#can i please close some tabs if you’re going to throw such a hissy fit about it!!!! let me hit the x button already!!!

[mildmayfoxe]

they should invent a computer that can manage having an unlimited amount of tabs open. AND some other programs running

[shadow-assassin-blix]

Nothin’ Holdin’ Me Back

Santiago “Pope” Garcia x Reader

The last of the Shawn Mendes song fics. Will be working on new set soon. Um. Let’s see. Warnings.... insecurities? I guess. 

Everything tag list: @mikeisthricedeceased​

Oscar Tag: @m-1234 

I wanna follow where she goes

I think about her and she knows it

Santi woke up to an incoming text. He smirked when he saw the name, ‘Daiquiri.’ He opened the text to see it was a message asking him to come over and that she was lonely.

He chuckled at her message. He had been seeing her for a few weeks. He had met her at a bar a while back. All she drank was frozen Daiquiris because that’s the only drink she liked. After several drinks, the both of them had stumbled back to his place. It might not have been the best experience for both of them, but the next several times certainly made up for it.

He got dressed, brushed his teeth, and after making sure he had his keys, wallet, and phone, he was gone. She lived only a couple blocks from him, so he simply walked over to her place. He had a skip in his step, as he went up the stairs to her townhouse. He knocked on the door, waiting with a smirk.

It took her a moment to answer, and she looked frazzled.

“Hi. I’m sorry. We’re… this… My home is throwing a hissy fit, and apparently wanted a pool,” She complained, glancing back toward her kitchen with a groan.

“I’m sorry. I wasted your time,” She apologized with a small sigh, looking down.

Santi sighed softly, lifting her chin back up. “Tell me what happened?”

I wanna let her take control

'Cause everytime that she gets close, yeah

Just like that, their usual get togethers became something more. Soon, he was over to help her fix random stuff. Or he saw these flowers and they reminded him of her.

She wasn’t going to complain. She enjoyed spending more time with him. He always knew how to brighten her day with small, simple gestures. She was beginning to love just seeing him randomly, and not just for sex.

Sometimes he would come over just to talk. He often has nightmares about the incident in Colombia and just wants someone who will listen without judgment. She liked that he would confide in her. It made her feel like he trusted her.

One night, it was about 3am when he called. She had gone to answer it, but he hung up before she could. She stared at her phone, after trying to call him back twice with no success. She laid gnawing on her lip in worry. She decided to just go to him.

She got up threw on some sweats and a cardigan, hopping into her car and driving over to his place. She stepped up to his house and knocked. Waiting. Soon enough he answered the door.

She looked him over, spying the sweat on his face, and how worn out he appeared.

She simply pushed past him, taking his hand into hers, once he closed the door again, and led him back to him his room. She laid down, pulling him with her, and making him lay down. He situated himself, lying on top of her, his head resting on her chest. He sighed once, before holding her to him tightly. She ran her fingers through his hair, lulling him back to sleep.

She says that she's never afraid

Just picture everybody naked

After that night, they hardly left each other’s side. Besides work, they would often have dinner with each other, or would just spend the day together on a weekend. There were some evenings where they would go and hang out with friends, but they always missed one another.

Santi was tempted to introduce her to the guys but wasn’t sure if he was ready for it. His team were his family, and he didn’t want to risk them hating each other for whatever reason. On a deeper level… was he ready for that? Was he ready for her to see him entirely? That level of commitment that he has never shown before?

It scared him a bit. He knew that he really liked her. Hell, he would even go as far say that he loved her. But did he really? He’s never known love before. He’s never been with a girl long enough to get to that point (or ever wanted to get that close).

One night, he came over and wanted to talk some things out. He forgot however, that she had her girlfriends over for a girl’s night in. So, when he knocked on the door, he wasn’t prepared for all the giggles and laughter he heard, as she opened the door.

“Santi? Hi. Why are you here baby?” She asked him with a smile, slight concern in her eyes.

“Oh. Sorry. I forgot tonight was girl’s night. I just wanted to talk about some stuff. It can… wait. I’ll let you get back to... everything,” He tried to backtrack, wincing slightly.

“Um. Before you go… would you… would you like to meet them? They seem to be under the impression that I made you up,” She mock whispered to him.

He chuckled at that, and said, “If it doesn’t bother you or them, sure. Why not?”

A few minutes later he met her three best friends who all made vague threats to castrate and murder him, if he ‘shattered their best friend’s heart.’

He figured if she was okay with him meeting her best friends, it was time for her to meet his.

She really doesn't like to wait

Not really into hesitation

A week later, she was strolling into a bar, looking for Santi and his friends. She spotted them, and quietly analyzed the group that was with him. There were 3 men, and a woman who had a small baby with her. All 3 men were tall, and well built. Two were blue eyed but one was blonde, the other brunette. The third was tan, with dark hair and eyes. He was currently making faces at the baby trying to get her to laugh.

She slowly made her way over to them, even though she felt like she was interrupting them.

Santi turned his head and spotted her, a smile breaking out on his face as he beckoned her over. She shyly walked up to him, kissing him on the cheek. He introduced to her everyone and pulled out her chair when she went to go sit next to him. He called her by her nickname Daiquiri which made her laugh a bit.

She was quiet for most of dinner, mainly because they made her nervous. She was afraid of saying something and them taking it poorly or something. She wanted them to like her; these were the most important people in his life.

Halfway through the guys got up to go play a round of pool, and she was left with Maria, Frankie’s girl, and their baby, Isobel.

“You can relax around them you know?” Maria softly tells her once they were away.

“I… I’m having a hard time doing so” She admitted, feeling slightly defeated.

“I understand. I was the same way when I first met them too. They have like a hive mind, and inside jokes that I still don’t understand. But they are all genuinely nice guys, so breathe. Loosen up,” Maria assured her, shaking her teasingly. “Here. Hold Isobel for a moment, I gotta go to the bathroom.”

Maria hands her the baby, as she stood up and the walked away. She stares at the baby concerned for a moment, gently adjusting her in her arms. She sighed softly, looking down at her. Isobel giggled at her, as she grabbed a lock of her hair.

“Oh? You like my hair? Please don’t tug on it, princess. I know. It’s very tempting, but ow,” She winced slightly as Isobel gave it a sharp tugged.

She gently untangled her hair from the teeny tiny fist with baby hulk strength. Once her hair was free, she simply just started talking to her. Isobel watched her with an odd look of awe as she spoke, and soon fell asleep in her arms. She didn’t know quite what to do, so she just stayed there, somewhat rocking her.

When Maria returned, she was pleasantly surprised to see that Isobel was asleep, and helped Daiquiri lay her gently into her baby carrier.

She looked up to see what the guys were doing and wished she hadn’t immediately. A pretty young girl, was standing next to Santi, heavily flirting with him, and he… from the looks of it… wasn’t ignoring her advances. In fact, he looked a lot like the night they first met: leaning to the side, a hand in his pocket, and a smirk on his face.

She bit her lip. She wasn’t quite sure what to do. They never really said they were exclusive. Never really spoke about what they were to one another. She looked down, not wanting to watch anymore. She just quietly pulled out some cash, to pay for her meal and tip, before quickly leaving. If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed that the girl who was over with Santi, had walked away from him, frowning.

Pulls me in enough to keep me guessing, whoa

And maybe I should stop and start confessing

Santi hadn’t realized what had happened. All he knew was after he and Frankie won their game, he looked over to where Daiquiri had been and sees she was no longer there.

Maria, however, was and she was frowning deeply at him. He made his way over to her, and asked, “Where did she go?”

“Probably home. Since you seemed to have a grand ol’ time with malibu barbie over there,” Maria informed him with slight disgust.

“Malib- what are you talking about? I told her she was too young for me, and that I had a girlfriend?” He defended.

“That’s not how it looked from here,” Maria tells him with a sigh.

“Shit. What do I do? I… I’m in love with this girl Maria,” He begged her, stressing, running a hand through his hair worriedly.

“Go. After. Her.” Maria explained slowly.

Santi nodded, quickly paying for his tab and rushing out. He was freaking out on the drive to her place. He didn’t know what to say or do to make this right. He just knew that what she saw wasn’t what it seemed.

He quickly parked in front of her house, and rushed up to the door, knocking.

He heard a slight shuffling, before the door opened slightly.

“What Santi?” She asked, her voice cracking, as she stood there, not even opening the door wide enough for him to see her.

“Can we… can we please talk? I swear. I wasn’t flirting with that girl. I was telling her I had a girl,” Santi desperately tried to plead.

She snorted lightly, not quite believing him.

“You don’t have to explain. It’s not like we…” Her voice faltered for a moment. “It’s not like we said we were exclusive. So. Technically you’re perfectly allowed to do whatever you want.”

“Baby… that’s not… that’s.. I..” He didn’t know what to say to that.

“Look. I’m tired. Um. I just want to go to bed right now. We can… talk later… or something,” She told him as she closed the door.

Confessing, yeah

'Cause if we lost our minds and we took it way too far

I know we'd be alright, I know we would be alright

A talk… that she kept avoiding. She wanted to talk to him, but then her mind would think up all the reasons why she shouldn’t bother.

‘You weren’t exclusive.’

‘This was just a friends with benefits thing.’

‘You didn’t mean anything to him.’

‘He’s known for not settling down with one chick.’

‘Why would he settle down with you?’

The last thought, in particular, was the main reason why she’s been avoiding him. She knew the moment she met him that he wasn’t the type for commitment. But for a while there, she let herself hope. She really thought that maybe he had changed.

So, she avoided his calls and texts. She avoided his knocks on her door at all hours. Some of her friends wanted to go and beat him up for hurting her. She told him to let it go, that she was the idiot who fell in love with him.

Her best friend, however, had a different thought. One night, she came over to talk.

“Okay. Imma say something. I want you to listen to me for a moment. If you truly meant nothing to him, why is he blowing up your phone left and right? Why is he trying to talk to you constantly to explain?” Amanda, her friend, questioned.

She didn’t know what to say to that.

“Go. Talk. To. Him. Let him explain fully what happened. If nothing did, then fucking move on. You are miserable, so go. To. Him,” Amanda stated firmly, pulling her to the door. “I’m locking you out of your own house, bye.”

Amanda shoved her out, and she heard the lock turn.

“I hate you!” She shouted at her through the door.

“Love you too. Go fix things with your man!” Amanda called back.

She made the awkward stroll over to Santi’s place, shivering because it was chilly out and she had no jacket.

When she stood in front of his door, she bit her lip, fidgeting with her hands.

She slowly reached up and knocked.

If you were by my side and we stumbled in the dark

I know we'd be alright, I know we would be alright

Santi… was not doing okay. He hadn’t realized it, but she had become his anchor. She grounded him when the days or nights got rough. It had only been a few days, but he was struggling. He was having a hard time sleeping.

His head jerked up when he heard the knocking. Thinking it was one of the guys, he sighed loudly, getting up from the couch and answering it.

He was surprised when he sees her there instead.

“Hi,” She whispered.

He looked her over, noticing her eyes were puffy from crying and she was slightly shivering.

“Did… did you walk over here? Honey. It’s 34 degrees out! Get inside,” He stated, pulling her in, rubbing her arms with his hands.

“Amanda. L-locked me out. T-told me to come t-talk to you finally,” She slightly stuttered out, as she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to warm up.

“Did Amanda think to check the current temperature before doing this? C’mon. C’mere.” He beckoned leading her to the couch where he threw one of the several blankets she brought over on various dates, around her shoulders.

He went into his kitchen and quickly made her a cup of hot chocolate, bringing it over to her gently. She took it from him, the warmth of the mug, immediately taking the chill from her hands. He sat next to her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close.

It took some time, but soon enough her shivering had subsided.

“I wasn’t flirting with that chick. I swear. I almost lost that game of pool, because I kept watching you. Seeing you hold Isobel… drove me crazy. I never thought about that kind of stuff before…” He quietly explained to her.

“I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions, I should have… let you explain. I… I just… figured… you were bored of me or something…” She mumbled back, sniffling slightly.

“Nah. I… I’m crazy for you baby. I can’t imagine being with anyone else. I… I love you,” He whispered pressing a kiss to her head.

I know we'd be alright, we would be alright

Oh, I've been shaking

She felt her breath catch as he confessed that. She could feel her lip tremble and tears well up in her eyes. She wasn’t expecting that.

“You don’t have to say it back just yet. I just want you to know… you’re it for me. I don’t want anyone else. No one else can compare to you,” He said sweetly.

She bit her lip and nodding her head slightly. She slowly finished her drink and Santi set the empty cup into the sink, rinsing it out. She got up and walked over to him. She stood behind him, and slowly wrapped her arms around him, resting her face against his back.

She raised herself to her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to the small scar at his neck. She felt him shiver slightly at the sensation. He slowly turned around to her, his arms going around her waist.

“Umm. Would… would you like to stay the night?” He asked her hesitantly.

She nodded her head. She bit her lip for a moment, before going back onto her tiptoes and pressing a kiss to his lips.

He kissed her back, his hands moving down to her thighs.

“Jump,” He muttered against her lips.

She does so, and he catches her, walking the two of them up to his bedroom.

I love it when you go crazy

You take all my inhibitions

It took some time, but the two of them got back to normal routine. They had a long conversation together, which ended in him officially stating that he was hers, and she was his.

Santi realized from that conversation that meeting all of the guys, was a little intimidating. So, he tried again, but one at a time. Frankie and her immediately hit it off, especially when Isobel recognized her and got very excited.

Will was a bit more cautious but soon they were having conversation about dominos and fidget spinners and weird traps. They are now planning a whole elaborate chain reaction of dominoes.

Benny was overactive and excitable, but she got used to it fairly quickly. He was a bit like a overgrown puppy in her words.

Soon enough, they were going out with the whole group. One night, they had gone out with the whole gang and were playing a game of darts. The guys for all their military know-how, were awful. She kept laughing at all of them when they would try to go for the bullseye and failed.

Santi dared her, “You try then.”

She took the darts from him and tossed all three into the bullseye with ease.

Santi stared at her in awe, “How?”

“A lady never reveals her secrets,” She teased moving away from him.

He chased after her, grabbing her and tickling her. Her laughter was high pitched and infectious.

When she finally got over her giggles, she said something that he wasn’t expecting.

“I love you,” She said breathless.

Santi couldn’t stop smiling all night. He wasn’t sure what the future held in store for him, but he knew one thing: he had the love of his life by his side.

Baby, there's nothing holdin' me back

You take me places that tear up my reputation

Manipulate my decisions

Baby, there's nothing holdin' me back (oh whoa)

[nerdwiththehat]

UI

Is an ART. A PRACTICE. A JOB. Stop fucking about with it! I’m serious!

This past month has been this un-ending parade of UI changes that have barely any basis in reality, clear thinking, or any reason for the changes besides “We need to change it”. I’ve throw hissy fits before about Google ignoring Material standards, but this is taking the fucking piss these days. I swear.

YouTube

It’s been a shit month for YouTube’s app - There’s been three major redesigns on Android, two on iOS, not to mention a month-long beta of the the new (and far superior!) desktop Material layout. Yet, Google still can’t seem to decide on what the layout’s supposed to be! Before, the Material top tabs, while not the greatest (in comparison to the old, ultimate superior navigation drawer), were functional. In Material, swiping between panes of the app is a standard behaviour, and highly important for large phone accessibility. Now, it’s a mess of the bottom nav bar, this disaster of a thing there used to literally be warning against using, in the Material standards! It’s supposed to only be for iOS! The software navigation buttons are, on almost all Android phones, right fucking there! Now, it seems, Google has thrown the standard system to the wayside, but, as usual, they’ve got two competing standards, top-level tabs, and these awful bottom nav buttons.

This is the closest we ever got to unified design between the mobile and desktop variations of youtube. It’s not visible here, but the nav drawer here hid your subscriptions under an accordion, plus the sub, trending and home options. This wasn’t my favourite? It should have killed the short-lived “music” top tab, and put Home/Trending/Subs on the top tabs, but that happened next:

This one was so much better! It didn’t include the top Nav drawer, but it was almost acceptable! There was another incremental update moving the trending tab into the mix, giving us 4 tabs. This was responsive across tablet and mobile views, and swiping between the panes worked as expected! This was acceptable, but not my favourite. The use was great. Then, Google rolled a software toggle that affected UI (because no update actually flipped this switch) - 

This one sucks! It’s terrible! The tab bar doesn’t fit within the constraints that Google set in the awful bottom bar guidelines, snackbars don’t obey its positioning, and it’s missing the swipe behaviour of the tabs before, making accessibility here literally the worst removal of any YouTube update I’ve ever seen! Stop getting rid of first-order retrieval features that were in the app before, and hiding things behind more prompts. What took either one tap or one swipe now takes a thumb movement from top to bottom, and two taps. Why does Google seem to think that killing this line of first-order retrieval will make their app better to use!? Because it doesn’t!

Play Newsstand, Play Books, Play...

Newsstand had the same exact problem - with a working style of swiping between panes, Google had a good retrieval system when it came to categories of news, obeying the rule of how tabs scrolled when there were more then three or four of them, and they were responsive across mobile, tablet, desktop... hell, even the few Android computers, like that god-awful HP ultrabook from a few years ago could run newsstand while still looking good. Then, Google decided to take the same hammer and axe to the tabs, nuking them from the nav drawer and the top tabs, instead relegating just the account switcher and settings button, which was already mirrored by the ellipsis menu in the top right!!! Why the hell would they do that?! They’ve now done it to Play Books and Play Movies, while it seems Play Music has been mercifully left alone, retaining the smart top tabs, sliding nav drawer for parent navigation, and the behaviour of the now playing pane. This is smart! Keep it like that!

Stop fucking with the FAB - Facebook Vs. Tumblr

The Floating Action Button, or FAB, is a super important piece of Material - it’s the jump point for most content inception, especially in social apps, and organisation apps. Here’s Tumblr’s FAB, a shining example of Good Material Design!!!

(I love Tumblr’s designers. Big gold star for Tumblr’s designers. And not a “you tried” star, a legit star, that comes with like, a $25 Starbucks giftcard or something)

Take note of a few things: Tumblr doesn’t have a top-page compose pane, like some other social apps, or even like Tumblr’s desktop view. The FAB only appears on the first opening of the app, or when the timeline is scrolled up, like someone going up to the top of the timeline - the rest of the time, it hides, correctly easing offscreen to the bottom, to get it out of the way of possible accidental user touches. It’s draggable, which is nothing but entertaining, but the tap transitions perfectly into the post options array, which collapses perfectly, too. Excellent! The transition of the pencil into the X is great too, like the hamburger to arrow transition we’re used to with all the old Google Material apps. It’s obeying first-order retrieval here too - it’s the least number of actions out of all the ways to compose a post... actually, it’s the only way to compose a post. Neat.

Facebook, on the other hand, has absolutely no idea how to use the FAB, as evidenced by this weekend’s update (ugH!)

This update not only added the ugly icon wireframes (this is mostly a personal anger - don’t update your icons from flat to bezeled wireframes! This isn’t 2012! Skeuomorphism is long dead!), but the post FAB. The post FAB in this update is possibly the single worst implementation of the FAB I’ve ever witnessed. First - the FAB has no hiding/easing/dragging behaviour at all. Any time you’re on the home timeline, the FAB is there. This is awful, I’ve had accidental interactions with it now like 30 times. Life is suffering. Next, this is in total violation of first-order retrieval. There’s STILL post options at the top of the page, with more options available at one tap than three on the FAB!!! (Tap FAB, tap post options, tap post type. Fuck!) Finally, it’s, in a first for Facebook, using a Google Material icon, instead of a Facebook post icon. This is literally the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen the Facebook app do. Facebook, for the entire time it’s been on Android, has thrown the double middle fingers up to anything from the Google asset library. Now, when they want to fuck up, they’re using a Google icon. Whyyyyyyyyyyyy.

I’ve spent the last 4-5 years working on unified, simple, flat, responsive, user-customisable for first-order retrieval design. Towel is my Magnum Opus when it comes to dead-simple design. If you have to spend more than a few seconds hunting for any top-level operations, you’ve done your job wrong. This is why Towel uses a launcher, large recognisable icons, short, auto-filling commands, an expose-like switcher, and floating app options and interactions. If your idea of the design on the desktop isn’t to your fancy, you can change it, within limits of making your life harder. You can change up a million different parts of the interface in terms of colour, size, flat/curve/edged/shadows/depth... the list is huge. But it’ll not let you get in your own way. App shortcuts won’t let you nest them behind folders or app interactions - it’ll keep it simple, stupid

In closing - stop breaking fast retrieval because you think you need to “update” the look of something. Skeuomorphics died because they got outdated fast. Frill-less design never goes out of style. Stop fucking with the action that people are used to doing for 90% of the operations they do in normal use cases. If it ain’t broke - Please don’t fucking try and fix it.