasionally tossing in a love affair here and there. For the purposes of this article, though, I set out to kill as many Sims in “Sims 4” as I could.

Not wanting to delete doors and watch my Sims starve, I fell back on faithful killing strategies, like the classic fire scenarios. There were newer tactics I could try, too: In “Sims 4,” even Sims’ emotions, taken to the extreme, can be fatal; their hearts can explode from sheer rage or cease beating from hysterics. 

In “Seasons,” the most recent expansion pack, Sims who are skilled in flower arranging can whip up a mysterious plant, the scent of which ages or kills its recipient. A video from website Sims VIP illustrating this particular death demonstrates the cruelty: At first, an elder Sim is pleased to be receiving a gift. But upon realizing his bad luck, he becomes angry, shouting out “Narb!” He wipes his brow, swoons to his knees, and even checks his pulse one last time before the grim reaper arrives.

“Seasons” also allows the possibility of death by freezing or overheating, or getting struck by lightning. New kinds of warnings tip you off to these sorts of ends: The game indicates via a Sim’s “moodlet” that your electronic buddy might die if he doesn’t get out of the blizzard, or change out of his snowsuit during a heat wave, or run in from the thunderstorm.

One of the suggested ways to murder your Sims is through overexhaustion, though once a Sim becomes “uncomfortable,” many actions, like jogging, become unavailable to a player. In “Sims 4,” more Sims simply die of old age than tragically before their time: Age accounts for 30.5 percent of deaths in the game, compared to the 11 percent who die of hunger; the 10.7 percent who drown; or the 10.6 percent who die in a fire, according to statistics provided by Rodiek.

Maybe I’m unpracticed, but I couldn’t murder my Sims. I made one Sim flirt with her husband’s dad in front of her husband, enraging the husband until the spouses became enemies, then nemeses. I had them all fight — illustrated by a cloud of dust and occasional flashes of limb — but it only made them a little dazed. I had them all pee themselves, then installed a shower and had them all walk in on each other, but no one reached the deadly “mortified” level of embarrassment. I made the dad swim in the pool in wintertime, but he kept getting out once he started freezing. Without resorting to the walls-around-the-pool method Rodiek mentioned, I couldn’t play God quite like I used to.

Defeated, I had the enraged husband and wife divorce before closing my game. It seemed only fair. When I opened up “Sims 2,” however, I found that one installation of the “shoddy fireplace” did the trick in no time. My Sims freaked out and wailed, too frantic to obey my requests for them to stand directly in the flames — but the blaze got them in the end.

Electronic Arts

A “shoddy fireplace” did the trick to start a fire in “Sims 2.” The cat, seen in the lower right corner, ended up running away. The fifth household member was swimming in circles in the pool.

Stakes, Rodiek acknowledged during our interview, are what make “The Sims” fundamentally interesting. Making death a part of the game from the start provided those stakes.

“It is really great when people have a Sim that they really care about, and they care about how they orchestrated their life, and they see them raise children, and maybe get a divorce, and then their children grow up and then they die. They go, ‘Oh, man, I could just re-create them, but it will never be that Sim.’”

“Our game is about creating weird, quirky, erratic, strange little humanlike characters that we want you to care about deeply,” he added.  

In a perpetual quest, developers hope to keep inching “The Sims” toward a better reflection of real life and death, to keep raising the stakes and allowing customization in ways that matter to players.

In 2016, “Sims” released an update that expanded the possibilities of gender expression among characters, no longer restricting certain hair, makeup or clothing items to one gender or another and allowing players to select whether a Sim could impregnate others or get pregnant, regardless of outward appearance. Similarly, Rodiek said, creators are discussing the possibility of incorporating Sims who are deaf or hard of hearing, blind, or use a wheelchair. To help develop these, the team has been talking to players who have similar experiences.

“In actually talking to these players, talking about how it affects their lives, we’ve been thinking, how can we reflect this in a way that works in our game?” he said. “That’s the stuff we’re actually looking into that we really want to figure out, because it’s scary to get it wrong, but I think it’s so important if we can get it right.”

In terms of death, Rodiek said he could envision developing a kind of long-term, terminal disease within the game from which Sims can’t recover (but, seriously, don’t ask him about it on Twitter, because they’re not making this right now). 

“I could see us approaching that in sort of a generic way that we’re not saying that it’s this specific cancer. But we’re basically saying that your Sim has something that can’t be cured and they will die before their time as a result of that,” he said. Maybe, he added, it’d be an option players could toggle on or off.

“I think it’s a reality of life … in a way that is like, yes, it’s real, and yes, it’s sad. But maybe for someone who wants it, it’s cathartic or its interesting and it helps you tell a story,” Rodiek said. “Those are some of the things we’re trying to grapple with and talk to our players about how to get right. And it’s terrifying, but it’s really cool if we could do it.”

Illustration by Tara Jacoby for HuffPost.

Download

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/killing-sims-death-murder-ea_us_5adf94dbe4b07be4d4c58fd4

from RSSUnify feed https://hashtaghighways.com/2018/10/28/how-a-generation-of-sims-players-got-away-with-murder/ from Garko Media https://garkomedia1.tumblr.com/post/179530072194

[christinesumpmg1]

14 Lessons From Our Content Marketing Conference

I’ve been to a lot of content marketing conferences, and I finally got to see one from the inside out.

Last week, the Convince & Convert team partnered with our friends at Uberflip to produce and host CONEX: The Content Experience.

750 content marketers joined us in Toronto, including many Convince & Convert readers, clients, and fans. Thank you!

It was a fantastic experience, and I can’t wait for the next edition of CONEX: The Content Experience (which will be August 20-22, 2019)

I learned a lot about hosting and co-producing a content marketing conference, as well as some new ideas from our lineup of amazing speakers. But instead of just passing along my own recollections and notes, I thought it would be more interesting to provide my favorite tweets from CONEX, so you can see what real attendees thought of each speaker. Tweets are presented in chronological order.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You can watch the livestream of the event here: https://contentexperience.uberflip.com/live-stream-2018/

No More Random Acts of Content

Karine Bengualid picked this up from our very own Anna Hrach (a strategist here at C&C) who ran an outstanding pre-conference workshop on how to create the ultimate editorial calendar. (note: We will be offering this material as an online course this Fall).

No more random acts of content! #conex @annabananahrach @convince @Uberflip

— Karine Bengualid (@KarineBen) August 20, 2018

Content Success is About Remixing the Content

The theme of the CONEX content marketing conference was “Remix” and several speakers talked about repackaging content, and merchandising it better for content consumers. This trend was kicked off by Uberflip CMO and co-founder Randy Frisch, in his opening keynote. Kevin Webb tweeted this concept from Randy’s talk.

Marketing’s ability to remix the right content makes or breaks the content experience @randyfrisch #conex pic.twitter.com/7Od8LGJIfv

— Kevin Webb (@KevinWebb) August 21, 2018

Viral Means Nothing

My old pal Scott Stratten brought some thunder to the opening keynote and indicted the entire notion of trying to go viral with content marketing and social media. Yvonne Tsui tweeted one of many quotable Stratten-isms. (listen to Scott on the Social Pros podcast)

Vanity viral aka the great social reach around. It feels good, it means nothing. If it doesn’t move the needle it doesn’t matter. @unmarketing #ConEx #contentmarketing

— Yvonne Tsui (@life_of_Y) August 21, 2018

The Best Content Marketing Experiences Have 4 Ingredients

A highly relevant presentation from Nate Skinner of Pardot was next up on the agenda. I hadn’t heard this framework from Nate before, and I really liked his construct. So did Alex Fasken, who also grabbed a photo of the accompanying slide.

“The best experiences have 4 ingredients: entertainment, education, escapism and aesthetic” @renniksn @Uberflip #Conex pic.twitter.com/yaQJqL12Jd

— Alex F (@alexfasken) August 21, 2018

Behavior Change Starts with Perception

Tamsen Webster is on fire. She’s a content coach and idea whisperer who’s Red Thread system is being used by more and more executives and professional speakers to add clarity to their messaging. (disclosure: she’s worked with me) Tamsen brought her ideas to the stage at CONEX too and had a big impact on Madison Harbin and many other attendees.

“You can’t change WHAT people do without changing HOW they see it”. Great session @tamadear #CONEX pic.twitter.com/qHRvOXa2uA

— Madison Harbin (@Mads_Harbs) August 21, 2018

Content Is Critical at All Stages

As I mentioned in my introduction of him (I was the emcee at CONEX: The Content Experience) Carlos Abler of 3M may be the smartest bald guy I know. Or perhaps he’s the smart guy with the least hair. Either way, he knows a LOT about content. He brought a ton to the stage at the event, especially his ideas about content at every stage of the customer journey. Stephanie Totty tweeted about it.

“There is never a touch point in the customer experience when content is not involved – it’s a complex journey and relationship that requires thoughtful setup.” @carlos_abler #conex

— Stephanie Totty (@Tottums) August 21, 2018

Honest and Transparent Content Creates Customers

This may be the quintessential quote from a Marcus Sheridan presentation. Marcus preached the gospel of no b.s. content at CONEX, and had the audience transfixed, as usual. Nice .gif usage here from Katrina Couto! (Listen to Marcus on the Social Pros podcast)

“Honest and transparent content is the greatest sales and trust-building tool in the world.” – Marcus Sheridan, @TheSalesLion#CONEX @Uberflip pic.twitter.com/TRnj8ow8Vt

— Katrina Couto (@KatrinaMktg) August 21, 2018

Time to Play the Feud

One of the highlights of our particular content marketing conference is The Content Feud, which closes out day one.  Inspired by Family Feud, we pit content marketing strategists against content marketing practitioners in a five-round quiz show, with me as the host. In a nail-biter that went down to the last question, the strategists (captained by Ann Handley) retained their title.

Fun way to keep up w/ marketing trends, content, digital & more at @Uberflip’s Content Feud #conex pic.twitter.com/K7j7toKBx7

— Lara Martinez (@LAMKVH) August 21, 2018

Customer Retention is the New Marketing

As anticipated, a tremendous day two opening keynote from Joey Coleman, whose book “Never Lose a Customer Again” may be my favorite business book so far this year. Joey also co-hosts the awesome ExperienceThis! show that we used to produce via Convince & Convert Media. Thinking through retention-based content resonated with Melanie Persaud. (Listen to Joey on the Social Pros podcast)

Customer retention! The next frontier in marketing? “We’re not just here for you in the beginning, we’re here for you all the way through.” #conex @thejoeycoleman pic.twitter.com/MPvOFgQ5BJ

— Melanie Persaud (@Melanie_Per) August 22, 2018

Social Video Isn’t TV

The delightful Caitlin Angeloff runs global social at Docusign and brought a supremely relevant and tactical presentation about social video, especially Facebook Live, to the CONEX event. Demand Gen Report tweeted one of Caitlin’s key points, about the real-time interactivity of social video. (Listen to Caitlin on the Social Pros podcast)

“Social video should NOT be a mistake for TV. Television doesn’t let you interact with your audience. Facebook does.” –@caitlinangeloff of @DocuSign #conex pic.twitter.com/wES4txgz9W

— Demand Gen Report (@DG_Report) August 22, 2018

Engage Buyers on Their Terms, Not Yours

Laura Ramos from Forrester delivered tremendous advice rooted in new research. Her talk centered on empathetic content: being prospect/buyer focused instead of company focused. Brandi Smith grabbed this photo and Tweet.

Great advice @lauraramos from @forrester. Engage buyers on their terms, not yours. Provide the right level of access and personalization based on where they are in the buyers journey #conex pic.twitter.com/nh4I5v6uGR

— Brandi Smith (@brandismith01) August 22, 2018

Create More Content Without Actually Creating More Content

Corinne Sklar is the super smart CMO of Bluewolf, and shared her concept of “Plucking the Chicken” at CONEX. What she means by that is that if you have a piece of content, if you keep plucking, you can create several other iterations and version of that content, boosting content efficiency. We call that “atomization” here at C&C, but I like a good chicken metaphor, as does Deirdre Buckingham (who won a return trip to next year’s CONEX during the event).

How can we extend our content and keep it going… without creating MORE content? #PluckTheChicken

@csklar #Conex pic.twitter.com/mmpPltZTyw

— Deirdre Buckingham (@dlaubuck) August 22, 2018

Don’t be Clever. Be Vulnerable

I wore a Buzz Lightyear outfit when I introduced Matthew Luhn, a legendary storyteller from Pixar.

A post shared by Jay Baer (@jaybaer) on Aug 22, 2018 at 9:13am PDT

With that less-than-ordinary lead-in, Matthew took the stage at CONEX and blew us away with heart and poignancy. His advice that content marketers are trying to get too cute was spot-on. His talk really resonated, including with Function 1, who grabbed this great photo in their tweet.

Storytelling advice from Pixar’s @matthewluhn: “Don’t be clever. Be vulnerable and honest.” #ConEx pic.twitter.com/Q7bXAzmZ8b

— Function1 (@function1corp) August 22, 2018

Ignoring Video is the Avoided Handshake of 2018

Amy Landino brought a warm, story-filled approach to her presentation on the importance of video content. She emphasized video’s ability to build community, and also shared her own formula for creating authority videos. Super useful! Dionne Mischler grabbed this photo from the balcony at the Royal Conservatory of Music, in Toronto. (Listen to Amy on the Social Pros podcast)

“Ignoring video is the avoided handshake of 2018.” Schmittastic #conex pic.twitter.com/dSN3MXSHUs

— Dionne Mischler (@MischlerDionne) August 22, 2018

Bridge the Curiosity Gap to Create Content Success

The legendary Andrew Davis delivered a hilarious and important keynote presentation about curiosity and delayed gratification, poking holes in the “audience is too distracted” excuse for poor content performance. Watch this one on the live stream: you’ll be glad you did! Mo Waja was on the scene to capture this tweet.

Earning attention means bridging the Curiosity Gap between what your audience knows and what they want to know. @DrewDavisHere #Conex pic.twitter.com/V7E81dE1HB

— Mo Waja (@iammowaja) August 22, 2018

Mobile isn’t for Serving Content it’s for Utility

Bonin Bough is the former head of digital of Pepsico and the former global head of media and digital for Mondelez. Bonin closed out Conex: The Content Experience with a roaring keynote that reminded attendees that mobile can (and should) do a lot more than it’s doing today, in most cases. Maya Chendke was paying close attention!

Mobile isn’t a medium to serve content, it should create utility. @boughb talking through crazy #mobile realities. #CONEX #mobilemarketing #contentmarketing

— Maya Chendke (@mayachendke) August 22, 2018

That’s a wrap. 14 lessons from our content marketing conference. You may have your own takeaways. Watch the on-demand livestream and see for yourself. It’s free!

Huge thanks to everyone at Convince & Convert and Uberflip for their work on the event. And massive thanks to all the speakers, sponsors, and attendees.

https://ift.tt/2wr8M0Y

[conniecogeie]

14 Lessons From Our Content Marketing Conference

I’ve been to a lot of content marketing conferences, and I finally got to see one from the inside out.

Last week, the Convince & Convert team partnered with our friends at Uberflip to produce and host CONEX: The Content Experience.

750 content marketers joined us in Toronto, including many Convince & Convert readers, clients, and fans. Thank you!

It was a fantastic experience, and I can’t wait for the next edition of CONEX: The Content Experience (which will be August 20-22, 2019)

I learned a lot about hosting and co-producing a content marketing conference, as well as some new ideas from our lineup of amazing speakers. But instead of just passing along my own recollections and notes, I thought it would be more interesting to provide my favorite tweets from CONEX, so you can see what real attendees thought of each speaker. Tweets are presented in chronological order.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You can watch the livestream of the event here: https://contentexperience.uberflip.com/live-stream-2018/

No More Random Acts of Content

Karine Bengualid picked this up from our very own Anna Hrach (a strategist here at C&C) who ran an outstanding pre-conference workshop on how to create the ultimate editorial calendar. (note: We will be offering this material as an online course this Fall).

No more random acts of content! #conex @annabananahrach @convince @Uberflip

— Karine Bengualid (@KarineBen) August 20, 2018

Content Success is About Remixing the Content

The theme of the CONEX content marketing conference was “Remix” and several speakers talked about repackaging content, and merchandising it better for content consumers. This trend was kicked off by Uberflip CMO and co-founder Randy Frisch, in his opening keynote. Kevin Webb tweeted this concept from Randy’s talk.

Marketing’s ability to remix the right content makes or breaks the content experience @randyfrisch #conex pic.twitter.com/7Od8LGJIfv

— Kevin Webb (@KevinWebb) August 21, 2018

Viral Means Nothing

My old pal Scott Stratten brought some thunder to the opening keynote and indicted the entire notion of trying to go viral with content marketing and social media. Yvonne Tsui tweeted one of many quotable Stratten-isms. (listen to Scott on the Social Pros podcast)

Vanity viral aka the great social reach around. It feels good, it means nothing. If it doesn’t move the needle it doesn’t matter. @unmarketing #ConEx #contentmarketing

— Yvonne Tsui (@life_of_Y) August 21, 2018

The Best Content Marketing Experiences Have 4 Ingredients

A highly relevant presentation from Nate Skinner of Pardot was next up on the agenda. I hadn’t heard this framework from Nate before, and I really liked his construct. So did Alex Fasken, who also grabbed a photo of the accompanying slide.

“The best experiences have 4 ingredients: entertainment, education, escapism and aesthetic” @renniksn @Uberflip #Conex pic.twitter.com/yaQJqL12Jd

— Alex F (@alexfasken) August 21, 2018

Behavior Change Starts with Perception

Tamsen Webster is on fire. She’s a content coach and idea whisperer who’s Red Thread system is being used by more and more executives and professional speakers to add clarity to their messaging. (disclosure: she’s worked with me) Tamsen brought her ideas to the stage at CONEX too and had a big impact on Madison Harbin and many other attendees.

“You can’t change WHAT people do without changing HOW they see it”. Great session @tamadear #CONEX pic.twitter.com/qHRvOXa2uA

— Madison Harbin (@Mads_Harbs) August 21, 2018

Content Is Critical at All Stages

As I mentioned in my introduction of him (I was the emcee at CONEX: The Content Experience) Carlos Abler of 3M may be the smartest bald guy I know. Or perhaps he’s the smart guy with the least hair. Either way, he knows a LOT about content. He brought a ton to the stage at the event, especially his ideas about content at every stage of the customer journey. Stephanie Totty tweeted about it.

“There is never a touch point in the customer experience when content is not involved – it’s a complex journey and relationship that requires thoughtful setup.” @carlos_abler #conex

— Stephanie Totty (@Tottums) August 21, 2018

Honest and Transparent Content Creates Customers

This may be the quintessential quote from a Marcus Sheridan presentation. Marcus preached the gospel of no b.s. content at CONEX, and had the audience transfixed, as usual. Nice .gif usage here from Katrina Couto! (Listen to Marcus on the Social Pros podcast)

“Honest and transparent content is the greatest sales and trust-building tool in the world.” – Marcus Sheridan, @TheSalesLion#CONEX @Uberflip pic.twitter.com/TRnj8ow8Vt

— Katrina Couto (@KatrinaMktg) August 21, 2018

Time to Play the Feud

One of the highlights of our particular content marketing conference is The Content Feud, which closes out day one.  Inspired by Family Feud, we pit content marketing strategists against content marketing practitioners in a five-round quiz show, with me as the host. In a nail-biter that went down to the last question, the strategists (captained by Ann Handley) retained their title.

Fun way to keep up w/ marketing trends, content, digital & more at @Uberflip’s Content Feud #conex pic.twitter.com/K7j7toKBx7

— Lara Martinez (@LAMKVH) August 21, 2018

Customer Retention is the New Marketing

As anticipated, a tremendous day two opening keynote from Joey Coleman, whose book “Never Lose a Customer Again” may be my favorite business book so far this year. Joey also co-hosts the awesome ExperienceThis! show that we used to produce via Convince & Convert Media. Thinking through retention-based content resonated with Melanie Persaud. (Listen to Joey on the Social Pros podcast)

Customer retention! The next frontier in marketing? “We’re not just here for you in the beginning, we’re here for you all the way through.” #conex @thejoeycoleman pic.twitter.com/MPvOFgQ5BJ

— Melanie Persaud (@Melanie_Per) August 22, 2018

Social Video Isn’t TV

The delightful Caitlin Angeloff runs global social at Docusign and brought a supremely relevant and tactical presentation about social video, especially Facebook Live, to the CONEX event. Demand Gen Report tweeted one of Caitlin’s key points, about the real-time interactivity of social video. (Listen to Caitlin on the Social Pros podcast)

“Social video should NOT be a mistake for TV. Television doesn’t let you interact with your audience. Facebook does.” –@caitlinangeloff of @DocuSign #conex pic.twitter.com/wES4txgz9W

— Demand Gen Report (@DG_Report) August 22, 2018

Engage Buyers on Their Terms, Not Yours

Laura Ramos from Forrester delivered tremendous advice rooted in new research. Her talk centered on empathetic content: being prospect/buyer focused instead of company focused. Brandi Smith grabbed this photo and Tweet.

Great advice @lauraramos from @forrester. Engage buyers on their terms, not yours. Provide the right level of access and personalization based on where they are in the buyers journey #conex pic.twitter.com/nh4I5v6uGR

— Brandi Smith (@brandismith01) August 22, 2018

Create More Content Without Actually Creating More Content

Corinne Sklar is the super smart CMO of Bluewolf, and shared her concept of “Plucking the Chicken” at CONEX. What she means by that is that if you have a piece of content, if you keep plucking, you can create several other iterations and version of that content, boosting content efficiency. We call that “atomization” here at C&C, but I like a good chicken metaphor, as does Deirdre Buckingham (who won a return trip to next year’s CONEX during the event).

How can we extend our content and keep it going… without creating MORE content? #PluckTheChicken

@csklar #Conex pic.twitter.com/mmpPltZTyw

— Deirdre Buckingham (@dlaubuck) August 22, 2018

Don’t be Clever. Be Vulnerable

I wore a Buzz Lightyear outfit when I introduced Matthew Luhn, a legendary storyteller from Pixar.

A post shared by Jay Baer (@jaybaer) on Aug 22, 2018 at 9:13am PDT

With that less-than-ordinary lead-in, Matthew took the stage at CONEX and blew us away with heart and poignancy. His advice that content marketers are trying to get too cute was spot-on. His talk really resonated, including with Function 1, who grabbed this great photo in their tweet.

Storytelling advice from Pixar’s @matthewluhn: “Don’t be clever. Be vulnerable and honest.” #ConEx pic.twitter.com/Q7bXAzmZ8b

— Function1 (@function1corp) August 22, 2018

Ignoring Video is the Avoided Handshake of 2018

Amy Landino brought a warm, story-filled approach to her presentation on the importance of video content. She emphasized video’s ability to build community, and also shared her own formula for creating authority videos. Super useful! Dionne Mischler grabbed this photo from the balcony at the Royal Conservatory of Music, in Toronto. (Listen to Amy on the Social Pros podcast)

“Ignoring video is the avoided handshake of 2018.” Schmittastic #conex pic.twitter.com/dSN3MXSHUs

— Dionne Mischler (@MischlerDionne) August 22, 2018

Bridge the Curiosity Gap to Create Content Success

The legendary Andrew Davis delivered a hilarious and important keynote presentation about curiosity and delayed gratification, poking holes in the “audience is too distracted” excuse for poor content performance. Watch this one on the live stream: you’ll be glad you did! Mo Waja was on the scene to capture this tweet.

Earning attention means bridging the Curiosity Gap between what your audience knows and what they want to know. @DrewDavisHere #Conex pic.twitter.com/V7E81dE1HB

— Mo Waja (@iammowaja) August 22, 2018

Mobile isn’t for Serving Content it’s for Utility

Bonin Bough is the former head of digital of Pepsico and the former global head of media and digital for Mondelez. Bonin closed out Conex: The Content Experience with a roaring keynote that reminded attendees that mobile can (and should) do a lot more than it’s doing today, in most cases. Maya Chendke was paying close attention!

Mobile isn’t a medium to serve content, it should create utility. @boughb talking through crazy #mobile realities. #CONEX #mobilemarketing #contentmarketing

— Maya Chendke (@mayachendke) August 22, 2018

That’s a wrap. 14 lessons from our content marketing conference. You may have your own takeaways. Watch the on-demand livestream and see for yourself. It’s free!

Huge thanks to everyone at Convince & Convert and Uberflip for their work on the event. And massive thanks to all the speakers, sponsors, and attendees.

https://ift.tt/2wr8M0Y

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Kanto Surfing Theme Orchestration

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Snow Field (Pokemon Pinball) - Super Snow Bros. EP

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playlist in tumblr !!(tags)

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*party in your room feeling -kpop that party in your room feeling **disco in your room feeling -kpop that disco in your room -vgm remix that disco in your room -poke remix that disco in your room

*flesh morning feeling -flesh mornig feeling playlist -kpop that flesh morning feeling -poke remix that flesh morning feeling

*day stroll with you feeling -poke remix that day stroll with you -day stroll with you feeling playlist

*delightful day feeling -poke remix that delightful day feeling -delightful day feeling playlist

*adventure in your hand! playlist

*fire!! feeling -poke remix that fire!! feeling -fire!! feeling playlist

*skip in daytime feeling -skip in daytime feeling playlist -poke remix that skip in daytime feeling

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*recs -my recs -vgm remix recs -vgm lofi recs -fanmade mv recs -pokemas recs -vgm cover recs -music cover recs -kpop music cover recs