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aesteraceae · 2 years

Text

2AM

Relationship: 3Racha (Chan, Changbin, Jisung)/fem reader

This fic was created for the @skzseasons may event!

Tags below the cut!

Word count: 7,142

Ao3 Link!

Tags: polyamory, songwriter & producer!reader, sub bang chan, sub Jisung, sub Changbin, dom reader, mentioned Chan/Changbin/Jisung, mommy kink, Noona kink, biting, nipple play, Changbin is a brat, semi-public sex (kind of, they're in a locked studio), voyeurism, foursome, 3racha is horny, dacryphilia if you squint, spanking, blowjobs, Praise kink, degradation, sadomasochism, face fucking, objectification, cum play, light pet play, edging, orgasm control, feminization

Notes: Mommy kinks are super fun to write, so I had a lot of fun with this one ^^

3racha's dynamic as a whole is so much fun, so it was a no-brainer to use them for this prompt.

If you enjoy this, please reblog it! It motivates me to write and I really enjoy hearing feedback, even if it's just an emoji or two <3

Tags: @sunnyville36

(Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed from the taglist!)

· · ────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The studio is pleasantly warm, the AC blowing hot air into the room to combat the chill of late fall.

Changbin lies over the arm of the couch, tapping out a beat on the leather cushions while he goes over the lyrics he'd written so far. His brow is furrowed, lips pressed into a thin line, and you can tell he's frustrated. Jisung is sitting on the floor, back against the couch, obviously half asleep but still making a valiant effort at humming a melody.

Chan's hunched over his desk, clicking away at the audio files they'd recorded so far, and grunting softly every few minutes. His shoulders are tense, bunching up with stress and exhaustion, held tight like he'll collapse if he lets it go.

And you're in the middle of it all, lyrics sitting abandoned in the little notebook you brought.

The night had started well, ideas flowing easily, inspired by the changing season and all the metaphors that came with it.

But after a few hours the motivation slowly dwindled, and while you knew when to call it a day, "rest" doesn't seem to be in 3Racha's dictionary.

"It's getting late." You say, unlocking your phone to see that it's already well past 2 AM. The building was likely deserted by now, but of course it wasn't out of the ordinary for them to stay up this late.

Taking the opportunity to work with 3Racha had been an easy decision, but you really wished you'd known just how often they did this before you accepted.

Jisung snorts, obviously aware of the irony with the phrase "getting" late. You nudge him with your foot and he grins, stretching his arms above his head.

"It is late. And we've been working for quite a while." He says the words around a yawn, snuggling back into the couch like he planned to sleep right there on the floor.

"We've gotta get this finished, Ji," Changbin says, but he yawns soon after, and you know fatigue when you see it.

"You guys can leave, it's cool. Get some rest, it is pretty late."

Bang Chan, ever the leader. Jisung rises, moving to get his bag, but you put a hand on his shoulder.

"And I'm assuming you plan to stay here?"

Chan takes off his headphones, and you don't miss his wince at the ache of blood rushing back to his ears.

"Yeah, I have to finish this track. I won't be long."

You lean back on the couch, crossing your arms, and take in the situation. Jisung was eager to leave, eyes struggling to stay open, but he was obviously unwilling to leave Chan alone here.

Changbin was hyperfocused, still chasing a thread of inspiration that would ultimately lead him nowhere. You knew the feeling well, and it was easy to recognize.

He was most likely not going to leave until he finished the verse or fell asleep on the spot.

Or, unless you helped him relax.

Chan, however, was a completely different beast.

You'd worked with Chan before. While this was the first time with 3racha as a team, you often came to help Chan with lyrics or production, a fresh set of eyes when he got stuck.

You'd seen Chan like this. His eyes are bloodshot and drooping, blinking a bit too hard to be normal. His hands are shaking around the mouse, making the headphones clatter, and the more worrying part is that he doesn't even seem to notice.

"Okay," you clap your hands together, making Jisung jolt and Chan wince. You send them both an apologetic smile but carry on. "I don't think anyone's being productive right now."

Jisung shrugs, Changbin sighs, and Chan opens his mouth to protest.

"Nope, I'm hearing none of it, especially not from you. We are taking a break. I'm going to get water, and we're all going to think about things that aren't working for at least 20 minutes."

Chan still doesn't seem pleased, so you amend the statement. "It's that, or we

all

finish up work for tonight and go home to sleep. Those are the choices, pick one."

"There's water in the mini-fridge," Jisung adds, helpful, and you smile at him even as Chan glares.

Changbin seems hesitant, but he hands over the notebook when you hold out your hand for it.

Jisung's already put his phone and headphones away, so you move on to Chan.

He looks pissed.

"Noona, I really don't think this is necessary."

You just smile, "Ah, but that's the thing! It's not your decision to make. I know, it's a hard pill to swallow for you."

The tease was a little uncalled for, but it did get on your nerves sometimes. You didn't care when he did it for Changbin and Jisung, but when he directed his orders at you, it made you want to slap him in the face. Only a little, but still.

Chan scoffs, straightening up in the seat, squaring his shoulders.

"I'm not a child, I think I can figure out when I need a break or not."

You glare right back at him, "Your hands are shaking, Chan. When was the last time you had water or looked at something other than a screen?"

Chan opens his mouth and closes it again, and you can practically see him do the math in his head.

"Six hours," you inform him, taking his headphones and replacing them with a cool water bottle.

Jisung gives Changbin a bottle and Chan breaks with a sigh, untwisting the cap and drinking. You're handing him another bottle the moment he finishes it, and some of the tense energy seems to drain from the room.

"Good. 20 minutes starts now."

…-…-…-…-…-…-…

20 minutes did not work.

Chan lasts all of 5 minutes before he starts getting restless, rolling around in his chair and sighing dramatically as if you're going to give him attention if he does it loud enough.

At least Jisung and Changbin are well-behaved. They're curled up next to each other watching some nature documentary, one they offered to watch with Chan as well, but he refused.

"Chan, stop sighing like a princess trapped in a tower. What's your problem?"

Chan looks up, caught red-handed, and you just raise an eyebrow.

"I feel better now. Can I please work? I have an idea."

"Write it down. I'm not giving the headphones back for another 15 minutes, so you're shit out of luck there."

Maybe you were being mean, overstepping a boundary or something, but Chan doesn't blow up at you. Instead, he pulls out a pad of sticky notes and obeys, writing something out and stocking it onto the screen of his monitor.

"Good job. That wasn't hard, was it?"

You're just teasing, but Chan's eyes widen and his ears go pink. You have to break through the wave of 'that's adorable' that floods your system to respond, but you're fairly certain it doesn't show on your face.

Your tiny tiny crush on Bang Chan, (and Changbin and Jisung, for that matter) was irrelevant right now. He was probably blushing because you embarrassed him, because you just spoke to him like a dog.

Oops.

Instead of something annoyed, however, Chan just says, "Thank you." And turns around in the chair, playing something on his phone again.

... Huh.

Chan didn't seem angry, or annoyed, or even like he was going along with the teasing. He seemed sincere.

You feel eyes on the back of your neck and look back to see Changbin and Jisung watching the exchange. Changbin's giving you a knowing look, one far more suggestive than you'd expected to ever see from him.

Jisung's trying to hold back laughter, pressing his face against Changbin's shoulder.

"What?"

Jisung snickers, quickly progressing into full-bodied laughter, and Changbin can't help but join in.

Chan, however, is fuming, ears practically glowing red, though you can't tell if it's embarrassment or anger.

"Could you two not be insufferable for ten minutes?" He hisses, carefully avoiding your gaze.

"What? What's funny?"

"Nothing!"

"Chan's just being a sub."

"Changbin, for fucks sake!"

Chan looks just about ready to punch Changbin in the face, glaring and huffing, and this is the opposite of what you wanted.

"Alright, everyone relax, Jesus Christ."

Jisung and Changbin's laughter dies down and Chan looks more mortified than angry now, which was only a little better.

"Okay. I'm confused? Did I say something wrong?"

"No, noona, you didn't do anything. Chan's just being horny, that's all."

Oh. Oh.

Sometime in the last few minutes, Jisung has shifted from beside Changbin to on his lap, and Changbin's drawing little patterns on his stomach.

Oh.

You... You might have missed something important.

"I can... I can go? I don't- um, I'm not sure what you've all got um, between you so I think I'll just... Go. Yeah."

Now you're the one blushing, finally putting together all the pieces you'd just brushed off as them being close. The little glances, jokes you didn't understand...

You needed to leave. Now. Maybe then you'd keep some of your dignity and not look like a complete idiot, or worse, a creep.

"Noo, noona!" Jisung whines, sitting up a little to reach for you. He looks small like this, wrapped in Changbin's arms, which is just the weirdest fucking thought, oh my god.

"None of you know how to explain things," he huffs, glaring at Chan, who's now got his face hidden in his hands.

"Okay, listen. It's not weird, yeah? If we thought it was we would have asked you to leave ages ago. But we didn't, so it's not weird." One of his hands gestures wildly as he speaks, the other one held securely in Changbin's grasp.

"Chan isn't weirded out by you either. He's embarrassed because what you said turned him on, and that was funny to us because we've had to listen to him pine over you for months."

Chan lets put a mortified groan, and you sit back down.

"You're the worst friends ever, for the record. Fucking horrible."

"You're the one who got all hot and bothered over a little praise, that's not our fault."

Chan looks up and you think he's actually going to punch Changbin or something, but he catches your eye and stops in his tracks.

You just stare at each other for a while, time slowing to a stop as you take in his expression. He's embarrassed, sure, cheeks almost glowing with heat, but there's also something bright in his eyes, like anticipation or hope.

"What do you want me to do about that?"

You ask, voice barely above a whisper. Chan gasps, his grip tightening on the armrest. "I- what? You don't have to- I'm sorry, this is so weird, you don't have to do anything!"

Why was that so

cute? Chan's words should be making you feel even more awkward, maybe even annoyed by his evasiveness, but you can't help the endeared smile on your face as he rambles out apologies and excuses.

Your voice is more of a purr when you speak next, cutting off another apology. "That's not what I asked, Chan. What do you want me to do to you?"

He literally whimpers, covering his face with a hand and pulling one of his legs up to his chest.

"Damn, noona. You're good at this."

You have an idea.

It was probably stupid, and might get you kicked out for real, but you're already here, it can't get much weirder.

"Hey," you start, turning away from Chan for the time being to address Changbin and Jisung.

"Has it just been Chan pining over me, or you two as well?"

Changbin seems startled by the question, cheeks flushing, but Jisung grins. "Yeah. We fuck a lot, you know, and we'd always fantasize about if you were there, telling us what to do."

You blink at them, waiting for the outraged protests, but they never come. Changbin's pretending to watch the documentary again, cheeks pink, and Jisung looks somewhat annoyed rather than embarrassed.

"Huh. Then, are you both okay with doing that now? I have an idea."

Jisung jumps off of Changbin's lap, moving to stand in front of you like an obedient dog.

Changbin puts down his phone and nods, his previous cocky attitude gone as if it had never been there.

"Good. And Chan? Are you okay with this? You can call it off at any time, any of you can."

He looks up, confused at first at being addressed, but he nods after a second.

"Okay. Let's use stoplight safe words, yeah? Green for good, yellow to slow down and talk, and red to stop." Jisung bounces on his heels, impatient and growing more so by the second, so you decide to hurry along.

"Chan, get up for a second."

He blinks at you, confused, but eventually his brain catches up and he stands, stepping toward you.

"Come sit on my lap, honey."

You take Chan's spot, patting your spread thighs for him to settle down on.

"What? But- I'm... I'm heavy." His voice is small, confused and scared, and you can't help but coo at him. "Shh, honey. Just follow directions, I'll worry about everything else."

Something melts in Chan's expression, and after a moment of hesitation, he walks back over, slowly lowering himself on your lap. He doesn't fully sit, hovering above you on his knees, so you hold his hips and guide him down.

He gasps at the contact, face somehow getting redder, and he looks away.

"God, you're so pretty when you blush like that."

He immediately goes to deny it, but you just shush him.

"Let's lay down a couple ground rules, yeah?" You direct it at Changbin and Jisung as well, who jump to attention.

"Number 1, none of you can touch yourselves or each other without permission." Jisung pouts but doesn't protest, so you continue.

"Number 2, if I tell you to do something, you do it. If I say you are something, like pretty, or cute, you just accept it and don't deny or protest."

Chan looks back at you, outraged, but you level him with a warning look. "These are in effect now, unless someone has an issue with them."

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, eventually sighing deeply and looking away again.

"Number 3, I want to hear every little sound you make. Every gasp, every moan, every

scream.

I'm taking full advantage of this room being soundproof. If I catch you muffling your noises, I'll stop touching you. Understand?"

Changbin curses under his breath, and you smile.

"Okay. I might add rules later on if I deem it necessary, but that's all for right now. Any questions?"

"What should we call you? Noona, or something else, like mommy?"

You think the question over for a moment, imagining how the boys might say both names, around moans or through tears.

"Either one. Mommy or noona, nothing else."

Changbin raises his head, a challenge in his tone. "And what if we don't? Will you punish us?"

There's a tease in his voice, something condescending and rude, but you just smile at him.

"If you want to go ahead and find out, be my guest. It'll be Jisung giving you your punishment until I finish up with Chan here, so I suggest you get it out of your system now, before my hands are free."

He curses again, louder this time, and you blow him a kiss.

"Alright. Let's get started, then."

You take Chan by the hips again and pull him closer, chest to chest, and ignore his yelp.

"You two, get on the floor by my feet and start getting each other off. Do whatever you need, but you're not allowed to take clothes off, and you need to ask me if you want to cum."

They jump on the opportunity, Jisung practically pulling Changbin down to the floor with him and into a kiss.

Sloppy moans and sighs quickly fill the room, so you turn your attention back on Chan. His dick is pressed right against your stomach, so close you can feel it twitch.

"Can I kiss you, honey?"

Chan nods, tongue darting out to lick his lips. You hold his jaw as you lean in, keeping him still as you press your lips to his.

He reciprocates as much as he can with his jaw held so tight, little gasps and sighs escaping every so often as you deepen the kiss, guiding his lips apart and sucking his tongue into your mouth, mapping out every inch of the wet space.

When you finally pull away Chan looks wrecked, tongue hanging out of his mouth for a few seconds, like he'd forgotten what to do with it without you there to guide him.

Fuck, this was going to be

fun.

If Chan got this overwhelmed from just a kiss, you can't wait to see what happens when you actually touch him.

"Fuck, hyung, you're so hot. Noona, you're making him such a slut already." Changbin moans, fingers tangled in Jisung's hair while they grind on each other, both turned so they can see what you're doing to Chan.

"I'm not a slut!" Chan snaps, ducking his head into your shoulder, and you can't help but laugh.

"But you are, Channie." Changbin's voice is low, almost a growl, only getting deeper every time Jisung rolls his hips. "Such, fuck, such a little whore." Jisung adds, far less coherent than Changbin seems to be.

"All noona did was kiss you and you're already shaking. Is he hard, noona?"

Chan's whining against your shoulder, shaking his head every so often. "N-no, I'm not a whore!" He says, voice shaking, and worry floods your system. "Chan, color?"

He gasps, choking back a sob, "Green. I'm green, I like it, just- it's a lot."

You nod, securing an arm around his waist as your other hand combs through his hair, gentle and grounding. You stay like that for a moment, letting him breathe, and once he doesn't seem on the verge of tears anymore, you tighten your grip on his hair and pull his head up.

"Tell them, honey. Are you hard from just a kiss?" Tears spring to his eyes again but you can tell it's from embarrassment this time as he raises a hand to cover his face. "Yes. I'm- fuck, I'm so fucking hard."

Changbin groans and Jisung lets out a delicious little whimper.

"Good boy. You're so good for me." You praise, sliding both hands down to his hips. You squeeze, gently at first and then harder, making sure he can feel your nails digging into his skin. "Mommy, fuck!" He hisses, back arching, trying to press further into your hands.

There's something about the way he says

mommy, desperate and shaky, like the word is unfamiliar to his jaw but forces itself out anyway, purely out of wanting to please you. You can't help but groan, using your grip on his hips to grind him against you.

Chan gasps, grabbing at your arm as you repeat the motion, rolling your hips up to meet him.

"Jesus Christ, Jisung,

fuck-"

You glance up, just in time to watch Changbin toss his head back, falling back on his elbows as Jisung grinds on him, both hands pinching at his nipples.

He shaking, gasping for air, and you can see his thighs tensing, see the euphoria slowly spreading across his face.

"Jisung, stop right now."

Your voice is sharp, and Jisung stops, more out of being startled than actually wanting to obey.

Changbin whines, reaching for Jisung's hips to make him move again, but you snap your fingers.

He pauses, staring at you with a mixture of frustration and annoyance.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. What did I tell you to do if you're about to cum?"

Jisung climbs completely off of him, trying to hide the smile on his face.

"Fucking- stupid fucking rule-"

He cuts himself off on a groan, too embarrassed to touch himself with you staring him down like this but almost frustrated enough to do it anyway.

You heave a deep sigh and kiss Chan again, tapping his thigh once to signal him to get up.

He does, even if you need to steady him a bit.

"I hadn't even started with Chan yet, so you get to have

me give your punishment."

Changbin sits up, sensing the dangerous edge in your voice. It's intoxicating, seeing the fear and excitement in his eyes, knowing that you're the reason for it.

"And because you interrupted Chan's turn with your disobedience, you'll get him off while I punish you."

Changbin's breath hitches, and you smile.

You end up sitting on the couch with him over your knee, pants and boxers pulled down to his ankles while you rub small circles against the skin, just to see him squirm.

Jisung kneels in front of you, kissing and biting at his thighs, scratching his nails against the soft skin. He was excited when you asked him to help punish Changbin, but if you were reading Jisung right he wouldn't be well behaved for very long.

That was fine, though; You liked a challenge.

Chan's sitting next to you, petting Changbin's hair as he waits for your cue to start fucking his mouth.

"I'm going to spank you until you can make Chan cum."

Changbin perks up, glancing at Chan's dick by his face with anticipation.

"But, Chan will be fucking your mouth. You'll go at whatever pace he wants, or whatever pace I tell him to go at. Do you understand?"

Changbin noticeably deflates, swallowing hard. He'd underestimated your intensity, but you'd make sure to correct that mistake.

He nods, small, more of a shift really, and you smack his thigh. He jumps, snapping his head back to look at you, outraged. "Verbal answers, Changbin. Do you understand?"

"Fuck, yes! Jesus Christ."

You can't help but roll your eyes, grabbing him by the hair to guide him onto Chan's cock.

"Such a mouth on you, Jesus. Let's hope you're just as good at giving head as you are at mouthing off."

"He is," Chan whispers, eyes already closed as Changbin sinks onto his cock, hands scrabbling for purchase on the couch.

"Grab his hair, guide him. Just take what you want, baby, use him like a toy."

Changbin whines, thighs pressing together, and Jisung laughs, prying them back apart.

He slides between them, lazily jerking his cock while he sucks another hickey into his hip.

"Oh, do you like that?" You dig your fingernails into Changbin's ass, smiling when he jolts. "Do you like the idea of Chan using you like a toy? Having him fuck your mouth like you're just a Fleshlight, nothing more?"

"Fuck- god that's hot, shit." Chan groans, guiding Changbin's mouth in slow, deep thrusts.

His eyes are glued to Changbin's face, refusing to leave even when you lean over to kiss his neck.

"Binnie here's got a thing for being treated like an object," Jisung says, ever the helpful one, and you reach over to run a hand through his hair as a reward.

"Once, I used him as a footrest while I wrote lyrics. He was so hard afterward, all I had to do was pinch his nipples before he came."

Changbin groans, kicking Jisung with surprising force, and you wind your hand back and bring it down on his ass with a sharp

smack.

He gasps hard enough that Chan lets him up to breathe, stilted moans and whimpers at the leftover pain.

"Plus, he's got the pain tolerance of an ant."

You smack him again, a little lighter this time, but he still flinches away.

"You're so helpful, Jisung. Thank you, honey."

Changbin scoffs, glaring back at Jisung. "Kiss ass."

Another smack and all traces of smugness leave him, replaced by pain and pleasure.

"You talk so

much.

Get back to doing what you're good for, bitch."

Chan helps him back onto his dick, moving faster this time, and you make a little game of matching your slaps to the soft noises he makes.

He's sobbing after a few minutes, nails digging crescent-shaped bruises into Chan's thighs as his pace picks up again, now fully fucking his mouth. Chan's head is thrown back, one of his legs pulled up onto the couch for more leverage to thrust his hips back into Changbin's mouth.

Jisung joins in, smacking Changbin's thighs, right over every hickey and bruise.

Changbin gargles something, sounding urgent, and you pull his head off of Chan's dick.

"Gonna cum!" He shouts, tongue rolling out to still lick Chan's cock even with your hand in his hair.

Jisung grins, somewhat feral, and he leans in and

bites Changbin's hip, hard.

"Oh my god, oh my god- Fuck!"

"Don't you dare cum without permission, slut. Make Chan cum first, can't you do the one thing I asked?"

Changbin starts again with renewed fervor, licking and sucking while Chan gasps and moans above him, startled by the sudden change in enthusiasm.

"Oh my god-" He gasps, tossing his head back against the couch, and you can't resist pulling him into a kiss.

He tastes like sweat and heat as he moans against your mouth, high and desperate. You can't focus enough to keep spanking Changbin so Jisung takes over for you, whispering things in his ear and biting anywhere he can reach.

You don't pay him any mind, too preoccupied with Chan, with his masterful tongue even as he comes undone. "Please, mommy, I'm close," he pants, lips brushing against yours as he speaks and you don't want to pull away to give him permission, so you just kiss him harder, intense and

hot, and Chan seems to take the hint.

He groans, hips bucking up and shoving his dick deeper into Changbin's mouth, making him gag and moan around it. Chan pulls him off then, letting his head rest on his thigh while he rides it out. You reach for chan's dick, sliding your hand over it even as Chan whimpers from the overstimulation.

"So fucking hot. Did you swallow, Binnie?" You turn to him, hips still grinding into nothing, mouth sealed shut.

Jisung moves to whisper into Changbin's ear, "Go on, show her. Show noona what you like to do with Chan's cum."

Changbin leans up on shaking arms and kisses Chan, wet and sloppy, and oh.

Changbin didn't swallow, he held chan's cum in his mouth, and now he's kissing Chan with it.

Chan whines into the kiss, lapping up the cum from Changbin's tongue like a puppy, even making sure to lick up the excess that escapes their kiss.

"Holy fucking shit." You whisper, entranced, and Jisung climbs onto the couch next to you.

You don't pay him any attention as he starts pulling your clothes off, still too focused on Changbin and Chan, who've now started grinding down against each other. It's too good of a show to chastise them for it, and you suppose they both earned the reward.

Jisung bites your shoulder,

hard,

And you yelp. "Hey! You've ignored me this entire time, noona. I've been patient, I even helped! They'll entertain each other, please, I want you to touch me."

And just like that, your attention couldn't be further from the kissing pair next to you.

Jisung is flushed and pouting, annoyance bright in his eyes, and you can't help but feel a little guilty. That's alright, you'd make it up to him.

"Oh, you poor little thing," You push him back against the couch and straddle his hips, dragging your wetness over his aching dick. You're not sure when he got naked, probably before he undressed you, but you were too preoccupied to notice either action.

Now, though, it was hard to focus on anything other than your nakedness, how the warm air makes your nipples ache, and how perfect Jisung's dick feels against your cunt. He's not the biggest, smaller than Chan but a little bigger than Changbin, and suddenly your hit with the image of the three of them, lining their dicks up and checking which one was biggest.

Chan won for biggest, but you had to admit that Jisung's looked absolutely delectable. It curved upwards towards his belly button, decently thick and veiny, and you can't decide if you want it in your mouth or your cunt more.

Jisung reaches for your hips, not guiding your motions but supporting them, just looking for something to hold on to while you're taking him apart.

"Shit, please. I'm not gonna last long to begin with, please, I need you, noona."

You smile, bracing a hand on his chest to get more leverage to grind on him, "Aw, what an easy little pet you are. Are you gonna cum just from me grinding my pussy against you? Is that all it's gonna take?"

He gasps, turning his head away to try and hide his face in the couch cushions.

He's so pretty like this, cheeks a pretty pink, and you can tell your moans are getting to him. He's twitching against you, pulsing, and you're sure that you could feel his heartbeat if you focused enough. "Please, noona- I'm not gonna last, please!"

"So pathetic, I can't even fuck you properly without you cumming on the spot. Fine, cum, I'll just fuck you through it."

You finally reach for his dick and line it up with your pussy, sinking down in one smooth movement.

Shit.

You can't even tease him like this, entire body so insanely sensitive that you have to take a breather. It was easy to ignore the way you soaked through your panties while watching them, always more focused on dominating, but now, finally being stimulated after what must have been an hour now, it's overwhelming.

"You're so tight, oh my god-"

Jisung looks like he's just seen God, head thrown back and hips twitching, just begging you to move.

Some of the teasing spirit returns to you as you slowly start to ride him, long, deep strokes keeping you both on the edge.

"Fuck, so good. And to think, I'll only get it for a second because you'll cum so soon. Really a shame."

Jisung shakes his head even as you feel him twitch inside of you, watching his abs tense with the force of his upcoming release.

"Don't deny it, slut. You're going to cum, I can feel it. Do it, I want to feel it fill me up, I want to watch you whine when I fuck you through it."

Jisung moans, back arching, and his hips snap up once, twice, and-

You don't do this enough, you decide as Jisung cums inside you, sobbing and loud, holding onto your hips for dear life.

"Good boy." You keep riding him, shuddering at the wet slide and the absolutely obscene noises it makes.

"Fuck, look. Chan, Binnie, come look." You lean over Jisung, caging in his head with your arms. He takes the opportunity to pull one of your nipples into his mouth, which is not helping your attempts at being coherent. Changbin squeezes your ass, spreading your cheeks to get a better view of where your pussy takes in Jisung's cock.

"Can I touch, mommy?"

You can almost feel Chan vibrating with energy behind you, but your voice is so shot you can't do anything but nod.

He leans over your back and kisses your neck, almost reverent in his touch, and you feel that familiar curl in the pit of your gut.

The wet slide of Jisung's dick inside of you, his desperate moans directly in your ear, Changbin kneading your ass, and chan's lips on your neck, it's all too much to handle.

You feel a scream building in your throat and muffle it by pressing your lips against Jisung's, speeding up and swallowing down every whine he lets out.

Changbin snakes an arm around your hip and draws tight circles around your clit and you're done for, thighs clamping down around Jisung's hips and sinking fully onto him, scratching at his shoulders for something to hold on to.

When the world stops spinning you sit up, rising up off of Jisung and back into Chan's arms. He cuddles up against you while Changbin helps Jisung up, and you notice the wet spot underneath him.

"Oops. Sorry about your couch, Chan."

He just shrugs, burrowing deeper into your shoulder, and you hold him tighter. "This has to happen again. Immediately."

Changbin muses, the most lucid of them, already cleaning Jisung up a bit with a towel.

"Give me like 3 days to remember how my legs work and then I'm down," Jisung says, words still slurring together.

"I give it 48 hours, tops, before he's sending you nudes." Changbin smiles, approaching you with a fresh towel. You let him clean you up, unsticking from Chan for a moment. His touch is gentle and grounding, and you definitely feel less sticky when he's finished.

"Thank you, honey. You've got this aftercare thing down, huh?"

You can't help kissing his cheek before he turns to Chan, smiling at the way he flushes pink.

"I do it a lot. These two turn into liquid after they cum, so I usually do it."

You just hum, standing up to retrieve a towel of your own.

Chan manages to get Changbin into his lap while he cleans him up, so you take the opportunity.

He jumps when you start kissing down his back, but he doesn't stop you.

Chan does whine a little when you have to turn Changbin around, but he's quickly sated with a kiss.

Changbin looks confused as you clean up the sweat and cum off of him, but you pause when you see that he's still hard. He notices the moment you do, turning his head to the side and hiding his face with a hand.

"Did you not cum?" You ask, massaging one of his thighs, and he shakes his head, just a little.

"I got distracted by Chan, I wanted to make him cum, and then you were fucking Jisung and I sort of... Forgot?"

You put down the towel and sink down to your knees, smiling up at Changbin's blushing face.

"Well, that just won't do, will it? I didn't edge you that hard just to not see your face when you cum."

He looks down at you, startled, and you just smile, licking a long stripe up the length of his dick. He gasps, head falling back, and you can't help but laugh a little.

"You- you really don't have to, I'm okay." You smack his thigh, smiling again when he winces.

"Binnie, you earned this," you whisper, pulling one of his thighs up and over your shoulder.

"You took your punishment so well, and you took such good care of Chan and Jisung for me. You've earned a good, hard orgasm, and I'm going to make sure you get it."

"Really, it's okay. You don't have to worry about me. I've gone without cumming before, I'll be fine."

"Changbin, I want to make you cum. Can I?"

There's something hesitant but hopeful in his eyes as he says,

"Okay."

His voice is timid and low, and you wrap your lips around his tip.

Changbin wasn't the biggest, but he made up for what he lacked in length with thickness. There's a distinct satisfaction with having him in your mouth, full, stretching your lips wide.

He breaks out in full-body shivers when you reach the base, hands fluttering around for a moment before he decides on putting them on his thighs, back arching with pleasure.

You trail a hand up to his chest, cupping one of his pecs just to hear him whimper.

His thighs are shaking, and you can tell he's trying not to fully pull you into him, you can tell he's holding back.

"What is it, Binnie? You're shaking like a leaf."

He turns away, caught red-handed.

"I- it's nothing, I'm sorry."

That's bullshit and you both know it, so you turn your head to press kisses against his thigh.

"Tell me, honey. I just want to make you feel good."

The muscle jumps under your lips, still on edge, and you soothe him with a soft squeeze.

"I... It's- it's embarrassing." Changbin's face is fully buried in his hands now, bright red, and you hold back a smile to make sure he doesn't feel mocked.

"I think at this point we can get past a little embarrassment, yeah? I mean, your dick was just in my mouth."

He nods and takes a deep breath, finally peeking an eye out to look at you.

"You... Um, can you... Could you humiliate me?" His words are barely above a squeak but you can still understand him, and you smile.

"Of course, honey. But I was doing that earlier, and you didn't get like this about it. What else do you want me to do?"

He pulls one of his legs up to his chest and hides against it before he answers. "Can you, like... Call me girly things? I mean, like- treat me like a girl? I know it's weird, I'm so sorry!"

You coax his leg back down and rise up to meet him on the couch, keeping his thigh over your shoulder so he ends up almost bent in half. He yelps at the new position but you don't pay him any mind, instead leaning down to whisper in his ear.

"Ah. You want me to treat you like a little whore, huh? A slutty little girl?"

The reaction is immediate and oh so satisfying. Changbin gasps and his cock twitches against your leg, eyes sliding shut.

"Y-yeah..." His voice is barely more than a whine, shaky and soft, begging for something you're all too willing to give.

"Does my baby girl want mommy to touch her nipples?"

Changbin shudders, eyes slipping closed, and he can only manage a nod.

"Use your words, slut. Tell me, tell me how much you want it."

"Please," he whines, barely audible, reaching for your shoulder.

"Please what? I can't read your mind."

He huffs, frustrated, and you just smile at him while he works out what to say.

"Please touch my nipples, mommy. Please, I need it."

You lean down and wrap your lips around one of them, pinching the other, and Changbin

sobs.

"Mommy!" He gasps, burying a hand in your hair while you bite and suck, making his back arch and hips buck with every flick of your tongue.

"God, I love how you sound. Keep moaning like that for mommy, okay?"

You can see tears in Changbin's eyes as he nods, mouth opening around another desperate whine.

Changbin's writhing by the time you finally pull away from his nipple, lips bitten red and cheeks flushed.

"You're so pretty like this, all flushed and desperate for me."

You wrap a hand around his cock, rubbing circles on the tip, and he practically chokes on a moan. "Mommy please, please make me cum, I need it," you muffle his begging with your mouth, digging your nails into his thigh while you jerk him off, swallowing up his desperate moans.

He throws his head back after a moment, chest heaving with effort, and you pull back to look at him properly.

He's flushed pink from head to toe, legs shaking, hips bucking up into your hand with what little leverage they have. He's

loud, louder than he ever was before, whining and moaning at anything you do, even if it's just a heated look.

He's desperate for you, and the feeling is almost enough to drive you insane.

"Is my little girl going to cum? Do you want to cum for mommy?"

Changbin sobs, loud and needy, voice shaking, "please, please let me cum, mommy!"

"I'm going to count down from 3, okay? When I get to 1, you can cum."

Changbin whimpers but nods, eager to please you, to follow orders.

"Three,"

You speed up your strokes, leaning over to bite hickeys into his neck and shoulders.

"Two,"

Changbin sobs, scratching bright red lines into your back as he braces himself, that heat threatening to explode.

"One."

Changbin wails, thrashing like a wild animal as cum coats your fingers, sobbing and shivering as you stroke him through it.

Gently, you take his leg off of your shoulder and place it back down, retrieving a towel to clean you both up.

He's still jittery when you finish, shaking with aftershocks every so often, and you smile as you snuggle up beside him, pulling him up against your chest.

Jisung had long since fallen asleep, not even stirring with how loud Changbin was, but Chan was still awake, so he snuggles in closer to you as well.

"Thank you."

"What for?" You reach up to run a hand through his hair, resting your head on his shoulder.

"All of this. Helping us relax." You raise an eyebrow and he laughs, sheepish, "Alright, helping

me relax. It means a lot."

Chan's voice is soft, even a bit nervous, and it makes your heart rate spike a little even with how tired you were. "Of course. This was really good, 10 out of 10."

He snorts, but there's still something distant in his eyes.

"Alright, what is it?"

Chan breaks almost immediately, "Okay, just- you don't have to."

"Respectfully, you couldn't force me to do anything."

"Right. Well, all I'm saying is that I get like that... Decently often. And this... This helped. Not even just the sex, you telling me to relax and making me do it. It took away the internal stuff of thinking I should be doing more, because I can't. It's just... It's nice. So, if you're up for it, could we do this again? Or even regularly, if you want?"

Instead of an answer, you reach up and press your lips together.

"Stupid Channie," you smile against his lips, "As if someone could deny you three?"

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danpuff-ao3 · 5 months

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This year has had many ups and downs, and as of late it feels as if the whole world is a down. Real life has really smacked me down, and I've felt so isolated from all of the things and people I love. But as ever, the world is looking up, and I can see the light...and looking back brings me so much joy and fulfillment. I've accomplished so much that I don't give myself credit for. More than I'll dare type up here, but let's go through the highlight reel, shall we?

For my dear friend Beth's birthday, I finally posted some of my HP Astro work to AO3! (Speaking of which, I really should work on adding more soon...)

A_Loveunlaced (@a-loveunlaced) is an artist I very much admire, so the start of the year was super cool getting to chat with them, seeing their Snarry art, and writing a ficlet for said art, Again (and Again).

Delved into and fully embraced the controversy by running HP Chan Fest with @cindle-writes, which was such a cool and meaningful experience.

Plus I wrote some fics I'm really proud of for said fest: profane holy, Cruel Summer, The Virgin Bride.

Also my dear friend Viran (@mrviran) drew some fanart for Cruel Summer, I believe while it was still anonymous and everything! But she also totally called that it was me who wrote it, which is always fun for me when people know me in the Anon stages!

I wrote more fics for Kinkuary and Kinktober (which I always love!)

Shared more meta on AO3 with The Half-Blood History (I really do need to import more meta there!)

Finally wrote and posted chapter 3 for smile with sweet surprise (aka Stepdad Snape fic)

Started writing and sharing WIPs I've been long excited for: Wasted for Love (Golden Triad + Snarry) and A Taste for You (Sugar Daddy Harry).

I ran HP Fruit Fest solo! Which was a lot, but I had fun and I was super thrilled to not be the only one super into fruit!

I taught myself how to bind books, and now I have a growing collection of bound fics! Check out #danpuff binds to see some!

More recs, as ever, but especially the ongoing Dead Dove Diaries series of rec lists.

Speaking of recs, I'm helping mod @hprecfest, which is so fun for me! I love seeing people's recs, and I love being part of an event that is spreading so much fun and love around the community!

Also, making my own recs for the event! I've got at least one fic queued up for each day, I think! And some days have even more!

For Snarry-a-Thon I wrote a companion piece to last year's Contempt (aka my heart and soul), called Devotion, which my friend Aristi kindly beta read for me! The whole series is so deeply meaningful to me and it feels so huge to add more to it.

For Snarry Bang, I teamed up with my pal Viran (@mrviran) for The Curse of Anteros. I wiffle-waffled on what to write for the longest time, but my vacation to Orlando unlocked something in me. The whole fic hit me like a hurricane and came out in like a 2 week period. And the art Viran created for it is spectacular (I'm still obsessed). Oh, and it was such a treat having the fabulous @writcraft beta! There's nothing quite like having a creator you admire help your work be its best version!

And, of course, I had another opportunity to chat with my friend Beth for @fanficmaverickpodcast, with the episode: A Very Snarry Christmas.

And lots more, but this is plenty enough to be going with! Not half bad for the year, yeah? 😄

#danpuff stuff #2023 #my year in fandom

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dany36 · 10 months

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full totk onion below for my own sanity. super long-ass rant ahead (11k words lmaoooo wow) and also contains spoilers.

so i beat the final boss of tears of the kingdom a while back. took me (according to my switch) “over 100 hours” to beat the game. i did about 110ish shrines, and got like 50 or so korok seeds. did quite a lot of sidequests as well. i was actually surprised how long i played it for considering how much fun i was not having playing it. but of course i wanted to uncover the whole overworld map (excluding the depths) and unlock as many shrines as possible to be able to say that hey, i explored quite a lot and gave this game a fair chance to impress me. which, unfortunately, it did not. if i had to rank all of the zelda games i’ve beaten (which i’ve done all except triforce heroes), i’d put botw in absolute last place, with totk slightly right above it.

before writing this, i re-read through this fantastic botw critical piece on destructoid by Cory Arnold ("Breaking down why Breath of the Wild is highly overrated") that literally hits on all the points on why i hate botw cus i wanted to see if maybe totk had improved on any of those criticisms. the criticisms that the author lists were similar (but much more eloquent) than the hasty list i had made when i first completed the game way back then. i was sad to re-read through it and realize that no, pretty much all of the major criticisms i had in botw were still present since totk is literally an exact copy of botw which some new stuff sprinkled on it, then they called it a brand new game. “but the depths!! the sky!! the new ultrahand mechanic!!” yeah that shit wasn’t fun for me at all (maybe the Ascend ability but more on that later). i literally couldn’t believe that this game cost 70 dollars when there were absolutely no enhancements in terms of the overworld and enemies and was seething through the first 4 hours of the game (or however long it took me to get through the tutorial portion of it). to quote that botw article i mentioned above:

If Breath of the Wild is your personal favorite game or favorite Zelda game, I’m not speaking to you. It’s the people foaming at the mouth at how it’s objectively better than other games, objectively better than other Zelda games, did open world better than other games, and want to enshrine it that I am addressing. This game is far too flawed to be getting this level of praise.

but i’m getting a bit ahead of myself. let’s start with the things i DID like and then i will write a lithany of all the things i hated about this game and why, despite having played it for 100+ hours, i had fun for maybe 10 hours of it.

the good

the ending.

one of the things i absolutely hated about botw was how short and unsatisfying the ending was. zelda wakes up and asks link if he remembers her and links says nothing, which then cuts to zelda and link talking together about…i think all they have to do to restore hyrule. i honestly forget because it sucked so bad that i had no interest in looking it up again. zelda turning human again with rauru’s and sonia’s help, and you having to catch her as she’s falling (a throwback to when you couldn’t catch her at the beginning of the game) were things that made it already looking better than botw’s stale-ass ending. zelda’s “link, i’m home!” was really sweet even if we once again get no emotion from link even though he knows the incredibly weighted decision zelda had made when she decided to turn into a dragon to restore the master sword. but whatever, more on that later.

i’m NOT saying totk’s ending is perfect, in fact i’ve seen some legit criticisms of it that i agree with, but in my opinion it wasn’t TERRIBLE like with how i felt with botw’s (and trust me i take every opportunity i get to bash on botw/totk). seeing link, zelda, and the four sages together at the end as they swear to protect hyrule and its princess was really cool and actually made it look like they were all in it together as friends/companions, in contrast to botw where we get no reference of the new champions in the ending at all. while this ending was better than totk, it’s still not like…at a level of it making my heart ache of joy/satisfcation/sadness (if you know me even the slightest i get very emotional with videogames and i will cry at literally anything lol) like in tww when hyrule floods, or SS with granny and fi leaving, or tp with midna and the mirror. which damn now that i think about it, it looks like zelda has a lot of bittersweet endings, so i will give totk +1 point in that there are no bittersweet moments at the end. i especially liked that they cleared up that no, zelda wasn’t aware or fully conscious about her hundreds of years roaming the skies as a dragon, because even the thought of her being aware of her time as a dragon was making me go insane. like, you mean that in botw she was trapped in the castle for 100 years keeping calamity ganon at bay and NOW she had to spend another 1000 years or whatever as a dragon? hell no. so thank you totk ending for making that clear that she doesn’t remember that at all and that it actually felt like she was asleep like with SS Zelda. :)

which brings me to the next thing that i liked, which is...

princess zelda overall.

i think it should come to no one’s surprise that her decision to turn into a dragon really elevated this zelda’s status to just completely fucking badass. like, damn, i say that’s my baby and i’m proud. the incredible amount of courage that zelda had to have to make that decision is just something that i don’t think we’ve seen other zeldas make. i guess there’s TP Zelda giving up her life to save Midna but, is that a worse fate than be unconsciously roaming the skies as a dragon for hundreds of years not knowing when you’ll come back? and SS Zelda knew that link would come back to wake her up from her slumber, so…. i mean, the scene of the last tears of the dragon memory was just so impactful, and it was probably the only scene in the game that really punched me in the emotional gut. the whole dragon transformation scene was just so heartbreaking to watch and when you see those tears come out of the dragon’s eyes and realize that’s where those memories come from that you’re watching….i’m telling you it made me almost catatonic. like. what the FUCK. probably one of the best cutscenes in zelda history, if I’m being honest. when the memory ends and it leaves you in that field of silent princesses i just needed a moment to breathe. i didn’t even wanna move (both in-game and irl lol). what a beautiful sequence. it’s something i don’t think any other zelda game has made me feel. sure i cried like a fucking baby when granny “dies” in SS or when Fi says goodbye (and i swear i always cry at the beginning of tww when link says goodbye to his grandma oh god), but with the dragon scene it just left me fucking speechless. A+++ work.

now, do i HATE that zelda is once fucking again stuck somewhere else in the middle of the story waiting for us to rescue her instead of being a more active, nuanced character like in ST, TWW, or OoT? absolutely yes. can nintendo fucking do something new and interesting with zelda like (dare i say!!) HW did and give her some personality instead of just being a damsel in distress yet fucking again?? but plenty of people have already ranted about that so i will just leave this to say botw/totk zelda has gone through enough shit and deserves to rest and be happy without going into other things about her character that other people have already talked about in greater detail than i ever could. :)

yunobo and riju.

yunobo was absolutely one of my favorite characters in botw, and so it’s no surprise that he’s a fave here too. his attack was super useful when exploring those boring-ass caves where i had to clear mountains and mountains of rocks without having to use my limited supply of bomb flowers or wacking away with a boulder sword. also one-shot killing those annoying-ass ice lizalfos with his attack will always be funny. the thought of a goron leader having such a child-like voice and huggable face just makes him such an interesting and fun character to me. as for riju, although i didn’t really care for her in botw, there was something about her in this game that just made her really grow on me. some of it definitely has to do with her new design which i thought was fantastic (minus the heels in the fucking desert), but also her attack is just so badass and useful. also helps that the portion where you have to defend gerudo town from the gibdos reminded me a lot of hyrule warriors, aka one of my favorite games ever (unironically!!). so yeah, yunobo and riju really were the oasis in the desert of uninteresting NPCs in this game!

dragon head island.

out of all the boring-ass sky islands in this game, dragon head island was such a welcomed surprise. from the mysterious thunder clouds surrounding it, to the eeringly relaxing music that plays, it was a breath of fresh air. all of the sky islands in this game look almost identical and yet it was really nice to get something different with music that made me go, hey, this is actually great to listen to and will have to add it to my list of zelda music!

the path to the wind temple.

the rito village was the first village i headed to and i was really hopeful for this game when i had to climb up to the wind temple alongside tulin. that portion where you have to jump from one trampoline to another was fun as hell. i was like wow, this definitely feels new and refreshing. i’m also pretty sure that the music was changing as you’d get higher? either way, this part really felt like something from a zelda game and was just overall a blast to get through.

the wind and lightning temple bosses.

again, because the wind temple was the first temple i did, was REALLY impressed with how fun the colgera boss was. sky diving and using tulin’s ability to dodge the boss’s attacks was just so intense and exciting! ALSO the music that played during it was a remix of the dragon roost island theme from tww, which was so fitting and badass. and speaking of badass, the lightning temple boss was, although super disgusting, so cool as well!! i already talked about how fun riju’s attack is, so the part where all the gibdo hives come alive and start surrounding you was just soooo intense. like damn, i can’t remember any of the botw bosses being so damn fun. if i could re-do those two portions of the game, i definitely would.

the final ganondorf fights.

and speaking of boss battles, these fights also had me all tensed-up and at the edge of my seat. well, except the dragon ganon part (he turned into a dragon and all he could do was spit fire balls at me?? he literally had link on his mouth ready to crunch him down!! oh my bad these are the positives ahem). for the second ganondorf fight i got seriously stumped because he just kept dodging my flurry attacks or whatever, and then he kept hitting me with the attack that would remove one of my heart containers (which was really cool and new to see a zelda boss do THAT!!!). like, it actually made me think i was gonna get my ass kicked and would have to restart the battle. idk if this is the strategy since i haven’t looked it up online but eventually i figured out that, after he dodges your attack, he attacks you and you have to dodge THAT in order for your flurry attack or actually work. anyway, i really liked the ganondorf fights even if i sucked at fighting him and went through all of my 6 shields but hey, at least i beat him first try lol.

the sages joining you in the phantom ganon fight and when the temple bosses show up in the depths.

again just a really cool detail that in totk we actually see the sages actually fight alongside you and aid you in your quest to defeat ganondorf instead of hey you’ve awoken me as a sage i’m just gonna stay here and do nothing as you go and fight the demon king. plus it’s a cool moment when you see all those terrifying AF bosses show up in the depths and the sages are all like nah don’t worry about us, we got this! like…hell yeah? love you guys stay awesome and thank you for taking care of those bosses cus i did nOT want to fight them again since this game loves to make you fight the same enemies hundreds of times :)

the gloom hands.

wow, what a terrifying and cool enemy…the first time. but just like everything else in the game (which i will talk about later), they beat this concept to death until you just go ‘oh the gloom hands again, whatever’ and keep moving. the first time i encountered the gloom hands i was like what in the FUCK is this and what is this TERRIFYING MUSIC that plays!!! very dead-hand-from-oot of them. i thought that the floormasters from tww were terrifying with those disturbing sounds they would make but they got nothing on the gloom hands. and then when you think you finally defeat them all and you’re free from their creepy clutches, phantom ganon shows up and one-hit kills you. amazing!!

the ascend ability.

i wouldn’t say i LOVED the ascend ability (tbh i wasn’t fond of this whole crap with rauru’s arm abilities like idk it just doesn’t feel very zelda-ish but more on that later) but of the four abilities we get, i’d say ascend was the one i liked the most. took me forever to figure out some ascend puzzles at the beginning because i wasn’t used to the fact that uh yeah you can literally go through ceilings if you want so i for the most part would enjoy whenever the ascend ability would be involved. so i mean idk what else to say except that it was neat and wouldn’t make me groan to use it unlike ultrahand.

voice acting (japanese).

i’m sorry but hearing the last trailer where we hear zelda’s and (what i’m assuming was) ganondorf’s voice just made me roll my eyes and groan out loud at just how terrible and cartoony they sound. as soon as the game started and we hear zelda talk in that fake-sounding british voice, i just had to go in and switch the audio to japanese so that they could sound like REAL people instead of idk forced acting. and my god i’m glad i did. wish i had done that for botw because wow, the voice acting in japanese was just top-notch and actually made me like the characters and not like cringe at how the VAs sounded. so A++ to the japanese VAs but i mean who are we kidding they always excel at that and it didn’t sound like over-the-top or anything. it sounded just right :)

well that was nice. very lovely. and now for the things that i absolutely hated about the game. from this point on i’m going to quote a lot of things from the destructoid article and try to expand on them to fit totk. here we go!

the bad and ugly

the overworld.

oh boy. this is the big one. this is the one that, for the first 4ish hours of the game (or however long it took me to reach lookout landing), was just making me rage on the inside, and for the rest of the game, just continuously shake my head and sigh with disappointment (and still rage from time to time) at just how fucking boring the overworld in totk is. this is one of the biggest complaints i had in botw and, given that nintendo just fucking reused the same world for totk with literally almost no interesting or noteworthy changes, it continues to be the thing that makes me angry the most about this game. like, i’m sorry, but developers need to stop fucking making huge overworlds if they are just going to make them boring as hell to traverse and not be able to make them interesting to explore at all:

The game is all about running around aimlessly with nothing unique to discover, no area-specific secret bosses, and overall very little progression. The only secrets or things to discover are shrines or Koroks, leaving the world with a profound lack of mystery. I don’t understand why people complain about sailing in Wind Waker but suddenly love running around grassy plains and climbing rocks that take five times as long as sailing between islands did. Yes a game this size and length would be amazing if and only if it was rich with content all the way through, but it’s not. Clocktown (from Majora’s Mask) alone has more depth than the entirety of Breath of the Wild.

There’s the mention of shrines or koroks, but totk introduces the new exciting concept of…caves and wells!!! and while at first it might seem cool and exciting to explore, you then realize that at the end of the day, just like everything in this game, each cave is exactly the fucking same and only serves to hide those blue glowing overgrown frogs so once you find one, it’s like wellp, there’s nothing else of importance that you’re going to find in this cave EXCEPT maybe your umpteenth shrine or a treasure chest containing an outfit (i think that’s how i found all of the fierce deity clothes—within caves). and it’s like “well see dany! you found something ELSE within caves other than those frogs!!” yeah no i explored maybe like 50 or so caves and the shrine/outfits were found in like 4 caves i explored or something like that so no i wouldn’t call that exciting or wortwhile considering i never used the fierce deity outfit and i could have found my umpteenth shrine somewhere else. and the wells? yeah turns out there’s like 40+ wells whose only purpose is to report to some lady of how many you’ve found so that i think she can give you rupees? and honestly who cares. i have no idea what the reward is once you find all of them but what could be worth visiting the same boring-ass caves with the same boring-ass design just so that you can say “yep i’ve visited every well in this game!” and mark off yet another boring sidequest in totk.

at least with TP or MM whenever i found a cave i knew i was going to get a unique and interesting experience (that one cave in TP where you have to drop down to the lowest levels with the iron boots is one of my faves). but unfortunately here, any cool puzzles that would otherwise be found randomly in caves are now stuck strictly to the freaking shrines, which takes away any sort of mystery you might get from finding a cave because now you KNOW it’s just gonna be yet another same-y cave with the same damn enemies and really nothing else going for it except a bubbulfrog and MAYBE the start of a new shrine quest. and likewise, when you see a shrine, you KNOW you’re going in for your umpteenth ultrahand/rewind/ascend puzzle to get yet another shrine orb. like…totk’s approach to caves and puzzles and shrines take away any surprise that you might have had exploring its vast yet uninteresting overworld (how many times am i gonna say this in this rant lol).

and like god i distinctively remember this one part in the death mountain area where i was trying to reach goron city and i saw a shrine not too far—as in, i didn’t have to use the purah pad to be able to see it. so there i go, walking/running towards the shrine because what else is there to do in-between the rito and goron villages except hunt for shrines along the way. and it was so fucking frustrating because i swear i was just walking straight towards the shrine with nothing else in between. no cool music like in other open world games that immerse you with its beautiful music (see minecraft, horizon, sonic frontiers, xenoblade x), aboslutely no enemies, no interesting or beautiful terrain, just me walking like an idiot bored out of my mind listening to link’s clunky armor just to get to the shrine, complete it, and have to run all the way back to where i was since the shrine was the OPPOSITE direction of goron village.

and like, this empty and uninspiring overworld is what nintendo took 6 years to develop? “oh look there’s naming references to past zelda games teehee!! ruto lake! forest of time! something referencing the lokomos!!” but it’s like. you pass those landmarks without even realizing it because there is, most of the time, nothing worthwhile to do there despite the cool throwback name. at least with MM, which reused a lot of the same assets as OoT, the world was different and unique and interesting with lots of more background to similar-looking characters we saw in OoT (the cucco lady vs anju, for example). i felt like such a fool the first night playing totk because i seriously thought that this might be the MM of Botw—i hated (still do) botw but thought hey, now that they have the engine and the assets down, maybe they can now focusing on making the world and its characters and story more interesting and fleshed out! instead we just get the same korok seed BS, the same shrine BS that, although mildly amusing at first, gets boring and uninteresting fast as you explore your 73rd shrine and see the 46th korok hiding place.

and you might think “well dany of COURSE things are going to get repetitive! it’s an open world game and they can’t fill it with new and exciting content all throughout!!” ok then don’t make your overworld so fucking huge?? like WHY are these developers so hellbent on gloating about having “one of the biggest open-worlds” ever if you’re just going to be copy-pasting the same shit over and over with nothing interesting in between? you really think that what makes an overworld interesting is to see the same caves, the same damn bokoblin enemy camps, the same “uwu i need to reach my friend!” korok quests, the same “waaah i need to keep this postsign of the construction boss up in place and i can’t leave until i do!” BS, the same taluses/hinoxes, the same BOSSES all over the map?? yeah it was cool seeing the first gleeock out in the wild, i was like wow!! that’s amazing, i wonder if there will be different bosses roaming around like that? and then i saw that, nope! wrong again, dany! yet another cool idea beaten to death by just copy pasting the same enemy (with different elemental powers of course so as to not make it TOO obvious!) all over the goddamn map.

SPEAKING of copy-pasting the same things instead of having a boss or enemy or cave be truly unique, another thing that drove me insane was the mazes that you find in the overworld. i think i only did the one in the upper right, but there’s at least one other in the upper left of the corner. i thought it was a cool idea so i traversed through the (truth be told) rather boring maze just activating switches, which wasn’t really that interesting or challenging, it was just mildly frustrating and confusing navigating through it. and i fought i think a construct III at the end? whatever, you see those all over the sky as well. and what i got as a reward for navigating through the two mazes (the one in hyrule, and the one in the sky) was…one part of oot ganondorf’s outfits. like, ok, great, whatever, but before heading off to the final boss towards the end of the game i was like “well let me go do that other maze and see what that’s all about” but then i stopped myself and said, you know what, it’s probably gonna be the same BS, going through yet another non-engaging maze doing an uninteresting and confusing puzzle just to get either a weapon that calls back to an older game or another piece of oot ganondorf’s outfit. and i was like HMMMM yeah that doesn’t sound appealing or fun at all. SKIP!!!

Breath of the Wild wants you to grind and do repetitive shit all day. Fighting the same things over and over in a massive world isn’t fun, it really isn’t.

like i’m sorry if i’m just predictable and want something more entertaining to keep me interested in the world as i explore along instead of the same repetitive nonsense and then praise nintendo for giving us such a huge overworld for it. people might have complained about tww’s vast ocean but at least it gave us one of the most beautiful overworld themes to date and it made sense STORY-wise (as in, there’s sea everywhere and little islands in between because of the flooding of hyrule). here, and sorry to beat this point to the death but i just cannot emphasize enough how terrible of an experience it was for me to explore the overworld, because it’s just huge, boring, and repetitive for no reason.

and the worst part is, i couldn’t even ride my horse if i wanted to (which would have made exploring this forsaken world less annoying) because for some unknown reason, nintendo has decided that in these past two games, you can’t call for your horse from wherever you are. sure, you can BOARD your horse from the kakariko stable even if you left it far off in the rito village, that’s no problem! but calling your horse from wherever you want? no no that’s too unrealistic!

so no, i don’t care that you can climb every mountain in this game (to find what, another korok seed? lol). that’s not what makes exploration fun for me in a videogame. if i climb a mountain and then find a UNIQUE boss or a UNIQUE cave or a UNIQUE sidequest? now that’s cool. here? just copy-pasting away!

Climbing and watching the stamina bar is not fun, and it’s downright annoying when it begins to rain. Call it a mechanic or whatever you want but it’s not fun. It feels like they added a ton of mountain ranges just to pad the game length and justify a stamina meter when flatter land would have been just as acceptable.

i’d rather sail tww’s ocean or ride around ST’s tracks any day of the week. fucking NEXT!

the shrines.

like i mentioned at the beginning, i did my fair share of looking for and completing shrines because i wanted to get a fair sense of just all that this “new” game had to offer. sure, the first 10 or so are fun and interesting because you are learning to use the new arm powers. oh you want me to combine these two things with ultrahand to complete the shrine? cool! let me do that! oh ok, now you want me to rewind time on this object? omg neat! oh wow, now i have to be aware of my surroundings and use ascend here! cool! and then you do that again, and again, and again, and again, and again again again again until you’re on your 100th shrine and it’s like oh god PLEASE give me something new:

Shrine puzzles are all about the same level of difficulty, as are all the Divine Beasts and their bosses. Again, since they want to let you go anywhere, there is no progression of difficulty in either the bosses or puzzles. You do not learn new things and compound them as the game goes on […] You just do the same things with the same runes over and over. […] All have the exact same aesthetic, same music, and same lack of connection to game’s world. But rather than 120, there are actually only 80. There are 20 “Blessing” shrines which nine out of ten times give you some generic weapon you probably already have, accessed by completing puzzles of sorts outside the shrine to unlock them. Those “puzzles” are often just putting balls in holes, shooting an arrow at something, or fetch quests, though.

putting aside the number of shrines mentioned above (since they vary in totk), it’s like, that’s literally it. unlike previous zelda games, where maybe you’d enter a cave and wouldn’t have the necessary item to complete its puzzle, here, there’s no sense of progression because the game already gives you everything you need to explore ITS ENTIRE OVERWORLD AND ALL ITS SHRINES right from the beginning. and some people might like that, but it’s definitely not for me. because like, after you get all your arm powers, everything just stays exactly the fucking same through the rest of the damn game:

There is never a moment of “I need to comeback here later” which sounds convenient but it takes away from the sense of progression and getting stronger that this game and its fans claim it has. There is no excitement of getting a new mask, new song, boomerang, bottle, or equipment item that lets me do more. No matter where you go, you know you will be sufficiently equipped, and that takes the thrill out of it.

and i feel like that’s exactly one of the issues that i have with the concept of shrines in this game. it’s just the same types of puzzles with the same 4 powers tens of times until you complete them all and you can maybe recall 2 or 3 that you really liked and were like “huh ok that was cool” and move on. truly revolutionary for a game. and i just HATE that all pieces of heart/stamina currency is restricted to ONLY shrines because, once again, that leaves no variety or surprises in the game! you know completing a sidequest won’t yield a piece of heart or a stamina vessel ‘cus that’s all shrines, same for minigames or caves, which was half the fun of doing those things in previous games!! but no, once you find a type of SOMETHING in this game (a cave, a well, a shrine), you bet your ass that THAT same design is all you’ll ever see for the rest of the game.

shrines in this game did introduce a new type which is when they strip you of all of your equipment and only give you basic weapons that you have to use to get through the bunch of constructs that you have to fight inside. and yes, that was cool for the first couple of times, but i swear after my third one i was once again with the feeling of “oh god not THIS again??”. god i just feel like i’m just repeating the same issues i had with this game over and over again: repetition repetition repetition. this game just loves damn repeating itself!!! anyway, moving on…

99% of the side quests and NPCs.

this was a problem i had with botw and i don’t know why i’m surprised that totk did absolutely nothing to fix the issue of uninteresting, unengaging sidequests. remember in SS with the whole Peatrice-falling-in-love-with-you thing? or those sidequests in TWW with the rich and poor girl who at the end switch lifestyles because of circumstances in their lives, and you can help the now-poor Mila come to terms with her new life? or hell, ANY of the MM sidequests and how they actually made you empathize with its characters and actually care a little bit for what would happen to them? here in totk (and in botw) i just don’t feel that connection or need to help NPCs with their mundane problems like i would in previous zelda games:

Breath of Wild has its NPCs, but they are bland and as memorable as my ex-girlfriends’ birthdays. They don’t have unique characteristics, designs, or problems. Looking like they were born out of some generator rather than a human, they send you on shallow fetch quests. Collect 55 rushrooms. Tame that horse. The rewards are almost always just rupees, ingredients, or more generic breakable weapons.

i said 99% of the side quests and NPCs because i think the only one i actually cared for (but was actually tedious towards the end…) was rebuilding that lurelin village because the thought of having your home destroyed by “pirates” (aka bokoblins because god forbid this game have to create more unique enemies) was a bit too much for my heart to take. but i mean, other than that? who cares. oh that guy in hateno village has a creepy crush on that girl sweeping the front of the store? whatever. that whole elections thing in hateno village? yawn. some rito girl wants to cook some new recipe? i don’t know her. there’s really nothing much else i can say about NPCs or sidequests in this game because i can’t think of anyone else other than that guy who helped rebuild the village that actually made me feel SOMETHING else other than boredom. and like mentioned above, most of the time doing the sidequests isn’t really worth it because there’s no cool rewards like bottles, quiver expansions, pieces of heart, or an upgrade to an item because well, that would be taking away from the shrines-and-some-depths-treasure-chests-can-only-give-you-worthwhile-rewards thing from this game, huh?

overall, the villages in this game just feel empty and void of any interesting and captivating NPCs/sidequests that make me want to learn more about their lives. despite hateno village being the biggest village (i think) we’ve seen in a zelda game yet, i just…don’t really care for it or its people. same with kakariko village and zora’s domain, the latter of which just feels so big but just so fucking hollow and honestly boring to explore. tww’s windfall island just had tons of life and compelling characters of which i may not remember their names, but sure as hell remember their small but memorable sidequests. playing cupid between that guy that would walk around windfall and the girl with the orange dress is infinitely much more interesting than any of the so-called sidequests i did in hateno village.

the lack of enemy variety.

it’s kind of insane to me how, given that nintendo had about 5+ years to develop this game, they had a pretty good chance to develop new and interesting enemies. this was a problem i had with botw: fighting the same damn enemies just got old very damn fast. let’s see how many enemies (NOT including varieties, i don’t care that a fire keese is different than an ice keese, and also not mini bosses like hinoxes) botw had according to the zelda wiki: bokoblins, chuchus, keese, lizalfos, lynels, moblins, wizzrobes, yigas, pebblits, guardian scouts, guardians, guardian skywatcher, and…guardian turret i guess. that’s 13 enemies for a game that boasts to have such a huge and unique overworld. THRITEEN types of enemies. just thirteen. compared to Xenoblade 1, which has 30+ types of enemies (i stopped counting really), and horizon zero dawn, which has 24 types of unique machines.

now let’s see how many enemies totk has! there’s bokoblins, boss bokoblins, chuchus, constructs, evermeans, horriblins, keese, like likes, lizalfos, lynels, moblins, wizzrobes, aerocuda, pebblits, gibdos, gloom spawns, little frox, moth gibdo, and…yigas. 19 enemies, 6 more than its predecessor. just, wow, even now just looking at the numbers, the variety in this game is ABYSMAL considering that most of the time in the overworld you run in bokoblins, moblins, and lizalfos like 80% of the time. in caves, most of the time it’s just horroblins but really, the strategy to fight them all is exactly the same except for lynels, like likes, and gibdos, which you have to be more careful with. but really, it’s like…that’s all you could come up with for this huge overworld? i don’t know about other folks but for me, i eventually stopped fighting enemies because it just wasn’t worth it with how this game handles weapons and their durability:

But you quickly stop raiding camps and just avoid enemies in general, just as you slowly lose interest in exploring every ruin, because there is no suitable reward. You expend your breakable weapons, arrows, and food fighting easy enemies to get more breakable weapons; likely weaker than the ones you broke to get to it.

i already had more-than-enough strong enemy spoils to fuse with my weapons, i don’t need to fight my umpteenth silver bokoblin just to get another one of its stupid-looking horns to attach to my weapon and somehow make it stronger (and stupider). and also like, fighting them just got so boring after a while. sure, it’s a bit scary and intimidating fighting moblins when you only have 5 hearts and weak weapons, but eventually you get a two-handed weapon and all you have to do is just constantly whack away at your moblin/horriblin/bokoblin/lizalfos so that you constantly knock them down and don’t allow them to get back up cus it’s not like they have much variety in their attacks either. such thrilling combat if you ask me!! and the way that this game handles difficulty is just so stupid: making enemies “damage sponges” so that instead of 5 hits, now it takes 15 hits to kill a moblin in the same repetitive way—whack them away so that they can’t get up. how is this fun and interesting?

i fought a black lynel once in the wild and that was cool, but then i just never fought another one again because in my opinion the rewards for killing a lynel just aren’t really worth it. you break a couple of your weapons just to get some of its spoils and it’s like, eh, i’ll pass. a silver bokoblin’s horn might not be as strong but it’s not like it makes a HUGE difference in this game whether i have a silver bokoblin horn or a lynel horn. who cares!

the game of course then wanted me to fight a silver lynel on the way to kill ganondorf and i was like hell no, i don’t want to dodge the same moves over and over again and do the same flurry attacks over and over and over just like i did with the black lynel, except now i get to do it MORE times because of damage sponges! how is that exciting or interesting? at least give stronger enemies more variety in their attacks instead of making my hand hurt from just doing the same repetitive (there’s that word again) moves until it dies.

Speaking of Hinoxes and Stone Taluses, during my first encounter I was delighted to have a random mini-boss-like fight out in the open, thinking it was the only one. Then I quickly realized they’re copy and pasted all over the map. I was expecting to see unique mini-bosses or fights in certain locations, but that wouldn’t be possible when they have the loot system requiring you grind enemies over and over to upgrade numerical stats on armor.

already touched on the point made above a little bit but just had to mention it here as well because as i said, this game takes away any sort of unique aspect to it by beating it to death via copy pasting enemies, mini bosses, and bosses all over its map. you can’t imagine the disappointment i felt when i learned that colgera, aka a boss i really loved fighting at the wind temple, was found again in the depths. and again. i at least fought it three times throughout the game, not sure if it appears more times but when i saw it the second time i was like holy shit, this again?? really? any memory of having such a thrill of fighting it for the first time was quickly erased realizing nintendo just can’t keep something unique in this game. same thing with phantom ganon—encountering it for the first time was cool and intimidating. by the time i rescued the deku tree i was just sick to death of it, so realizing i had to fight it YET AGAIN!!!! at hyrule castle with the whole fake zelda business was just almost unbearable. (man, typing this whole rant out is making me realize just how many repetitive and monotonous aspects there are to this game!!!! and i hate that i keep using that word but what else is there to describe the constant sludge of same same same same this game kept throwing at my face??)

combat gets repetitive very fast.

look, i mentioned it before but i don’t play zelda to custom make doohickeys that can kill enemies. i’m old fashioned and honestly not creative enough (minecraft building wasn’t for me, i just liked to explore), so i like my hand-to-hand combat, with an arrow or two in between. i’ve already mentioned this in the previous section but the combat in this game just gets so repetitive despite the many weapons this game tries to throw at your face. i mean really when you think about it you have three kinds of weapons: your typical sword, the two-handed sword, and the spear. and i guess the bow? (oh and the wands but i’m more referring to the classic combat weapons) but like, for hand-to-hand combat, your overall strategy doesn’t change regardless of the type of weapon you have, which is just wack away as many times as you can, and do some flurry attacks for the stronger enemies like lynels and uh. hmmm. yeah. why not introduce different attack mechanics depending on the type of weapon you are building, like the horizon series does with the many weapon types it introduces in the games?

i’m not saying previous zelda games’ combat was the most exciting or varied, but at least with tww, the special parry attack attack would VARY by either doing a helm splitter or a back slice. but here in botw/totk it’s like…your special sword attacks consist of your classic spin attack and the flurry attack, which just stays (yet again) constant throughout the game. no upgrades like with the hurricane spin or the great spin. with tp and even tmc you had your hidden skills you could learn to vary your sword attacks and even tp gives you a special finishing attack (the ending blow, and actually SS had this too now that i remember!), but these past two zelda games just have failed to give much flavor in the sword techniques you can use. which is kind of stupid when you think about it cus this link is supposed to have been trained in sword combat while tww link is some kid from an island and tp link is just some guy raised in a ranch. i don’t know if this is the game trying to make itself seem more difficult by having removed these types of different sword skills because like, why can’t i side step and do a back slice like in tp? or ANYTHING ELSE other than a damn flurry attack which, if you’re not good at dodging, then good luck with that shit. flurry attacking over and over again just gets old very fast and makes those sponge enemies even more of a chore to fight when i can’t add any flavor to my sword attacks. just yet another thing in the game that i feel severely pales in comparison to past zelda games.

the weapon durability.

speaking of combat variety…i have no idea why i thought weapon durability would go away in totk. do people really like having breakable weapons? it was something i absolutely hated in botw and well, it’s back and HOPEFULLY not here to stay as a staple of new zelda games!

I’m beating a dead horse here, but breakable weapons is not a fun concept at all. It’s tedious and makes finding and collecting new weapons completely moot because “well I’ll be able to use this for a few seconds til it breaks.” If you want more weapons while keeping the thrill of finding them alive but not having a stronger one that makes others obsolete, then make a bunch of non-breakable weapons that are used differently and better in certain situations than others.

to piggyback on that last point, that sort of matches with what i was saying earlier about having different attack mechanics depending on the weapon that you’re using. i don’t know why the hell we need to have breakable weapons be a thing in this game. is it just to fill the overworld with more treasure chests of weapons you can find like the biggoron’s sword so you can be like “oh, thanks for this, it will break in a couple of hits and then i’ll lose it forever”? having the master sword “lose” its power after certain hits is so damn stupid too. sure zelda roamed the skies as a dragon for hundreds of years to power up the master sword but it still becomes unusable after wacking it against a moblin for a bit too long. this game just REALLY wants you to spend all your time running around and fighting the same enemies over and over again so you can get new weapons/stupid shit to fuse to them to make this game longer than it really is.

the music overall.

anyone who knows me even just a little bit knows how much i love video game music. i’ll even listen to music from games i haven’t even played, and i even cry of just pure joy at listening to some of the video game music out there. but oh god. just thinking about traversing the overworld in this game with just hearing link’s footsteps and the clunky armor is enough to make me go insane. why can’t we have good overworld music in zelda games anymore? as mentioned above, at least when i had to sail around tww’s ocean or ride around st’s tracks, it gave me some damn good music to listen to that, frankly, never got old (st’s overworld theme is still one of my ultimate faves in the series). and it’s not just hyrule, but the sky and the depths have this same problem as well: absolutely nothing but silence or (in the depth’s case) random creepy music from time to time. as if the overworld itself isn’t boring enough, they just had to make its “music” dull and lackluster and honestly non-memorable. when i think of exploring hyrule in TP i think of that badass orchestra-like music playing while i’m riding around with epona. when i think of exploring hyrule/the sky/the depths in totk i think of absolutely nothing but emptiness and boredom, music-wise. SIGH!

but if the overworld wasn’t bad enough, i feel like the locations themselves didn’t…really offer much in terms music that i’d personally want to save in my music collection. there were some exceptions, of course: hateno village (but really it’s just the same music as in botw), dragon head island (really chill music, love it), and…i think the lookout landing had some decent music, but honestly i don’t remember it well enough lmao. boss-wise, sure, the wind temple boss fight music was REALLY cool (dragon roost island sample in there? sign me the fuck up), and the build up as to when you’re going down to face ganondorf was also cool, but…again, for a game THIS damn huge, i’d expect more memorable music, like with the horizon series, minecraft, or xenoblade 1/X. idk, i just am not impressed with the music available in this game given how many iconic songs the zelda games have been in the past. like kakariko village’s theme song in this game is, imo, a disgrace. idk why they couldn’t have adjusted the classic kakariko village theme song to fit the new “aesthetic” they were going for with the sheikah. they did it in tww (where it’s a lively town) and they did it in tp (now in like a old wild west town kind of thing), why couldn’t they do it in botw/totk? ugh, just….so lame and bland.

the depths.

the problem i have with the depths is pretty much the same problems i had with the hyrule overworld except make it ten times worse and also now it’s completely dark. “but omg isn’t it cool how the depths mirror the surface overworld??” yeah i don’t really care, alttp already did that and it didn’t bore me to tears exploring the dark world. seriously, i fucking dreaded going to the depths because if the lack of new and interesting things to do on the surface is bad, then in the depths it’s just so much worse. at least in the surface you can use your horse in some areas to make it go a bit faster, but here? all on foot, baby. imagine exploring the surface all on foot, with barely ANY interesting landmarks, with the same 5 or so enemies, all the damn time, and it’s dark…can’t think of anything worse, game-design wise lmao. seriously, the depths were just idk another attempt to make this game’s overworld seem a lot bigger than it is but god it was just so damn fucking boring to me. i don’t care about the abandoned mines, or the springs, or…well, what else was there? just yet another treasure chest with yet another PART of an outfit? no thanks!!

i specifically remember that getting one part of the TP outfit was such a pain in the ass to get because it’s in that spiral part on the eastern side of the map except well it’s in the depths. it was literally just me running for like 5 minutes straight around this spiral while running past a bunch of bokoblins and other enemies because lmao i don’t want to fight the same damn enemy over and over again as i’m trying to get to the end of this spiral which is actually just part of some abandoned mines with no lore or anything else interesting in it that would make it memorable. and of course what’s at the end of it all? a throwback outfit so that you can think it was worth it to run like an idiot for 5 minutes straight. finding a quiver upgrade or an empty bottle would have felt more rewarding than just yet another outfit that i won’t be bothering to upgrade because upgrades in this game are so damn tedious.

99% of the islands.

i feel like a broken record here so i’ll keep this section short since my issues with the islands are similar to the issues i have with the shrines and the overworld and the caves except now they’re in the sky. other than dragon-head island and the one where you have to like move mirrors so that light shines in certain directions, the sky islands were stale and just a big whatever. i don’t know what else to say that i haven’t already beaten to death here except that the islands in tww are more interesting and rewarding to explore than the sky islands in totk. just would absolutely bore me to tears fighting my nth construct or doing the nth take-this-crystal-to-reveal-a-shrine quest next!

the temples.

again, my problems with the temples are very similar to that of shrines, ‘cus i mean they actually just feel like glorified shrines, but at least in totk they did a better job at having each temple have a different design and feel to it instead of botw where just every beast felt the fucking same (i honestly wouldn’t be able to tell the beast dungeons apart from one another). regardless, i don’t know about you guys but man do i sure as hell miss traditional zelda temples. to quote a person i follow who recently talked about their grievences with botw (waywardsalt):

Older zelda games’ dungeons being tied to their respective items is a big part- to me- of what makes those dungeons so good. […] The dungeons in past Zelda games are practically complex tutorials on how you can use your new items. […] And then you must then use that item to defeat that dungeon’s boss, and you usually have no chance of beating that boss if you don’t make use of the dungeon’s associated item. It’s like a final test for the item, seeing if you know how it works enough to complete the dungeon and use it against a boss’s weaknesses.

much like the beasts in botw, you get to a temple here and they immediately mark the spots of where you have to go. some are more straightforward and simplistic (the water temple) than others (the fire temple—which i think is the best of the four), but they all amount to the same thing: all of the puzzles are just a variation of yet another ultrahand object fusion, or if we get a little bit crazy, you have to use ascend throughout the temple. instead of giving you a mirror shield, the lightning temple just makes you use the ultrahand to move around mirrors to solve puzzles. which was cool at first (who doesn’t love mirror puzzles?), but the temple felt way too damn short compared to other mirror-heavy temples (spirit temple from oot and earth temple from tww), and moving around a mirror that’s laying in the room in plain sight just doesn’t have quite the same zelda feel of “i’ve fought my way through this temple, beat the miniboss, and NOW i finally have a mirror shield i can use to solve the puzzles i had been seeing previously!” ‘cus idk i do miss having that bit sense of progression that dungeon items would add: i DO miss stumbling upon a locked door in a temple and searching everywhere for a key to unlock it, or wondering “wow, i have to get up there, but i think i’m missing the temple item in order to advance, i guess i’ll have to come back here after defeating the miniboss.” instead here it’s just like, ok, i’m in the flashing dot room, what fan/cart/rocket/wing combination do they want me to build yet again??

i always felt like temples were supposed to be a big part of zelda games but, again, other than the fire temple, i felt like the temples here were rather fast to beat, with the water temple just being the worst offender. i mean they can’t all be winners, but considering this game ONLY has FOUR temples, you’d think they’d idk be a bit longer or more difficult to complete like in majora’s mask? there is barely any complexity in navigating temples like with MM’s snowhead temple or tww’s wind temple—the fire temple was the only one that did anything interesting with its navigation and the others were just so fucking flat, much like the beasts in botw. did the zelda team lose its main dungeon designer or something? even majora’s mask’s pirate fortress—a MINI dungeon—was more fun and interesting to navigate than THE fucking water temple in totk. what a joke!!!

the way the story gets told.

i won’t talk about my grievances with the story details themselves, there’s plenty of people who have rightly criticized how simplistic it is and how it doesn’t really make you empathize with ANY of its characters (except, in my opinion, princess zelda): not sorry but i actually laughed when ganondorf killed sonia lol, especially with them being like HA! your fake zelda ways can’t trick us!!! and then WHAM out comes ganondorf and fucking obliterates sonia like lol ok bye girl!!! i hardly knew you and the game gave me no incentive to care about you like i would with medli in tww or grandma impa in ss so your death means nothing to me! oh whoops i need to stop talking about the “story” and its “characters” before i get carried away!

anyway! i absolutely despised how botw told its bare-bones “story” through memories you had to find in the overworld, so can you imagine my utter disappointment when totk has decided to ONCE AGAIN tell its story the same damn way?? i get that they’re going for an open world aspect but my god, some fucking linearity won’t fucking kill you nintendo. plenty of open world games are STILL very much open world while forcing some linearity when trying to tell its story—horizon forbidden west and xenoblade x come to mind. these games still let you explore much of its world as freely as you want while making you progress through its story and make you care about its characters and their purpose along the way. but here with totk i feel no connection to the world or its people—kakariko village used to be such an important place in zelda games and i honestly couldn’t tell you the name of ONE interesting or appealing character from that village like renado in TP or Mila from TWW (what’s the name of that girl that took over from impa? even fucking impa is just another afterthought in this damn game). shit, i’m getting sidetracked again, but god there is just so many things to talk about how poor of a job totk does in making you FEEL something in its damn empty overworld but i got other shit to do and this is already way too damn long (if you’ve made it this far i could kiss you!!!!)

anyway anyway! my main problem with the way that the “story” gets told is that you can collect the memory that explains the bit about fake zelda way early in the game and you’re still running around visiting towns with the new sages being like “omg princess zelda was here and she tried to kill us!! :(“ like, link what the fuck you clearly just saw a memory that zelda is in the past (or has become a dragon if you went and hunted down all the memories right away) and there was a fake zelda back then, SPEAK UP and TELL these people something!!! same thing with those sidequests with penn or whatever, you’re over here hunting down clues about the missing princess, but you already know where she is!! she’s in the past!! the zelda that people have been seeing is more than likely fake!!! she’s a dragon!! but no, because nintendo for some reason couldn’t figure out how to tell an engaging and interesting story while also having an open world (they had 6 years!!!), you have to sit like an idiot as these people talk to you about fake zelda apparitions while you’re just like “gee i wonder what THAT could be!!”

because i found dragonhead island + the fifth sage way before my fight with phantom ganon, one of my friends told me that once you beat him, you can go back to kakariko village and tell people that the zelda that prohibited access to the ring ruins is fake so that they’ll let you explore them and eventually lead you to dragonhead island. but see, i never had to do that so instead i was just frustrated at the game design that i can’t SPEAK UP about fake zelda because the game decided that this is the one time they want some linearity and you won’t be able to say anything about the fake zelda until you defeat her. instead of like, hey, let’s warn the citizens of hyrule that there’s a fake zelda running around and to not trust her?? hello?? just another missed opportunity of having this game somewhat connect you to its characters and surroundings.

likewise with the master sword. i got the master sword before i saw the final tear + learned of the sacrifice zelda had to make, so i was kinda mad cus i feel like the emotional impact of getting the master sword from the white dragon would have been MUCH MORE greater if the game would have FORCED me to see the final tear before trying to retrieve the master sword. so it’s just like, ugh. if i have to play another zelda game that does such a shitty job at telling its story and making compelling characters that evoke empathy and compassion, i will seriously not know what to do with myself. like a mutual (shoutout be-gay-do-crimes) recently mentioned: loneliness isn’t Zelda!!

and i know people have complained about this but like, sitting through the same damn cutscene after you beat the temple bosses was YET AGAIN nintendo showing that they don’t know how to keep things interesting and just repeat the same BS over and over again. why not have each old sage, which of course are just another afterthought in this game’s sea of uninteresting NPCs, add on something new from its POV so we literally don’t have to sit through the exact same story being told and have absolutely no unique perspective from the old sage? is it really too much to ask for a bit of variety for a game that reused a lot of assets from its previous game and had so many years in development? where are the good story writers from past zelda games??

link’s lack of emotions.

i have a full post where i talk about botw link’s lack of emotions and why it was such a disappointment going from tww/tp/ss to….that, so i won’t get too much into this here ‘cus i already wrote another thesis-long post about that that you can find. people defend totk link saying “but his micro expressions! omg!!! you’re OBVIOUSLY not paying attention!!” like ok lmao keep being happy you’re fed crumbs. botw/totk link’s emotions are a fucking joke when you compare to previous zelda games, even oot link showed relief and a smile at zelda when they thought they had killed ganondorf. totk link? exists in a vacuum. to quote waywardsalt again:

the blank stare and limited emoting worked in botw because… there’s a given reason for his lack of outward emotion in the past, plus he has no memory in the present. it makes sense. but this time around, he’s gotten memories in the years between this and the last game, but he just feels like a background character in most of the story beats.

like i’m sorry if i expect link to at least show a fucking SMILE at zelda once she says “link, i’m home!” GIVEN that he knows the incredibly weighted decision that zelda took in becoming a dragon and roam its skies for hundreds of years in order to give link and the people of hyrule some hope that evil will be defeated once again. this is the same girl that spent 100 years keeping calamity ganon at bay waiting for YOU to heal and wake up. and there’s absolutely no emotional payback from link to us the player or zelda now that we know she won’t spent eternity as a dragon? give me a break! botw tried to explain it in zelda’s diary saying that “oh link doesn’t like showing emotion because he feels he has so much responsibility on his shoulder so he doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s feeling” but like, girl he’s not made of stone??

imagine if we had gotten a fraction of ss link’s expressions with totk link when he’s reaching out to zelda as she’s falling again after turning back into a human just like ss link did when he tried to catch zelda from falling to the surface. or respond to totk zelda’s “i’m home!” with the same smile that tp link gave to midna when he saw his friend was safe after the light spirits bring her back. it’s just ugh so fucking frustrating looking back at past links and how expressive they were and with totk we’re supposed to cheer that he has microexpressions and praise nintendo for making link such an emotionally-complex character through crumbs. it just makes the totk fanart of link and zelda even funnier considering how non-responsive link is to anything involving zelda. botw/totk zelda has gone through so much shit emotionally to just be talking to a wall. just whatever.

miscellaneous questionable gameplay decisions.

why can’t i call my horse from wherever i am in the overworld like i could in oot/mm/tp. this game tries to be sooo realistic with its slipping from walls if it’s raining or striking you with thunder if you have metallic weapons or well OF COURSE your horse can’t hear you whistling from where you are 10 thousand feet away! but sure i can dive from great heights and not die and i can climb mountains like spiderman and swim up waterfalls with a special shirt (but careful ‘cus this same shirt will make you drown with regular horizontal swimming!) and sure it’s fine for the gerudo to run through the desert in heels. like…make it make sense lol.

and why is it such an odyssey to use a sage’s ability. why do i have to chase them down in a chaotic battle for me to use riju’s ability. why aren’t there shortcut buttons for me to do this. who thought this was a good idea?

why is there no shortcut or a menu where i can easily switch back and forth between my most-used outfits? this was especially annoying in the desert when during the night it’d be freezing cold, so there i go to put on the rito pants and shirt. ah but it’s afternoon again so open up the menu and now switch to the gerudo head gear so you don’t die of heatstroke. like, there’s all these outfit options and this game makes it such a pain to quickly pick my most-used outfits, especially considering that each outfit consists of three parts so you have to be switching back and forth between whatever is currently needed. it’s why i never even bothered to get the climbing outfit because i sure as hell didn’t want to be switching back and forth between THAT and my green tunic just so i can climb this game’s dull mountains. there’s millions types of outfits and upgrading them just give you defense stats. to quote the destructoid article:

OK, I can swim up a waterfall, but why not let me swim like a Zora as you could in Majora’s Mask? How about on top of just climbing faster, upgrading the climbing gear lets me climb in the rain without slipping? How about at least giving me a hotkey or shortcut to quickly change outfits on the fly instead of going through the menu every five seconds? Those would be things worth upgrading for, not just numerical defensive stats.

but of course you can’t use the same gear for climbing faster AND not allowing you to slip—why, what else would they fill the overworld with if not yet another super specific outfit?

the fusing ability was just a big whatever to me. like, just give me stronger weapons since that’s what i would end up doing 95% of the time with the fuse ability. i don’t care about fusing an ugly-ass looking bokoblin horn to my weapons to make them stronger, or putting a mushroom or whatever on my shield. oh i can fuse fruits and keese eyes and bomb flowers to make fire/ice/light/bomb arrows? very revolutionary.

eventually….ultrahand.

i won’t make this long since i’ve already talked about how i don’t play zelda games for customizations or being able to make my own house or whatever else this game tried to fit into it in a vain attempt to make the game seem bigger than it actually is. sure the ultrahand stuff is cool for the first few hours of the game and your first few shrines, but just like everything else that i’ve talked about on this thesis-long rant, it just got boring and monotonous and uninteresting to me. i honestly went through maybe 70% of the game with just the first zonai battery-thingy that you get from the start since i never really felt the need to upgrade it. ultrahand and its weird-ass puzzles just don’t feel zelda to me, i miss items like the hookshot/clawshots, the boomerang to stun enemies, the whip, the sand wand, the hammer, like…i don’t care that i can make machines that can obliterate enemy camps in an instant, it’s not like enemies are that hard in this game once you get to a certain point—i don’t need ultrahand BS for it. good for the people that are having fun with and making all sorts of contraptions, and yes in a game programming sense it is definitely cool and a marvel to think about, but……idk it just wasn’t for me and the game leaned too heavily on it for my liking. doing the same types of puzzles with carts/rockets/fans over and over again in shrines in the depths in the sky in the temples in the overworld just made me hate the ultrahand mechanic. at least with the ascend ability i felt like it wasn’t as overused as ultrahand but well i guess nintendo really wanted to show off its fancy new toy and say see!! this was worth the 70 dollars!!

—————

whew, well, there’s definitely more things i could talk about in regards to why this game is such a huge letdown for me and one of the worst ZELDA games i’ve had the displeasure to play, but i think i’ll stop here for my own sanity. if there’s one thing i’m grateful for this game is that it made me appreciate older zelda games so much more: i have this huge urge to play through tww and st again, hell even through ocarina of time too even though i’ve beaten that game EASILY over 80 times. i also had a lot of fun messaging back and forth with my buddy downpourstringloop as we would play through the game and exchange our thoughts on it (reminded me of our SS days!), so that was really cool as well. just like with botw, i definitely will not be playing through this game again as i would always do with pretty much all other zelda games (man i remember as soon as i beat ST i immediately started a new run for it because it was just so damn great). it just wasn’t fun for me and i don’t want to wade through 90+ hours of BS just to replay 10 hours of somewhat good moments.

so now that i’ve mostly poured out all most of my thoughts on this game, i hope that totk will not be taking up more of time and make me want to go insane at thinking of all the missed opportunities that nintendo had with this game coming from botw. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: i really hope the next zelda game isn’t in this same lackluster open world format and that nintendo can put back a little bit of the magic that made zelda games great and a joy to replay through. but unfortunately for me, people everywhere love botw/totk to death, so it looks like i will just have to ride it out and wait patiently for this zelda open world hype train to die. maybe then we’ll once again get interesting temples, new unique dungeon items, compelling characters and NPCs, engaging sidequests with worthwhile rewards, fun minigames that are rewarding to complete, gameplay that doesn't feel repetitive and beaten to death, and a story that tugs at my heart like SS or ST did.

PEACE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ✌️

#junk #totk #totk criticism #legend of zelda #zelda #tears of the kingdom #as a long-time zelda fan i just had to get this all out off my chest #it's no surprise my neighbor and i spent over 4 hours talking about this game lol #THE DEED IS DONE i can finally put it to rest #not tagging anyone mentioned in the post cus idk this is just a personal rant #if i thought my xc3 post was long....lol

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generalized-incompetence · 1 year

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“You have, like, books here, right?”

Myrtle, the librarian, looks up from her desk, at the library, where she has been finalizing a new order of library books.

“Yes,” she says. “We do.”

Read on AO3 here

“Oh!” says the man with a relieved smile. “Great.”

Myrtle eyes him over the stacks of books and notepads on her desk. She has been a librarian for nearly four decades, and she’s seen all sorts, though she can’t recall anyone ever asking this particular question. The man in front of the desk is… hm. Muscular is the best word she can think of, though she would have more choice adjectives if she was a few decades younger and/or inclined in that direction. Chiseled, perhaps. Blonde, predictably, with the sort of haircut that had been popular on Ken dolls, back in the day (do they still have Ken dolls? Barbie has certainly traveled; she’d heard something about a breakup?). His smile is pleasant enough, though somewhat vacant, and judging by his question, this might be the first library he’s entered in his life.

But, librarians didn’t judge - not books by their cover, and not patrons by their questions - so she shifts away from her computer and says, “Can I help you find anything in particular?”

“Oh!” says the man, brightening at the offer of help. “The thing is, this guy Mike? He’s, like, really smart? And I’m not? So I thought, maybe, if I read some books and stuff, he might like me more?”

He looks so hopeful that Myrtle doesn’t have the heart to tell him that changing oneself is rarely worthwhile, and that his best hope with this “Mike” likely involves who he is now. The man misinterprets her silence and blunders forth with, “Not like like, obviously. Just as, um. Is there a word for, like, people who hang out all the time, and talk a lot, and think the other person is really smart and cool and funny and just make each other, um, I guess. Happy?”

Myrtle raises an eyebrow. “...Friends?” she says.

“Yeah!” says the man with the biggest smile yet. “Yeah. Friends.”

Myrtle has always considered her duties as a librarian to extend past the books and towards the well-being of her patrons, but she feels this man may need more help than she is able to provide. “What kind of books does this Michael enjoy?” she asks. “Any subjects he’s interested in?”

“Aliens,” says the man instantly.

“Aliens?” says Myrtle.

The man nods enthusiastically. “He knows everything about them,” he says. “Like, all the stuff the government’s been covering up - he got access, or I guess I gave him access, and he says it’s just what he thought the whole time and people are super not paying attention. And then he said a bunch of science things that sounded really smart. So maybe if you have some books that could, um, explain that?”

“You’re looking for,” says Myrtle slowly, “scientific books about aliens?”

“Yeah!” says the man.

Myrtle takes off her glasses, polishes them on her sweater, and puts them back on. “I’ll… see what I can do,” she says.

“Oh! One more thing,” says the man. “Sorry, I know you’re a librarian and everything, but reading, like, kinda sucks? So if there’s any books you have that you, like, don’t have to read to get smart - could you find those?”

Ah, she thinks. Thoughts of UFOs fly out of her head as she recalibrates her illicit judgments. There are reasons she is a librarian, and this man is one of them. She is suddenly and overwhelmingly grateful that this man has chosen this library, on this day, to walk in and present her with an opportunity to unlock literature, outside the written word.

“Have you ever tried,” she says, “audiobooks?”

An hour and a half later, she has loaded the man down with several audiobooks; a stack of graphic novels; links to browser extensions for changing font size/spacing and rendering text to speech; and, of course, a brand-new library card.

“Now, these are all just starting places,” she says, methodically scanning out each graphic novel in turn. “If any of them don’t work for you, you don’t need to push it. But if it does work, then you feel free to come back and ask me for more, alright?”

The man, who, to his credit, did not flee when she went Full Librarian, swallows. “I - I guess,” he says. “But, I mean. Are you sure? Like, this isn’t really reading, right? Picture books are for babies.”

“These aren’t picture books,” she says snippily. “They’re graphic novels. It’s a perfectly legitimate form of literature, and if anyone gives you a hard time, you send them straight to me.”

He pulls the closest book towards him and flips through the pages, lingering over some of the more vivid illustrations. She’s had this conversation so many times she could have it in her sleep, but it still breaks her heart a little, to think a little thing like formatting has stood in his way for so long.

“We’ve only had writing for about five thousand years,” she tells him, “but we’ve always had stories. True purists should still be sitting around a fire carrying on the oral tradition. There are plenty of ways to read that don’t involve words on a page.”

“Huh,” says the man, staring at a full-page spread of a detailed spaceship. “That’s - that’s kinda cool.”

“It certainly is,” says Myrtle. She finishes checking him out and slides the rest of the books and resources across the desk. “Good luck with your Michael,” she says, looking him straight in the eye. “And everything else.”

“Thanks!” he says with a bright smile. “You know, I always thought libraries sucked? But you don’t suck at all.”

Myrtle refrains from a sigh. “Thank you,” she says instead, and waves him out.

—

She thinks of him a few times over the next couple weeks. She doesn’t seriously expect to see him again; there are return bins outside, and her shifts are fairly irregular. But roughly three weeks later, she looks up and there he is, with a slight, nervous-looking man in tow.

“Hey, it’s you again!” says the man with an oversized wave. “Mike, this is the nice librarian lady who gave me all those, um, graphic novels. Hey, librarian lady, those links you gave me were so cool! I never knew there were all those things that would read emails and stuff to you, so you don’t have to read them at all!”

Myrtle does try to remain somewhat detached, but she can’t help but feel warmed by this outcome. Even better, Mike responds to this speech with a fond smile, first in the man’s direction and then in hers. “Thank you,” he says. “That was, um. Overdue, I think.”

“Oh, no, I turned all the books in on the day they said!” says the man quickly. “No library fines here!”

Mike laughs and pats the man’s arm. “Come on,” he says. “Didn’t you want to look for the Predator sequels?”

“Yes,” says the man, and tows Mike inside. Myrtle watches them go, still feeling like a job well done. Maybe she needs a new slogan, she thinks. Libraries: We don’t suck at all! She snorts and shakes her head. She’ll work on it. She has plenty more patrons to practice on.

#dghda #dghda fic #dirk gently's holistic detective agency #hugo friedkin #assisfriedkin #(lightly)#my fic #he just needs help you guys #he just needs a little bit of support #he is Trying #i wrote this fic last year and forgot about it SURPRISE libraries are still great <3 <3 #some resources in the ao3 link #including!! accessibility kits at the library #literally they have everything #give your local librarian extra love it's a rough time and they're so so important

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void-spells · 2 months

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Survivor! Finale!!!

Still grieving Cere...but I found her lightsaber! Finally I can return to my favorite lightsaber layout with Tapal’s and Cere's emitters!

Okay time to go kick Bode's ass.

Ah, sneaky infiltration time!! I'm sure no one noticed the big non-Empire ship just parked out here.

MAN it sucks that it didn't let me change Cal's hair up when he had the ISB uniform on. This is NOT a military-appropriate haircut!!

Weird place for an apartment at the end of a wide hallway?

Oh....a baby....hello!!!

Mookie...

OH SHIT!

Love Cal. Fully called this man a monster to his face in front of his daughter. He would give loud annoying gifts to kids who's parents annoy him.

Also??? Bode???? Why are you suddenly so stupid????? It's a whole PLANET dude! With like one and a half ways to get to it! And you want to JUST have you and Kata there??? How safe is Kata gonna be if you get hurt and there's no one else on the ENTIRE PLANET?????

Fine! Run bitch!

Wait huh.

Embrace

Embrace Cal’s WHAT??????

OKAY

That was uhhhhh. I'm just gonna try and avoid that as much as possible.

SHIT I accidentally went Dark Mode

I DID IT AGAIN WHY WOULD THEY JUST REPLACE SLOW

Love Cal and Merrin talking it out to the sound of crunching bones

This is fine! It's all good!

Hop back to Koboh and it's FINE

HA I KNEW THIS PLACE WAS SUSPICIOUSLY ARENA-SHAPED!

Nasty Cal UNLOCKED

Huh. This is an elevator. Okay then.

Zee....still annoyed by her.

...and then I put Cal in a green outfit, stopped playing for the night, and didn't touch the game for several weeks

Realized the green outfit was NOT as cute as I thought it was. This red lighting in the menu is fucking with me

To Tanalorr!!!

Sidenote: Love when BD goes backpack mode with the bomber jacket bc the metal on the back looks like lil handles for his tiny feet

"GREEZY DOES IT BABY" I want that on a mug

Oh man Tanalorr is pretty....the water is reminding me a bit too much of the Pool Rooms tho

This game can't condition me to destroy every plant that sparkled and then do this.

Like why would they do that. Do you know how many times I shmacked a plant for nothing

BODE STOP BEING STUPID!! EVEN TOUR DAUGHTER THINKS YOU'RE BEING STUPID!!

Oh this fight is. Woof.

Ohhhhhhkay turns out if we don't get Nasty then Cal just has his skull bashed in to death. Got it. Embrace the Nastiness or die

Got myself a Drink after attempt number 3. Surely alcohol will help me play video game good.

Attempt 4.

Nine attempts later and Bode really just made Cal kill him in front of his kid like that. Fully attempted to strangle two people to death in front of his very young child, was given ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY TO SURRENDER, then proceeded to not do that. I'm sure Kata is feeling so safe as a result of your decisions, Bode. Rip you and your bara tiddies tho ig.

The entire scene of Cal standing at Cere's funeral pyre...non-stop tears. What the fuck man.

And now I'm sure they definitely won't make Cal "23-years-old,-should-be-at-the-club" Kestis raise a kid. Because that would be dumb. Right? Right? Not gonna make the kid who is still very seriously struggling with his own trauma suddenly be responsible for another kid, right?

So super cool how Greez gets another kid and Kata is like Cal's non-force-sensitive baby sister, right? Greez is gonna teach Kata how to cook, she's gonna be great at it. One big happy family.

Right?

Welp, guess I'm gonna run around some more! I'm gonna take SO many nice screencaps! And probably replay jfo. And cry.

#jedi survivor #jedi survivor spoilers #voids survivor playthrough #respawn hand Cal over to me right now #you wont do right by him i can feel it

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wjbs-aus · 2 years

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Since I'm (probably) near the end of the new Saints Row, I can safely say that I love it and personally would put it as either second or joint-first on my personal SR ranking, and it's the best game I've played this year at time of writing. But because nuance, I'll be going into more detail below.

(spoiler warning for all but one of the missions prior to The After-Party).

I found the new named Saints far less annoying than I thought I would, and personally I would die for Eli.

Speaking of Eli, the LARP storyline is really fun, and it's personally my favourite part so far, especially the fact that the other Saints get roped in, leading up to the massive battle against Gwen. Also, the bit at the end when the Boss does all the silly poses while shooting the king was really funny, especially the aftermath where the petrol station clerk awkwardly asks the Boss to order something and they respond in-character.

I honestly think Sergio's death was kinda anticlimactic, like you're told you will fight him and you get ready for a huge fight that just... doesn't happen, and he just gets anticlimactically killed off in a cutscene; the Boss isn't even the one who does it! It doesn't help that I also think Los Panteros are the least-interesting of the three gangs (or two gangs and one megacorporation), just being the Brotherhood but orange and aztec-themed.

For the moral choice in the AI tank level, I chose to fire Marshall. I'll probably shoot him on my next playthrough.

The mission where you have to steal the sculptures was really difficult and I had to get my brother - who is better at driving games than me - to do it.

The city is amazing, and honestly it's my favourite sandbox in the entire series. I love all the fake brands, I love the armadillo sculpture-trail, and I love the fact that there are proper strip-malls in a Saints Row game (mainly because strip-malls are an injoke between me and my brother).

The Boss might be canonically non-binary in the new timeline, which is very cool.

I am very dissapointed that - as far as I can tell - importing a Boss made in the Boss Factory doesn't carry over the outfit, only the character (although it did give me the opportunity to fiddle around with my Boss's fashion).

The existence of a Saints of Rage arcade machine in (at least) one part of the map, as well as an associated T-shirt, implies that Johnny exists as a fictional character in the new timeline.

Oh! Speaking of references to stuff that doesn't exist in the new timeline, the in-game Volition shop sells an Agents of Mayhem shirt, which I'm fairly sure is the first time I've seen someone acknowledge that game since it came out (not counting me buying it and playing some of it a year or two ago).

It is ridiculously easy to become OP.

It took me ages to realise that the MDI building is boot-shaped.

THEY DIDN'T DEPICT REPLACING THE CEO OF MDI AS A WHOLLY GOOD THING! THEY ACTUALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WHAT'S-HER-FACE ISN'T WILLING TO FULLY TRUST THE SAINTS JUST BECAUSE THEY HELPED HER BECOME CEO, AND THAT SHE PRIORITISES THE COMPANY OVER THESE FOUR RANDOM ZOOMERS!

I like how the Boot Hill mission is literally just Super-Ethical but less frustrating and with a better announcer.

The Cutting Edge materials are really disappointing. I was expecting them to work like normal colours but with a different visual effect, but they colour the entire thing you apply them to, so applying them to clothes looks really tacky.

I want a Collective helmet in real life.

The Hidden History stuff is really fun and I like that they're actually putting effort in to establish a consistent timeline, unlike the original one which was an absolute mess. Also the glove-guns are OP as hell, especially when you unlock the special attack for them.

I have more thoughts, but I can't really think of any right now, so I'll add them as an addendum when I've finished the final mission (and also the other one I have to do first).

#saints row #saints row 2022 #saints row spoilers

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ihatetbrlists · 3 months

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Rewiew #30: The Bride Test

The Bride Test, by Helen Hoang

From my TBR? No but it's kind of from my mental TBR soooo...?

Second novel in the contemporary romance series The Kiss Quotient.

Unusually for me, I read this second volume without having read the first. I like to go in chronological order, but I was like "screw it, I want to read a modern mail-order-bride now" so I did.

The story is about a poor and uneducated Vietnamese woman who suddenly gets the opportunity to spend a summer in the US trying to convince a second-generation autistic Vietnamese man who doesn't want to get married to marry her. Basically, his mom spots her cleaning toilets and thinks she is perfect. I'm not kidding, that's the first chapter.

Now, if you want to read about The Yearning, this book is for you. So much physical yearning on the part of the hero, it was insane. He is SO sexually frustrated at the beginning. But their relationship didn't develop much further than physicality, in my opinion. It felt like they were put together by the circumstances and were like "meh, the sex is super hot and living in the US is cool so I guess we'll get married". The firs time he sees her, the Hero literally describes her as having a stripper body.

When he is not having lecherous thoughts, I found the Hero to be likeable. I enjoyed his journey to self-discovery through grief and unlocking past trauma but the Heroine was paper thin. She goes on and on about how unprivileged she is back in Vietnam and she is so stupid she couldn't even complete high school etc etc. I suppose that was her arch but it didn't rock my boat at all.

Why and some spoilers and the final verdict under the cut:

The main conflict during the story's climax is that she wants him to say he loves her. But he thinks that being autistic means being incapable of love so he sternly refuses. But as I was reading that particular dialogue, I couldn't help but think: ok but what if he is aromantic. What then? What if he cares about you like if you were his family but he just doesn't feel romantic love. What then? You would throw your whole relationship away because of that? Why??

This woman literally thinks "I can see that he loves me from his actions but I want to hear him say it". Again, why?

There were also a couple of absolutely unhinged moments. At one point they attend a banquet. The heroine wanders into one of the dressing rooms for the bridal party and sees the Vera Want wedding dress hanging there. After checking that no one is around, she completely undresses, remaining in only her panties, because she wants to try it on. What decent person would ever do that?? Try a stranger's wedding dress at their own wedding? What?? It felt like a cheap way to have the hero barge in, see her in Deshabille and get The Yearning going again.

Also, I didn't mention it before because it's not really relevant but the heroine has a child back in Vietnam. She keeps this hidden from the hero until literally the last scene and then he is like "no probs". Like, I would at least have some questions.

Verdict: The plot is overall frustrating but The Yearning and Sexual Tension makes up for... some of it.

#the bride test #helen hoang #bookblr #book review #booklr #books #romance #romance novel

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hicham-buss · 8 months

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virtual-staff · 10 months

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The Future of Work: Thriving in the Virtual Assistant Job Market

Hey there! Have you ever heard of virtual assistant jobs? They are like cool new jobs that let you work from anywhere, even in your pajamas! In this blog post, I'm going to tell you all about virtual assistant jobs and how you can thrive in this exciting job market.

What is a Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant is a person who provides support to individuals or businesses remotely. They use their super skills and knowledge to help with various tasks, just like a real-life assistant. The only difference is that they work from their computers, making the world their office!

The Job of a Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants can do lots of different things to help their clients. They can answer emails, schedule appointments, manage social media accounts, do research, and even help with bookkeeping. It's like having a personal superhero who can do all the tasks that make life easier!

Skills and Qualities of a Successful Virtual Assistant

To be a successful virtual assistant, you need to have some special skills and qualities. You should be good at organizing things, communicating with people, and managing your time. It's like being a superhero with superpowers of organization and communication!

The Benefits of Virtual Assistant Jobs

Working as a virtual assistant comes with lots of awesome benefits! Let me tell you about some of them:

Flexible Work Hours and Location

As a virtual assistant, you can choose when and where you want to work. You can work from home, a coffee shop, or even a beach if you have a good Wi-Fi connection! It's like having the power to create your own work schedule and find the perfect work-life balance.

Diverse Job Opportunities

Virtual assistant jobs are not limited to a specific industry. You can work with entrepreneurs, small businesses, or even busy individuals who need help with their personal tasks. It's like having a world of job opportunities at your fingertips!

Work-Life Balance

One of the coolest things about virtual assistant jobs is that they allow you to have a great work-life balance. You can spend more time with your family and friends, pursue your hobbies, or even travel while working. It's like having the best of both worlds!

Personal and Professional Growth

Working as a virtual assistant can help you develop new skills and grow both personally and professionally. You can learn about different industries, improve your communication and organizational skills, and even build your own online presence. It's like unlocking your full potential and becoming the best version of yourself!

How to Thrive in the Virtual Assistant Job Market

Now that you know about the amazing world of virtual assistant jobs, let me share some tips on how you can thrive in this job market:

Develop and Showcase Your Skills

Continuously learn and improve your skills as a virtual assistant. You can take online courses, attend webinars, or even join virtual assistant communities to learn from others. Remember, the more skills you have, the more valuable you become!

Build a Strong Online Presence

Creating an online presence is important for virtual assistants. Build a professional website or create profiles on platforms like LinkedIn or freelancing websites. It's like having your own superhero headquarters where clients can find and connect with you!

Network and Collaborate

Networking is key to finding virtual assistant job opportunities. Join online communities, attend virtual events, and connect with other professionals in your field. Collaboration can lead to new clients and learning opportunities. It's like teaming up with other superheroes to save the day together!

Provide Exceptional Service and Client Satisfaction

To thrive as a virtual assistant, focus on providing exceptional service to your clients. Be reliable, communicate effectively, and always deliver your work on time. Happy clients will recommend you to others and help you grow your virtual assistant career!

The Future of Virtual Assistant Jobs

The future of virtual assistant jobs is looking bright! Here are some exciting trends to look out for:

Increasing Demand and Market Growth

As more businesses and individuals realize the benefits of virtual assistants, the demand for virtual assistant jobs is expected to increase. It's like the virtual assistant job market is going to be super busy and full of opportunities!

Advancements in Technology and Automation

Technology is constantly evolving, and virtual assistants can take advantage of it. Automation tools and artificial intelligence can help streamline tasks, allowing virtual assistants to focus on more complex and creative work. It's like having futuristic gadgets to help you save time and be even more efficient!

Specialization and Niche Markets

Virtual assistants can specialize in specific industries or tasks, catering to niche markets. For example, you can become a virtual assistant specifically for social media management or e-commerce businesses. It's like becoming a superhero with a unique set of powers tailored to specific needs!

Embracing Remote Work Culture

Remote work is becoming more popular, and virtual assistant jobs are at the forefront of this trend. Companies and individuals are embracing the idea of working with talented professionals regardless of their location. It's like breaking free from traditional office boundaries and exploring a world of possibilities!

FAQs about Virtual Assistant Jobs

What kind of tasks can a virtual assistant handle?

Virtual assistants can handle a wide range of tasks, including administrative work, customer support, social media management, data entry, research, and more. They are like superheroes with the ability to adapt to different tasks!

How much can I earn as a virtual assistant?

The earnings of virtual assistants can vary depending on factors like experience, skills, and the type of tasks they handle. Some virtual assistants charge an hourly rate, while others offer package deals. It's like having the freedom to decide how much you want to earn based on your skills and expertise!

What skills do I need to become a successful virtual assistant?

To become a successful virtual assistant, you need good organizational skills, communication skills, time management abilities, and proficiency in relevant tools and software. It's like gathering the essential tools and powers to become the best virtual assistant superhero!

How do I find virtual assistant job opportunities?

You can find virtual assistant job opportunities through online platforms, freelancing websites, social media groups, and networking events. It's like exploring different avenues to find the perfect job match!

Is it possible to work as a virtual assistant part-time?

Yes, absolutely! Many virtual assistants work part-time, allowing them to have flexibility in their schedules and pursue other interests or responsibilities. It's like having the freedom to choose the work hours that suit your lifestyle!

#virtual assistant job

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eponymous-rose · 3 years

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E123 (Feb. 2, 2021)

After last week’s thoroughly relaxing and brief episode, tonight’s guests are Sam Riegel and Liam O’Brien!

Brian, to Sam: “You look like Tim Curry moved to Nantucket to become a sommelier.”

How did Caleb and Veth approach the ally-ship with the Tombtakers? Sam: “I mean, we got some information, and I think we got a little closer to Lucien and knowing whether he has any of Mollymauk inside of him, which is I think the most important knowledge that we’re seeking right now. Is there someone to be saved inside there? We got glimpses, and we got a little hint that Mollymauk is maybe still in there? Maybe? And we got a little more insight into their plans, so that was useful.” Liam: “We know why we were having that fucking dream.” Sam: “But other than that, it was just a road trip with assholes.” Liam: “All our plans have been ripped in a new direction, and it’s just been improvisation.” Sam notes that it feels like we’re always about to rip into Caleb’s backstory, but haven’t yet followed that thread all the way through. Liam: “It’s partially frustrating, to be sure, but also I like the idea that-- his whole shit has been selfish, it’s been dealing with the trauma that he’s been through and not the greater world, and that’s been shifting somewhat.”

Does Caleb think the book was worth it, and is he still interested in reading more? Sam: “How do you ask Caleb not to read a book?” Liam: “Caleb has spent enough time with the Nein to know you shouldn’t put a hand on a hot stove. After what happened with the book, he knows it’s a terrible idea. But maybe. But it’s a really bad idea. But reserve judgment, but it’s a really terrible idea. I think that Caleb is very aware that mages and people like him very easily fall prey to their curiosity and it can lead to bad places. But there is still that amount of scientific endeavor where you think there is value in knowing and learning, and maybe we can ride that line. He was True Neutral at the start of the campaign, and maybe he’s Chaotic Good now, but part of him is hubris, even if it’s a little bit, still.”

What about Otis has drawn Veth’s focus? Sam: “I mean, he’s a little shit. She was curious about Otis because he’s a small like she is, and in talking to him, he seemed to be real creepy, but he was just creepy and distant and didn’t value his past or family or anything like that. She sees someone who’s like her, but so not like her, and maybe that scares her a little bit more.”

How does Caleb feel about Beau being on this ride with him? Liam: “The dream is another example of how Caleb had very narrow vision of the things he wanted to do. It used to seem so massive to him, but now... To have Beauregard involved feels right. If anyone in the group is going to stop him from grabbing something he shouldn’t, it is probably Beauregard. She’ll punch him in the fucking face to stop him, which I think he needs, to a certain extent. They’re two different kinds of nerds, and I kind of like that, that this group of nine philosophers, they’ve reached out and somehow grabbed the two nerds in the party.”

How do Caleb and Veth see the Somnovum? Sam: “I mean, they seem real bad. Anything that’s a quorum of powerful entities heading towards your planet to unleash an energy of any kind, typically bad? I assume they’re bad, or at least the Tombtakers wish them to do ill.” Liam: “I think they want the kind of peace that comes from snapping your fingers and turning people to dust. Caleb sees them as a cautionary tale; they’re the worst-case scenario for arcane inquisitiveness.” He sees Allura Vysoren as the antidote to that.

Why the staunch refusal to use Halfling Luck? Sam: “I don’t like Luck! I just don’t like Luck. I think it’s cheap, I think it’s a cheat, I think it’s stupid. It just feels like a do-over.” Liam: “I am your antithesis! If I ever voice a halfling, I am going to hammer that feature!” Sam: “What I love about D&D is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. If you roll bad, okay, that’s it. If you roll well, it makes the success more enjoyable to know that it’s a pure success and don’t one where you’re like well actually... it’s so stupid. If someone was about to die, I would probably use the fuckin’ Luck feature. Well. It depends who. If it was Travis, yeah, no, he’s fucked, sorry.”

Liam drops that he’s picked Sam’s character class and race again for a hypothetical campaign three. Sam: “It’s not what I was thinking for future characters, but I’m excited to explore.”

Cosplay of the Week: an amazing Mollymauk by KatofValkyrie!

What was it like to bring the Tombtakers into the tower? Liam: “It is complicated, because he does not like him. Lucien’s just a fucking dick. But Caleb also knows that Molly’s in there somewhere. That tower’s only for the M9, and Lucien’s not in the M9. Their situation with these people is shitty, it’s terrible. Caleb doesn’t feel like they have the upper hand. He doesn’t like that they’re even going on this journey per se, because life is bigger than his bullshit. He feels like they’ve been losing over and over again, so it was a gamble to try to get on equal footing.

What spurred Veth into making sure she and Yasha have some one-on-one time? Sam: “Yasha hasn’t been getting a lot of moments to shine. Now that she’s back, I just got the impression that Yasha feels out of place sometimes, or timid, or unsure of herself. When Veth was Nott, Nott certainly had her share of those moments. I think she sees a kindred spirit and wants to make sure that she’s been giving all the opportunity she can to flourish and thrive. Dani, you’re just laughing at my mustache, aren’t you?” Dani: “Yes, that’s the only thing I’m laughing at through this whole bullshit.” Sam denies all knowledge of trolling, but eventually admits, on the topic of Yasha and Beau getting together: “They’ve made me wait this long... I’m going to make them wait a little bit longer!”

What was it like to show his friends the upper floors? Liam: “I kinda expected somebody to sneak up there before that. That being part of the tower is not even a conscious choice of his, it just is. The reason Caduceus has creeped Caleb out for a long time is because he talks about how-- Caduceus is a really kind person and wants Caleb to let go of the past. And in a really simplistic way, turn that frown upside-down. And that’s just not who Caleb is, and it’s not who everybody is. There is something to be said for trying to stay open and positivity, but thinking you can shut out the past, especially a traumatic one, is just not true. When things happen to us, we carry them. But to candy-coat it and say, ah, I’m free, or everything is good, or I’ve turned the corner... life is way messier than that. It’s not flipping a switch, it’s not bad-to-good, it is such a work in progress. Even when you make strides and start to get to a better place, you can backslide a lot. So the tower is who he is, and the tower is 7/9ths love for his friends, and 1/9th hope, but there’s still a percentage of him that carries everything from the past, and knows that he should, and knows that he should not go back to where he was. And the way to do that is not to say everything is rainbows, but to remember it. The tower is just like an extension of who he is. He’s never going to forget the past, and he’s never going to be like, I’m good, or I’ve turned a corner. He should remember the past, and he should do better, always.”

Does Veth still believe it’s possible to get Molly back? Sam: “Well, she was a person trapped in another body for many years, so has some experience there, and definitely believes that the spirit and soul of Molly is in there and just needs to be unlocked somehow.”

Fan Art of the Week: an amazing group shot by HarpySN!

How are Caleb and Veth dealing with their guilt and fear about being in the middle of this? Sam: “It definitely was a deep conversation that might have repercussions going forward. The problem with all of what we’re doing now is that we don’t have time to deal with our petty problems anymore. It’s all high tension all the time!” Liam: “It’s true; they’re not in control of their situation at all anymore.” Sam: “It’s good to have these check-ins, but it’s not like we can do anything about them. We’re reactive right now.” Liam: “He’s not happy with where they are, but they wouldn’t even be this far if the goblin hadn’t pulled him out of the mud. So part of it is, you saved me from where I was and got me on my feet again, and now it’s disconcerting to see it all just get knocked sideways by something he never could’ve predicted. I think Caleb felt nostalgic for when things were simpler, in a way, for them, when we’re both troubled drifters.”

What was it like to see Gelidon’s return? Liam: “I am the least superstitious person at the table. Ashley’s dice suck.” Sam: “It was fun fighting a dragon!” Liam: “Two massive battles in one episode, neither of which came away with a victory. I guess surviving is a victory.” Sam: “I’d forgotten about the dragon, honestly.” Liam: “I loved it. I was so upset at the idea that we were going to stealth and not get into it.”Sam: “Mercer doesn’t keep a live dragon around and not do something with it. That dragon’s coming back.”

How do Caleb and Veth feel about going to see Essek? Sam: “He can be very helpful, I believe, but as Sam Riegel, a player of D&D, I’m super suspicious. What the fuck is Essek doing up there, so close, now? I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. And I can throw him pretty far because he floats.” Liam: “I 100% agree with you. I do not understand what Essek could bring to what we are going through. I know the audience loves him, I love him too. He’s a really cool character. But he’s fucking toxic. He out of curiosity caused a war between two nations. And Caleb has been changed for the good by the M9 from months of travel with them. Essek has had none of that. Caleb has changed for the good, but not because of people like Essek. Essek is where Caleb came from. We kept the lid on the pot during the whole treaty at sea and it almost all went fucking sideways, and only because we pressed him into a corner. I hope that guy finds some sort of balance and peace for himself, but I do not see how his input here would be helpful. There’s other heavy hitters that I would try to pull in.”

Liam notes that the Cloven Crystal is in the Bag of Holding. Sam: “Do I have Fluffernutter, or is Fluffernutter gone?” Liam: “Nope. 300 pounds of fireworks? Gone. A dead mage, a threshold crest, and fireworks.” Dani: “Your basic essentials.”

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

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ive-tumbled-down-a-rabbit-hole · 3 years

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Stories of Paris (PT 2)

Masterlist

Part One Part Three

…………………………………………………………..

"It was horrible Mari! They came out of nowhere and wooshing and flapping all about my head. There was one as BIG as my head…. No bigger. It was, was… thiissss biiig"

Bruce widened his arms as much as possible. Marinette and him were out of the manor at a quiet coffee shop where they could quietly people watch. Bruce was fascinated by how quick and well Marinette was at reading people to get their intentions. With Alfred's approval the pair now spent an afternoon once a fortnight after school in a coffee shop where Marinette taught him watch she knew. Alfred hoped it would help Bruce when he came to take over Wayne Enterprises.

"Really. A bat was that big coming from the well?"

"It was terrifying. I don't like bats. They're horrid!!"

Marinette nodded along with Bruce's assessment before pausing.

"Do you know what I think?"

Bruce shook his head. He was poised though, he was sure Marinette was going to give something to work with in his quest to become a hero. She had that gleam in her eyes.

"Bats have lots of symbolism. Some believe they symbolise death and rebirth. To unlock your deepest fears and let them go. To overcome them. They're the guardians of the night. My maman taught me that they can mean prosperity, happiness and longevity. A symbol of wealth."

Marinette took a pause to take a sip of her green tea and looked at Bruce.

"I don't think you need to be scared of the bats in the grounds. They may seem scary at the moment as they took you by surprise. In time though I think they will bring you good luck mon poussin. You're a courageous and determined boy and do incredible things despite being scared. Don't let your fear of bats dictate your actions. Do you want to mediate when we get home to sift through how you feel?"

"Err maybe. Do bats really mean that?"

"Umm hmmm, definitely!"

"What are you scared of Mari?"

"White cats"

"Huh? Why white cats. I thought it was black cats that were meant to be unlucky and scary"

A bittersweet smile crept across her face.

"Chat Noir is… was a black cat. He saved Paris, I can never think poorly of black cats. They need a little love to get over the negative view on them. White cats though…" Marinette looked over to Bruce who was watching her with rapt attention. So far her stories of Paris had brushed over akuma the victims, could she really tell this little bit more about the dark side of the hero's… "one day something happened in Chat Noir's civilian life which made him sad. Hawkmoth unknowingly at the time got to him and Chat Noir become akumatised. He turned into Chat Blanc until Ladybug saved the day. Chat Blanc caused a lot of destruction. Seeing white cats reminds me of what happened. They scare me as even heroes can fall."

Marinette hugged herself and held a far off look, swimming through the feelings that came with the memory.

"Heroes can fall?" Bruce looked at Marinette with wide eyes.

"Sadly yes. That's why sometime after that I know they created a support network to help each other. You don't need to worry mon poussin. It only happened that once and Ladybug saved the day."

Marinette subtly checked the time to see how long they had left.

"Now we should really get back to people watching mon tresor especially as we only have 15 minutes until Alfred picks you up. So what do you think is happening on the table over there."

When Alfred turned up to collect Master Bruce he found the two deep in conversation all about micro expression and what they could mean. On Miss Marinette's phone was a video slowing down of expressions. Smiling, he still wasn't sure what Master Bruce aimed to do with all the information he was learning from Miss Marinette but it would help him in the long run when he was older, that was for certain.

…………………………………………………………..

"Alfred!! It was amazing!! Like this robber came from nowhere and grabbed this ladies bag who shouted for help. It went in slow motion. Mari had her coffee in hand and slightly put her foot out which caused the robber to trip. As he tripped he knocked her coffee all over him distracting him from the fall and he knocked himself out."

Bruce looked at Alfred with large eyes full of admiration.

"Did she now Master Bruce"

"She did! And when he was knocked out she had cable ties in her bag to tie him up! It was so cool and awesome. The police came and took him away. The lady Mari saved bought her a new coffee. She wanted to get Mari more but Mari said no. She tried to turn the coffee down but the lady was insistent"

"That was very brave of Miss Marinette. A very dangerous thing to do as well so I hope you won't start doing things like that. She was very lucky that it all went well."

"Mari is always lucky Alfred. And anyway she's a hero. She helped someone. No one else was doing anything. They were all not paying attention to it at all. If, if Mari didn't do it no one else was going to either. She's amazing Alfred!"

"Hmmm, we just need to make sure she looks after herself too young master"

Bruce's eyes widened even more. He thought back to what Mari had told him over time.

"We're her support network Alfred! She can't be hurt if we're with her"

It was clear in Bruce's head that Mari was a hidden hero in plain sight. No one else saw it but he did and it was clear. He (and Alfred) would be her backup who knew. She danced around the law when she took the man down but didn't technically break it. She wasn't paid like a doctor or nurse people like that and she didn't have super powers either….. She was an real life everyday hero.

…………………………………………………………..

Marinette had become well and truly cemented into Bruce's life as years past. Even though he was at an age where he didn't really need a babysitter it was nice to have her company. She treated him as an equal and never spoke down to him. She had taught him all about found family and that being blood related was not important as those you chose.

'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb'

And all that jazz. As well as all the hero secrets as well.

It didn't stop the fact though that currently he, Alfred and her were currently sitting in the orangery having a farewell tea party. And Bruce hated it! Not the party but the fact his family was breaking up again. He'd lost his parents but gained a new father like figure and a big sister/cousin of sorts.

"Oh mon tressor! Such a long face. We knew this day would come up. I've finished my placement and study years out here. I have to return back to Europe to complete my studies formally."

Taking Bruce's hands in hers, she continued

"That doesn't mean we can't still talk. I still want to hear about what you are up to and how you 'ninja' training is coming along"

"I don't want you to go though! I need YOU here!"

Bruce may not be an 8 year old anymore but 12 year (nearly 13 thank you very much!) him was putting on an excellent representation of the sulky grieving boy he once was.

"Now Master Bruce. Have we not taught you how to act around guests?"

"Mari isn't a guest Alfred. She's family. Ohana. And family doesn't leave or get left behind" Bruce pouted. Hormones raging through him making it worse.

"Mon tressor! I will come back. I need to return to get all my credits and I can then return. You could always come visit me during the school holidays until I am able to return… if you smile sweetly at Alfred."

She 'whispered' conspiracy like to Bruce.

"I could then show you all around Paris including the non tourist spots"

"Even the hero spots"

"Especially the hero spots for you."

Alfred smiled at the pair in front of him. He was as sad about their little light leaving their lives for a short period of time. She had entered their lives at the perfect time and brought them so much joy after being in such a dark place.

"Indeed Master Bruce. I think Miss Marinette's idea of a visit sounds wonderful. Now smile. I think that this is a perfect photo opportunity.

The pair squidged their chairs and smiled at Alfred as he took a photo.

A photo to add to the "small" collection he had taken of the pair over the years.

To hold the stories and memories of how his you g master of the light that appeared in their dark lives. A reminder of how stories can shape reality.

#maribat #maribat au #ml x dc #mlb x dc #ml crossover #dc x mlb #dc x ml #marinette x bruce #marinette x alfred #plantonic #found family #friendship #babysitting

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kittydemon9000 · 3 years

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Okay so once again, 3 am thoughts have gifted me with yet another au. It is by no means original but screw it: SmithSwap

The only things I’m switching is their ages, so now Nya is the older one, but it. Gets. Fun.

For specifics, as of the Pilots/S1 Nya is 15 and Kai is 11, because I want bebe kai

Now, prior to Wu showing up, it’s pretty much the same as canon only with roles reversed. Nya mostly runs the shop while Kai is trying to everything he can to make things easier for his big sister, and I mean everything. The only one Nya doesn’t stop him from doing is cooking because Kai is the better chef, though neither can figure out why. Nya also likes to tell Kai stories of their parents since he can’t remember them too well, much to his disappointment.

ANYWAY, Wu shows up, Kai gets upset he’s insulting his sister’s work, then Skulkin show up. Kai does get snatched, much to Nya worry and canon continues.

Okay but also tiny spinoff, it also would’ve been hilarious if Nya still got kidnapped because then when the guys meet Kai they’d be like “who is this sassy lost child?”

So then while Nya’s training, I’m actually going to say what happened when Kai is captured.

You see, a side affect of being really freaking old is that your perception of time changes, specifically how long periods seem shorter. Garmadon decided that because of the prophecy it would be best to snatch the Master of Fire, who he thought would be Ray.

So you can imagine his surprise when his Skulkin bring in a kicking, screaming 11 year old child.

He is, understandably, not happy and very confused.

He sends the Skulkin away and tries his best talking with Kai. Like, as little malice as he can in a gentle voice, and he actually learns a few things. 1) both Ray and Maya went missing years ago, 2) these kids have no idea about anything regarding the Elemental Masters, 3) Kai’s sister has been raising him since their parents went missing, and she’s only four years older than him

Understandably, he is concerned, but also sees this as an opportunity. If he raises the Master of Fire to be loyal to him, then he’ll never want to fulfill his role in the prophecy, thus ensuring his victory. also he really misses lloyd and now when he returns he’ll have two kids!!! how amazing is that

So yeah Kai’s stay in the Underworld isn’t that bad. This Garmadon guy is pretty nice, tells him awesome stories about his parents, teaches him a bunch of things(mostly how to fight), and really just acts like the paternal figure he never had(Garmadad is canon, no matter what form you can fight me on this). The only part that sucks in Samukai, but he’s just a jerk and Garmadon makes sure he’ll never actually do anything to hurt him. He does miss Nya a lot though.

Anyway back with Nya and the guys.

They don’t actually know the exact reason why she was here at the beginning. All they know was that Wu originally left for the Master of Fire and came back with her instead. They know she has a brother, but aren’t quite sure how he falls into it.

They learn her full story the night they’re heading to the Temple of Fire, at which when they’re winding down Zane brings up how she never actually told them how she met Wu.

They are very concerned when they find out the whole story and swear they’ll help her get him back, which is nice.

Then she sees Kai But Actually Garmadon, follows, and bam Sword of Fire time. She isn’t able to fully use it, but she’s able to get a few sparks. However, things then start to take a turn for the worst.

Kai is actually here, very confused why Garmadon’s having him tied to the ceiling, but hey Nya’s here! But then oh no he then realizes that Garmadon is the bad guy, which gets him upset and more then a little betrayed.

Seeing him hurt his sister, the one of raised him, actually has Kai pick up the sword and use his powers. Under normal circumstances, it probably wouldn’t have been bigger than a few sparks, however Kai has his big sister in danger, dealing with the betrayal of an almost father figure, holding the Sword of Fire, and being surrounded by his element.

So yeah. Not that small of a fire.

The guys and Wu are actually able to to witness the truly incredible fire blast he lets out from the camp, put two and two together, and start heading over. Wu didn’t follow Nya…..because plot and was the able to help them fight off the Skulkin.

Anyway, it’s more than enough to dissipate the shadows, however it also wakes up the dragon. Garmadon, who is sort of panicking because That Was Not Supposed To Happen, ends up scooping up an unconscious Kai and the Sword and retreating to the underworld, leaving behind a very pissed Nya and an equally pissed Fire Dragon.

But yeah, Nya deals with the dragon, they get the other ones and head to the Underworld with Wu this time, and he’s actually the reason they’re able to get past all the Skulkin.

But yeah, Samukai gets vaporized and Garmadon about to leave when a feverish Kai makes his way in and begs Garmadon to not do it and that they can fix things.

And Garmadon….actually pauses for a second and you can see the conflict in his eyes before he shakes his head and says “there’s no going back for me” and walks through. Kai then collapses and the end up heading back home.

As for what’s up with Kai, who would’ve guessed tapping into a kind of power you aren’t supposed to have access to yet in a high stress situation would be bad for the body. He has a really bad fever but he’s fine after a few days.

The few month timeskip in between the Pilots and S1 is mostly spent training Kai, so they have quite a bit less free time. However when S1 starts and Kai hears about Lord Garmadon, he actually wants to check it out himself first.

So yeah, he meets Lloyd by himself and it actually doesn’t go that badly. Kai actually buys some candy for them to share and they leave the town, and Kai actually starts talking with him. Eventually the topic comes up about Garmadon and Kai gives a rough basis about how he sort of got kidnapped, and then his work in progress plan of making him good again. Lloyd is completely down with seeing his dad again and says how they could probably get his dads attention if their got their own evil army.

And because they’re both stupid kids, neither of which have had parents before, Kai thinks it’s a great idea.

So yeah. That’s why they find the Serpentine here.

Ofc, it isn’t a right away type thing. It takes them about a month before they find the Hypnobrai Tomb, and Kai just plays off all his time spent out as him having made a friend, which they can’t exactly argue with.

Ofc, canon still happens and when Kai was busy training Lloyd ended up finding the tomb and releasing the Serpentine, and they do their regular Canon Nonsense.

However, Kai is not too happy about the whole Attack Villages things and after a bit comes clean to the ninja about their original plan. They very much aren’t happy, but admit his heart was in the right place and they doubt he’d pull something like this again.

Fast-forward a bit more, Kai is mostly chill with Zane’s “weirdness” and unfortunately stays home when the Hypnobrai burn down the Monestary. It’s only because the dragons were able to get out and protect him that he was still alive. Nya’s actually the one who yells at Zane this time around because again. Kai almost died, but it’s all cool later and they find the Bounty :D

Anyway, Canon again continues. Kai is still really good with the dragons and is a little upset they need to leave. He also gets along really well with Ed and Edna. Then when Lloyd joins Kai is a little….well he doesn’t hate him but he does spend a while avoiding him.

Eventually Nya has enough of their dancing around each other and locks them both in the same room so they can talk it out. Turns out the reason Kai was avoiding him was because Lloyd’s betrayal really hurt since they were supposed to do it to find Garmadon, not hurt people. They have a tearful apology, then Kai learns how much of a jerk the Serpentine were and is like “the next time I see any I’ll protect you, since you’re like my little brother and as a big brother it’s my job to keep you safe”

Now it’s Samurai Time :)

You see, this time around Kai has double reasons for being the Samurai. 1) Yeah, he hates being left behind and wants to be involved but also 2) he wants to keep his big sister and big brothers safe

So yeah, that happens. He does think it’s pretty funny when they keep trying and failing to one up him though.

But then :) He gets captured with Lloyd :)))

So yeah, that sucks but it only gets worse because while Kai was able to “summon” his Samurai Mech, he had to send it off to get the ninja away. So that sucks.

Garmadon eventually shows up to help since the Serpentine stole both his kids, much to Nya’s chagrin.

Then comes the freaking Volcano Scene and this one is from Nya when she rescues Kai, then has to choose between Lloyd or the Fangblade. She ends up unlocking her True Potential by essentially leaving behind all negative feels she had for Lloyd and accepting him under her protection just like she did Kai.

The sheer torrent of water easily cools all the lava and thoroughly soaks them. But hey, even Kai has to admit being wet is better than being burnt alive. Also when the ninja start wondering aloud why the Samurai didn’t help Kai bashfully admits he was the Samurai, and this thoroughly impresses the ninja since Kai is like, 12 at this point.

Uhhhh, S2 isn’t too different. Kai is super happy that the dragons are back and is easily Ultra’s favorite. He isn’t hit with either Garms spell nor the Tomorrows Tea, but is there to comfort Lloyd and says that even though he got hit with some magic stuff Kai is still going to protect him since he’s still his older brother. On the Dark Island Kai is heartbroken Nya got corrupted and swears he’ll help fix her. When Garmadon gets purified Kai looses his shit and gets so excited since let’s goooooo not only is his dad not evil anymore they can go out in public together :DDDD

S3, also not too different. During the whole Love Triangle nonsense Kai’s just sitting there so confused. Also Pixal joins team Kai’s Older Siblings. Him getting captured was just him being at the wrong place wrong time. He has a really fun time time in space though, which was nice.

But uh. Then Zane hecking dies, which hits everyone really hard, especially Kai. Only this time, Nya ends up taking Kai back to Ignacia and opens up the forge again, pretty much cutting all contact with the other ninja, Wu and Garmadon. While it might’ve been boring and lonely, at least in Ignacia they were safe.

Kai is…honestly really miserable, but hides it well. He can barely get up some mornings, but does so anyway since he’s desperately trying to act like things are normal, despite how Nya doesn’t talk very much. He misses the other ninja a lot, even Pixal despite not knowing her for very long, but doesn’t want to tell Nya since again, trying to make things normal again. Nya also doesn’t let him out of the house too often, only really if she’s there to watch him.

This routine goes on for about two months, until Lloyd shows up to try and get everyone back together. And Nya.....Nya doesn’t like that.

She and Lloyd end up having a bit of a passive aggressive argument that is progressively getting louder until Kai just. Snaps.

He yells at them to stop fighting, how they’re acting so horribly and that he wished things could go back to normal, how Zane wouldn’t want this and that he’d be disappointed in them.

The two visibly flinch.

Then Kai realizes exactly what he just said and who he said it to. And he runs.

Nya and Lloyd both spend some time in silence, mulling over what Kai just said because he was right. Zane would hate what’s become of the team and how they separated.

Nya ends up being the one to break the silence, asking Lloyd where and when to meet.

When Kai doesn’t return from the woods, she ends up leaving a note before she leaves, explaining where she’s going and how she’s sorry.

Meanwhile, Kai is having a slight breakdown in a Tree Base he made years ago.

But yeah, fast forward a bit and Kai’s getting ready to sneak onto Chen’s Island, but in a slightly different way than canon. Instead he takes a slightly experimental ship that’s basically a smaller Bounty which he calls the Destiny’s Wish. Think of the comparison like a Car vs a Go Cart. Comfortably, it can fit 2 people long term, but for quick trips can carry as many as 10, but it’ll be a tight fit and the Wish might have some trouble flying.

So yeah, he’s on his own and he doesn’t arrive until a few hours before the EMs all get dropped from the plane. Shade is actually the one to find him first, but has a moment of pause since Literal Child and gives Kai enough time to kick him into a tree and run. The whole chase actually lasts about two hours but unfortunately Kai isn’t able to get back to the Wish and gets caught.

Now for the fun part :)

So all the EMs(and I do mean all because he wanted to “thank them for their contribution”) are in the throne room, their powers snatched, when Chen said aloud “But it is such a shame that we don’t have the Master of Fire, the we’d be able to complete the spell.” and for the briefest second the Ninja Fam are relieved but then Chen does a whole “SIKE, WE GOT HIM” and has some of the guards bring Kai out.

The Ninja are, understandably, freaking out. The EMs kinda are too since Child but only a little bit and it’s not personal

But then just as Chen’s about to snatch his fire, Kai starts saying how Chen cheated since Kai never got to play in a match. Chen refutes it since His Game His Rules but then Kai says that age old statement to get siblings to do Stupid Shit: “What are you, scared?”

Chen is not scared, thank you very much. And you know what, since you’re so confident fine, you now get your own challenge!

So yeah, now Kai has his own challenge.

What is it you might ask?

A vertical obstacle course with a time limit. If Kai doesn’t grab the Jade Blade, the exit closes.

Not that bad you might think. After all, Kai’s been training with the ninja for the past year, he’s probably got this in the bag.

Yeah welllllllll, a little bird told might have told Chen that a certain Master of Fire couldn’t swim.....so he uses Nya’s power to gradually fill up the room and forcing him up.

Surprise surprise, it was rigged against him. I’m talking platforms having false bottoms, ladders being oiled, high pressure water jets to knock him off, the works.

Kai is so close to making it. So close..... but Chen can’t have that happen now can he :)

So yeah, Kai ends up falling in and Nya almost drags all the EMs into the water trying to get him.

Luckily it’s at that moment Lloyd bursts in with Garmadon, frees the EMs and gets Chen’s staff. The EMs bust out and just as Nya’s about to dive in the whole thing starts draining, like an enormous whirlpool.

You see Chen actually thought ahead and realized that “hey, if the kid dies he’ll loose his power” so he made a plan that when Kai was going to fall in, he would use one of the tubes that shot water but in verse and suck him in. Luckily he was able to pull it off before the gem was smashed because if not MMM.

So yeh, Kai is now captured, but still on the island. Skylor reluctantly copies his powers(she got sort of close with Nya and this is the little brother she was gushing about), and Anacondrai happens. However, the two are able to escape, Skylor’s actually able to figure out the Summon Dragon thing, and then they head back to the main group.

Then comes the inevitable question of “how did you get here anyway?” and then Kai shows them The Wish. He actually ends up flying back with Garmadon before all the EMs learn how to Summon Dragon so they can warn people about the ensuing danger.

So yeah, they head out, the Pythor thing happens, canon then Sad because Garm still needs to do the whole sacrifice thing D:

That one hits Lloyd and Kai really hard, but they both use each other for comfort so it isn’t as bad as it could’ve been.

But yeah, this is getting long so tbc for a part 2 :DDD

#Smith swap au #kai #kai smith #nya #nya smith #ninjago #info dump

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