#also there’s like no scrolling things on the website for my MacBook? I had to go find the picture of the code thing

[jstardoesthings]

I went through the new update I just wanna hug Eddie

poor guy is being traumatised out here by a singular pea

[jxmieoleksiaks]

Paradise -> Mat Barzal

This is for @antoineroussel​ ‘s summer fic exchange! I had the lovely, and awesome @texanstarslove   I was so excited when I found out I had you, but wanted to wait until the season ended, though I know just like me, you didn’t need a repeat of last year. I think your writing is amazing, and I’ll never forget you randomly boosted me, and I’ve gained a lot of followers since then. I really hope you enjoy. I’m also so sorry this took so long 💚

Word Count: 2,390 Smut: Mentions Language: Yes

It was like deja vu. The team had lost again, to the same team, in the same round, for the second year in a row. This time though, it stung a little more, as their were fans, and they were in Tampa. It didn’t help the players were making fun of the guys getting a little emotional. You were too, and not only because you were heartbroken about the loss, it was your boyfriend Mat. He worked his butt off all season, and off season to stay in shape, and be best for his team. You knew he would get emotional, and he did, the first night after the loss, being the toughest. He was proud of him and his teammates, and vowed to make sure this didn’t happen again.

Mat was one of the toughest guys you knew. From the random night you met him at the bar, to when he had the two black eyes in last years playoffs, literally nothing stopped him. The idea of love never existed in your mind. Seeing your parents loveless marriage and hoping one day they would divorce and you could live with your mother, made you think that actual love never existed. But with Mat it was easy, you two could have nights out, and nights in and have the same amount of fun, you could see a future with him, but you were not in any rush for major things to happen.

It was now July, and you two had decided to take a vacation, a much needed one in fact. With last years bubble, and this years crazy season, he needed a vacation just as much as you did, someone who worked 40 hours a week, and also had to log in some on the weekend.

“Okay, where should we go?” You asked Mat, who was reclined at the end of the couch, while your legs were across his waist, laying on the couch, with your laptop sitting on you with vacation websites on.

“Somewhere warm?” He questioned, as he was watching the NBA finals.

‘That narrows it down a bit.” You laughed.

“You know what I mean!” He laughed back. “No where that’s like, not beach like, does that help?” He asked, taking a drink of the beer he was drinking.

“Yes, thanks.” You shook your head and started to google places you two could go.

As much as you loved Disney, and wanted to go there, you two needed some private time, and that was not the place for it. You looked a couple more places, and gasped at the website you were on.

“Look at this!” You exclaimed and sat up.

He looked to his left and noticed a vacation website for a resort in the Maldives. There were resorts. and private villa’s, and as you saw on your many hours of Tik Tok scrolling, it was pretty affordable.

“Oh that looks really cool.” He nodded, grabbing the MacBook from you to look around.

“It’s perfect, I heard it’s pretty adorable too.”

“Babe, that shouldn’t be the deciding factor, I can afford to take you to somewhere you really wanna go.” He said seriously. You did appreciate that about him, but in the back of your mind, you didn’t want people to think you were using him for his money, which was not the case whatsoever. You loved him for him, and you were just someone who worked and cheered on your boyfriend.

“Yeah, but I wanna go here!” You smiled. “Let me and a cool resort, and then we can think about booking it.” You smiled as you got off the couch quickly to grab a glass of wine, loving the fact you were about to book a romantic and fun vacation.

The trip was booked about three hours later, and in two weeks you would be heading to an island paradise. You never flew across the ocean before, so that part. made you nervous, but you couldn’t be more excited to finally get some peace and quiet with Mat.

You and Mat were now sitting at the gate in JFK, getting ready to catch the first flight, which landed in Dubai. You had an iced latte in your hand, which made the nerves you were having a little bit worse. Along with never flying across the ocean, you’ve never had a 19 hour flight before, and that was nerve-racking to you.

“Babe, are you okay?” He asked you, sounding concerned.

“Yeah, I think it’s the flight that makes me nervous.” You said, before taking a sip of the coffee.

“It’s gonna be alright, I promise, plus we have first class, and that should make things a little more comfortable. If you feel uneasy, just lean on me.” He placed a kiss on the top of your head, making your mind ease, and heart feel warm with love.

Movies, laughs, and naps made the flight, and it’s connecting in Dubai, made it so much easier to do, and now you two were on a boat with other couples, and three families to make their way to the resort. When the two of you checked in, and headed to your bungalow, you felt like you could cry. The water was a type of blue you had only seen in movies. The sky, was something out of a book, that you could imagine with your eyes closed. It was perfect.

“Holy shit, you gotta see this patio!” Mat said as he was walking around the place you were staying the next week. You walked outside and saw a private deck, with some chairs, but also a swing. You just imagined watching the sunset with the both of you on the swing.

“I don’t know how I was able to find this place and pull it off so easy. This is a literal Oasis.” You said, your eyes almost bulging out of your head with how beautiful it was.

“Ah, well, the view is almost as beautiful as you.” He grinned.

“Mat, nothing is as beautiful as this view, shh.” You laughed and rolled your eyes, but you knew he meant those words.

You never purposely pushed his complements down, it’s just who you were.  You never really got complements before meeting him, so it was kind of..a reaction.  The first time he compared you to the beautiful full moon, one April night, you almost cried with laughter. You thought he was quoting a movie or something, but you could tell he really meant it. He knows that you’re going to shove them off, knowing that something that happens in nature, and in space is something amazing, but he really thought you hung the moon.

There was a little cafe in the main part of the resort, away from all the bungalows. You could get your morning cup of coffee, while eating breakfast and looking out at the views, and people watch too. It was the middle day of your trip, and you were already dreading of leaving, but didn’t want to think about that just yet. You two were going to do your own things today, he wanted to golf, and you wanted to check out the resort spa. You had gotten up before he did, and went over to the cafe, leaving him a note, since he didn’t wake up for anything, and kisses his forehead.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” Mat questioned, as he sat down with a cup of coffee, already dressed for a day out on the green.

“I tried…You don’t wake up for shit!” You laughed. “If we were home, and the dog went missing, I would scream, you would snore.” A giggle left your mouth as he rolled his eyes, he knew it was true, and so did you.

“When we finish up, we can change and go out to the bar, that’s over the water.” He said, taking a sip of coffee.  

Your heart about fluttered, the views from the bar looked amazing, the bar after dark, over the ocean, thought you could do that in your bungalow, something about drinks around other people, and being so close to Mat, excited you to no end.

You and Mat planned on going to the bar when he cleaned up from his day of golf, but a nap called the both of you, and you two didn’t get there until after the sunset. You were a little bummed, until you saw the bar, and it’s area surrounded in hanging lights,

“Wow.” You sighed, after the waiter took the drink orders. “How does this place keep getting better…” You said, unable to believe you were here.

“I hope these drinks are good.” He chuckled, throwing your own feelings back to you.

“Oh, so now I get the shoved response?” You playfully rolled your eyes, before looking at the ocean in front of you.

The tequila sunrises and Screw Drivers the two of you were drinking, were really making you two feel really good.  You don’t remember when you decided to sit on Mat’s lap, but he was pretty comfortable, and was keeping a good grip on you.

“You know, you could stick your hand up my dress and no one would know.” You giggled, before taking the last sip of your tequila sunrise.

“There’s no one around?” He looked around.

“I..don’t think so, it’s dark, there could be people around us, but that’s more fun.” The alcohol was running through you,

“As much as I love that idea, and how I would love for you to just ride me, I think it would be better to do this in the room, no?” He asked, his lips against your neck.

You never had the idea of something pubic, but he was right, your private space was made for the adventures you two had in bed, and though you two were having a lot of fun doing that already, you always had time for more, and agreed.

“Let’s go back.” You whispered before you hopped off his lap.

He paid the bill and left a decent tip for the waiter, he did hear the both of you slightly slur and probably thought you two were up to something when you hopped on his lap. You grabbed Mat’s hand and headed back to the bungalow.

You were first into where you were staying, and he quickly picked you up after you set your bag down on the table. You giggled as he placed you on the bed and hovered over you.

“I don’t know how you do it, you just look so damn beautiful.” He whispered before he quickly pressed his lips onto yours. You wrapped your arms around him as he kissed you deeply, you two may have been a little tipsy, but you could feel the love in every kiss, and every movement after.

You two probably would have woke neighbors if you had any. The way Mat made you feel was something no on else had been able to do. With the couple of years you two had been together, he knew where to touch you, how to do it, and what to do, to make you come undone in a matter of moments. A lot of people would say men don’t care that their woman didn’t cum, but he did, and he made sure you did every time.

You let out a load moan, and released as Mat groaned. After a moment of staying connected, he pulled out, and after you ran to the bathroom, you two were now laying in bed, bare and the moon shining into your room.

“This trip has been perfect so far.” You sighed quietly, as you set your head on his chest.

“You did good babe, I have to admit it.” He chuckled as he played with your hair.

“Is it bad I had no idea where this place was until I had to google it?” You asked, not being the best with geography, but honestly not knowing where it was.

“You really think I knew where this place is, babe….” He said, knowing he wasn’t that great with geography either.

“Fuck what happens if we get on the wrong flight or something?!” You asked.

“Siri will help us, because we can’t help our way around a map. I’m not the leader in any of these hockey trips for a reason.” He shook his head, and you covered your face trying not to laugh so hard.

“Listen, I know the last couple of seasons didn’t go as planned, but I don’t know if I could be more proud of you, you just…work so hard, and I see it, and I hope others do too. If you go to the Olympics, and they let family in, I’m screaming my ass off for team Canada.” You said, meaning every single word.

“I like heading that from the guys, but babe, you know it means so much coming from you.” He said. “And trust me, if I even make the Olympic team, I’d love to have you there. You’d be screaming the loudest, and probably freak out some of the others, and I want nothing more than that.” He started to laugh more.

Even with your normal type job, you wanted to be there for him as much as you could. You had even worked remotely to support him in the playoffs, and knowing he would do the same for you if he had the chance meant so much. You knew he was the one, even though you two were a little busy to think about the M word, you knew, when you both were ready, you would be the one, that he would ask, you, and you would say yes.

“Babe?” He asked you.

“What’s up?” You were a little nervous, he sounded a little unsure of himself.

“You’re gonna plan our next vacation when we get back, right? You’ve done great with this one, and now I need you to plan everything.”

You hid your face in his chest, and started laughing again.

“I love you.” You told him.

“I love you too babe, he kissed the top of your head, something you always wanted him to do, and it brought you comfort, the feeling that you had right at this moment.

[my-thoughts-my-views]

Macbook Air M1 | Best Suitable Accessories for Macbook Air M1 | Laptop Accessories

Macbook Air M1

 Let’s talk about best suitable accessories for you MacBook Air M1. So you might have recently picked up an M1 MacBook Air or Pro. or perhaps you have an Intel model Or even one of the larger 15 or 16 inch MacBook Pros. Here’s a list of accessories that are tried and tested by me over the years and really help enhance the capabilities and increase you productivity with these machines. You can purchase these accessories from Amazon or other other e-commerce website to get best gadgets for you likewww.gadgetworldusa.com.

 I will divide it in two sections:

 -         The first talking of accessories you can get for your MacBook when using it in laptop form, these are meant to be portable and in general can be applied to any laptop.

 -         In the second half, I will look at accessories when using your MacBook in desktop mode. What accessories you can get to make a seamless shift from laptop to desktop mode and carry on working for those longer, more demanding work sessions.

 So let us get started with accessories to get when using your MacBook as a laptop.

USB Port:

  Apple USB Type C to Type A adapter

 The first thing I picked up when I got my first USB type C port only MacBook Pro, was this. The Apple USB Type C to Type A adapter. Well, with only USB Type C ports on all MacBook’s nowadays and a lot of peripherals still using a USB Type A port, you need the ability to access type A devices from the word go, so this is an excellent adapter to have in your bag, that will give you USB 3.1 Gen 1 speeds from any device that is also compliant with at least this standard.

  Lenovo USB type C hub

 Now, you may be thinking about why you should get an adapter that just provides a USB type A connection, when you can get a Lenovo USB type C hub with many other connections. Well, if that’s your Amazon is full of listing for these and there’s a lot of badge engineering happening here. So, a single supplier maybe manufacturing the same product for a number of retailers. Now both of these are well reviewed hubs, but I’ve had better luck with this Lenovo Hub. It is a couple of years old and no longer available in this exact version.

 This other one offers additionally a 3.5mm jack, but in actual performance, it tends to heat up and loose the display completely till it gets cool. Also, you’re unable to adjust the volume using the MacBook’s software slider when you connect external speakers via this hub.

 One thing these unpowered docks will not give you, is transfer speeds via SD cards. You really need a dedicated SD card reader if you work with large photo or video files. This here is an excellent choice, the SanDisk Imagemate Pro and it allows you to exploit the full potential of your SD cards read and write speeds.

 SanDisk Imagemate Pro

   Cable:

  USB Type C to Micro B Amazon Basic Cable

  Let’s talk cables for a bit. Now although you can use one of the aforementioned adapters or hubs to connect to USB type A cable devices, but if you’re not going to be moving between older computers and your new MacBook too much, you may want consider a USB Type C to Micro B cable such as these.

They are from different brands, but for the sake of uniformity wherever you may be located, I will recommend the USB Type C to Micro B Amazon Basic Cable. This will allow you to connect a sinning USB 3.1 hard drive directly to your MacBook via USB C and achieve USB 3.1 Gen 1 speeds.

  Griffin Breaksafe cable

 If you’ve had MacBook in the past and really loved the idea of MagSafe, this could be just the cable you were looking for. This is the Griffin Breaksafe cable that snaps in half if you yank or pull at it and prevents your computer from falling off a desk or other surface.

  You have to be careful here, because there are tons of such options online. One example is this Baseus MagSafe connector, I really liked the idea of it. Convert your existing cable to MagSafe and have a very small connector permanently plugged in to the MacBook. And the connector itself was right angled to enable a more compact profile when charging. But in practise, this is not recommended at all. 99% of times it worked as advertised but that one time, when I connected it, remember this has live electricity running through it, it fried the logic board on one of my previous MacBook.

 So, the only safe product I have come across is the Griffin Breaksafe cable. It’s bulkier and only charges up to 60 watts, so not as suited for bigger MacBook, but it’s safe and long enough to charge MacBook Airs and 13 inch Pros or even iPad Pros.

 Cable Protectors

 And also on the topic of cables, you can pick these little cable protectors on Amazon for next to nothing, they go on to your original Apple cables like so and offer great protection from bends in the one are Apple’s cables are most vulnerable at and if left unprotected, the cables tend to get frayed in this region. I used them on my iPad Pro and MacBook Pro 15 inch original USB Type C cables and they are as pristine as they were on day one, some two years later.

Mouse:

  Logitech MX Master 3 mouse

 Now when it comes to mouse, you do have the excellent trackpad on the MacBook Air itself, but if you want that classic mouse experience and want that scroll wheel, I cannot say. Enough good things about theLogitech MX Master 3 mouse. It’s not the most compact of mice but trust me when I say this, once you’ve used one of these, you will never want to go back to anything else. Really you have to experience it to know how great it is, it’s simply the best mouse in the world. In certain regions you can get in a Mac specific variant, but from what I’ve read there isn’t that much value addition in that one, so I would rather stick to the general variant and retain compatibility across devices.

  Sandstorm mouse

 You can connect up to three devices and switch between them using a toggle button on the bottom of the mouse. But if you want something more compact, I have used this Sandstorm mouse for the past three years now and this is from a UK based manufacturer. It is quite excellent, but its limited availability and recent issues I’ve had in terms of lagging with my older 15 inch MacBook Pro, means I would rather point you in the direction of the Logitech pebble mouse, which is really compact and performs well.

 Logitech pebble mouse

  Protection:

  MOCA hard shell case

  Now let’s talk protection. For many people MacBook is an expensive purchase and they will rightfully have think about protecting their new investment. The first thing that comes to mind is a hard shell case such as this. This is the MOCA hard shell case for the new M1 MacBook Air, but also fits other2020 MacBook Airs. The idea is sound, but since 2016, when the USB Type C MacBook came out, their displays are razor thin and the top lid has very little strength to it. So whenever I’ve tried to use such a case, be it on this MacBook Air or my older 15 inch MacBook Pro, it adds too much weight to the lid, and I can see this having an adverse effect over the years on the hinges.

 Now that you’ve chosen a hard shell case for your MacBook, you may be thinking of sleeves. Well, if you want a basic sleeve, you will be well served by any of the generic ones available on Amazon. I used a handcrafted one that I picked up in the UK on my original13 Inch Retina MacBook Pro for a good few years. But recently I’ve moved to “Thule cases and bags”. On one of my flights with my older 13 inch MacBook, a generic laptop bag didn’t offer the protection from pressure damage that was needed and I had a damaged MacBook screen. Since then, I surveyed the market and chose this product, the Thule Gauntlet sleeve for both 13 inch and 15 inch MacBook Pros.

 Thule Gauntlet sleeve

  I actually the used the 13 inch version for my iPad Pro 12.9 inch. It offers rugged protection and although bulkier than a cloth or fabric sleeve, I’ve had peace of mind when travelling with this item. It’s quite no frills though and beyond a protective shield for your device, it doesn’t offer any storage space for accessories.

   Thule Attaché case

  If you’d rather have a bag, then Thule has you covered once more. Because of my really nice experience with their sleeves, I tried out the Thule Attaché case for the 15 inch MacBook Pro. This is a really nice bag and offers the same protection as the Gauntlet sleeve but additionally has plenty of space for accessories and chargers and keeps the laptop separate from these. You also have the option of working from the bag itself, quite useful in situations at airports and such locations, where you don’t want too much clutter when working for quick few minutes.

 Storage:

 Now let’s talk about storage. If you want fast and lightweight storage for you MacBook, you can’t go wrong with the excellent Samsung external SSDs, the T5 and its newer T7 cousin. I’ve used T5 1TB variant for a couple of years now and really enjoy the 540MB/Speeds it consistently delivers and do all of my video editing off this drive. The newer T7 offers double these speeds, but at some additional cost. Both are excellent and deserve a space in your laptop bag. And being solid state drives, they are not only very compact, but also extremely rugged when compared to a spinning hard drive.

    Samsung external SSD T5

 So this was all about accessories for on the go computing with your MacBook. Now let’s look at accessories that make your life easier when working at a desk. With these accessories you can seamlessly transform your MacBook into a proper workstation.

 Display:

   32 inch 4K Benq display

 Well, the most obvious one on this desk is the main event, the 32 inch 4K Benq display. This is the Benq EW3280U 4K display. Don’t confuse it with the EW3270U, which is a VA panel display whilst this is the real deal, an IPS display, which you really need with such big displays for good viewing angles.

 Also anything smaller than this, and you will not be effectively able to run this at native4K resolution. Everything becomes too small for reading comfortably and even this one, I use it a pixel doubled 2560x1440 resolution that provides retina-like sharpness and still plenty of screen real estate. As a bonus, this comes with the best speakers on a monitor and a subwoofer, meaning I’ve thrown away my external speakers now.

 It’s not perfect though, and the new M1 MacBook do have number of issues with it. Also, even though it comes with a remote, I’ve found this Tobe very unresponsive. I still recommend this display simply because it is one of the few good IPS displays in 32 inch size and 4K resolution at this price point, at least in India and USA.

 Stand:

  Laptop stand from TARKAN

 The other item here is a laptop stand from TARKAN. It is a 360 degree rotating stand that elevates you MacBook to a comfortable height and allows you to have the screen open of closed as per your choices. I wanted access to the Touch ID sensor, so didn’t want to use the MacBook in clamshell mode and this was really perfect for the purpose.

 If you get the same design by a different manufacturer, by all means go for the best deal available, as most of these are made by the same supplier and then sold with different brand names.

 Powerhouse:

  Caldigit TS3 Plus dock

 You can use the Caldigit TS3 Plus dock peeking for your MacBook, this is the powerhouse that has enabled me to have such a clean desk setup. The first distinction between this and the USB Type C hubs we spoke of earlier is that this is a Thunderbolt hub and is actively powered by its own big power brick. That means, not only does it not draw power from your MacBook, but it can charge the MacBook at up to a full 87 watts and power all number of other devices and have just a single, neat thunderbolt 3 cable running to your MacBook. Unfortunately in my case, my Benq Monitor doesn’t run at 60 hz refresh rate when connected via display port cable that this hub offers or even its own USB type C cable.

  Belkin USB Type C to HDMI adapter

 So I’ve had to add another accessory to the back of this hub, and that is Belkin USB Type C to HDMI adapter. This is a great accessory that allows running4K monitors at up to 60hz resolution and offers pass-through charging for a MacBook as well. It actually comes in two variants, but make sure you choose new one, and not the older one that doesn’t provide pass-through charging.

 Thunderbolt dock:

     Caldigit TS3 Plus thunderbolt dock

 The Caldigit TS3 Plus thunderbolt dock has really replaced a number of devices form and offers the single cable convenience that I was looking for. The only thing going against it is the cost, it’s really expensive and its availability outside of the US and Canada is not great. But if money’s not an object, and you want the best hub for your MacBook, this is it.

 Mechanical Keyboard:

  TVS Gold Keyboard

 Now this is a mechanical keyboard, the TVS Gold Keyboard, which is only available in India and is based on Cherry MX keys. If you’ve typed on a mechanical keyboard you will know how great they are for typing. The downside with this keyboard is its Windows layout keys. And also, if you’re used to typing on the excellent Magic Keyboards of the latest MacBook or even the iPad Pro, there is a lack of consistency when you switch to this keyboard, as the keys are differently sized and take some getting used to. For this reason, I recommend both this style of mechanical keyboard and Apple’s own Magic Keyboard. It will boil down to personal preference on this one.

 Mouse:

   Logitech MX Master 3 mouse

 Once again, you see the excellent Logitech MX Master 3 mouse and it is right at home on this large Scarters mouse mat. It measures90x45 cms and offers a great base to work on and is spill proof and easily cleaned and also reversible and comes in different colours on both sides. It’s recently had a price cut and really great value at reduced prices.

   Scarters mouse mat

 Monitor Arm:

 The other item you see here, is the excellent Amazon Basics monitor arm, which allows a range of movement for your monitor whilst keeping your desk clean. It also offers cable management for a clean look. I’m not using it currently as I like the look of my new Monitor’s base stand, but I do use it add an additional screen from time to time. I’ve done an in-depth review on this, so do check that out.

  Amazon Basics monitor arm

  External HDD:

  Seagate Backup plus Portable 5TB external HDD

 Now when you’re at a desk, portability is less important and when it comes to hard drives, space and capacity take precedent. Here are two excellent choices, one is the Seagate Backup plus Portable 5TB external HDD and second is the WD My Passport 4TB portable external hard drive. Both are USB 3.0 and have spinning drives inside them. They are both available for great prices around the world and availability is excellent on any local Amazon site. It’s a great way to dump large files and use for backing up your MacBook. And USB 3.0 speeds mean that they are not painfully slow when it comes to file transfers.

  WD My Passport 4TB portable external hard drive

  Extension Cable:

   USB type C extension cable by Stouchi

 USB type C extension cable by Stouchi that are tricky to find, also they are uni-directional, so you can plug them in the wrong way. They only work when connected in one orientation, so make sure you try both sides when you use them. But what it does offer is the ability to hide USB Type C hubs away for a clean desk setup. If you don’t want an expensive Thunderbolt hub, this maybe a good way to achieve port expansion whilst keeping your desk clean.

 Cable Management Tray:

  IKEA Signum cable management tray

 Finally, this is the IKEA Signum cable management tray, plenty long and strong and adjustable. Also easy to install as will ensure your desk looks pristinely clean and cable clutter free.

   Since it’s from a well-known brand, availability and quality is generally great around the world. Thanks for sticking by till the end and hopefully you will find something useful from these accessories for your own use case scenario. There are many other e-commerce website to get best gadgets for you like www.gadgetworldusa.com. Let me know in the comments section, which ones of these you have or are planning to get or if you have an alternative to any of them.

  Thank you very much for reading this Article.

[lovemesomesurveys]

[yourheaventonight]

What color is your couch? They’re gray.

How do you normally wear your hair? It’s always up in a messy bun.

Alcohol = the ultimate truth serum. Yes or no? Some people tend to get too talkative and comfortable and say things they probably wouldn’t normally. 

Are you a righty or a lefty? I’m a righty.

Do you own a pair of handcuffs? No.

Do flying bugs creep you out? Ew, yes. ALL bugs creep me out, but flying definitely doesn’t help cause they can fly right at me. lsflsfjldkfj

Can a girl love sex without being a whore? ...Yes. Loving sex doesn’t make you a whore. I think a lot of people love sex. I’m not going to judge people’s sex lives. Also, I just don’t use those type of terms. 

Would you ever be in a long-distance relationship? I don’t know.

Do lemons sound appealing to you at the moment? I like lemon flavored desserts, but I don’t eat actual lemons.

What size bed do you have? A full.

When was the last time you brushed your teeth? Yesterday. Before you judge, it’s only 6:36AM so I haven’t done so yet today.

Can you sleep in total darkness? Nooo. I have to sleep with my TV on for some light and sound.

What piercings do you have? Just my earlobes.

Any tattoos? Nope.

Is your glass half empty or half full? My glass is broken.

Are frogs cute or gross? The slimy thing isn’t so cute.

Do you ever wish you were born in a different century? No.

Which country's culture interests you most? Things from all different kinds of cultures interest me. <<<

What kind of guys/girls do you go for? None for the past few years...  I forget what it feels like to be crushing or have an interest in someone in that way. It feels like forever ago since I’ve last felt that.

Do you regret something you have no real control over? Yes.

Do you enjoy writing? I used to.

What do you have as your screen saver? My screen just goes black after like 15 minutes. 

Do you have a webcam? It’s built into my MacBook. I’ve never used it, though.

Do you still have your tonsils? Yes.

Aren't beetles fucking grody? Ugh, what’s with the bug questions in the past two surveys I’ve done. ALL BUGS ARE GROSS AND CREEPY.

How do you feel about Oprah? I’ve never been obsessed like a lot of people seemed/seem to be.

^ What the fuck kind of name is Oprah anyway? It reminds me of okra. Don’t gotta attack her name.

Would you ever pierce your tongue twice? Like, one right next to the other? I wouldn’t pierce it at all.

Do you like bonfires? Yes. I’ve always wanted to have one on the beach.

What makes your skin crawl? BUGS.

What's your favorite flower? I don’t really have one.

Look up Community Property by Steel Panther. Listen to the whole song. No.

Share your thoughts here. --

Have you ever dyed your hair an unnatural color? I’ve been dyeing it red the past few years. 

What's for dinner? I’m not sure, yet. 

Have you ever had someone draw a picture of you before? I’ve had those caricature drawings done before.

What confuses you most? Life.

Do you like monkeys? Sure. 

Does anything on your body hurt at the moment? Of course.

Have you ever been called a bad influence? Not that I know of.

What book are you reading right now? Cold Highway by Mary Stone.

Any bands you would like to recommend to me? Hmm.

What makes you laugh? My doggo.

What time is it? 6:47AM.

Doesn't intentionally bad grammar annoy you? Yes.

What type of person can you not stand? Arrogant, cocky, close-minded, very opinionated and judgmental people.

Care to share what song is stuck in your head? There isn’t one, currently.

What languages can you speak? Just English fluently, but I know some Spanish.

Pirates are better than ninjas. Fact or fiction? I’m gonna go with pirates cause it reminds of Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, one of my favorite rides.

There is always a bit of truth behind every 'j/k', yes? Not always, but sometimes I do think that. Especially if it’s said more than once.

What do you get complimented on most often? Nothing.

What's the weirdest compliment you've ever received? Someone apparently thought I had polio because I’m in a wheelchair and told me that I looked pretty for someone with polio. Uh...

Who/what was the last person/thing to make you blush? I don’t recall.

What kind of muffins do you like? Banana (without the nut), blueberry, cinnamon streusel, lemon poppyseed, chocolate chip, birthday cake. Dang, I want a muffin now.

Do you like warm or cold weather more? Cold, hands down.

Don't you hate it when sites go under maintenance and you cant get access? If it’s something I need access to at that moment, like typically that tends to happen with websites I pay my bills on. 

What form(s) of art do you enjoy most? Literature, film, music.

Piercings are sexy. Truth or lie? I’m not into them.

Have you ever worn a French maid costume? No.

Have you ever had couscous? I don’t know what that is.

Do you like listening to yourself talk? Ew, no.

When was the last time you were congested? Hm. It’s been awhile.

Do you wear eyeliner? When I actually wear makeup, yes, but I haven’t worn any makeup in like 4 years.

Do you show everyone your tongue when something turns it another color? No, I don’t feel the need to do that.

Who is the greatest writer alive, in your opinion? There’s countless great writers. How about the greatest painter? There’s countless great painters. I may not have a favorite myself, but I can acknowledge that there’s a lot of beautiful art pieces out there.

The greatest musician? There’s countless great musicians. 

The greatest poet? There’s countless great poets. I don’t read poetry, but again I can acknowledge there’s a lot of great poets out there.

Have any good scar stories you want to share? I don’t consider any of them “good.”

Are you pierced anywhere below the waist? No, I’m not.

Facebook games: Fun or brain-frying? I don’t play any.

Do you dance well? Not at all.

Are you into anyone at the moment? No.

Do you touch yourself at night? No.

What body parts can you 'crack'? My knuckles, wrists, arms, neck.

What color do you wear most often? Black.

What about the opposite sex drives you crazy? (The good kinda crazy.) It’s been so long since I’ve been interested in someone or felt that way.

What candle/incense flavors do you enjoy most? (Yes I said flavors. :P) Autumnal scents from Bath & Body Works and patchouli. 

Do you complain a lot? In surveys and on Twitter, but I keep to myself a lot in person. I could complain a lot to those around me if I wanted to, but I don’t because I don’t want to be a burden, annoying, or bring them down. I’ve known people who constantly complained and it gets to be a lot real quick. It’s draining. So,  I just suffer in silence, ha.

What do you do when you're mad? Shutdown and cry.

Have you ever thought you could 'save' someone? No. 

Do you have any 'special' talents? *Wiggles eyebrows* Nope.

Yankee makes the best candles. Yes or no? Kinda overpriced.

What do you do when you can't sleep? I have a nightly routine that consists of scrolling through Tumblr, doing surveys, and listening to ASMR for that reason.

Have you ever liked someone you barely knew? Little crushes, yeah.

When was the last time you felt like a creeper? I don’t feel like a creeper.

Who seems to have taken up permanent residence in your thoughts? Not a who, but certain things.

Black & Milds: yay or nay? I don’t smoke.

Is smoking a turn-on for you? No.

Do you get excited or scared when you see a thunderstorm brewing? I love ‘em. We don’t get them often here, though.

Speaking of brew, when's the last time you had a beer? Almost 10 years ago. If I’m talkin’ brew I’m talking coffee.

What sub-genre of metal do you enjoy most? I don’t listen to metal.

Do you need to shave? No.

How do you feel about Obama? This question has come up in a lot of the surveys I’ve done lately.

Do you own any bandanas? Nope.

What's your favorite gangster movie? I don’t watch any.

Who/what makes your heart race? Anxiety.

How do you think I should end this survey? You just did.

[theydontknowaboutusimagines]

Behind the Marriage - Harry Styles Series (Part 33)

Part 32

After a few days of being monitored in the hospital, you were finally released and back home. You were now supposed to be on stricter bed rest for the remaining weeks of your pregnancy. You were already going stir crazy before, so you could only imagine what it was going to be like now. But, you tried not to think about that because it was all to benefit the lives of you and your son and daughter. A smile came across your face every time you thought about them. You and Harry would have to come up with names now and that seemed so nerve-wracking. One wouldn’t think it would be, but this name could essentially stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Your parents decided they would stay in town instead of flying back home, but they decided on staying somewhere else so that you and Harry still had your privacy. Harry found them a nice little apartment a few blocks over to rent for the next few weeks. You were grateful they had offered to stay because honestly, the thought of them not being here for a deliver was something you didn’t want.

Yes, the doctor said you still had a few more weeks, but you also knew you could go into labor at anytime. Which also didn’t help your stress level, but you tried to keep those thoughts out of your mind. You were currently laying on the couch, searching through Netflix without any luck, while Harry was in the kitchen making lunch.

“Do you need any help?” You asked.

“Even if I did, you wouldn’t be the one helping me,” he said.

You rolled your eyes, “I could sit down at the bar and help.”

“Nope, I’ve got it,” he said.

You groaned laying back and grabbing your phone. You scrolled through your social media, pintrest, etc, and finally Harry brought over your salad and some water.

“Thank you,” you said. “Did you shake it up?”

“I did,” he laughed.

“And used my favorite dressing?” You asked.

“Till the last drop,” he said.

“Thank you,” you smiled moving the salad around with your fork, further mixing everything up.

Harry smiled going back into the kitchen for his own salad and sitting down next to you.

“This is really good,” you said with a mouthful.

“I’m happy you like it,” he laughed.

“The babies love it too,” you smirked rubbing your belly.

“Good,” he smiled kissing your head. “Speaking of our babies, I’ve been thinking about names.

“Really?” you smiled. “Care to share?”

“I said I’ve been thinking about names, I didn’t say I had any in mind,” he joked.

“Oh, come on, there has to be a name or two that you like,” you said.

“I’m sure there is, but I haven’t found it yet,” he said. “I even looked on baby name websites.”

“I forgot they had those!” You laughed. “We should look at them together.”

He nodded, “Be right back.” 

He leaned forward, placing his plate on the coffee table, before getting up and grabbing his MacBook. In the minutes, he was gone, you stole a few bites of his lunch, just as he came back. 

“Excuse me,” he laughed. 

“Two bites, that’s it,” you laughed. “Now, I’m full.” 

He laughed sitting down and opening his laptop, “Okay, let’s see should we look a girl names or boy names first?” 

“Let’s just look at a list,” you said. “Wait for a name to peak our interest and then we go from there.” 

“Sounds like a plan,” he smiled. 

You smiled laying your head on his shoulder as he scrolled through the names. You never really realized just how many potential names there were in the world and maybe looking at the list was more of bad idea than a good one. 

“I feel so overwhelmed,” you laughed. “Should we narrow it down to letters?” 

“Well, I’ve got no clue on a beginning letter, do you?” He asked. 

“Not a fucking one,” you laughed. 

“This is going to be harder than I thought,” he groaned. 

“At least we still have a little bit of time,” you laughed.

**

A few weeks have passed, which meant it was getting closer to the due date. Your belly was even bigger and so were your ankles. Your back was hurting and you were beyond annoyed at being on bed rest. Plus, it wasn’t helping that no matter how you laid or sat, you were uncomfortable. Your doctor allowed you to get up and walk around the house in five minute increments every few hours, but even that was starting to get hard to do. 

Harry was doing the best he could, but you see he was quickly getting burned out. Your parents helped out a few days to give him a break, but he still felt obligated to do everything. As much as you were ready to push these babies out of you, you were also nervous and scared about it. You were nervous about the pain and making sure everything would be okay. And you were scared about what would happened once you brought home the two babies. 

You’ve taken care of kids before, but never your own kids, obviously. And you’ve never taken care of a newborn, much less two. But you would have Harry and you knew you two would be the best parents you could be, but there was still that doubt. This was a new experience and having two at once was like extra level. 

You were currently sitting in the glider, rubbing your belly, looking around at the nursery. The lullaby sound machine was playing in the background and your lips formed into a smile. Despite all of your worries and concerns, you were happy. Happier than you’ve ever been and you knew you’d be even happier once you were holding your little babies in your arms. 

You and Harry still had yet to pick names. You two had narrowed it down to a few, but decided you wouldn’t make a decision until you were at the hospital and held your babies in your arms. Harry walked in, with two cups of tea, and sat down in the gilder next to you. He handed you your tea and you smiled. 

“How’d you know I was in here?” You asked. 

“This is the only room you haven’t gotten sick of yet,” he laughed. 

“That’s true,” you giggled, taking a sip. 

Harry smiled looking around, “It’s so strange to think that these last few weeks will be our last moments with just the two of us. Pretty soon we’ll have our babies and then maybe more babies and then eventually grandkids... even we’re we’ll old and grey it will never just be the two of anymore.” 

“Wow, I guess I never really looked at it that way,” you said. 

“Not that it’s a bad thing,” he said. “Just weird how we went from being alone, to being with each other, and then we’ll be a family with little babies running around.” 

You smiled reaching over for his hand, “I love you,” you smiled. 

“I love you, too,” he smiled. 

Harry leaned over, pressing his lips against yours. You giggled placing your hand on his cheek. A few minutes later, you pulled away from him. 

“Um, we uh, have a slight problem,” you whispered. 

“What’s that?” he asked. 

“I’m uh... I’m wet,” you whispered. 

He smirked, “Well, I know you’re supposed to be on bed rest, but I’m sure I can help you out a bit...”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” you said pushing him away as he tried to kiss you again. 

“Then what do you mean?” He asked. “Did you spill your tea?” 

“Wrong again,” you sighed. “I’m wet because my water just broke.” 

[call-me-rei]

Chapter 3: Flashback to Us

***Disclaimer because apparently I didn't mention it when I started this story: This story is based on real events! Just about everything in this book actually happened with PTV and SWS, including the things in this chapter 😉***

September 17, 2011

I scrolled through my mentions amazed that I had so many. It wasn’t unusual that people would tag me or the band in their tweets. What was unusual was the nature of these mentions. Almost every day one of our accounts would be asked to work on music with other artists. Kids wanted us to make music with State Champs, All Time Low, or Mayday Parade. Little did they know we had things already in the works.

One of the weirdest mentions I was seeing had started in mid-June of this year. So many kids were asking for a specific feature with one specific person I’d never heard of before.

@piercetheveil can you please record with @kellinquinn? Omg @piercethevic and @kellinquinn together on a song would be AMAZING!!! Petition for @piercetheveil to have @kellinquinn on their next album. RT to sign

Who the hell was Kellin Quinn?

Almost every day for the last three months I’d been tagged in tweets asking if we’d make a song together. That was super awkward since I had no idea who this kid was, or why everyone was so obsessed with him.

“Bro, are you seeing this?” Mike asked me. “How many times are we gonna be asked to work with this dude?”

I shook my head. “No clue.” I wasn’t too interested in entertaining the tweets when the guys and I were supposed to be working on new music at that moment. We had hit a wall so we decided to take a break, which of course meant we were checking Twitter.

“I don’t know, maybe we should consider it.” We all looked to Jaime with questioning expressions on our faces. “I just mean that we wanna hit the studio soon and we only have a couple songs ready to be tracked. Maybe we could have this one with this guy.”

Jaime had a point. We were working toward a new record, and so far we had more demos than songs that were ready. We were trying to avoid writing songs in the studio but that was proving to be difficult.

“I don’t know…”

“C’mon Vic, we already reached out to Jason. What’s one more feature?” Mike was referring to me and our new label, Fearless Records, reaching out to Jason Butler of letlive. He had agreed to be featured on our new record and was going to send us some things we’d add into the song when we got to the studio.

“We don’t even know this kid. Have any of you listened to him before?” They looked at each other wondering if one of them would prove me wrong. “That’s what I thought.”

“Well, if a bunch of fans are saying it’ll be worth it then maybe it’ll be worth it.” I shot Tony a look to which he put his hands up. “Just give it a chance; that’s all I’m saying.”

I sighed. It was obvious that online peer pressure had gotten to my bandmates and they weren’t going to let this go. “Fine,” I huffed, “I’ll listen to his stuff. But if it sucks then no deal.” They didn’t care. They hi-fived each other at their accomplishment as if the feature was in the bag.

“Did you guys hear what I just said?”

“Yes, but we’re choosing to ignore your negativity.” Tony giggled at Mike’s reply.

“Whatever,” I mumbled, “let’s get back to work.”

***

September 20

I finally had some free time for the first time all week. Granted, it was almost midnight and I was finally settling down. I wanted to pass out more than anything, but my brother had other plans for me.

Have you listened to Kellin yet?

That was the message Mike had sent me just as I was about to start relaxing. I rolled my eyes but responded anyway.

No but I’m going to

He replied quickly: Do it now! I’m tired of waiting for you!

I rolled my eyes again and chose not to respond. Instead, I got up from my position on my couch and went to my Macbook that was resting on my desk. If Mike was texting me so late then this was important to him, and I didn’t want to be on his bad side in the morning because I ignored his request.

Where would I even start with this? I guess with a Google search. I typed the name that had flooded my mentions into the search bar and watched the results pop up. Apparently Kellin was in a band called Sleeping With Sirens, and they had just released a record. That would explain why fans were so invested in them. A new record can bring a band an influx of obsessive fans.

I scrolled down the first page of results to see what I could learn about Kellin. According to Wikipedia he was the singer in the five-piece band. The band had just released their second album, Let’s Cheers to This, in May. Their first record, With Ears to See, and Eyes to Hear, came out in 2010, the same year our second album, Selfish Machines, came out. It seemed like we were on the same timeline.

There wasn’t much else about him besides the fact that many websites said he had a high-pitched voice. I wondered how high it was and if it would sound good with my band’s sound.

I read as much as I could about the guy before I switched over to YouTube. I searched Sleeping With Sirens and was met with so many videos. The first video was for a song called “If You Can’t Hang.”

Might as well, I thought and clicked on the thumbnail.

My ears were immediately met with guitar and drums. I watched as the black screen faded in and showed a water-covered floor. Black shoes walked up to a microphone, then the beat dropped.

Each of the five guys were jamming out to their own performance. It made me want to do the same. This Kellin kid was going crazy in his American flag shirt and black skinny jeans. The introduction to the song calmed down and the camera zoomed in on his face.

Kellin was actually a kid, a literal child! He had such a baby face with his chubby cheeks and black hair falling over his eyes. I couldn’t believe that our fans wanted us to work with a tween! He almost looked too young to be taken seriously.

I decided I shouldn’t judge and focused on his voice as he sang the first verse of the song. He did have a higher voice than most male singers, but it was so smooth and melodic that you moved past it. I studied his face as he sang. The eye contact he made with the camera made me feel like he was singing to me and me alone. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

This video really showcased his stage presence. He was intense when he needed to be and let loose when the song called for it. It was hard to believe that such a young kid had that much talent in that situation.

The bridge of the song surprised me. His voice went up and down the octave like it was nothing. It was impressive as hell, and I needed to hear more. So I went back to the search results when the song ended and found another one called “If I’m James Dean, You’re Audrey Hepburn.”

This song was different from the first one. The music behind the lyrics was much heavier and Kellin’s hair was much longer. His voice was higher in this one too. This video was released before the first one I watched so maybe puberty had finally caught up with him.

Wait, this kid could do unclean vocals? Interesting. His voice had so much range. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to do a song with him. The song ended and I was almost convinced, but I needed to hear one more song to be sure I was making the right decision. I went back to the search results and found one more music video. This one was for the title track of their first record.

This video showed a bunch of tour moments, many of them being on stage performances as well as moments with fans. Kellin seemed to do well in all of those situations. On stage he was energetic and passionate, and off stage he was goofy and smiling.

I couldn’t deny that this kid really had my attention. He also had a cute smile, but that was something I wasn’t going to dwell on.

I was convinced that doing a song with Kellin would be a great opportunity, but I couldn’t get over how young he was. He looked like he was barely out of high school. How much experience did this kid have with working with other bands?

I did another search of Kellin and his birthday. “He’s twenty-five?!” I shouted out loud. There was no way that he was only three years younger than me. Well, at least he wasn’t a child. That made this a little bit better.

Seeing that it had gotten later than I would have liked, I turned off my computer and stood from my desk. I made up my mind about Kellin. Feeling good about my decision, I got ready for bed all while figuring out what I’d say to everyone involved.

***

September 22

Hey Kellin, my name’s Vic. I think you’ve seen me mentioned in tweets

I probably could’ve started that message better, but whatever, what mattered was that I sent it. I finally bit the bullet and messaged Kellin. Yesterday I bought Sleeping With Sirens’ two albums so I could really study his voice, and damn, it was amazing. After taking that extra day to be sure that I wanted to work with him, I sent the message in the morning.

There was no doubt in my mind that Pierce The Veil was going to work with Kellin Quinn, so I sent him the message through direct message on Twitter. He replied a few minutes later.

Yeah I know about you. You’re all over my tl lol

So you know that our fans want us to work together? I asked.

Yup! It’s everywhere

I smiled softly. It was good that he had seen all of those fan requests. That made this a little less awkward.

Well I’ve listened to your stuff and I think it’s a good idea. If you’re down we can get together and make a hit!

He confirmed that he was interested. Apparently he had listened to us when the requests started and was excited to have the opportunity to work with our band. That message made me smile.

Ok I’ll talk to you once we have a plan for the song and we’ll get to work!

Sounds good!

***

October 18

I was sitting in a chair with my guitar against my body. Tony and my friends Curtis Peoples and Steve Miller were with me in a cabin in Big Bear. I needed to write for this song with Kellin and I had no idea where to start, so I went up to the cabin to get away. The other guys offered to come up to help.

“I’m just stuck,” I groaned. I wanted this song to be perfect, but I had no idea where to start.

“Well, what are you feeling right now? Whatever it is write it down and work with it.”

I took Curtis’ advice into consideration as I leaned back into my chair. How was I feeling? I was frustrated. I wanted this song with Kellin to be perfect since so many people were expecting it. We hadn’t revealed that we were working together, but I knew that once word got out the hundreds of fans on either side would be expecting something great. I didn’t want to let them down.

I also didn’t want to disappoint Kellin. He seemed so eager to work with me and I didn’t want to give him a bad impression of my song witting. There was too much riding on this one song; I thought I was going to go insane.

I ran my fingers through my hair and gripped it. There was too much weighing on my mind, putting too much pressure on me. I knew it was one song, but it was a song so many people were counting on. That made it even more important.

An idea occurred to me in that moment. I quickly turned to the face the desk I was sitting at and wrote my thoughts down – pressure, expectations, too many thoughts, pushed past breaking point.

“Vic? You good?”

I smiled brightly as I nodded. “I think our song has a theme.”

***

January 10, 2012

“I was thinking something like, ‘push me for the last time,’ or something like that.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that could work.” I leaned over to pick up my guitar. “We also added something to the instrumental. Check it out.” I played a progression that the band was thinking of adding to the beginning of the song.

“Dude, that sounds sick!” I smiled.

Kellin and I were on a FaceTime call working on our song. We’d been having video calls a lot lately. It was easier to bounce ideas on lyrics off of each other when we could see the other’s face and hear their voice.

“Oh dude, did you get my email? I sent it pretty late last night, but you know, when inspiration strikes.”

I chuckled in agreement as I went into my emails. “No, I get it. I’m the same way. Remember, last week I sent you one at two in the morning?”

He laughed. “Yeah, maybe we should stop doing that.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

Kellin and I were getting to know each quite a bit with these video calls. We would talk for hours before realizing how long we were on the call. Of course, we’d start by working on the song, but then we’d get off track and chat like we were lifelong friends. It really felt like we were.

Kellin was very easy to get along with. He was a really nice guy, funny, and creative as hell. His energy worked well with mine, so we found ourselves working together almost every day.

“Yeah, I like what you have so far,” I said after reading through the lyrics Kellin had emailed me. “This is really good.”

He smiled brightly at me. “Thanks! I’m glad you like it!” I couldn’t help but smile back at him. His smile was infectious, and I think I liked it more than the lyrics he sent.

“Is there a title for it yet?”

I brought myself out of my thoughts and shook my head. “Not yet. We’re hoping to have one once the song is done.”

“Cool,” he said with a nod. “We’ve been on for a while so I think I’m gonna let you go. You’ve probably got things to record or something.”

“Something like that.” I tried really hard to hide the disappointment in my voice. Hopefully he didn’t notice.

“Alright, well I’ll send you another email when I have some more stuff.”

“And sometime in the next month I’ll send you the song demos.” The band was heading to New Jersey to record our third record in February. I figured sending Kellin studio demos would give us both an idea of where the song was and what else we needed to do.

He smiled again. “Awesome! I’m looking forward to it.” I smiled back. “I’ll see you later, Vic.”

“Seeya.” We ended the call, but I stayed sitting there thinking of his smile.

***

March 16

“How was that one?” I asked Kellin from my computer screen. We were once again on FaceTime.

“Hold on.” He typed on his keyboard then called out to someone off camera. Another minute passed and I could hear the recording I had sent him played through speakers in the room.

Kellin alternated between nodding his head along to the music and typing on his computer. When the recording was done he looked at me and smiled.

“Check your email,” was all he said. I did as he asked and read over the lyrics he had just sent.

“That’s it! That’s what we should use!” He gave me a heartfelt laugh and a bright smile.

“Great! Let me record this real quick before I forget.” Kellin had called me while he was in the studio. I asked if he was ready to hear the final master for our song from my end and he agreed. All that was left was for him to send us his master and for our producer to mix both and we’d have a completed track for our fans.

I sat back against the sofa in the studio and listened to Tony in the booth as he tracked his parts for our new album, Collide With The Sky. We had about another month in the studio booked and we were trying to get everything done so we could announce the release. This was an exciting one. We had features from so many of our friends on this upcoming record. Hopefully it would be received well.

“Okay, I’m done.” I looked back down to my computer just in time to see Kellin come back into view. “Give my producer about half an hour and I’ll send you the recording.”

“Sounds good,” I spoke with a nod. He sent me a bright smile, the same one that had been constantly making my heart skip a beat lately.

“Do we have a title for this baby yet?”

“Yeah. My brother said we should call it ‘King For A Day,’ you know, because we’re talking about wanting to overcome all this shit and feel like we’re above it all.”

He nodded along to my explanation. “That works. I can’t wait to hear the finished product.”

“Me too, but trust me, we’ve got a hit.”

***

April 20

“You ready?” Jaime asked me. I chewed on my bottom lip nervously as I read over the potential post once more.

“Dude, it’s fine, just post it,” Mike said in annoyance. I took a breath. He was right, everything was the way it should be.

We had finished recording our record a couple weeks ago and had gotten the masters back. Everything was to our liking so now it was finally time for us to announce the release of our third album.

“Post it!” Tony said excitedly. I nodded at him and hit the button that sent the post to the world.

New album “Collide With The Sky” out JULY 17th! We are very excited to announce that our new album “Collide With The Sky” will be released this Summer on July 17th! We can’t wait to show you the new songs! Till then please spread the word #CollideWithTheSky

Love ya!

-PTV :)

“It’s out there,” I said with a relieved sigh. As soon as I finished speaking my phone buzzed with a new text message.

Congrats dude! I get the first copy right?

I smiled at Kellin’s message. Of course!

“Who are you texting?” I tore my eyes away from my phone to look at Mike.

“Oh, it’s just Kellin.”

“You mean your boyfriend?”

I rolled my eyes. Mike had been teasing me lately about how much time I had spent talking to Kellin in the last few months. That was necessary though; we were writing a song together. Even though I explained that to him he still found moments to make jokes. I didn’t understand why since Kellin and I were just friends. Sure, I may have found him to be adorable, but friends can think that about their friends, right?

“Kellin’s just my friend.”

Mike smirked at me. “Sure, whatever you say.”

***

May 25

“Okay boys, we need a single for this record.”

We were sitting in an office at Fearless Records with our manager and PR representative. Collide had been announced a month ago and hype was starting to slow down. We needed to keep everyone as excited about this record as possible.

“How about ‘King’?” I suggested. “We could finally reveal that we worked with Kellin, and we’d have another fanbase behind us.”

Everyone in the room looked at each other and nodded. “That’s fine with me,” our manager said. “Let me get in touch with Kellin’s people and-”

“I already did.” Jaime looked over to me with an expression I couldn’t make out. I shrugged it off and continued. “It was Kellin’s idea, actually. His management brought it up and asked him to ask me.”

“Oh,” was the only response I got.

Was it weird that Kellin and I had talked about this? No, right? That was just one of our many conversations about the song. Of course, we had talked about other things besides that, but that was our focus.

“Okay, well let’s plan for a release date.”

Once we talked everything over I sent a confirmation text to Kellin. He agreed to our plan without hesitation. I wrote out the Tumblr post shortly after.

Your boy Vic here! We’re very stoked to announce that due to the crazy amounts of requests and tweets that we’ve both been receiving, Kellin Quinn from Sleeping With Sirens and I recorded a new song together! The song is called “King For A Day” and it will be officially released and available for download on June 5th! But for those impatient souls that can’t wait that long, we will be dropping a clip of the song this Wednesday May 30th. You asked us to make it happen and we did it just for you! This song is 100% for fans of PTV and SWS! Thank you so much, can’t wait for you to hear it!

-Vic

“King For A Day” will be found on our upcoming album Collide With The Sky. Pick it up on July 17th!

We left the office feeling very proud of ourselves. This was sure to make the fans even more excited about Pierce The Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, and Collide. I wanted to ride this high forever.

Dude this is exciting! I can’t wait to release this shit! Everyone’s gonna freak the fuck out!!!

Kellin’s text made the smile on my face grow.

Hell yeah! 🤘

He sent a quick message back. This isn’t the end for us right?

Of course not! Not even close. This is just the beginning!

Good! I’d be bummed if you said yes

Maybe it was the feeling of accomplishment that I was still riding on, or the thought of Kellin still wanting to hang out with me even after the song was out. Or maybe it was the message he’d just sent that made my heart flutter. Whatever the reason, it was at that moment that I knew I’d do anything to keep Kellin in my life.

[universallytreepeace]

Super Mario Bros Mac Download

Super Mario Bros. Is a classic video game that helped to launch a major franchise. It's game play elements and side scrolling action became a video game staple for years as other companies sought to emulate it, and hoped to capture some of it's success. Super Mario Bros. Is an all time classic that any fan of video games should love.

Jan 02, 2018  Download Super Mario Bros For PC Windows and Mac can be easily installed and used on a desktop computer or laptop running Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and a Macbook, iMac running Mac OS X. This will be done by means of an Android emulator.

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90’s kids will be able to relate with me when I say, ‘I grew up playing Super Mario Bros.’ Yes? Well, Super Mario Bros were one of the amazing games that I’ve ever played in my life. Back in the day, I used to leave everything just to play the game and god! The addiction was real. Well, I still want to play Super Mario Bros, don’t you? Would it be better if we can play it on our PC? Here are Super Mario Bros Download for PC.

There is no official way to get the Super Mario Bros download for pc, as the game was meant to be played only on Nintendo’s gaming consoles. Though the Super Mario Run has arrived for mobile devices, there is no word about the launch of Super Mario Bros download for pc.

Let us first dive into the nostalgic experience we all had with Super Mario Bros Download for PC.

Contents

4 Super Mario Bros Download for PC – Information

About the gameplay: Super Mario Bros

I guess each one of you must be aware of how, when and where the story of the game goes. The Super Mario Bros were developed and published by Nintendo in the year 1985.

This game was released as a successor to their best selling game known as Mario Bros, which was released in the year 1983.

The players are supposed to control Mario or maybe his brother Luigi (while playing in a multiplayer environment) and travel the world to find and save the princess.

During their journey in the Mushroom Kingdom, the players need to recuse the Princess Toadstool from the Browser (the antagonist).

Furthermore, during the whole gameplay, the players are supposed to dodge a lot of hurdles and have to conquer some of the enemies too.

On the bright side, Super Mario Bros also give the users with different power-ups as super mushroom, fire, and Starman.

If the player completes a level, he’ll be given with an extra life in the next level.

Super Mario Bros successfully managed to get its entry in the list of most successful and intuitive games of all times.

Additionally, Mario and Luigi need to collect several coins that are scattered randomly at different spots.

The game ends when the player gets defeated three or more times in a row either by the enemies or if the timer goes off.

For each defeat, the user loses one life at a time. Apart from that, if there is any power up taken up by the player, then the first thing that he’ll lose when defeated is his power.

Then comes the life. So it makes even more interesting.

Also, the enemies can be conquered using the power-ups, or by jumping on them.

Koopa Troopa retracts inside its shell when the player jumps on it, and the other hand Goomba gets flattened and therefore defeated.

The overall gameplay is divided into 8 worlds with 4 stages per world.

The final world will take you to the castle where you need to fight with the browser to rescue the princess.

Now, that you know each and everything about the game, it is time, to get to know about Super Mario Bros download for pc.

Super Mario Bros Download for PC – How to guide

Before proceeding further, you must know that no official PC version is available for Super Mario Bros. Therefore, exact replication of the Super Mario Bros can’t be produced on a PC.

But there are several ways by which Super Mario Bros download for pc can be possible. Let’s check those out:

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As the game was released way back in the year 1985, because of its low graphical and processing requirement the game file size is small.

And for that reason, some of the websites have converted into a playable format.

This playable format can be accessed from their website, and the users can play Super Mario Bros without any hassle.

But there is a lot of downsides to it; one being, the constant availability of fast internet is needed to stream the game, and the other is the frame drops.

So, this method may or may not work at best for you. You still can try searching for Super Mario Bros download for pc and find some links to the flash Super Mario Bros game via Google.

The next method would surely surprise you. If I say, you can install (sort of) the Super

Mario Bros on your PC? Well, yes you can. Sure, there is no official program or app made to be installed on the Windows or Mac versions of PC but, you can get an.NES emulator.

Super Mario Bros Download for PC – via NES Emulator

As the game isn’t available officially on the internet for PC’s, you can download the Nintendo file version of the Super Mario Bros.

This Nintendo version comes in.NES format.

The .NES format isn’t officially supported by your PC. and it even doesn’t recognize it at all.

Therefore, all you need to do is to download the best.NES emulator.

For that, search for the best NES emulator on Google, and there are a lot of free NES emulators available.

Make sure to scan the downloaded NES emulator using any antivirus program to ensure maximal safety and security.

Once the emulator is downloaded, install using the executable file.

Run the program and then within the program interface you’ll be able to see some options that will enable you to launch any game.

Go to the load game option and then locate the .NES file for the Super Mario Bros you just downloaded.

Now, you can play the game on the emulator easily.

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Super Mario Bros Download for PC – Information

Below we have mentioned all the details of Super Mario Bros Download for PC. You can read below:

How to play Super Mario Bros?

So far so good, the game will work smoothly with the .NES Emulator. There are still some things that you need to understand before you can enjoy the game at its limits.

First being, the controller setup.

Before going forward and jumping right into the gameplay, make sure that the controls are set in the .NES emulator.

Make sure to go to the options menu and check for the controller configuration. If you have an additional gaming controller, you can plug it in your PC and start playing.

Furthermore, if you don’t own a gaming controller, then you need to make sure that every key on your keyboard must be assigned to the controls that are needed for the gameplay.

Secondly, the graphics and fullscreen settings must be adjusted accordingly to make it easier for you to render the game properly.

Lastly, the sound settings may also need some tweaks. Sometimes, the default speakers fail to produce the sounds available during the running gameplay.

Make sure to tweak the sound settings properly to enjoy the game completely.

Super Mario Bros Download for PC – Issues

Macos high sierra dmg torrent. Sometimes, because of some errors the gameplay may be hindered and in turn ruining your mood.

Make sure to check the downloaded.NES emulator update. And to get the best out of the app make sure to keep it updated. You can also check for the update on the developer’s website if the automatic download protocol isn’t working.

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What do you think? Playing Super Mario Bros on a larger screen gives you an edge? At least it made my experience immersive.

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Canon Mp560 Driver Mac Download

Canon Mp560 Drivers Download

Canon Pixma Mp560 Driver Download

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PIXMA MP560 Home Articles Articles. And Mac OS X v.10.5.x. When you delete the printer driver in this way, all the printer drivers for Canon printers, which. CANON MP560 SCANNER DRIVERS FOR MAC DOWNLOAD - Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Other Products Other Products. Photographers share their creative secrets. Red laser pointers with presentation functions. Chrome A grey bar will appear at the bottom of your browser window which will contain your download. Next, the installation of MP Navigator.

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Following the install this will be able to work fine.

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[tech-battery]

LENOVO THINKPAD X1 FOLD REVIEW: A FOLDING SCREEN FILLED WITH POTENTIAL

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold is awesome… as a concept.

Come on, it’s a display that folds in half. You can carry it around like a tablet. You can prop it up and use it like a Surface Pro. You can fold it halfway and use it like a clamshell laptop. You can fold it slightly and hold it like a hardcover book. And everyone who sees you whip it out of your briefcase will ask “Wow, what’s that?” And you can tell them “Oh, nothing. Just the world’s first foldable PC.” Picture it. There’s no way you won’t feel like the coolest person in your meeting.

So should you buy it?

I mean, no. Before we get into this: definitely not. It’s a whopping $2,499, not including the stylus and keyboard. (Bundles with both accessories start at $2,749 on Lenovo’s website.) That’s more than anyone needs to spend even to get a very good laptop — and there are a few too many problems with the X1 Fold for me to put it in that category.

But! I do like the idea. The folding form factor certainly makes life easier, and I have no doubt that we’ll see more devices like this in the future — assuming manufacturers can work out some of the kinks.

A TRAVEL PRO

Here’s how a day with the X1 Fold went for me. In the morning, before signing on for work, I lay on the couch and used the Fold as a mini clamshell (that is, folded at 90 degrees with the keyboard on the bottom half of the screen) to catch up on emails. Someone had sent me an interesting YouTube video overnight. I unfolded the laptop into a 13.3-inch tablet, setting the keyboard aside, and watched it fullscreen.

Then, work time. I popped out the built-in kickstand and propped the unfolded ThinkPad up on my kitchen table, laying the keyboard out in front of it. I used multiple windows in split-screen, with Slack and Spotify over top, the way I’d use any standard 13-inch laptop. In the early afternoon, I had an hour-long Zoom meeting, so I headed back over to the couch and folded the thing into a book shape, with Zoom on one side and Slack on the other. After that, back to work — but I didn’t feel like going back to the table, so I folded the ThinkPad back into mini-clamshell mode and used it that way on the couch for the rest of the day.

This is all just to illustrate how many different uses there are for this form factor. I can’t say that a folding screen has ever been at the top of my “Laptop Features I Need” list — but after using the X1 Fold for a week, I would love to own one of these.

There’s no laptop I’d rather bring on a business trip than the X1 Fold, and that’s due to a couple of design choices in addition to the versatile form factor. For one: it’s really, really nice. The device is clad in an authentic black leather cover with a sturdy kickstand integrated into it. The ThinkPad logo adds a sleek splash of red. It all looked very out of place in my drab apartment. The only parts that look a tiny bit cheap are the bezels, which are large and rubber. Those are necessary to protect the sides of the display from clinking against each other, and they also give you something to hold while you’re using the Fold as a tablet.

A folding display also makes for a great travel companion. Folded in half, this ThinkPad is about the size of a hardcover book: 9.3 x 6.23 x 1.09 inches and 2.2 pounds (299.4 x 236 x 11.5 mm and 999g). The keyboard fits inside the folded device (magnets keep it secure), and it has a snug sleeve for the stylus on its side. I easily slipped the whole affair into my purse and would have loved carrying it around a trade show or conference under my arm. Any time I brought this somewhere, I thought, “Man, I wish I’d had this in college.”

And with the leather cover, I was never worried about bumping or scratching the Fold — something that can be stressful with devices this expensive. (Lenovo says its product underwent MIL-STD 810H testing and is resistant to conditions including humidity, dust, sand, extreme temperatures, and mechanical shock. This certainly promises a much higher level of durability than we’ve seen from folding phones thus far.)

THE FOLD

With foldable devices, there’s always one big question. The answer to that question is no: you can’t see the crease while you’re using the Fold (though it’s visible when the device is turned off). The exception is when it’s partially folded like a book. The lighting in the middle and the lighting on the sides is a bit uneven in that case. But credit where credit is due: when you’re using the Fold flat, there is no crease to be seen.

The hinge itself, which Lenovo says it spent years developing, is quite sturdy and didn’t give me any problems. The ThinkPad requires two hands and a bit of a firm tug to open. But on the plus side, it always stayed exactly in the position I put it in without any slips or wobbles.

Flat, the display is a 13.3-inch OLED with 2048 x 1536 resolution. That’s a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is unusual for a laptop but feels quite roomy compared to a traditional 16:9. I could easily stack two or even three Chrome windows side by side, often with Slack, Zoom, or another app over top, without having to zoom out. And I didn’t notice any jelly scroll (where one side of the screen is able to change pixels faster than the other side), which was a problem with some early foldable phones.

The viewing experience is a luxury. The panel reproduces 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut, 100 percent of Adobe RGB, and 95 percent of DCI-P3. It’s great for watching videos and movies; even the dock icons pop with color.

On the downside, good luck using this thing outside. Not only is it quite glossy, but it only reached 289 nits at maximum brightness. That’s not a problem for indoor work, but it’s still a bit of a letdown for the price since some premium business laptops offer 1,000-nit options for less.

PERFORMANCE AND SOFTWARE

Lenovo has come up with some neat software tricks to improve the Fold experience. There’s an app called Pen Settings where you can map the buttons on Lenovo’s stylus: they can do everything from copy / pasting to erasing, toggling music and volume, and pulling up various applications.

You can also use Lenovo’s Mode Switcher (which pops up whenever you fold or unfold the device) to split the screen in half, essentially creating two separate displays on either side of the crease. This is most useful in the mini-clamshell form if you want to have one application running up top and one on the bottom. But you can also use it when the Fold is flat, the same way you’d use the Windows split-screen feature. And if you split the screen in Mode Switcher, the Fold preserves that layout when you move between portrait and landscape orientations, whereas elaborate arrangements of tabs and apps sometimes get scattered everywhere otherwise.

These are nice touches, and they show that Lenovo has really thought through the potential this form factor has, rather than just slapping a hinge onto a Surface Pro. But when it comes to performance, there are signs that this product is still in an early stage.

There’s a lot to commend Lenovo for here. I get stressed out just thinking about the tasks this computer has. Not only does it need to know whether it’s in portrait or landscape mode (like any regular tablet), but it also has to detect whether it’s folded, how much it’s folded, and where the keyboard is — and then resize its interface accordingly. Given all that, I’m quite impressed that this thing (mostly) works.

Mostly. But it’s not seamless, and there are some areas where the Fold and Windows 10 aren’t quite seeing eye to eye yet.

For example: every so often when I had the Mini Keyboard connected, the Fold forgot it was there and sent up the on-screen keyboard anyway when I selected a textbox with the stylus. You can turn the on-screen keyboard off in Settings if this annoys you, but it’s still a glitch that’s disappointing to see. On the other hand, occasionally, the on-screen keyboard didn’t come up immediately when I wanted it to, and I’d have to prod the text box a few times before the Fold got the hint. And the little writing box, which is supposed to pop up whenever you tap a text field with the stylus, seemed to come somewhat randomly: it didn’t appear at some times when I wanted it, and it did pop up at some times when I didn’t (like if I had just highlighted something in a Google Doc).

There were two occasions, both after a restart, where the Fold didn’t realize it was in mini-laptop mode and tried to expand across the whole screen. I had to remove and replace the keyboard before the Fold detected it. (Lenovo is aware of that issue and says it’s working on a fix.)

Most annoyingly, I wasn’t able to video chat in Zoom or WebEx using mini-laptop mode because my video feed (like the tablet’s camera) was sideways. That’s not a Lenovo-specific problem — some other Windows convertibles also don’t properly rotate their cameras if you flip them around during video calls. But it’s still something I hope Zoom and WebEx are able to fix. Were it not for this issue, mini-laptop mode would be the ideal form factor for remote meetings (WebEx on the top half, notes on the bottom).

I have faith that Lenovo will iron out these kinks as time goes on. But at present, they are here.

The X1 Fold doesn’t have as heavy-duty of a processor as you’ll find in some other ThinkPads. It’s powered by the Intel Core i5-L16G7, one of Intel’s “Lakefield” CPUs. These are “hybrid” processors, efficient chips designed for small and light devices. They’re Intel’s answer to the Arm chips in phones, tablets, and now MacBooks. (Microsoft’s dual-screen Surface Neo is supposed to be getting one, too.)

Occasional glitches aside, I was pleasantly surprised by the performance here. Multitasking in a dozen apps and Chrome tabs was no problem, and I could do some scrolling and browsing during a long Zoom call without anything freezing up. Of course, that’s also true for plenty of devices you can get for a few hundred bucks.

And the Fold also dragged its feet on some tasks where other premium business laptops (not to mention high-end consumer laptops that are half this price) do better. It takes a good few seconds to boot up, for example, and I sometimes got impatient waiting for it to find things in File Explorer and send windows to fullscreen. Webpages were a bit slower than I’m used to. The ThinkPad also takes a few seconds to rearrange itself between modes — and mini-clamshell mode, in particular — but I’m willing to forgive that since it’s a brand-new use case for Windows 10.

Battery life, though, was quite disappointing. Running the X1 Fold through my sustained workload (around 12 Chrome tabs and apps, occasional Spotify and YouTube streaming and Zoom calls, 200 nits of brightness), I averaged four hours and 50 minutes on the Better Battery profile and five hours and 35 minutes on the Battery Saver profile (with Intel’s battery-saving features enabled). That’s not necessarily unexpected for a laptop with an OLED display and only a 50Whr battery. But it’s not good for a $2,500 device, especially one that’s meant to be used on the go. The Surface Pro 7, which has a higher-resolution screen, got seven to eight hours in our testing.

The final thing worth mentioning here is that Windows 10 is still a “meh” operating system for tablets. If you’ve never used a Windows tablet before, it’s quite different from using an iPad. Gesture controls are still fairly basic, especially compared to Apple’s shortcut offerings. Moreover, most Microsoft apps aren’t designed to be used on a tablet the way that iPad apps are, so you’ll be doing a lot of struggling to tap boxes and icons that are much smaller than your fingertip. And actions like rearranging tabs and dragging / dropping windows that are second-nature with a touchpad are difficult to do with your fingers.

Switching to Windows Tablet Mode helps with this a bit, but you have to dig into the Action Center to turn that on manually. The Fold doesn’t swap to it automatically when you disconnect the keyboard the way Surface Books do. (Again, it’s not a Fold-specific problem — in general, disconnecting Bluetooth keyboards from Windows convertibles doesn’t trigger Tablet Mode — but it’s inconvenient nonetheless.) And of course, Windows 10 doesn’t have any unique features that take advantage of the dual-screen setup; Microsoft is working on an operating system optimized for dual-screen hardware (including its own Surface Neo), but we don’t expect that to arrive until next spring.

The running theme here is that most of these issues are Microsoft’s fault, not Lenovo’s. The convertible laptops Microsoft makes use the same operating system. But the lack of tablet functionality makes more sense on Surface Books and Surface Pros, which can serve as tablets where needed but are still meant to function primarily as computers. The problem with the Fold is that it’s at its best as a tablet. The ideal X1 Fold customer will be using it as a tablet most of the time. Because there are two major reasons I don’t recommend this device as a primary laptop. Those reasons are...

THE KEYBOARD AND TOUCHPAD

The X1 Fold is beautiful to look at and, as a tablet, a marvel to use. But I still dreaded having to drive it for my actual work every day. That’s because the keyboard and touchpad are tiny.

Now, I understand why they’re tiny. Lenovo wanted to make a keyboard small enough to fit inside the folded device so it wouldn’t be an extra thing to carry around. And it certainly succeeded in making a keyboard that fits perfectly into the folded-up tablet. I was never concerned that it would fall out.

But I hate typing on it. The keys actually feel quite sturdy and have a satisfying click to them, but Lenovo essentially had to combine a number of keys to achieve its desired size. For example: the apostrophe / quotation key, usually to the left of Enter on a US keyboard, has been moved to the far right side of the keyboard above Enter. (It’s a half key, sharing a slot with colon / semicolon). Every time I needed to type an apostrophe, I had to consciously stretch my hand far to the right. Approximately 50 percent of my apostrophe attempts resulted in instinctively slamming Enter instead (as my colleagues who received numerous incomplete Slack messages can attest). I assume you’ll adjust to this after a while of using the Fold, but boy is there a learning curve.

It gets worse: Lenovo had to cram some keys that were already dual-purpose together, meaning that some buttons accommodate as many as four different symbols. Question mark / forward slash has been combined with period / greater than, so typing a question mark requires hitting all three of Shift, Fn, and period at the same time. Dash has been relegated to Fn+9, which also tripped me up. I had to go through this review and delete a bunch of accidental 9s I’d typed before I filed it. And backslash requires Fn+8, which would make the X1 Fold a huge pain for people in STEM fields who needs to use LaTeX and some other programming languages.

Again, I understand why the keyboard needed to be small. But I would rather carry the keyboard separately than have to press three keys to make a question mark. Lenovo could make a nice carrying case that fits the Fold, the keyboard, and the stylus, and I would be totally fine with that. The company could also create some more space by removing the touchpad — which it might as well because the touchpad is basically useless.

To put in context how tiny this thing is: if I place two fingers on it (and my fingers are quite small) there is almost no room above or below them. So as you can probably imagine, scrolling is a pain (you hit the plastic frame immediately) as is clicking / dragging, highlighting, and anything else that requires two moving fingers. (There’s nowhere close to enough room.) Laying out a big article, which involves copy-pasting text and moving a bunch of images around, was quite a struggle.

The touchpad also didn’t do what I needed it to as often as I wanted. It sometimes thought I was holding it down when I had let go, meaning I’d unintentionally move tabs around. And highlighting a segment of text or getting my cursor to land in an exact spot was often a trial-and-error process. Even with the touchpad on its lowest sensitivity, I rarely got the right location on the first go.

I don’t use third-party peripherals with laptops I review, but this touchpad pushed that principle to its limit: I have never been closer to saying “Screw it” and plugging in a mouse to give myself a break. I ended up using the stylus for most of my navigation, but that’s suboptimal for some actions (rearranging tabs, doing anything in Google Docs).

Overall, the X1 Fold is a spectacular device in a lot of ways. It’s good at the one thing it’s advertised for (folding). It’s beautiful, both to look at and to use. It’s sturdy. And the form factor is useful. It’s not a gimmick. I would love to own a tablet like this.

The key word there is “tablet.” The X1 Fold isn’t a tablet. It has a laptop operating system and — more importantly — it’s priced like a laptop. It’s priced like a very expensive laptop.

And it’s not ready to fill that role yet. The battery life isn’t there yet. The keyboard and touchpad aren’t there yet. The software integration, while commendable, isn’t there yet.

The key word there is “yet.” Because with all that being said, I can’t wait for the second generation. Samsung’s first foldable phones were riddled with issues — but just over a year and several iterations later, the company is selling a folding device that’s very usable (albeit pretty expensive). I’m sure that’s going to be the case with foldable laptops as well. Lenovo has a groundbreaking idea, with a strong foundation to build on. I really hope it’s able to patch the Fold’s glitches without compromising on the components that are already exceptional. That would be a breathtaking device, one that would earn my unambiguous recommendation.

AGREE TO CONTINUE: LENOVO THINKPAD X1 FOLD

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

To start using the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold, you’ll need to agree to the following:

A request for your region and keyboard layout

Windows 10 license agreement, Lenovo privacy statement, and Lenovo limited warranty

PIN

You can also say yes or no to the following:

Wi-Fi

Microsoft account (can be bypassed if you stay offline)

Privacy settings (speech recognition, location, Find My Device, sharing diagnostic data, inking and typing, tailored experience, advertising ID)

Customize your device for gaming, schoolwork, entertainment, creativity, family, or business

Sync an Android phone

OneDrive backup

Office 365

Allow Microsoft to collect personal information for Cortana, including location and location history, contacts, voice input, speech and handwriting patterns, typing history, search history, calendar details, content and communication history from Microsoft services, messages, and apps.

Add a Lenovo ID profile

That’s six mandatory agreements and 15 optional agreements to use the ThinkPad X1 Fold.

[wallpaperpainter]

What You Know About Facebook Account Desktop And What You Don’t Know About Facebook Account Desktop | facebook account desktop

A common question that is asked by Facebook users today is how do I use my Facebook account on a computer? Facebook allows you to “Share” a webpage in your news feed. For example, if you had a page about the new MacBook Pro and your friend saw this post, they would see it in their news feed. This is why it is important for you to be able to do this with any kind of website.

The first step is to make sure that you have all of the latest version of the Facebook software installed on your computer. This way, if there is an update, you will know what you have to do. Once this is done, you can then go about getting this working.

The first thing you want to do to see how you can use your Facebook account on a computer is to go to your friends' pages. If you see that your friend has a page where they post all kinds of updates and photos, you can try to use this to check on it. If you can't find it, you can try looking in the search results for the page.

If you are still having trouble, it might be time to try going to your News Feed. This is actually very easy, and you will know it once you have it working. Click on the down arrow at the top of the screen, then click “Account.”

Once you are at this page, scroll down to the bottom and you will see a new page called “Settings.” Click on this page, and then click on “Facebook.” Once you do this, it will take you right back to your news feed, so go ahead and look through it.

Now that you know how to use your Facebook account on a computer, it is time to start creating some of the cool and engaging videos and stories that you want to share with your friends and family. Make sure that you take your time to master this skill, so that you can do it quickly and easily when you use Facebook.

It is also a good idea to make a habit of keeping your friends and family updated about what is happening on your Facebook page. You may not think it's necessary to tell them every day, but it will help your friends and family stay in touch with you when you are gone or on vacation. This is also a great way to keep in touch with them, even when they are away.

One final thing you can do on a computer is to add photos and videos to your news feed. When someone looks at one of these posts, you can invite them to “Like” it and you will get a notification in their News Feed letting them know what has happened.

The above steps should be able to get you started easily using Facebook on your computer, even if you are not quite comfortable using it at this point. Be sure to spend some time mastering the basics and then you will be able to go out there and have fun doing it. soon enough!

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The post What You Know About Facebook Account Desktop And What You Don’t Know About Facebook Account Desktop | facebook account desktop appeared first on Desktop Drawing.

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[sapphirewolf100]

Pyro,heavy,engineer and medic

Pyro: Which type of food do you prefer: spicy or sweet? - Man, I sure do like my spicy food… not like too overly spicy but enough to get a hot kick out of it y’know. So maybe spicy? Even tho I fckn love sweet things too omgHeavy: Do you have an item (Not including phone/pc/laptop) that is precious to you? - YES my Rammstein beanie! It’s one of the only few wearable merch I have from that band HNNNGGGGG (I also have one Rammstein shirt that was sent to me by a friend and I COULDNT BE HAPPIER)Engineer: Do you like to create stuff (building, painting, making gifs, making music etc)? - YEWhen I get the motivation to I’ll make my own animated icons n stuff (I used to animate when I actually HAD software n stuff to do so… now I gotta use a website to make icons/animations lmao Now all I do is just illustrate extremely detailed pictures ;D;I also do love to mess with audio programs like uhhhh I think it was Garage Band (I also messed with FL Studio before I’m pretty sure…is that even an audio thing? I feel like my memory is bad rn) and I had it on my Macbook when I was back in high school (that sounds so weird saying that omg) and I made my own little tunesso YE :DMedic: Do you have a pet? If yes, post a picture - I do have a pet, he’s just currently not living with me at the moment ;n; He’s stuck with one of my parents >> I feel terrible he’s not with me bc I’m missing years of his life + the other dog I had passed away back in late September OTL (his name was Sam… I’m gonna miss you Sammy ;n; )I just scrolled back through some stuff and found a picture of the one that’s still living (his name is Buddy, I rescued him myself from unsanitary conditions/abuse when he was just a smol pupper + I also saved his lil bro from being mauled by another larger dog)So I will post that ASAP O:

[phancystuff]

Trying to Remember How it Feels (To Have a Heartbeat) 7/7

Pairing: Dan/ Phil (Phan) Summary: Dan moves into a new apartment in London and, though it’s a step up from his old apartment, his landlord gives him strange warnings while he’s touring the place– something about the last renters leaving because of ghost sightings. But, Dan doesn’t believe in the supernatural. He quickly changes his tune when he meets Phil Lester, the ghost haunting his apartment. Well, if haunting means quickly becoming the best friend he’s ever had. (Title from Harry Styles’ song Two Ghosts) Notes: Wow. It’s the end. I hope the ending does the story justice! I also did a lot of research into Samhain and I hope that if any Wiccans read this fic, that they feel respected. Please note that, although this fic has the warning of major character death, it is not in any way graphic. Tags/ Warnings: ghost au, Halloween, major character death (obv. it’s a ghost au lol), depictions of panic attacks, angst, fluff, HAPPY ENDING, mentions of suicide (it happens in a movie they watch)

Read it on AO3 Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six

Before the possession accident, Dan and Phil thought that they couldn’t get any closer, but they were wrong. Because now, everywhere Dan went, Phil followed. He had to follow. Before, the pull Phil felt toward Dan had been completely metaphorical, but now it was physically magnetic and he couldn’t resist it. They could only conclude that, somehow, Phil had broken his tether to the flat and had reattached it to Dan. It was the “how” that they really didn’t understand, not really believing “sheer force of will.” They also didn’t really know what the new tether meant. Surely it had some deeper significance; it wasn’t just a meaningless prison for Phil. Dan would never be Phil’s prison.

Dan had seemingly made it his life’s work to read up on why Phil was now spiritually and physically connected to him. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of information out there. The only answer that was consistent throughout the dodgy websites that Dan browsed, was that a ghost might be unable to leave somewhere or someone that they had unfinished business with. But, Phil hadn’t known Dan in his life. How could there be unfinished business between the two of them?

It was frustrating to try to find answers and also have to sift through bullshit . There were thousands of people always trying to feed him misinformation or sell him potions, tarot cards, and charms. As always, Dan was finding more information about interesting, but unimportant supernatural things.

Sooner or later, Dan figured that he would take what he could get. Phil had refused to possess Dan again and, figuring that Phil wouldn’t change his mind, Dan had made it his mission to at least find something else that they could experiment with. Dan knew it would take a lot of convincing to get Phil to test some other ghost power, but that didn’t stop Dan from trying.

Along the way, though, Dan found something that piqued his interest and he poured over page upon page of information about it. For once, there was some history backing it up. A whole religion, in fact, that was still being practiced to that very day.

“Phil, have you ever heard of Samhain?” Dan finally asked the ghost sometime during the end of the week. It was the end of October. Halloween was coming-- it was only a couple of days away. The few trees outside their flat had been stripped of their leaves by a powerful, unrelenting wind. Dan was freezing and, for once, it had nothing to do with Phil’s touch and everything to do with the fact that winter was coming. Dan was in his sofa crease and wrapped in a sweater and thick, faux fur blanket, reading intently at his macbook. The steam from a hot cup of tea was curling up from the coffee table in front of him. Phil played the strangely cute horror game, Little Nightmares on the Xbox, yelping in surprise and terror every time he got jumpscared. Mirthful giggles replaced the screams and Dan couldn’t help but smile along. The scene was almost idyllic, especially after weeks of sadness, fear, and slow recovery.

Phil sighed and paused the game, turning his head to look at Dan. The peace of the evening was shattered by Dan’s question. “No. If this is another one of your ghost experiments… I’m not doing this again. I almost lost you the last time.” Phil nervously spun the wireless Xbox controller in their air. Dan ignored both Phil’s serious expression and the piece of technology hovering in front of him.

“Yeah, I know, but this is different; hear me out. Samhain is a Pagan Celtic holiday,” Dan began. Phil groaned and dropped the controller. It clattered on the rug-covered hardwood floor and Phil flopped back next to it.

“I’m not going to--”

“I get that, Phil! I get it, ok? You’re scared. I’m not. Now shut up and listen. I’m on a legitimate website: the BBC for chrissakes.” Phil clamped his mouth shut and stared at Dan upside down from the floor.

“Fine. I’ll listen. But I don’t have to do anything that I don’t want to do.”

“Yeah, and water is wet.” Dan flicked his blanket out of his face. “So Samhain is a holiday that marks the Feast of the Dead. It’s on October 31st.”

“So, it’s Halloween’s origin,” Phil said, exasperated. “What does this have to do with us?”

“Well, if you’d just listen, then you’d know,” Dan huffed out a breath and scrolled to a part in the article that he wanted to read aloud. Phil clamped his mouth shut. “They believed that “it was the time of year when the veils between this world and the Otherworld were believed to be at their thinnest: when the spirits of the dead could most readily mingle with the living once again.’” Dan looked up from the screen, his eyes shining with an excitement that Phil didn’t really understand.

“I don’t get it. I’m already “mingling” with you, Dan.” That was the understatement of the century. Dan and Phil didn’t need “Samhain” to be with each other nearly 24/7. It had gotten more intense ever since they had discovered that Phil was literally tethered to Dan. The ghost couldn’t be very far away from the living man; a few hundred feet was about as long as Phil’s invisible “lead” could stretch. Dan had made a lot of jokes about leashes and puppy play. Phil had been anything but amused.

“Well, that’s just it, Phil. So, the Celts thought that there was this boundary between spirits and humans that became thinner and allowed the two to interact. We don’t have that kind of boundary, but there is another between us.”

Phil furrowed his brows, focusing deeply on what Dan was saying. “Well, it used to be that I couldn’t leave the flat.”

Dan shook his head, “no, that was one of your boundaries, but not the boundary between us.” Phil quirked his brow thoughtfully. Were there really any boundaries between them anymore? They talked about anything and did everything together. Phil had been in Dan’s body. They could touch. Well… could they really? Phil glanced down at his gloved hands. Their touch wasn’t really genuine or mutual. It was so one-sided that Phil had mostly put a stop to the casual cuddles they used to share. Clarity came to Phil suddenly.

“It’s touch, isn’t it? I mean, I can touch you. But I can’t really do it without hurting you.”

“That’s the only boundary that I can really think of. But, on Samhain, the Celts believed that the boundary between the living and the dead dissolved.” Dan inclined his head eagerly.

Could it really be that easy? That on Halloween, some sort of boundary could be broken between the two and they could touch? Or that a boundary would just dissolve? Would Phil want to do that? He thought back to how very wrong possession had gone. He would never be able to rid himself of the terrifying image of Dan laying on the dead grass, his limbs splayed around him unnaturally and his face a deathly grey. Could something like that happen again to Dan? “I dunno, Dan.”

“Here’s the thing. This doesn’t require you to do any ghostly things to my body. I’ve looked into Samhain a little and it’s very much like Halloween. We’ll light a fire in the fireplace, because they had bonfires. We’ll eat a bunch of food, because they celebrated the day with a feast. We don’t have to do any animal sacrifices or rituals. I might just find a little prayer to say.” Dan gripped the edge of his blanket so hard that his knuckles went white.

Phil sat up uneasily and tossed the Xbox controller back and forth in his hands. “This still feels wrong, though. Like, are bastardizing someone’s religion for our own gain?”

“How is it anymore wrong that someone only going to church on Christmas and Easter? Or giving each other presents and pretending to be the easter bunny on sacred Christian days?” Dan raised his right eyebrow at Phil, looking at him expectantly. “Well? Is it any different?”

Phil considered his answer carefully. Was it really any different? Why did he feel so uneasy about disrespecting this Pagan religion, when the bastardization of the Christian religion was so normalized, commercialized, and even encouraged? Maybe it was because this holiday felt more real… felt more serious. And, was that a good thing? Did that mean that this would work? “I… I guess it’s not any different. But, if we are gonna do this, let’s just try to be as respectful as possible. Maybe we can find someone who celebrates the holiday. Get their help. Use the internet.”

A small smile grew on Dan’s face and his eyes widened. “Wait, does this mean you’ll try it with me?”

Phil breathed deeply and studied Dan’s eager face. Was he going to do this? The thing was, it didn’t seem harmful to Dan. Phil wasn’t going to enter Dan’s body, possess him, and use him like a skin suit. Phil couldn’t even believe there had been a time when he thought that was a smart idea. But no, there would be no Dan-possessing. They were going to have some dinner and try to touch each other. If Dan felt the usual spark of cold pain, they would stop and their life would continue as normal.

And if it worked? Hope grew in Phil’s chest and he squashed it quickly down. He wasn’t going to let himself get on that train of thought. If it worked, then it worked. But, it probably wouldn’t. “I don’t… see why not. It doesn’t seem dangerous.” Dan sprung from the couch, shoving the laptop off his knees and onto the sofa cushion. He landed painfully on his shins with a loud crack. He ignored the pain shooting up through his bones and gathered the ghost in his arms.

“Thank you, thank you! I have a good feeling about this. Something warm and right is just growing in my belly.” Dan clutched Phil’s shoulders, driving his face deeper into Phil’s icy chest.

“But,” Phil carefully pried Dan off of him, strong hands on Dan’s shoulders. He held Dan’s happy gaze. “You are going to tell me everything. If you feel even a little bit off, you have to tell me. I don’t care what it is. Your vision flickers? Tell me. You lose feeling in your fingers? Tell me. Your ass cramps up? Tell me, damn it.” Dan’s face fell with a mixture of embarrassment and guilt, and Phil felt bad immediately. “What happened wasn’t your fault; it was mine. But if we can prevent something bad from happening again--” Phil’s voice broke.

“--Phil,” Dan interrupted, “we’ve already discussed this. It was completely my fault. You’re not the bad guy here.”

Phil didn’t disagree with Dan out loud, but Dan could see it all in his face. Dan didn’t know if there would be a day that Phil didn’t blame and hate himself for what had happened to Dan. But, maybe they didn’t have to dwell on what was in the past. Maybe they had so much more to look forward to in the near future. Dan pulled a reluctant Phil close to him, “I promise to tell you if anything feels off. But we have to do this; we have to. I can feel that it’s the right thing to do.”

***

Dan considered asking his followers if any of them were Wiccans or Pagans and if he could pick their brains about Samhain, but ultimately decided against it. He didn’t know how it would look for him to suddenly be asking about a Pagan holiday; he couldn’t exactly claim that he was making a video about it, or that he was suddenly becoming religious. Plus, he didn’t want to take advantage of anyone for his own gain. Those were the sorts of things he had to worry about as a YouTuber.

Instead, Dan found a Wiccan using the normal-people way. He googled it. Since it was an actual religion, and not just ghost-hunting bullshit on the internet, he found someone legitimate pretty quickly. Late into the night on that same day that Phil had agreed to try a Samhain celebration, Dan was scrolling around on a Wiccan forum, when a particular post caught his attention: “A Beginner's Guide to Celebrating Samhain” by amod3rnwitch. The article was simple and insisted that anybody could celebrate Samhain. It outlined some of the traditional modern ways to put together a Feast of the Dead. At the end of the article, the author invited anyone to come to them with questions, judgement free. Dan quickly made an account through the forum and messaged the user.

“Hi, amod3rdwitch, my name’s Dan. I am interested in celebrating Samhain this year, mostly because I want to have contact with a friend of mine who passed away. Do you have any recommendations? I don’t want to be insensitive to the religion. Dan clicked send and leaned back in bed. Phil was at his elbow, reading on his iPad.”

“I feel silly.” Dan said, switching tabs to yet another article about Samhain. “Five months ago or whatever, I would have described myself as completely agnostic. I didn’t believe in the supernatural. Only cold, hard science. Now, here I am asking someone who describes themselves as a “modern witch” how I can accurately celebrate a Pagan holiday.” Dan skimmed over the article, despite the fact that he had already read it.

Phil lowered the iPad into his slightly translucent lap. “Hmm, I understand. I was a little bit more superstitious when I was alive. I did a little dabbling in tarot cards and other forms of divination. My grandmum was a psychic, did you know?”

“I didn’t know. Did she pass her powers down to you?” Dan said teasingly, poking his finger into Phil’s belly. “Y’know, there were some times that I thought she might have. Wait, let’s test it. Think of a word and I’ll tell you what word you’re thinking of.” Phil widened his eyes and trained their piercing blue irises on Dan. Phil lifted his hands and paddled his fingers in the air, “I’m building the psychic connection,” he explained.

“Of course.” Dan smiled fondly. “Ok, I have a word.”

“Mmmm…” Phil closed his eyes. “Meme!” He called out confidently. “Nope!”

“Toast?” Phil responded, a lot less confident this time.

“Toast? No, you spoon. I’m thinking of my favorite word.” Dan leaned his head back into his pillow and smiled softly at Phil.

“Ummm…” Phil pretended to think. “Is it Phil?”

Dan traced his finger in little swirl patterns of Phil’s thigh. They left little trails of warmth in their wake. “Mmmhm.”

“No fair, that’s not a word, it’s a name!” Phil pouted.

“Names are words.”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

They could have gone on for hours, probably. But Dan looked down at his laptop and noticed a little notification in the corner of the forum’s tab. Had amod3rnwitch already responded? Dan clicked on the tab, finding that she had, in fact, responded to his inquiry. True to her assurance in the forum post, she was very nonjudgmental and kind.

“Hi, Dan. I, for one, love to include anyone interested in the religion, no matter what purpose it serves. In fact, plenty of people have watched some of my rituals for purely academic reasons. I’ve outlined a couple little things you can do to celebrate Samhain. If you could find a High Priest or Priestess to lead a ritual for you, it would probably be better. Either way, I wish you luck to you and your friend from beyond.

Blessed be, Beth”

Below the message, Beth had typed out how to build a simple altar to the dead. Among other things, she also recommended that Dan wait as close to midnight to begin the festivities. Dan read through the suggestions and showed Phil, positioning the laptop between them. Phil read silently to himself, his face betraying every emotion that he felt, as always. Uncertain, appreciative, then slightly disgusted.

“Dan, you are not making an altar to me.”

***

But, Halloween-- Samhain-- came and Dan was planning on doing just that. That day felt like any other day. Dan woke up early afternoon and pretended that it was morning by taking a shower, checking his social media like it was the morning newspaper, and tweeting his obligatory Happy Halloween tweet. At first, both of the the boys ignored the elephant in the room and didn’t really talk about their evening plans, despite the fact that odd little Samhain materials were strewn throughout the flat. They served as a reminder for what could possibly happen that night. When making breakfast, Dan pushed a gourd and pumpkin out of the way so that he could place his bowl on the counter and pour in a generous helping of Shreddies. When he put the milk back in the fridge, he had to tuck it behind a couple of loose pomegranates. As Dan placed his cereal bowl on the table to eat, he pushed a black tablecloth to the middle of the table. Instead of talking about what the materials were for, Dan and Phil chatted about the new season of Stranger Things.

The boys had gone shopping for their odd items the day before. Dan and Beth had messaged back and forth. He wondered if he sounded weird or suspicious when he asked her what he should cook for the celebration and if he should say some blessings. She had answered like none of it bothered her… which it probably didn’t, since this was her religion.

Dan spooned the last mouthful of cereal past his lips. Over his mouthful, he asked, “are we gonna talk about this?”

“Talk about what?” Phil replied innocently. His head was rested in his cupped hand as he watched Dan eat. Of course Phil knew exactly what Dan was talking about; he hadn’t stopped thinking about it. Obsessing over it. Worrying. In 12 hours, Phil was either going to be able totouch Dan, or it would have been a complete waste of time and energy. And there was always the possibility of something going wrong. Phil didn’t know exactly what could go wrong, but he was still mindful of the possibility.

Dan swallowed and dropped the spoon into the bowl with a loud clatter. “You know exactly what, smartass.”

Phil shrugged in response. “There’s not much to talk about. Either it works or you just look like an idiot, making an altar to your ghost lover. Like, talk about creepy, Dan.”

“What can I say? I’m Phil trash number one.”

Phil snorted and they got up and washed dishes together. Dan scrubbed, enjoying the feel of the hot water on his freezing hands-- he really had to get the flat’s heat checked out. Phil dried, unable to stop himself from bumping his hip into Dan’s companionably. The rest of the day passed uneventfully and slowly, as if they were two little kids waiting for Christmas day to come. They tried to pass the time by watching cooking shows and showing each other funny videos on the internet. It didn’t matter how much they distracted themselves, the sun took its sweet time slinking below the horizon, as if it didn’t want to say goodbye to the sky.

As midnight slowly crawled closer, Dan found himself thinking back on his last few months. He didn’t even remember what his life had been like before Phil. Had it really even been a life? Sure, he worked and made money. He spent his money and watched TV and played video games. He visited friends, wishing he was home the whole time. He celebrated holidays with his family, mostly because he was obligated to. But had he really enjoyed any of it?

Phil had made him slow down and appreciate the whole life thing. Each day was a renewed opportunity to breathe and taste and feel and think and learn. It could be taken from him at any moment, so there was no point in being anything other than happy. And being with Phil made Dan happy. It was heartbreaking and painful and terrifying at times. But, Phil was also the most wonderful, beautiful, kind person that Dan had ever met.

Dan had no idea how the rest of his life was supposed to go; he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with a dead person. People didn’t do that, unless they were lying to some tabloid. People were supposed to find a living, breathing partner and pop out a couple of kids. They were supposed to raise the kids, make more money, retire, and then die, Dan guessed. Phil seemed to think that it was unfair of him to stop Dan from living this kind of life, but Dan couldn’t disagree more. He felt that Phil had saved him from this fate. A meaningless fate that simply controlled Dan. By loving Phil, Dan was finally controlling his own destiny. It was cheesy, but true.

This didn’t mean that Dan didn’t wish he could tell people about Phil. People had noticed that he had become distant and were worried about him, but also noticed how much happier he was. Dan wished that he could take Phil by the hand and parade him around, showing him off for the whole world to see.

And then, of course, Dan was continuously heartbroken that Phil had lost out on his chance for life. It had been so unfairly ripped from him. What would happen to Phil when Dan eventually died? Would he be forced to live out the rest of his afterlife alone?

Dan was plagued by thoughts of the future. But for now, for tonight, he had a plan. Dan and Phil had something to do, a new experiment to try. If Dan could touch Phil one night a year, it would sustain him for a lifetime with Phil. After that, Dan could only hope that they could share an afterlife.

10:00 PM rolled around after a fifth rerun of The Great British Bakeoff and Dan figured it was time to work on their dinner. Beth had suggested some “traditional” meals that were still, thankfully, modern. Dan appreciated that Beth was down to earth enough not to suggest something ridiculous like “first you must sacrifice and ghost and slaughter it on the altar you have built for the ghost you are trying to summon.” Instead, she recommended a baked chicken, with stuffing and autumn vegetables. It was a lot more grandiose than anything Dan made on the regular-- he stuck with stir fry and pasta-- but it wasn’t past his skill level, especially if he had Phil’s help. Phil had proven to be quite adept at cooking and Dan had been more than willing to let him make Dan meals.

“Is it bad luck for you to make your own meal?” Dan asked, genuinely curious, as he watched Phil carefully place the stuffed chicken and vegetables into the oven.

“I dunno,” Phil said, turning around and throwing the oven mitts at Dan’s face. “We are kinda making this up as we go, if you haven’t noticed.”

Dan huffed and caught the oven mitt on its way down to the ground. “We are not! We have followed every one of Beth’s suggestions.”

“Except for, you know, the whole fact that her ritual is for inviting spirits to dine with you and speak wisdom. I can already dine with you, although the food won’t taste like much to me. And here’s some wisdom: you’re a nerd.”

Dan spluttered and swatted at Phil’s bum with the oven mitt. “You’re the nerd, nerd. Now help me build your altar.”

Phil rolled his eyes and mumbled something about “crazy fanboy stalker,” but helped Dan anway. They lit a fire in the small gas fireplace in the lounge (“Why a fire? Beth didn’t say anything about a fire.” “Look, it just seems right… aesthetically.”) Dan spread the black tablecloth over their dining room table. (“The black is fitting for you, Dan. It should be blue and green checked if it’s for me.” “Shut up, it’s symbolic.”) They scattered black candles, tiny pumpkins and gourds, and pomegranates across the table, strategically and aesthetically rearranging them. Dan and Phil lit the three large candles and then stepped back to admire the table. Even Phil had to admit, it looked good. If anything, it was a perfectly spooky Halloween aesthetic.

“Oh! I almost forgot. It’s missing one more thing.” Dan bounded to his bedroom and dug out a small item from his bedside drawer. He returned with it clutched to his chest. “Don’t laugh at me, ok? This is just a thing that Beth suggested might help.” Dan placed the object in the middle of the table, revealing it to be an unassumingly small picture frame. Inside the frame was a photo of Phil. Phil leaned over, looking closely at the picture. It had been printed out on regular printer paper, meaning the color was less than vibrant. He picked it up and studied it. It was recent: a little candid shot that Dan had snapped on his phone before the possession accident. Phil’s hair was cut into its 2017 style and his eyes crinkled with smile lines. It was weird to look at a picture of himself; it was the first one in at least seven years. Phil didn’t really make it a habit to look at himself in the mirror, after he had grown tired of trying on clothes and changing his hair. He found that he didn’t like the constant visual reminder of his ghost state. It was hard to tell he was a ghost in this picture, though.

“I… wasn’t sure if I should have gotten a picture of you from before you d-died.” Dan stuttered over the word. “But, it just didn’t seem right. I don’t want that Phil, I want you. Does that make any sense?”

Phil placed the frame back where Dan had carefully set it down. Next to the candles and black tablecloth, the altar was looking uncomfortably like a memorial. Phil hadn’t seen his own funeral. There was some sick piece of him that almost wished that he could have watched his loved ones mourn for him. A much bigger piece of him was glad that he didn’t have to watch it. “It’s a good picture,” Phil said simply. The jokey atmosphere that had filled the flat beforehand was replaced with something more sombre and reverent.

Dan shut off all the lights in the flat and powered down the technology, placing his phone, laptop, and Phil’s iPad in their bedroom closet. Beth had emphasized the need for the celebration to be quiet and free of distractions. And it felt very right for the altar to be enveloped in silence.

The chicken was ready to come out of the oven and it was twenty minutes to midnight. Dan stared at the table and decided that it was time for them to eat. Dan gestured to the head of the table, silently asking for Phil to sit. They didn’t say a single word to each other, mutually deciding that speaking would be inappropriate. Dan carved the chicken and served Phil first, spooning a generous helping of meat, vegetables, and stuffing onto Phil’s plate. He felt a little silly, knowing that Phil couldn’t really taste anything. Eating for him was like playing pretend, and he often told Dan about how weird Phil felt about the fact that none of the food ever came back out of him. Despite the feeling, Dan continued with the ritual. He served himself similar portions and then sat down.

Dan and Phil watched each other for a moment. Dan could tell that Phil was feeling similarly. Despite Phil being a supernatural being, neither of them really believed in the ritual. It just seemed too mythical, too far-fetched. Dan nodded to Phil and they began to eat.

At first, it seemed like any other meal eaten in the dark by candlelight. But, a noticeable lightness settled over them. The only sound that could be heard in the flat was the quiet tinkling of cutlery on plates. The candles flickered, casting the table in a strange, dancing light. Shadows grew and shrunk in the flames. With each bite, the shadows seemed to grow more and more unnatural. They weren’t frightening, just unfamiliar. Dan stared at them, almost hypnotized by their strange shapes. He gradually forgot about any of his previous disbelief.

Phil felt strangely calm. A peace settled over him, along with a quiet realization that tonight would change their lives. The epiphany came over him softly, like waves licking over his body. He wanted to tell Dan, but knew that he couldn’t break the spell of Samhain.

They ate their last bite of food at the same time. Any other time, they might have joked back and forth about their creepy synchronization. But tonight, neither of them thought it weird. Just right. The wind whistled outside their flat. Dan glanced at the clock on their kitchen wall and saw that it was a minute to midnight.

He had memorized one of the blessings that Beth had provided him with. She had sent along a whole archive of them and Dan had read through every single one, finding the prayer that felt the most appropriate. Now, he spoke those words, looking at Phil the whole time. Fire was reflected in Phil eyes, the blue and orange mingling together. The elements colliding in Phil’s irises. Dan watched, rapt.

“To those whose feet are stilled, and those who laugh with us no more. To you we say, our love was with you here and goes with you now… to that place where you rest and take delight.”

When the first candle’s flame flickered out on the other side of the table, neither Dan or Phil noticed, they were so entranced in each other. Dan’s eyes were an intoxicating brown and orange, reminding Phil of autumn soil. Both were rich and full of life.

“May your feet walk along the coffin paths to that place where all is fresh and green, where lovers, friends, and ancestors wait with open arms to greet you. Go in peace, and with our blessings.”

Both, however, noticed when the candle in the middle of the table went out with a soft hiss. Black wax dripped down the side and solidified in a wobbly line. Joyful darkness encroached in on the flat.

“Or remain awhile this eve, with us the living, and life and hearth, and love. Be rested amongst your own, this eve this one night, this Samhain.”

Dan paused and held Phil’s gaze, hoping that the weight of his words were sinking into Phil’s mind and into his ghostly flesh and into the thin, liminal air between them. There was magic, there, he realized. Of course there was. There always had been. Now, it brushed tenderly against his skin and ruffled his hair. It flowed between him and Phil; tendrils of magic curling around their tether.

“With countless turns of the wheel we miss you, be near us this eve, we pray ever for you… And we will meet again, once more when the wheel turns for us. Pray be there to greet us, in that place we will walk the coffin paths together and bide awhile with kin and hearth until that time be near us. Our kinsmen, our guardians, our ancestors, our beloved dead.”

The last candle between them lost its flame and comforting darkness engulfed the flat. The clock continued to tick and Dan knew, without looking, that the face would read midnight. Dan’s eyes adjusted to the lack of light and picked out Phil’s form from among the shadows. Dan reached his hand out slowly, like the wax crawling down the candlestick in front of them. Phil followed suit, eyes trained on Dan’s fingers. His head was surprisingly, blessedly quiet. He knew. He’d always known.

The moment that Dan and Phil truly touched for the first time was warm.

“Dan.” Phil whispered, unwilling to break his silence, but realizing he had to. He had to touch, to speak, to confess. He didn’t know how long this was going to last. He couldn’t waste it. But already, the feeling of a single fingertip against his was overwhelming.

“Phil.” Dan returned calmly. He curled his fingers around Phil’s and tugged, pulling them both out of their chairs. “You feel…” Dan closed his eyes briefly and that was enough to communicate the sensations dancing across his palm.

“You too.” Phil responded almost shyly, shivering despite himself. This wasn’t like possessing Dan. Phil still couldn’t smell anything, couldn’t feel the draft on his bare feet, couldn’t taste the chicken that he had just eaten. But none of that mattered because, this was a thousand times better than using Dan like that. Phil could feel soft skin in his hand. He squeezed and could detect the give of muscle, the strong pushback of bone.

Dan led Phil to their bedroom. They stood for a moment, contemplating each other. Tension pulled taught and then snapped and Phil finally pulled Dan into his arms. He reveled in the warm, living press of Dan against his body. Dan felt tears prick the corner of his eyes because, finally, touching Phil didn’t hurt. It felt like it should-- hot, pleasant, solid, soft, perfect. Perfect, perfect.

They tilted their heads and inched their lips toward each other. Dan’s hot breath puffed out and over Phil’s face. The gap between them grew smaller and smaller until:

All at once, there was no gap at all. Phil and Dan both had imagined this kiss a thousand times, thinking that it would never happen. Dan sighed into the kiss and Phil purred. It was so human, and that was all either of them ever wanted. They didn’t want fireworks and wind machines, dramatic rainstorms and fainting. It was a hot press of muscle and skin against similar muscle and skin. Sweet, quiet, perfect. Perfect, perfect.

Phil opened his mouth ever so slightly, inviting Dan in deeper. With deepness, came passion. They began to move and suckle. Hands traveled up shirts and across skin, painting each other with eagerness and love. Phil explored with a curious tongue and he was greeted by sweet, blissful wetness.

Sooner or later, they found themselves on the bed. There was nothing in between them. Not the supernatural boundary between death and life. Not the physical boundary of clothing. They pressed up against each other; trying to marry each of their every last atom of skin. They moved together, grinding and sweating.

“Phil, I love you.” Dan said, breathlessly. Phil was between his legs, seemingly everywhere all at once. He kissed, sucked, grinded, caressed, stroked. Dan tried to keep up, but found that he was more than contented to allow Phil’s frantic exploration and clutch at the ghost’s back in response. Dan wrapped his legs around Phil’s back and stroked the skin with shaky hands, intrigued by the goosebumps that he left in his wake. Phil shuttered at the smallest, most innocent touches and Dan felt intoxicated by the power. “God, I love you Dan Howell.” Phil responded, slipping a wet finger inside.

They moved together, adding, slipping, thrusting. Their most intimate body parts strained toward each other, begging for attention. Phil’s got attention before Dan’s as it slipped into Dan’s body. Twinges of pain were quickly replaced with reverberations of pleasure.

Phil cupped Dan’s face in his hand and stared at him lovingly. Phil loved Dan with every fiber of his supernatural being. His DNA sung Dan’s praises and vibrated with electric pulses. He was overwhelmed by sensation; this was more than he had ever felt, even when he had been alive. He had never made love when he was alive. Phil kissed Dan deeply, their tongues twisting together and caressing each other. He reached down between them and grabbed Dan, rubbing, massaging.

They chased a mutual climax. Their bodies strained toward each other and they kissed wildly. Dan’s hands touched everywhere he could reach. Phil’s thumbs rubbed softly into the skin of Dan’s face. Tears began to leak out of Dan’s eyes. They slipped down his cheeks and coated Phil’s fingertips. “Don’t cry, love.” Phil said, feeling his peak sneaking up on him.

“I love you. I will always love you. Whatever timeline, whatever lifetime.” Dan responded, his voice reverent and wise beyond his sight.

“Oh, Dan.” Phil thrust one final time and they both came together in a crescendo of emotion and physical pleasure. There were no ostentatious metaphors, no past memories, no historical or fictional references to compare it to. It was simply an act of life and humanity, and that was all Dan or Phil ever wanted.

They rolled over on their backs and Phil gathered Dan in his arms. They lay together, silent. Together, they just felt. They felt pleasure, waves of it sending aftershocks through their bodies. They felt happiness, pure and overwhelming. They felt sadness, because it would never be the same again. Phil clutched at Dan for dear life and began to cry. Dan made soothing noises and rubbed Phil’s back. “I can’t go back to a life without this, Dan. I can’t” Phil snuffled into Dan’s hair.

Dan was pressed into the sweaty skin of Phil’s neck, wondering how much time they had left. He knew exactly what Phil was talking about. How were they supposed to just… carry on like nothing had happened? It wasn’t possible. Dan knew that he would remember this night every day until it could happen again. That wasn’t a way to live. “I know, Phil.”

Phil opened his eyes and pulled Dan away from him slightly, just enough to look into his red-rimmed eyes. He leaned down and kissed Dan. His lips trembled against Dan’s. Dan could taste salty tears; he had no idea if they were their own or Phil’s. “Dan, do you see that?”

Phil was staring up at the ceiling, suddenly, looking awed. Dan followed his gaze, only seeing the rough texture of the wall. “See what?”

Phil glanced down at Dan, mouth agape. “You’re telling me you don’t see a whole lot of darkness right above us?” Dan looked up again, only seeing the normal shadows of the night on the ceiling.

“No?” Dan’s brows furrowed and he stoked his fingers down Phil’s neck. “What’s it look like, exactly?”

“Um, black. Just a… hole. It should be scary, but it actually looks, welcoming?” Phil responded, sounding confused.

Dan closed his eyes, understanding immediately. Of course. Phil’s unfinished business with him. “Phil, I think you should go toward it.” Phil twitched like a shock had gone through him.

“You don’t think....” Phil reach his fingers up toward the black portal, feeling the comforting energy that it gave off. It drew him to it.

“I do think.” Dan communicated silently to Phil and they both understood exactly what was staring down at them.

Phil turned his head away from the thing’s siren call. He cradled Dan’s head in his hand. “I can’t leave you, Dan. I can’t do this without you.”

Dan leaned into Phil’s touch, wondering if the first time he could feel Phil’s warmth would also be the last. What would the rest of his life be like? Could he ever get over Phil? Would he even try? Despite the worries eating at him, Dan knew that he couldn’t keep Phil from his great beyond. No one deserved to be imprisoned in a world that wasn’t made for them. Seven years had been long enough, and it was time for Phil to move on. Dan felt at peace. Dan whispered to Phil with finality, trailing his hand up Phil’s neck, into his hair: “And we will meet again, once more when the wheel turns for us. Pray be there to greet us, in that place we will walk the coffin paths together and bide awhile with kin and hearth until that time be near us.” Dan didn’t know if they would meet again in death, or if he was promising Phil something else entirely. Either way, the words seemed to calm Phil ever so slightly. “You have to do this, Phil.”

The clutched at each other desperately, their mouths meeting in a kiss. Only an hour after their first, they were already sharing a kiss goodbye. “I don’t know if I can do this,” Phil cried into Dan’s shoulder after they separated. “What if I never see you again?”

“You will.” Dan said confidently. He believed it; it wasn’t a bullshit platitude. Dan pushed himself up into a sitting position. “This is fitting. We met in this room.” A quiet tear pushed its way out of Dan’s duct, despite the fact that he was trying to keep his voice even as possible.

“Dan, don’t--” Phil choked and his voice broken. Tears were spilling out of his eyes hurriedly.

“The very first thing you said to me was an apology.” Dan smiled, letting himself remember the day that changed his entire life.

“And rightfully so; I gave you a panic attack.”

Dan snorted. “I get a panic attack if someone looks at me funny.”

“You do not.”

“Do too.”

Dan and Phil looked at each other and laughed through their tears. They laughed long and hard, holding each other’s hands. Because, this was the way they did things. They made self-deprecating jokes and lewd comments and made fun of each other relentlessly. They had never wanted it any other way.

“It’s time, Phil.” Dan squeezed the ghost’s hand reassuringly and Phil looked up to the ceiling, feeling unsure and scared and sad and lost. But Dan urged him up out of bed and let go of his hand and gestured up at the ceiling.

And Dan had always been stubborn, but Phil also knew that he was right. It was time. He allowed himself to float up toward the ceiling and was enveloped by a comforting, soul-emptying blackness. There was nothing for while.

***

And then: the initial notes of Muse’s New Born filled his ears and he flopped back on his bed. Things were ok, he supposed. He was home, which wasn’t his favorite place to be so late in his life. His parents were sweet, but suffocating. And they didn’t understand what he was going through.

He found solace in the depths of the internet and the friends that he had made on YouTube. They seemed to understand him. Not exactly what he was dealing with, because he didn’t explain that to his audience-- of course he didn’t. But they seemed to at least relate to his ridiculous mind and he appreciated that.

He turned on his side, propping himself up with his hand, and opened his laptop. It had been awhile since he checked twitter. He typed in the familiar url and looked at his feed. He favorited and responded to a few tweets, thinking entirely too long for witty and zany things to say. He saved his replies for last, because they were his favorite part. He had a few, not a lot. But one in particular stuck out him:

‘danisnotonfire: @amazingphil luvd ur last video ^_^ i love muse too we have so much in common!’

Phil clicked the tweet and typed out a silly, slightly flirty response, smiling to himself. Something was interesting about this danisnotonfire; he didn’t know what exactly, but he was going to find out.

[lindseydraeger-blog]

Aspiring to be a true “Digital Native”

        Looking back on my earliest memories, I cannot remember a time I wasn’t being exposed to technology.  Everywhere I go I am surrounded by technology, and the older I get the more useful and necessary I find technology to be, even beyond the social aspect.  As the world is entering a digital age, I find my footprint much more visible from social networking and strive to create an image that is much different from my middle school tweeting self.  I am seeing how relevant technology is to my future career and that skills on computers go further than just being able to post a collage on Instagram.

        It’s a typical Tuesday in fourth grade, nearing the end of the school day.  Nothing excites me and my friends more than our plans to meet up on club penguin later to try to get kicked out, gossip on msn messenger, or to feed my dog on Webkinz.  As I’m sitting locked into the computer screen, my brother fights me for the computer so he can go on Sims and create a new house.  Too many fights arose over the use of our giant computer, equivalent to 20 Macbooks combined, and its extremely slow dial up speed.  This was an everyday occurrence in our household for many years.  

        The only integration school ever played into my new love for the internet was coolmathgames.com.  As teachers tried to make us do typing lessons we would continually peek over our shoulders hoping they wouldn’t see that we weren’t doing our actual work.

        Flash forward two years later, 7th grade, as I posted every thought or activity in my day as my Facebook status or as a tweet.  I made sure to add every single person I could on Facebook and continued to fill my days with Facebook quizzes and games, or me and my friends having photo shoots so we could post more pictures in our Facebook albums.  

At this point I also made slide shows for fun through movie maker and would set them to music and put in pictures of different clothing styles that were popular or some of my favorite celebrities.  At this point, Movie Maker and Microsoft Word were the only exposure I had to non-social media platforms on computers from a basic computer class in school.

        Four years later, my Junior year of high school, I would sneakily Snapchat my friends sitting two seats away from me in my classes and spend hours on end scrolling through Instagram and creating the perfect filter for my pictures.  I would still regularly post pictures on Facebook and when I hit complete boredom I would scroll through Twitter.  Social media was starting to evolve to new platforms and new forms of communication.  Through my classes I was learning how to use Excel and PowerPoint, giving me a decent background in the Microsoft Office suite, although my understanding was not as deep and dedicated as my understanding was for social media platforms, which are not as relevant for later in life, but do play a major role in marketing.  At this point, if I didn’t know how to do something I would just Google my question and figure it out myself.  I was very self-reliant, as I feel like our generation is, thinking I didn’t need teachers for help because I felt that I at least knew more about technology than most of them. 

        Three years later, being now, I feel like my knowledge of computers and technology has expanded immensely and given me skills that are much more relevant towards technology.  I still use Instagram and Snapchat quite a bit but not as much as I used to, instead I find new ways to connect with others and stay updated on the latest news, such as LinkedIn.  I rarely use Facebook anymore and sometimes post pictures on VSCO.  At this point I’ve gained much more experience in the Microsoft Office programs, beyond the basics I learned in high school, and through my internship I learned how to use in Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Google Analytics, and many other useful platforms.  Although my views have definitely been altered on teachers from my professors and TA’s, I still enjoy the trial and error aspect of figuring things out, as it gives me a better experience in learning how to use programs efficiently.

        In elementary and middle school, I spent much of my time on social media and messing around on virtual gaming websites, but as I get older I see how much my social footprint can be seen and put me at risk for not getting my ideal future career.  Identity has become an important thing for me on social media- being when I was younger I just wanted to look fun and funny, but now as I’m older I want to look more responsible and well put-together.  To accomplish this, I have gone to the lengths of deleting many of my old Facebook statuses, pictures, and tweets, as they are definitely not something I want seen as a first impression of me.  Seeing how people of all ages are having the capabilities to access anyone’s social media and use it as a primary recruitment source makes it too risky to just post whatever I feel.  How I am represented on social media to employers and other college students is important to me, making my social media posts much more filtered than they used to be and continually progressing toward a more professional image and identity.  I also can see all of the gaps I have in learning how to use various computer programs, but I continue to learn through exploration and using my resources.  It’s not enough to just be part of the digital native generation, but to live up to that name means also having the technological skills that are essential for a successful, thriving future in technology.

[suzanneshannon]

Reader Mode: The Button to Beat

As a young nerd, I loved to immerse myself in digital worlds, learning the ins and outs of the rules someone else had created for me (intentionally or not). But the older and crankier I get, the more I find myself losing patience when navigating these "delightful" experiences.

This fascination was great for my eventual career as a designer, but unfortunately, it was also like teaching someone kerning—once you learn how to quantify a bad user experience, you can’t go back.

These days, I’m an impatient grump who doesn't want to take work home. I just want to get in, get what I need, and get out. If there’s any delight I’m experiencing, it’s lost on me because I had such an effortless and annoyance-free time that it simply doesn’t stand out.

One of the features I find myself turning to over and over again is Safari’s Reader Mode. I read a lot of news, and with that comes a lot of bullshit. I now tap the cryptic little icon almost reflexively, confident that I’ll be transported to a land where I can focus on what matters most to me: content.

Tapping this button transports me to a land free of newsletter signup modals, surveys, pop-ups, pop-unders, flashing ad banners, automatically-playing video, app install prompts, breaking news alerts, passive-aggressive interstitials, and faux notification permission banners. It slices through the undesirable and unnecessary with ease; the Alexander the Great to the Gordian Knot that is poor user interface design.

Firefox also offers this reading mode. So does Edge. I find myself using it more and more on my laptop with every passing day—especially for reading long-form articles, like this piece. I’d be very surprised to see Chrome institute one natively, as Google is ultimately in the advertising business.

I’m not going to talk about how to best craft your content for Reader Mode. Mandy Michael already covered this in her article, Building websites for Safari Reader Mode and other reading apps. She’s great, and it is a must-read piece.

Building with accessible HTML standards is not a dead-end skill. Far from it. If you spend the effort to craft your experiences with a mind to semantics from the start, your content will be able to adapt to specialized reading modes, as well as whatever the future holds with little to no additional effort. Today’s Reader Mode could be tomorrow’s smart bathroom mirror.

Spending the effort is an important point: Good design isn’t about forcing someone to walk a tightrope across your carefully manicured lawn. Nor is it a puzzle box casually tossed to the user, hoping they’ll unlock it to reveal a hidden treasure. Good design is about doing the hard work to accommodate the different ways people access a solution to an identified problem.

For reading articles, the core problem is turning my ignorance about an issue into understanding (the funding model for this is a whole other complicated concern). The more obstructions you throw in my way to achieve this goal, the more I am inclined to leave and get my understanding elsewhere—all I’ll remember is how poor a time I had while trying to access your content. What is the value of an ad impression if it ultimately leads to that user never returning?

But this isn’t a website about digital media strategy, nor is it one about user conversion. This is a website about CSS and front-end development. What we’re going to discuss is how to keep people like me from hitting that button by relying on this nifty programming language the W3C so wisely gave us. Because if you don’t, all that other stuff—your newsletter signup boxes, your comments, your related articles, your engagement—will be cut away.

Inclusivity

What you want to do first is cast a wide net. The more people you can proactively accommodate from the outset, the more people you don’t unintentionally alienate. Our design choices should be invisible—we’re not trying to say, "this is for you." That should be self-evident. What we’re trying to avoid are scenarios where someone encounters something that communicates, "this is for someone else."

It’s not too difficult, provided you know what to look out for. Carie Fisher outlines the bulk of it in her brilliant post, Designing Accessible Content: Typography, Font Styling, and Structure.

Priority

A basic paragraph style is the wellspring from which all your other type decisions should flow. It’s probably the most common and frequently invoked content type a website has, so it’s important to treat it with the care and respect it deserves. The web is typography, after all.

Heydon Pickering wrote about styling paragraphs way back when in 2011 with his post, The Perfect Paragraph. And here’s the thing: eight years later, this is all still solid advice (sheesh, I’ve been doing this for awhile). When you make design decisions that work with the grain of the web platform, you gain the confidence that you’re creating resilient, robust, and accessible solutions that last.

The neat part about this is that it frees up time to do other things, say reading about gender bias and the undervaluing of HTML and CSS. If anything, do it for me. I am honestly not sure I can handle another case of 2,000 lines of JavaScript used to recreate position: absolute;.

Circumstance

Form

Even though responsive design is nearly a decade old at this point(!), we still seem to ignore a lot of the wisdom Ethan Marcotte so nicely teaches us for free. He’s a smart guy, you should pay attention to what he has to say.

After a complete lack of breakpoints, perhaps the biggest offender I still come across with regards to responsive design is the assumption that a small viewport means teeny-tiny type. Typically, the opposite is true. Small devices are made to be worn or carried, meaning that we move them in physical space to get them into a comfortable reading position. This is the opposite of a larger, more stationary device, such as a monitor, where we move our body to accommodate it instead.

A comfortable reading position means not forcing someone to hold a phone two centimeters away from their face. Ergonomics aren’t likely to change, but devices will. Because of that, you should craft your breakpoint names to be abstract. I personally like names that keep usability in mind, so something along the lines of, "wrist, palm, lap, desk, wall." It helps keep the user’s circumstance top-of-mind, and moves you away from associating only certain kinds of content as being viable on certain kinds of devices.

These ergonomically-derived designs can be achieved with the help from people like Rachel Andrew, whose in-depth explorations of CSS grid help us understand the power behind a real CSS layout system. Sass experts like Miriam Suzanne then teach us how to use True to codify these layouts and reliably integrate them into our larger Sass systems.

You also want to avoid fallacious device sniffing approaches, or making gross assumptions about a user’s circumstances and capabilities. Just let me increase and decrease that type size. Reader Mode lets me, so I’m going to get there one way or another.

Connection

The other thing you need to think about is how that ideal paragraph design actually gets served to a device. A big part of that involves loading our fonts, and ensuring that the loading process prioritizes user experience.

Text

Text downloads quickly; a lot faster than other exotic kinds of content. Browsers will render it gleefully, as it is historically the most important part of the payload. This means that the Reader Mode button is going to show up a lot faster than that distracting auto-playing video of talking heads so thoughtfully jammed into the bottom right-hand corner of my viewport.

And what if we’re on a slow, intermittent, and/or metered connection? Top-of-the-line MacBooks still have to use hotel wifi, just like everyone else.

You want to keep the page from jumping around when our paragraph font loads. This prevents the terrible experience of forcing me to scroll around to rediscover my place as things shift into place. It also helps prevent me from mis-clicking, taking me away from what I want to read because I had the audacity to interact with the page before the bitcoin miners are deployed (thankfully, good people like Laura Kalbag can help us with that one).

The temptation to hit that Reader Mode button is strong, because when I see the main text of the page show up, I know I can easily and reliably avoid all these potential issues.

Helen V. Holmes wrote Type is Your Right!, a beautiful article that effortlessly blends typographic history, capability, and performance. Notably, she discusses how to manage the Flash of Invisible Text (FOIT) and Flash of Unstyled Text (FOUT) to best corral all the aforementioned issues. In response, Monica Dinculescu made Font style matcher, a fantastic tool that lets you bend, stretch, squish, squash, and torture type in ways that would make your stodgy typography professor faint, all in the service of preventing layout jank.

Images

You can (and should) make all sorts of clever optimizations to ensure we’re delivering our images as efficiently as possible. But what happens while I’m waiting for those images to show up? What if they never do?

Since you’re a responsible, inclusive web professional, you’ve already made sure to include alternative text descriptions for our image content. Ire Aderinokun teaches us that you can take that one step further and style broken images. Now even the content that isn’t working as intended looks good. No brittle, overwrought JavaScript here—just good, old fashioned progressive enhancement.

The other type of image you want to consider are icons. There’s lots of reasons to not use icon fonts. Adding one more reason to toss on the pile: icon fonts may not hold up in Reader Mode, as they are constructed using text glyphs. When Reader Mode passes over a page, it may convert the glyph to use the font you specify. This could make for a disastrous experience, especially if the icon is used to communicate critical functionality (e.g. "Press the Home button (☒) to return to the main menu.").

To avoid this issue, Sara Soueidan teaches us how to convert those icon fonts to SVG . But you know what? She’s so much more than just a SVG expert. She’s an incredible UX developer, and you’d do well to read up on what she’s written. I, for one, have learned a ton.

Control

To help make my reading experience as comfortable as possible, Reader Mode allows me to adjust things like the typeface, the text and background colors, the font size and line height, and the number of words per line. This is great. I’ll frequently toggle back and forth between light and dark backgrounds depending on the time of day.

I also wear glasses, and I know that the older I get, the worst my vision will be. Thanks to Jennifer Aldrich’s writing, I know that this is the norm. After all, we’re all just temporarily abled. I might also need something like Windows High Contrast Mode one day. Thanks to Amelia Bellamy-Royds, I now know how to make my content be the best it can be when viewed in that mode.

The web is flexible. Working on it means getting over your ego and learning to let go. That means accepting that the medium will never be pixel perfect. It means embracing technology like relative units, and more importantly, philosophies like Intrinsic Web Design. That’s brought to us by Jen Simmons, a tireless and passionate advocate for web standards.

I’d love to read your website. I’d love for your harmonious typography to quietly usher me into a flow state, making me forget I was even browsing your site at all.

The post Reader Mode: The Button to Beat appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Reader Mode: The Button to Beat published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[siliconwebx]

Reader Mode: The Button to Beat

As a young nerd, I loved to immerse myself in digital worlds, learning the ins and outs of the rules someone else had created for me (intentionally or not). But the older and crankier I get, the more I find myself losing patience when navigating these "delightful" experiences.

This fascination was great for my eventual career as a designer, but unfortunately, it was also like teaching someone kerning—once you learn how to quantify a bad user experience, you can’t go back.

These days, I’m an impatient grump who doesn't want to take work home. I just want to get in, get what I need, and get out. If there’s any delight I’m experiencing, it’s lost on me because I had such an effortless and annoyance-free time that it simply doesn’t stand out.

One of the features I find myself turning to over and over again is Safari’s Reader Mode. I read a lot of news, and with that comes a lot of bullshit. I now tap the cryptic little icon almost reflexively, confident that I’ll be transported to a land where I can focus on what matters most to me: content.

Tapping this button transports me to a land free of newsletter signup modals, surveys, pop-ups, pop-unders, flashing ad banners, automatically-playing video, app install prompts, breaking news alerts, passive-aggressive interstitials, and faux notification permission banners. It slices through the undesirable and unnecessary with ease; the Alexander the Great to the Gordian Knot that is poor user interface design.

Firefox also offers this reading mode. So does Edge. I find myself using it more and more on my laptop with every passing day—especially for reading long-form articles, like this piece. I’d be very surprised to see Chrome institute one natively, as Google is ultimately in the advertising business.

I’m not going to talk about how to best craft your content for Reader Mode. Mandy Michael already covered this in her article, Building websites for Safari Reader Mode and other reading apps. She’s great, and it is a must-read piece.

Building with accessible HTML standards is not a dead-end skill. Far from it. If you spend the effort to craft your experiences with a mind to semantics from the start, your content will be able to adapt to specialized reading modes, as well as whatever the future holds with little to no additional effort. Today’s Reader Mode could be tomorrow’s smart bathroom mirror.

Spending the effort is an important point: Good design isn’t about forcing someone to walk a tightrope across your carefully manicured lawn. Nor is it a puzzle box casually tossed to the user, hoping they’ll unlock it to reveal a hidden treasure. Good design is about doing the hard work to accommodate the different ways people access a solution to an identified problem.

For reading articles, the core problem is turning my ignorance about an issue into understanding (the funding model for this is a whole other complicated concern). The more obstructions you throw in my way to achieve this goal, the more I am inclined to leave and get my understanding elsewhere—all I’ll remember is how poor a time I had while trying to access your content. What is the value of an ad impression if it ultimately leads to that user never returning?

But this isn’t a website about digital media strategy, nor is it one about user conversion. This is a website about CSS and front-end development. What we’re going to discuss is how to keep people like me from hitting that button by relying on this nifty programming language the W3C so wisely gave us. Because if you don’t, all that other stuff—your newsletter signup boxes, your comments, your related articles, your engagement—will be cut away.

Inclusivity

What you want to do first is cast a wide net. The more people you can proactively accommodate from the outset, the more people you don’t unintentionally alienate. Our design choices should be invisible—we’re not trying to say, "this is for you." That should be self-evident. What we’re trying to avoid are scenarios where someone encounters something that communicates, "this is for someone else."

It’s not too difficult, provided you know what to look out for. Carie Fisher outlines the bulk of it in her brilliant post, Designing Accessible Content: Typography, Font Styling, and Structure.

Priority

A basic paragraph style is the wellspring from which all your other type decisions should flow. It’s probably the most common and frequently invoked content type a website has, so it’s important to treat it with the care and respect it deserves. The web is typography, after all.

Heydon Pickering wrote about styling paragraphs way back when in 2011 with his post, The Perfect Paragraph. And here’s the thing: eight years later, this is all still solid advice (sheesh, I’ve been doing this for awhile). When you make design decisions that work with the grain of the web platform, you gain the confidence that you’re creating resilient, robust, and accessible solutions that last.

The neat part about this is that it frees up time to do other things, say reading about gender bias and the undervaluing of HTML and CSS. If anything, do it for me. I am honestly not sure I can handle another case of 2,000 lines of JavaScript used to recreate position: absolute;.

Circumstance

Form

Even though responsive design is nearly a decade old at this point(!), we still seem to ignore a lot of the wisdom Ethan Marcotte so nicely teaches us for free. He’s a smart guy, you should pay attention to what he has to say.

After a complete lack of breakpoints, perhaps the biggest offender I still come across with regards to responsive design is the assumption that a small viewport means teeny-tiny type. Typically, the opposite is true. Small devices are made to be worn or carried, meaning that we move them in physical space to get them into a comfortable reading position. This is the opposite of a larger, more stationary device, such as a monitor, where we move our body to accommodate it instead.

A comfortable reading position means not forcing someone to hold a phone two centimeters away from their face. Ergonomics aren’t likely to change, but devices will. Because of that, you should craft your breakpoint names to be abstract. I personally like names that keep usability in mind, so something along the lines of, "wrist, palm, lap, desk, wall." It helps keep the user’s circumstance top-of-mind, and moves you away from associating only certain kinds of content as being viable on certain kinds of devices.

These ergonomically-derived designs can be achieved with the help from people like Rachel Andrew, whose in-depth explorations of CSS grid help us understand the power behind a real CSS layout system. Sass experts like Miriam Suzanne then teach us how to use True to codify these layouts and reliably integrate them into our larger Sass systems.

You also want to avoid fallacious device sniffing approaches, or making gross assumptions about a user’s circumstances and capabilities. Just let me increase and decrease that type size. Reader Mode lets me, so I’m going to get there one way or another.

Connection

The other thing you need to think about is how that ideal paragraph design actually gets served to a device. A big part of that involves loading our fonts, and ensuring that the loading process prioritizes user experience.

Text

Text downloads quickly; a lot faster than other exotic kinds of content. Browsers will render it gleefully, as it is historically the most important part of the payload. This means that the Reader Mode button is going to show up a lot faster than that distracting auto-playing video of talking heads so thoughtfully jammed into the bottom right-hand corner of my viewport.

And what if we’re on a slow, intermittent, and/or metered connection? Top-of-the-line MacBooks still have to use hotel wifi, just like everyone else.

You want to keep the page from jumping around when our paragraph font loads. This prevents the terrible experience of forcing me to scroll around to rediscover my place as things shift into place. It also helps prevent me from mis-clicking, taking me away from what I want to read because I had the audacity to interact with the page before the bitcoin miners are deployed (thankfully, good people like Laura Kalbag can help us with that one).

The temptation to hit that Reader Mode button is strong, because when I see the main text of the page show up, I know I can easily and reliably avoid all these potential issues.

Helen V. Holmes wrote Type is Your Right!, a beautiful article that effortlessly blends typographic history, capability, and performance. Notably, she discusses how to manage the Flash of Invisible Text (FOIT) and Flash of Unstyled Text (FOUT) to best corral all the aforementioned issues. In response, Monica Dinculescu made Font style matcher, a fantastic tool that lets you bend, stretch, squish, squash, and torture type in ways that would make your stodgy typography professor faint, all in the service of preventing layout jank.

Images

You can (and should) make all sorts of clever optimizations to ensure we’re delivering our images as efficiently as possible. But what happens while I’m waiting for those images to show up? What if they never do?

Since you’re a responsible, inclusive web professional, you’ve already made sure to include alternative text descriptions for our image content. Ire Aderinokun teaches us that you can take that one step further and style broken images. Now even the content that isn’t working as intended looks good. No brittle, overwrought JavaScript here—just good, old fashioned progressive enhancement.

The other type of image you want to consider are icons. There’s lots of reasons to not use icon fonts. Adding one more reason to toss on the pile: icon fonts may not hold up in Reader Mode, as they are constructed using text glyphs. When Reader Mode passes over a page, it may convert the glyph to use the font you specify. This could make for a disastrous experience, especially if the icon is used to communicate critical functionality (e.g. "Press the Home button (☒) to return to the main menu.").

To avoid this issue, Sara Soueidan teaches us how to convert those icon fonts to SVG . But you know what? She’s so much more than just a SVG expert. She’s an incredible UX developer, and you’d do well to read up on what she’s written. I, for one, have learned a ton.

Control

To help make my reading experience as comfortable as possible, Reader Mode allows me to adjust things like the typeface, the text and background colors, the font size and line height, and the number of words per line. This is great. I’ll frequently toggle back and forth between light and dark backgrounds depending on the time of day.

I also wear glasses, and I know that the older I get, the worst my vision will be. Thanks to Jennifer Aldrich’s writing, I know that this is the norm. After all, we’re all just temporarily abled. I might also need something like Windows High Contrast Mode one day. Thanks to Amelia Bellamy-Royds, I now know how to make my content be the best it can be when viewed in that mode.

The web is flexible. Working on it means getting over your ego and learning to let go. That means accepting that the medium will never be pixel perfect. It means embracing technology like relative units, and more importantly, philosophies like Intrinsic Web Design. That’s brought to us by Jen Simmons, a tireless and passionate advocate for web standards.

I’d love to read your website. I’d love for your harmonious typography to quietly usher me into a flow state, making me forget I was even browsing your site at all.

The post Reader Mode: The Button to Beat appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

😉SiliconWebX | 🌐CSS-Tricks

[phantasyprone]

Restlessness: the search for a home (phanfic)

Here are the first two chapters of the second part of my phanfic ‘Restlessness’. 

Summary: Set in December 2016. Phil goes on a walk round London and sees a beautiful house which gets him thinking...

Word Count: 7,218

Contains: Fluff, domestic, phan and looking for a house, smut 

(read the entire phanfic here if you want to read the earlier chapters which contain more fluff and smut, but also some added angst. Also read it on the page and just skip to chapter 11 because the lay out is WAY easier to read there)

Chapter 11

Early December, 2016

 A brisk wind funnelled through the old London streets, swirling through the material of long winter coats making them look like black bullfighter capes. City denizens clad in deep blue and night black suits and coats carried long umbrellas like walking sticks, tapping them intermittently like metronomes on the concrete pavements. Phil had decided to go out for a coffee. He had found an old independent coffee shop a thirty-minute walk from their flat and had noted when he first ventured there that it would be a lovely place to sit and read. He had kept good on his promise to break the mundanity of staying in their flat and only leaving for work or social events. Over the past month or so he had gone on walks or browsed around bookshops that hid between quiet lanes in the city, keeping as quiet and unassuming as their customers. This coffee shop was normally sparse in patrons and its clientele were mainly older men and women who had the time and money to enjoy the peace which one could find in this bustling city.

  Phil entered off the cold winter street into the warm and inviting coffee shop, noting how nice it was to buy a hot drink from somewhere less commercial and franchised than Starbucks. This place had a charm, and the people within were here with purpose. Anyone could walk into a Starbucks, but people here had sought out this place specifically. It gave the space the air of a secret, for members of the community only, a hidden treasure for only the observant to find. The air was thick with the deep and sensual smell of coffee beans, and the sounds floating around were of quiet polite chatter and the clinking of delicate spoons on mismatched porcelain saucers.

  Phil ordered a cappuccino and a swirled pastry, then sat down at a table by the window. The street outside wasn’t too busy. It was two o’clock so most people had returned to their offices. No tourists had veered off the usual main roads down this quiet street, and it was too cold a day for many people to want to walk around the old back streets of London. A chirpy mother walked past, holding the hand of a young girl who was engulfed by a woollen scarf. Phil imagined that they were catching up on her day at school, the finger-painting, the nursery rhymes, and the nice teacher who taught them about rainforest animals.

  Two elderly ladies sat on a table in front of Phil. Without meaning to he overheard their conversation about how their gardens were doing, and the toil of persevering with keeping them in check through the cold weeks of December.

  Phil felt alone, but not lonely. It was the feeling of being so incredibly aware that this time was for him, and him alone, but that Dan was a short walk away. He was simply there. Phil imagined him planning video ideas, or browsing the internet, huddled in a blanket and mindlessly passing away the day. They had loved each other for a long time, but every week the tone of their love had changed. Some weeks it would feel like deep red, consuming and burning. Other days it would feel duck egg blue, calming and quiet like an undisturbed pond where the sounds of the forest were heightened in their volume. This week, it felt like deep royal purple, relaxing and comforting in its intensity. Phil finished his coffee and pastry whilst regarding with nostalgia and peace the varying people who would walk past. He then collected his things, put on his coat, and re-entered the chilly afternoon.

  Rather than walk home the same way he came, he decided to stay on the quieter roads and slowly glance at the old town houses that lined the streets. He had never been along these streets and enjoyed silently judging the aestheticism of each house. With his cold hands jammed into his pockets and his scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, he leisurely pondered about the different lives led in London; the multitudinous citizens and the peculiarly varied lives.

  He came upon a crescent of old Georgian terraced houses, the ground floor exteriors being large white stone slabs, and the upper two floors being smog-blackened brown bricks. The windows of each house were expansive with large panes, around which were Greek-styled frames and triangular stone pediments. The first floor windows had tiny railings on small balconies surrounding them, the roof had beautiful crown moulding spanning each house, each door was painted in a different colour, and an ornate black, iron fence separated each house from the stone paved path outside. Each house was two rooms wide, and had four stories, three above ground and a basement. They were beautiful, old and idyllic. A small wintry park lay inside the crescent and an old stone church stood on the street corner nearby. The lampposts were old and Victorian, and there were hardly any pedestrians. They looked like the houses of old writers, Victorian detectives, and young Professors with perfect children. Each house probably had a beautiful garden, full with lavender and rosemary bushes. As Phil left this beautiful road which had stayed exactly the same for hundreds of years, he noted its name, just in case… well, just in case.

  Back at the flat he found Dan exactly as he had imagined him, covered in the thick wool material of a throw and intently staring at his MacBook screen. Phil shook off his coat, lay it on the back of one of the dining chairs, and sat down next to Dan, lying his head on Dan’s shoulder and looking at his screen.

‘Nice walk?’ Dan asked, then moved his arm over Phil and wrapped it around his shoulders.

‘Yeh. Really nice.’ Phil responded, still not quite extricated from the interior thoughts which he’d been located within for the past few hours.

They both felt like they needn’t say anything. Phil was happy to watch Dan scroll through tumblr, then check various emails when notifications popped up on his screen.

  Phil couldn’t help thinking about the houses he had seen earlier. He glanced around their living room, crammed bookshelves, blank walls where no pictures could be hanged, and sighed.

‘You OK?’ Dan asked, still not diverting his eyes from his MacBook.

‘Yeh.’ Phil replied absentmindedly. He then got up off the sofa, grabbed his laptop from his bedroom and went upstairs to their office. He turned on his screen and searched Google for the name of the street, double checked that it was the right place, then scrolled through the google search results to see if there was any information on house prices. He knew that this was a bit silly, it was kind of like when he would spend hours on Google Maps looking at the roads in far-off island resorts just in case he ever wanted to travel there. Phil dismissed the actual possibility that he was checking out if there were house listings for any reason other than a curiosity which would lead nowhere. Pushing any thoughts of why he might actually be serious about this to the back of his mind, he clicked on Foxton’s Real Estate Agent’s website and found a house on that street up for sale. He looked through each photo of the interior, noting the beautiful white walls and homely kitchen. The photograph of the garden was equally as beautiful, showing an old English garden with overgrown bushes, an ornate iron table with chairs, and vines crawling along the old stone walls that enclosed the beautiful space. Phil then returned to the information page and found the price of the house. He stared at it for a while. He knew that a house in London would be expensive, and this was expensive. But he knew roughly their finances and it could work. Phil grabbed a pen from the table and started to chew its end, twirling it between his fingers and just staring at the price of the house. A feeling of motivation stuck him, so he pushed his MacBook to the back of his desk, the got up to find the folder with their finances in it.

  He spent the next two hours tallying the prices of their rent and bills per year, then the profits from their tour and book. He then calculated revenue from their videos and the profits from the next book and their merchandise. He put all this information onto a spreadsheet on his computer and tried to work everything out.

  When Dan opened the door, Phil almost jumped out of his seat. He turned around laughing, his hand held over his chest.

Dan looked at him in confusion, being taken aback by the piles of folders and sheets of calculations that lay in front of Phil. ‘Errr… Phil, what are you doing?’

Phil became flustered, making sure that the spreadsheet rather than the web page of the house was showing on his screen. ‘I… I just thought it would be good to look over the finances.’

‘Right… For any particular reason?’ Dan said slowly, looking quizzically at him.

‘Erm, no. I just kinda felt like looking over it.’ Phil said innocently.

Dan gave him another wary glance. It wasn’t actually too unlike Phil to suddenly start to look over their business accounts. At the end of the day, it was their jobs and as much as they tried to avoid it, this was their livelihood and they needed to keep on top of it. And seeing Phil, lounged back in their desk chair, black glasses on, and business folders strewn in front of him, was pretty sexy. Dan smiled at him, walked over and placed his hands on the armrests of the chair and leaned over Phil, then kissed him.

‘Well, don’t work too hard.’ He said with a smirk, then left the room saying that he was ordering some pizza.

Phil stared after him with a peaceful smile playing at his lips. He then swung back around to face the desk and continue with all the calculations until he heard the doorbell downstairs chime, letting him know that the pizza had arrived.

  Dan could tell that Phil was being even quieter than usual and that something was playing on his mind. He didn’t push it though. They sat quietly eating pizza and watching TV, both of them lost in their thoughts, Phil about his recent overwhelming ideas about their future, and Dan about his fears about what Phil had been up to all evening. Dan thought about what it could be. Phil had returned from his walk lost in his own inner monologue, then retreated upstairs to check over mountains of files and calculate their finances. It seemed like the only obvious explanation was that something wasn’t right about their business; perhaps Phil had realised some missing money, or that their taxes were wrong, or something along those lines. Dan tried to think over their last tax returns and the last meeting with the accountant, working out if there had been any hints recently of something going array. Yet, he could think of nothing. They had been doing particularly well this year, and although they tried to avoid financial conversations in order to try and separate their business from their relationship, the few conversations they’d had hadn’t spelled any disaster.

  Once they had finished eating and cleared up the pizza boxes from the living room, Dan couldn’t keep quiet any longer. His mind was now full of fears of varying economic disasters which may be befalling them.

‘Phil, has something gone wrong with our finances?’ Dan tentatively asked.

Phil looked away from the TV programme they were watching and glanced at Dan, then back at the screen. ‘No,’ he replied with confusion.

Dan stared at him for a few seconds, then grabbed the TV remote and turned off the screen. This caused Phil to look back again at him, his eyes darting between Dan and the mid-distance.

‘Then why did you spend all evening looking through our work files? If something has gone wrong, we can sort it out.’ Dan said, this time with a little more firmness.

Phil looked down at his lap, thinking deeply about what he was going to say. Eventually he looked back at Dan and said, ‘No, really, nothing is wrong. Kind of the opposite, the projections for this year are really good.’

‘So why was it so important to look through it today?’ Dan said, still confused but less stressed now that Phil had assured him that they weren’t on the brink of financial devastation.

‘Erm…’ Phil said, trying to think of how to broach this conversation. ‘Wait here, I need to grab my laptop.’ Phil hurried upstairs to collect his laptop and bring it to the living room. He then sat back down next to Dan and opened it.

‘OK, so, today on my way back from getting a coffee, I was walking along some nice roads near Caledonian Road, and… it got me thinking about… I dunno… like finding a place down there?’ Phil said hesitantly.

‘But we already have this flat, and this isn’t too far from that area?’ Dan said, now even more confused.

Phil sighed and placed his MacBook to one side and faced Dan. ‘I know, but the rent here is really expensive, and renting is always a temporary solution and we’re losing money every month. The reason why people buy houses is because it becomes an asset and people have the stability of knowing that they actually own their home. It doesn’t make sense to keep renting, and I know this is super adult and completely boring, but it makes more sense to get on the property market.’

Dan took a moment to let Phil’s words sink in. ‘So you’re saying we should buy a house…?’

Phil exhaled and looked off into the warmly lit living room. ‘Yeh. I love this flat, but we can’t stay here forever, and we’re going to need to buy a place some time in the future, and whilst we’re renting we’re losing more money than if we bought a place.’

‘But buying a house is expensive, especially in London, and then we’d have a mortgage over our heads?’ Dan said, trying really hard to switch his brain from the laziness of the day to thinking about such ridiculously adult things as rental rates and mortgages.

‘Yeh, but we have rent hanging over our heads now. And if we stay here for a few more years and something goes wrong on the business side of things, then we don’t have any assets to fall back on, or the stability of at least owning a home. If we got a house, although we’d have a mortgage, the place would be ours and we could sell it if something went wrong and get back that investment, rather than currently where we’ll never get back any of the money we’re spending on rent.’

Dan ran his hand over his face and scrunched his eyes, trying to think through everything that Phil was saying. He’d had this conversation with his parents a year or so ago, and they’d said a similar thing. Dan could also remember earlier this year when they had both gone for drinks with some of Phil’s friends from university who had been talking about buying a property in Manchester to avoid rising rental costs. ‘OK.’ He finally said. ‘It makes sense, but buying a house is a big commitment, what if we want to move?’

‘I know, but if we did decide to move, then we sell the house with the mortgage, and hopefully gain back the money we first spent and more, then move to somewhere else.’ Phil responded. Phil tended to spend most of his time denying that he needed to fully engage in the adult world, but when he had to look over their taxes, or deal with business stuff, he was fully capable of entering into a business mind-set. He was almost thirty, and the friends around him were becoming increasingly adult, and although he never compared his life with those around him, the conversations about maintenance work on flats, mortgage rates, and issues with rental agreements had slowly crept into his world until he could no longer deny that such adult complications were a part of his life also.

After some consideration Dan said, ‘OK. I know, it makes sense…’ he then paused and said calmly, ‘but Phil, buying a house… it’s a big step… you know?’

Phil looked with a peaceful gaze at Dan, then smiled. ‘I know,’ he said quietly with assurance.

Dan couldn’t help but beam at him. Their lives were so intertwined already, but buying a house together was the adult equivalent of saying that this was definitely it and that their lives were completely shared. The best thing about Phil basically saying this, was that Dan wasn’t at all shocked. He just felt completely happy. Dan leaned over towards Phil, placed his hands gently on his cheeks and kissed him softly, smiling as their lips met.

‘OK.’ Dan said with a grin, their faces still close and Phil’s eyes lighting up behind his thick rimmed glasses.

  Phil kissed him back both passionately and playfully, sucking at Dan’s lips and moving so that he was kneeling over him. Dan ran his hands up Phil’s back, feeling his shoulder blades through his thick woollen jumper. Phil’s fingers entwined in the material of Dan’s t-shirt, as he pulled their bodies closer together.

‘Wait… wait.’ Phil said quickly, out of breath.

Dan moved his face back, trying to stop his urge to slam his lips back into Phil’s, pull his boyfriends body down towards him and roll his body up into him. ‘Yeh?’ Dan said, trying to slow his breathing and staring up at Phil’s lips and thinking about kissing and licking at them.

‘I didn’t mention something earlier.’ Phil said.

‘Yeh, what?’ Dan said absentmindedly, still thinking of Phil’s lips, Phil’s body, and what they could be doing right now instead of talking.

Phil smirked at Dan and through giggles said, ‘Dan, you’re not paying attention.’

Dan drew his eyes away from Phil’s lips, only realising then that he was biting down on his own bottom lips which he quickly stopped doing, then looked up into Phil’s eyes.

‘Oh my god, what, Phil?’ Dan said with exasperation through a smile.

Phil moved off Dan, sat back down on the sofa next to him and grabbed his laptop from the coffee table in front of them. He then opened it and opened up the web page with the photograph of the house he’d seen earlier on his walk.

‘What am I looking at?’ Dan said, still slightly salty that their make-out session had been halted.

‘It’s a house I saw today. Do you like it?’ Phil said with trepidation.

Dan looked at the photograph and took in the beautiful brick house, four stories high, with ornate exterior detailing and a bright blue door. Phil then scrolled through each picture of the interior and the garden. Once they had both looked through each photo silently, Dan rested his arm on the back of the sofa, leant his head on his hand, and stared with complete love at Phil.

‘Did you see this house today on your walk and that’s why you came back and have suddenly thought of this.’ Dan asked lovingly.

Phil giggled and replied, ‘Yes.’

Dan sighed and looked back at the house. It was beautiful, the street looked calm, and he knew that area of London was really pretty. Dan did love the look of the house, sure it wasn’t some modernist architectural masterpiece that he sometimes dreamt of, but it was the house in the dreams he had where him and Phil lived in a quiet, lovely, yet somewhat unassuming house in this city which was now home. ‘So how much is it?’ He asked, deciding to go along with this for now.

‘A lot, but not too much.’ Phil said, then showed the page which had the price of the house. ‘But that’s what I was doing upstairs, I was working out how affordable it is for us, and the difference in buying it, well not necessarily this house, but buying a house in London compared to how much money we’ll be spending on rent and bills here.’

Dan looked at the price, and although it was a lot, he knew that it was doable. ‘OK. And Phil, this doesn’t mean anything, I’m more humouring you, but say if we did decide to buy this house, or a different one, we can’t move out of this place immediately.’

‘Well, I actually checked our tenancy agreement, and if we let the landlord know soon, we could move out of here by February.’

Dan was shocked into silence. Phil was apparently completely and utterly serious about this being an actual thing that could happen. ‘February? Isn’t that rushing things? This is a big decision.’

‘No, I know. I just wanted to check… I’m not saying we should rush into anything, it’s just I saw this house, and just wanted to work out how possible something like this was for us.’

Dan thought about it for a while, sitting in silence and staring at the webpage, glancing at the house details, the photograph at the top, and back at the price. This was a big decision, but it’s not like either of them hadn’t seen it coming. They had both talked about fantasy houses and had been complaining incessantly about the lack of storage here. Dan loved this flat, but they had both had conversations over the past few months about potentially moving somewhere bigger. Phil was right about rent, it didn’t make sense for them anymore to hop between flats, if they were going to move, it was more financially stable and lucrative to buy somewhere. That place needed to be in London for their jobs, needed to be in the right location, needed to be big enough but not small enough, needed to have a garden, and would never realistically be their dream house; although this house wasn’t the house of their dreams, it was perfect. Dan inhaled deeply, then exhaled and said, ‘We’ll call them tomorrow.’

  Before Dan knew what was happening, Phil’s lips were pressed tightly to his, his tongue licking at Dan’s lips and hands clinging to Dan’s hair. Dan smiled, trying not to laugh as his boyfriend basically tackled him till he was lying down on the sofa with Phil knelt over him, his hands beginning to slide underneath his shirt and move up his torso. A radiance glowed around Phil and warmed the air around them. Phil felt completely calm despite being so excited. He kissed passionately at Dan’s soft lips and allowed this moment to soar through his whole body. Their lives were becoming so unbreakably intertwined, and the unapologetically sincere decision that they would always be together made every worry in Phil’s mind float off into oblivion. Phil pushed Dan’s t shirt up and kissed at his soft and supple torso, breathing in the smell of sleepy skin and well-worn clothes. To Phil, Dan’s body was like a treasured childhood teddy. He knew every scar from old falls, he knew where he was softest, he knew how to hold him at night when storms raged outside their window, he knew how to bury his face into his hair and breathe in the smell of memories and home.

  Dan felt Phil’s warm hands press against his skin and grasp at his hips. He rested his head back and enjoyed the feeling of being kissed everywhere. He let pure bliss wash over him as Phil pulled his jeans off and licking him everywhere. Dan’s eyes were still closed as Phil pulled him up into another kiss and straddled him. Dan kept his eyes closed, letting Phil guide his every movement, guide his lips till their kisses became like ballroom dancing. Guide his hands down Phil’s body beneath his t shirt. Dan could feel Phil’s naked legs and groin press down over his own. He could feel both of their heavy breathing synchronise till their sounds became like waves rolling in and out on a windswept shore. Phil broke their kiss, lifted Dan’s hand up to his own mouth and sucked languidly at his fingers before moving them down and guiding them into him. Dan opened his eyes to see Phil throw his head back and arch his back. He looked fucking stunning. As Dan moved his fingers into Phil, with his other hand he pulled his head forward and kissed him fervently, enjoying Phil’s strained gasps every few seconds. When he felt as though they were ready, Dan pushed Phil’s body up them brought him slowly down as Dan entered him. They both inhaled sharply and held their breath for what felt like eras. Dan then moved both his arms up and clung onto Phil’s hair, resting their foreheads together as Phil rolled his hips. With their foreheads still pressed together and both their eyes closed, Dan moved a hand down to stroke Phil gently. Only stopping to quickly remove both of their t shirts and fling them across the room before returning for a kiss and to rest his fingers once again in Phil’s hair. They became an ocean, one wave on the shore, one sound on the beach, rolling over the sand in hushed whispers and moaning in one breath of wind over sand dunes and hushed grasslands. Time slowed with their bodies. Their worlds became one vista. They could feel nothing but each other as all else ceased to matter.

Chapter 12

 Phil woke up at eight thirty am whilst the short December morning still clung to the dark night. His duvet was wrapped around his limbs and he could feel Dan’s body heat pulse like hot heart beats beside him. He remembered their conversation from last night, and smiled to himself thinking about what had been said. He turned his head towards Dan, who was facing away from him, his arms wrapped and folded like a child’s in front of his face. Phil shifted towards him and nuzzled his nose into the dip between Dan’s bare shoulder blades. Phil wrapped an arm over Dan’s waist and felt the heat of his skin radiate into his own.

‘Morning,’ he heard Dan say groggily.

‘Good morning,’ Phil whispered.

Dan sighed and rolled onto his back, stretching out his arms before resting one on Phil’s shoulder who had now snuggled his body into Dan’s side.

They both lay silently for a minute, cherishing the peace and quiet of bed before they would have to get up and deal with the day.

‘So…’ Phil said slightly hesitantly, ‘How do you feel about giving the estate agents a ring today?’ Phil glanced up at Dan who was staring up at the bedroom ceiling.

Dan began to trace circles with his hand on Phil’s shoulder. His brows furrowed for a second and then relaxed before his glanced down at Phil.

‘Yeh. Let’s do it,’ he said through a smile.

Phil shifted his body and lifted his head towards Dan and kissed him slowly.

‘Great,’ Phil said, biting down on his lip to try and control the huge smile which was dancing across his entire face.

 After having breakfast and watching a quick episode of anime, they both sat on the sofa in the living room with Phil’s laptop open in front of them, the contact page of the estate agents blaring in professional white tones and smart black font on the screen.

‘Do you want to talk to them?’ Dan asked. Phil knew that Dan definitely didn’t want to call them. Dan hated talking on the phone more than Phil, although both of them would prefer to email or text rather than chance an embarrassing social interaction over the phone.

‘Sure.’ Phil said as he entered the contact number into his phone, and brought it to his ear. Phil’s heartbeat started to rise as he suddenly started panicking about what he was going to say, how one even goes about asking about a house, worrying if he sounded old enough, does he still sound like a child, what if they think he doesn’t sound professional enough and question as to why he is looking to buy a house –

‘Foxton’s estate agents, London. This is Lucy speaking. How can I help you?’ A woman’s voice said over the phone. She sounded professional, letting the continuously repeated words still retain an air of humanity despite her having to repeat them like a machine every day.

‘Erm, hi. I was wondering if you had any house viewings for your property at Callingdon Crescent?’ Phil said, battling with his nerves and trying to sound as adult as possible. Phil didn’t really understand why he was so nervous. He was simply asking to view a house, and he was an adult. A fully grown actual adult who didn’t need to be embarrassed about looking into viewing a house.

‘Of course, I’ll just load the property on my computer and check if we have any available viewing slots.’

‘OK, great.’

Phil waited, glancing at Dan who was sitting next to him and staring down at his phone which he was spinning around between his fingers.

‘Could I take a name please?’ She said abruptly, as Phil heard her tapping into her computer over the phone.

‘Philip Lester.’

‘Perfect. OK, Mr Lester, I have some viewings available today or if that is too short notice we also have some available times tomorrow and Thursday.’

‘Erm…’ Phil said as he was suddenly faced with a new decision. The pressure of answering now over the phone made him even more nervous and the realisation that this was happening, and happening fast overtook every thought in his mind. He looked over at Dan who had heard the gist of what she had said over the phone. Phil asked the lady to wait for a second before he brought the phone away from his ear.

‘They have some viewings today?’ He mouthed, more than whispered at Dan.

Dan looked down once again at his hands, then lifted his head, smiled, and said ‘Sure. Today works.’

Phil looked at him with a mixture of happiness and pride, then returned the phone to his ear and said, ‘Yes, today works fine. What time will that be?’

‘Perfect. OK, well we have a viewing at three o’clock. Would that be OK?’

‘Yep, that’s fine.’

‘Great. My colleague Stephanie will be showing you around the property this afternoon. Will there be anyone else joining you for the viewing, Mr Lester?’

‘Erm yes, my partner will be joining me.’

Dan couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows at hearing Phil refer to him as his ‘partner’. He’d only ever heard Phil refer to him as either his ‘friend’ or ‘boyfriend’, and ‘partner’ sounded so adult – so serious. Dan continued to look down at his hands as he bit back a smile. Dan kind of hated the word partner, it sounded too formal and serious. He knew why Phil had used that term. Phil was trying to sound as adult as possible and probably thought that calling Dan his partner would just add to this air he was creating of being a professional adult who was trying to buy a property. Still, despite it sounding so odd coming from Phil’s lips, Dan enjoyed knowing that the woman on the phone now had an image of Phil as a respectable adult in a serious relationship, and the guy he was serious about was him.

‘Perfect,’ the woman continued as she typed away at her computer. ‘That’s all booked for you. Could I take a contact number please?’

Phil slowly dictated his mobile number, then after confirming the time once more, said goodbye and hung up.

 Dan stood rifling through his wardrobe trying to find something respectable to wear to the house viewing. Phil had firmly reminded him that they couldn’t show up in black jeans and t-shirts although he hadn’t given a reason why. Dan’s clothes were either black jeans and a t-shirt, or posh event suits – there was no in between. He finally found a plain black shirt which he’d probably worn to an awards ceremony, then found some generic suit trousers. All of his jumpers were either too artsy or just plain black. For the first time in his life he wished he owned a generic jumper from somewhere unassuming like Marks and Spencer’s. He sighed and got changed into the suit trousers and shirt, then headed into Phil’s room to see if he had a normal and boring jumper going spare. Dan stopped and stared at Phil as soon as he entered his bedroom. Phil was wearing dark blue jeans. Dark blue jeans. Dan didn’t even know that Phil owned any jeans that weren’t black. Phil was also wearing a shirt, it’s top button undone, and a plain maroon sweater. Finally, he wore a plain back suit blazer, had his glasses on, and had pushed his fringe back. Dan stared at him for a second, not quite being able to register how fucking adult and respectable Phil looked.

‘And who the fuck are you?!’ Dan said, leaving his mouth hanging agape as he looked Phil up and down.

Phil grabbed a pair of smart black shoes, sat down on the edge of his bed and started putting them on.

‘What? I don’t want to look weird for the viewing,’ he said as he started tying the laces of his leather shoes.

‘No, you definitely look weird,’ Dan said, still looking at shock at the person he thought was his boyfriend, although he wasn’t so sure now as Phil was barely recognisable.

‘Really? In a bad way?’ Phil said, glancing worriedly at Dan.

‘….. No. Not in a bad way…. Just in a not-Phil way.’

‘Oh, well that’s OK then,’ Phil said then continued to tie his laces. ‘Did you need something?’

‘Erm… yeh. Could I borrow a jumper? I don’t really own anything… appropriate.’ Dan said, still unable to draw his eyes away from this new version of Phil.

Phil said ‘sure’ then got up and looked through his wardrobe, finally finding a dark blue woollen jumper and throwing it at Dan.

Dan murmured a ‘thanks’ then went back to his room, put on the jumper, and found a fairly smart black jacket to put over the top. He then gawked at himself in his full length mirror and raised one eyebrow, staring at himself in an accusatory fashion.

He looked like the people in their late twenties who went to pubs on the weekend with work colleagues. He looked older, he looked like he had his life together. In a final act of completely diverting his aesthetic from his normal style, Dan pushed his fringe back and to the side.

He gave himself one final glance in the mirror, sighed, then headed back to Phil’s room who was sat on his bed looking at his phone. When Dan entered he stood up and said, ‘Ready?’

‘Yeh.’ Dan said, still looking in amazement at the person standing in front of him.

‘You look… different,’ Phil said smiling at Dan.

Dan squinted his eyes and gave Phil an evil stare. ‘Don’t say anything. I’m looking like this for you. We better not run into anyone on the streets because I will die of shame.’

Phil chucked, moved closer to Dan, and put his arms round his waist. ‘I think you look good.’

Dan rolled his eyes and muttered something inaudible before resting his eyes on Phil again. As much as Phil just didn’t look like Phil, there was something kind of sexy about the way he was dressed. As much as the internet liked to berate him for having a daddy kink, Dan didn’t. Although admiring Phil in an outfit that screamed being a respectable and older guy, Dan kind of saw where they were coming from. Dan thought to himself that maybe he was just ridiculously vanilla, and the reason why Phil looked so fucking hot right now was because he looked dependable, stable, and like the kind of guy you would dream of marrying. He looked like he would be an awesome father, he looked like the kind of guy who would cook family meals, he just looked like someone you could build a life with.

Dan kissed him, slightly knocking Phil’s glasses, then pulled away and walked out of the room before he made them both late for the viewing.

 Dan stared up at the crescent of Georgian terraced houses that lines the pavement of Callingdon Crescent. They were beautiful. He took in the park that lay on the other side of the road where bushes and trees bereft of their leaves clung to an ornate black iron fence that encircled with park. The houses were beautiful. Large but unassuming. Antiquated and cosy. They looked like they were somewhere warm and safe.

Outside one of the houses stood a woman holding a clipboard in her delicately manicured fingers. Her hair was an immaculate weave of jet black hair which spun in pristine curls at her shoulders and she was wearing a smart black jacket and a tailored pencil skirt. As she saw them approaching she walked to greet them and held out her hand, giving them a warm smile.

‘Hi, I’m Stephanie, I’m assuming you’re the couple enquiring about the house?’

They both shook her hand as Phil replied that they were, giving his name.

‘Hi. Dan.’ Dan said as he shook her hand.

‘Lovely to meet you both. This is a beautiful house and I’m sure you’ll love it. I’ll show you around and explain everything to you and if you have any question please don’t hesitate to ask.’ Stephanie spoke with conviction and complete professionalism. Dan noted a faint East London accent and felt a bit more calmed by her presence. The walk here had been nerve wracking. Dan hadn’t been sure whether he was worrying about the upcoming adult social interaction or fearing that they may bump into one of their audience.

 Stephanie explained briefly about the exterior, pointing out the basement floor and commenting on the delicate wrought iron railings at the front of the house. She then walked up the steps to the door, her stiletto heels clicking on the stone. Once inside the house Dan looked up and around at the beautiful hallway. The was a wooden staircase that curled around the farthest wall under an huge arched window. The hallway was painted red, with oak flooring and large doors that lead to the rooms to the left. Dan glanced and Phil who was looking in slight amazement around at the hall.

 Stephanie showed them round each room; the white wooden kitchen in the basement, the open and light conservatory at the back of the house, the cosy living room complete with a huge wooden fireplace and Georgian period-designed patterned ceiling, the dining room that lay to the front of the house with huge curtains that hung by the side of the window that faced the street, the master bedroom that looked over the garden, the study complete with old bookshelves that lined the walls. Dan and Phil looked at each other and smiled with a mixture of happiness and embarrassment when she showed them the two spare bedrooms, telling them that it was a great house for starting a family as there is lots of space. Stephanie continued her well-rehearsed patter as she continued to show them round the house and lead them to the garden.

 Stood in the beautiful winter garden, having spoken to them about the shed, the patio, and how lovely it is to have such a nice outside space despite being so close to the neighbourhood park, Stephanie said, ‘So, what do you guys do?’

‘We work in media,’ Phil replied, hesitant to have to explain further what their actual jobs are.

‘Great! Well, this house is only five minutes from the tube station, and you’re still incredibly close to the centre of London.’ She responded, before continuing to discuss the benefits of living in the area.

 Dan let her words slightly wash over him as he slowly glanced around the garden and looked back at the house. He took Phil’s hand and looked at him with a smile. Dan’s nerves about seeing the house and what this would mean had completely dissipated. All he could think of now was moving out and creating a life that was their own in a place like this. He imagined them filling the kitchen cupboards with spices. He imagined Phil placing a wide array of plants in the conservatory. He imagined them having friends round a cooking for dinner parties. He imagined settling down and making the place their own. He even dared for a second to imagine the kind of future they could have, and the kind of family they could potentially have in future years here…

 Dan was shaken from his reverie when Stephanie asked them to follow her back into the house. Dan let go of Phil’s hand and followed her back up the few steps and through the door which led them to back into the downstairs hallway. As they walked along the short hallway and stopped to discuss further details about the house, Dan felt Phil’s arm wrap around his back, Phil’s hand holding gently onto his side.

‘It’s really beautiful,’ Phil said as he looked around once more at the expansive hall the spanned two floors upwards.

Stephanie smiled at the couple, noting how cute they were together. She finally let them know that the owners of the house were planning on moving out at the end of March, and that they should let the estate agents know if they were interested in making an offer on the house. She finally reminded them of the price and then gestured politely towards the door, opening it for them, then following them back out onto the street after she had locked up the house.

 She once again shook their hands, gave them her business card, and got into a swanky black car that was parked on the road. Dan and Phil looked back up at the house.

‘So… what did you think?’ Phil asked. Dan had been mostly silent during the viewing, so Phil wasn’t sure whether he was hating the place and judging it harshly or whether he was just unaccustomed to such a formal social interaction. Phil worried that Dan’s specific aesthetic tastes wouldn’t match to this place, but Phil had really loved it.

‘I… I kinda love it.’ Dan said, continuing to stare up at the white stone and red bricks of the exterior.

Phil smiled as Dan turned to face him. ‘So… what do we do now?’ Phil asked uncertainly.

Dan sighed with an expression of happy resolution then said, ‘I suppose we buy a house.’