#anyway this was a poop time to post so rip my post interaction

[unproduciblesmackdown]

let's do a classic Primez ask

thank you lol Prime Time is.....6 am is when im posting this, christ lol what else is new around here........Good Morning in advance lol and [rise and shine sailors it be monday]

2: Favorite book?

i don’t have one lol

3: Favorite fictional character?

i also don’t Properly have like, all-time ultimate Faves in these kind of categories either, but there’s still standouts at least lol......obviously lately it might show that i’m enjoying winston billions a lot, and natch that’s just One of the many wrol roles i’ve been glad to discover. natch winston, jared, and jeremy are fave raves amonth them

5: What’s your favorite fictional ship? (Canon or otherwise)

this is the same as the [fave fictional characters] thing in that like, sometimes i’ll Consume something where i don’t have any, and generally i’m out here multishipping and not like live or die by one Specific Pairing, if i like a character i’ll also probably like Many of their dynamic/s with various other characters, unless the options are That limited.......tying this in to the fave fictional character thing, re: winston, naturally tayston and benston, aka the fruits of us all combining our Genius, are top tier and here’s riawin where we don’t know for sure where it’s going but we’re getting some great Dynamic(tm) stuff anyways.....and natch re: jared i Enjoy Kleinsen (as something to make up ideas about that are outside canon and also as a perspective thru which to analyze canon) and re: jeremy.....stagedorks is beautiful, wild to have canon just give you some content that’s already as good as that

7: List 3 negative traits you have 

well i can be fairly anxious about certain things, which is mostly negative for me lol.........a more negative 2-way street is that i’m just generally in defensive mode around people lol, often i’m like, just trying to avoid Attention entirely and/or like uh oh attention, gotta try to just avoid taking damage from it lol.......on a gradual journey to just being default More Unpleasant / less accommodating lmao......not that i can’t be sometimes, or that i can’t be Genuinely Friendly with randos coz i like their vibe and actually Like socializing lol.........and then re: the challenges of socializing, it seems like maybe when i’m in an interaction i get caught up in [uh oh how do i Respond a) at all b) in a way that’s Good(tm)] and it maybe makes me less attentive to the other person / a worse Listener smh

11: How do you decide when it’s time to cut someone out of your life for good?

idk luckily it’s not something i’ve had to do left and right lol.......but ime it’s Also not exactly like. usually a “ah Now Is The Time to have zero relationship with this person” and most often it’s like [gradual distancing period that is mostly passive] and/or just choosing Not to reinitiate any sort of relationship........though re: more active approaches lol it’s more like. time to try to tune into my [does this feel like something indefinitely sustainable / something you actually Want to have continue in any way] gauge or whatevs. and then still it’s like, sometimes easier if moments happen to come along that provide an [opt out?] choice presented to you kinda lol.........if it’s someone You don’t want to be involved with really but they don’t feel the same and it’s “on you” to decide to peace out at some point it’s more difficult coz such [do you want to opt out]-distilled Moments probably don’t seem to manifest but i think that’s a useful thing to be aware of in itself........i.e. that there’s not always going to be a Narrative-Friendly “point of no return” / clear Line Being Crossed and even if it Doesn’t feel like “i can’t / don’t want to deal with this for Literally one more day” that doesn’t mean you should totally stick it out / don’t have enough reason to decide that you are Done at this particular moment even if you haven’t been Done prior or think you plausibly hold off on it. don’t need to have some kind of story where you think if you Explained it to anyone or everyone it’d universally be understood and everything would applaud like “Yes, the Right Decision” lmao like. not their business....

13: What are your favorite lyrics currently?

well with our groupchat in the replies to that Eternally Crying Over The Bar Song post..........just enjoy the “stay here for a while / cuz it’s nice / cuz it’s holy” part of the refrain, a fun part of the music, and that classic iconis like, lyrics being in a sort of character Voice and yet getting the idea / feelings across effectively even when the words are sort of general or simple.......”shooting from the heart / but we’re all a lousy shot” is great lol and also “say you will always be here” ending with “for one more” is like, there’s another Broader Idea / Sentiment expressed so effectively :’|

17: If you could make a wish, what would you wish for if you knew it would come true?

i can’t do any fun answers lmao it’d just be like [political commentary] but that’s warranted lbr

19: How do you handle heartbreak? Is it something that’s easy for you to get over, or something you struggle with?

lmao i think it is like By Definition not easy for anyone to get over / Not struggle with.........can’t say i’ve had Romantic Misadventures exactly but uh yeah it feels bad to feel bad but i like......wait it out???? idk lmao you can’t really just timeskip past.....Heartbreak Sucks For Everyone Cuz That’s Kind Of The Whole Thing

23: What do you want your future to be like?

pandemic-less, fascism-less........i can’t say i’ve ever been someone like “yea i Know what i want to do and have this whole plan set out how i’m gonna do it lol” i remember when i was like 4 or 5 or whatever being asked What Do You Want To Do When You Grow Up and i was like “shit idk.......i like dinosaurs so i guess paleontologist??” and it was as much a mystery going forward.........always and still mostly playing things by ear with a few vague “if / then” type ideas......aren’t we all though ig

29: Do you think zodiac signs can influence someone’s personality to an extent?

what do i know but i Don’t like or respect the recent years trend ppl being way into it like this isn’t [being really serious about hogwarts houses] or Earnest Myer Briggs Types energy that everyone’s bringing to it......like what are you getting out of trying to be this Prescriptive based on when ppl’s parents got into it. meanwhile i’ve been on the edge of my seat since someone tweeted about “when will we get the first astrology discrimination lawsuit” re: a story about ppl wanting a housemate with a certain sign for compatibility reasons. and like again if it Is like “yes there are time-of-year Personality Types for Objective Real” like. okay, still, what is this Approach that ppl have....doing for anyone.....

31: What does ‘self care’ look like for you?

not very fancy lol i’ll be like “damn i think i haven’t eaten today” and then do it......or be like hey here i’m gonna Do A Stretch or some shit. walk around. step outside if it’s nice. both true that Self Care has inherent limitations re: like we can’t just cancel out all the detriments to our wellbeing via Personal Choices and yet also we can’t Not look out for ourselves how we can......i’ll watch something that i Enjoy. or just knock out if it’s like “christ i need a mood reset” or i’m trying to timeskip through a headache. pet a cat. i like to try to be Appreciative of everyday ordinary shit......also messing around Making Stuff whether drawings or otherwise can be a good helpful use of time, i like talking to people who i like talking to, and other stunning stuff like that lol

37: Have you ever been surprised by someone staying in your life?

not really lol coz again with how i’m pretty slow to realize that someone is like, nonzero actively interested in interacting with me on a regular basis, and then once someone’s In My Life there’s no particular point where i go “whoa....You’re still here??”......ig sometimes there’s like, Friendly Acquaintances where it’d be Unsurprising if they just sort of dropped fully out of the orbit but they do not

41: How do you show you care?

hmm i sure like to do ppl favors / give them gifts / help them out w/ whatever, hang out / generally be Around them where like, doing [parallel tasks] works i.e. maybe we’re doing different things but in the same room.....just like to Talk and all and listen to ppl and Learn Things About Them, try to pick up stuff re: ways that ppl express like “hey to me it conveys Being Cared About when ppl do ___”........food/cooking is a love language......that thing where shit you’d be way too anxious to do on your own For Yourself is like, oh i’m absolutely gonna do it on behalf of someone i care about.......all this stuff is more like, Possible in person lmao rip. i Care you guys

43: Which of the seven deadly sins do you feel represents you the most?

who is your hellsona and what is their origin story (how they got condemned to hell).........if i’m irritable / argumentative am i wrathful? you could presumably someone saying yep it is inherently the one deadly sin of lust if you’re queer.......at any given time i’m passed out and dreaming about “fuck capitalism and the protestant work ethic” and that’s sloth i guess. and okay i went “who named an animal after a The Deadly Sin as if it’s like ‘wow fuck this animal for choosing not to zoom around as though they could and i apparently think that they should’ tf” and in looking it up i immediately learned the Sloth Fact that apparently their shits are insane and also the most dangerous thing they do?? like they poop only maybe once a week and All At Once so that a single dump might knock off a third of their total weight........and it’s pretty much the only time they leave the upper branches of trees, in that they crawl down to hold on to the trunk and take this monster shit and naturally they’re not great on the ground so Pooping is like the leading cause of death for sloths in the wild. and i think they ought to be named after that. 

47: What are you passionate about?

oh man [i am passionate a lot.mp3] lol.........always having a variety of Interestes which i like to talk about / potentially make things about.......decent amount of subjects i like to learn things about even if�� i’m bad at like, actually learning things generally lmao, what’s Not losing focus on shit.......idk it’s not that hard for me to like go off about Whatever, got these jack of all trades interests / areas of Some knowledge, i’m opinionated and probably have something (extensive) to say about anything as just part of my charm lol, and just in general i can get Enthused / worked up about things..........also passionate about various [niche gay shit] things eternally. whoms among us isn’t

[huangels]

community furry club - werewolf!mark

nct dream halloween special: main menu | mark | renjun | jeno | haechan | jaemin | chenle | jisung

a/n: this was supposed to be posted oct 1 fjdhd, also this is lowkey a furry fic but it's NOT don’t worry, also also pls ignore all typos i’m POOPED 

genre: fluff+ humor

word count: 2.4k

"Mark? What are you doing here?" you stare with a hitched breath as if a ghost had just flown through the doors of the city's populated cafe.

Standing by your small table is your boyfriend Mark, tall and stiff with an awkward posture. It takes you a moment before you realize it's the unfitting baseball cap and XXL jacket hung around his shoulders that causes him to look slightly disfigured.

Mark is not what you would call human or wolf, but a median, a werewolf. When in his human form, Mark's large ears and long fluffy tail does not go away, which explains the hat and jacket. The latter gawkily shuffles over to the opposite seat in front of you and slides into the chair as gracefully as possible, but failing as he knocks his knee onto the back side of the table.

Once he's situated, his flashes an uncomfortable smile, hands placed on his knees under the table and rubbing up and down. "Visting my girlfriend?"

You push down the head of your laptop and stuff it back into your backpack to turn your attention towards him.

"Way to look natural," you tease, eyeing the tilted cap and lumpy jacket. "Aren't you hot in that, too? It's Fall but the sun is still out."

"Nope," Mark pops the p, but the sweat coating his forehead tells you otherwise.

"Really, what are you doing here? I told you I will be home for Halloween after running some errands," you scold your boyfriend. You had to visit the city to buy some final Halloween decorations like cobwebs and some candy to hand out to kids trick or treating. Having to run from one Halloween store to another trying to find last-minute decorations is more difficult than you assumed since the stores were almost completely empty. You soon gave up and stopped by a cafe for an energy booster.

"Ugh, Y/N. I was so bored at home, and I just wanted to go out and walk around, smell the fresh air," Mark complains as he leans forward onto his propped up arm, chin held in his palm.

You raise a cocky eyebrow, "are you that excited for Halloween?"

Mark's eyes light up and his tail starts to wag under the large coat, "Yes!"

Since almost every day Mark has to hide his identity under hats and jackets, Halloween is the only night where he can freely show himself to others without disguises. He can blend in with the other neighborhood freaks who put way too much effort into looking inhuman. And he even receives compliments from everyone which makes him feel confident about himself not being a normal human.

You always feel horrible having to walk past Mark's house every day, which is right next to yours, to go to school, while he is homeschooled by his werewolf family. You can see the look of boredom on his face as he stares blankly out of the window, ears bend and tail limp. And when you would wave to him from the window, he would pop up with a bright smile and wave back excitedly but grow gloomy again as you head off to the bus stop, mirroring his expression.

"So do you have a costume yet?" Mark questions, playing with the napkin atop the table. You snap out of your own head and direct your attention back to your boyfriend.

You take a sip of coffee before it gets cold, "yeah, I'm gonna wear a witch costume."

"But you wore that last year," Mark complains, huffing.

"No, last year I was a vampire," you correct the latter with a grin.

"It's the same dress that you wear, Y/N!" It's true, you don't have much of an admiration for Halloween as Mark does. Sure, it was fun to run around at night and get free candy as a kid but now that you're in your senior year in high school, people don't really give candy out to teens and Halloween costumes become more expensive the older you get. So you just stick with your black dress with lacey and black flower details. You'll buy other accessories too of course, like for last year, you wore a cape and fangs with your dress and this year, you have a big purple witch hat.

You shrug your shoulders, "that's what makes it creative."

Mark huffs at your response, mumbling a whatever under his breath, but ends the conversation there.

"Well, do you have a Halloween costume this year?" you question back with a half-smile. Every Halloween for the past two years, Mark usually just wears ripped clothes and werewolf gloves and pretends he's in the midst of his transformation. It's not much of a difference just like your costumes.

"I'm gonna be a scientist," Mark replies, tongue sticking out childishly, "who turns into a werewolf."

Before you can further tease your boyfriend about his choice in Halloween costumes, your friend from school enters the cafe and calls your name.

"Y/N! What are you doing here?" she starts off, waving hi to both you and Mark, "Are you going to the Halloween party at Hyunjin's later?"

Mark emits a low whine before you answer, "No, I'm just going to be walking around with Mark but if we can, we'll maybe stop by."

"Aww, ok. So what's your costume going to be? I still haven't decided and the party is in like 4 hours."  

"A witch and Mark is going to be a...scientist wolf thing?" you say, cocking an eyebrow at your boyfriend. He twiddles his thumbs and responds with a nervous chuckle. Mark doesn't get much interaction with humans since he's stuck home most days so he's always awkward when talking to them.

"That's cool, well I'll see you in school," she waves goodbye to you guys. Mark raises a hand to politely wave back but the long sleeves of his coat knocks over your cup of coffee, spilling on your friend. Thankfully there wasn't much and it had cooled off by now.

"I'm so sorry, are you okay?" Mark stutters, handing the girl a handful of napkins from your table with trembling hands.

She chuckles, grabbing the napkins to wipe off her shirt, "No worries. I was just heading home to change for the party anyway."

Mark bends down from his chair to wipe up the coffee from the tiled floor. But, one unfortunate thing after another, his unfitting baseball cap slides off of his head and into the middle of the coffee spill. Mark's large wolf ears perk up as he freezes in his spot. Your eyes widen at the sight of his ears revealed to everyone in the cafe.

"Uhh, what's- that?" a voice breaks the silence. You cough as you try to come up with an explanation: expose your boyfriend or lie?

Your eyes bee-line to Mark but he's still stunned in a bent-over position that causes his blood to rush to his head. The silence after is too long so you shout the first excuse that comes to mind, "He's a furry."

Customers in the cafe turn their heads toward the commotion, maybe you shouldn't have said that so loud for everyone to hear.

"He's a...?"

"A furry- yep."

Mark now bolts up from his seat to scowl at you with wide eyes, seeming to demand why you said that. You flash a look of apology back before smiling nervously at your friend. Though, she is too busy examining you boyfriend's wolf ears.

"These ears look so real," she says, reaching to poke it. His ears twitch and avoid her touch.

You let out another nervous laugh, "yeah- he's just a very... dedicated furry. He spends a lot of time and money into his... uh- ears."

"So do you have a suit?" another voice enters the conversation, from behind your friend. "Because I'm in a community furry club and we really need some more members since we only have 6."

Your hand slaps over your mouth and you bite down your lips to prevent you from laughing, but only causing you to cough as if you're trying to get a hairball out of your throat. You can feel tears bordering your waterline.

Mark quickly grabs your backpack in one hand and your wrist in the other before he storms out of the store. You stumble behind and once you are a few feet down the street you can't help but let out a roar of laughter, bending over with a hand holding your stomach. The tears finally stream out as you laugh at the situation that had just unfolded. Mark stands in front of you, foot tapping and arms crossed over his chest. His hat, now soaked with coffee, is back on his head, covering his ears once more.

"Are you done?" Mark snarls, eyes squinting at your hysterical state. You wipe off a real tear from your eyes.

"Community- furry... club," you chortle in between laughs, trying to catch your breath. It feels like you've just gained a 6-pack from laughing so hard. "You... never gave- him an answer."

"I'm going home," Mark turns on his feet and stomps back home, but not before you can latch an arm around his to tease him some more.

༄

"I still can't believe you said I was a furry to your friend. Now every time I see her, she's gonna think I'm a damn furry," Mark grumbles, cutting slits into his white lab coat before pulling at it to make the slits look more natural.

"I mean...technically, you are a furry and- oh my god I'm dating a furry," you soon regret blurting out that Mark is a furry.

"I'm NOT a furry!"

"You do have fur."

"You have fur too."

"That's hair!"

"Same thing."

You roll your eyes before continuing to blend out your dark eyeshadow. You don't know much about makeup but it turns out alright with the help of multiple Youtube tutorials. Your hair is already curled and you're in your black dress. You decided to pair the dress with black and white horizontal striped tights and a pair of all black converse. All you needed is the hat which is on your bed. Now, you're just waiting for Mark, who is now trying to dirty his lab coat with brown eyeshadow and fake blood.

"I'll go get the candy ready," you inform Mark before exiting your bedroom into the living room. Usually, you and Mark stay in your house to hand out candy to little kids first and then walk around to see decorations and neighbors once it starts to get dark and more people come out to play. Then, your parents take over with handing out candy.

You grab the large bag of assorted candy and carefully pour it into an orange bucket, placing that by your front door. You get a few rounds of kids dressed in superhero costumes and princess dresses for candy before you hear your boyfriend come to the living room.

"You ready?" Mark asks as you turn towards him. Your breath hitches at how handsome Mark looks, even if he's covered in blood and brown eyeshadow. Mark had on his ripped lab coat, a pair of khaki trousers, and a baby blue sweater that is also slightly ripped and painted with red and brown. But most captivating part of his outfit is the pair of fake eyeglasses he has on, they're round and black and fit perfectly with his features. His hair is styled down and a little messy over his forehead with his ears sticking out of the top of his head. His tail hangs out from a hole cut on the back of his lab coat.

Mark looks so charming with glasses, he should wear it more often. And you probably said exactly that out loud because he replies back with, "oh, you like them that much?"

You roll your eyes in annoyance but the slight blush on the tips of your cheeks causes Mark to swiftly swoop you into his arms for a soft kiss.

The both of you say bye to your parents as you enter the dawn setting. The roads are crowded with people in different costumes and of different ages. Kids stop him to feel his ear or pet his tail and Mark is thrilled by every compliment on how realistic it feels. Parents have asked how Mark got them to move so smoothly and if it was automatic or remote controlled. Of course, having been asked these questions for the past two years, he's already come up with a made-up explanation.

A couple hours have passed as you and Mark continue to walk down the busy streets, looking at decorations and entering homemade haunted houses (Mark ended up attached at the hip to you in the houses but denied that he was scared). Without knowing, you both have walked to Hyunjin's house where the Halloween party is being held. Blasting through the front windows are rave lights and neon lasers while the bass of the dance music vibrates through the air and you're surprised that the party hasn't shut down due to noise complaints yet.

"You wanna just stop by to say hi?" you suggest, pointing at the colorfully lighten-up house. Mark shrugs with a simple, "sure."

As soon as you enter the house, the smell of sweat, cheap beer, and Doritos waft over you. Gross.

Mark and you make your way around as your school friends greet you with sloppy hugs. You try to introduce your boyfriend but the volume of the music and the state of your friends don't help. You give up trying to communicate with them and you head for the kitchen with Mark. In the cooler next to the island counter are sodas, which you grab and replenish yourself from walking around for two hours.

Before you know it, you hear someone drunkenly shout, "it's the furry kid, Mark!"

The voice belongs to the friend from earlier in the cafe. Mark and you meet eyes and then he bolts out of the party, filled to the brim with embarrassment. You run after him, feeling the sense of deja vu.

"They're never gonna let me live that down, are they?"

"I guess you'll just be known as a furry and I, the one who dates him."

[kyulilitanako]

How I fixed “The Emoji Movie”

(inside my head, without actually having seen it, or "Wreck-It Ralph," or "Inside Out," or "The Lego Movie," I seriously need to get out more, although I did see "The Lego Batman Movie" and that was pretty cool.  ♪ Friends are Family ♪ )

So, if I was the Queen of Hollywood, this is what I’d do.  Let us begin.

1. A little product placement is not a sin, but full-blown product immersion is both a sin and a crime, and in a world run by evil geniuses, the guilty would be stripped naked, wrapped several times around in succulent vines and acacia leaves, and dangled upside-down from a crane just inside the giraffe paddock at the zoo during feeding time.  More on this later.

2. Gene's new problem is that he desperately wants to help Alex take a shot at true love with Addie, because he's a romantic at heart, but fears he will never have the opportunity to do so, since kids...probably don't send a "Meh" to their crush to demonstrate their affection.  At least I don’t think they do.  But anyway.  Gene feels the pang of unfulfilled dreams because he thinks (based on what other emojis say) that humans ONLY interact through their phones.  We’ll fix this.

3. Jailbreak doesn't reject being a princess, she just wants being a princess to mean something more than a pretty dress and sparkly crown. She wants to do something heroic because she understands girls can lift themselves up without pushing approximately half the population down, and that you can be pro-woman without being anti-man. (Source: am girl.)

4. Hi-5 has been reduced from sidekick to running gag, showing up only occasionally to deliver a zinger and then disappear again for awhile.

5. Alex gets more screen time, often while he uses his phone to record a vlog about Addie, the Girl of His Dreams, but he never plucks up the courage to post it to...wherever, and always saves it to "Draft." But Gene watches these videos religiously, becoming more and more determined to bring the two of them together, somehow. Vive l’amour!

6. Smiler doesn't persecute Gene for being a multi-faceted misfit, she gleefully attempts to exact justice because Gene now exploits Jailbreak's mad hacker skillz to send cryptic, Cyrano de Bergerac-esque messages to Addie's phone, pretending to be Alex. See, the world can never know that phones have tiny sentient entities inside them, running around having coherent thoughts (ohai, Skynet!), therefore Smiler believes whatever fate she calls down upon Gene is justified, and...y'know...once in awhile, the villain has a point.  Crazy, I know.

7. Some of the rounder emojis have bodies now! I mean...Jailbreak already had a small one, because she's wearing a skirt (that's a skirt, right?), so why not put a little meat on ALL of their bones so they don't look like ping pong balls on sticks? Then Jailbreak can slap a sparkly pink crown sticker on her cargo pants and say, "This is my princess dress."

8. Jokes.  There should be some!  Low-hanging fruit should be kept to a minimum, with no more than three (3) instances of scatological humor throughout the picture.  Sorry, Mr. Poop.

9. And about that Poop emoji.  In my version, he is now a mentor who shows up about an hour in, to reveal to Gene the myriad ways in which humans communicate, and to encourage Jailbreak to forge her own path to princesshood through valiant deeds, all while delivering a powerful message about transcending one’s limits, as he must have done himself to become such a wise oracle despite starting his digital life as a neatly-coiled pile of excrement.  I would gladly have Sir Patrick Stewart voice my headcanon Poop emoji, even knowing that he probably thoroughly enjoyed doing the job he’s already done.  To each his own.  Moving on.

10. Gene’s parents have a little less screen time now, and instead of debating what kind of “Meh” their darling boy will make, they can just do a bit about the red-hot passion of their marriage, but in the same monotone voices.  It’ll work.

11. Instead of old school emoticons being “the elderly,” maybe they’re just a bit older than other residents of Textopolis, and not totally decrepit, shouting “Ow, my colon!” when someone bumps into them. Seriously, old people don’t say that.  You generally cannot feel your colon.  Maybe they walk into the McCafé app and get a free senior’s coffee instead.  That’s plenty.

12. Back to the product placement.  If you’re gonna have your main characters running through apps, the goal is to do something clever with it, which is the opposite of what I gather has already happened.  So, you’re running from some bad robots, and you run into the Facebook app.  Can you rip elements off the phone’s screen and use them as weapons?  Rip off a “Like” button and hold it up as a shield?  Would the “Like” button then disappear as Alex was about to tap it?  Was this possibility even explored?  You remember those animations of the stickman who runs amok all over the UI and does battle with the user by attacking the cursor?  That shit was awesome.  Let’s do some of that.

13.  Instead of trying to get to Dropbox so they can alter their own source code..........? (LOL THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO COMPUTER)  Instead of that, Gene and Jailbreak go to the Cloud so they can infiltrate Addie’s phone and deliver proof of Alex’s ardor “in person.”  If we absolutely must visit Candy Crush, maybe they flip over a bunch of red jellybeans in the shape of a heart, or...something.  Maybe they could meet their Meh and Princess counterparts over there, and maybe they’re hilariously different.  Or something.

14. Once that happens, though, Smiler is going to go into absolute panic mode, and probably send a whole army of robo-meanies to all sorts of different phones trying to track them down.  As the virus of her own making spreads, chasing the virus of her worst fears, she resolves that she will use her bots to wipe every phone within her reach rather than let the secret of living emojis be discovered.  We’re already suspending ten kinds of disbelief to get this far, so expanding Smiler’s powers might not be terribad.

15.  Meanwhile, Gene and Jailbreak, while trolling around inside Addie’s phone, learn that she’s leaving with her family for the whole summer (maybe going to the cottage?  around here folks love going to the cottage, it’s the summer thing to do), and if Alex doesn’t make his move soon, he could lose her.  Oh noes!

16.  Home stretch now.  Gene realizes, after all his efforts, the best way Alex can tell Addie how he feels is with his own words, and fortunately, Gene knows where to find some of them!  With Jailbreak’s help, he transfers a copy of Alex’s unposted vlog to Addie’s phone, where she stumbles across it and plays it.  Now...if this happened in real life, it’d be some pretty serious stalker stuff, but again, we’re suspending fair amounts of disbelief already.  Did the actual movie establish Addie crushing on Alex at all before the end?  Well, whatever.  Maybe if his vlog is sensitive and heartfelt enough, she might not feel too creeped-on.

17. Which brings us to the big action finish.  Working in tandem with someone still back on Alex’s phone (idgaf, pick someone at random.  It can be Hi-5 if you really want.  I guess.), Gene co-ordinates a series of brief messages between the phones to get both Alex and Addie out of their houses and walking around outside.  Jailbreak hacks into the traffic light system (yeah, this is starting to pop up even in small towns now, they can change the length of a green light with two mouse clicks at a price tag of $15,000 per intersection or something) and actually manipulates the traffic in the real world to herd the lovebirds towards each other, all while robo-meanies chase them through Addie’s phone, up through the Cloud, and back to Alex’s phone in a big production that has all the emojis on Addie’s phone banding together to aid the success of their mission, as well as their subsequent escape.

18. Alex and Addie find themselves standing on the same street corner with nothing to do but have a conversation, which they somehow manage.  Addie suggests maybe Alex and his folks can come up to the cottage for a visit.  (I’m sure her parents will love that.  Invite some more strangers while you’re at it, honey!  We’ll have a luau!  But anyway.)  It’s not everlasting love, but it’s a start, and that’s all we’re really looking for here.

19. Back home again, Gene is proud that even a “Meh” like him can help fan the flames of a budding new romance (wait, buds don’t flame....) and learned that human speech is far more powerful at conveying emotion than he was led to believe by his peers.  Jailbreak is proud to be her own definition of a “princess,” having demonstrated courage, valor, and encyclopedic knowledge of several programming languages.  Smiler keeps on smiling, even though she’s seething with twelve kinds of rage, which she won’t be able to act on because...heck, I dunno, maybe the robots didn’t make it out of the Cloud.  RIP robots.

20. No dance party at the end.  Just.......just no.

And that’s how I would fix “The Emoji Movie.”

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The inside scoop on Charmin’s fake poop (and how it helps keep your butt clean)

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The inside scoop on Charmin’s fake poop (and how it helps keep your butt clean)

I’ve always been a big fan of poop, and not just because I get plenty of fiber. As a science journalist, I’ve long felt that stories about stools are some of the most fascinating to tell. Everybody poops, after all, and too many of us go through life without stopping to think of all the wild and crazy research going on to better understand the stuff. So when Proctor & Gamble offered PopSci an exclusive look at Charmin’s Cincinnati-based toilet-paper-testing facilities—including unprecedented access to their proprietary fake poop—I couldn’t say no. This was a poop scoop I just couldn’t pass up. Here are seven things we learned about your favorite flushables along the way.

There are robots devoted to wiping your butt

Okay, not literally. But P&G does have an analytical lab full of super-calibrated instruments for testing paper properties, and an increasing number of them are autonomous robots. I watched one bot spend several minutes retrieving tiny strips of paper and placing them in a device designed to slowly pull them apart, recording the force required to cause a tear. Other machines in the lab measure things like what angle a paper will drape at as it hangs off a roll, how much pressure a finger-sized probe will need to break a sheet while it’s wet versus when it’s dry, and exactly how thick the quilting on a slim piece of TP really is, down to fractions of a millimeter.

It’s a tug of war between softness and strength

Relatable, I know. But just stop for a second and think about the job you ask each sheet of toilet paper to do. It has to hold up really well until it’s been wet for more than a few seconds, and then it’s gotta make itself scarce. Meanwhile, you probably want it to feel reasonably soft on your butt. As the engineers at P&G explained during my visit, you can’t make absorbent paper softer without also making it weaker.

Bath tissue is a product that seems pretty simple to the consumer, and even most picky shoppers don’t do more than squeeze a package or look for eco-friendly messaging on the label. But it takes all of the analytical lab work described above to make a roll that fits the necessary criteria: toilet paper has to feel pretty good on your skin, not rip when you’re using it, and stay together and keep your hands safe from poop even once it gets a little wet. But it also has to break apart relatively quickly once it’s flushed, because no one wants a clogged toilet (or a fatberg). You can’t assume the most expensive product on the shelf is the most luxurious, because it’s still going represent a careful balance of those properties—and it might not skew in favor of the ones you find most important.

Fluffy white paper comes from trees, not recycled paper

It’s also pretty difficult to make soft and strong toilet paper using recycled fibers, which are shorter than virgin paper fibers (that’s why most products marketed as “soft,” including Charmin’s, get D or F ratings on sustainability from the Natural Resources Defense Council). So, while toilet paper’s job might seem easy from your perspective, it actually takes a lot of testing to find the right balance of strong, soft, and sustainable. The truth is that no company has really nailed that triple-threat combo yet, so the work of the TP-testing robots I met in Ohio is far from finished.

As a consumer, I think there’s a pretty important takeaway here: if sustainability is important to you, you’re going to have to do some research before buying your next batch of bath tissue. Where does the paper come from? How much wood goes into a roll? How much water?

You should figure out how soft is soft enough for you and shop accordingly, and you should also pay attention to how much paper you’re using—because if you’re using whole handfuls of rough and thin sheets, you might be better off buying a squishy roll you can train yourself to use more sparingly. Nobody is asking you to wipe your butt with sandpaper (which would be super bad for your sewer system, anyway) but there are options between single-ply and paper so cushy you could use it as a mattress. If you’re putting as much thought into the way you use TP as most people do (which is to say pretty much no thought at all) there are probably easy ways you could tweak your shopping choices and bathroom habits to cut down on the resources you send into the sewer.

People train for six months to evaluate the stuff you flush down your toilet

No, I’m not talking about the scientists and engineers who actually make the stuff you flush down your toilet (most of whom have several advanced degrees). Products like toilet paper have to satisfy consumers in ways you can’t measure with a super-calibrated robotic probe. Your impression of a roll is also influenced by more subjective qualities like softness, smell, plushness, and color.

At P&G, that data comes from a fleet of sensory testers who train for six months to evaluate samples with every sense but taste (which we really hope isn’t something you look for in your toilet paper). The testers, who are mostly students, retirees, and stay-at-home parents looking for interesting part-time work, are kind of a big deal: just around half of them actually qualify to stay on after going through that half-year of testing. Imagine watching six months of your life go down the crapper because you couldn’t learn to rate toilet paper roughness with enough precision.

Those delightfully weird product demos could be weirder

P&G’s Gregg Weaver has a very important—and very silly—job. As the Senior Scientist in Family Care Research & Development, he gets to oversee the invention of product demos for marketing and sales purposes. What’s a toilet paper demo look like? You’ve seen a bunch: just think of any paper product commercial with a side-by-side comparison. Stacking marbles on a stretched-out piece of tissue until it breaks, for example, might seem simple—but someone has to figure out exactly how many marbles a sheet of Charmin can handle, and whether that stack of balls looks impressive sitting next to the pile a competitor’s product can support. There’s a fine line between perfectly designing a little experiment so it provides the intended visual, and making it seem like your product can accomplish things it can’t. Some tests of strength just don’t translate as such to a person watching them on TV, and some of the coolest potential tricks might actually make your paper look bad.

But even when a test is technically effective, it’s not always destined for primetime. Weaver showed me a video clip of his favorite demo, which has only been used internally. He calls it “the balloon butt,” and it is a feat of engineering and a work of high art: with the camera focused on a slightly-deflated balloon smeared with goo, a hand emerges to tug down on the tied-off end. It creates a deep crease—a balloon butt—which the hand proceeds to wipe with toilet paper. Once released, the balloon springs back into shape and reveals whether the tissue managed to give it a deep clean. It’s the closest you can come to showing a butt being wiped on television—or too close, actually, since P&G wouldn’t even hand over the clip for use in this article. I can only imagine the demos they didn’t let me see.

Yes, there’s secret poop in the lab

While commercials may rely on tricks like blue liquids (a color chosen precisely because it doesn’t look like anything your body should be putting in the toilet) and cartoon bears (which, by nature of not being human, can acknowledge that they poop without offending our delicate sensibilities), people designing toilet paper need to know how it performs under fecal pressure. Luckily, NASA has a fake poop called FeClone designed to test astronaut facilities that stands in for real turds as TP flies through the clear pipes of the P&G flush lab, which is exactly what it sounds like—a trio of toilets topped with clocks so researchers can monitor a sheet’s behavior when it hits the bowl, and an in-house sewage system set-up to show off what happens after. The lab keeps a freezer full of FeClone on hand for creating realistic bundles of used tissue. That way, they can follow the journey of the sheets they’re testing from cradle (AKA roll) to grave (AKA pile of poop in your septic tank).

But what if you need your fake feces to do more than just flush like the real thing? What if you also need it to smear like the real thing?

P&G started using FeClone in 1994 (until then the company used mixtures made from dog food), and for a while, it was an all-purpose ersatz effluence. But it didn’t interact with skin the way real poop does—it feels more like sticky clay, as you can see in the video above. So, in 2010, the company started working on an “artificial BM” that has the same surface energy, fluid dynamics, and adhesion to human skin as the real stuff. The result is made of food-grade ingredients and even comes in a trio of textures, from diarrhea to constipation. It’s got everything but the smell. I got to play with some of it, and I can say it’s realistic enough that doing a wipe test (which involves squirting a little turd into a “butt” created by squishing the crook of your knee or elbow shut) in front of strangers felt very gross.

There’s humiliation packed into every single roll

Speaking of gross things in front of strangers, I also got to experience a facsimile of P&G’s 1-on-1 qualitative interviews, where researchers probe potential consumers about their bathroom habits and observe them using the product (in their elbow butts, of course). They do this to take notes on wiping behavior and effectiveness. I was asked to demonstrate how I usually grasp “my implement” (read: wad of toilet paper) and to show my interviewer how I pull it from the roll. There was also a pretty in-depth survey of my general bowel movement routine. Companies like P&G use these interviews to get as much data as possible about the acts of shopping, rolling, wiping, and flushing in the hopes of creating a product that does what consumers want it to do. After all, they can’t exactly follow thousands of people into the bathroom. Extremely awkward chats are the next best thing.

These questions are usually asked in private, where subjects are, presumably, less likely to get so flustered that they totally forget how they wipe their butts—and also where they’re not being filmed by their peers. You can check out a few highlights from my poop quiz in the video at the top of this post. At least I managed to get my elbow butt clean.

Written By Rachel Feltman