#again not tagging the series because i don't want this to sound like negativity/being a negative text tone and be a buzzkill

[pentition]

Side note. I kind of wish Pathea treated its romance options evenly across the board. Their romances make up a large portion of peoples engagement with the games, so it's a bit frustrating when one gets less and one gets more.

(Spoilers mentioned below)

My Portia Builder went in blind on Aadit. Welp. After that fell apart, she married Antoine. Why? Because strangely enough he ended up the first bff my Builder had due to seeing one another daily. So best friend to romance just clicked post-Aadit fuckery. But the lack of attention given to Antoine bugs me to this day.

And Pen. Same thing. Which was weird, because I remember seeing he was listed in the EA as someone generating a lot of attention. So I thought we'd get more romance stuff with him. Thankfully, I can shamelessly plug the Pen's Marriage mod or Free Pen to help soothe my soul after getting wrecked back to back by Pathea. I'll never stop thanking the modding community for cooking so good with the Pen-related mods. (Please thank and give love to the creators, too!)

I understand the importance of generating hype and making romance options as goals on a Kickstarter tier. I just hope they grow out of the core romances vs not core romances. It could be argued people like Aadit and Pen should be core romances, due to the plot. The fact that they aren't is just, hrrm, okay. But can we at least get some of that money donated over to evening out all the romance options? Why does it have to be a game of favorites? I get it's easier for allocating funding but like. I've seen plenty of fans who didn't care about Logan, for instance. Or don't care about Amirah. I see fans who adore Catori's arc but they get little for it and it doesn't seem fair.

I just don't understand why funding to create equal content for the romance options isn't a priority, when the majority of engagement I see regarding the My Time series is about the romance options themselves.

[wutheringmights]

I gotta know, did you ever end up reading Captive Prince series. I sooo want to know your review of it

I actually read the first book back in April. I actually did write a very long and very negative review for it, but I made the mistake of posting it to the tag. I got blasted for it, which was fair all things considered. I was really harsh, and it wasn't right of me to put something that negative into the main tag. I ended up deleting the post.

My library refuses to get the rest of the series and I refuse to spend money on this, so I think my experiment is over for now.

...I don't think this post is going to end up in the tags again, so I can quickly summarize my thoughts on the first book in case you're interested.

The things I like about the book begin and end with Laurent. He's really well written, and I enjoyed whenever the limited POV allowed us any glimpse into his machinations. The way Pacat implied his history of sexual abuse was masterfully done.

I also like Nicaise. Super complex set-up, and I was looking forward to seeing where else could take him.

Ok, time for the things I didn't like

The structure of the story is a total mess. If the politics are truly the main drive of the plot, then we needed to see Daimen in his home country, before the cold opening of being kidnapped. It would establish his POV, the worldbuilding, and one of the main antagonists far better than a few quick bathroom musings could.

Because the exposition was cut short, you get the impression that the world building and therefore the politics do not matter and are just set-dressing for the smut

The smut wasn't even sexy, even if you take into account the potential kinky fantasy of the whole thing

Generally, I think Pacat could have saved herself a lot of trouble by renaming "sex slave" to "concubine." What little we learn of how the sex slave system works sounds a lot more like concubines, and using the term "slave" invites the reader to think way too hard about the human rights aspect of this whole thing

Damian really is the weak point of the story for me. He's far too naive for someone expected to take the throne. I saw a few arguments that he's bad at politics because he's supposed to be good at warfare. Which, okay. But this was really basic court drama, and he made a lot of dumb decisions (like trying to escape when the castle would be under alert for a potential murder), and I do not think naivety was an intended character flaw by the author.

Plus, Damian does a lot of inner musings about how the sex slave system is a lot better in his kingdom. Again, because the world building was skipped over, I have no idea if this is him having a warped perspective or if this is the actual text of the book. And I really do not want to a story to tell me there is a humane way to have a slave (which would be avoided IF THEY WERE CALLED CONCUBINES)

The book really did not have a lot of plot going on, and it was mostly Damian being shoved from scene to scene. I know that fans of the series will argue that the book is not meant to be alone, but I'm sorry. I can't accept that. If you sell me a multi-volume story, there has to be something close to a satisfying narrative in each volume. I refuse the walk down the path of letting a story promise me that it'll get better Next Time.

Finally, Pacat's prose is not great. It's really obvious that she has a pedestrian narrative voice. That's fine on its own. All of her attempts to elevate her prose to sound more in-line with a high-concept fantasy led to some really awkward phrasing that was more distracting than helpful.

Honestly, I would read more of the series just to see if it improves as much as it is supposed to. But my library is oddly picky about fulfilling requests. So I guess that's where we're gonna leave it.

[piromantic]

so my initial thoughts on 'i'm in love with the villainess'

the negatives:

the anime, for some reason, words a scene vaguely so it sounds like a confirmed lesbian character assaulted someone. it apparently was specified as consensual in the novels. i don't understand why they did that

there are a couple of things (racism, random incest couple) that sucked. i'm not familiar with otome games so i have a suspicion (a hope) that these are just... tropes in the genre. whether or not the author is going to call out the orientalism or just straight up keep being racist, i have no idea. they seem genre aware, but i don't want to give them credit when none is due at this point

i love you masc lesbians but i'm tired of the 'masc lesbian playboy prince that sweeps everyone off their feet and is only there to cause romance trouble and then leave' when is it their turn to be happy huh. huh

the neutrals:

the setting and magic system seem like they have some more depth than first glance, but i've still seen them too many times to be thrilled unless the author does something really interesting

i'm not very familiar with this genre of isekai so the politics were just kind of ??? for me

the positives:

everything else LOL

THE MAIN CHARACTER SAYING OUTRIGHT THAT SHE'S GAY

a lot of people seemed to dislike that the MC comes off as the 'predatory lesbian' stereotype but i really don't think that was the intention. to me it felt like it was playing off the 'girl best friend who jokingly declares her love all the time' trope - that is who the MC plays as, essentially. and for a good portion of the season, she keeps getting rejected because the girl she loves doesn't believe that her feelings are genuine.

the guy love interests backing off pretty quickly? even though it's a game and they have to follow their programmed romantic path flags, after a while they all get what's going on with the MC and they all back off respectfully and just watch from the sidelines

THE MC GETTING TO HAVE A 'LOVES SO HARD SHE BREAKS THE GAME'S PROGRAMMING' MOMENT i'm a sucker for thattt

actual, genuine explorations of how homophobia messes with your self esteem and what you believe you deserve

again i'm tired of this trope in general butttt i think the masc lesbian (manaria) coming in from the love interest's past was still the best part for me because the rest of the series is spent with the MC telling everyone that she doesn't care if her love can never be requited, she just wants her love interest to be happy. and then this girl shows up and it's like, well shit. what if she does like girls after all, she just doesn't know it, and she just doesn't like me.

like everybody in the tag is like 'noooo this was too far she could've been less evil with it' but honestly like. no i don't think claire would've realized her true feelings unless she was put in an extremely drastic situation. and no i don't think the MC would've ever put herself out there until a true love rival showed up. and it's sad in its own way that manaria is okay with putting herself in this antagonistic role! like she also doesn't believe that she deserves better! she's such a good foil for the MC idc. grow up

ummmmmm what else

'only calling someone by a rude nickname until you two have a fight and you're just about to part ways but you don't know how to express how much you really care so instead you use their real name for the first time' trope go brrrr

[corvusissotired]

Trans and jewish ppl also said they still support and love the franchise. It was an integral part to their journey. Guess what. They have been told to stfu because they don't speak for their community. You see how fucked up it is? BOTH povs are valid. You can't dismiss one voice over the other to fit your agenda. The world is not black or white. Ppl are entitled to their opinion and telling trans and jewish ppl that support the game and franchise to fuck off is wrong. Period.

Lol buddy cmon. First, like I'm gonna believe an anon. It's so easy to link evidence of these Jewish and trans people saying they needed to buy the game because HP--an antisemitic, racist series made by a fomenting, raging mistake of a human being who has literally implied ALL trans women are, TRIGGER WARNING, rapists in a wig and skirt--was integral to their journey. Not saying it's not true, just saying it's hard to believe. Put up or shut up.

Second, at no point have I said it's ok to tell Jewish and trans people who play HL that they aren't part of their respective communities because they enjoy HP or even HL. It's not. But please note that, while you're 100% still part of the community and deserve rights as much as the rest of us, I will not trust you. A lot of us won't. Because you put a game above our lives, above your own life. And you absolutely are allowed to be upset about that but...something something fuck around and find out? Your actions have consequences. Literally don't know what else to say. It also makes zero sense. You want rights...but you're actively shitting on them by buying this game. Not saying it's ok to gatekeep, just putting it into perspective that if you do want basic fucking rights, maybe don't buy a game thats made by someone who is actively working to take them away? In any case, I have yet to see anyone in the anti HL tag, to streamers, to ANYONE who's playing the game, say any of that. That sounds fake as hell. Again, could be real but it's a bit unbelievable. Put up or shut up.

Anyway, not sure why you're bent about all this in my inbox. I have said none of these things so sounds like you're just another one of those people who, every time a trans person has a negative opinion about HL, you feel guilty and lash out. If you're here from my post, guess what? None of what I said was meant to be taken as a threat to people who play HL. My point with that post was to point out the people who buy it purely to hate trans people even more and that they're proving our ostracization, our being killed, is merely a joke to them. If you don't see the issue with that, or think there's 2 eQuaLLy iMpOrtAnt siDeS, there's seriously no helping you.

Please also note that none of what I said was untrue either. This is how fascism works. It starts slow and small. It's just a game right? But that game takes money. And that money goes into the pockets of an absolute mistake of a human. And then she gives it to politicians and bills and organisations that actively want marginalized people gone, dead. And now those politicians make office and those bills pass and those orgs are funded even more by these people now in power. And now they've seized that power and are actively killing people like me and you and other marginalized groups.

But go a-fucking-head. Have your game. Enjoy your nostalgia. But please ask yourself: was it worth it? Was it worth it to help put people's lives even more in danger than they already are, just so you could have your few months of dopamine and nostalgia from a game that will be forgotten in about a year? And maybe also ask yourself if it was worth it to put YOUR OWN life at risk for a few months of nostalgia and dopamine. Because a LOT of us don't think it is. And it's unfair that you are putting a literal game above our and your own life.

[egg-emperor]

You're very right in the tags of that one post. Toxic positivity is just as bad as toxic negativity, sometimes worse due to the handling of constructive criticism because of can-do-no-wrong attitude that stifles growth and creativity.

That ever-growing toxicity combined with this weird form of puritanism that has people harassing and dogpiling on others if they dare have an independent thought outside the hivemind is what's forcing me away from the Sonic fandom and never returning again, despite how much I love Eggman. I've already stopped reblogging Sonic art on my main blog and interacting with the fandom at large outside of a close circle of trusted friends across social media, they're the only thing even keeping that dying flame for this series stoked. I'm almost ready to delete it all and revamp my main blog theme to distance myself further. It hurts to know I'm no longer welcome in something that has been a major part of my life since I started gaming, something I've seen grow from literally nothing as I grew.

I still enjoy so many things about this series, and I had so much fun with everything up until this point, but being pushed out and treated like you're worse than trash for disagreeing with one thing feels like a knife being twisted in my heart. I don't want to go, but at this point I feel I have no choice to leave it all behind.

I'm sorry to sound whiny with this all, but I guess I just needed somewhere to vent. Should I consider this my goodbye letter to the Sonic series? Maybe so.

Thanks, Julian. Again, sorry for the vent.

Nah don't apologize, that's exactly how I've been feeling too. There's a big problem with both toxic positivity and negativity in this fandom and I'd say the former has been a much bigger one lately. I wouldn't say any of my criticisms of the latest media I'm not a fan of has been that harsh, aside from the occasional rants where I've been especially worked up and upset.

Most of the time it was just calm criticism that I was being asked to talk about in my inbox, it's not like I was going onto other people's posts and inboxes trying to be negative. But it's just blown up out of proportion because people take offense merely being something they don't want to see, because I see it as anything less than perfect and amazing. And that's where the toxic positivity comes in.

What I do always comes from a place of deep passion and my boldness in expressing true feelings is dismissed as nothing but hatred. Just because again, it's not highly positive endless praise without question or criticism. There's a lot of toxic positivity and also puritanism especially when it comes to my views and creations of Eggman compared to what people would prefer I think and do instead.

I've stepped away from fandom massively too because there isn't much out there that appeals to me anymore. It's a hivemind where you're not allowed to voice different opinions or even state facts as it's immediately taken as an attack. It's full of high praise of everything and intolerance towards people that don't feel the same, they accuse me of being horrible and hateful and trying to attack specific people with things I make on my own blog.

I don't think I'm ever really going to come back either beyond interaction with the small amount of people I still follow that aren't with that crowd and their mindset and either feel the same or accept I feel differently, like I can with them as long as they respect me too. I don't seek out content from anywhere else aside from heavily filtered Tumblr search. I'll never search Eggman on Twitter again for the sake of my sanity lol

While it does help me feel better to not surround myself with things that make me uncomfortable and avoid it as well as I can, it does hurt to leave almost everything behind and not feel welcome amongst the masses just because we can't agree on everything and are open with criticism, no matter how sensible and calm we are about it. I'm going to miss out on the small amount of stuff out there I would like as a result which is sad too.

But then when I'm at my worst after all recent events, I've contemplated deleting everything and leaving because even though there are a few reasons I have to stick around and it's not all bad, it still feels like I don't belong and do everything wrong in some people's eyes and am hated by many and it just makes me miserable with all the constant reminders. It hurts that something that's been so special and important to me almost all my life is now attached to this pain.

It was fun up until this point for me too but now I feel pushed out because of how many places I've been kicked out of and how many I've been blocked by. It really does hurt a lot, how it feels like everything can go wrong just for being yourself and being open and honest about how you feel. It does stifle growth and creativity a lot when different perspectives and ideas are immediately shunned and looked down upon and responded to aggressively.

I don't really want to go either but I've accepted I need to take a step back, as big of a part of my life it was for so long. And I've been considering that I might have to leave official media behind soon as it just feels like there might not be anything for me anymore. Even before shit really hit the fan fandom wise, I started pondering it. Leaving that will hurt even more but I'm trying not to hold on to what hurts or discomforts me and just doesn't bring me the happiness it did before.

If I do have to leave both fandom and official media behind entirely, it will hurt a lot but I still appreciate for the people I still follow, old official content, and sharing my analysis, headcanons, fics, gushing, etc. I'm still passionate as ever about Eggman and love to create from it and share it, that's why I care so much and have such strong opinions and bold ways of expressing it in the first place. It's sad that it had to come to this but I appreciate the good times and memories and I won't let all this stop me from doing what I love.

But yeah you're not alone in this, I feel exactly the same way and I'm saying my goodbye to most of the fandom too and possibly the entire series itself soon with the way things might be going from here.

You're welcome and no need to be sorry 💜

[belle--ofthebrawl]

Tagged by @anotherghoul666. Thank you for the tags in the games! I only have time for this one tonight. Hopefully I have energy for the Music Era one tomorrow.

Relationship status: Does a work wife who also wingmans for me count? She's awful at it. Scares everybody off because she gets jealous and then tells me it's my fault for being weird. (We love and support work wife. She's my drug dealer now. She buys me edibles.) We both thought the other was weird and stuck up until we were forced to spend time together and now we're forbidden from ever working together again :(

Favorite color: Blue since childhood, but you know, I took a look around the other day and everything is pink. I like all colors I guess. (Except blaze orange in clothing TOBIAS PLEASE RELEASE THE SECRETS OF THE MUSE DESIGN ON SOMETHING BLACK OR GRAY OR EVEN WHITE. I WANT IT SO BAD BUT NOT IF IT'S ORANGE.)

Song stuck in my head: Zenith - Ghost

Last song I listened to: Kuro no Liliana (melancholia) - Shikata Akiko

Three favorite foods: Steak (cooked bleu if possible, usually as rare as is safe), sushi/sashimi and roasted veggies. Also, I'm halfway through a barrel of UTZ's cheese balls.

Last thing I googled: "Phedre Mark". From the book Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. which I highly recommend if you like intrigue and bdsm. Wonderful series, but I've only read the first trilogy. Anyway, I was thinking about getting it for my first tattoo but who knows.

Dream trip: We're mostly ex-Catholics in the fandom, right? Anybody familiar with World Youth Day? Some big celebration every three years where the pope invites "the youth of the world" to celebrate Mass with him in person (incredibly sus). My church fundraised (I had to work stupid church events for three years) and sent our youth group on a month long gallivant across Europe with groups from two other churches and it SUCKED ASS. All that architecture and food and oh, so many sights and sounds and we couldn't stay at all! A day or two at most in each city because our itinerary was so packed. Don't get me started. And we all hated each other by the end of it but negativity was a sign of the devil so. No venting. A perfect place for a bunch of 10-18 year olds and their chaperones/parents. Boys and girls weren't allowed to mingle, but... 👀. (The stories I have about American Christian modesty versus European beaches...)

I would do that trip again just to take everything in properly. Slowly. Without praying three times a day and every time we "came across sin". (Bus drove through a "red light district" on accident once and I still crack up at that memory) So...Iceland, France, Spain and Portugal. I'd want to take a year. Three months in each place, minimum. (Also one time I stole a smut book from a bar the 18 year olds brought me to and had to pray the rosary for like, an hour straight when they did luggage checks after dinner. It clearly worked.)

Anything I want: A winning lottery ticket to a truly obscene amount of money. That would give me the way to really get everything I want which is far too numerous to be listed here. Failing that, some hostess cupcakes. Which I'm eating right now. Lovely! It seems I'm destined to always get my heart's desire. See what manifestation and affirmations can do?

[safestsephiroth]

completely unbiased objective factual review of every MSQ in FFXIV as of the release of base dawntrail (pre-7.1) (Part 3: EW and DT)

A repeat of the intros from the first two posts, which can be found here: https://safestsephiroth.tumblr.com/post/762492923054047232/completely-unbiased-objective-factual-review-of

https://safestsephiroth.tumblr.com/post/762495259487895552/completely-unbiased-objective-factual-review-of

Just to clarify, I know some people are bad at reading tone through text. This is, of course, the objective truth because it’s my opinion and my opinion has never been wrong ever, and I take this as deathly serious as a hostage negotiation, a military standoff, or an argument about vtubers.

[And if you don’t already know this is written tongue-in-cheek with that, then you might not enjoy what’s to come. Especially if you cannot stomach negativity. If you keep reading from here that’s on you tbh.]

[This series of posts will not be tagged with anything relating to the game because I have learned over the years not to tag things when you’re being a hater. If you hate this, it’s not likely to come up again on here so just ignore this post dude it ain’t hard. Press the J key. Or read and laugh. I’m writing this for me, your enjoyment is not a concern, audience!]

Just to clarify, I know some people are bad at reading tone through text. This is, of course, the objective truth because it's my opinion and my opinion has never been wrong ever, and I take this as deathly serious as a hostage negotiation, a military standoff, or an argument about vtubers.

[And if you don't already know this is written tongue-in-cheek with that, then you might not enjoy what's to come. Especially if you cannot stomach negativity. If you keep reading from here that's on you tbh.]

[This series of posts will not be tagged with anything relating to the game because I have learned over the years not to tag things when you're being a hater. If you hate this, it's not likely to come up again on here so just ignore this post dude it ain't hard. Press the J key. Or read and laugh. I'm writing this for me, your enjoyment is not a concern, audience!]

Endwalker:

Okay, so here we go.

Endwalker is the point that FFXIV completely ditched subtlety and consistency in favor of going "Fuck it, this sounds rad, do it". For many people Endwalker is not very good, or worse than Shadowbringers, blah blah.

Listen.

Endwalker is delightfully fucking dumb and ridiculous and over the top and if it weren't for the fucking loporrits being 6 hours of misery (proving we learned nothing from the Moogles in Heavensward and reminding us how great it was that Stormblood's joke tribe was the Namazu who had functionally zero MSQ presence, and the Dwarves in Shadowbringers were handled pretty well in general) I would say it does a flawless job of this.

Endwalker is also the expansion that suffers possibly the most from the FFXIV Template (Trademark Square-Enix, all rights reserved.) and from the fact they built up a story for ten years and, very clearly, wanted it over with.

There's another timeline somewhere where Endwalker came in two parts. In part one, the MSQ deals A LOT with Garlemald - you actually have involvement in the civil war, learn what the various sub-factions are like, go to various settlements and learn that there's depth to their society even if there isn't to their leadership. You find out that they're so terribly reliant on technology because they literally have no choice, and this is conveyed in a fascinating way. It's a wonderful exploration of a civil war plot and directly contrasts Heavensward and Stormblood in a beautiful way, and it's handled magnificently. (This obviously requires changing the lead-up patches from Shadowbringers.) In this version, Anima is an actual trial fight instead of a dungeon boss, and Zodiark is the final boss of the expansion.

In that timeline, we don't go to Sharlayan or Thavnair at all in this expansion.

Then the post-release patch content lead-up is dealing with the pending Final Days caused by killing Zodiark.

Endwalker: Part Two deals with Sharlayan and Thavnair and then covering every past zone. We're covering how every single society can play into working together to save the world from apocalypse. There are no loporrits; we save the day because of the technological cooperation of the Garlond Ironworks and Sharlayan, with Cid and Nero's toxic gay couple relationship from Omega being paid off properly in the MSQ. Maybe they hold hands as they watch the spaceship fly off or whatever.

It's a wonderful story about unity and cooperation and carries forward past themes that problems which seem insurmountable CAN be overcome through collaboration and cooperation. It's a beautiful wrap-up of the story of the game to date. It also has good gameplay while I'm imagining, and Yoshi-P gives a press release where he personally apologizes to me for ruining class design and they revert every single Shadowbringers change, and when they go back and change past content it's to make every single dungeon have something at least mildly interesting going on like many did in ARR, instead of squashing out that personality in the design in favor of making something that can be completed by a basic AI script to accommodate Trusts.

So that would have been a 10/10 in story and gameplay both. Unfortunately, that world is not the one we live in, and in the world we live in it was made abundantly clear that Square Enix did not actually want to continue the story, they wanted it over NOW. They wanted it done with NOW.

I can't hate Endwalker's story like some people have - I adore how over the top ridiculous "I guess this is how this works now then" the story was allowed to be. We have time travel now? Sure, why not. Why not just make Primals okay to be summoned if you change a couple numbers in the programming to remove the "mind-controls their followers" malicious code the Ascians obviously injected on purpose. (Like when they did that with Zodiark, apparently, I guess? Clearly the Convocation deserved it if they decided to create a god to save the world and agreed "mind control of everyone" should be part of the process).

Anyway.

Endwalker's great. I love Endwalker. It's cheesy and terrible. I love it. I hate what the formula does to it. I have incredibly conflicting opinions about Endwalker. Every bad has an upside, every good has a downside. I think it's great that Thavnair is a secret dragon dictatorship and Sharlayan is "What if nerds ran a country", but I do wish both had more flaws as societies because it's pretty jarring to go "our societies have NO FLAWS, or what flaws they DO have are insanely easy to solve." When you spent the entire game introducing societies with complex issues and flaws at their hearts, it's pretty jarring to do this in Endwalker. Whatever. I give it a pass this time because I didn't notice how much they leaned into this concept at the time of release.

Endwalker is an Endwalker/10 for story and a 1/10 for gameplay. That's right. You heard me. This is the floor. They gutted the job design and decided to gut the encounter design too, leaving no actual gameplay. The only reason it's 1/10 and not 0/10 is because Island Sanctuary is worth one point.

Let me ask you: Did you at any point wipe in anything below EX/Savage in your entire time playing Endwalker? Be honest, now. And now that you've said "maybe three times", count how many of those times were in content introduced within Endwalker as opposed to doing something old, and then explain to me how that one time you DID wipe was because it was actually challenging and not because the jump potion baby Paladin and White Mage in your party were on par with slime molds as far as capability to respond to stimuli in a timely manner goes.

Dawntrail:

I'm about to make a lot of enemies.

The first 50% or so of Dawntrail is far less interesting than the arguments about Dawntrail and how incredibly stupid they are. I'm gonna be real with you right now, people who complain or praise Dawntrail do so for entirely incorrect reasons. It is so infuriating to me that "I hate Dawntrail" immediately is associated with declaring oneself transphobic, because the immediate knee-jerk haters were only hating because Wuk Lamat's voice actress is trans. Listen to me. Listen. There are so many reasons to be a hater on Dawntrail that aren't tied to something so completely fucking pointless.

The voice acting in Dawntrail is a stark drop in quality overall. They decided to bring it back down to how bad it was in A Realm Reborn again. I suspect when concepting DT they wrote on a big whiteboard "EVERYTHING THAT MADE ARR ARR, LET'S DO IT AGAIN." And the first person wrote under that heading "BAD VOICE ACTING" and somehow didn't get immediately fired.

Dawntrail's story fucking sucks. It is the purest distillation of every problem everything in this game has ever had. It is kindergarten-level plotting, with the pointless edge of Heavensward, and forced cataclysmic scale of Shadowbringers and Endwalker without the backing both expansions deserved. Let me be plain: a united Tural invading the rest of the world is a punchline, not a dire threat. The threat is to Tural, not anywhere/one else. And I'm gonna be real, this expansion did an atrocious job of making me give a shit about Tural.

It's telling that when you hear people praise Dawntrail, have you noticed how much it's either about the gameplay (GENUINE massive improvement, A++ encounter design, ASS class design in many cases but WHATEVER, it's FINE) or extremely superfluous/extraneous/minor things? Dude, the ENVIRONMENT DESIGN in this expansion! Dude, the GRAPHICS! Dude, the... uh... ENVIRONMENT DESIGN! Dude, the VISUALS! Dude, the way that light comes off your screen and hits your eyeballs when you go to zones. I mean, the music is mid at best (GOD the main theme is TERRIBLE, it's THE WORST main theme of any final fantasy flat-out, but most of the rest is just mediocre/fades into the background and is unmemorable) but uh... dude, the stuff you SEE with your EYES-

So Dawntrail fucking sucks, I'm not sugarcoating it anymore. I was right to not want to play it, I hated forcing myself to do it, it fucking blows. If you've never played Dawntrail save yourself the trouble and skip every cutscene in the MSQ. Here, let me save you sixty hours:

1: Wuk Lamat goes to a new zone, and you trail along as the mercenary she hired to "mentor" her by standing around and contributing nothing.

2: Wuk Lamat has the INSANELY GENIUS idea of finding out how to help by learning to understand the locals. No one has ever considered this line of inquiry before. Some will doubt that such a radical approach could work.

3: Go talk to X locals to ask about Y local trend.

4: Report back to Wuk Lamat.

5: Wuk Lamat will say the dumbest thing you've ever heard in your life, everyone present will audibly speak aloud exactly what they think/feel about what's going on so the audience can be sure to understand. Wuk Lamat will be Sad as she thinks about Problem Plaguing Locals.

6: Wuk Lamat will do something dumb/"comedic".

7: Wuk Lamat will comment on how Their Ways Are Different From Ours, be that because they're traveling merchants who deal in specialized goods or because they harvest people's souls and directly repeat the thing that made Endwalker's villain so serious a threat. Wait, wh-

8: Let's move past that and find a way to solve the problem by working together to do something incredibly menial/blunt/straightforward that will instantly solve all problems that the local society has right now, earning their forever loyalty and love.

9: Have a cutscene where the antagonists speak antagonistically because they're Bad People, as set-up for how you're supposed to feel bad for them later even though there's no reason to.

10: Move to the next zone, where there will be no consequences or pay-off for anything that happened in the previous zone.

This exact formula repeats with almost zero deviation with every single tribe in Tural, and then again with an evil transdimensional soul-eating dictatorship that just massacred a bunch of civilians of Tural essentially unopposed.

Speaking of, the turning point where Dawntrail MSQ goes from "eh-to-bad" to "This aggressively actively sucks" is Shaaloni and everything in it. And I don't just mean when Blah Blah Baja Blast kills a (former) king completely unopposed and then we just let him walk out and it's totally fine that he did that and we did nothing because how could we possibly fight him (Hey remember in Stormblood when Zenos attacked Rhalgr's Reach and we had basically no hope of beating him but-) but I also mean how fucking BORING not-texmexicozona is, and it's boring ENTIRELY because it's the absolute worst case of one of the most irritating flaws of Dawntrail:

No society is allowed to have moral ambiguity present at all.

The exceedingly capitalistic merchant society that invented the standardized currency of the continent are religiously married to the concept of deals being fair because GOD FORBID any of them whatsoever have a flaw (the only bad merchants are from Eorzea, did you notice that?). Is the fact they used to be slaves of the giants any source of tension? Do they maybe harbor some resentment towards the giants for that? No, we wouldn't want any kind of tension or ambiguity or anything like that.

The society that are known for their parties (sorry, the ONE party a YEAR they do) and reed farming are in dire straits because of a recent earthquake or whatever. Is this commentary on how dangerous it is for a society to cling entirely to one crop as the backbone of everything? Is their reliance on parades perhaps some sort of flaw? Is their clinging to tradition at all stifling or bad in any way? Is there any part of this society at all built on top of that extremely barebones description that might have any cause for conflict or social tension?

No, the party saves the day because of course it does. They're totally correct to lash their society to a single crop and doing a dance once a year to channel faith into fertility.

(Hey, remember how that used to be like, idk, a Primal? Wouldn't it be interesting if we brought that up in the plot, maybe had some kind of ambiguity about whether this process is a problem-)

Okay, so let's go hang out with the Moblins. So it turns out that slavery didn't work, so they decided to enter a weirdass BDSM relationship with every artisan they can find, because one guy said "hey maybe don't do slavery" and they completely turned their society on its head as a result. What else do they have going on? Nothing. Do they have a culture? No. Stop asking questions. They live in big kooky ceramic pots. Now shut up and move to the next zone.

Wait, Wuk Lamat got kidnapped because everyone here has to act like a fucking moron so the plot can happen the way we want it to. Now let's do a shitty stealth mission that takes ages and is boring and sucks, and then have a cutscene of what should have been either a dungeon or a solo instance.

Okay, so let's go on to the giants. You know, the ex-slavers who used to be in charge of everything?

Turns out their society is the remnants of a bunch of murderous assholes but aside from one subfaction that's fringe and unimportant (and takes exactly one Wuk Lamat to completely reform their entire belief structure) they're just the good guys now and it's fine, hey did you get that the theme of this expansion is dealing with how societies deal with death and moving on from it?

Okay, so now one of the competitors unleashed a living nuke on the continent and will suffer ZERO repercussions for doing so.

Anyway, next zone, where their society is defined by a paranoid stand-off relationship with their neighbors, and uh. Genuinely delicious-looking food. What else does their culture have going on? No, we already covered all of it.

This DOES include the most interesting act of subtlety in the entire plot (if it was intended, which I'm still unsure of) in that Wuk Lamat's biological father gave her up for adoption thinking there had been an assassination attempt because she fell into a sinkhole... except ADULT wuk lamat gets lost on a one-way road to a destination she can see with her fucking eyes, and explicitly says that it's only because of Erenville she didn't fall into a sinkhole ten minutes before we talk about how surely as a tiny toddler she couldn't have accidentally fallen into one, it MUST have been an assassination attempt.

BTW, in the expansion where every character looks directly at the screen and loudly declares their thoughts and feelings and actions every five minutes, did you notice no one in all of Mamook admits or even implies having been involved in that?

Isn't it interesting how a father giving up his beloved child out of paranoia despite everyone around him and all evidence being that he's overreacting out of unjustified terror (you know, the theme of the zone? of the relationship between the two societies?) REALLY fits into the theme if it ISN'T true? I mean, if it WAS actually an assassination attempt, are you telling me the Mamook are too stupid or incompetent to just kill a child with a sword or something and feed her to a hungry beast in the wilderness and let that look like a coincidence?

So anyway that's the last interesting idea that Dawntrail doesn't immediately dismiss for the rest of its plot.

But yeah, isn't it wild how after we have a handful of conversations we're able to take any negatives or problems any society has and instantly fix them? Isn't it crazy that we don't want any kind of moral ambiguity, so in Shaaloni the "dueling" they do is nonlethal with rubber bullets? Isn't it crazy how we run into the analogue for the native americans and they basically go "Wow we sure don't like that you're tearing up the environment. Anyway here's some lumber we would never choose to try to interfere in what our neighbors do, just so you know, player, there is no ambiguity. We're not like, god forbid, prejudiced or hostile in any way to anyone. Holy fuck can you imagine. We might get called racist if we made a single society have downsides or problems."

So anyway let's go to the absolute worst reference to any FF game ever (I thought Ivalice being copy-pasted directly from FF12 with FF12 assets was the floor of possibility but dawntrail breaks out the six mile long drill and gets to digging a borehole) and it's to the best FF game. Alexandria is a fucking embarrassment. It's a mess of a knockoff of a cyberpunk aesthetic as designed/described by someone whose only experience with cyberpunk is they looked at the art on the box of a graphics card once.

It completely fails to land a single theme of the genre it's ineffectually ripping off and dodges any kind of interesting ideas or concepts like a sprinter through a minefield. Don't worry, we don't want to risk anyone thinking there could be ambiguity to the AI NFT copies of everyone's memories - all of them we talk to are either only half-aware or desperately beg us to kill them so that we make sure there's no question of what we should do. We decided to put a reference to Garnet into the MSQ (did you get it? She's wearing a techno-version of Garnet's outfit in FF9? Her name is a gemstone? We keep zooming in on her GARNET-gemstone ring? Huh? Huh? It's subtle, right? It's subtle? It's done well? We did it well? Get it? Do you get it? Except now Garnet wants GENOCIDE! HA! We didn't copy-paste shit this time, aren't you HAPPY?)

Man, isn't it great that fucking Lindblum nuked the world? We could've gone so many different routes with that but just like with the death of whatever the ex-king's name was (something something ja ja every Mamool Ja name sounds like we threw some random syllables together and followed it with an English pronunciation of Spanish laughter) we decided to dodge any of the obvious ways we could have made this NOT the stupidest thing in the world.

Anyway Alexandria is a fucking nightmare dystopia incompetently designed and we go do a La Resistance plotline utterly incompetently and pointlessly with THE WORST remix of the Tantalus theme imaginable (it sounds like you fed the original theme through a paper shredder and just as 'pleasing' to the ear) and we treat it like there's any ambiguity at all to whether the people who degrade their own souls and deny them (and want to deny those of others, don't forget) participation in the hard factual process of reincarnation are wrong to do so. Why?

The aesthetic is so incredibly hard clashing with itself and it's jarring and incredibly confusing. Hey if we're stealing stuff from other games and saying fuck it, why not just make this Zanarkand (or ideally not-Zanarkand like Ala Mhigo is not-Ivalice) and copy-paste that scheme so you have some measure of parallel? Damn imagine if Bevelle kicked off the apocalypse, and we have the Thunder Plains right there, holy shit it's almost like that's an obvious slam-dunk right there. You could even if you're married to the stupid soul-concept have Blitzball make sense remixed as a horrendous death sport because people are just cool with drowning if they end up doing so as part of the game. Fuck dude it'd be so easy, holy shit. Imagine!

Hey isn't it wild how they insist Lalafell aren't children and shouldn't be viewed as such but 100% of characters ripped from other games that were kids in those games are lalafell? did they really have to make Relm a Lalafell? Really?

Hey isn't it wild that the only class that's gotten more complex since Shadowbringers is Dancer?

Endwalker gameplay is a 6/10 because the encounter design is 9/10 and the class design continues to be dog shit.

Endwalker MSQ is the worst it has ever been, with a 2/10 and those two points purely come from a handful of cool moments amidst a flood of mediocrity and garbage. I'm reminded of when someone told me the original michael bay Transformers movie was good because starscream fucks up a bunch of fighter jets, in a sequence that lasts six seconds if that. (DUDE VRTRA SHOWED UP ISN'T THAT COOL. Anyway we sure don't have any reason to feel like Alexandria is any kind of threat since we can see them get fucking ROCKED by a tiny fraction of the military might of everything they totally would have "conquered".) Also not-Steiner is neat and I appreciate he literally is not Steiner even though he's Steiner. It's clever to have "Rusty" be introduced through literally a rusty robot chassis.

Final point: GOD I hate the final dungeon for just being "Remember FF9? WATCH A ROBOT RECREATION OF THE INTRO GET FUCKING ANNIHILATED! Fuck yourself! That's your reference to FF9! Garnet's running the scheme Garland ran!"

Hey remember how hype it was when Gaia showed up in E8 to help save Ryne and it was this real power of love moment that felt deserved and pretty awesome and it was her buying you time to beat the DPS check?

So anyway the end of the final trial fucking blows dicks because I finally got to have a real fight and then at 20% I get robbed of it by being turned into a cheerleader in the audience.

I think a lot of the hate Wuk Lamat gets would be exaggerated if it weren't for the final third of the story, because it's just Wuk Lamat being the dumbest motherfucker in the world over and over and over and over and over and over and over and us doing sweet fuck-all at any point besides stand around and give pointless answers to pointless questions while she solves everything through the most simplistic way possible, to the extent the one time we get to have a real boss fight against the major antagonist and she ISN'T there she interrupts it.

Can YOU guess why I didn't do a single dungeon with Trusts this time? That's right! It's because they put the empty husks of the Scions in the MSQ and then stripped them of all personality they once had for the story because we're not allowed to make a new crew of characters since they're too important for the trailers, but we ALSO don't know how to write them at all so they're kind of just There. We decided to identify exactly one personality trait per Scion and that's their entire character now.

Remember how Urianger forgets the patch content in Heavensward happened?

This expansion's MSQ fucking sucks and has functionally zero qualities that can redeem it for being so god damned horrible, and it's especially agonizing on the tail of the Endwalker patches that really genuinely should have been this expansion instead. No Void, only new zones that half of them COMPLETELY suck and the rest are visually Pretty Good.

If they don't deliver on the promised improvements to class gameplay next expansion, I'm convinced this game is doomed to suck forever. Because they sure as hell destroyed any hope or faith I have in the MSQ.

In case you're wondering and it's not clear enough let me just look at the screen to explain to you that yes, my feeling on the matter is that this expansion MSQ is worse than Heavensward, and I'm saying that as the biggest hater of HW since the day of its release.

[kwonzoshi]

Everyone is allowed to not like stuff. The issue comes from putting their dislike into the main tag of a couple which is intended to be a positive experience. Half of the fights that happen is because people go into the main tag looking for positivity and get hit with someone's negative/hypercritical opinion and feel angered by it because they can't get away from it. They can block the person after the fact but if the first person used another tag, no one would ever have to get upset at anyone else because they'd be looking for their specific cup of tea and not getting hit with someone's else's drama.

Half the fandom drama is so easily avoided but people feel entitled to share their opinions to everyone as if their take should be unilaterally seen by all. No. People want to see cute gifs and squee. They'll go looking for the tea if they want it.

Imma keep it a buck with you:

Nobody. And I mean, NOBODY is going to tell me what to do. I have been doing this for a few days and I ALWAYS tag the ship names and the series names that are the topic of the Anon.

I have had people trash a whole show to me, and I tagged it. I have YET to receive a SINGLE message or reply about it. Because SOME people can exercise self control long enough to just scroll past something they disagree with, or they make their own posts about it. This tells me that the problem isn’t the tagging, it’s the fandom(s).

Criticism isn’t negativity, especially if it’s not in the form of insults or demeaning language.

I’m going to tag whatever the pertaining fandom(s) and show(s) that are mentioned, because *GASP* I’m getting messages about more than just one show.

If you can’t scroll past it, that sounds like a personal problem.

This is a public forum. You engage with whatever content you decide. The ONLY exception to this, are triggering topics. It’s unacceptable to post things without TW but again, we can’t force anyone to do anything.

🚨DISCLAIMER🚨:

Having differing opinions is not "negativity". No one is hating on the actors as people or the characters they play, and no one is being rude. If you don't like the opinions you can politely have discussion or just block the person. Simple.

[florbexter]

I am so annoyed!! Why can't people shut up about things they hate? Why make the fandom and tag a negative place????

The truth is, I have no idea which fandom you mean because my dash is a highly curated happy place just for me and tbh every fandom has people and theories and phases that suck. And I want to hug you and tell you that everything will be fine and I hope I can give you some thoughts on this:  

The thing is: yes, I also don’t understand why someone might waste their energy on things they hate and/or dislike, I learned to pretty quickly drop something that doesn’t bring me joy but that too was as I said something that I had to learn over the years. 

AND just because I wouldn’t waste my energy on negative things doesn’t mean someone else might think/feel the same. Maybe someone has no other place to vent, but the internet? And it’s not my job to regulate the internet and what people post even tho I understand that it is pretty annoying when people don’t tag their content properly or rile you up with their posts.  

There are often two types of negative voices in fandom:  

People who speak about positive and negative things on the show (either in a very deep way or superficial ways) and from them can spring a lot of joyful conversations and sometimes yes, you can get hung up on something that bothers you and you might talk about it for longer etc pp but who hadn't had those times?

People that shame/hate on a fandom/series/actor/person etc 

And how to distinguish between those two is a thing that you have to decide for yourself because the lines can be blurry and it depends on how thin or thick your skin is when it comes to neg critisism on your favourite show.  

It drains your energy to talk against those voices and you have to decide if that is really worth it.  

What you have to keep in mind is that it doesn’t matter how eloquent or sure someone sounds, that doesn’t make someone necessarily right, it also doesn’t matter how popular or loud someone is, because there is a thing called validation loop, when someone gets ask after ask that reinforces their believes, they will of course not stray from their path. And those voices might sound like a lot but often it’s only one or two people who send ask after ask because a validation loop is something powerful; it’s the same as when you gossip together with your besties and feel closer to them after it because you are on the same page about something or someone.  

It can get really frustrating I get it but the truth is you and you alone decide what is on your dash/feed. Blocking/Soft-Blocking/Filtering shouldn’t be the last resort, it should be the first thing you think about when you get annoyed.  

I am not a neutral Island. I have strong dislikes and likes and stuff I get annoyed about pretty easily and I know the feeling of being so riled up about someones wrong opinion (in my mind) but the frustating truth, again, is that you can’t regulate people on the internet. You can only regulate your own reactions to it.  

And I just take a wild guess and assume you talk about a Thai BL fandom because that's mostly what I am blogging about and I would highly suggest to everyone who is involved in those fandoms to inform yourself about White Saviour Complex, Internalized Homophobia and Infantilization of South-East-Asian Countries (or any Asian Country really) and their citizens.

Please do something for YOU and yes, if you want to discuss/interact with neg voices that's totally valid if you have the energy, but you don't have to. You don't have to try and dispute every take. Try to find mutuals that share your opinions or if matters get worse, try to find another platform where it might be easier to filter out noises that upset you.

[lovelytarou]

just let me adore you

— in which dabi wanted to buy you clothes and see you in only the best cloths there is in the world, the only problem is how you see yourself and he will do anything to prove how much he adores you

pairing: dabi x female!reader

genre: fluff, slight angst if you squint, suggestive

tags: hurt/comfort??, the reader's insecurities (nothing too detailed), negative thoughts, i advise not to read this if you don't want any of that

a/n: i'm so excited to post this that i just can't wait another day!!! also pls give feedback i spent all my love and time in this instead of schoolworks sksksk but really, i hope y'all like this and i'm sorry if i made dabi too soft in this, the fandom needs more soft dabi every once in a while. sorry if i'm putting my inner dabi fuckr in this fic 🤧

“what are you wearing?” dabi asked one night after you emerged from the shower.

you saw him lounging in your shared bedroom, waiting for you as he was scrolling on his phone when you arrived from work. you quickly excused yourself and took a shower with a promise of cuddling with him afterwards.

snaking your arms on his neck, you gave a peck on his cheek and grinned.

“it's one of my old shirts, why?” you frowned, looking down at your clothes.

dabi wrapped his arm on your waist, holding you closer to his body as you sit on his lap. his other hand reached up to your face and tucked your still damp hair behind your ear.

“it looks like shit,” he bluntly admitted while looking in your eyes fondly.

that earned an offended gasp from you as you attempted to wiggle out of his grip but to no avail. dabi may not look like it, but he sure is one muscular guy.

“well, i'm sorry if i don't have such expensive tastes when it comes to casual clothing!” you huffed, crossing your arms over your chest. the action itself made dabi look down on your breasts and bit his lip.

if only you can see how he sees you right now.

“exactly. you only deserve to wear the finest silk,” his hand travels down your exposed thighs, slightly lifting up the oversized shirt in the process.

“the most exquisite lace that shows off your boobs and your delicious curves,” his voice dropped into a sultry tone, his wandering hands squeezing your sides making you smack him playfully on his chest.

“stop it!” you hid your face on his neck, his jaw resting on the top of your head.

“what? it's true.” he chuckles, kissing your hair.

he brought his index finger under your chin so you can meet his eyes. there is nothing but love and adoration swimming in those beautiful teal irises.

“i love seeing you in fancy clothes, but...” his warm breath that faintly smelled of smoke and mint that makes your head spin fanned your face, his lips ghosting over yours in a gentle dance.

as if the world turned upside down, you're now on your back as dabi towered over you, “you're even gorgeous when naked,”

his lips sealed over yours again and again. that night, he threw your old shirt where it could not be seen anymore and you were more than thankful for it as you spent the entire night making love.

the next few days, dabi made it his mission to buy (read: steal) clothes for you. in the morning after hours of rearranging your guts, dabi basically threw away all of your clothes in the trash and made you wear his shirts. you almost wringed his neck because of that but you let it slide when he told you that he'd replace them with better ones.

back at the league of villains hideout, dabi eyed all of the people gathered around the room. shigaraki's currently holding a meeting for their next attack and here he is, imagining you in the most beautiful outfit he'd get for you.

his teal eyes landed on the back of himiko's blonde head.

heaving a heavy sigh, he kicked toga's seat.

“hey, nutjob” he called lowly, not wanting to get the others' attention.

she scoffed at the nickname before turning her body towards him.

“what is it, staples? do you need something?” she cocked an eyebrow at him, playing with her knife in boredom.

“yeah. you like...cute things, right?” dabi inwardly cringed at his choice of words. never ever in his life did he imagine he would say such things to someone and worst of all, he needed her help.

toga chuckled lightly at him, noticing the small blush on dabi's face.

“oh? what's this all of a sudden? are you taking a liking to me now?” toga's smirk widened upon seeing the latter's growing annoyance.

“in your dreams,” dabi grumbled, “i needed help with something.”

pinching the bridge of his nose, dabi closed his eyes and cursed at himself. after this conversation, his colleague would definitely find something to tease him for. but then again, he's willing to look like a fool if it's for you.

after the boring meeting that lasted for approximately four hours, dabi and toga exited the hideout to raid a few malls.

“i don't understand why you didn't just choose the clothes yourself?” toga hummed, examining a cute top with cat prints on it.

she placed it over her front and modeled it in the mirror before her, posing this way and that. from the corner of her eye, she sees dabi leaning against the wall, arms crossed with a bored look on his face.

“don't you think i wouldn't ask for your help if i can do that?” dabi rolled his eyes in exhaustion, this is taking too much time. the two of them have been in twenty shops already and raided five malls in only half a day.

toga poked her tongue at him and clutched the cute top along with the other clothing. she pushed them all into dabi's arms, making him drop most of it on the floor.

she suddenly stopped and gasped as they exited the store, the neon pink lights reflecting on her eyes as she squealed in delight.

without warning, toga dragged dabi into the lingerie store.

upon entering, the cashier immediately cowered under the counter as the two villains surveyed the place. the person was about to reach for the telephone when toga stabbed the glass counter near their hand.

“don't even think about it,” she grinned down at them menacingly.

dabi ignored them as he looked around. it's filled with many lingeries that he doesn't know which one to look at first. there is no doubt that anyone would love to see their lover dressed in those promiscuous outfits.

his thoughts immediately wandered over to you, dressed in black lace set, writhing under him and making pretty noises just for him.

before his lewd thoughts could wander, he called toga over and nodded his head at the item of clothing he's been eyeing.

“i want that one.”

the first thing you noticed upon coming home was that it's empty. the mugs that was left in the sink that morning was still where you last saw them, the unfolded laundry is still in the basket, and the television in the living room is off.

dabi must not be home yet.

you let a small frown form on your face. you had expected to come home to your beloved boyfriend and welcome you with open arms and kisses.

today wasn't the best of days, to say the least. the series of bad things after another drove you mad and all you wanted was to go home and be wrapped in your lover's hug as if the two of you are the only people in the world that exists.

taking your shoes off, you padded towards your shared bedroom and slowly took off your work clothes and sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh.

rubbing your arms, you caught sight of yourself in the body length mirror at the corner.

your gaze lingered for a long while, eyeing every expanse of skin exposed. you chewed on your lip anxiously as you made your way to the mirror.

your mind was clouded with negative thoughts and jabs at yourself. this is the reason why you hated being alone, you are left with nothing but hate at yourself and there's nobody to pull you out of it. you are suffering by yourself and having to push through it.

slowly, you unwrapped your arms from your sides and stared at the body in front of you. staring from head to toe, listing each thing that you find a flaw, an insecurity, an imperfection.

what did dabi see in you?

you don't have the most attractive body that rivalled any pro-hero's, or a killer charisma, a beautiful face that could take anyone's breath away, your skin isn't as clear as the ones the models in tv and magazines have, you have a lot of scars from childhood and growing up, there are uneven skin color, a wound, and your hair isn't as pretty as other girls'.

so, why? why did dabi stayed? why did he, a handsome, powerful, strong, smart man, asked you to be his girlfriend when he could have anyone he wanted in the world that is much better than you?

tears streamed down your face as your body was wracked with sobs. slowly sliding down to the floor, you clutched your chest as you felt an excruciating agony. repeating over and over in your head why dabi doesn't love you.

through your tears and cry of pain, you didn't hear the door open and close. nor the sound of your boyfriend's voice calling to you or the door to the bedroom opening and the sound of numerous shopping bags falling to the ground as dabi takes hurried steps towards you, who is reduced to a ball of sadness on the floor.

“baby? what's wrong? why are you crying?” he didn't get too close to you at first, expecting you might not want any sort of contact at your moment of vulnerability and decided to ask you instead.

you're still trembling as small sobs leave your lips.

you gasped, shocked to hear that he's home as you quickly sat up and sloppily wiped your tears with your hands and arms.

“d-dabi! you're home!” you sniffled, doing your best to look alright although it's futile since he has already seen you crying your eyes out.

your boyfriend can only look at you with concern filling his eyes. he hovered his hand in midair between the two of you as he looked at your eyes intently. you answered him wordlessly by leaning towards his touch.

it evoked a sigh of relief from your lips as you felt his charred and normal skin, clutching his arm like your life depended on it. and maybe at that moment, it did.

he's relieved to know that he's not who you were upset about, but it didn't lessen his worry.

dabi leaned down to kiss your temple, his lips lingering there as he brought your face close to his chest.

“tell me what's got my baby so upset,” he mumbled against the skin. hearing the deep rumble of his voice against his chest calmed you down a bit.

you closed your eyes as you exhaled, surrounding yourself with dabi. his scent, his touch, the feeling of his heart beating against your ear, his lulling voice pulling you out of your waning thoughts.

“it's...stupid,” you laughed breathily, shaking your head.

“nothing about you is stupid, angel.” he immediately rebutted, pinching your waist.

you hid your face in his chest, not wanting him to see you like this. vulnerable and weak.

“i-i was just having a bad day, and all i want was to come home to you and...” you paused, your thoughts suddenly coming back to you. you fought a sob that threatened to spill from your lips, biting it down.

“i don't understand what you see in me,” you whispered, voice cracking at the end.

he shushed you softly, stroking your hair and rubbing your lower back in circles.

never in his life had he seen you so down. you seemed like the type of person who always got their shit together. like nothing wrong ever happens in their life. he'll look at you and all he sees is this amazing woman who loves to smile and bring happiness in his miserable life.

he admits that he may not be the best boyfriend in the world, but damn it if he didn't even make you happy every second of every day of your life like you did in his.

seeing you so upset makes him want to go out there and find whatever that will make you smile again.

“i'm sorry i'm not home to comfort you, baby. but i'm here now, okay? i don't like seeing you cry, pretty girl.” he muttered, facing your head up to him as he pecked your tears away.

you softly giggled at the nickname.

“you wanna know what i saw in you?” he asked, and you nodded your head at him.

his lips fluttered over your forehead, giving you a kiss there, “you're the most amazing person i've ever met–” another kiss on your nose, “the most beautiful, sweet, caring–” a kiss on your eyelids, the apples of your cheeks, “you're so fucking hot and kind that i didn't know what i did in my fucked up life to deserve you.”

he cupped both of your cheeks in his hands and made you look into his eyes. there's still the same adoration and love in them, it made your heart swell with many emotions just for him. only he can make your heart beat wildly inside your chest.

not letting him say another word, you surged forward and crashed your lips to his in a deep, passionate kiss. a few tears escaped, but this time it's because of happiness and the overwhelming love he have for you.

you were both panting when you pulled away, grinning stupidly as your foreheads touch, staring lovingly into each other's eyes.

“i love you, d'you know that?” you breathed out, pecking his lips once more.

“yeah, i know.” dabi smirked, wrapping his arms around you and picking you up. your legs wrapped around his slim waist in return.

he threw the both of you on the bed, you on his lap as he stared up at you with a lovestruck look in his eyes.

“say it back!” you whined, pouting playfully at him.

he pecked your lips this time and tugged softly on your bottom lip, making you moan.

slowly, you felt him lower you down on the mattress as he placed open-mouthed kisses from your jaw to your neck. the fire ignited inside your core as you gripped his biceps, the way his lips are doing things to you, you can't help but just lay there accept all he had to offer.

“mmm, i love you, too. but i wanted to show you how much instead,” he whispered lowly in your ear before biting at your sweet spot and creating a mark for everyone to see.

his lips traveled lower to where you needed him the most, gripping his hair as you sang beautiful songs for him.

“y/n! are you done, yet?” dabi asked for the umpteenth time that day as he waited for you to come out of your shared bedroom.

you both decided to go on a date and it's been two hours since you told him that you're ‘almost done’. he's been waiting patiently for you, knowing that you'd come out of that room and take his breath away. hell, you can wear the dirtiest rags and he'd still think you're the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.

“just one sec!” you called out from inside.

he couldn't help but groan in annoyance, his patience wearing thin.

he glanced at the time on his phone.

how long are you gonna be in there for?

“babe, i swear if you don't come out of there after five minutes, i'll leave without y-”

he didn't get to finish his words as you came out of the bedroom wearing only the skimpiest, thinnest, and revealing lingerie that left nothing to imagination.

he found himself swallowing his words as his gaze hungrily drank your figure up and down, focusing on every detail, every skin exposed to his eyes.

you decided to tease him, wearing only the lingerie he had ‘bought’ you a few days ago. you were surprised when he did admit he had bought the clothes for you. when asked when he got the money from, he only said that he stole it from some ‘abusive bastard's credit card’.

you shyly standing there wearing a sexy outfit did nothing to his raging problem. within seconds, he stood in front of you, staring at you like you were some sort of goddess that graced the earth and he'd happily kiss the ground you walk on.

“did you...like it?” you hesitantly asked, looking up at him as you played with the ribbons of the lace hugging your body.

his pupils dilated, eyes darkening with want and he picked you up as you squealed in surprise, carrying you back to the bedroom.

“that's it, the date can wait another day.”

[ecofinisher]

Stuff I noticed at Snow Queen Fire & Ice and Miraculous Ladybug 😀

I just had to. Even if it is a waste of time. 😅I've done one a long while ago between Miraculous and Monster Buster Club. This one had to be done as well, all just because of those small, little spirits 🥺😥

To be clear, I’m not comparing it to what is better and whatnot. I’m comparing the similarities between the two. The spirits there made me think of the kwamis? Funny I didn't pay attention to it at first xD But then the fun part came......Three times I have watched the movie and I suddenly began to think......Hmm Gerda has the creation powers like Ladybug and Rollan destruction......Holy brick! They could be the lovesquare as well if they had added more romance into it 😂 How did I not see? (It's because you saw Kristanna mixed with Hansanna you nut)

So where do I start? Well just to summarize the shows for those who don’t know one/both of them:

Short info about both, if unfamiliar:

Miraculous Ladybug is a French animated TV show, that debuted in 2015 and is set in the modern metropole Paris and is focused on the lives of the clumsy Marinette Dupain-Cheng and the famous teeny-model Adrien Agreste. Both wield special magical jewelry, which is called a “Miraculous” which they use to transform into the superheroes “Ladybug and Cat Noir”  The two don’t know each other’s identity, but funnily Adrien has a huge crush on Ladybug and in the civilian life he sees her as just a friend, while Marinette is obsessed with Adrien and sees Cat Noir only as his trustful crime-fight partner. Both students are around 14 years old in the show.

As superheroes they fight villains, that were akumatized by Hawk Moth. (He owns the butterfly miraculous, with which he can create supervillains by sending an akuma (Butterfly jinxed by Hawk Moth’s magic) and Hawk Moth’s miraculous sends people’s negative feelings such as anger, sadness and disappointment and uses his akumas to follow them and akumatize them and they’re transformed by Hawk Moth into a specific-themed supervillain.

Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice (Release year: 2016)

Snow Queen 3: Fire and Ice is the third installment of the Russian franchise "The Snow Queen" It consisted currently out of 4 movies, an upcoming 5th installment, and a pre-school TV show. The first movie came out in 2012 and was also the studio's very first movie.

Resume from the first two movies is the young girl Gerda, which lost her parents to the Snow Queen makes her way through the entire snow lands to find her younger brother Kai, which was kidnapped y the north wind. With help of Orm, Snow Queen's servant she makes her way up to the Palast and defeats her, saving her brother and waking up Orm's eyes to a "better world" The sequel is focused on Orm's continuation, which makes a promise to never lie again and this promise made a reflection of himself come to life and appear near him, when he had no idea, what to do with life issues. The more he began to create white lies and bigger lies, the more life his reflection gained until he was able to get out to the real world. The reflection, which calls itself "The Snow King" tricks Orm and leads a fight against Troll warriors by sending his ice-made minions. Gerda was the last warrior to enter and make it to the main hall of the palace to miss Orm, which was fading away due to Snow King's existence and he pretends to be an injured Orm, which is warmly embraced by the girl, but then gets frozen by him, not realizing she had fallen into a trap. When things were over for everyone and the bad guys had won, Orm figured out how he would make everything okay by confessing his mistakes, which erased Snow King from existence and unfroze all warriors and friends again, which were angered at the naive troll.

This is lowkey spoiler-free. I didn't want to go into much detail here, but I would suggest you watch these movies, mostly no. 2 and 3, which are really worth seeing. As well you can see the first and see how much the studio had improved since the first up to the 2 and 3 one.

The Fire and Ice one, I'm supposed to be talking about happens a few years later, Gerda and Kai left the orphanage to go live on their own and make money to be able to at least be able to eat. Their last visit didn't make any profit and they took a ride with an old friend of theirs Alfida (The Robber girl) to pass the night by Orm, their troll friend, which had matured and was responsible to babysit the triplets of his cousin. On said night, a Spanish boy named Rollan shows up by his doorstep and is introduced to the visitors as a friend he met shortly. After the dinner ended in a disaster Kai and Gerda split and Rollan followed Gerda to give her rights, then bonded with her from being looking for his mother as well and introduces her to a map with an artifact called "The Wishing Stone" which grants any wish. Gerda agrees in tagging along and together they make it to survive the dangerous tomb encountering the wishing stone. Fact is the wishing stone was something else and this is where the powers of the Snow Queen and the Fire Demon were kept and due to Gerda and Rollan's touch on the stone, it had awakened the spirits, getting the two infected with the powers of said villains. Soon as they find out with Orm what happened, they need to get back to the tomb to retrieve the powers before the north star rises and makes their transformation complete, which means both would lose their soul/bodies to the villain. .

Random info:

1. The most popular franchise of the studio aka knowns for:

Miraculous is mostly know to be addressed as a ZAG animation product, but other known studios have worked on it as well such as SAMG Animation, TOEI and Method Animation.

Currently, the most popular series produced in France.

The Snow Queen 3 is the overall fifth movie released by Wizart Animation and was on its release the studio's best-grossing movie so far. Currently, the studio's filmography contains about 8 released movies (Counting with Secret Magic Control Agency in 2021), Two televisions shows and at the moment three movies are announced to be released.

Currently, the franchise is the most popular one in Russia, which is also where it was produced.

The similarities I noticed:

The spirits

Coal (Up) and Snowflake (Down) (Left Side)

Plagg (Up) and Tikki (Down)(Right Side)

Tikki and Snowflake have female pronouns. Both are shown to be "feminine", kind, lovable, and correct. They're a spirit of creation.

Plagg and Coal have male pronouns. Both are shown to be "male". cunning and curious. They're a spirit of destruction.

All four are able to use their powers on their own. They don't need to be with their holder to be capable of.

Differences:

- Plagg and Tikki are able to communicate verbally with each other and with humans.

-Coal and Snowflake can't speak, they usually use body language and mimic. Also, they do noises like laughing, groaning, speaking, and such.

- According to Tikki, her species (Kwami) don't fall in love/can't fall in love.

- Snowflake and Coal are shown to be romantically interested in each other. They're shown flirting and having little date-like moments, as they're away from their "owners"

- Coal is able to multiplicate. It's unknown if he's able to do it in command or only if he falls or is hit.

The "Alter egos"

Marinette is the face behind Ladybug and Adrien wears the mask of Cat Noir.

Gerda is possessed with the ice-powers of the Snow Queen and Rollan wields the fire-power of the Fire Demon.

Gerda and Marinette share the creation ability, while Adrien and Rollan are responsible for the destruction. They're each other's opposites.

Differences: Gerda and Rollan are aware of each other's identity and recognize each other's faces, despite small differences. Adrien and Marinette don't know each other's hero identity and weirdly have minor differences in their looks.

Marinette and Adrien's personality as heroes is quite different from their civilian ones, while Gerda and Rollan's don't seem any different.

It's unknown if, during the time Rollan and Gerda are under possession, their personalities are slightly altered by the villains or not. Rollan is shown to get quickly tempered with Gerda's friend, when it comes to their mishap, which usually turns into arguments.

The Yin-Yang effect

Power of creation and destruction

Marinette = Ladybug miraculous, the red earrings / Power of Luck (Creation)

Adrien = Black Cat Miraculous, the black ring / Power of Misfortune (Destruction)

Gerda = Ice (Creation) (The ice-blue shape on the crystal)

Rollan = Fire (Destruction) (The red shape on the crystal)

Character A bickers often with character B.

Ladybug with Cat Noir. Most of the moments Ladybug feels annoyed at Cat Noir's puns and flirt attempts during their missions. She had her rude moments, but deep inside her, she adores him. With Adrien's she's currently befriended, but has a huge crush, nearly an obsession with the blonde, which sometimes makes her double life harder and under pressure, she has taken choices, which led to ungood consequences.

Gerda with Rollan. Rollan's seems more relaxed with pressuring into retrieving the powers back, unlike Gerda. Rollan's easy tempter with Orm, when he's blamed for his issues annoys her as well. Gerda has shown interest in Rollan since the night she has met him and they bonded over the night when heading to the forbidden Tomb. Rollan has shown interest in her as well, but not as much as her.

"Buttmonkey Sidekick"

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Cat Noir - Thrown around by villains at billboards, yeeted by his own dad at the fricking Eiffel tower, sometimes risked his life to protect Ladybug and get wrapped up into odd situations.

Rollan suffered a few nutshots (One by himself as well), survived a very dangerous tomb, had his head frozen by Gerda accidentally, managed to step-dance in the middle of a shoot-out without getting hit by a bullet, accidentally (Or not) uses firepower with help of his butt. (Sounds ridiculous? There' the picture 😂) Press R for respect.

Naturally handsome boys.

Cat Noir and Rollan.

With and without "masks".

Don't think before acting

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Characters look the same

Gerda and Ladybug

Gerda has additional makeup on her face.

Characters look differently with their alter egos

Cat Noir and Rollan

Cat Noir has a wilder hairstyle and has cat-like eyes.

Rollan has a different skin tone, a fire-like shaped hairstyle, which he can put on fire and his eyes are slightly red-brownish.

The brains

Ladybug and Gerda.

The muscle

Cat Noir and Rollan.

Falling into the darkness

Cat Noir and Rollan

Cat Noir lets an akuma take over him and turn him into Chat Blanc, which destroys the entire world in an alternate universe.

Rollan lets the Fire Demon take over his body at the retrieval of the power and nearly commits genocide of entire kingdom.

Tall boy, smoll girl

Cat Noir to Ladybug

Rollan to Gerda

"Lovesquare"

Cat Noir has a crush on Ladybug. Ladybug doesn't. She has a crush on Adrien, which is Cat Noir's alter ego, which she's not aware of. Adrien sees Marinette as a friend only and has no idea, she and Ladybug are the same person although they look the same.

Gerda is attracted to Rollan since the first time she saw him. Rollan begins to feel attracted to Gerda with the time she's around him.

Rollan and Gerda are aware of each other because they were given the powers in the same place.

Marinette and Adrien were confirmed to be canon and should end up in the 5th season, eventually.

Rollan and Gerda should be considered canon at the end of the 4th part, due to the ending credits showing them share a kiss.

Power font:

Ladybug & Cat Noir: "Magic jewelry" (Miraculouses)

Rollan & Gerda: The wishing stone

Difference:

The wishing stone takes away after 24 hours of control over the power wielders and turns them into the slave of Snow Queen and the Fire Demon. The characters' real person is gone for good.

[tilltheendwilliwrite]

Star-Crossed: Bound by Blood

Chapter Two

Master List / Read on AO3

Previous Chapter

Pairing: Mando/Din Djarin x OFC Baast’Mal

Warnings: I’m making this up as a go, Canon divergent from the series during chapter 13, mild violence

A/N: I make this stuff up as I go along, if I screw something Star Wars-y up, apologies in advance, I didn’t do it on purpose, but I’m new to this Fandom. I will be cross posting this story between AO3 and Tumblr except the smutty bits. Those chapters will only be available to registered users on AO3. (I’m trying something new for people who want to read here on Tumblr, but to also avoid the smut for minors controversy. We’ll see how it goes.)

*I do not have a tag list* Please follow the story on AO3 if you want email updates, or follow @tilltheendwilliwrite-library where I post the new/latest chapters of all my stories.

***

Baast woke to the scent of cooking meat. It made her stomach rumble and mouth salivate but also confused her. There had been no one in her life for many years. There should be no one to cook. Her eyes snapped open, prepared to fight whoever had found her.

Then her eyes fell on Din playing with Grogu, and it all came flooding back. He spoke softly through the modulator, encouraging the boy to float the small silver ball from Din's hand to Grogu's.

When the child succeeded, Din whispered a pleased, "Dank farrik!"

Baast almost purred, watching him with the child. He made an excellent father, and she was of an age to desire a mate, a home, a pride. But a warrior like him deserved someone better than a broken Zentari. It mattered not that her soul cried out whenever he touched her without the barrier of his gloves.

He'd stripped them off yesterday, and she could smell him—the spicy scent of masculine soap blending seamlessly with the musk of a man warm in his beskar. But the underlying scent of Din Djarin was that of the sandy dunes of her homeworld. He smelled of warm winds and dusky plains, of tall grasses whipped by fragrant breezes. 

He smelled like home. 

The stars were cruel indeed to drop her in the lap of the one made for her.

She watched them for a time as he encouraged Grogu. Their bond was strong, too strong if the Jedi were to be believed. Such attachments bred fear for the one they loved, and fear lent itself to the Darkside. 

The idea of Grogu's pure soul becoming tainted made her ache, and though she said she couldn't help them, Baast knew she must. Grogu deserved a chance to grow up on the side of good. 

She sat up, drawing Din's notice, the man turning toward her across the fire. 

"Morning."

Baast wondered at the voice behind the modulator. Would it be deeper? More robust? Would it be even more pleasing than this one that stroked fingers of violent want through her blood?

"Good morning," she murmured, voice husky still with sleep. 

Before she could ask, the canteen he carried on his belt was in his hand. "Drink?"

She nodded, catching it easily when he tossed it to her. "Thank you. I'm not used to morning conversations anymore. Or any conversations in some years."

"You've done well, evading capture until now. Now, the Tribe will help."

"The Tribe," she whispered. "I've been alone for so long." The idea of being part of something was both appealing and terrifying. "I look forward to meeting your Alor."

"She will be glad to meet you. They all will. Everyone will hope-" He cut himself off, busying himself with the lizard cooking over the fire. 

"Mando, they should not hope for what I do not think I can give," she sighed, lifting Grogu to her lap when he shuffled over.

"You don't know for sure you can't bond, Baast. Give it time."

Time was all she had. Life was a long thing for a Zentari alone in the universe. 

Small green hands gently touched her cheeks, causing her to look down at Grogu. He cooed a sweet noise as she gazed into big, dark eyes. They were expressive in their own right, and she felt herself falling, diving once more into his mind. 

The images came fast and furious. Din running, fighting, killing, but almost always alone. 

Baast closed her eyes as pain washed through her for the Mandalorian. "I cannot," she whispered to the child. "It would not be fair."

Grogu frowned at her before squealing loudly. More images filled her mind, these of a man reckless with his safety, one who had little to nothing to live for. 

She gasped and wrenched her face away from his hands, but it didn't stop the flow of ridiculousness. Kriff! The man had a death wish!

When Grogu disappeared from her lap, only then did he release her from his grasp. 

Baast sent the green menace a glare. "That was entirely rude."

He smiled and blew a raspberry. 

"I'm sorry," Din murmured, holding the child away like Grogu was a danger.

She held up her hand, continuing to glare. "Do not apologize for something he did. It sets a poor president. Invading my mind is bad manners, little one. Disregarding another's desires is a step down a dark path. This will not be allowed."

"Dark path?" Din asked. 

"The Jedi and the Sith. One force believes in peace and passivity. The other wants power and are often corrupted by that passionate desire, both use the Force. He has the potential to be extremely powerful, but with that power comes responsibility. It is a razor's edge to walk, one I am not confident I have the skill to help him navigate."

Din straightened, but his shoulders lowered, relaxing his posture. "You'll help him? I didn't want to bring it up, but I'm running out of options."

"Yes," she sighed. "I know of one who may be able to help him, but I do not know if he will come at my call. Where is your covert?" He said nothing, and Baast tilted her head in apology. "That was an improper question. Forgive me."

"Always," he murmured.

She wondered if that would still be true should he learn what Grogu already suspected. "If I am to make contact, it must be from Tatooine."

"Why Tatooine?"

"Because it is the planet we agreed upon." She turned toward the fire and the spit of roasting meat before looking up at Din. "Have you eaten?" 

The movement was subtle, a single negative action.

Baast hummed and reached for the cloth that tied her pants' to her calf and began to unwrap it. 

"What are you doing?"

She ignored him and continued until her pant leg fluttered free. The cloth was only a couple inches wide, but it was long and thick enough to make an adequate blindfold. 

She lifted it to her eyes, only for his hand to shoot out and grab her wrist. It felt odd for him to touch her with the slightly cracked but soft leather of a glove now that she knew the feel of his skin.

"You don't need to do that."

Baast blinked slowly, gaze drifting to his hand before returning to the visor where his eyes would be. "It is not a need but a want. I will do this, Din Djarin, so that you may eat freely with the child and I. This is the Way."

"It is unnecessary."

She unfolded, rising gracefully to stand before him, wrist yet held in his grasp. "When last did you eat?"

He said nothing.

She tilted her head and held out the cloth. "I have not shared a meal with another in many years. I would share this meal with you and Grogu. Allow me to honour your Creed."

There was no sound, no movement beyond what Grogu contributed to the conversation in small burbles of noise. The Mandalorian was still and silent, a hunter in all things.

Baast waited, quiet, calm. After so many years in a cell, the forest gave her peace, but those years had taught her patience. She could wait for eternity for his decision. She had the time, after all.

What went on behind the helmet, she couldn't know, but eventually, he set Grogu down, released her wrist, and took the blindfold. "Turn around."

She did so, pushing her hair back to uncover her ears. "If possible, try not to cover them. The tips are sensitive, and the fabric will feel abrasive."

The cloth came down over her eyes, hooked behind her ears, and crossed at the back of her head. 

"Again," she murmured. "I can still see."

Twice more, the fabric circled before he tied a knot. 

Her senses heightened, hearing, smell, and the sixth sense that had been with her all her life. The Force resonated in every living thing, glowing and pulsing, connecting all of them. She could see it like an orange glow, thin lines and thick, veining out around them. 

"Good?"

"Yes." The heat of the fire warmed her skin, but before she could move, Din took her hand and elbow. 

"Kneel. I'll get you some food."

Baast followed his direction, aware of the bright light that was Grogu coming to her side. He placed his hand on hers, flooding Baast with a gentle apology. She turned her hand over to hold his little claws.

A quiet hiss filled her ears, causing her to turn toward Din. The beskar blocked some of his energy, the Force somehow muted by it. Then he lifted off his helmet. 

It took every effort to restrain herself from gasping. He glowed white, the shining brightness of a sun. Shock left her mute as she tracked the supernova that was this Mandalorian as he set down his helmet and removed the spit from the fire. He pulled off a piece of meat, maybe a leg, she couldn't quite tell, and brought it to her. 

"Here." The deep baritone was like the softest of silk to her senses. 

Baast held out her hands for the meat. His bare fingers grazed her palm as the hot meal hit her flesh, and grease trickled through her fingers. 

"Thank you," she managed to force from a throat gone tight with emotion. 

"It's hot. Be careful."

She stuffed down the aching need to reach out and feel the lips that produced such a voice and smiled crookedly instead. "Too long have you travelled with only Grogu for company."

He chuckled. "Perhaps."

Another wave of needy desire hit her, but Baast fought it off. She would not doom him to a half-life with an unfinished bond.

She ate and made sure he ate once Grogu was fed, asking questions about the child and how they came to be together simply to keep him talking. His voice was a balm to a soul grown used to silence.

When they finally finished their meal, she waited for him to return his helmet and come to release the blindfold. His hands were deft, skilled, and careful not to pull her hair.

Baast blinked to adjust to the quickly blooming daylight, then retied her pant leg as Din smothered the fire. She reached for Grogu and stood, ready to leave. 

"I can carry him."

She tilted her head, already missing the gentle ebb and flow of the Force from him, now encased in all that beskar. "Do you object to me carrying him because you think I am weak or out of principle because he is your foundling?"

"Uh…"

She arched a brow. "Do not underestimate me, Mando. I live because I am jatnese be te jatnese. The best of the best."

"I know what it means," he huffed.

"Then stop being ori'buyce, kih'kovid," she smirked. "I will care for the child as you have cared for me."

"Atin," he muttered. 

She didn't protest because, yes, she was stubborn.

"Fine." She could almost hear a pout in his modulated voice as he turned and marched out of their temporary camp. "And I'm not all helmet," he grumbled, likely thinking she couldn't hear him.

Baast smirked and gave Grogu a wink. "Come along, ad'ika. We weak ones best keep up with the big strong Mandalorian," she teased.

"I will leave you behind."

She grinned at his back. "No, you will not."

***

By the time they reached the Razor Crest, he was sweating in his beskar again, but with the luxury of the fresher within sight, Din didn't let it bother him.

He disarmed the ground defences and lowered the hatch, heading inside to get them underway. He wanted off the planet before anyone else thought to come looking for Baast'mal. 

Hopefully, the Alor would know who to bribe to falsify a new chain code for her. Either that, or there would be an all-out war to eliminate the threat and bounty on her head. Or, she would spend the rest of her life hunted by the Empire.

He hated that thought. Baast was not a creature who should spend her life hiding. She should be allowed out into the light, a creature of hope and beauty. 

Though he hadn't seen the true colour of her eyes, the rest of her was so mesh'la, when he'd removed his helmet, it had momentarily taken his breath. And without the helmet, her scent had filled his nose like something he'd loved and long forgotten. It was warm, soft, and decadent, all things a Mandalorian put off when he put on the beskar. 

It was getting harder and harder to keep his hands to himself.

She closed the ramp and followed him to the ladder, climbing up with Grogu to slip into the seat back and to his right.

"Once we've left the atmosphere, you're welcome to the fresher, food, whatever you need," he offered, getting them airborne.

"Do I smell?"

He froze. "That wasn't what-"

Her laugher, that throaty purr, cut him off. "It's fine, Mando. An actual fresher after years of lakes and waterfalls will be pleasant."

"Hm. I have to make a stop on Nevarro, then another before we go to Tatooine. Is there anything you need?"

"Clothing. A cloak. And a weapon."

They cleared the planet, and he made the jump into hyperspace before turning around. "What kind?"

"Short sabres or staff will do."

He watched her pet Grogu's ears, gently using those long claws in such a fashion the kid was almost comatose in bliss. She sat with one foot propped on the seat, comfortably leaning on the armrest. He wondered if her skin would begin to lose its sun-kissed nature now that she was off-world.

"How did you learn to fight?" he asked, forcing himself not to think about her skin and how soft it was. 

"Mandalorians are not the only warrior race. Zentari are taught from birth; the rest I learned from the idiots who held me captive. They sought to make me a weapon or a slave, with that came training, but Zentari are not so easily coerced, nor do we forget the slaughter of thousands. I am no weak-minded individual to be controlled by some Sith," she spat.

"Sith?" He knew next to nothing about Force-wielders and felt the lack of knowledge acutely. 

"They oppose all things the Jedi stand for, desiring power over peace or balance. They corrupt what they touch.."

"And how does a Zentari hold out against someone so powerful?" He didn't wish to insult her, but surely a child against a master Sith couldn't win.

She sighed and looked away, watching the lights of hyperspace. "Zentari are neither good nor evil. We are Force neutral. The blood bonds distinguish much of our future. To avoid creating bonds with those that would bring harm was why Zentarus was so well hidden. But someone betrayed us. They used to brag about it, the Imps. How one who we trusted gave us up to the Empire."

"If you are Force neutral, why allow Mandalorians to know of Zentarus? Why let us come seeking mates?"

She shot those vibrant eyes back in his direction. "Because the Way was honourable once. Perhaps, at some point, Mandalore was led astray by their leader, but that was not our doing. Those that came to us knew the Way. They humbled themselves before us, and if they were denied, they left knowing such was not their destiny. Those who came knowing not the Way… did not leave Zentarus alive."

"Then I am glad I knew the Way," he murmured, wondering who would have won between the two of them had she not revealed herself.

"As am I," she nodded, looking as regal as the Sand Panther she claimed in her blood.

"Were the Jedi not part of your Way?"

She scowled. "The Jedi saw us as a threat. Naturally born Force users who required little training to do much of what they could, who lived for generations, and who were neither good nor evil. They feared what would happen if we were corrupted. An attempt was made to wipe us out. It failed, and we Zentari veiled Zentarus from those who knew not where to look."

"And that's why you didn't want to help us," he sighed, realizing the untenable position he'd put her in.

She stood, placing the sleeping Grogu down on her seat before taking the step she needed to stand between his spread knees. Her hands lifted to land lightly on the sides of his helmet, gliding over the metal. "It is no longer a want but a need. I will not watch Grogu fall to the side of the Sith because of my fear of the Jedi. He must be trained."

She leaned down and rested her forehead against his helmet as long lashes veiled her eyes. "This is the Way."

Without his permission, Din's hands found her hips and drew her incrementally closer. "I will protect you, Baast."

"We will protect each other."

He hummed his agreement and wondered at the low ripple of sound vibrating through his chest.

Next chapter

[softer-ua]

in regards to what you pointed out a few posts ago, ngl one of my least favorite fandom things is when they make Kaminari the Har Har Stupid Joking ADHD Bi Playboy Who Is Never Serious Trope. like, he's very smart, 'worst in ___ area of a UA course' is very impressive and I don't remember if it even said that or just that he was studying with some other students, worried about his grades overall, calls himself stupid with implied insecurities about it, and didn't think he was very smart compared to the other people in the course. quirk overuse makes him loopy, incoherent, and think everything's funny. and yeah, he's a bit of a flirt and made a few perverted comments and actions that he clearly didn't think through that well. I'm pretty sure he's not ever stated to be bi in the manga because it was written by a coward, so I think people should think more about why they're associating and pairing together the idea of "hot flirty playboy who if legally able would sleep with everyone he meets" with emphasis or joke in the captions of whatever the content is on him being bi. I don't think this is inherently bad, even put together, but the execution feels kind of :/ and shallow. and I mainly just wish they'd pause to consider if there's any reason (subconscious or intentional) why one of those makes them think about the other, and at the very least lean back to see if they're blatantly making those traits centric around each other and tweak how they're showing them a little. Part of this is also because it's basically his fanon sexuality, but then they stick together "oh he's bi and everyone thinks that" and "he's made flirty or perverted comments and actions in canon at some point" and then mentally exaggerate and have this Canon Image of him as *waves hand at above* and I don't think that's happening consciously in most cases but. again. Cookiecutter Bi Party Playboy Who's Made a Date Offer to Everyone In The Building. not a flirty Person or a Playboy who is bi and flirts with more than one genders

I myself headcanon him as adhd and while the exact sexuality depends on my mood I think of/have him as bi in a lot of my content, but it's the same thing with why non adhd people see how he acts and label "adhd!" Especially about comprehension speed and derpy acting and intelligence and attention span jokes/tropes. Again, not bad in and of itself, but the specific parts of his behavior that make them think he's adhd, or that they start making jokes about or Ha Ha ADHD'ing, or that they think is why we project ADHD on him, (which they aren't necessarily wrong about, but like right in a really disrespectful look at how funny this is oh look squirrel way that's only funny when adhd people are doing it and it isn't all mocking like that) when they see other people calling him adhd, are the wrong ones, I think, and it shows in their characterization of him.

I'm not saying that any of those traits are bad in a character, but as a queer adhd girl with very high annual test scores and Gifted Kid Intelligence but extremely poor grades, focus, and brain damage (admittedly nothing like his, it was a longterm passive thing that mainly just made me have a Lot of Really Bad headaches, and closest thing it did to me was make me sluggish and emotional on bad days and also techincally have the potential kill my language bit if left untreated or the surgery messed up, which it didn't, and it won't be a problem again. but even after explaining that it wasn't cancer or any sort of tumor, and after seeing it do very little at all to affect my behavior outside of irritability and performance, because y'know, constant migraines, gone after the surgery but this was before that, Certain People I Was Vaguely Kind Of Acquaintances With started to treat my like I was a fragile glass thing going to to drop dead and revive myself speaking like a comic relief cartoon crazy person at any moment which was. patronizing.) I've since had surgery for, the way the fandom combines them into stereotypes and portrays them really just rubs me the wrong way- "Flirty Bi(tm) Playboy" "Har Har ADHD Can't Focus Or Get Things After They're Explained To Him, He's Still Confused And An Idiot" "Stupid Person With Brain Damage Who Can't Take Care Of Or Think For Themself And Acts Stupid And Funny For People To Laugh At" which tbh is super ableist even and especially when people irl do fit that description, and also reminds me of the Autistic Person Freaking Out And Being Dramatic sense of humor. And I know it's not helped by canon, because it done for comic relief and to limit his powers, but explored more I think it as a limitation could have been used way more interestingly than canon did and also call me biased but that quirk induced brain frying sounds at least as concerning as Izuku's quirk's backlash.

And it's a shame!! Because he's so much more interesting than that! Instead, the fandom gives me the Cookicutter Funny Bi ADHD Flirt Who's An Idiot and I am sad about it.

tbh it reminds me of what happened to percy jackson, esp with the ADHD Idiot Trope thing. which sucks because apparently it originated in the author making up stories around characters like his adhd and dyslexic kid inspired by Greek myths to tell him after running out of actual myths because it was his special interest and he wanted more. and then the series got kind of all over the place and the fandom processed that the adhd and dyslexic main character who does dumb things sometimes but is very combat smart and great at strategizing and leading gets bad grades and has trouble focusing and has, y'know, adhd, and made him the ADHD Idiot and erased his Gifted Kid girl friend's traits and ADHD and dyslexia into No Nonsense Calls Him an Idiot And Thinks He's Stupid And Has To Tell Him What To Do And Manage His Life For Him and honestly that just kind of sucks and it reminds me of what happened to fandom Kaminari. and now that I think of it people have jirou like that around him a lot too.

im fine with you answering this publicly if you want or have something to add but probably tag as ableism and maybe a biphobia mention content warning for people who don't have the energy to deal with thinking about those kinds of negative things rn because I kind of Went Off About It

I love this! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences 💚(and double thank you for tag suggestions)💚

I couldn’t agree more that a lot of fandom has messed up Kami’s character, which is why I’ve kinda been posting more about him cause he’s just stuck in my head.

I think a lot of fandoms have trouble with characters like this, people have a hard time with duality in characters and fast/fun posts are easier to make if you flatten a character down.

The did it to Kami, they did it to Percy, they did it to Ron Weasley, they do it to Thor, the list goes on. If being the Smart One ™️ isn’t your thing and you can be goofy than you get pigeonholed into the idiot trope.

I feel for Kami a lot(probably because I have adhd/brain damage too)

It sucks when you’re smart but it’s not the traditional, measurable kind of smart(even if by national comparison Kami technically is).

I got terrible grades growing up, and I pretty much got the absolute lowest gpa you can get and still graduate. But absolutely no one would have known if I didn’t tell them, because I’m not dumb.

(It’s okay if you are “dumb”, I love me a head empty just vibes friend. You’re 100% valid, stil worthy of joining discussions, and should be listened to and taken seriously. This just isn’t about that tho)

I joke sometimes that I’m clever and witty but not smart, because that’s exactly what it feels like.

I have lots of thoughts and ideas that I think I articulate pretty well, I am excellent at finding the humor in things and expressing it in a way that’s funny to others too, and there is almost zero problems I can’t find a work around. And the people in my life love it, and they love to use it.

But eventually everyone in my life finds out that I’m not smart. They see the way I have to pause to Google how to calculate a tip, that I don’t know the name of all 50 states or even where to find them on a map, or I legitimately just can not spell (if you ever see a post where it looks like I used a weird word choice it’s probably because I tried 4 times and autocorrect+Google couldn’t help me and voice to text wasn’t an option)

No one ever questions my intelligence until they find out about my adhd and/or catch me struggling with it. After the mask comes off it’s like they can’t even hear me anymore, nothing I say could be true or matter because I’m now just the goofy accident prone spacy girl. My family literally calls me Spacy

And ya know what sometimes I just let people think that because it’s easier, it’s easier than explaining that I’m dyslexic and that I didn’t have a single geography/history clas until 10th grade and shocker the capital of Iowa doesn’t come up much by then. And it’s easier for me to laugh off losing my keys again than dwell on the fact that sometimes it feels like I’m losing my marbles.

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if after this post I get a lot more “fact checkers” and push back on anything else I post.(not talking about people who want to genuinely engage,y’all are always welcome, I’m talking those people who don’t wanna look it up themselves but no longer trust me to know what I’m talking about)

Kami is a sweet brilliant boy. He’s in a nationally high ranking school, he loves the weather channel, he’s careful about his quirk that could easily hurt his friends in combat, he has a very high emotional intelligence level, he wears dorky shirts with electricity puns on them, and he pays attention to his friends and remembers a lot of little things about them.

He wants to be a hero and he takes that seriously, and the series has tried time and time again to tell y’all that smiling and laughter are an important part of that. Kami excels at this part! So what if his history grades don’t rival the top of the class, the top 5 students would struggle hard to do what Kami does.

Iida can’t relax, Momos rather shy, Todo struggles with social cues, Midoriya is canonically not funny, and jfc where to even begin with Katsuki. I’m certain they’ll all grow up to be excellent heros in their own right, but none of them are going to bring the level of joy and camaraderie that Denki can. You can’t test that into someone.

Kami also just notices people differently and has any easy way of joining in with them, he doesn’t struggle approaching Katsuki or Shinso. Sure he doesn’t hit the the nail on the head the same way Deku does but he’s the only one who has the guts and skills to try. Also he’s not that kinda friend, he’s not looking to a save these guys but pal around with them

I think Kami 100% realizes what a special case and tough nut to crack Bakugo is, I don’t think he’s just careless or too dumb realize his life’s at stake or whatever.

I think he’s purposely testing Bakugos boundaries all while trying to not be a threat to Katsukis actual ego and calling Bakugo out when he needs it in a way that not to serious. Kami knows how to be just goofy enough that he’s approachable. He’s also keyed in that the way to Bakugo is through Deku, meanwhile everyone else is stuck believing the opposite.

Kami also realized how important music is to Jiro and saw an opportunity to let her display her skills and combin the two worlds she lives, and he wasn’t afraid to get some back lash from her for it.

Like Deku Kami isn’t afraid to be uncomfortable. You really can’t teach that level of social ease, you can teach the posture and feed people a couple of lines but it’ll never hit the same. Funny approachable people have spent a lifetime learning the craft, usually out of necessity.

It’s actually what gives me the biggest adhd vibes from him, because adhd is (speculated to be) a dopamine deficiency disorder. People with adhd are constantly trying to raise their dopamine levels, and that means looking for praise and reward and nothing makes the human brain light up faster than postative human connections.

Adhd children struggle a lot with connecting with peers and often find making people laugh a fast way into people’s circles and makes it more likely people will overlook being interrupted or spaced out on.

Also adhd people are pretty much forced by their own brain structures to be genuine in all they do, low dopamine levels make it very hard to do things you don’t enjoy because there no promise of dopamine from the activity and you don’t have enough to spare, plus impulsiveness makes it really hard to not show when you do or don’t enjoy something.

I agree that Kami is also painted as overly perverted at times, he’s a little flirty but in a fun casual way but it’s not the foundation of his personality and it’s really mellowed out over the course of the series.

And while I subscribe to the bi hc from his interactions with Jiro and Shinso, we should all be very mindful that we don’t lump these characteristics together. The are separate facets of his personality that are not dependent on each other in anyway.

Kami deserves all the respect and love, I can’t wait to see our electric king again 🖤⚡️🖤

[fangirlings-things]

The Border Control Project [Part. 1]

• ───━━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

Fandom: Extraction

Pairing: Tyler Rake x female reader

Summary: you're Tyler's next mission and turns out, you need him more than you want to

Word count: 1.4K

Warnings: curse words, mentions of violence and kidnapping

Based on this imagine

Gif credit: @thoresque

A/N: let me know if you guys want a part 2 or to be tagged like @posiemax asked to (it was sweet, thank youuu). I have many ideas to this series, so let me know what you think!!

Part. 2

Theme song: Shameless, Camila Cabello

Right now I'm shameless

Screaming my lungs out for you

Not afraid to face it

I need you more than I want to

• ───━━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

It had been what? Two, maybe three days?

You had lost track of time. After so much time in the dark, it happens. Your mind just washes away and it seems like you're floating in space, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. 

The blindfold in your eyes kept the light away and the restrains in your arms, made your whole body ache. The matress under you was actually soft, but even fluffy clouds could feel like a stone after being kept in the same position for so long. 

Your throat was dry and hurt because of how you had screamed. Screams that were muffled by the gag you had in your mouth. 

Every single spot those men had touched burned like a small fire and threatened to explode you. You were pretty sure you had marks all over. They hadn't been gentle when kidnapping you from the middle of the bloody street. 

You was tired, scared and wanted to leave. Go back to your life. But you knew you couldn't. There was no getting out of there. 

Taking a deep breath you tried to steady your heavy breathing, moving your hands against the restrains, to get maybe just a little more comfortable. Just a little. 

That, was all you could do.

• ───━━━━─ ● ─━━━━─── •

"Something new is up?"

That was the question Tyler had made when he got a call from Nik. It was unexpected, surprising. After what happened in Bangladesh many months ago, he had done a few other jobs, but none of them with her. Now, though, she seemed pretty determined to get him on board of whatever was happening. It intrigued him, made him frown while holding the phone against his left ear. 

He had been laying low since his last mission, the elimination of a target that he completed successfully in Greece. That mission had been fast, too easy. Since that, he had been wasting all the money he got in alcohol and cigarettes. Living each day with the usual boredom of loneliness and headache due to the all the booze. The opportunity to get into some action and do something useful, sounded really good. Truth was, the idea of being fired at excited him, as twisted as it was. 

That and all the cash that Nik said was at stake made him get into a plane two days later and land on Guadalajara, Mexico, where Nik had told them to meet. Now he found himself in the back of a rented apartment in a simple building, located in a poor part of the city. Description was a thing Nik valued a lot, and one of the things that made her so good at her job. The room was filled with people he didn't really know, although some of those faces were familiar from previous jobs. Over tables and armchairs ultimate technology they frequently used on missions had been gathered up, just waiting to be used when the operation began. 

"Listen up people, let's begin" Nik said out loud, bringing all the attention to herself as everyone instantly stopped talking by hearing her voice. She was a natural leader, no doubt about that. Pressing a single button on the control of the projector that had been installed hours before, she made a photo show up there for everyone to see. 

It was the image of a twenty year old girl. She was smiling to the camera as someone took a picture of her and the park she was in. She looked calm, happy. If her image was being shown there though, Tyler knew that something really bad had probably happened to that girl. 

"Her name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N)" Nik said, after taking a step to the side to give everyone on the room a good view of the girl's face. "Her father is a US senator who's been a big name on the Congress for almost ten years" someone whistled, and others nodded in agreement. With only that being said, they already knew it would be a great case to work on. "Four days ago, she was kidnapped here in Guadalajara" she pressed the button again on the control, and a video started playing on the projector. 

It was a security footage obviously, due to the black and white image and low resolution. In it the girl was walking on the street camly, carrying a backpack and wearing headphones. It was late at night, the corner of the footage marked 21:37. She was alone, and there was no one else on the street. That was the perfect opportunity for a kidnapping, Tyler thought to himself, and the response to that came seconds later. 

A van approached the girl suddenly, apparently coming out of nowhere. Stopped by her side and before she could even do anything, the back door was opened and three masked men stormed upon her. She tried to run, but they had no trouble in grabbing her violently by her arms and legs and throw her on the inside of the van, leaving behind only her now destroyed phone. The whole thing happened in less than twenty seconds. No one noticed a thing, no one saw anything. That had been extremely well planned. 

"Do we know who they are?" a guy with glasses Tyler had never seen before asked, analyzing with full attention the video that started playing again in replay. 

"Negative. We couldn't get anything from the security videos and the family doesn't know specifically who could be behind it, but five hours later the Senator recieved a call" as Nik pressed the button again, an audio file started to roll and filled everyone's ears. 

Senator (Y/L/N), we have your lovely daughter. If you don't drop the Border Control Project on the presentation day, she dies. 

And then the robotic adapted voice was gone. That was it. Short, harsh and objective.

"What's the Border Control Project?" Tyler was the one who made the question, before anyone else did the same. With his arms crossed over his chest, his mind was working fast in taking in all the information he was receiving. He knew he would need them in the future. 

"A project created by Senator (Y/L/N) to expand the police activity in the mexican-american border. If this project is approved on the mentioned presentation day, trafficking rotes will be affected, illegal transportations will be extremely lowered" Nik explained, dropping the control on the nearest table with a sight. "Dealers, politicians, traffickers, a lot of people could be behind it"

"So our only approach is to go after the girl herself" Tyler stated firmly, and the others agreed. 

"Yes, we rescue her. And possibly in the meantime, figure out who did this. Senator said he will pay three times more if we do" some of the team members started clapping and Nik rolled her eyes, but had a smile on her lips. They were mercenarys, money was their greatest worry and desire. 

"What was she doing in Mexico?" a middle aged woman with blond straight hair that was in the other end of the room across the australian, was the next one to make a question. 

"She got a six month transfer to the local University. Student exchange happens at least twice a year between Mexico and the United States" Nik answered and then crossed her own arms over her chest. "We start the operation within two days. Tyler will do the field work, were going to give him all the support he needs. Meanwhile, we prepare yourselves. Got it?"

Everyone agreed and started to go to work, opening computers and printing files. Tyler didn't move, just looked around in complete silence. Nik was the one who approached him. 

"You're good with this?" she asked, inspecting his features for any sign of denial. 

He nodded, averting his eyes back to the projector where someone had again projected the picture of the girl smiling. Looking deeply into her eyes, Tyler sighted. 

"I'm gonna need a whole file on her, anything you can find. When I get to her, I have to know or have something that will make her trust me"

He had no doubt. He would find her. 

[hashtagsmitty]

Smitty's Thailand Adventure - Day 4

This time on DragonBall Z - Josh picks up random street pussy, hours of wrecking little kids, another long ass wait, and a 10k hike.

I fell asleep last night as soon as I hit the pillow so I wrote yesterday's thing this morning. I was angry while I wrote it and even angrier when I went to get breakfast. I'm on the other side of the world in a city that smells terrible, I'm lonely, I spent yesterday watching Josh and his GF make kissy faces at each other...

People travel to experience new things and broaden their horizons. I assume. I'm travelling to spend time with my best friend - there's not much about Thailand that really appeals to me. I'm not an adventurous eater and I've never liked sauces on my food, so a lot of cuisine is out. I don't care about buying cheap stuff at markets, so that's out. The biggest thing I've realised of the culture is that it's (generously described as) laissez-faire - they don't care very much. Minimum effort required.

I realise all this sounds negative - I'm in a much better mood after the day I had today, but I wanted to capture how I was feeling this morning. Having such a good day put all this in perspective, and one moment of negativity isn't going to ruin this trip - I won't let it.

I went to get breakfast and ate it in the room while I listened to a podcast and played a game on my phone. Josh texted me at 9 to say we were meeting up at 1:30 for laser tag. I had time to kill. I decided that I was going to see the Statue of the Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. The pictures I found online don't do it justice - I really just wanted to see a longboi Buddha because I thought it would be cool.

So. Wat Pho is 13kms from my hotel. The skytrain got me halfway there. The options for the rest of the trip were:

Bus. The buses in Bangkok look terrifying - thick black clouds of smoke, no glass in the windows. Plus, the traffic is crazy and I'm genuinely convinced I'll see someone die before I leave. I don't want it to be me, so the bus was out.

Taxi or TukTuk. We used tuktuks heaps last time we were here, because they were so damn cheap. For many of the same reasons as above, mostly that I don't want to die in Thailand, tuktuks were out. The taxis we took yesterday were insane - they are good drivers, in the sense that they don't crash, but they're unsafe and terrifying drivers, in the sense that they don't stick in their lanes, don't indicate, and have very little concern for road rules. Plus, April and I had a scary incident with a taxi last time we were in Asia, so I wanted no part of being alone in a taxi. So this option is out.

Walk.

I walked from Siam Station (think Crown Casino crossed with Flinders Street Station) all the way to the longboi Buddha. Each way took an hour.

I used this as an opportunity to practice my photography. I'm working on a series called "Decay BK", a set of vignettes capturing small elements of how busted up parts of this city are. Here are some samples:

Like something out of Fallout, especially that first one of the railway lines. I saw heaps of other things that I didn't take a picture of, but mostly I just saw people living. Normal people in a weird and different situation to mine, making do or even thriving. We said that Cambodia had a harsh juxtaposition between the rich and poor - we saw small mansions literally next to garbage dumps - but in Thailand it's worse. The poverty isn't quite as bad, at least from what I've seen, but the wealth and opulence and excess is so much higher here.

Long story short I walked for an hour in the sun. An army dude stopped me and warned me about pickpockets. I thanked him and kept walking. Eventually I made it to the temple.

The statue is huge. Seriously. Go look at pictures:

The pictures don't do it justice - the thing is like two stories tall. It looks like solid gold, but I think it might be hollow and gold plated. Still, it's gorgeous. I had to take my shoes off and put them in a bag to enter the temple. I got to walk around it and dodge the huge throng of people in the temple. The army guy said today was the last day of the holiday so it was going to be packed. When I told Josh that he said that there's no holiday and the army guy was probably trying to pickpocket me himself.

I put my shoes back on, grabbed my complimentary water, and started the long walk back. I was hot. I was sweating like a pig. My feet hurt. I kept tripping on exposed parts of the concrete, only making my vindictive, fake "posr-collapse" photography all the sweeter. But I felt good - I navigated this city like a boss, seeing a beautiful side of the city I likely wouldn't have otherwise, and getting a much clearer picture of the people and the culture and what the non-tourist parts of Bangkok look like.

That's actually something that Josh does really well - both here and in Cambodia, we didn't stay in areas full of tourists. I think we got a much better picture of the countries we were in.

Though, apparently Cambodia was and is still owned by the Khmer Rouge, and we had no idea, so make of that what you will.

I got to the White Ethnostate and Aryan Purity Family Mart a little before when I said I'd meet Josh there. The laser tag place was just around the corner from there. I got some water and waited.

And waited.

He texted me at 2, when we agreed to meet (I had to push it back by 30 minutes because some moron decided to walk across the city for 2 hours) to say that he was running late and that he'd explain when he got there.

He got there at 2:30. We grabbed some food - the same thing I've been having for breakfast, chicken and rice - and caught up. He needed to spend time with Espy, he said. I nodded. I know how that is. We headed off to laser tag. On the way we discussed his girlfriend being a bit overly affectionate yesterday, and he told me that it made him a bit uncomfortable. "There's a time and place for that sort of thing", he said. I was glad to hear that - his other girlfriends have done the same thing when I've been around, and I find it frustrating, so to hear him acknowledge it meant a lot.

The laser tag place was full when we got there at 3, so we paid for a day pass and agreed to come back at 4. We went to that park near the station with the bird poo all over the steps, and walked around a while. We found some stray cats and Josh played with them for a while.

We sat on a bench and shot the shit for a while. Josh had a fresh coconut while we watched a stray cat stare down a squirrel in a tree. Josh told me that his friends from the other night had said that they thought I was really cool and easy to talk to - "a natural", one of them said. I was pleased to hear that, because being social never came easily to me and it's something I've been trying to work on. We talked about who hooked up with who and who was being clingy or wasting their time. It was nice.

We went back to laser tag. There was a large group of Singaporean medical students. We played a couple rounds with them - scored in the top 5 each time, out of around 30 people. We took a group photo for the Singaporeans, then they left and a bunch of kids came in. Not one to reject a challenge, Josh suggested that we play 2v5 against them. They respectfully declined and we played free-for-all instead. No prize for guessing who came first and second.

We got hungry, so we went to the Emporium, the shopping center attached to the skytrain station near my house.

Dinner was the same chicken franchise we got from the airport, but a much nicer version. The female, Thai Ben from the other night texted Josh. Apparently he made sure she got home safe that night we were hanging out in District W. She said she bumped into someone called Andrew who swore up and down that he knew me. I can't think of any Andrews I know. Josh assumed that it was a pretense to text him, and he told Ben this. No idea how that ended up.

We finished the meal and went back to laser tag. A couple of new groups rotated in and we played 3 more games, for a total of 8. I won the last 2 games, and ended up with a final K:D ratio of 5:2. I achieved this miraculous score by abusing the power-up mechanics heavily, and enlisting the small children on my team as my strike squad. They might not have understood English, but once I showed them how to get the powerups, we were wrecking everyone, and my two minions came 3rd and 5th. Josh was 2nd and some old Indian dude who stood at the entrance and sniped people came 4th. It was fun!

Josh and I walked back to the Alt-White Political Disempowerment Family Mart. We agreed to meet up again tomorrow, after his girlfriend was done with classes. I walked down my street, straight past two "massage girls" who didn't so much as whistle at me. I'm beginning to think that I'm invisible. Or I smelled from all the walking and running around, hard to say.

I went straight to the shower once I got in. I saw the sun today, and even a patch of blue sky! Today ended much better than it started, and I'm feeling excited and positive about tomorrow.