#i literally can't describe it any other way other than it's a very fresh perspective on tired tropes

[9hikers]

finished the last chapter. what the fuck that was the best manga i've ever read.

[pellaaearien]

oh! for the commentary thing. scene that i'm obsessed with: the 1589 redo dream in another word for ache

Ah yes! The divergence! Dream actually eating! Or is it?

Because remember, in the comics, when Dream gets out of the fishbowl (much sooner than he does in the show!) he immediately goes into some random guy's dream, buck-ass naked, and makes off with KFC.

As an additional note, the genesis of AWFA was this stellar post from @softest-punk, which specified that Dream went to Hob's dream of 1589 because he remembered there being food there. So I put the two together.

For context: Dream has had a lot of time alone with his thoughts in the fishbowl, in a way he hasn't had pretty much ever, because he's never been cut off from the Dreaming like that. He's had a lot of time to think about the 1889 meeting with Hob, and to sit with missing the 1989 meeting, going over all the variations in his head: did Hob show up? Did he wait for Dream? If Dream had been able to attend, would they have reconciled? From there, it's a straight shot to considering their other meetings; how they'd gone, what he regrets, what he wishes he'd done.

And then, in that headspace, with that new perspective, he feels Hob dreaming of him. Can he really be expected to resist?

If we're being completely honest, however, the divergence starts a chapter earlier, where Lucienne forces Dream to take a break, and he lets her. And that sets the tone for the entire progression of the fic.

So, under the weight of all that, he enters Hob's dream of 1589. Not only is it one where food was prominent, it's also one of the ones Dream regrets most. Not Shakespeare, necessarily; but the fact that he had time with Hob that he willingly relinquished. And seeing that it's somewhat of a nightmare for Hob, watching him walk away, clinches that for him.

Remember, he's literally just gotten out of the fishbowl. He's touching the Dreaming for the first time in over a century. He's in a dream, which is supposed to be his native element, but instead he's out of touch. The Dreaming itself is falling apart. He's weak without his tools. But also, he's touching the Dreaming, finally! And Hob Gadling's sleeping mind is offering him sustenance.

So he eats. I put a lot of thought into how dreamstuff sustains Dream, since it feels counterintuitive to me given they're one and the same. Taste isn't a common sense that exists in dreams, so I tried to think of ways to describe eating that would use it minimally. (In fact, I also imagine that's one of the reasons he eats so little in the Waking, because it's basically a bunch of sensations he has no use for.)

All in all, this fic is the story of Dream being, essentially, backed into taking care of himself. And it all starts here, when his ability to deny himself is at its absolute lowest ebb, because, again, he has just escaped a century long imprisonment! Even Dream of the Endless can get worn down after 100 years of total composure and zero stimulus.

The "problem" with that, however, is that indulgence is a slippery slope :) And thus we have this fic.

BONUS EASTER EGG because I can't resist. This specific line:

In this century, Hob had wanted to flaunt his wealth, and had consequently picked the largest table in the centre of the room. Dream shifts his chair and settles with his back against a nearby pillar.

This is not where he sits in the show! Not exactly. Dream has, let's say a disinclination to have his back exposed, now. Especially when they're on display like they were in 1589! So he protects himself. It's not something he's consciously aware of, so I couldn't draw attention to it in the moment. But it's important to me that even in this "safe" location, Dream still has very real, very fresh trauma that manifests in ways like making sure no one can sneak up on him, even in the Dreaming.

In any case, I'm sure that's enough rambling. Thank you so much for asking! There's a whole lot of thought that goes into my chapters and I don't often get the opportunity to talk about it!

[hashtagsmitty]

Smitty's Thailand Adventure - Day 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Walk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And waited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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