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#that's the most ingenious caption i could come up with
secnghwa · 1 year
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writers-hes · 4 years
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A blurb about cute jealous!Harry
i dont have a nice title for it....
Read more of my works here.  Read If You Love Me, Come Clean here.  Be a part of my taglist.  Read Only Yesterday here.  
thank u so much for waiting for me !
Harry didn’t know what he was getting into. Only that and the fact that he didn’t know why he was so god damn invested at the Ellen Show with Tom Holland sitting at the couch across. Tom and you recently had a movie together and Harry loved it—loved your performance when he attended the special screening. You were his girlfriend after all. The public didn’t know it yet but everybody in Hollywood knew the nights you spent together and the kisses you shared in secret parties. So, it was no surprise when You arrived at the private screening of your movie with Harry’s hand on the small of your back. Unfortunately, Tom stole you from him to do PR business. It was quite funny how you met, though. He was invited in another premiere of the movie and was praising you for your performance. He liked you to the point that he even had his assistant contact your assistant so you could star in his upcoming music video, Watermelon Sugar. You agreed, excited because you were a fan of Harry and One Direction in your teenhood. Harry was elated when he received your message and as of the moment, while he watches Tom Holland relive your shooting days with him, he couldn’t help but feel quite jealous. 
“Y/N is such a nice girl! Very down to earth and one time, she even brought this coffee kiosk for everyone because of the early call time,” Tom gushed. “Safe to say that I had to up my game because of that day,” he chuckled. 
Harry rolled his eyes. Of course you were nice! Everybody knew your partnerships with different charities and foundations. Not only that but word on Twitter quickly spreads out. He doesn’t know why he’s annoyed at Tom Holland, he was so nice during the movie screening. 
“You know, stare a bit more and you’ll definitely kill Spiderman with your mind,” Mitch said, sitting beside Harry. The singer just chewed on his gum a little more harshly when Ellen proposed a game of Who’d You Rather. Harry almost fell into her trap once but he declined, saying that it would most probably cause havoc. Ellen agreed. 
“Okay, Tom. You know how the game works, right?” Ellen asked. 
“Yes,” he replied. Soon, a photo of you and another actress that Harry could care less about was flashed on the LED screen. 
“Y/N,” Tom said without hesitation. The crowd cheers. You were currently the most talked about ‘ships’. Soon, your picture was matched with other girls—singers, models, and actors and Tom still chose you. Harry was furrowing his brows now. What the fuck? Mitch, on the other hand, was watching with amusement. He’s never seen Harry like this. 
“Why Y/N?” Ellen pried. Tom only blushes and Harry knows that wasn’t a fake one. Nobody can fake a blush! 
“Y/N’s a great girl,” Tom said. “Perfect, actually,” he gushed. Harry doesn’t know why but he suddenly spit his gum on the floor and Mitch topples in laughter. Harry was full-on choking now and it took him awhile to recover. He picked the gum up with scrap paper and threw it in the trash, walking out to mute Tom Holland’s pathetic way to profess his crush on you. 
Mitch, who was doubling in laughter decided to inform the group text about it and Harry shouts, “Fuck off!” to him, which made Mitch laugh harder, if that was even possible. Harry was full-on pissed now—especially at that Tom Holland prick. Everyone at the group text was making fun of him now and he wanted nothing more than to lock himself in his Malibu home until he no longer had to see Tom Holland’s face anymore. He decided to stall time by visiting your Instagram page and Harry nearly throws the phone on the floor. 
The first photo that popped on his screen was you and Tom having a laugh during the red carpet of the screening. You captioned it with, “great times with Tommy” and although it was posted two days ago, Harry wanted nothing more than to scoff. Fucking Tommy and his nickname. Harry decided to keep himself busy and just ignore all your posts with Tom Holland, until he saw a video of you doing one of those 73 Questions videos. It was shot at your New York penthouse just before Harry arrived to get his cuddles.
The video started with a few basic questions about you and your whereabouts. The interviewer was asking fun stuff like your favourite perfume, your favourite song, favourite album, and then soon asked more personal stuff at the nearing end about your advocacies. 
“So, Y/N, what is your life motto?” the interviewer asked. You hummed. 
“Well, it’s not mine per se but it really encompasses what should be done in different spheres,” you started. “I really try to do it all the time. It’s actually ‘treat people with kindness’ or ‘TPWK’ by Harry Styles. I just think it’s so ingenious,” you confessed. That was enough for Harry to get through the video, hoping to hear his name again. It was weird how he liked hearing his name from your mouth to the whole world. Still, he watched you talk about your humanitarian projects and he liked how politically-inclined you were. 
With pride, he sent the link of your video to the group text with the time stamp. “You can all shut the fuck up now.” He texted. The group immediately sent teasing emojis and Harry only scoffed before tweeting “Great times.”
Fans immediately figured that the tweet was connected to you somehow, even going as far as to posting photos of you and Harry sharing a laugh during the premiere. There were already rumours of you and him dating—being seen during the day sometimes or sometimes, it was you posting a cryptic photo on Instagram. Harry ignored the speculations and just took a nap. You’ll be here soon anyway.
You arrived at his house and Mitch greets you, hugging you and kissing your cheek before telling you that Harry was in his bedroom, throwing a fit. 
“Harry?” you knocked. Harry was sitting on his bed, his back leading on the bed frame. His arms were crossed and his form was in a pout. 
“Hmp,” he snubbed. You smiled. 
“Come on, what’s happening?” you asked him, going over to him and sitting beside his legs. 
“Tom said that you were ‘quite perfect’”, he mocked Tom’s accent. “In front of my face!” 
“When?” you asked, chuckling at how cute he was acting.
“In the T.V.!” he whined. “Ellen made him do the Who’d You Rather game and he chose you over everyone,” he complained. 
“Come on, honey,” you chuckled. “You know it’s all for PR and Tom’s my friend!” 
“I know but Tom gets to be proud of you in public and I can’t,” he sighed. “Wanna take you everywhere with me,” 
“You can if you want to,” you told him. His eyes brightened up. 
“Really?” he asked. 
“Yeah,” you shrugged. “I talked about it to my managers and they said that we’re old enough to decide on our own,” 
“So I can post photos of us now and I can take you to stuff and we can go out together and be cuddly?” he asked, like a baby. 
“Yeah,” 
“Suck on that, Holland!” your boyfriend cheered. 
“He wasn’t competition, Harry!” you scolded. “I love you,” 
“I love you, too,” he smiled before opening his arms so you could be in his embrace.
----
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deejadabbles · 3 years
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More YGO DWTS crossover headcanons!
@readerinsertfanfiction our main post was getting so long so I figured I’d spare our followers the frustration of scrolling trough it yet again XD
The producers who ship it till the day they die also know how to work the crowd when it comes to Anzu and Yugi’s teasing, non-confirming remarks about their possible crushes on each other. The producers pull up pics from their high school years, one where Yugi’s blushing as Anzu puts her arms around him, or ones where Anzu seems to be looking more towards a certain cute friend more than anyone else in the pic or even the camera itself. Fans love and hate it especially since the two are experts at “Oh yeah, I remember thinking how nice her hugs are while taking that! Anzu gives the best hugs :D” and “Well I mean, do you see Yugi’s adorable smile in that pic? How could I not look at him ^.^”
Also the judges commission a tank top for Atem with “The original YuZu shipper” written on it so he can wear it during practice session. It’s now his fave shirt and is unashamed when photobombing Yugi n Anzu’s Instagram posts while wearing it.
But what other couple are they going to tease the crowd with? Imagine them deciding the song for Atem and Reader’s final dance and it’s something like Do I Wanna Know by The Arctic Monkeys or maybe something more sweet and romantic and just flat out says “Yes they’re in love!” like Roses and Violets or Sleeping At Last’s cover of I’m Gonna Be 
Also lets not forget Jou and Honda, who were the first ones to post “OMG did they just kiss??” during their live tweets of the finals. They also roast Kaiba during the whole thing “Lmao his partner isn’t even smiling in any of the backstage shots, feel bad for the poor girl” and “You call that a tango Kaiba??? Seen more passion in a plank of wood bro”
After the finals, at first, even Atem and Reader themselves aren’t truly sure where they stand, there’s definitely too much between them now to deny anything in private, but who really needs to talk about it? So what if they spend the entire wrap party within arms reach of each other (and some of that time actually in each other’s arms)? Who cares if they decide to go out to dinner the next night to celebrate their spot in the finals in private? And all those shy smiles and lingering glances and casual touches?? They speak for themselves, no one really needs any labels, and as the weeks post-finals go on they know what’s between them without a doubt, and with out words.
And dear gosh all the posts during the ensuing holidays! If Christmas wasn’t bad enough (people are still meme-ing the shot of Jou and Honda post-accidental mistletoe kiss) news years is even worse because reader is once again showing up in the gangs photos of the party, and when midnight hits Atem posts a pic of him hugging reader, lips pressed to her forehead #happynewyear #newyearskiss #bestpartnerever ATEM DO YOU MEAN PARTNER AS IN DANCE PARTNER OR?????
And Valentines day! Oh, oh v-day. Reader makes some posts of melted chocolate with the caption “making special chocolates for that special someone <3″ but then she posts reactions of her passing them out to her bff, and literally everyone in the gang not just Atem. ExCuSE YOU GIRL we saw the singular wording of your post, we know you passing them out to others is just a ruse!! Right...right?!!
The most ingenious thing to continue this will-they won’t-they though? The DWTS team deciding to host a “champions” season where the fan favorite finalists from previous seasons come back to compete again! Guess which couples are at the top of the list *wink wonk*
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mikauzoran · 3 years
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Adrienette: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: Kiss Twenty-Six
Read it on AO3: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: ...lazily.
“I have an idea,” Marinette announced as they sat at the kitchen table staring down at the chessboard between them.
“I should hope so;” Adrien snickered, “otherwise, I’m going to checkmate you in two moves.”
“No.” She looked up. “I meant…about your father.”
Adrien quirked an eyebrow, puzzled. “Ohime-sama, I’m afraid you’re going to have to be a bit more specific. Are we talking about how my father is controlling or how he’s too busy to be bothered with me or the fact that he doesn’t want us to go public about our relationship or that he’s too hung up on my mom still to admit that he has feelings for Nathalie or—”
“—About his opposition to us publicly dating,” she cut him off before he could really get started. “I can see his points about people accusing me of gold-digging and trying to get an advantage in the fashion industry, and I know that he’s right that it will be a lot of unwanted attention for me and I’ll probably get hate mail from your fans and people will invade my privacy and all that, but…I also know how important it is to you for us to be official so we can attend events as a couple and go on over-the-top romantic dates and get some of your rabid admirers to simmer down.”
“So what are you thinking?” he prompted, head tipping to the side in curiosity.
Her mouth stretched into an impish smirk. “We force his hand.”
He went owl-eyed at the thought of getting Gabriel Agreste to do anything he didn’t want to do. “Oh? And how are we going to accomplish that?”
“We get the media to declare us a couple. It’s not our fault if people see us out together and make assumptions,” she reasoned innocently.
A wide grin spread across Adrien’s lips. “Like that time we went to see my mom’s movie together.”
“Only not in my pyjamas this time,” Marinette groaned, remembering the months of humiliation she’d suffered through as a young teen.
“Your pyjamas were adorable,” he assured. “I saved those pictures of us, you know.”
She lost her train of thought as she gaped at him. “You did?”
“Mmhm.” He nodded with an embarrassed smile, cheeks warming. “I mean, it was really a big deal that you ditched your plans with the girls to help me get to the theatre to see the movie. It meant a lot to me, and I enjoyed running around Paris with you. That day was full of good memories, so I wanted a souvenir…. And…I mean…as previously discussed, I think I’ve always been a little bit in love with you, even if I didn’t know it, so…”
He looked up and shrugged, the picture of cherubic wholesomeness.
“You are the most precious,” Marinette cooed, leaning forward to kiss him and knocking over the chess pieces in the process.
When they pulled back, they looked down at the carnage of pawns, rooks, knights, and bishops.
“Well, I mean…you were going to checkmate me in two moves anyway,” Marinette reasoned. “Let’s just say that you won.”
Adrien pursed his lips, deliberating for a moment before deciding, “That’s fair. So what’s your grand plan to get the media to declare us dating?”
“Well…” Marinette quickly set the chess pieces back up in their starting positions and got out her phone. “Take a selfie with me.”
“O…kay.” He shrugged and did what she asked, smiling brightly and wrapping an arm around her, head tipping in towards hers, even though he wasn’t sure what this had to do with the plan.
Marinette quickly uploaded the picture to her Instagram and added the caption, “Hanging out with my good friend @adrienagrestebrand”.
She turned to him and smiled toothily. “We play innocent, but if enough pictures of us in couple-like situations start circulating online, people will talk. If enough people talk, it will eventually become something your father will have to publicly address. Maybe he’ll go on the record as saying that we’re not a couple, but if pictures of us acting like a couple keep popping up, no one will believe him, and we win.”
Adrien’s eyes went as wide as his smile as he shook his head and beamed at his ingenious girlfriend. “You are the most clever, amazing person ever. This is wonderful, Marinette!”
“I’m glad you approve,” she chuckled, looking pleased with herself. “I know it’s been bothering you this past month, us still being a secret and not able to publicly date, so…I’ve been trying to come up with a solution.”
He took her hands in his and gave them a squeeze, staring into her eyes with pure adoration. “Ohime-sama, you are the best. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
A hint of concern came into his gaze, turning his exhilarated expression into a worried frown. “…Are you sure you want to do this, though?” he inquired tentatively, not wanting to dissuade her but knowing that he had to be honest. “My father does have a point about people who are going to invade your privacy and send you death threats and call you an opportunist gold digger. Life in the public eye kind of sucks, and I don’t want you diving into this for my sake thinking that it’s going to be okay because it’s not, Marinette. Dating me and dealing with all of that is going to be awful and scary and—”
“—It’s not dating you that’s going to be bad,” she quickly corrected. “Dealing with your fans and the media is what’s going to be awful. Dating you is a dream come true, Adrien, and definitely worth whatever I have to put up with.”
“Oh,” he breathed, stunned by the certainty of her response.
“I’m sure about this,” she insisted with a dazzling smile. “You are one of the few things in my life I’ve always been sure about.”
“Oh,” he repeated, his face hurting he was smiling so hard.
She leaned in to give his cheek a kiss. “I’m going to work with our friends to make this happen. We’ll hit it really hard throughout the week, and, then, next Saturday we’ll strike the finishing blow. You’re free for the day until your interview with Nadja in the evening, right?”
He blinked at her curiously. “Yeah. Why?”
 The following day, Marinette kidnapped Adrien to take Jagged Stone’s crocodile Fang out for a walk around the Square de la Tour Saint-Jacques. They took photos cuddling Fang on one of the blue benches with the tower in the background and Fang licking their faces and them laughing together and posted them on their Instagrams with tags talking about how fun it was spending time with such a good friend.
Jagged took some pictures and posted them on social media too, and the general public got plenty of shots of Adrien Agreste and a girl who looked somewhat familiar even if they couldn’t place her walking a famous crocodile.
Monday, Alya just so happened to take some pictures of Chat Noir for the Ladyblog that captured Marinette and Adrien having a picnic in the Place des Vosges in the background.
That same day, Adrien’s Instagram featured photos of the macarons from the picnic and a shoutout to Tom and Sabine’s.
Tuesday, Marinette and Adrien posted photos of their Chemistry study session along with captions about how learning was more fun with a friend.
Wednesday, Chloé posted photos of her newest Queen Bee-inspired manicure with the Pont des Arts as the background.
Clearly, between Chloé’s thumb and index finger, Adrien and Marinette could be seen standing at the railing of the bridge, laughing and smiling at something one or the other had said.
Thursday, Kitty Section updated their website to include new pictures in their photo gallery. One didn’t have to look all that closely to spot Marinette and Adrien in the background.
He had his arms around her as they stood at the keyboard and he positioned her hands to show her how to play the instrument.
Jagged Stone and Clara Rossignol included links to the Kitty Section site in Twitter posts.
Friday, an anonymous source sent a picture of Adrien and Marinette sitting on the school steps, holding hands to the president of Adrien’s fanclub, and “#Who is Adrien’s New Girlfriend?!” started trending.
 On Saturday, Adrien met Marinette at the Trocadero for the grand finale.
“So, what’s the plan, Boss?” he greeted as she came trotting up to him.
“I’m finally going to take you on that ridiculously romantic date you’ve always wanted,” she informed as she touched her cheek to his for the usual air kisses to either side of his face.
“You’re going to what now?” He stared at her in amazement, afraid to believe that the day had actually come.
Just then, a pedicab pulled up to the curb, and Marinette smirked. “Our ride’s here.”
Adrien’s jaw dropped. “We’re going on a romantic rickshaw bicycle ride?”
She laughed fondly at the excitement on his face and nodded. “Yep. Come take a selfie and post it on your Instagram with a caption about how you’re spending the day with one of your best friends and you’re so glad that we’re friends and all that.”
Adrien happily acquiesced.
Their pedicab took them down along the Seine and past the Grand Palais, Petit Palais, Place de la Concorde, Tuileries, and the Louvre on their way to the Pont des Arts.
Adrien took a few more shots for his Instagram en route, including several with his arm around Marinette’s shoulders, their faces close together to fit in the frame.
“You know,” Marinette chuckled as she snuggled up to Adrien, “I’ve had this romantic bike ride scenario planned out for years now.”
“What?” he laughed incredulously. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” She gave his arm a light smack. “I seriously have. Remember my ridiculous crush on you?”
“I still can’t believe you liked me,” Adrien snickered, shaking his head in awe. “I could have had you this whole time if I weren’t such an oblivious dimwit.”
“Be nice,” Marinette scolded.
“No,” Adrien pouted. “I’m seriously angry at myself. If I had gotten a clue back then, I could have had the most awesome girlfriend on the face of the planet. Instead, I spent my youth feeling like an unlovable screwup. I will never forgive myself,” he snorted, only half joking.
Marinette leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to his jaw. “You’re very lovable and definitely not a screwup,” she whispered, hoping their cyclist-driver was concentrating on the road and the music playing through his earbuds rather than their conversation.
“Tell me about this romantic bicycle ride scheme fourteen-year-old Marinette came up with,” Adrien entreated. “That will cheer me up and make me forget what a loser I am. I love fourteen-year-old Marinette’s schemes. They’re brilliant. Marino is my favourite so far.”
Marinette cringed. “Fourteen-year-old Marinette’s schemes were horrendous, shameful failures…but if it’ll make you feel better… The plan was for Alya, Rose, Juleka, Mylène, and Alix to help me make it so that your bodyguard couldn’t park where he was supposed to pick you up after a photoshoot.”
Adrien arched an eyebrow and gave her a devious smile. “And then you were going to lie in wait for me to sweep me off my feet with a romantic rickshaw bicycle ride?”
Marinette nodded, shrugging hopelessly. “We were going to ride to the Pont des Arts to get soulmate ice cream from André, and Alix was going to throw rose petals to create the right atmosphere.”
“I would have loved that,” Adrien whispered, touched that she had put so much thought and effort into a surprise for him.
Marinette shook her head. “You would have had fun, but you wouldn’t have appreciated it as much as you do now. You didn’t see me in a romantic light back then, so it just would have been a memorable outing with a friend.”
Adrien reached down and slipped his hand into hers. “You have no idea how special all those times spent hanging out with you were to me. I grew up bored and lonely, so your friendship really was—is—a precious gift. Things don’t have to be seen in a romantic light to be meaningful…and it would have really meant a lot to take a bike ride and get ice cream with you.”
“Oh,” she breathed softly, admiring the soft glow he seemed to emit. She nodded, feeling like she understood better now.
“So what happened with the scheme?” He pulled her attention back to the present. “Why didn’t I get my romantic rickshaw ride and André’s ice cream?”
Marinette sighed. “Oh. I don’t know. Maybe the plan was a little too overly complicated. There was some miscommunication. Things didn’t play out the way I’d planned. There was an akuma attack. You know. The usual.”
Adrien winced. “Ouch. I’m sorry. That really sucks, especially when you put so much effort into planning everything.”
“Oh, it gets worse,” Marinette groaned. “I ran into you after the akuma attack, and you offered to give me a ride…and I told you no because I was going to get couscous.”
He stared at her openmouthed. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” she grumbled bitterly.
He tried not to laugh but ultimately failed. “I don’t remember this at all.”
“Thank God for small mercies,” she mumbled. “I hated myself for days after that.”
“You really couldn’t talk to me at all, could you?” he snickered, wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes.
“Nope,” she sighed. “Mere proximity to you made my verbal eloquence plummet. It’s a wonder you didn’t think I was some insane weirdo from all the stuff I said to you.”
He shrugged, pulling her in closer and nuzzling her hair. “I thought I made you nervous because you respected my father’s work. Sure, you seemed a little quirky, but I didn’t really know how people were supposed to behave because I hadn’t been around people my age before. I saw you act normal around other people, so I knew it was a problem with me or something. The Marinette I saw interacting with other people was really cool and selfless and brave. I admired you and wanted us to be better friends.”
Marinette blew out a long breath, shaking her head. “Oh, my sweet, sweet bean. You’re too precious. Too pure for this earth…. Thank you for being you.”
“Right back at you.” He gave her an affectionate squeeze.
 The pedicab stopped and let them off at the Pont des Arts so that they could get André’s sweetheart ice cream and take a selfie with it and the love locks secured to the bridge railing and light posts.
Adrien captioned the photo, “There’s nothing better than sharing ice cream with a friend”.
Marinette giggle-snorted. “Yep. Nothing romantic going on here. Just platonic friends who happen to enjoy sharing ice cream intended for couples on the most romantic bridge in the City of Love.”
“I actually think the Pont Alexandre III is the most romantic bridge in Paris, especially at night when it’s all lit up,” Adrien remarked. “The footbridges over the Canal Saint-Martin are really quaint and romantic too.”
Marinette hummed in thought, mentally storing Adrien’s feedback for use at a later date.
“We should get a picture of us feeding ice cream to one another,” Adrien snickered, going to sit on one of the benches. “Do you think that would be laying it on a little thick?”
“No, that’s perfect,” she assured, joining him. “Here. Say ‘ah’.”
It was then that they noticed the passersby documenting the romantic moment and sharing it online for them.
“Want to go someplace more private?” he suggested.
She shook her head. “It’s okay. They’re not hurting anything, and the whole point is to be visible.”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “So long as you’re okay with the attention.”
She smiled, lightly touching his hand. “Thanks, Adrien.”
He returned the smile with a wink. “Any time, Ohime-sama.”
After they finished their ice cream, they headed to the Pont Neuf station and took the Métro, getting off at Jussieu.
They walked hand-in-hand to the Jardin des Plantes, stopping to look in shop windows and browse through the boxes of old books on the tables outside of shops.
When they got to the park, they strolled leisurely, admiring the autumn foliage and enjoying one another’s company.
“I wish our cat were here,” Marinette sighed with a wistful smile as she looked up at the changing leaves.
“Nyan-chan would like today’s date,” Adrien affirmed, giving her hand a squeeze. “He’d be happy to know you’re missing him even though you’re with someone as magnificent and funny as me.”
Marinette broke out in a laugh.
“Did I mention my charming personality?” Adrien added with an eyebrow waggle.
“Are you jealous, Beau Gosse?” she snickered, bumping his shoulder with her own.
“Why would I be?” Adrien pouted. “It’s not like the woman I love is thinking about other men when she’s with me or anything.”
Marinette shook her head, still laughing. “You can whine to your cat boyfriend about it tonight when he comes over for snuggling.”
“Oh, believe me. I will,” he snorted. “Hey. What do you think of a picture of us holding hands? Maybe just a picture of our clasped hands? Is that too heavy-handed?”
Marinette groaned. “You’re just as bad as Chat Noir with puns.”
 Their next and final stop was across the street from the Jardin des Plantes at the restaurant attached to the Grande Mosquée de Paris where they ordered vegetable couscous to share along with the restaurant’s famed mint tea and a sampler platter of their savory desserts.
“I think this is the best couscous I’ve ever had,” Marinette moaned happily, shoveling another spoonful into her mouth.
Adrien laughed into his napkin, snapping a picture of her for his own private consumption. “Nino did say that they have really legit food here. He said that his mom’s home cooking is better but that this place tastes like the food he eats when visiting family in Morocco.”
Marinette hummed appreciatively through her full mouth, and Adrien shook his head. “I’m going to post a picture of you pigging out and gush about how radiant my good friend Marinette is while enjoying a good meal.”
She glared at him, her narrowed eyes threatening bodily harm.
“I’m sorry, but you are so cute when you’re stuffing your face. Like a chipmunk,” he defended himself.
Marinette swallowed and replied. “Wow. Way to make a girl feel unsexy, Agreste.”
Adrien winced. “Sorry. I was just playing. You’re adorable, Marinette. Did I ruin everything?”
With a sigh, Marinette got up and went to sit on the bench seat beside him, fishing out her phone. “Smile, Bishi,” she teased, using Chat Noir’s nickname for Adrien, her voice husky in his ear.
Her free hand slipped down to give his knee a squeeze, and the resulting picture showed Marinette smiling puckishly at the camera while Adrien was captured in the middle of his turn to look at her with a flustered expression.
“I like the face you’re making,” she chuckled as she reviewed the photo. “You look like I just made some obscene suggestion and you’re equal parts horrified and intrigued.”
“I’m glad you’re having fun pushing my buttons.” Adrien sighed, shaking his head with a fond smile.
They took another picture, one with them both smiling innocently even though Marinette was practically sitting in Adrien’s lap. They included a few pictures of the food and made sure to rave about how good it was and what a nice time they were having together as friends.
 Adrien had barely walked in the door when Nathalie descended upon him.
“Your father isn’t pleased,” she reported blandly, the hint of a grin hovering in the corner of her mouth. “Did you have fun today? You and Miss Dupain-Cheng look very happy together.”
Adrien beamed. “I did. And we are. Thank you, Nathalie.”
A smile flickered across Nathalie’s lips, there one second and gone the next, replaced by her usual impassive expression. “Back to business. Your father isn’t pleased.”
“Where is my father anyway?” Adrien sighed, glancing at the atelier door.
“London,” she supplied. “He had to leave this morning to attend to the closing of a deal in person.”
“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Adrien grumbled, heading for his room to change for the interview with Nadja scheduled that evening.
Nathalie followed to pick out a suitable outfit.
“It was a last-minute trip,” she offered, pretending that that was a sufficient excuse, that this wasn’t just the latest installment in the trend of Gabriel floating in and out of Adrien’s life without stopping to actually be a part of it.
“Oh. I see,” Adrien replied disinterestedly, pretending that it didn’t hurt to be so insignificant.
Nathalie pursed her lips. “…What was your favourite thing that you did today?”
Adrien’s smile came back as he launched into a recap of the pedicab ride and how much it meant to him that Marinette had been planning romantic surprises for him all along.
Nathalie conveniently forgot to bring up the fact that Gabriel wanted to talk to Adrien before the interview. She later apologized profusely to Gabriel for letting it slip her mind. She told him that they’d been in too much of a rush to get Adrien to the studio and get him through hair and makeup.
All the way there, she kept Adrien talking about his eventful day, distracting him from the reality that was his relationship (or lack thereof) with his father.
  “So…Adrien,” Nadja purred toward the end of the interview. “Judging from your Instagram, you had an eventful date today.”
Adrien made his eyes go wide, pretending to be surprised at her word choice.
“Tell us all about your girlfriend, Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” she prompted, leaning forward in her seat.
Adrien blushed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Oh, that wasn’t a date. Marinette and I were just hanging out. She’s a good friend; we’re not officially dating.”
Nadja’s perfectly waxed eyebrow inched up, and she shot him a look of clear disbelief. “I don’t mean to imply that you’re lying, Adrien, but we have some candids from your outing.”
Behind them, a slideshow of all the soft looks Adrien had directed Marinette’s way that day began to play.
“Do you look at all your friends with such a gooey, lovesick expression?” she challenged.
Adrien laughed and shook his head. “You misunderstand me. I said that Marinette and I aren’t officially a couple. I never said I wasn’t head over heels in love with her.”
Nadja’s mouth dropped open, and her eyes lit up.
Adrien could practically see her getting ready to pounce on the scoop he’d just served her.
Nadja turned to the camera. “You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen: Paris’s most eligible bachelor, Adrien Agreste, in love!” She whipped back around to Adrien. “Tell us all about her. What do you like about Marinette? What about her made you fall in love?”
He averted his gaze, smiling bashfully. “Well…I mean…we’ve been friends since I started school, and Marinette has always been…just…wonderful. Everything about her is wonderful. She’s smart, funny, selfless, thoughtful, clever, a good leader… I’ve admired her for a long time. …And, obviously, she’s gorgeous, but, if you’ve got functioning eyes, you can tell that much on your own. It’s her personality that really made me fall for her, her compassion, her enthusiasm, her kindness. I think I’ve been a little bit in love with her from the very beginning; it just took me a while to realize that the way I felt about her wasn’t just admiration and friendship.”
“Have you told her how you feel?” Nadja pressed.
Adrien nodded. “In the spring…but she was seeing someone else at the time.”
Nadja winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah,” Adrien chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Ouch is right.”
“But what about now?” she prompted. “The way you phrased that she was seeing someone else in the spring sort of implied that she’s free now. Why aren’t you two dating?”
Adrien frowned, his face flipping through a series of conflicted expressions, making it seem as if he were reluctant to answer. “…Well…my father doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”
Nadja’s eyes narrowed. “Your father won’t let you date the woman you love?”
Adrien waved his hands hastily, trying to correct her. “No, no! It’s not like that. My father hasn’t forbidden me from dating her or anything. It’s just…he’s concerned. Marinette has always wanted to be a fashion designer, and she’s a fan of my father’s work, so Father is afraid of what people might say about her for dating me. Marinette is extremely talented, and Father doesn’t want her talent discounted or questioned because people think she’s receiving preferential treatment or using me to advance her career. He’s concerned that overzealous fans might invade her privacy or start sending her hate mail or something crazy like that,” Adrien explained.
Nadja nodded, letting Adrien continue of his own volition, not wanting to interrupt.
“My father cares about me a lot. He’s very protective of me, so…he doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Marinette and me to date, and I can see his reasoning. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to Marinette because of me…but…at the same time…” He sighed and looked away.
“At the same time?” Nadja encouraged gently.
Adrien shook his head and shrugged. “The past few years have been really hard for my family…since my mother disappeared, I mean. My parents were soulmates, so I know Mother’s disappearance was a huge blow to Father. I know it’s been really hard raising me without her. I remind him of her, so it’s difficult for him to be around me sometimes.”
Nadja frowned, heart aching as she thought of her own child.
“I understand, of course,” Adrien stressed. “But even though I understand, it’s still hard. …And Father’s always so busy with work. His company is important to him. He’s really passionate about designing, and I’m happy that he still has something he loves that much, even though Mother is gone…but I’m alone a lot,” he sighed, looking down at his hands.
“That must be rough for you,” Nadja whispered.
Adrien nodded. “It’s easy to get discouraged when you’re lonely…” He looked up and gave her and the viewers a weak smile. “…but I have a lot of really great friends like Marinette now that I attend public schooling. Their friendship helps a lot…. I still would like to try dating, though,” he added sheepishly. “I’ve always dreamed of finding the kind of love that my parents have.”
Nadja gave a little “Aww”, smiling wide because she knew that her viewership would be eating this up.
“I think Marinette might be the one for me,” Adrien confided, and then his expression turned sad with a hint of longing. “…But I know that my father knows best and that he only wants what’s best for me. Maybe there will come a day when Marinette and I can be together, but I can’t ask her to wait for me, so…”
He gave a helpless shrug.
 They had scarcely made it home when Gabriel called to give Adrien a dressing down, faulting Adrien for coming across as childish, naïve, whiney, and ungrateful.
Adrien took the chastisement with a bowed head and muttered apologies.
He retired to his room for the night where he showered, changed, and headed out to give Alya an interview with Chat Noir.
“Adrien is the sweetest human being I have ever met,” Chat insisted into Alya’s phone camera. “He’s letting his father control his life, and that’s not okay. He’ll be an adult in six months. He should be free to make his own decisions. If he loves Marinette, he shouldn’t have to have his father’s permission to date her.”
“Ladybug said nearly the same thing,” Alya snickered.
Chat blinked dumbly for a beat or two. “She did? You talked to Ladybug about this?”
Alya nodded, still filming. “She left about fifteen minutes before you got here. I had just posted her video on my blog when you arrived. Ladybug is a staunch supporter of Adrienette.”
“…I did not know that,” Chat chuckled, cheeks heating up in pleasure and embarrassment at the thought of his first love adamantly shipping him and his girlfriend.
 By the next morning, #Let Adrienette Date was already trending, and Gabriel was getting strongly worded emails about his interfering with the course of true love.
A protest spontaneously manifested outside the Agreste Mansion.
Adrien’s fanclub mobilized to do anything and everything to ensure that their prince got his happy ending, even if they weren’t entirely certain that Marinette was worthy of him.
Marinette got her first death threat, but the threat was concerning if she ever broke Adrien’s heart and not about her dating him in the first place, so she took cold comfort in that.
Gabriel returned from London Tuesday morning to be met with the madness that was an unstoppable force hell bent on seeing his son in a relationship with the woman he loved.
Gabriel persevered.
Adrien played innocent.
Adrien was grounded.
Chat Noir and Ladybug spoke out about the unfairness of the grounding and Gabriel’s attempts to keep Adrienette apart.
The mob was incensed.
Gabriel stock plummeted.
 On Saturday night, Adrien posted a picture on his Instagram of him leisurely kissing Marinette on her living room couch. The caption read, “Look who’s un-grounded and hanging out with his GIRLFRIEND! Thank you all so much for your love and support. #Adrienette #True Love Wins”.
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neshabeingchildish · 4 years
Text
League of Extraordinary Geniuses || The Prologue
The Girl with the Purple Hair AKA The Smartest Woman in the World 
Author’s Notes
‘They just GAVE her this honorific! The Smartest Woman in the World? How insulting! I didn’t spend the entirety of my life working beyond my hardware and having to remodel and upgrade frequently for some normal human girl to get a few degrees and just RECEIVE status as my female counterpart!’ 
Chase Davenport was in a very bad mood, and currently stuck in his own head. Davenport Industries was donating a dozen high quality, top grade androids to one of its employees, for an assignment in Dystopia, on which she would be attempting to deconstruct and rebuild the city to make it a Davencity - one of the many cities where basically all of the income and resources fit into an ecosystem created and maintained by the success of a Davenport driven economy. 
Chase felt like it was gentrification and colonization, but as long as Mr. Davenport saw to it that the people in the communities selected were allowed to stay and contribute, then at least, they wouldn’t be completely taking away people’s homes and lives. 
So… more of an occupation of sorts, but… Dystopia was one of those places that was such a mess that ANY change had to be for the better, and it was very close to this lady’s heart, apparently. She’d worked there for many years, traveling back and forth on charity missions between semesters in her academic career, ‘until she ingeniously swindled universities into giving her degrees.’ 
Chase pulled up her information in his bionic system, something he had been doing quite religiously ever since finding out that he was expected to be a part of these shenanigans. Mr. Davenport lauded this woman as “the person most fit for this job,” and as a condition of Chase’s current position in the company, he would have to shake the hand of this person in front of the world and approve of that sentiment, ‘thus endorsing the so-called “SmArtEst WOmAn In thE wOrld”’
Feeling that she “swindled” universities was unfair, but he was still pretty raw about all of these plans and mostly about that ‘COMPLETELY UNFATHOMABLE TITLE.’ Secretly, he admired her audacity and her follow through. He would never be able to admit it, as long as she was considered his intellectual equal and a high priority for Mr. Davenport.
She began a little challenge that she called "The Degree Collection Challenge." She would contact the Deans of Ivy League campuses and basically profess that she would be able to complete certain degrees in (some unprecedented amount of time), with their permission. Initially, they would agree, out of the pride and certainty that she couldn't do this. It became her brand - doing all of the work possible to earn an official degree in what should have been not enough time. Organizations began to try to monitor her endeavors and make sure she wasn't somehow cheating, hacking, doing SOMETHING illegal to yield the results that she was yielding, and eventually androids were utilized. Universities paid Davenport Industries A FORTUNE to basically stalk this woman with the intent to prove that she was unfairly gaining elite degrees from their institutions. 
She kept fairly earning her degrees, racking up work, experience, and notoriety as one of the smartest people in the world and her new title as the Degree Collector, ‘a title she can be worthy of.’
It was on her verified social media, and whenever she went to do interviews and speak at colleges, it would always be on the caption or the headlines. He was fine with that. In fact, after a mention from a fan who said that they would LOVE to see her have a conversation with Chase Davenport, the bionic smartest man alive, she confessed that she was a HUGE follower of his work and would also love a conversation with him. He was flattered. She was famous, in her own right, and smart, as well. Also, she looked pretty in all of the photos and footage he saw of her, so finding out that she was a fan was highly favorable.
Her announcement led to Donald arranging the meeting AND giving her a job in one of his places close to her Alma mater, Harvard. She was already earning him money with the android monitoring systems from several colleges, and he wanted someone that popular and smart under his umbrella. Chase would be her “introduction to Davenport Industries” in her biography, even though he didn’t actually have the opportunity to meet her. In fact, his brother, Leo wound up having to pick her up and getting her settled into her new Davenport provided space, because Chase was out on missions. 
She understood. As a self proclaimed huge follower of his work, she knew he went all over the world to tend to various threats, and after a while, the prospect of having a conversation with him became lost and he forgot all about the girl with the purple hair who Donald used as a publicity stunt a few years ago. ‘UNTIL… She became lauded as “the Smartest Woman Alive.” 
For THAT to be true, she would need bionic access to all of the world’s information, to computer connections, satellites, etc. She would have to be extraordinary. She was just some woman with a bunch of degrees that she did get impressively quickly for a typical woman… but still… She was just a typical woman and he got frustrated every time he thought about the fact that her title pretended to rival his! 
“Mr. Davenport?” He heard from behind him and he cleared off his research and cleared out his eye before turning and seeing a slim, petite, far more beautiful in person than in any of the publicity photos where she was typically working. “Hi!” She said, excited and extended her hand, “Charlotte Page. I know that I’m early, but The Dom said that I could let myself in with my access permissions, and I really wanted to be able to speak with you outside of all of his… panoply.” 
Chase shook her hand. It was soft and her handshake was firm. She had on a cream colored pantsuit that fit her form, but was sleeveless and her arms indicated someone who took great care of her body. In fact, her body indicated someone who took great care of her body. And her face, her hair, and so on. 
She didn’t look distressed, disheveled, with a mound of purple hair tied up in a puffy, messy bun. She wasn’t to her knees in an assignment or charity work, or in protective gear in her lab, and she wasn’t online, in a dimly lit room, speaking tired, because of the lack of rest she had. Her hair wasn’t purple either, or curly or puffy... It was... they call those goddess locs, if he remembered correctly from having seen the hairstyle before, and hers were a mixture of browns, with golden accents and charms in them. 
He saw several superhero emblems - Captain Man, Kid Danger, the Dystopian Defenders, ‘So, she’s a superhero fangirl’ some African symbols and cutesy stuff too, a few lightening rods... She was staring at him and he wondered if he was studying her looks too long.
This was the first time he saw her face to face, and it was an amazing sight. “Well… Nice to meet the…” He paused. He realized at that moment that he had never said it out loud and also that he could not.
“The Degree Collector?” She said, saving him the discomfort of calling her the smartest woman alive. She folded her arms casually and said, “Although, my degrees can’t really be at all impressive to you, with the educational catalog that you’ve got. And for what it's worth, I never actually refer to myself as the other thing, either. When there’s someone like you out there and nobody else comparable, that would seem gauche. Not to mention the fact that my life has been teeming with privilege and opportunities. There’s probably a woman out there right now that might have mollywhopped me in the degree collecting challenge if she had more access and wealth, so… I’m good with being Charlotte Page. Charlotte Page is amazing.”
He relaxed a little and felt secretly justified in his silent protest of her being called that. But, now that it was out of the way, he did have other questions and interests about her that he would have already addressed had he not been simmering in anger. He began with, “What is it about Dystopia that makes you so passionate about it?”
A twinkle sparkled in her brown eyes and she was the prettiest and softest thing he could ever remember, in that moment where she thought about Dystopia. She unfolded her arms and began to move her hands around as she talked, “I think it’s because it was my first chosen home. I decided to go there and try to make a small difference. I brought along the two most important people in the world to me and together, we made it our home, for a little while, but made a big difference in a small span of time. Whenever I had to leave, my heart stayed there. My friends didn’t come with me because there was just so much to do and they felt more needed there than I might have needed them with me.” She called over one of the water boys and grabbed a fresh bottle of water from them. “I was working on a Biological and Biomedical Sciences degree and after only one year of doing that, realized that it would take too long for me to do everything that I wanted to do in Dystopia, or even in this world. SO, I took a note out of my friend’s little sister’s book… She managed to graduate high school early because she had to take so many summer classes. I shot for the same basic principle, but on the college level and once it began to be a thing that I just do… I continued and I use everything that I can to try to make Dystopia better, for my friends and for my fondness of it as the first home that I chose for myself.”
“Wow. I’ve actually never chosen a home, so I don’t know this attachment. Mr. Davenport has orchestrated where I go for all of my life,” he admitted.
“Why?”
“Well… Because, he’s the one in charge,” he said and shrugged his shoulders, slightly embarrassed. She studied him for a while and he felt mildly uncomfortable under her watch, but simultaneously enjoyed the attention.
“At least he’s a genius. The gods know I’ve worked under the control of complete idiots before..” She thought for a little while longer, then added, “But… not genius enough, I would say.” She finally commented and averted her eyes to glance around the room. “He’s definitely probably smarter than me, but nobody’s smarter than you. You’re Smartie GOALS. It doesn’t rationally make sense to me that you’re in a room with someone, but you’re not the one in charge.” She shrugged and called over a recycling collector to pass off her empty bottle. “You know?” She punctuated the thought, hoping she wasn’t completely out of line for speaking it.
He placed his hands in his pockets and said, “I’m always the smartest man in the room… but not necessarily the wisest person, and definitely not always right. There has to be some humility to make our dynamic work, and if there are these gods you speak of somewhere, they know that HE’S not going to have any. I’ve challenged his authority a couple of times, but it never works in my favor. He really has an infrastructure that calls for his leadership.”
“Maybe you need to separate yourself from that infrastructure to reach your fullest potential,” she said. He looked at her, startled and she laughed and shook her hands and head, “Sorry, sorry! I realized after I said it that I totally sound like an up-and-coming supervillain trying to get the smartest man alive in her corner! I’ll shut up immediately about that. It’s just...my parents weren’t really that involved in a lot of my decisions… They did this thing where they raised me from the first moment I seemed cognizant to learn to do for myself. I don’t always understand those of you who have a more codependent situation with your parents. I think that I expected less commitment, since you refer to him as “Mr. Davenport. I don’t even refer to him as Mr. Davenport!”
He just laughed a little. It wasn’t really her business how he was raised in a capsule in a basement, that his biological father was someone else, etc. She was just making conversation, and you don’t spring heavy things on pretty girls in the middle of conversation. That’s how you never get pretty girls. One of the many ways, at least. His list was still growing at this stage in his life.
After a while, Donald Davenport came through with the camera crew and the dozen androids. He and Chase presented Charlotte with the supplies and she gave a thank you speech to him, and to Chase, although with all of the emphasis that she put on Chase in this thank you, she noticed that The Dom took it as a slight against him. 
That was one of the reasons she called Donald Davenport, “The Dom,” instead of Mr. Davenport or even Donald. That man would honestly be completely comfortable with total submission from others and she often wondered and worried about his wife with these habits, though his brother, Douglas, told her that the wife “wore the pants” at home. A likely story!
She liked Douglas. He was usually her means of contact. While she did bond with Leo upon her first meeting over their shared experience of limited bionics (and hers being even LESS accessible than his, at the time), it was Douglas that she could count on for fun experiment approval and such. She wished that he was here today, but he had some things to do in Centium City, so he had to miss it. He did promise to help her get settled with the equipment in her Dystopia office, whenever he  finished.
After the speech, Chase escorted Charlotte to the shuttle, hating the thought that when this conversation ended, he’d never see her again, and resenting himself for not being able to meet her sooner, or at the very least, to appreciate her for who she was and seemed to be. “Well, thank you for indulging me,” she said. “I’ve wanted to meet you for so long, and now that dream has been achieved!” Her smile was bright and her eyes were hopeful. “Should… we exchange info, or would that be weird for you?” 
“NO!” He said, too excitedly, with a chaotic smile, then followed up with, “I mean, no, it wouldn’t be weird! Yes, to we should!” 
She laughed uncomfortably and handed him something, “Here’s my contact info.” He looked at the  chip inside of the palm of his hand. “New tech that your Uncle Donald and my mentor Schwoz have been working on. It’s an information chip. It basically lets you, as a bionic have access to a normal that you would have to the other bionics.”
“Like… I can track your GPS?”
“On my devices. I don’t have a GPS system in me, but, you definitely have all my numbers, email addresses, etc, and contact with my devices. So… If you don’t get in touch with me this time around, I’ll know that you just didn’t want to.”
“What if I were a stalker?” He asked.
“You aren’t. You’re not the only person who can do extensive research, Mr. Davenport.” She winked at him and he practically melted. ‘Charlotte Page IS amazing.’
.
Three Years Ago...
She heard an electronic alert in her inner ear and uncovered her forearm to check the notification. She tapped the side of her face a few times in order to translate the message, then delete it. “The drop off is here,” she told Henry and Jasper, over the comm. 
“What? We can’t go now!” Henry complained and punched one of the henchmen.
“I know. WE can’t. But, I’ll rendezvous with the supplier and we’ll reassemble at the base,” she said. 
“No! That’s too dangerous.”
“Danger is our brand,” she reminded him.
“Defense. Defense is our brand. That’s why we’re called the Dystopian Defende- Cha… Dystress!” He called out loud. But, she was already barreling her way passed the automatic gunfire being aimed at her and dived behind a collapsed statue.
On the comm, she said, “Deflector… Focus on your mission, and I’ll focus on mind. Catch you when we get back.”
“Dystress, you do not have a forcefield and there is gunfire!”
“T-Force is here with the shipment and if they have to leave it at the drop off, you know that everything will be pillaged. The kids need those supplies.” She adjusted her metal glove gauntlet, pressed some codes on her forearm and groaned as she lifted the biggest piece of the statue and flung it at the shooters. Two were crushed and two ran for cover. Henry and Jasper fought with other henchmen as she made a run for it and slid beneath a pulled up piece of gate to get off of the site.
She notified her contact to beg them not to leave, because she was on her way, then proceeded to run for 15 minutes, dodging curious onlookers and maneuvering through sporadic waves of people. Whenever she reached the drop off, her contact was still there. “Max! Thank God you stayed,” she said and rushed to give him a hug. 
He smiled, “For you? Of course.” They slapped hands and he shook his in pain and hissed. She was quickly apologetic. She still had on her metal glove gauntlet AND her strength was still enhanced. “Were you in a fight?” He wondered. They were usually the contact and coyote for the charity that Charlotte worked with to get quality supplies brought in - everything from seeds, food, school resources, and hygiene products. Sometimes, they couldn’t even PAY for them in the city, because their charity put a dent in the business of too many crime lords depending on child trafficking, child soldiers, and other exploitation of the impoverished kids of Dystopia. But, Max always seemed far more concerned about how Charlotte was doing than the kids he was helping. She had a feeling that he might have had a crush on her.
“Yeah. I had to leave Deflector and Dogwalk in battle to come collect. Supply theft is one of the few crimes that has INCREASED since we got here. We’re causing such a dent in the organized crime, some of the well kept criminals are turning to petty crimes, and some of the bosses are trying to hit our shipments personally. We need an entire goddamn redo with this place. I’m supposed to be leaving after a short while... I didn’t even want to leave them today for this. I hate that they’ll be fighting crime here, probably until they die!” she complained, knowing that she was exaggerating, but also that Max would let her complain to him.
He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes, “Hey. You get this stuff to the kids and don’t worry about your team. Give me their coordinates,” he said. He was already in his super suit and mentally prepared for a fight.
She tapped on the screen on her arm, sent the coordinates, and he opened a portal, “This one will bring you and your supplies to the base,” he said. Then another opened beside it, “I’m gonna go make sure that your dudes don’t die.” She covered her heart with both hands as he stepped into the golden light and it evaporated with him going to Henry and Jasper’s aid. Charlotte collected all of her things and stepped into the light. Workers would meet her on the other end. 
She came through the other end right outside of the camp, tapped her face twice and her outfit morphed back into regular wear. Her purple hair was even tied up. She took the handle of the trolley and moved towards the base. 
And that was exactly what she thought about whenever she walked back onto base with supplies and resources, from Davenport Industries, ready to execute her most ambitious plan ever.
“Is that Charlotte?” Someone asked. She turned to see the director of the charity and was going to go greet her, but “CHAR!!!” from two very eager big boys came roaring towards her as Jasper and Henry ran up to hug her. 
Jasper lifted her into the air and spun her around. Henry yanked her down and bear hugged her painfully. “Ummm… Are you two trying to incapacitate me?” She asked. They put her down and she shook the director’s hand. Everyone was talking to her at once, but whenever several jets landed nearby, she grimaced and promised, “I’m sorry, but I have to touch base with T-Force and with my deconstruction team,” she pointed a thumb at each of the jets. “I’ll definitely regroup and do stuff with you guys later, though.” She turned to go towards the jets, and Henry and Jasper frowned.
Though, Henry squeezed Jasper’s shoulder and said, “You know her work is very important.”
“And we’re not?” Jasper wondered.
“Yeah, but… I’m sure she’s on a tight schedule. And that’s millions of dollars of support that she has to oversee. Come on. Let’s start on dinner!”
Charlotte’s heart rate sped up the closer she got to the T-Force jet. She had gotten word specifically from Max Thunderman, himself that he was going to be heading up this mission (which was basically to guard the Davenport staff as they set up operations for the project, personally vowing to guard Charlotte with his life. She didn’t need it, but the sentiment still made her all giddy inside. He’d never know it, though. 
Whenever he got out of the jet and approached, advanced and new black super suit with an emblem that rotated fire and ice around a lightning bolt; she dipped her head courteously and said in a calm voice, “Nice to see you, Thunderstrike. How’s the suit working out?” He smiled and pulled her into a hug that she returned, but quickly ended, lest she get caught up in her feelings. 
“It’s working out wonderfully. The best fashion designer that I know designed it and the best biological technologist and engineer that I know made it.” 
Her face warmed up and she couldn’t believe how after not even seeing him for years, the thought of being around him already had her semi floating. “So, you ready to help me to create a whole new Dystopia?”
“I’m ready to watch your back while YOU create a whole new Dystopia,” he said, with his hands held out.
“That works!” It was a good day for her. She had been able to see her favorite people in the world, and set out on a journey that would maybe rightfully earn her that title that made Chase Davenport cringe. 
Throughout the deconstruction, The Defenders kept working Dystopia and with T-Force nearby, Charlotte’s work was able to be done without attacks and theft, AND, she set up daily feeding cycles to discourage stealing and establish healthier diets for less privileged Dystopians. One of the first buildings that was worked on was the high tech, maximum security prison. The other one had been overcrowding since she, Jasper and Henry first came to Dystopia, and Henry had told her that a lot of the lower level criminals were simply released because the courts couldn’t ethically put or keep many of them in there under the population conditions. Charlotte named the place for Max. The Thunderman Super Max Penitentiary of Dystopia. He liked having his name on something and all, but he was more concerned about rehabilitation and reformation. So, she got with an architect for designing a rehabilitation center for criminals and villains who could be redeemed. That one, she put his full name on.
She was working on her favorite thesis during that time on the necessity of superhuman and nonsupers relations for the balance of global inequities and her rapport with Max became a better gateway into the supers world than she previously had, while her relationship with Swellview’s finest gave her the down home and small scale hero angle. 
As things became more functional, and more Davencentric, T-Force was reassigned to other missions and the Elite Force would be rushed in for any emergencies in Dystopia. Charlotte was sad to not be able to see Max as much, but it was kind of nice that she got to see Chase sometimes. Unfortunate that it was usually during a crisis, but they actually worked well together in those. The last visit that the Elite Force (his team) came to assist, she was able to show him the Chase Davenport Reference Library of Dystopia. He was honored, though shocked that “Mr. Davenport would approve this.” She laughed about that. She hadn’t gotten approval on anything and as long as the statistics she sent him kept improving, he wasn’t bothering her for it.
In her time there, jobs had been created with the nearly constant building, the pollution problems had been addressed, littering and waste disposal rectified, plant life and trees planted, wastelands beautified, and the corrupt government and laws cleaned up. The head of the charity was now the Mayor and Henry and Jasper inherited the charity and renamed it Budding Flowers. The base was fortified and remodeled, while The Dystopia Defenders’ lair, the Defender Dome, was erected nearby. 
Dystopia became the most flourishing Davencity in the world. The Dom loved being “the most” something “in the world,” so she was pretty much set for life and the Defender Dome was the lair that Henry and Jasper had both always dreamed of. She had revived the ecosystem and the economy - not on her own of course, but as the leader of the project, she would get the credit deserved of her work and announce additional credit while in her spotlight. She loved Dystopia, and now, she could always be proud of it... But... She didn’t necessarily want to just quit while she was ahead and rest of the fruits of this venture. Charlotte Page was amazing. One city was absolutely an accomplishment for her to save. But... how much more of the world could she save if she kept pressing forward?
“Charlotte Page is amazing,” she said, looking out of the Defender Dome at the city below that was unrecognizable from all of the before photos taken via satellite and from the place that she lived a year and visited on “breaks” from school. It was a new place. She was capable of possibly molding an entire new world.
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9w1ft · 5 years
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☔️
it’s been about a month now since TSL shut down. i’ve been thinking of how best to summarize my thoughts on the odd things that happened to me there and i’ve decided it’s best to split my thoughts up into a few posts. this is my first!
so, for starters! drumroll pleaaaaaase 🥁 i would like to clear the air.. i am very excited to say that i have properly identified and spoken to the real KalindaKing!
you may or may have noticed before the app shut down, but KalindaKing actually @‘d me in one of her final posts on the app, saying she had seen my theory but that sadly she is an only child.
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unfortunately, yes, KalindaKing was not Kimby Kloss. i uhh, take it she herself confirmed it for me recently!
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actually, about a month after posting my theory, a mutual of mine tipped me off to a social media post that seemed to be from someone who might be KalindaKing (the gist of the post was, to paraphrase, i saw a theory that i’m karlie’s sister. i wish!), and i had been keeping tabs on it for some time. the post did not get any traction (no likes, no shares) so there was no way to verify if it was related, but doing some digging and cross-referencing photos and whatnot i was left plenty suspicious.
So about 3 months went by after i had my lede on who it could be, and then 48 hours away from app shutdown KalindaKing @‘d me on TSL... so i decided to take the jump and direct message the suspicious person on social media. and, we had a match! it was her!
Can i just say she is just as delightful as she was on TSL? it was an honor to chat with her. turns out she is an active moderator under the same username on another app by the same company.
actually, 😂 the KK part is really a funny coincidence.. see, the moderator who went by the username KalindaKing on TSL originally created that username for herself because she is a moderator on the Kim Kardashian Hollywood app under the same username (she gave me permission to say that), and, alliteration, so go figure! it would appear i exquisitely took my conjectures a twist too far.
this moderator is a professional, so she did not disclose that much to me, but I was able to learn that the ‘TheSwiftLife’ account was the responsibility of her and someone else. She mentioned that Social (ie twitter/fb) was run by her. Someone else was helping out on the TSL app, ie, that account that gave out those persnickety taymoji gifts on the app. 🤨
for those of you who followed my theory closely, this newly confirmed information has likely allowed you to come to the same heartening conclusion that i did: this means that the “message to taylor” function on the app is in all likelihood indeed something that only taylor can see, or, isn’t accessible to just any glu employee. yes, those personal private messages to her were in fact kept private 🥰. that is to say, leading up to my big guess post, i had disclosed the content of my guess (that kimby was KalindaKing) using this function, asking for the go ahead here on tumblr. my theory is whoever the someone is that was helping out with the TheSwiftLife account did not have access to my secret messages, and that’s where the miscommunication between me and them occurred. oops...
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if you are new here, you are probably wondering how sound this logic could be. it would also seem to be completely possible that the TheSwiftLife account simply didn't know i existed / had never read anything from me / had never interacted with me through the app.
to that i say:
i now have proof that at least one moderator from the app read my theory back in October 2018
i now have proof that the same moderator @‘d me in response to the theory 48 hours before the app closed on February 1st, despite having know about it for three months.. so i take it that it merited addressing
let me walk you through a sampler of five ‘interactions’ that occurred with me and TheSwiftLife between August and October of last year:
interaction one: 8/1 Puzzle Heart..
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after showcasing some interest in the taymoji gifts and crafting my theory of what they meant, i had seen a through line in terms of the overall message being conveyed but was unsure of any of this was real. i posted here on tumblr for the taymoji gods to send me sign, and the TheSwiftLife account gave out a puzzle heart with the flavor text “put the pieces together” the chances of that taymoji being picked to be given out are, i would say, 1/128 chances. the gift giving was mainly from within a pool of the 64 song-based taymoji packs and always of one of the two rare taymoji from either pack, so, 64x2=128
interaction two, 8/29 Rabbit...
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following a week of ttb using the emoji rabbit to welcome some anons into the kaylor fandom, TheSwiftLife gave out a rabbit with the flavor text “Fell down the rabbit hole...”
interaction three: 9/12 Pixels..
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things felt surreal following the rabbit... so i asked TSL here on tumblr to show me a sign that proved they knew me and saw me. i said there was one taymoji out of them all (of which there are 653) that represented me. i had hoped for the pixel art heart taymoji, as it says in my profile here that i am a pixel artist... i assumed if TSL wanted to respond to my request, they’d poke around my blog and make that connection. 13 days after i made the post, they gave out that exact one. in response, i mentioned what a lovely birthday present this was, as it was coming 13 days before my birthday (i’m born on 9/25)
interaction four: 9/21 Balloons...
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between the pixel heart and this next gift, i came to the conclusion that kimby could be spearheading the TheSwiftLife account (given an interaction between this blog and kimby’s instagram stories involving a yacht company), and, as i love cheesy things, i made the extra (flawed) assumption that, given KalindaKing appeared to be a pen name, it would be super duper ingenious if the KK stood for Kimby Kloss. i sent this prediction in the “secret message for taylor” function on TSL, assuming (incorrectly) whoever was on the other side could read it, and posted here on tumblr simply that “i know who you’ve been, and i take it you want me to share?” The next gift that TheSwiftLife gave out were a set of red balloons from the Mine pack, with the caption “Speak now if it’s your birthday this month”
interaction five: 10/1 Umbrella...
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even so, i was very hesitant to go through with pushing my theory. it felt, again, unreal. so, i put up one more test... i asked here on tumblr something in the form of a riddle. I decided to phrase a request for them to give a taymoji in the form of a question. knowing the full range of taymoji possibilities, i picked the flavor text of a taymoji that had never been given out, and a double-rare one (which weren’t given out often) the umbrella, and put out my question: do you have my back even if it rains down on me? and the next gift given out was the very umbrella i expected, which has the flavor text “Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered!”
this span of time in particular (not limited to, but especially) is why i have a hard time not believing kaylor is real. why would taylor’s team let any of this fly, that is, why would they allow a bubbly and vocal kaylor experience this if kaylor wasn’t true?
i encourage everyone to look through my blog archive from August to October to see how it played out! it won’t take that long and i think it’s more interesting than just this post. it’s a sweet slice of time... happening before the political post, and then, the ‘wedding’ thing.
and: if you are to believe that this is all just coincidence, then you have to logically assume that every of the above interactions happened at random, with TheSwiftLife drawing from a catalog of over 100 possible choices each time, and accidentally giving something relevant each time. i am not even going to cover the many many other strange alignments between what i post on here and what kimby posts on instagram. the probability of these taymoji is enough.
even taking out of account the probability of the timing of each, and just looking at it like a kid’s math problem, it’s quite a rare outcome.
what is the probability of insinuating 5 specific symbols and drawing those 5 specific symbols out of 5 bags with 128 different symbols inside each, one after the other? 1/128 x 1/128 x 1/128 x 1/128 x 1/128 = 1/34,359,738,368
a one in 34 billion chance of it happening if it happened randomly.
you only think 3 out of the 5 coincidences above are legit? well that still an over one in two million chance. only believe in one of them? still just an 0.8% chance.
and i picked these five interactions because they hilight five times where there really couldn’t have been multiple “applicable” taymoji responses. i tried to cut out that grey zone for you, because there’s plenty of grey examples to pick from. i suppose with the balloons, they could have picked any birthday-looking taymoji and accompanied the gift with the same caption.. but in that case, it means you have to calculate the chances of them writing the birthday messaging after what happened with the pixel heart... and i don’t know how to calculate that...
i’m not even talking about how some of the taymoji given out twice coincided with celebrity appearances in the world of kaylor. i don’t know how to calculate the probability of karlie saying she’ll go to a taylor concert before a marching band hat is given out, and then her appearing at nashville the day after the marching band hat was given out again. or the paul mccartney coincidence, or the hayley kiyoko coincidence, just to name a few of the most straightforward. i’m not even gonna mention all that business about the app notifications freaking out on my phone (for which i have an excel spreadsheet up my sleeve for later should i decide to nerd out that much)
i don’t even need to touch that.
some epic sh*t was positively afoot, my darlings.
but i digress. pending, you know, ‘proof’, we have no surefire way to know about the who (or who all behind it) all of this is, but, i don’t think we need to be sure of that for the time being (uwu*). i just want to re establish that while KalindaKing was a glorious misfire, the mystery of the app still very much remains.
in my upcoming post (i need to buy myself some eyedrops or something because my eyes are redder than that st. louis park sculpture right now), i would like to rewind for a sec and set the question of who aside and refocus solely on what we learned from the gifts and what we can possibly take away from the experience as a whole.
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for now, this is me saying, kimby, oops! sorry i thought you were KalindaKing and sorry for not triple checking with you. my double check was not enough. but i’m glad i took the plunge, because, better an oops than a what if, right? and i hope, at least you got a good laugh out of it! and also thank you lovely sisters ☺️ for you know, clearing the way for me to make this post. at least, that’s what it looked like to me. 📯🕊
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noona-clock · 6 years
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Please Subscribe - Part 5
 Genre: AU/Fluff
Pairing: Hanbin x You
By Admin B
Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
(A/N: This part is a bit longer, but I truly couldn’t break it up! Sorry [not sorry])
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You’d told Hanbin to wait around until your meet and greet was over because you had some free time afterward; you two might as well film the video for your channel now, right?
Thankfully, your meet and greet had been nearing the end when Hanbin had shown up (you still couldn’t believe he’d done that), so you only made him wait about twenty or so minutes. You walked up to him after the last person in line had left, your lips pulled into a pretty huge, cheesy grin as you neared him.
“I honestly never even thought you would show up,” you told him. The shy smile on his lips was also a bit smug after you said this, so you knew he was proud of himself for coming up with such an ingenious plan.
And then you realized you two hadn’t officially, properly met. So you stuck out your hand, still beaming. “I’m Y/N, by the way,” you greeted.
“Nice to finally meet you,” Hanbin replied, shaking your hand. “I’m Hanbin.”
“It does feel like it’s been longer than three weeks since we started talking to each other, doesn’t it? But, anyway, I checked out the YouTube sponsored area yesterday, and there are tons of filming rooms. They’ve got lighting and backdrops and everything. Are you ready to film something now?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Hanbin said with a slight shrug. “I’m ready if you are.”
You smiled yet again, though truthfully you hadn’t stopped since you’d seen him. “I just need to go up to my room and gather up what we’ll need.”
“We’re going to need stuff...?” he asked a bit suspiciously.
“Yes, we’re going to need stuff. Come on, you can come with.” You slid your arm through his, leading him over to the elevator and up to your hotel room.
“Is it okay if I vlog?” Hanbin asked as you searched in your purse for your room key.
“Oh, of course! Is this the video I’m in for your channel? Your vlog?”
“Yeah... I hope that’s okay,” he chuckled, his cheeks warming just a tinge. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”
“That’s perfect, actually! I love your vlogs the most, I think. Well, except for your songs. I really love your songs,” you gushed, sliding the card into the doorknob and opening it up.
“Well, thanks,” Hanbin murmured as he followed you inside. He turned his camera on and began recording you walking into your room. “So, this is how the other half lives...”
“I know, very luxurious, right?” you joked, gesturing to your unmade bed and your clothes from yesterday thrown on the floor. “We’re just here to pick up supplies for our collab video, though.”
Hanbin turned the camera around to face him, looking a bit nervous. “Ah, yes, the video... I have no idea what we’re filming, but apparently, we need supplies.”
“Should I tell you?” you asked, leaning against the doorframe leading into the bathroom.
“I mean, I’m going to find out eventually.”
“Very true. You’re going to do my makeup.”
Hanbin froze, staring at you. “I’m... what now?”
“You’re doing my makeup!”
He blinked a few times and then held back his laughter. “Okay, well, I hope you don’t have anywhere to go after this.”
“Oh, I absolutely do! We’re hanging out the rest of the day, of course,” you smiled before popping into your bathroom to take your makeup off and gather all the things he would need to do it again.
“Wait, you’re serious?” Hanbin asked, following you (and still filming, of course). “I’m doing your makeup? But you already have it on, and it looks really good! I’m going to do a terrible job!”
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“It’ll be fine,” you assured him, turning on the faucet and pulling your hair up into a ponytail. “I trust you.”
Hanbin turned the camera back around to face him, looking extremely distressed. “She trusts me to do her makeup. I don’t know where that trust is coming from.”
You laughed, and a smile immediately pulled at his lips upon the sound. (Okay, he would probably have to edit that out so it wouldn’t be glaringly obvious he had a crush on you...)
As you proceeded to take your makeup off, Hanbin asked if he could help get your filming gear together. You thanked him profusely after telling him where your camera, microphone, and tripod were. Once he left to retrieve them, you quickly rubbed your cleansing oil over your eyes and lips so you wouldn’t look like a scary clown in front of him. You’d just met the guy, after all.
When your face was clean and moisturized, you grabbed your makeup case and began filling it up with the makeup you’d used earlier this morning. You had brought more than one of each product, of course, but you didn’t want to make Hanbin choose from everything. You wanted to go a little easy on him (if only to make him like you more).
“All right, I think I got everything,” Hanbin called out just as you were zipping up your makeup case.
“Me too!”
You stepped out of the bathroom, feeling surprisingly self-conscious about the fact you now had absolutely zero makeup on your face. You showed your bare face to two million people three times a week, so why would you be nervous about showing it to just one guy?
“Will it count as me doing your makeup if I just do nothing?” Hanbin asked, shouldering your camera bag.
“...No.”
“But you look better now than you will if I do it!” he chuckled, still trying to get out of this idea of yours.
“You’re going to do just fine,” you assured him, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”
He let out a sigh, but he followed you out of the room anyway.
You led him back downstairs to the YouTube area of the convention, showing security your issued badge and signing up for one of the filming rooms.
It took you guys about ten minutes to get everything set up - all the lights adjusted, the camera at the right angle, and all your makeup spread out on a table. You tended to take control in situations like this, but Hanbin was very good at following your directions. He certainly seemed as laid back as he did in his videos, but he was still a very hard-worker. Two very attractive qualities to you.
Before you sat down to start filming, you took a picture of the camera and posted it to your Instagram with the caption “About to start filming with @shxxxbi131!!!! Send us your questions!” You figured you could answer some subscribers’ questions in case neither of you knew what to talk about.
“Okay, you ready?” you asked Hanbin, pressing the record button on your camera and hurrying back to the table to sit next to him.
“Not at all,” he answered.
“Hello, lovely people!” you smiled, trying not to laugh thinking about how much Hanbin did not want to do this. “As you can see, I’m here with a special guest, and I’m way too excited to say more because Hanbin is going to be doing my makeup!”
Hanbin shook his head, hiding a smile as you clapped your hands with glee.
“If you’ve been living under a rock, or you haven’t been watching my videos for the past few weeks... Hanbin is a music YouTuber. He puts out amazing original songs, and he does reactions and vlogs, too. I’ve been, like, creepily obsessed with his channel lately, so I kind of forced him to meet up with me at VidCon and film something.”
“You did not force me,” Hanbin chuckled. “I came to your meet and greet all on my own, didn’t I?”
“That’s right! You guys, it was so cute earlier. I was doing my meet and greet which you probably saw on my Instagram story, and then all of a sudden, he was there! But you can see more on his vlog which I’ll link in the description box below.”
After a few outtakes, you finally got started with the whole point of the video: Hanbin applying your makeup. 
“Okay, I know I’ve been complaining, but I think I can do this,” Hanbin said as he reached for one of your makeup brushes. 
“Oh, yeah?” you asked with a slight smirk.
He nodded, rummaging through your products to find your foundation. “I’ve been watching your videos, so I have a pretty good idea of what to do. So... I’m starting with this stuff first,” he explained, showing the foundation bottle to the camera.
As he began to blend it out over your face, you grabbed your phone to check your Instagram. “So, right before we started filming, I asked you guys for some questions on Instagram. Should we answer some now, Hanbin?”
“Mm,” he hummed, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he swiped the brush across your cheeks.
“Okay, let’s see... Hmm... Ooh, here’s a good one: how do you make the perfect PB&J?”
Hanbin stopped blending to look at you in confusion. “What kind of a question is that?”
“A good one! My followers know I like random questions. You go first. How do you make the perfect peanut butter & jelly sandwich?”
“Okay...” He went back to blending before answering. “Get some potato bread, lots of crunchy peanut butter on both slices, then a thin layer of strawberry jelly in the middle.”
You gasped, turning to look at him fully and causing him to stop applying your foundation. “That’s my perfect PB&J, too!”
“Because it’s the perfect PB&J,” he replied, smiling at you.
Hanbin moved on to concealer, and you were very impressed with how he switched brushes to blend it out, blended it over your eyelids, and even set it with powder.
When he reached for your eyeshadow palette, you found another question, wanting to distract yourself from telling him which colors to choose.
“What did both of you do before YouTube? If you’ve been subscribed to me for a while, you’ll know I used to work at Sephora. All my co-workers would tell me I needed to do my own makeup tutorials, so one day I got out my phone and just did it. What about you, Hanbin?”
“Well,” he began, dipping into a light brown shade and sweeping it over your eye. “I was actually in a dance crew.”
You froze, pulling away just a little, forcing him to stop applying your eyeshadow so you could widen your eyes enough to sufficiently display your surprise. “You were what now?!” you cried.
“I was in a dance crew,” he blushed.
“Nuh uh! I want to see you dance!”
“Well, I mean... there are some videos on YouTube --”
“FIND ONE!” 
You shoved your phone at him, your smile wide with anticipation as he pulled up YouTube and found a video for you.
“Here, this is one of the least embarrassing,” he murmured, handing the phone back to you. “Now close this eye again.”
You watched the video as he worked on your eyeshadow, your one open eye glued to the screen “Wait, is that you singing?”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “We started off dancing to popular songs, but then I started making my own, so that kind of kickstarted my YouTube channel.”
“Oh, my god!” you cried, smiling so widely your cheeks were starting to hurt. “You’re amazing! I didn’t know you could dance! And these guys are all so cute! Are any of them single?”
Hanbin froze for a second before resuming with your eyeshadow. “No, they’re all married,” he said quickly, obviously lying.
You simply chuckled softly before going back to watching the video. Good. Your not-so-subtle hint had had an effect on him.
You watched another video after that, and by the time it was over, Hanbin announced he was ready to do your eyeliner.
“Ooh, bold move,” you commended him.
“Well, you like to wear that little pointy eyeliner a lot, so...” He picked up your favorite eyeliner pen and scooted just a little closer.
“You really have been watching my videos.”
“Of course I have. Okay, don’t move.”
You closed your eyes, feeling him lean in, his hand resting gently on your cheek. Your heart was racing, and you had the strangest but strongest urge to just pucker your lips and kiss him. The feeling of him so close to you... the faint scent of his cologne... It was overwhelming.
When you felt the pen leave your eyelid, you whispered, “You smell really good.”
You heard Hanbin chuckle, and when you opened your eyes, you saw his shy smile and his pink cheeks.
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“You can’t say stuff like that to me when I’m trying to concentrate,” he warned you, unable to stop smiling.
“Okay, sorry,” you apologized, biting your lips and closing your eyes again. No regrets, though.
Once he was done with your eyeliner and mascara (he refused to put on false lashes because he was afraid he would accidentally glue your eyelids shut), he picked up your contour palette to begin on your cheek makeup.
“Okay, let’s look for another question,” you said, getting your phone again. You scrolled through the comments on your picture, chuckling when you kept seeing the same thing.
“What’s so funny?” Hanbin asked as he brushed some bronzer on your cheek.
“I’m having a hard time finding a question because so many of them are like ‘you guys are so cute together, when are you going to date?’ So...” you simply smirked.
“Well, I doubt you’ll want to date me when you look in the mirror,” Hanbin laughed.
“What! Oh, come on, you really seem like you know what you’re doing! Besides, that’s definitely not a must-have for my boyfriend. I’d rather him be into his own thing than into my thing.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“I dunno...” you shrugged. Should you just go for it? ...You should just go for it. “Like music or something.”
“What did I say about saying things like that?” he chuckled. 
You simply shot him a little smile-smirk, wondering if you would have to edit that part out since you were so obviously flirting with him.
After he announced he’d successfully bronzed and blushed your cheeks, he reached for your highlighter. “This is your favorite part, so I’m going to just go for it.”
“It really is my favorite part! I like to --”
“Glow like a glowworm, which is probably the weirdest animal I’ve heard someone say they want to be like.”
You laughed, nudging his shoulder before he put a hand on you to remind you to be still.
“Sorry, sorry,” you laughed. “I’m terrible at this, aren’t I?”
“No,” he assured you, sweeping the highlighter over your cheekbone. “You’re not terrible at anything.”
You pressed your lips together to keep from smiling, but you couldn’t hold it back when Hanbin pulled away and examined your now highlighted cheek.
“Oh, yeah, that looks nice. Very pretty,” he murmured.
“Are you done?”
“Well, you always do lipstick last, but I’m really scared I’ll mess it up,” he laughed.
“You can do it! I believe in you!”
He sighed, thinking for a few moments... before reaching for your favorite purple lipstick. Man, not only had he watched your videos, he’d clearly paid attention to them.
The second he leaned in to apply the lipstick, though, you regretted the fact you’d urged him to do it. Having him this close to your lips? Not a good idea.
“Okay, not too bad... I think I’m done now,” he announced with a nod.
“Yeah? Can I look?”
“Yes, just let me get out of the room first,” he said, starting to get up from his chair.
“No!” you laughed, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him back. You reached for the mirror you’d brought, bringing it up to your face...
Okay, so it wasn’t good. But it wasn’t bad! You could definitely fix it! And man that highlighter! He hadn’t held back, had he?
“Look at that glow!” you cried, tilting your head around to get the full effect. “I’m into it! You did a good job!”
You set the mirror down, patting his shoulder and smiling at him.
“All right, guys,” you said, turning back to the camera. “I’m starving, so we’re going to go get some lunch. Don’t forget to check out Hanbin’s vlog linked down below, and give this video a thumbs up if you’d like to see more videos together!”
So, yeah... you hadn’t brought up doing more videos with him, but you wanted to, and you knew your subscribers would, too... 
“I won’t have to do your makeup again, will I?” Hanbin laughed.
“No,” you assured him. “Not unless you want to.”
Once you’d successfully ended the video, you got up and turned the camera off and began to pack everything up.
“So... are we really going to lunch?” Hanbin asked as you were putting your makeup back in the case.
“Yeah! I mean, if you want to,” you replied. “I figured you’d want to film more for your vlog.”
Yes, that was the only reason. Not because you wanted to spend more time with him.
“Okay,” he said with a slight smile. “You can, uh... fix your makeup if you want to.”
“Hanbin, it really doesn’t look that bad! I wouldn’t mind being seen out in public like this.”
“Yeah, but I would. I don’t want to be seen with you looking like that.”
You reached out and hit his arm, giggling and hoping so hard you weren’t just imagining that he was flirting with you. Because you were trying your best to flirt with him.
Part 6
@cramelot, @sun-shinee-world, @daelicious-jongbulge, @yoyoyeola, @ankle-sockss, @ttelesilla, @katwangx! Here is part 5! Any other readers, let me know if you’d like to be tagged in the next update!
Master list //  RULES // Submit a Request! // Read About the Admins
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normalg-irl · 5 years
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How To Get More Likes on Thanksgiving | November 22, 2018
If you haven’t thrown something up on the ‘gram in a while, maybe it’s because you’ve been saving your epic comeback for the holidays. Perhaps you’ve been planning to drop a picture that catches the attention of many of your most notable followers.
Thanksgiving day is actually the ideal time to unleash your photo, because, for most people, there’s a lot of down time. On Thanksgiving you can easily isolate yourself from friends and family to compulsively refresh your page. Throw them the, “Yeah, I ate too much, I need to go relax for a minute,” line, then slither away to safety upstairs.
The likes will come rolling in at uncharted speeds, quickly gaining control over your sanity and making you feel more affirmed than you have all year. In order to elicit such positive responses, there are a few steps you must take to ensure that you have the best Thanksgiving day post on Instagram.  
A great place to start snapping pics is at your town’s Thanksgiving day road race. Even if you don’t plan to run in the race, definitely still throw on an outfit and snap a few shots at the scene. If you do decide to run, don’t run too fast - you can’t be so sure of your editing abilities. A sweaty glow has the power to ruin an otherwise perfect picture. Besides, your followers won’t know how fast you finished the race. They’ll only see how composed and nonchalant you look after a rigorous morning exercise sesh. A solo post-run shot could be really nice, but an Instagram with an athletic-looking cousin is a surefire way to gain some attention. A cousin of the opposite gender could cause some confusion and conflict, as your followers might assume this is a “first couple pic.” Don’t be afraid to alarm your followers and urge them to ask questions about your personal life. This tactic always leads to more likes and profile traffic.
If you get a worthy picture at the race, great. Add a witty caption, a few turkey emojis, and of course wait until after your Thanksgiving meal to drop the post - that’s when everyone will be on their phones. For the road race picture, a great caption would probably derive from the fact that you exercised on Thanksgiving and are going to be eating a lot of food later on. So play around with that ingenious idea for a few hours and see what kind of magic is created. Something like, “Now I’m ready to eat my weight in turkey” is super relatable. Be sure to add your location at the road race so there are no loose ends surrounding the posts - It’s important for people to be able to easily understand your caption.
Spend at least 30 minutes after the race trying to get the pic. That should be ample time to explore different angles and settings. If the race isn’t prosperous, don’t freak out. You have plenty of more opportunities to get your picture.
Now it’s time to freshen up and put on your most fall-inspired outfit. Sweaters, leather boots, corduroy pants, blazers, flannels, jean skirts, and tights all really add to the “fall-ness” that you want to harness for your Thanksgiving day picture. Something really cool that a lot of people do on Thanksgiving is they put on their fall outfits and take pictures outside of their house. There’s really not much beyond that. It’s all about the fusion of three important elements - looking good, capturing the fall-ness of your surroundings, and adding a witty Thanksgiving caption. The backyard is always a good location for your shoot,  along with the front stoop or walkway. The driveway is usually a no-go, because pavement isn’t super “fall” and garages will turn off your followers. If you have a garage with really cute barn-like doors, then you can definitely take your picture there.
Of course the fall aesthetic of your picture is crucial, but the caption is what’s really going to set you apart from the other Instagram users posting attractive pictures of themselves in their yards. A few that I’ve predicted to be super successful are:
“Clear eyes, full stomachs, can’t lose.”  
“Already thinking about the leftovers.”  
“Happy Turkey Day.”  
“Imma let you finish, but my mom made the best Thanksgiving dinner of all time.”
I can’t stress enough how fun it is to refer to Thanksgiving as “Turkey Day” in your caption. Your followers will not only appreciate you posting a nice picture of yourself to celebrate the holiday, but they will love your originality and wittiness with this one.
Fortunately if you didn’t get a good picture outside of the house, you can mosey on inside the house and ask multiple different relatives to participate in the photoshoot. You’ll need both a photographer and a few people to pose with. Group pictures can be really successful, because big families have an intrinsic coolness about them. Everyone assumes that big families throw insane parties and get wild together. If you don’t have a big family, don’t forget that intimacy can also attract likes. Posts with babies or kids are almost always winners, and grandparent pics usually perform just as well. I’ve predicted that a kiss on the cheek pic, either with a baby or grandparent, could be the most favored pose this year.
By now you should have a few options to choose from. Take some alone time to dissect the different photos - how your face looks, how your body looks, how other people’s faces look, how other people’s bodies look - and whichever one satisfies the requirements I mentioned, post. Throughout the day you should have been periodically checking Instagram to see what other people were posting, and liking as many pictures as you could. You want the likes to be reciprocated. When you feel ready, adjust the brightness, add a little contrast, and set your picture free. Don’t be worried - she’s ready.
As you furiously refresh your “likes” page waiting to see if your crushes and ex’s and enemies like your picture, remember - this is what Thanksgiving is ALL about. There’s literally nothing else that’s important  about the holiday besides this.
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Posted by The Rival at Fordham University on November 22, 2018
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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years
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Catholic Physics - Reflections of a Catholic Scientist - Part 101 - Truth Cannot Contradict Truth - Part 1
With Images:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/catholic-physics-reflections-scientist-part-101-truth-harold-baines/?published=t
The Catholic Church: Midwife to Science
If we want to understand the relation between what science tells us about the world and Catholic teaching we must first see how the Church has dealt with science. As my wife, a student of medieval history, would put it: “History tells you most of what you need to know about a subject.
Optics Sketch from Roger Bacon’s Notebook (Late 13th Century) from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)
“The history of science alone can keep the physicist from the mad ambitions of dogmatism as well as the despair of pyrrhonian scepticism.”
Pierre Duhem, “The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory”
SECTION 1: Prologue–The Greek World
There are science-fiction stories, alternate history variety, in which science developed in Greek and Hellenistic civilizations. That it did not, is surprising. Certainly the great minds were there.
Foremost among these great minds was Aristotle, a philosopher, and naturalist; the term “physics” comes from the title of his book “Lectures on Nature” (“Phusike Akroasis”) and although, as Bertrand Russell said about this work and also “On the Heavens”, “there is hardly a sentence in either that is not contradicted by modern science”, it set the stage for logical, rational study of the world around us. Where it fell short was relying not on empirical testing of propositions that seemed self-evident, for example: the heavier the body, the faster it would fall to the earth; an object needed a force to keep it moving or it would stop.
Archimedes Moving the Earth with a Lever from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)
The Greek Hellenistic world also had its share of great minds. Eratosthenes calculated the size of the earth (accurate to within 200 miles) using trigonometry and sundials at different locations. Archimedes discovered the principle of buoyancy (whence “Eureka”) and set forth quantitative principles for the lever and the screw. He used approximation methods that foreshadowed the calculus to calculate the area and volumes of non-polygon shapes. Hero of Alexandria invented many ingenious engines and formulated a fundamental principle of optics, that light would take the shortest path within a medium.
Why didn’t science come forth from all these inventions and discoveries? Although many bore the marks of genius, they did not correspond to a unified scheme, a core of fundamental theory that is necessary for science. We’ll see in the next section what was done in Medieval Christendom to give a unified scientific picture of the world.
Apollonius: Conic Sections (Caption for linked images)
Hellenistic Math and Science (Caption for linked image)
SECTION 2: St. Augustine–A Theologian for Our Times
“Happy those who feast on wisdom and savor her knowledge, She will nourish and refresh them.” – Hymn for the Office of Readings, 28 August.
St. Augustine and the Fires of Wisdom, Philippe de DeChampaigne (1645) - from Wikimedia Commons (Caption for linked image)
St. Augustine of Hippo lived in the last days of the Roman Empire. He died during the siege of his city by the Vandals. His Confessions should be (indeed are) required reading for all who want to understand what Catholicism is all about. I focus in this chapter on the strikingly modern positions he has taken on topics such as the literal truth of the Old Testament, creation, evolution, and the infinitude of God.
SAINT AUGUSTINE: CREATION
St. Augustine held that God created the universe from nothing. Two fundamental (and surprisingly modern) notions were introduced by Augustine: based on Sirach 18:
1. Creation was instantaneous (6 days were a metaphorical device).
2. Not all animal forms were present initially at creation—for some, the potential or seed to develop later in a different form was given initially.
St. Augustine argued that time began with the creation. He also stressed that one should not use Scripture to contradict what reason and experience (“Science”) tells us about the world:
“Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances…and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, lest the unbeliever see only ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.” – De Genesi ad litteram; the Literal Meaning of Genesis, an unfinished work.
SAINT AUGUSTINE: GOD AND INFINITY
Besides being ahead of his time in his ideas about creation, St. Augustine had profound and advanced ideas about the nature of God and infinity. Adam Drozdek (Associate Professor of Computer Science at Duquesne University) has written a fine article about this, Beyond Infinity: Augustine and Cantor, which I’ll try to summarize below:
“There are three important aspects of Augustine’s discussion of the problem of infinity. First, infinity is an inborn concept which enables any knowledge. Second, infinity can be found in the purest form in mathematics, and thus mathematics is the best tool of acquiring knowledge about God. Third, God is neither finite nor infinite and his greatness surpasses even the infinite. [emphasis added] Augustine is original in combining these three aspects in his philosophy; some of them can be found in other philosophers and theologians, but also in mathematicians.” – Adam Drozdek, “Beyond Infinity: Augustine and Cantor”
Augustine anticipates later developments in mathematics, the mathematics of infinity put forth in set theory, orders of infinity as proposed by the nineteenth Century mathematician George Cantor.
“All infinity is in some ineffable way made finite to God,” – St. Augustine, “De Civ. Dei (The City of God)”
That is to say, God can understand all orders of infinity from aleph-0 to aleph-n; God is more, is greater than infinity.
SECTION 3: The Medieval Church, Midwife and Nursemaid to Science
3.1 SCIENCE WAS BORN: THE EDICTS OF PARIS, 1277
Some (perhaps many) atheists and materialists would say that science arose in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fully mature, like Botticelli’s Venus arising from the ocean. According to them it arose then because Europe had shaken off the limiting bonds of Catholic doctrine.  
Pierre Duhem’s historical studies of science show that this is not so. Rather, Duhem dates the birth of science as 1277, the year the Bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, condemned a number of errors from astrology and from the Peripatetic philosophers (those following Aristotle).  The condemned articles contended that the earth could not move, that worlds other than earth could not exist, that empty space (a vacuum) was impossible, and proposed principles of motion that were shown later to be false.
Bishop Tempier condemned the articles not because of scientific errors, but because they apparently limited God’s power.  Once these Peripatetic dicta were declared non-binding, scholars – almost all of them clerics – were able to explore new ways to explain the world around us, ways that would grow into the scientific method.  
For cosmology — the science of the earth’s place in the universe — to come about, the following errors had to be corrected:
•That the earth could not move;
•That the earth was at the center of the universe;
•That different physical laws applied to the earth and to the planets;
•Aristotle’s theory of gravity.
According to Aristotle, gravity manifested itself in the following ways: heavy elements wanted to move to the center of the earth; the heavier the element (the more massive), the faster it would move; the lighter elements, air and fire, would move away from the center of the earth.
For dynamics — the science of motion — to move forward the following error had to be corrected:
“[Aristotle] held that the projectile was moved by the fluid medium, whether air or water, through which it passed and this, by virtue of the vibration brought about in the fluid at the moment of throwing, and spread through it [the vibration through the medium].”  -Pierre Duhem, “History of Physics before Einstein“
When Aristotle’s ideas were no longer regarded as the Ten Commandments of science, cosmology and dynamics could then develop into science as we know it today.
The development of cosmology culminated in the Copernican Revolution, the idea that the earth was no longer the center of the universe but revolved around the sun.  But there was much work preliminary to that – the notion did not spring full-blown to Copernicus. To explore this history in depth, please read Duhem’s “History of Physics before Einstein” (linked above).
3.2 THE INFANCY OF SCIENCE: SOME MEDIEVAL SCIENTISTS
(NOTE: Please see Section 5, section for material on fundamental physics of motion; link is above.)
Even though Pierre Duhem regards the Edicts of Paris as marking the birth of science, there were important contributions before that time. Listed below are a few of those who started up the engine of science—you’ll note that several of them lived before 1277 and that they were all clerics. A more complete history of the advances in mathematics, astronomy and physics achieved during the Medieval Ages is given in Pierre Duhem’s masterwork linked above.
•Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln • (1175-1253) introduced a principle fundamental to the practice of science: from particular observations a general law can be derived; then this law can be tested by additional observations of particulars—“resolution and composition”,
•Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), (1200-1280) is the patron saint of scientists. He was the teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, and made important contributions in zoology, mineralogy in addition to his important work in theology and philosophy.
•William of Ockham (1285-1350) introduced one of the prime principles of science, “Ockham’s Razor”. This states that one does not multiply hypotheses needlessly to explain a phenomenon. In other words, the simplest explanation that fully explains is the best.
•Jean Buridan (1300-1358) is probably more renowned for his analogy, “Buridan’s Ass”, than for his seminal contributions to the physics of motion: the idea of impetus (what we now call “momentum”) and inertia. Contrary to Aristotle, he maintained that a body would continue moving unless slowed down by friction, such as air resistance. He argued that a thrown body was set into motion by the arm of the thrower, and that the “impetus” of the moving body depended on how heavy it was (its mass) and its speed of motion. These were ideas taken up later by Galileo and Newton.
•Nicolas Oresme (1322-1382) was eminent (as were most Medieval Scholastics) in many fields—astronomy, mathematics, physics, philosophy and theology. He anticipated Galileo by almost a hundred years in proving the mean speed theorem geometrically: the distance covered under uniform acceleration is given by multiplying the average speed by the time.
3.3 GALILEO: SCIENCE ENTERS ADOLESCENCE
The work in physics and cosmology set the stage for Galileo–his important contribution was to introduce experimental tests of mathematical hypotheses. He used inclined plane experiments (I did these in my first year physics lab at Caltech) to formulate mathematical laws of motion about velocity and acceleration; he confirmed the Copernican hypothesis, that the earth revolved around the sun, by telescopic observations (see below). Thus, In the physics of motion–dynamics–he refined the idea of uniform acceleration. It should be noted that Galileo’s ideas about dynamics did not yet reach the stage taught today in first year physics classes,
“He then taught that the motion of a freely falling body was uniformly accelerated; in favour of this law, he contented himself with appealing to its simplicity without considering the continual increase of impetus under the influence of gravity. Gravity creates, in equal periods, a new and uniform impetus which, added to that already acquired, causes the total impetus to increase in arithmetical progression according to the time occupied in the fall; hence the velocity of the falling body.” – Pierre Duhem, History of Physics before Einstein
The picture below illustrates the well-known anecdote: Galileo tested his ideas about gravity and acceleration by dropping a light body (hollow circle) and a heavy body (filled in circle) from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This was a “thought experiment” of his, not carried out, So we see that although Galileo achieved much in setting physics as a science, he still followed in the tradition of his predecessors.  The relation of acceleration to force had to wait for Newton’s Law, Force= mass x acceleration or F = ma.
Galileo’s Thought Experiment: Heavy and Light Balls fall at the same rate - Adapted from Wikimedia Commons. (Caption for linked image)
Although Galileo made a huge step forward by his use of the telescope contributions to astronomy, he did build on the work of his predecessors. . He argued that the light and shadow patterns on the moon showed that it had mountains. He demonstrated the the planet Jupiter had satellites, and from the differing phases of Venus as it circled the sun, that the sun was the center of the solar system, and the earth orbited the sun. He also demonstrated that the sun had spots that moved with the rotation of the sun.
One point we should emphasize: despite his trials with Church hierarchy (see Section 4), Galileo was a true believer in God as author of a divine order that we could understand through science and mathematics:
“The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” – Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore, 1623)
3.4 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: NURSEMAID TO SCIENCE
Why did this development of physics and cosmology occur begin and grow in Medieval Christendom, but not in the ancient Hellenistic worlds or other civilizations?  Excellent answers have been given in some detail by Fr. Stanley Jaki and Dr. Stacy Trasancos, but I want to add my own opinion.
•First, there was a world view, founded on Judaeo-Christian theology, that God was good and created a universe that was good and meant to be intelligible to mankind.
•Second, as Pierre Duhem pointed out, the Medieval scholars were freed in 1277 from erroneous restrictions they would have had to follow if Aristotle’s principles were to be a compulsory base for theories.
•Third, in the earliest part of this growth they were priests;  this meant that they had time to do scholarly work (as do academics today) and did not have to worry about earning a living from non-scholarly pursuits.
•Fourth, perhaps underlaying all the above, those in the Church were highly motivated to learn—to relate the world around them to that which Revelation and Faith had given them to believe. The term “scholastic” for these Medieval priests was apt indeed.
Finally, I want to emphasize again: there was a continuity of development from the 13th century to Galileo. Although his pioneering development of the experimental method to confirm mathematically expressed theoretical ideas laid the foundations for modern science, science did not spring fully new from Galileo’s work. He built on the work of his predecessors.
From a series of articles written by: Bob Kurland - a Catholic Scientist
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twdmusicboxmystery · 7 years
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Holy Crap! Nicotero just called Daryl the OMEGA man!
Good morning Bethyl peeps! So today's post is kind of a small thing, and I honestly wasn't going to post about it. It started out as something interesting I posted in my FB group, but I didn't expect it to blossom into a full-fledged theory/post. But then, as usual, the ingenious fellow-theorists in the Safe Zone (my FB group) had tons of insights and it ended up being a detailed and lively discussion. The wonderful Nonny-M encouraged me to post it, so here it is.
So this is what happened. I noticed this post on Greg Nicotero's IG account a few days ago. 
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It was posted on Friday the 23rd. I could tell right away that it was a movie poster that had been edited to be a Daryl/TWD poster, but I had no idea what film the poster had been for originally. I'm not sure why--maybe because it was Nicotero posting it--but I had a little niggling suspicion in the back of my mind that I should look into this. I didn't get a chance to until Saturday evening. At that point, I noticed the caption, which told me what the movie poster had been originally: The Omega Man.
For those who don't know, The Omega Man is an old Charlton Heston film from the 70s based on the book I Am Legend. If you've seen the 2007 Will Smith film, the story is nearly identical. (Synopsis HERE.)
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So of course this makes sense on many levels for Nicotero to post. 
1) It's zombie genre. 
2) We've heard several times over the past few weeks from tptb that Daryl will "go rogue" this season, which I think means he may spend a lot of time away from TF at large and be on his own. 
(Of course we're side-eyeing that anyway. Is he going to be ALONE alone, or is he perhaps going to meet someone out in the woods? Let's face it: Daryl wandering around out in the woods alone for the entire season would be pretty boring. And the last time he was alone for a bit in the woods was in 6x06, where he first ran into Dwight, Tina because a Beth proxy, and there were a crap-ton of Beth parallels and symbolism. Just saying.)
So of course Nicotero could simply be hinting at Daryl's arc for S8. In I Am Legend/The Omega Man, the character is out on his own in a zombie-infested world. But I thought, if the parallels to the story are there, what other parallels are there? So I checked out the synopsis, and sure enough, there are other possible parallels that make me smile. The main character in The Omega Man meets a random woman while he's out and about. She saves him from a horde of zombies, and has a kid with her. (Think the Beth and Daryl as Protectors of Children theory.) The synopsis even mentions the two of the riding around a zombie-infested, but otherwise empty, city. *coughs D.C.*
Oh, and then there's the title: The Omega Man. As in Alpha and Omega? (X). I mean, Nicotero could as easily have made this edit using the I Am Legend Poster, but he specifically chose the older film with the Omega title.
So I posted this in my group as something with possible parallels that could be important. Enter Nonny M, @katkhaos, @boltthrutheheart, and @wdway.
So here's what we talked about:
@boltthrutheheart pointed out the "one survivor" line, which I didn't even notice. Definitely has callbacks to Beth's line about Daryl being the "last man standing."
Then Nonny-M figured out that Alpha can mean…wait for it…The North Star. I'd never picked up on that before. The North Star, also called Polaris, is designated Alpha Ursae Minoris. (Source).
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So bear with me here. We've considered that Alpha and Omega is biblical, meaning beginning and end. It's also a name for Christ. The "end" is particularly important heading into S8 because of all the 8/endgame references. Eugene: "8-ball, corner pocket." (X) Which is literally the end game. Also note that we had two separate 8-ball references around Beth and Daryl in Still as well. So we can trace this back to them.
We've also considered that Alpha and Omega might mean Alexandria to Oceanside. This was @wdway's insight, and it comes partly from Abraham's last speech to Sasha (☹). "Alpha to omega. Whether on a battlefield or a beach…" Battlefield/Alpha = Alexandria. Beach/Omega = Oceanside.
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So now, we have this poster. If Alpha = North Star, and we already think North Star = Beth, because, as Carl told Judith, it's at the end of the Little Dipper, which correlates to Beth's D.C. spoon, then Alpha = Beth.
Nicotero has just designated Daryl the Omega Man. So Alpha to Omega in Abraham's speech could be translated into, "North Star to Daryl" or, even better, Beth to Daryl.
Holy crap! And, you know, four weeks until the start of S8 as he's posting this. Four weeks!
This is huge, guys. We can now correlate the North Star stuff, the Bear Stuff (because the North Star is part of the Little Bear constellation) and the Alpha Omega stuff. We've always thought it was all about Beth's arc, but now we can connect it through true facts! Thanks Nonny-M! What an amazing insight!
So then our conversation turned some other, interesting side-notes. Nonny-M is Swedish, and she and KatKhaos were talking about names for the Little Dipper in their native languages. Nonny-M made the observation that we actually see a lot of Swedish around Carl. (He was part of the convo because of his Little Dipper line to Judith.) In the pudding house, we see the word "Fredag" which is Swedish for Friday.
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@KatKhaos and I have noted that before, but could never make anything concrete of it. There is the theory that S4 = Good Friday, S5 = Crucifixion, etc., but by that theory, the resurrection should have been S7, and she didn't show up. Now, I'm not saying that theory is wrong. It could still be a thing, but we'd have to lengthen out the timeline to her showing up in S8 instead. That's all.
But Nonny-M also noted that in this shot, we see the poster on the mantle for checking one's eyesight. Some of the letters (middle row) are Swedish: A, O (my keyboard won't do the Swedish versions.) 
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I asked her what letters they correspond to, but they don't correspond directly to English letters, though they are derived from them. So my first thought was that perhaps these letters aren't there for their own meaning. Rather, we once again have A and O. Alpha and Omega. Nonny-M also informs me that these are the last three letters of the Swedish alphabet. The Swedes have 29 letters, and these are 27-29. End game. The alphabet also starts with another A, but of course ends in O. So once again, A to O, Alpha to Omega, Beginning to End.
And why Swedish? That, we’re not entirely sure about yet. The only thing I can think of is that in Swedish, the Little Dipper is called the Little Bear. So maybe it’s a way of pulling in the bear symbolism (X). They can say Little Dipper in English any time (and they did later in S6 with Carl) but this is a way to tell us that the bear stuff is also related to all of this?
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@wdway also added that at the top of this chart is an A and an X, both of which represent Beth. (A = Alpha and then X Theory) That's especially important given the other stuff in this episode. I've talked about this frequently lately, but in the pudding house, Carl sees a dead song bird, then has tons of resurrection symbols around him. Lamps, a bat, yellow scissors, loses a shoe, shoots a walker in the left side of the forehead, and it jumps back up. Carl's whole arc in this episode, while immensely important for him, was also one big foreshadow of Beth. (He was trapped, had to get out on his, emphasis on sheriff's hat, fell down on the first try, room with the nautical theme, I could go on.)
Oh, one other thing I almost forgot to mention! Daryl’s shirt. This really looks like something from S7, and it’s his blue shirt he wore for most of 7b with the pocket missing. The color has obviously been altered…to green. I don’t think we’ve seen him wear that particular color on the show. Like, ever. But who has?
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Just saying. So yeah. I posted this as just a point of interest and it became a four-hour discussion with something like 40 comments. Who knew?
And of course Nicotero (of the 800 walkers in Coda, the missing 17 days, and maybe Creepy Wolf Dude was in love with Denise) LOVES to drop TD hints for us. So this kind of made my weekend.
Thoughts?
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perfectzablog · 5 years
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How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger
Back in the 1960s, a Harvard graduate student made a landmark discovery about the nature of human anger.
At age 34, Jean Briggs traveled above the Arctic Circle and lived out on the tundra for 17 months. There were no roads, no heating systems, no grocery stores. Winter temperatures could easily dip below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
Briggs persuaded an Inuit family to “adopt” her and “try to keep her alive,” as the anthropologist wrote in 1970.
At the time, many Inuit families lived similar to the way their ancestors had for thousands of years. They built igloos in the winter and tents in the summer. “And we ate only what the animals provided, such as fish, seal and caribou,” says Myna Ishulutak, a film producer and language teacher who lived a similar lifestyle as a young girl.
Briggs quickly realized something remarkable was going on in these families: The adults had an extraordinary ability to control their anger.
“They never acted in anger toward me, although they were angry with me an awful lot,” Briggs told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview.
For more than 30 years, the Inuit welcomed anthropologist Jean Briggs into their lives so she could study how they raise their children. Briggs is pictured during a 1974 visit to Baffin Island. (Jean Briggs Collection / American Philosophical Society)
Even just showing a smidgen of frustration or irritation was considered weak and childlike, Briggs observed.
For instance, one time someone knocked a boiling pot of tea across the igloo, damaging the ice floor. No one changed their expression. “Too bad,” the offender said calmly and went to refill the teapot.
In another instance, a fishing line — which had taken days to braid — immediately broke on the first use. No one flinched in anger. “Sew it together,” someone said quietly.
By contrast, Briggs seemed like a wild child, even though she was trying very hard to control her anger. “My ways were so much cruder, less considerate and more impulsive,” she told the CBC. “[I was] often impulsive in an antisocial sort of way. I would sulk or I would snap or I would do something that they never did.”
Briggs, who died in 2016, wrote up her observations in her first book, Never in Anger. But she was left with a lingering question: How do Inuit parents instill this ability in their children? How do Inuit take tantrum-prone toddlers and turn them into cool-headed adults?
Then in 1971, Briggs found a clue.
She was walking on a stony beach in the Arctic when she saw a young mother playing with her toddler — a little boy about 2 years old. The mom picked up a pebble and said, “‘Hit me! Go on. Hit me harder,'” Briggs remembered.
The boy threw the rock at his mother, and she exclaimed, “Ooooww. That hurts!”
Briggs was completely befuddled. The mom seemed to be teaching the child the opposite of what parents want. And her actions seemed to contradict everything Briggs knew about Inuit culture.
“I thought, ‘What is going on here?’ ” Briggs said in the radio interview.
Turns out, the mom was executing a powerful parenting tool to teach her child how to control his anger — and one of the most intriguing parenting strategies I’ve come across.
Iqaluit, pictured in winter, is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut. (Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR)
No scolding, no timeouts
It’s early December in the Arctic town of Iqaluit, Canada. And at 2 p.m., the sun is already calling it a day. Outside, the temperature is a balmy minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit. A light snow is swirling.
I’ve come to this seaside town, after reading Briggs’ book, in search of parenting wisdom, especially when it comes to teaching children to control their emotions. Right off the plane, I start collecting data.
I sit with elders in their 80s and 90s while they lunch on “country food” —stewed seal, frozen beluga whale and raw caribou. I talk with moms selling hand-sewn sealskin jackets at a high school craft fair. And I attend a parenting class, where day care instructors learn how their ancestors raised small children hundreds — perhaps even thousands — of years ago.
The elders of Iqaluit have lunch at the local senior center. On Thursdays, what they call “country food” is on the menu, things like caribou, seal and ptarmigan. (Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR)
Across the board, all the moms mention one golden rule: Don’t shout or yell at small children.
Traditional Inuit parenting is incredibly nurturing and tender. If you took all the parenting styles around the world and ranked them by their gentleness, the Inuit approach would likely rank near the top. (They even have a special kiss for babies, where you put your nose against the cheek and sniff the skin.)
The culture views scolding — or even speaking to children in an angry voice — as inappropriate, says Lisa Ipeelie, a radio producer and mom who grew up with 12 siblings. “When they’re little, it doesn’t help to raise your voice,” she says. “It will just make your own heart rate go up.”
Even if the child hits you or bites you, there’s no raising your voice?
“No,” Ipeelie says with a giggle that seems to emphasize how silly my question is. “With little kids, you often think they’re pushing your buttons, but that’s not what’s going on. They’re upset about something, and you have to figure out what it is.”
Traditionally, the women and children in the community eat with an ulu knife. (Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR)
Traditionally, the Inuit saw yelling at a small child as demeaning. It’s as if the adult is having a tantrum; it’s basically stooping to the level of the child, Briggs documented.
Elders I spoke with say intense colonization over the past century is damaging these traditions. And, so, the community is working hard to keep the parenting approach intact.
Goota Jaw is at the front line of this effort. She teaches the parenting class at the Arctic College. Her own parenting style is so gentle that she doesn’t even believe in giving a child a timeout for misbehaving.
“Shouting, ‘Think about what you just did. Go to your room!’ ” Jaw says. “I disagree with that. That’s not how we teach our children. Instead you are just teaching children to run away.”
And you are teaching them to be angry, says clinical psychologist and author Laura Markham. “When we yell at a child — or even threaten with something like ‘I’m starting to get angry,’ we’re training the child to yell,” says Markham. “We’re training them to yell when they get upset and that yelling solves problems.”
In contrast, parents who control their own anger are helping their children learn to do the same, Markham says. “Kids learn emotional regulation from us.”
I asked Markham if the Inuit’s no-yelling policy might be their first secret of raising cool-headed kids. “Absolutely,” she says.
Playing soccer with your head
Now at some level, all moms and dads know they shouldn’t yell at kids. But if you don’t scold or talk in an angry tone, how do you discipline? How do you keep your 3-year-old from running into the road? Or punching her big brother?
For thousands of years, the Inuit have relied on an ancient tool with an ingenious twist: “We use storytelling to discipline,” Jaw says.
Jaw isn’t talking about fairy tales, where a child needs to decipher the moral. These are oral stories passed down from one generation of Inuit to the next, designed to sculpt kids’ behaviors in the moment. Sometimes even save their lives.
For example, how do you teach kids to stay away from the ocean, where they could easily drown? Instead of yelling, “Don’t go near the water!” Jaw says Inuit parents take a pre-emptive approach and tell kids a special story about what’s inside the water. “It’s the sea monster,” Jaw says, with a giant pouch on its back just for little kids.
“If a child walks too close to the water, the monster will put you in his pouch, drag you down to the ocean and adopt you out to another family,” Jaw says.
“Then we don’t need to yell at a child,” Jaw says, “because she is already getting the message.”
Inuit parents have an array of stories to help children learn respectful behavior, too. For example, to get kids to listen to their parents, there is a story about ear wax, says film producer Myna Ishulutak.
“My parents would check inside our ears, and if there was too much wax in there, it meant we were not listening,” she says.
And parents tell their kids: If you don’t ask before taking food, long fingers could reach out and grab you, Ishulutak says.
Inuit parents tell their children to beware of the northern lights. If you don’t wear your hat in the winter, they’ll say, the lights will come, take your head and use it as a soccer ball! (Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR)
Then there’s the story of northern lights, which helps kids learn to keep their hats on in the winter.
“Our parents told us that if we went out without a hat, the northern lights are going to take your head off and use it as a soccer ball,” Ishulutak says. “We used to be so scared!” she exclaims and then erupts in laughter.
At first, these stories seemed to me a bit too scary for little children. And my knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss them. But my opinion flipped 180 degrees after I watched my own daughter’s response to similar tales — and after I learned more about humanity’s intricate relationship with storytelling.
Oral storytelling is what’s known as a human universal. For tens of thousands of years, it has been a key way that parents teach children about values and how to behave.
Modern hunter-gatherer groups use stories to teach sharing, respect for both genders and conflict avoidance, a recent study reported, after analyzing 89 different tribes. With the Agta, a hunter-gatherer population of the Philippines, good storytelling skills are prized more than hunting skills or medicinal knowledge, the study found.
Today many American parents outsource their oral storytelling to screens. And in doing so, I wonder if we’re missing out on an easy — and effective — way of disciplining and changing behavior. Could small children be somehow “wired” to learn through stories?
Inuit parenting is gentle and tender. They even have a special kiss for kids called kunik. (Above) Maata Jaw gives her daughter the nose-to-cheek Inuit sniff. (Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR)
“Well, I’d say kids learn well through narrative and explanations,” says psychologist Deena Weisberg at Villanova University, who studies how small children interpret fiction. “We learn best through things that are interesting to us. And stories, by their nature, can have lots of things in them that are much more interesting in a way that bare statements don’t.”
Stories with a dash of danger pull in kids like magnets, Weisberg says. And they turn a tension-ridden activity like disciplining into a playful interaction that’s — dare, I say it — fun.
“Don’t discount the playfulness of storytelling,” Weisberg says. “With stories, kids get to see stuff happen that doesn’t really happen in real life. Kids think that’s fun. Adults think it’s fun, too.”
Inuit filmmaker and language teacher Myna Ishulutak as a little girl. Anthropologist Jean Briggs spent six months with the family in the 1970s documenting the child’s upbringing. (Jean Briggs Collection / American Philosophical Society)
Why don’t you hit me?
Back up in Iqaluit, Myna Ishulutak is reminiscing about her childhood out on the land. She and her family lived in a hunting camp with about 60 other people. When she was a teenager, her family settled in a town.
“I miss living on the land so much,” she says as we eat a dinner of baked Arctic char. “We lived in a sod house. And when we woke up in the morning, everything would be frozen until we lit the oil lamp.”
I ask her if she’s familiar with the work of Jean Briggs. Her answer leaves me speechless.
Ishulutak reaches into her purse and brings out Briggs’ second book, Inuit Morality Play, which details the life of a 3-year-old girl dubbed Chubby Maata.
“This book is about me and my family,” Ishulutak says. “I am Chubby Maata.”
In the early 1970s, when Ishulutak was about 3 years old, her family welcomed Briggs into their home for six months and allowed her to study the intimate details of their child’s day-to-day life.
Myna Ishulutak today in Iqaluit, Canada. As the mother of two grown boys, she says, “When you’re shouting at them all the time they tend to kind of block you. So there’s a saying: ‘Never shout at them.’ “ (Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR)
What Briggs documented is a central component to raising cool-headed kids.
When a child in the camp acted in anger — hit someone or had a tantrum — there was no punishment. Instead, the parents waited for the child to calm down and then, in a peaceful moment, did something that Shakespeare would understand all too well: They put on a drama. (As the Bard once wrote, “the play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”)
“The idea is to give the child experiences that will lead the child to develop rational thinking,” Briggs told the CBC in 2011.
In a nutshell, the parent would act out what happened when the child misbehaved, including the real-life consequences of that behavior.
The parent always had a playful, fun tone. And typically the performance starts with a question, tempting the child to misbehave.
For example, if the child is hitting others, the mom may start a drama by asking: “Why don’t you hit me?”
Then the child has to think: “What should I do?” If the child takes the bait and hits the mom, she doesn’t scold or yell but instead acts out the consequences. “Ow, that hurts!” she might exclaim.
The mom continues to emphasize the consequences by asking a follow-up question. For example: “Don’t you like me?” or “Are you a baby?” She is getting across the idea that hitting hurts people’s feelings, and “big girls” wouldn’t hit. But, again, all questions are asked with a hint of playfulness.
The parent repeats the drama from time to time until the child stops hitting the mom during the dramas and the misbehavior ends.
Ishulutak says these dramas teach children not to be provoked easily. “They teach you to be strong emotionally,” she says, “to not take everything so seriously or to be scared of teasing.”
Psychologist Peggy Miller, at the University of Illinois, agrees: “When you’re little, you learn that people will provoke you, and these dramas teach you to think and maintain some equilibrium.”
In other words, the dramas offer kids a chance to practice controlling their anger, Miller says, during times when they’re not actually angry.
This practice is likely critical for children learning to control their anger. Because here’s the thing about anger: Once someone is already angry, it is not easy for that person to squelch it — even for adults.
“When you try to control or change your emotions in the moment, that’s a really hard thing to do,” says Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychologist at Northeastern University who studies how emotions work.
But if you practice having a different response or a different emotion at times when you’re not angry, you’ll have a better chance of managing your anger in those hot-button moments, Feldman Barrett says.
“That practice is essentially helping to rewire your brain to be able to make a different emotion [besides anger] much more easily,” she says.
This emotional practice may be even more important for children, says psychologist Markham, because kids’ brains are still developing the circuitry needed for self-control.
“Children have all kinds of big emotions,” she says. “They don’t have much prefrontal cortex yet. So what we do in responding to our child’s emotions shapes their brain.”
A lot has changed in the Arctic since the Canadian government forced Inuit families to settle in towns. But the community is trying to preserve traditional parenting practices. (Johan Hallberg-Campbell for NPR)
Markham recommends an approach close to that used by Inuit parents. When the kid misbehaves, she suggests, wait until everyone is calm. Then in a peaceful moment, go over what happened with the child. You can simply tell them the story about what occurred or use two stuffed animals to act it out.
“Those approaches develop self-control,” Markham says.
Just be sure you do two things when you replay the misbehavior, she says. First, keep the child involved by asking many questions. For example, if the child has a hitting problem, you might stop midway through the puppet show and ask,”Bobby, wants to hit right now. Should he?”
Second, be sure to keep it fun. Many parents overlook play as a tool for discipline, Markham says. But fantasy play offers oodles of opportunities to teach children proper behavior.
“Play is their work,” Markham says. “That’s how they learn about the world and about their experiences.”
Which seems to be something the Inuit have known for hundreds, perhaps even, thousands of years.
Myna Ishulutak (upper right, in blue jacket) lived a seminomadic life as a child. Above: photos of the girl and her family in the hunting camp of Qipisa during the summer of 1974. (Jean Briggs Collection / American Philosophical Society)
Share Your Tips
How do you get your kids to do things without yelling or shouting? Or, how did your parents get you to do things without yelling or scolding? Share your advice, tips and stories, and we may include them in a story for NPR.
Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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pogueman · 7 years
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Samsung's Bixby voice assistant is ambitious, powerful, and half-baked
yahoo
Can you imagine what it must have been like at Samsung when they came up with Bixby?
Manager: “OK, people. Apple (AAPL) has Siri, Google (GOOG, GOOGL) has its Assistant, Microsoft (MSFT) has Cortana. Amazon (AMZN) has that Alexa thing. We’re the only major player without a voice assistant!”
Underling 1: “But since our phones run Android, they already have Google Assistant built in. It wouldn’t make sense to create a second voice assistant on the same phone, would it?”
Underling 2: “Like that’s ever stopped us before? Samsung Reminders? Samsung Pay? Samsung Notes? HELLO?”
Manager: “Sheila’s right. I’m sick of being called a copycat company! We need to leapfrog the others! Our assistant won’t just tell you the weather and set alarms—ours will perform complete, multistep tasks!”
Second-in-command: “Cool! Yes! Like, ‘Send the last picture I took to my wife!’ Like ‘Take a selfie, apply the black-and-white filter, and post it to Instagram!'”
Manager: “And what’s more, we’ll someday expand this technology across the entire Samsung archipelago! It’ll be in our fridges! And washer-dryers! And cameras!”
Underling 1: “Um, but we have no experience with writing voice assistants. No database of voice samples. No voice-analysis experts.”
Manager: “Hey now, Ms. Doubty-Face. Let’s not stomp on my dreams. We’re going to write this thing, and what’s more, we’re going to have it done in time for the launch of our flagship Galaxy S8 phone!”
Underlings, together: “WHAAAAA—?”
You get the idea. From the beginning, Bixby (as the new voice assistant is bizarrely named) has been overly ambitious and underly polished.
It wasn’t ready in time for the Galaxy S8’s American launch. The phone comes with a dedicated Bixby button on the left edge, but for four months, it did absolutely nothing. (And when people tried to write hacks that assigned that button to do something, Samsung released a patch that blocked them.)
Well, Bixby is finally here. That Galaxy S8 button finally does something. Unfortunately, it’s not often what you want it to do.
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After months of delay, Bixby is here.
How Bixby works
You can press the Bixby button as you issue your command, or you can speak hands-free by preceding each command with “Hi Bixby,” much as you can say “Hey Siri” or “OK Google.”
The training setup requires you to utter eight sentences, like “Hi Bixby,” “Hi Bixby, turn on Bluetooth,” “Health is always important,” and so on.
Now, you might assume that this unusually long training session will guarantee unusually good speech recognition. You’d be wrong.
Standard commands
The best way to show you how hit-or-miss Bixby’s performance is? Maybe it’s just to show you what you’d get if you could try it yourself.
Green means, “Bixby worked!” Blue means, “Bixby FAIL!”
Let’s start with the everyday commands, which your Apple or Android phone can already do:
Set an alarm for 7:30 a.m.
Open Settings.
Read my new messages.
What’s the weather? (Bixby: “Hmm, I can’t determine your current location.” The hilarious part is that the phone knows perfectly well my current location—which it displays just above the message saying that it doesn’t!)
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You can’t determine the location? How about looking HALF AN INCH HIGHER ON THE SCREEN?
How many new emails do I have? (Bixby: “No problem. I’ve filtered the emails.” What?)
Send an email to Nicki about tomorrow’s lunch. (Bixby creates an outgoing email message, sure enough—but addresses it to “Nicki about tomorrow’s lunch.)
Create a new note called Rainy Day Activities. (It works—but the note is saved on the phone only, in a dedicated Samsung Notes app. The note doesn’t appear on the web or on any other machines, as it would if you used Siri or used Google Assistant.)
Add margarine to my Grocery List note.
Turn on “Do Not Disturb.”
Create an appointment for Friday at noon called “Fishing with Bob.” (Creates the appointment, but the title is only “Fishing.” Bob’s nowhere to be found.)
How many pictures did I take today? (Bixby: “OK! Let’s set up Samsung Health.” What the—??)
Tell me a joke. (Well, half credit. Bixby tells you a joke, but they’re terrible. “Who is Samsung’s favorite supehero? Super AMOLED!”)
Is a wombat a mammal? (Bixby hears, “Is a wombat a memo?” no matter how clearly, slowly, and repeatedly I asked. I already realize that a wombat is not a memo.)
When is the next Indians game? (Bixby displays only a link to the Major League Baseball schedule site, rather than showing the answer, as Siri does.)
Call Sarah.
Send a text to mom saying, “See you at Thanksgiving.”
What is Apple’s stock price? (Bixby displays a paragraph about Apple from Wikipedia—no mention of its stock price.)
What’s a 17% tip on $42? (Bixby displays links to online tip calculators. Siri and Google display the answer.)
Bixby is especially pathetic when it comes to navigation.
What pizza places are nearby? (Bixby: “Looks like there’s a connection problem.”)
Find me an Italian restaurant nearby. (Bixby opens Google Maps—promising!—but then stops, saying, “It looks like we experienced a slight hiccup.”)
Give me directions to JFK airport. (Bixby: “Which one?”)
Give me directions to the Empire State Building. (The “slight hiccup” error message appears after 10 seconds.)
In all cases, Bixby is very, very slow—plenty of videos online show how badly it lags behind Siri or Google Assistant.
It’s also fairly confusing. Most response bubbles include the baffling phrase, “You’re in native context.” And every so often, you’re awarded Bixby XP points for using Bixby. Samsung suggests that if you accumulate enough, you’ll be able to earn valuable prizes. OK, but if you have to bribe your customers to use your app…
Phone-control commands
Bixby may be super-lame at performing the usual voice-assistant commands. But to its credit, it can control your phone in some very literal ways that most other assistants can’t. For example:
Turn on the flashlight. (How great is that!?)
Take a selfie. (Bixby open the Camera app, turns on the front camera, and displays a three-second countdown. It’s terrific.)
Scroll down.
Go to the Home screen.
Open the Quick Settings panel.
Open Display in Settings.
Tap “blue light filter.”
Open the app drawer. (Bixby hears the command correctly, but displays the app store, and opens the keyboard for searching.)
Show me my apps? (Bixby asks, “Which one?” and lists three of them.)
Open the app tray. (Bixby invites you to change the grid-spacing settings for your apps.)
Yes, of course, it’s always faster to use your finger; Bixby does everything slowly. But sometimes, your hands are full, or your brain is full and you can’t remember how to get to something.
Compound commands
Where Bixby is supposed to shine, of course, is performing more elaborate commands that would leave its rivals in the dust.
Set an alarm called “Milk the cows” at 4:30 a.m., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Crop my most recent photo.
Text my latest photo to mom. (Man, this one is so useful and reliable, it’s almost enough to make me forgive the rest of Bixby’s brokenness. Almost.)
Find the pictures I took today and put them into a folder called Summer Break. (Amazing!)
Open Voice Recorder and start recording.
Open Instagram and post my most recent photo, with the caption ‘Rainy Monday.’”
Open Facebook Messenger and send the message, “I’m running 20 minutes behind” to Christine. (If you have only one Christine in your Facebook contacts, opens the message-composition screen, but doesn’t fill in the message you specified.)
Open Facebook and post my latest photo. (Bixby gives that “slight hiccup” message.)
Bixby works only in apps that have been specially adapted to work with it. That includes 15 of the phone’s built-in apps—Gallery, Contacts, Phone, Settings, Messages, Camera, etc.— plus about 20 ‘Bixby Labs’ apps, which presumably means they’re still under development. They include Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR), WhatsApp, Gmail, Google Play Store, and so on.
Bixby not as Billed
It’s incredible that a company as global and deep-pocketed as Samsung would release software as half-baked as Bixby. True, the company has a long history of writing apps that only kind of work (cough *S Translator* cough). But something as important and essential to the phone—and to the company’s future—as Bixby? Come on.
Bixby will improve, of course. And some of the things that do work are so compelling and useful, Apple and Google should be ashamed not to have thought of them. “Turn on the flashlight” and “Text my most recent photo to Robin” are particularly brilliant.
For now, though, be grateful that your Samsung phone also has the “OK Google” assistant on it. You can use that for all the everyday queries that Bixby botches, and use Bixby for the few things it’s really good at. You just have to learn which assistant to trigger when.
As for the name Bixby? No, it’s not named after Bill Bixby, star of the 1978 “The Incredible Hulk” TV show; it’s named for a bridge in California. That turns out to be apropos, because surely not even the managers and underlings at Samsung believe that Bixby is a finished product. If anything, it’s only a temporary bridge—to, we hope, something much better.
More from David Pogue:
Is through-the-air charging a hoax?
Electrify your existing bike in 2 minutes with these ingenious wheels
Marty Cooper, inventor of the cellphone: The next step is implantables 
The David Pogue Review: Windows 10 Creators Update
Now I get it: Bitcoin
David Pogue’s search for the world’s best air-travel app
The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers
David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s [email protected]. You can read all his articles here, or you can sign up to get his columns by email. 
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uxoftravel · 5 years
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Automated Ordering Is Finally Here
Both the Houston and Newark airports have comprehensively switched to iPad-based ordering through the entire terminal. It is really amazing how most of the innovation in the service industry sector seems to happening at airports first - maybe they are using it as a controlled testing ground with an audience that has more money and cares more about efficiency.
I got the chance to try ordering breakfast from one of these systems, and it’s clear their UX designers haven’t thought everything through properly yet.
Pros:
- It is possible to order very rapidly, and pay seamlessly with a credit card.
- Each table has a power outlet and USB which means no more hunting for “the right table”.
- Seating: They have engineered the 4-person tables to easily transition to 4 single-person tables, which is pretty ingenious. The iPad is propped up at an angle in the middle of the table, which acts as a natural “privacy screen” of sorts, and each ipad has it’s own ordering system. So I could easily see sharing even a side of a larger table with a complete stranger. A lot of space in restaurants gets wasted from having 2 or 3 people sitting at 4-person tables. However, it might be a little distracting to have an animated, flashing, bright iPad separating your from your date in a dimly lit romantic bar. This design has also democratized all of the standard waiting areas and turned them into extensions of restaurants. You can order a limited menu from any seat, anywhere, and your food is delivered to your seat. This must result in far more food orders and removes the concept of waiting in line to get a seat “inside the restaurant.”
- You don’t need to ask for a menu, and the menus aren’t dirty or falling apart as they are in some restaurants.
- They have the idea of “opening a tab” where you can add more items like “coffee to go”, although this is somewhat hidden. It also doesn’t let you remove things from you bill, such as beet hash which was an unsuccessful order. That is something a human waiter would do automatically.
Cons:
- At 5:30am it was hard to tell if the restaurant was open. The iPad menus had nothing to say about the topic.
- There is no greeting to the restaurant. Most waiters say hello, get you water, and maybe tell you about the specials. They didn’t code any of this into the menu except the specials, but this more random ads than specifically food at the restaurant you are sitting in.
- Ordering was fairly painless and let me pay with a credit card or miles. It also let me purchase an item that they didn’t have in stock (no beets). The waitress had to come out to tell me this, and then we had to discuss reversing the credit charge to order a new item.
- While there is the opportunity to show a picture of every food item, they instead chose to have a textual list. This is a lost opportunity. They need to think more like Amazon shopping and less like old-fashioned menu with a script font.
- They have changed the ordering script (process) used universally around the world. It normally goes: sit, greet, order, verify order, get food, pay. Here it goes: sit, order, pay, get food, “close check”. It is quite difficult to tell when you have actually paid. I thought I had already paid, immediately after ordering - but apparently I have a “check open”, and I need to manually close it. This was unexpected, and I wonder what would happen if I rushed off to catch my plane without clicking the hidden ‘your check’ button and closing it. Could other people order on my credit card? Amusingly, after a half-hour of sitting at the table, it somehow determined that I was no longer eating (false) and it now says “empty order” when I click the “your check” button. That is tech-speak and it should never be shown to the user. It’s also somewhat rude to force me to re-authenticate myself with my boarding pass and a credit card after I already did that once. So they have some work to do on recognizing individual customers and making sure users understand how to complete processes.
- Overuse of animation and no off button. Some designers seem to love animating everything under the sun, and it is super annoying. You can’t eat your meal without having United credit card ads, food ads, and miscellaneous product ads flashing constantly in front of your face. Even trying the hack of loading the food menu and leaving it open doesn’t work as it rapidly times out and then returns you to ads. Most in-flight ordering screens have the option to turn down the brightness to zero or click an on/off button - these in-table ordering systems need the same thing for those of us that are easily distracted.
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Photo caption: The only way to get the iPad to stop flashing advertisements since they disabled the hardware on/off button and don’t have a ‘do not disturb’ mode
- The waitress comes over and says to me “if you want more coffee, just call me over, don’t order a new one through the iPad.” So the designers forgot to put in a single feature which is absolutely necessary - which is - call the waiter to my table. Korean BBQ restaurants have been doing this for 20 years and its surprising they missed this. There could also be a ‘refill coffee’ button on the iPad, but they are a bit too transaction-focused.
- The iPad doesn’t understand when you are still having your meal. It’s like the impatient waiter who’s shift is ending and wants to close out your check while you still want coffee refills and dessert. Instead of advertising the next meal to the next customer before you’re gone (rude) it should recognize that you are still there and continue to serve you in appropriate ways.
- Upon leaving, I am still a bit unsure if I actually paid, or if my tab is still open. I did swipe my card, but it never gave me a receipt, and I never told it I was done because it got confused and thought I was a new customer. This should be more like Amazon Go where you walk in, scan your ID, eat the things you want, and then walk out. Being unsure if you just stole something is not a great design.
Summary:
Tablet-based ordering is a very promising concept and offers some definite advantages over human waiters, however, there are significant interaction design problems and the experience of eating is degraded by unnecessary advertising and lack of user agency.
Video caption: Excessive animation is very distracting while eating a meal and shows things that are not relevant to the current user task.
Postscript:
The 60-year-old couple next to me tried to order coffee before they ordered their food. However they didn’t swipe the credit card, so it was never ordered and they waited unhappy for 20 minutes. This is a script-based problem because a normal waiter will get your coffee first, and then proceed with the food part of the order. The iPad should do this as well.
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mhsn033 · 4 years
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Coronavirus: ‘Why I hate working from home’
Image copyright Tara Hudson
Image caption Tara Hudson says her aid is now “in absolute agony”
It was stress-free for every week or two – a welcome trade from the stresses and traces of the day-to-day accelerate. However nearly six months like now passed since many of us started working from home, and for some, it feels love this can by no manner end.
Four people expose why they’re discovering home-working unbearable.
Tara Hudson hates working from home.
“Originally it was stress-free on memoir of we had been all on this together, we now like got to compose it to shield all people safe,” says the local council employee.
However she says the lack of region and proper tools in the one-bedroom East London flat she shares with her husband makes it unbearable.
After five months of working from home, she says her aid was “in absolute agony” from sitting hunched over her pc computer with out a correct desk.
Both she and her husband build a living from home. They most effective like one fold-out table in the living room and wish to alternate who gets to work on the table. It is infrequently “whoever gets it first”.
“We did are trying to herald the garden table, but it no doubt’s now not truly essential ample,” she says. “We both like jobs the attach we now like got to be in contact about confidential info. Now and again I am sitting on the ground in the hall on memoir of he is in the living room.”
She infrequently find yourself sitting on her bed. “There shall be a complete technology of those that are working on their bed who will like spinal complications as a consequence of coronavirus,” she says.
Though both her and her husband’s employers like provided them home tools, Tara says there’s nowhere to attach it. She says: “It is depressing – work, sleep and play in all in a single room.”
Tara was allowed to return to the web site of job for the first time earlier this month, after citing how tense she was discovering home-working.
“It was so nice to like an web site of job chair. precisely having your toes, having two shows. I used to be so fundamental more productive.”
Lily O’Hagan has had ample.
The 26-year-used works for the claims division for a car insurance protection firm in Cardiff and lives in a condominium-section with four men. Three of them are also working from home.
“My room is honest subsequent to the entrance door, so it be nearly my unsaid responsibility to respond to it after we earn deliveries,” she says. It has begun to earn anxious and the home has got messier.
At the origin they struggled with the WiFi, as all people tried to make exercise of it without prolong. “We needed to earn the proprietor to earn trade broadband region up to make the WiFi sooner as it was awful.”
Lily works with customer’s confidential info so she feels she cannot exercise shared spaces in the home. “Where I am living at the second there is a exiguous a communal region but it no doubt’s love a workers room. I don’t desire other folks with a thought to listen to me, so I cannot work in there”.
And she or he misses her colleagues. “If I want again we can talk more with out plan back in the web site of job. IT points make speaking and asking questions fundamental more challenging”.
Her firm has acknowledged they’ll at final let people to come aid to their buildings, but Lily shall be one of many final aid as she has bronchial asthma.
So she has taken issues into her like arms. “I am entering right into a condominium with more ladies – on memoir of they’re tidier.”
Gemma Shaw is serene working at 10pm.
She says she is making an are trying to “juggle” home education and doing her job from home. “I have confidence love a failing guardian and a failing expert,” she says.
The 38-year-used from Lincolnshire, is head of fundraising for a charity. She says she finds the ingenious half of her job fundamental more refined at home.
“I had the opportunity to construct a living from home each occasionally before lockdown started, but I infrequently did. I work in a truly ingenious team and it be most effective to be together to again the creativity. Working by myself on initiatives is tense.”
Image copyright Gemma Shaw
Image caption Gemma Shaw uses her kitchen table as an web site of job and to coach her young people
Gemma and her husband like also struggled to home-college their two young people whereas they’ve been asserting plump-time jobs.
“A baby nudging you if you uncover yourself making an are trying to compose one thing predominant, love write an announcement, manner you are now not getting any work done but you are now not teaching them both,” she says.
They’ve also needed to make exercise of their annual leave, taking two weeks off work individually to quilt four weeks of the college summer holidays. “That’s now not family time that’s lawful retaining issues together,” she provides.
“I work after the kids like gone to bed,” she says. “So from 8pm to 10pm at night. My husband and I settle shifts working and having a see after the young people during the day, but I serene wish to compose all my hours. It is so anxious”.
Paul feels unmotivated.
He lives in Newcastle and works in IT. He resisted working from home so long as he could.
“We got the strategy to work remotely but I held on for another week till we had been truly helpful to head home” says Paul, which is now not his real title. And he says it has affected his psychological smartly being.
“I would been on antidepressants and by March I used to be feeling love there was gentle at the end of the tunnel,” he provides. “However being in lockdown makes me anxious and I earn distracted by the relaxation round me.
“The biggest thing for me is the lack of social interaction. I in any case like some correct chums at work and we inch for a escape in our lunch spoil. No longer having that exercise and interaction is refined.”
Paul says he has lacked motivation to complete his day-to-day tasks. “I don’t love my job, so staying engaged shall be tense.
“Work at the second is manner down on my priority record – if I used to be in the web site of job the pork up community round me would again make it now not so unpleasant.”
And he says getting the honest tools has been refined. “I want two shows to compose the total comparisons I wish to compose and I most effective got the second now not too long ago.”
Paul’s firm is now offering bookable hubs for employees to work from other than returning to the web site of job. However for him, love so many others, working from home could develop to be the sleek in sort.
And that’s the reason now not one thing he is overjoyed about. “Why will like to serene my eating room develop to be their web site of job region?”
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paulbenedictblog · 4 years
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Bbc news El enigma del coronavirus cuando tu boca es tu "mano"
Bbc news
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Describe copyright Geoff Adams-Spink
Many disabled folk face difficulties adapting their routines to cease safe throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Thalidomide Society chairman Geoff Adams-Spink presentations some thalidomide survivors relish been left at a loss for phrases after realising how in total they utilize their mouths and feet for tasks, instead of their fingers.
It used to be a friend and fellow thalidomide survivor, Berrisford, who first alerted me and other members of our neighborhood to the added dangers posed by coronavirus.
Thalidomide used to be a morning illness drug given to pregnant girls in the dreary 1950s and early 60s, nonetheless it completely in total precipitated shortening of limbs for the infants born. For every Berrisford and me, it affected our fingers.
In a Fb put up for chums, Berrisford described the huge lengths he had long previous to in expose to dwell safe while out on a browsing toddle honest appropriate after Covid-19 hit Europe and the US.
He explained that he meticulously swabbed his grocery store trolley and maintained social distancing at all instances.
He took his candies home in the records he had stored himself safe having followed the authorities's guidelines. A appropriate job effectively performed.
At home, hungry and tempted by the food in front of him, he grabbed something that regarded tasty and tore into the packet in a procedure he has performed for most of his existence - with his enamel.
Despites all of those make clear precautions he had momentarily forgotten he in total depends on his mouth instead of his fingers for such tasks.
Describe copyright Geoff Adams-Spink
His hygiene routine had effectively been thwarted by a rumbling abdominal and a workaround that many of us with shorter fingers relish feeble plenty of instances each day for decades.
So how attain you tackle coronavirus ought to you utilize your mouth for straightforward tasks, instead of your fingers?
It completely doesn't desire to be pointed out that the hand-washing guidelines don't appear to be as efficient for my friend or me in this topic as for quite rather a lot of others.
However hanging something to your mouth that has come from a public location could maybe also potentially switch the virus straight to your body - it could maybe be a truly advise transmission.
Many Thalidomide survivors utilize the same mouth-trick as Berrisford for the sake of simplicity and urge. My dentist always strikes a chord in my memory that opening bottles with my enamel (the screw high variety, don't fret) will consequence in lasting misery. Correction, has already resulted in some lasting misery.
However for the time being, existence with coronavirus procedure taking care to glossy all my browsing as soon as I return home, sooner than I originate a packet and just like the contents. Or I will be succesful of question somebody internal my household to succor me, offering they've washed their fingers first.
It is miles no longer honest appropriate our mouths that could maybe trigger dilemmas. So much has already been written in regards to the scenario some disabled folk face in looking out to care for the 2m (6ft) distance from care givers - if somebody is washing my hair in the shower, they are in the menace zone, as am I.
Describe copyright Geoff Adams-Spink
Describe caption Many Thalidomide survivors relish realized to make utilize of their feet as an replace of fingers
Thalidomide survivors are all spherical the same age - heading into our 60s - nonetheless we now face a entire recent location of challenges to untangle associated to this pandemic. We will relish to rely on a vaccine sooner than we are able to return to the utilization of some of our ancient solutions and workarounds again. In my friend's characteristically poignant phrases: "We now relish to rewrite the 'easy solutions to' e book (again)".
This got me thinking - could maybe also there be an upside, as well to a draw back, to living with upper limb impairment?
Though we attain utilize our mouths and our chins a lot, maybe to recordsdata a pen or even to originate a packet of crisps, many of us are extremely adept at the utilization of our feet to attain issues at waist diploma or below.
Shall we embrace, I will robotically originate and shut doorways or flush the loo the utilization of my feet, which don't streak wherever near my face or mouth. And at the quit of the day, those socks streak into the wash.
Describe copyright NEIL HALL
Describe caption No lavatory roll, no topic
When I observed movies of folk combating over lavatory rolls, forgive me, nonetheless I felt a diminutive of bit smug.
In neatly-liked with many other thalidomide survivors who relish quick fingers, I genuinely relish feeble a bidet or shower lavatory since childhood - I genuinely relish a moveable one for utilize while travelling.
We are therefore among the very best a pair of folk that relish no longer had to stress about lavatory paper being briefly supply.
It is all too easy to focus for your self true into a passive, victim mentality when it involves coronavirus nonetheless disabled folk are ingenious topic solvers - existence hacks are what we attain your entire time to salvage by.
Residing thru this phenomenal episode will demand astronomical reserves of lateral thinking, creativity and ingenuity. As disabled folk, we already relish those issues in spades.
For added Disability Data, apply BBC Ouch onTwitterandFb, and subscribe to ourpodcasts.
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denamwoods · 4 years
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Best Litter Boxes for Odor Control
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I have three cats at home, so I made a promise to them that I’ll do something about those litter boxes. I’ve done a considerable amount of research on stuff like using deodorizers or opting for those no-odor litter boxes. So, if you’re hoping to get the solution for odor control, then you might find this guide helpful.
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PLAN – PRICE
Description
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READ MORE
BUY NOW
Van Ness Sifting Enclosed Cat Litter Pan
Check Amazon’s Price
Editor’s Choice
Petmate Booda Dome Cat Litter Box
Check Amazon’s Price
Runner Up
Nature’s Miracle Oval Hooded Litter Box
Check Amazon’s Price
Best Value
Click here to view our individual product reviews for litter boxes that offer odor control.
Dealing With The Smell From Litter Boxes
Cat litter boxes come in different forms, styles, and material construction. Some cat owners don’t have a choice when buying one because it’ll mostly depend on whether the animal likes it or not. The good news is that most of the kitty litters you’ll find in stores are designed to have superb odor control capabilities.
When you’re about to shop for a new litter box, be sure you consider purchasing odor-fighting accessories, too. It took me a couple of months to realize that I could use baking soda to fight off the odor. Your choice depends on what makes you comfortable when using an odor-eliminating accessory or product.
And of course, there’s the cat litter box. It is the single most important product to buy if you wish to successfully get rid of the stink in your house. While there’s a lot of products to choose from, you may find yourself overwhelmed with all of them. It is why you most likely will benefit from reading the rest of this guide.
Choosing the Ideal Litter Box
Buying a litter box means considering a handful of things. You’re planning to get one because cat stink is a major concern for you. Well, we’ve all been there. There was a time when I felt like my cats were the most awfully smelling creatures in the neighborhood! I was ashamed to invite people to the house.
So, when I realized that a litter box could help solve my problem, I made sure I was making the right move in choosing a product.
Material
Most litter boxes are made from plastic, but the quality will differ from one manufacturer to another. You may want to look at products which anti-microbial properties in their construction since it will prevent the buildup of mold and mildew. Choose a litter box that’s durable and sturdy, and you can easily figure it out by holding the product.
Hooded Litter Box with a Filtration System
Cat litter boxes with odor control features come in different varieties, but most people would think of a hooded type right away. But not all hooded boxes are ideal for sanitation and controlling the spread of odor. You may want to focus your search on a hooded box that’s equipped with a sophisticated filtration and ventilation system.
Location
It’s not just about the litter box. The size of your living space and your cat’s preferred location also matters. Your cat will likely agree if you put the litter box away from heavy foot traffic. Like humans, your feline friend hates it when there are people looking over it when it happens to be doing private stuff. You’ll get kitty privacy in places like the laundry room.
If you’re like me who owns several cats, then using one litter box wouldn’t suffice. The best option is to have one litter box per cat, and don’t put them near each other. You want the litter boxes to be conveniently accessible and away from areas where there are a lot of people.
Here’s a helpful video on how to go about cleaning a cat litter box:
youtube
  What I Did to Choose the Best Available Product
I did my part in reviewing a bunch of cat litter boxes before I bought the one which I think was the best option. If you want to come up with a smart buying decision, then put in all the effort possible in reading reviews online and comparing each product on your list.
I managed to narrow down my list of prospects into five litter boxes for odor control after dropping those that were overpriced. I also ranked the five products based on certain criteria. You’ll see later which one takes the title of the best litter box for odor control.
Individual Odor Control Litterbox Product Reviews
Van Ness Sifting Enclosed Cat Litter Pan
Check Amazon’s Price
The most distinct selling point of the Van Ness Sifting Enclosed Cat Litter Pan is that you can use it for multiple cats. All the other products in this list recommend that each cat should have its own litter box for odor control, but this one is large enough to accommodate multiple felines. The litter box features a scoop-free maintenance system, coupled with an effective odor control mechanism brought by the enclosed design.
It’s a cat litter box that effectively neutralizes the stink, thanks to the replaceable Zeolite air filter. The manufacturer recommends that the filter be replaced every two months. Other notable features include the high polish finish that’s stain-resistant and the removal enclosed top for a hassle-free cleaning job.
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Quick Glance
What’s Good
Excellent for cats that don’t like swinging doors
Convenient cleaning mechanism with the removal enclosed top
The sifting pan is a practical addition
Large enough to fit a large breed
What’s Bad
The litter box could use some added height for extra-large cats
Flimsy construction and some cheap plastics
Petmate Booda Dome Clean Step Cat Litter Box
Check Amazon’s Price
The Petmate cat litter box offers an ingenious design that will keep the litter away from the floor. There is a charcoal filter on the dome that works by trapping the odor when it starts rising from the litter pan. The system of keeping the stink within the confines of the box ensures that your room won’t be filled with the odor you wanted to get rid of in the first place.
The easy-lift handle combined with the rounded non-stick pan means that cleaning the litter is surprisingly effortless. There’s a reinforced cover for the box, allowing a secure enclosure for keeping your feline friend comfortable in its private moment. Best of all, the cover will keep the litter out of your sight.
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Quick Glance
What’s Good
Provides the best privacy among the many competing products
Easy entry and exit for a cat, regardless of size
The treated tramp keeps the litter within the confines of the box
Very easy to set up with the filter sliding right into the top
What’s Bad
There are occasional cases of leaking
Poorly cut plastic in the exterior of the litter box
Nature’s Miracle Oval Hooded Litter Box
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Nature’s Miracle is no stranger to pet grooming and cleaning products. Its Hooded Flip Top Litter Box has a built-in odor control system to keep the stink at bay. The addition of a charcoal filter allows it to effectively absorb the most stubborn litter box odors, while the built-in flip-top hood will prevent the possibility of leaking and scattering of the litter.
The other notable features of Nature’s Miracle Oval Hooded Litter Box are the non-stick surface, latching sidelocks, and the front door with a wide opening for easy and quick access. The collection of these convenience features is more like an innovation geared towards helping a cat owner like you handle litter while keeping the stink away.
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Quick Glance
What’s Good
Ability to lift the front part of the litter box makes scooping a lot easier
Comes with extra-durable latches
The four-snap mechanism ensures there are no gaps
Ideal for use for different sizes of cats
What’s Bad
Logo on the litter box could be smaller
There are some cheap plastic components
The rigid latches could be a problem for some people
AmazonBasics Hooded Cat Litter Box
Check Amazon’s Price
The Hooded Cat Litter Box from AmazonBasics offers privacy for your cat, plus the collection of convenience features makes it a standout product when it comes to user-friendliness. The box comes in a unique oval design that encourages space inside for your feline buddy to move and turn around comfortably. The animal will have an easy time maneuvering inside while it is doing its thing.
There’s an onboard carbon filter that you can replace. It works by trapping the litter box odor, thereby reducing the stink inside the house. The design also ensures an effortless daily scooping task, plus cleaning is convenient. You give the cat a consistently clean and inviting space when nature calls.
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Quick Glance
What’s Good
Lower price compared to other products but offers the same reliability in odor control
The oval design and spacious interior ensure the cat will love this litter box
An excellent option for large cats
Easy to clean and remove the filter
Comes with a grated lid for the litter to easily fall back
What’s Bad
Plastic construction needs improvement
The large indent in the back makes it hard to reach and clean
The latches are flimsy at times
Catit Jumbo Hooded Cat Litter Pan
Check Amazon’s Price
This Jumbo Hooded Cat Pan offers privacy for your feline while also keeping the litter in the pan, where you want it to be before cleanup. You may find the large hood very helpful because it lifts for a quick way to clean the pan. There is also an integrated bag anchor that helps you keep the bag open while freeing your hands when scooping the litter.
The addition of a carbon-impregnated filter makes this product stand out as it effectively removes litter box odors in no time. It is the best litter box for odor control when you have more than a couple of felines at home.
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Quick Glance
What’s Good
Spacious enough to even accommodate two cats at once
Cats have an easy time figuring a way in and out
Carbon filter comes out easy on top
One of the largest litter boxes for cats out there
What’s Bad
The base of the litter box could have been more durable
The tray is flimsy
The door flap can get stuck at times
And The Best Litter Box For Odor Control Is…
Even though all these products offer the same function, the Van Ness Sifting Enclosed Cat Litter Pan ranks the top in terms of the odor control feature. the replaceable Zeolite air filter makes the most significant difference. All the other litter boxes I mentioned had replaceable filtering systems in them, but Van Ness’ odor neutralizing capability is a notch higher.
Going back to my discussion about finding a product that effectively hides the stink of your cat litter, I won’t think twice to place my bet on the Van Ness Sifting Enclosed Cat Litter Pan. You’re also getting more from your investment with the added privacy through the enclosure and the easy cleaning mechanism.
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