#so ships have to fly slow for the second half of the journey which pretty much cut off the frontier from the core systems

[totallyseiso]

Reading Apex lore and doing a little math, and it looks like it's been roughly 20 years since the Frontier War ended and the IMC forces ran home to the Core Systems.

Due to all the sabotaging the Militia did in the first Titanfall it takes roughly 20 years to fly ships out to the Frontier, which is where the Outlands are located.

If Respawn wanted to there is a lot of story stuff they could do involving people coming from the Core Systems.

New legends from Core space? Militarised factions showing up to take advantage of the lack of IMC forces and going to war with the Syndicate? A tonne of advanced weapons from IMC companies? So much they could do.

Hell, if they wanted to they could even make yet another spin-off game if they want to go the faction war route

[miceenscene]

Star-Crossed

din djarin/female oc | soulmate AU | pre-canon

wc: 2.3k / 9.8k (so far)

summary: The Way was not supposed to be a solitary one. People, house, clan. And when all else failed, your Match. “Fits like a Mandalorian Match” was the old saying. Though it wasn’t so long ago that it stopped making sense. But what's a lost Match to a man like Din Djarin?

warnings: canon-typical violence, lol does pining need a warning??

Previous Chapter | Masterpost | ao3

Chapter Four: The Difference

It was as the hull door was slowly shutting behind them that Din realized he'd invited someone to join him on a semi-permanent basis.

It was as the hull door was slowly shutting behind them that Din realized he’d invited someone to join him on a semi-permanent basis.

He’d never done that before.

Ever.

Sometimes people were more passengers than quarry, but they never stayed before.

They always left.

Nia stayed.

It took some getting used to, having another person around.

Old habits had to be adjusted. His helmet now only came off in bed or the fresher.

Though once he did forget it till he was halfway across the hull, half-awake and scrounging through the ration bars to find the good ones. It took a boot scrape on the floor above him to remind him that there was another living thing aboard.

There was an undignified scramble back to the bed cubby, but the helmet was firmly in place before Nia appeared down the ladder.

Other habits were completely abandoned.

“Heading out?” Nia asked, looking up from her flight manual as the hull door dropped slowly open.

Din pulled a few hand grenades out of the armory and tucked them into his belt. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“I’m coming with you.” She picked up her bo staff and the pistol that she’d taken from the Sergeant.

“There’s no need–”

“I’m not going to sit here and babysit an empty ship.”

“I work alone,” he hedged.

“You offered to help me. And since the only thing my mind seems to bother recalling is fighting, I’m sure as hell not going to let that slip out of my grasp too.” She crossed her arms and gave him a very obstinate look.

Out of habit, she got the usual treatment he gave people when they argued: silence.

It was laughably ineffective.

They just wound up staring at each other for several minutes in stubborn silence.

She’d stand there till the sun went down, he could feel it in his bones.

Call it a Match hunch, which did not technically exist but might as well have.

“Fine. But wherever I go, you go, understood?”

“Loud and clear.”

Her stubbornness didn’t stop once they were off the ship either.

A quarry got away from them for a full two days because they kept arguing about battlefield tactics.

They got the clawdite in the end. But only once they’d both apologized and made a new plan together.

And there was also the time she flew the ship without him.

Granted, he’d been knocked unconscious. And they did need to outrun the X-wings.

And for a woman who couldn’t remember where she was two moon cycles ago, she was a fair pilot.

If he didn’t care to use the ship ever again.

That dent in the hull wouldn’t come out no matter how many mechanics tried.

Even still, it seemed to take very little time at all before Nia’s presence was thoroughly expected and normal.

She seemed to… enjoy herself at times. And he did too, if he was honest.

Not that she wasn’t still deeply odd.

She spoke fluent mando’a, but fought like no Mandalorian he’d ever seen.

She could meditate for hours, and always seemed keenly aware of his exact location nearby when she did.

And then one evening, he came down from the flight deck, ready to climb into bed for some rest when he found her… contorted in the middle of the hull.

Her body was bent and stretched in ways he wasn’t previously aware that bodies could move.

Or at least move and still survive.

He watched as, without any hurry at all, she moved from one impossible pose to another; her breath and muscles in perfect control.

She could have made any of his old trainers proud with her self-mastery.

“You’re staring,” she said without looking his way.

His face heated under the helmet. He should have guessed this would be like her meditation.

“What are you doing?” he asked, moving to sit on a crate and pull off his boots.

She ended her routine by standing and bringing her hands pressed together in front of her chest and letting out one last long breath.

“I don’t know exactly. All I know is I feel restless if I don’t,” she said, turning around to face him. She patted his shoulder as she passed. “Sleep well.”

That happened often. Her touching him.

Even in the covert, even in his years of training back on Mandalore, no one had touched him so often.

And so casually too.

Like it was nothing at all for her to rest her arm on his shoulders as he demonstrated how to properly land the ship.

Or to sit so close to him when eating that her arm brushed his with every movement.

Maybe it was nothing at all to her.

But it was much more than nothing to him.

Her hands were all over him as she trained him in polearms, adjusting his grip, shifting the angle of his arms, urging him to relax the tension between his shoulder blades.

She held his hips to guide him through the weight transfer he kept overshooting, his face hot enough to melt his helmet clean off the entire time.

She quickly noticed how stiff he was around her. To his detriment.

He’d just been stepping around her in the flight deck.

Then suddenly a hand jabbed his rib cage.

He jumped, a strange noise cutting out of him as he did.

Nia broke immediately into a resounding laugh, pressing a hand to cover her mouth, doing a poor job of dampening the sound.

“I’m sorry!” she managed after a moment. “I–I didn’t know you’d… oh I’m s-sorry, Din.”

That was the first time he heard her laugh. It softened her blow considerably.

The second time he heard her laugh was when he retaliated two days later.

She leapt to the other side of the hull and was in a full fighting stance before she realized that he’d poked her.

Then she laughed again, making him laugh too, a smile beaming from under his helmet.

It happened somewhere when he wasn’t paying attention.

Somewhere between debating infiltration tactics and sparring, between knowing glances while Karga attempted to short-change them and long warm afternoons spent up in sniper’s nests, waiting for their quarry to return home…

She became his friend.

“I figured it out,” Nia said as she sat at the bar of a crowded cantina. She’d been sent in alone, semi-undercover as she was far less conspicuous than he was, to find their quarry. “An emergency induction tube. Then you can drink in bars with me and keep the helmet on.”

Outside in the alley, Din scoffed and spoke over the commlink in his helmet. “An emergency induction tube?”

“I have one now.”

He looked through the window to see her sip her drink through a straw. He chuckled then answered, “Still won’t work.”

She grunted, feigning annoyance. “‘Wherever you go, I go’ always seems to stop counting when it's time to relax.”

Under the helmet, he smiled.

“Do you have friends, Din?”

“What?” he asked over the commlink. Had he heard her right?

“I said, do you have friends? Been flying with you for a few months now, and I’m still waiting to meet them.”

“You met Ran and his crew.”

“You think Ranzar Malk and the rest of those criminals are your friends?” she asked, a little incredulously. “Didn’t Qin try to stab you during the last job?”

Technically, it was Xi’an who tried to stab him. “They’re… contacts.”

“So that’s a no on friends.”

He paused then said, “You’re my friend.”

Through the small vantage he had, he could see her smile down at her drink, eyes glancing just his way. His chest warmed.

“So one woman with a head like Corellian cheese. That’s… pretty good for a bounty hunter.”

“Same number you have right now.”

Her chuckle was low, sparking a single star burst high in his chest. “You have me there. Ah, found him. Target’s at the sabacc tables. I’ll flush him out into the alley.”

They had a good partnership. And he was happy to share most everything with her, what little amenities he could offer aboard The Razor Crest.

He didn’t realize she hadn’t been sleeping in the bed for weeks. Not until he came down from the flight deck early and found her curled in a corner of the hull, still using his cape as a blanket.

She didn’t seem to know where it had come from. And he certainly wasn’t going to inform her or take it back.

When he asked why she wasn’t using the bed, she said that it was his.

“It belongs to whoever’s sleeping,” he replied, firmly meaning it.

She took him at his word.

He hadn’t really been prepared, however, to crawl into the cubby after a long day and find that the whole space smelled like her soap.

She’d bought it in the first city they arrived in weeks back. Now it was all over his blankets.

Sea air. And wildflowers.

With the door to the cubby firmly shut, he slept with the helmet off that night…

And every night after, an unstoppable glow building in his chest.

Her memories, unfortunately, did not return. Or certainly not as fast as the droid made it seem like it would.

In several months, very little arrived.

Early childhood memories of Mandalore before the Great Purge. But no explanation of the control chip, or her skills.

She kept up a strong aloof appearance of her defect, but every so often, Din caught a glimpse of her despair hiding behind it.

They were in hyperspace, both working on small projects during the journey. He was outfitting one of his guns with a new scope, and Nia had taken to carving designs on her bo staff. It was turning into quite the fine weapon in her steady hands.

They’d been quietly working for a while when she started humming a low, slow tune. She didn’t even seem to be aware she was doing it.

Din looked up at her as her quiet song continued. Her curly dark hair twisted high on her head, back bowed over her staff in her lap as she deepend the etchings she’d done.

Her song wound back on itself and only then did she seem to realize what she’d been doing.

She looked up and sucked in a shaky gasp.

“Are you alright?” he asked gently.

She nodded, bottom lip quivering and eyes turning glassy. “My father used to sing that song,” she finally explained with a watery smile.

Though she couldn’t see, he smiled back, a tightness clenching high in his chest.

A bright fullness so wide it pushed out all the air in his lungs to make room.

He’d been feeling that a lot lately.

It wasn’t unpleasant, though it was annoying at times.

Especially when it showed up in the middle of a fight after Nia did something particularly skilled against her opponent.

It seemed to have no rhythm or source… besides her.

The galaxy was just different with her around.

It didn’t seem so soulless.

Perhaps because she noticed the small ignorable things.

Grabbing his arm to stop and watch street performers in a market he would have otherwise just passed through.

Pointing out the broad purple sweep of the planet’s rings through the night sky as they walked the quarry back to the ship.

Or perhaps because it was just simply nice to have someone around. Someone he enjoyed spending time with, someone who would have his back in danger, someone he trusted.

He knew what the star bursts high in his chest meant.

He wasn’t obtuse.

But there was a large difference between understanding and ready to admit, even just to himself.

Much less to her.

As for Nia, it took her several months to ask the inevitable.

He could feel her gearing up to ask something. Must be something pointed with how long her wind up was, nearly a full ration bar.

“Can I ask about your helmet?”

“No, you can’t wear it,” he answered, not looking up from the gun he was cleaning. He got a small smack on his arm for the answer, making him grin.

“I know that. I meant… your oath is to not show your face to another living being ever. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Not even your clan?”

He looked up now. “I don’t have a clan. I was a foundling.”

“But you could have one someday–unless that’s also part of the oath.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s not part of it.”

Nia leaned forward, deadly serious. “So… say you have a spouse, or children, they’d never know your face?”

She sounded… sad, he realized after a moment.

He’d had plenty of questions about his helmet; it came with being a Mandalorian. But none before had ever looked at his helmet and seen tragedy.

Not even him.

“When I took the creed, I gave up my old life. The helmet is my face. That’s what it means to be Mandalorian.”

“But I knew my parents’ faces… and they were Mandalorian.”

No they weren’t, a voice not his own hissed in the back of his mind, nasty and cruel and he didn’t know where it had come from.

He shook his head. “I don’t know… but this is what I was taught. This Is The Way.”

She didn’t press it any further, but the quiet disagreement in her eyes stuck with him as he drifted to sleep, alone and helmetless in sea air and wildflowers.

Chapter 5: The Discovery

taglist: @loversandantiheroes ; @kelenloth ; @keeper0fthestars ; @sarahjkl82-blog ; @thirstworldproblemss ; @spideysimpossiblegirl ; @i-belong-in-fandoms

to join my tag list, click the link in my bio!

[ad1thi]

keeping a low profile | AU-gust Day 11: Farm/Ranch AU

AU-gust masterlist

disclaimer: i haven’t actually watched Hannah Montana The Movie

//

Tony mimes cleaning out his ears, dramatically and theatrically in a way that makes his father roll his eyes.

 "I must've misheard you," he says, sending his father a significant look, "so why don't we try that again? What is it you wanted to see me about, father mine?"

His father pinches the bridge of his nose, and Tony is equal parts ecstatic that he managed to garner such a reaction and worried that he's made things worse, "I said - I'm sending you to Crowley Corners Tennessee, to go live with your Aunt Peggy."

 "But I don't even know my aunt Peggy! Besides, I have a life here, a life that you can't just tear me away from. You can't send me, I refuse to go."

His father scoffs, "A life? What life would that be?" he grabs a magazine from the pile stacked next to him and flings it across the desk at Tony, "A life where you get into fights with Tyra Banks over shoes?"

 "Or is the life where you pass out drunk in the back-alley of nightclubs?"

 "Or," he takes a second to look at the magazine cover, and Tony fights the urge to sink into his seat, "and this is my personal favourite - is it the life where you make your bestfriend's birthday party all about you?"

 Tony would very much like it if the Earth could open up and swallow him whole, much like it did in that one story his Ma used to love telling him as a child.

 "That was," Tony splutters, fumbling for some sort of explanation, "that was a mistake. I didn't mean to make Rhodey's party all about me!! But Hammer was just following me everywhere, and I couldn't shake him off - and you know how paparazzi are just like bloodhounds and I just…"

 He trails off when Howard gives him a look. Mostly because he knows there's no excuse for this one. He's still working on getting Rhodey to forgive him for ruining his eighteenth birthday party, but it's slow going.

 "You're going to Crowley Corners Tony," his father says in a voice that Tony has learnt to mean no arguing or pleading or begging will change a thing, "the fresh air and countryside will do you some good. Turn you back into that child that your mother loved so much instead of this, media monstrosity you've become."

/

Ordinarily, if Tony was travelling anywhere, he prefers flying. He isn't enough admitting that he's got a taste for the finer things in life and he learnt long ago that unless he was completely comfortable with the company - land journeys were not his thing. He was a big believer in popping a pill before the flight took off, pulling a mask over his eyes, and being gently woken up by a pretty air hostess when the flight landed.

 Howard however, disagreed, which is why he was in a ratty bus that moved maybe 5 miles an hour and had seats so thin that Tony could feel it digging into his skin and making a home there. This is about getting back to your roots, Howard had said when he saddled Tony with two large suitcases and then left him off the side of the road to fend for himself.

 He's been trying to sleep for the better part of an hour, but funnily enough - leaning your head against the dusty window made it rattle like you were in a laundry machine and that wasn't very conducive to a good night's sleep. And since Tony was surrounded by strangers and he had some survival skills, he wasn't about to pop a pill and make it easier for the homeless guy two seats away from him to kidnap him.

 His only small comfort was in the fact that once Rhodey had found out where Howard was shipping him, he'd laughed so hard that he'd forgotten why he was mad at Tony, or, more likely, he decided that Tony's life was already hard enough without him also having this weighing over his head.

 His exact words were: You think I'm going to miss out on you slumming it with countryfolk? Nah we're good as long as you promise to update me every single day.

 Given that there was nothing to do in Crowley Corners Tennessee (he knows, he googled it), Tony didn't think that was a hard ask.

 The bus finally halts to a screeching stop, and Tony cups his hands over the glass and peers through the window to see the sign better. C-owley C--ners, it reads, in faded red paint, and Tony is fairly certain that this is his stop. He gently pushes back the large man who'd plopped into the seat next to him over an hour ago and makes his way off the bus; rocking back and forth on his heels as he waits for the bus driver to unload his suitcases from the trunk.

 While he's waiting, he takes a cursory look around at the town that's supposed to be his home for the next summer. It's painfully obvious that they're no longer in the city, because Tony can't see another person for miles. Reaching into his back-pocket - he pulls out his phone and starts thumbing through his contacts, trying to look for the number that his father had sent him earlier.

 "Tony!" he looks up at the sound of his voice, and sees a tall woman walking up to him, with blonde hair that curls around her shoulders. Aunty Peggy, his mind supplies, thinking back to the photos he'd seen of her. There's a touch of familiarity as she gets closer, even though Tony knows it's been years since he's seen her.

 "Aunt Peggy," he replies weakly, and that's all he gets out before he's pulled in for a tight hug.

 "Oh it's so good to see you darling," she says, and Tony realises with a jolt that she has a british accent. She pulls back and cups his cheeks, not unlike how his Ajji does when he goes to visit her, "you look so much like your mother."

 Tony ignores the tug in his heart when he hears those words, mainly because nobody ever tells him that he looks like his mother, and says instead, "It's good to see you too."

 "You must be so exhausted from your journey, let's get you all settled in."

 /

Despite his preconceived notions, Aunty Peggy actually does have a nice house. She's got a jeep parked just off the side of the road from the bus-stand, because apparently Crowley Corners isn't big enough for more than a small bench at the edge of town; and Tony dutifully drags his suitcases all the way to the jeep and hauls them over to park them in the back.

 Riding in the jeep isn't too different from the bus, except that it's less stuffy and Tony can feel the wind on his face. He isn't sure if that's a good thing yet, but he silently marks it down as a point for Crowley that he doesn't immediately hate it. It's a short journey, no more than five minutes - and soon Aunt Peggy is turning the corner into what looks like a very nice house, with a man in crutches standing at the door.

 "That's my husband Daniel," she explains, as they step out and Tony goes to grab his bags, "He injured himself a couple years back and was forced to retire, and New York was no longer fun without him, so I joined him out here a couple months later."

 "What happened?" Tony asks, out of politeness more than anything.

 "He got shot at," Aunty Peggy replies, but before he can ask whether she's serious or not, they're at the front steps

off the house and Mr Sousa is making his way down the stairs. Aunty Peggy meets him half-way, tilting her head up ever so slightly to kiss him hello, because he's still a step above her - and then smoothly shifting under his arms and helping him back up the stairs.

 He thinks he can hear Aunt Peggy scolding him for trying to come down the stairs, but he isn't sure. They remind him a lot of his father and his Ma, before she died, and he turned into a tyrannical asshole. Before that though, he remembers them being happy.

 "Come on in Tony!" Aunt Peggy calls after him, and Tony moves to grab his bags, when movement from the side of the house catches his eyes. Huh, he thinks to himself, I didn't know anyone else lived here. He wants to ask Aunt Peggy who it is, but she's already gone inside, so he feels a bit foolish yelling after her.

 "Hello?" he calls out hesitantly, "Is anyone there?"

 There's a shuffle and then a boy who can't be much older than Tony steps out; with mud on the scuffs off his boots and wearing an honest to god cowboy hat.

 "Howdy!" he says brightly, while Tony tries to wrap his head around the cowboy hat, "You must be Mrs Sousa's nephew." He wipes the back of his hand against his cotton tshirt, which is so thin that it's practically see through, "Clark Kent. I help out with Mr and Mrs Sousa's ranch sometimes, on account of Mrs Sousa being away a lot and Mr Sousa's leg injury."

 "Tony," he says back, and up close, Tony notices that his thick framed glasses and wide brimmed hat are hiding blue eyes, "Tony Stark."

 "Nice to meet you Tony Stark," Clark says with a twinkle, "I guess I'll be seeing a lot of you 'round here."

 "Yeah," his tongue feels heavy, but Tony manages to unstick it just enough to say, "yeah I suppose you will."

 Both of them stare at each other for a couple of seconds longer, missing the way Peggy looks at the pair of them with a private smile playing on her lips.

 Fin

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 33 of 26

Title: The Edge of Worlds (2016) (The Books of the Raksura #4)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person

Rating: 9/10

Date Began: 11/28/2020

Date Finished: 12/09/2020

Two turns after The Siren Depths, Moon has settled into life in the Indigo Cloud colony with young children of his own. But when all the adult Raksura experience a disturbing, shared nightmare that foretells the destruction of their home at the hands of the Fell, things are about to change. Soon an expedition of strange groundlings visit The Reaches, claiming they need the Raksura to help investigate a mysterious abandoned city far to the west. Believing the two events are linked, Moon and the others embark on a journey to avert disaster. However, they soon find more than they bargained for when a Fell attack traps them in the deadly, labyrinthine city ruins.  

If eyes fall on this, and no one is here to greet you, then we have failed. Yet you exist, so our failure is not complete. 

Full review, some spoilers, and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book:  Graphic violence and action. Some mind control stuff (par for the course at this point). 

This is a difficult book to review because it is, for all intents and purposes, part one of a longer two-part story. While the three previous books were all self-contained, The Edge of Worlds isn't, even ending on a cliffhanger. I feel like this duology might have been written as a single book but got split for publishing reasons. As of this writing I have not read the next book, The Harbors of the Sun. So take what I say with a grain of salt, because my commentary assumes the next book will address certain things.

The Edge of Worlds’ core plot builds on threads from the previous book-- mysterious ancestors, bizarre dead cities, the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds, and so on. This book doesn't include any new details about the ancestors, which are just called "the forerunners", but I expect the next book to touch on this more, as it’s been a consistent Thing in the series. There's also another mysterious, ancient ruin critical to the plot. However, it’s pretty different than the underwater city in The Siren Depths, so doesn't seem repetitive. Oddly, it reminds me of House Of Leaves with its vast size, impenetrable darkness, and sentient (?) traps.

The book also explores Fell/Raksura crossbreeds in yet another way. Previous books depicted them as terrifying weapons (The Cloud Roads) or just weird looking Raksura (The Siren Depths). The Edge of Worlds splits the difference, introducing a Fell flight that seems much more sympathetic and reasonable than any encountered thus far-- led by a crossbreed queen. My criticism of the Fell way back in The Cloud Roads is they're basically an Always Chaotic Evil horde of predators, but this new idea adds a lot of nuance. Though I am assuming the next book goes into this more, as they’re just introduced here. It's important to remember the Fell and Raksura are descended from the same ancestor, and even though Raksura are the heroes of the story, there are a lot of similarities between the two species. Overall this is one of the most intriguing threads in the series, and I'm glad we keep coming back to it in new ways.

Another thing this book does differently is perspective. Moon is the POV character in the other main entries. While that's still true, there are several interludes from the perspectives of others. For practical purposes this is to show what's going on outside of the main party, particularly so Malachite showing up at the end doesn't feel like an asspull. Also, certain events really do need to be explained when Moon isn't present. I can respect that.

From a reading standpoint I really like these alternate points of view. They're all minor characters-- Lithe, Ember, Merit, River, and Niran-- which is an interesting choice. Ember's interlude is actually my favorite part of the book. It's fun to see a more "traditional" consort approach an awkward situation, and I like his initial struggle to accept and treat Shade (one of the crossbreeds and a personal fave of mine from the last book) as a regular consort. Ember comes off as very submissive in the rest of the series so it's fun to see him take charge. Also this part features a scene in which two intimidating Raksuran queens, Pearl and Malachite, have the most tense tea service of all time. It's just hilarious. 

This book actually has a trans analogue with the Janderan, the primary groundling species, who apparently choose their gender when they reach adulthood. Specifically there’s a focus on a young man named Kalam, who just took that step. This doesn't feel like the standard fantasy/scifi copout because humans literally do not exist in the series. Wells handles trans/nonbinary/agender characters (human and otherwise) extremely well in The Murderbot Diaries so I feel it’s in good faith. LGBT rep in the Raksura series has been great so far, honestly. Moon/Jade/Chime is like... canon, man.

Another general observation I haven't previously noted... I love how many interesting and varied flying ships there are in this world. They're all boat-like (nothing like airplanes) but there has been a different kind in each book. Considering that most of the main cast can fly it's interesting that flying ships are consistently integral to the plot. It would be so easy to cop out and design one ship that every society uses, but Wells really makes them all unique despite serving similar functions to the story. The ship in this one is organic, powered by living, cultivated moss. I dunno! I just think it’s neat. 

I do have one criticism for The Edge of Worlds, keeping in mind it's part one of a longer story. The pacing. This book is pretty slow; it takes a while to get going and then there are lots of lengthy travel sequences. As long as there’s interesting flavor to it, I generally don't mind this approach. It allows for breathing room and character interaction. But even I started feeling bored at points and had to power through. It feels like a lot of the travel could have been cut from the book without losing much. For example, the journey to the colony tree in The Serpent Sea took up maybe a few chapters. I appreciate travel in this series from a worldbuilding perspective, but in this case I think some time gaps would have been fine. The action doesn't pick up until the party arrives at the ruin, in the latter half of the book.

Also, this isn't really a criticism, but there are several references to the Raksura novellas and short stories. I haven't read them (yet) so they’re totally lost on me. I can't blame Wells for including references, both as a wink/nudge to people who have read them and because ignoring relevant ideas makes no sense. But as someone lacking context it comes off as awkward to have a character think “WOW, this is just like that one time Jade had to do this one thing!” and I’m just like “...it is???” 

Despite this I like just about everything else in the story, especially the second half. It really does feel like a proper finale, bringing back notable characters from throughout the series (not anyone from The Serpent Sea yet... I do have my suspicions here, though). River seems to be getting a mini redemption? The labyrinthine, dark city is creepy, and the artifact they find inside it is super unsettling. All the climactic action is intriguing, particularly regarding the new Fell crossbreeds. The novel ends abruptly, but that’s understandable since the next book leads right off from it. I'm really excited to see how the Raksura story concludes.

[aliceslantern]

Give/Take, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic, chapter 10

Ienzo has been too busy since the war to be overwhelmed by the past. But with little progress to be made in his work with Kairi, old nightmares start to invade.

Riku is a glorified housesitter. Lonely and faced with no choice but to wait for a way to find his friends, he eagerly accepts when Ienzo asks him to help do repairs around the castle. Before long, the two strike up an unlikely friendship, united by their dark pasts and their attempts to be better people.

But just as they begin to consider something more... Kairi wakes up.

Ienzoku (Ienzo/Riku), post-Melody of Memory, slow burn. Updates Thursdays until it's done.

Chapter summary:  Ienzo arrives in Destiny Islands, and experiences quite a bit of culture shock.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

It was raining in Radiant Garden when Riku arrived. He very nearly had trouble with visibility and the ship skidded a little when he touched down. He swore.

He'd offered his friends the opportunity to come along, on the one hand trying to get Sora interested in something, but he just said to "enjoy time with your boyfriend" with an eyebrow waggle.

He and Kairi had both been merciless, teasing him about it. Neither seemed that concerned he was dating someone who used to be Zexion. They both said Ienzo was a great guy. "Dating." They hadn't been on a date; he could fix that. They hadn't also called it that in so many words. Ienzo had, in his letter.

Riku's heart was racing. He checked himself one last time, making sure his hair looked alright in its ponytail.

Ienzo was waiting under an outcropping, a small duffle next to him. Riku dashed out of the rain as quickly as he could. “Beautiful day, isn’t it,” he said to Riku, and Riku noted that the subtleties of his tone had not carried over to the letters.

“Just perfect,” he said, feeling at a bit of loss for words. He was here, he could touch him.

There was a beat, a moment. Ienzo cleared his throat a little. “I’m not a mirage,” he said.

Riku chuckled. “Right.”

A bit awkwardly, Ienzo pulled him close. Riku got the notion that he didn’t hug much, and it probably didn’t feel natural to initiate. But it felt good, too good, to hold him, to breathe in his smell. He didn’t want to pull away, not yet. “It feels like ages, and yet an instant,” Ienzo said. “Let me look at you.” He pulled away and brushed his fingers across Riku’s cheek. “Your hair grows preternaturally fast.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. Riku realized for the first time that he was, in fact, now slightly taller than Ienzo.

Ienzo just stared at him as though he might disappear. Riku wondered if this time had been lonely, or difficult, for him. Ienzo cleared his throat a little. “Enough of the longing gazes for now, I think.”

“Right. Ah. But first.” He kissed him, and for a second they melted against each other. It felt exactly like Riku remembered. “Not sure I could’ve flown straight if I didn’t do that.”

“Well if it’s all in the guise of safety,” Ienzo said. “Do you need anything before we leave? Are you hungry?”

“I brought snacks,” he said. “Let me get your--” He picked up the bag.

“What a gentleman.”

They walked quickly through the rain back into the ship. “As many times as I’ve seen the inside of this on a video, I’ve never actually seen it,” Ienzo said. “It’s quite a lot smaller than I thought.”

“Yeah, no idea how the three of them managed,” Riku said. “You should see the size of the bunk rooms. But Sora’s a half-pint. You want to nose around a moment, go for it.”

“...I think I shall.”

Riku watched him poke around, looking into the tiny rooms, almost hitting his head on the door frames. His eyes were alight with curiosity. “These are so small,” he said.

“Sora always said they tried to avoid sleeping in it if they could.”

“I don’t blame them.” He turned back. “Well. Thanks for that. Should I just--”

“Sit wherever,” he said. “You only really need the straps for takeoff. It’s really safe.”

“...Quite.” He sat to Riku’s right and did up his harness. “Here we go, then.”

He smirked. “You nervous?”

“No,” he said. “But consider I’ve never much been off the ground.”

“It’s okay. I won’t kill us.”

“How reassuring.”

The takeoffs and the landings were always Riku’s favorite part, partially because it required the most input from him. Seeing the worlds disappear beneath him, and feeling the g-forces, was always a bit of a thrill. He tried to do so as gently as possible, keenly aware that as a first time flyer part of Ienzo’s calm was staged. He had his hands clenched very tightly in his lap. But once they were actually in the quiet of space, this seemed to disappear. “Is that really it?” Ienzo asked softly, gazing down at the world.

“Cool, isn’t it?”

“This is bizarre. It’s so… small.” He pressed his hand gently against the windshield. “Huh.”

Riku let him have the moment. “You’ll see more as we go along,” he said. “But it’s mostly a lot of rubble.”

“From the Fracture, I’m sure.”

“Could be.” He turned away and set the course. “We’ve got a good few hours before we get there.”

Ienzo undid the straps and settled more comfortably. “Is it very hard, to fly?”

Riku laughed. “No,” he said, and to demonstrate he lifted his hands from the controls, seeing Ienzo pale. “Aside from takeoffs and landings it pretty much flies itself. All of the positioning gummies. You wanna try?”

Riku could see him debating it. “Maybe on the way back.”

“All I have to do is keep an eye on the radar. If we’re lucky we might see some Heartless ships, but they’re generally getting rarer and rarer.”

“Do you fight them?”

“Yeah. There’s lasers, and a shield, the whole nine. Sora has it tricked out pretty good. Most of them are weak, anyway.”

Ienzo leaned over a little more to see the dash.

“There are other ways to travel around, but this is the most comfortable,” Riku said. “Using the lanes between… it’s like a motorcycle versus a car.”

“I’m going to pretend I’ve experienced either of those things.”

Riku chuckled. “Right. Well, you’ll see some of that on DI.”

He was quiet for a moment. “This is one of the first times I’ve physically travelled anywhere,” he said. “Whenever I… went to other worlds, I just… used a dark corridor. All it took was a few steps.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Travelling? Yes. Darkness? No. Always a stink that’s hard to get rid of.” He wrinkled his nose. “I haven’t been anywhere since I’m human again. ...And that’s nearly two years.”

“...I can’t exactly say the same.”

They chatted for a while longer, about nothing much, mostly about Riku’s new life back home. He was more excited than he thought to show Ienzo around, to give him a taste of normalcy as well. “Though it’s going to be a whole lot hotter than you’re used to,” he said. “Like, don’t be shy to tell me it’s too much. We can go back into the AC.”

Ienzo laughed. “It’s a good thing I like you.”

Riku felt his face flush. He tried to come up with something witty to say quickly. “...You said you had to tell your friends something to leave.”

“Yes. Well.” Ienzo leaned back and crossed his legs. “In their minds, one must always have a reason to go somewhere. Leisure isn’t exactly in their codebook. I said I wanted to check in with Sora and Kairi, make sure everything was alright, learn what I could about your journey. Ansem already knew, and asked if I would be visiting you, too. It was only a hop-skip-and-jump before the others figured it out. It… shocked them that I’d even wanted to pursue a relationship of any kind.”

“Why? You’re grown up.”

“To a degree they’re used to who I was , not who I am.”

Riku frowned and checked the radar. “I know how that is.”

Ienzo smiled. “I know you do. Does it bother you that I said something?”

“No. Not at all. Sora and Kairi have been teasing me about it. They think it’s hilarious. I’ve never really… shown that I had a crush on someone.”

“You have a crush on me? How sweet.”

“I’ve literally kissed you.”

The rest of the flight went smoothly, and Riku saw the familiar blue sphere emerge. “Ah, there it is,” he said. “Look.”

“How pretty.” He was already strapping himself in.

“We’re landing down on the play island. It’s basically the only inconspicuous place I can keep this thing. But it’s not far from there. And we’re a good few hours ahead of you for time, I think.”

“I see.”

His friends had helped him build the makeshift landing pad. The earth of it was different than the rest of the island, and they were on the far side where the ship couldn’t easily be seen from the mainland. The touchdown was easy. “Here we are.”

“I guess so,” Ienzo murmured.

“Ready?”

“Quite.”

He took Ienzo’s bag, and they started walking.

“You said this was a play island?”

“Oh, yeah. When we were kids we spent hours and hours here. Now we hang out here.” He pointed out the main landmarks; the shack, the waterfall, the treehouses. “It’s… a good place to come if you need to be alone. Lots of nooks and crannies.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“We’ll take my boat back to the mainland. From there it’s about half a mile walk.”

“A mile?”

“Right… uh…” He struggled to remember metrics. “Almost a kilometer. About ten minutes, fifteen if people stop us. Which they might. Sorry in advance.” He helped Ienzo down into the rowboat.

“Stop us?”

“Well, it’s a small island,” he said. “Everyone knows everyone, and everyone’s been chatting me up since I got back. A new face is gonna be interesting to them.” He started rowing. The surf was nice and gentle today, making it easy. He noticed Ienzo’s eyes flick to his arms and felt a flush of pride. “We’ll be staying with my parents.”

“Oh, I don’t mean to impose, I brought money for an inn--”

“Ienzo, no,” Riku said, with a small laugh. “You even bringing that up is gonna seem rude to my mom.”

“Oh… is that cultural?”

“I guess so?” He shrugged. “She loves entertaining, too. Besides, you might decide you want to stay longer than the amount of money you have.”

“I see--I didn’t even bring a hostess gift--”

“It’s alright,” Riku said. “That doesn’t matter here either. People like to host. They don’t expect you to do anything other than have a good time.”

He looked a bit embarrassed.

“Relax,” Riku said. “It’s going to be fine.” They were at the dock at last. He docked and helped Ienzo back out, taking his bag from him. The sun was starting to set now, casting the shore in pinks and reds.

“Oh…” Ienzo said. “That is lovely.”

“It kinda is,” Riku said. He rested a hand on Ienzo’s waist, and though he jerked a little at the touch, he leaned into it. “You know, I’ve seen a lot of sunsets here. But they’re always something.”

Ienzo nodded. After a few minutes, they headed up the shore to the road. They were standing close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and Riku’s heart was beating hard. He wanted to touch him. He needed to. He reached out, groping for Ienzo’s hand, found it at last. Again, he jumped a little.

“I’m sorry--”

“No, I’m just not… used to it,” Ienzo said, squeezing his hand gently.

It was nice , walking up the road hand-in-hand like this. With my boyfriend, Riku thought. The streets were emptier at this hour than he thought, but then he remembered. “Oh, right, there’s a game going on.”

“A game?”

“Blitzball. On TV. I think it’s the playoffs. Well, better for us.”

“What is blitzball and what is TV,” Ienzo asked, not humorlessly.

Riku sighed and explained.

“Oh, almost like volleyball,” Ienzo said, with no explanation of what this was. “Though this TV intrigues me.”

“Well, I have one in my room, so we can watch later if you feel up to it.” If his parents didn’t chat them up until dawn.

They turned onto his street. The houses were fairly close together, with small patches of lawn. Ienzo looked around at it all, his eyes wide, curious. His eyebrows shot up when a car drove past them.

“That’s a car,” Riku said. “We use them to get around on land.”

“Fascinating. I’ve seen them on other worlds, but this looks different. How does it work?”

“Um…” He struggled to remember. “Well, they’re solar powered, so the sun charges the batteries, and the batteries… help make the engine go.” He laughed a little. “I don’t know anything about engines.”

“Do you know how to drive?”

“No. I don’t really need to. Almost everything is within walking distance, and if it isn’t, you can take the bus. Er. It’s a car that has room for lots of people, and takes them along a route.”

“Like a streetcar,” Ienzo said. “Radiant Garden used to have those.” He sighed. “I knew our worlds were different, but I didn’t realize… how much. I’m already sweating.”

“And this is night,” Riku said. “Wait til tomorrow.” He took his house keys out of his pocket. He could use the Keyblade, but that seemed weird, and extra. “This one.” The house looked like any on the street; a simple two-storey, three bedroom, with a small offshoot over the garage. The siding was a bright teal, and his mother’s well-groomed strelitzias were in full bloom.

“It’s cute,” Ienzo said. “Cozy.”

“I’ll give you “cozy.”” He laughed. “Alright. Prepare yourself.”

Ienzo sighed.

He put his key in the lock. Predictably, the door flew open before he could even twitch them. “Welcome home!” His mother said. “So glad you made it back in one piece.” She gave Riku a painfully tight hug. “You must be Ienzo. Oh, hello, dear, welcome to the islands.” Before Riku could stop her she’d swept him into a hug, too, and Riku saw the brief spasm of panic. “Sorry, I’m a hugger.”

Ienzo coughed a little. “Ah. Hello. Pleasure to meet you.”

“We’re so happy to have any friend of Riku’s.” She’d finally let go of him but was holding his hands tightly. “Dinner’s almost ready. You two must be starving after your long trip.”

“Sounds lovely,” Ienzo said dazedly. “Thanks so much.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “ Matsu! Your son’s back!”

“Watching the game?” Riku asked.

“ Glued. All afternoon.” She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you two get settled and I’ll call you when it’s ready?”

A tall, slender man--Riku’s father--came out of the room. He had a well-groomed mustache, his hair close cropped to his scalp. “Smooth ride?” he asked.

“Went off without a hitch,” Riku said. “Dad, this is Ienzo. Ienzo, this is my dad, Matsuda.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Ienzo said, offering his hand. Riku saw how hard and how firm his father took it and winced.

“You know when Riku said you were from another world I was imagining a little green guy, but you look pretty normal,” he said.

“Dad,” Riku said. “I told you about the One Sky thing.”

Ienzo laughed politely, a little stiffly. “I’m very much human.”

“Well I think that’s good. Can I get you something to drink? We have it all.”

“...Drink?”

“He means alcohol,” Riku said, rolling his eyes. “Dad, don’t make Ienzo drink if he doesn’t want to.”

“Er…” Ienzo clearly wasn’t sure what the right answer was.

“You know what, I’ll get you two a cassis.” He disappeared into the den, where the liquor was.

“You okay?” Riku asked. “I’m sorry they both grabbed you like that. We’re… feelers, here.”

Ienzo shook his head. “I’m sorry, this is all new to me.”

“It’s okay. I think they both understand. They’re just trying to be friendly.” Riku kicked himself both for not preparing Ienzo better and for not telling his parents to chill.  

Matsuda came back a minute later with two highballs of cassis orange. “Be careful with these,” he said, with a wink.

“Dad,” Riku said.

“Alright, alright, I’ll let you two get settled.”

Riku bobbed his head towards the garage door. “We’re up through here.”

“Does this have something to do with that long story?”

He sighed. “Yes.”

---

Ienzo followed Riku up a set of stairs to another door, which Riku unlocked. The drink was cold in his hand, and felt awkward to carry up. “Here we go,” he said.

It looked to be more of a studio apartment than a bedroom. There was an alcove opposite the door, which was just wide enough for a double bed. The alcove had a large window which faced the sea. Next to it was a tall dresser with a lamp. To Ienzo’s right was a small kitchenette, with a minifridge, a hot plate, a coffee maker, and a toaster oven. On the left was a sofa, which had been made up neatly with sheets and a few pillows. Near it was what looked to be a computer screen on a small stand, powered off, but with no accompanying console. The walls were a plain gray, and unadorned, and there were a few boxes labeled “RIKU--SAVE” shoved in one corner. The dark hardwood floors were clearly beautiful, but needed a good refinish. Everything smelled very clean, though there wasn’t anything that said anything about Riku as a person. “You have your own apartment,” Ienzo said.

“Ah--yeah, sort of.” Riku set down the duffle next to the couch. “I… used to have a bedroom in the main house, but then I disappeared, and my parents… went to grief counseling.” He turned red and couldn’t meet Ienzo’s eyes. “They were told it would help if they packed away my things, and they sold my furniture. They would’ve remade my room downstairs, but dad works from home now, so he kind of needs it as an office.” He cleared his throat. “This used to be my grandma’s apartment before she passed. They didn’t have the heart to rent it out, or anything.”

“Oh,” Ienzo said, very quietly.

“I like it, though,” he said. “Being close to them, but not too close. Having a sliver of independence.”

“I can see that.”

“We used to have an air mattress, but mice got to it. I hope the couch will be okay until we can get a new one.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” It was cooler in here, but not cool enough. Ienzo didn’t anticipate sleeping well anyway. He was still a bit shaky. He took a sip of the drink, found it went down easily.

“You don’t have to drink that,” Riku said.

“It’s tasty.”

He smiled a little. “He meant what he said when he said to be careful. He makes drinks strong.”

“Your parents. Do they know about us?”

“Yeah, I’m out,” Riku said. “Mom probably just didn’t want to push it.”

“And they’re okay with… us staying in the same room?” It made him blush just thinking about it, even if this was in the most innocent sense of the word.

Riku blushed too. “I know I said they’re suffocating me, but when I’m up here they try to give me privacy,” he said. “I don’t think they, uh, care what I do so long as I’m happy. And here. I’m an adult, after all.”

“Right. Understood.” Ienzo drank down more of the cocktail, partially because he was thirsty.

“...I hope you’re hungry. Mom cooks a lot , and I’m sure she’ll use you as an excuse to pull out all the stops. Show you islander cuisine and all that.”

He smiled a little. “Sounds lovely.”

A few moments later they were summoned. Riku’s house was similarly styled in bright colors, with a full living room. There was a shelf full of photos of Riku, and Ienzo couldn’t help his curiosity. “Oh, god, don’t,” Riku said quickly.

Ienzo smirked. “Look at you. Was this when you were a baby ? Look how fat your cheeks were.”

He turned redder than the drink in his hand. “I think she put these out specifically because you were coming.”

“I think it’s sweet.” He reached out and touched the frame in question. He felt a sudden stab of melancholy and wondered if there were any photos of him when he were little, if he’d have had this type of life if his parents hadn’t passed--

“Boys? Dinner’s ready.” Riku’s mother was slender and very beautiful; he looked more like her than his father. She brushed her hands off on her apron. Riku brought him through to the dining room.

The table was low to the ground, and there were no chairs, just small cushions. Most of the table was cluttered with lots and lots of small bowls of all sorts of things, some of which Ienzo could identify, some he couldn’t. He saw kimchi and poi, meats in some kind of sweet sauce, something that looked like dim sum. The mixture was eclectic but somehow it seemed to work, to make sense. And it all smelled delicious. He realized that, between the travel and being afraid to meet Riku’s parents, he was actually ravenous. “Oh no, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me,” Ienzo said.

“It was no trouble at all, dear,” she said.

“Mariko loves to cook,” his father said. “Besides, we’ll eat on it for the week.”

“Go ahead. Sit down.”

Ienzo did. It felt a little odd to be so low to the ground. “So you sort of take a little of what you want and use the same plate,” Riku told him.

There was also a pitcher of something pink that was passed around that he was also told was mildly alcoholic. Ienzo waited for the others to serve themselves before quickly taking at least a bite of everything onto his plate. But nobody ate. Instead, Riku’s mother and father both offered him one of their hands.

“They like to say a prayer first,” Riku said, a little embarrassed.

“Oh,” Ienzo said. “Sorry.”

Joined in an odd little circle, Matsuda bowed his head and the others followed, so Ienzo did too. “We’d like to give thanks to the gods for the meal we’re about to receive, and to give thanks for welcoming our son back safely home along with his new friend.” He said something in a language Ienzo could not understand, and Riku and Mariko both repeated it. “Alright, let’s eat.”

Everything was delicious and so interesting , not quite like anything he’d had before. He tried to remember the manners he’d been taught when he was young, but he noticed that all of them were even eating some of the dishes with their hands. “Everything is just wonderful,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Aren’t you sweet,” Mariko said.

“...I like to pretend I’m something of a cook myself. Will you tell me a little bit about this?”

“Oh, don’t get her started,” Matsuda said.

Mariko told him all about islander cuisine and how it was prepared, down to the use of marinades, where their things were sourced, and on and on. Ienzo found it fascinating and wished he could write it down. “I’d be happy to share some of the recipes with you. Not all of it, though. Some of it’s secret.” She winked.

Ienzo wanted to keep eating, but he was already getting full and he’d been warned there was dessert. “I see.”

“What is it like where you’re from?” Matsuda asked.

“Riku’s kept it very hush-hush. Very mysterious,” Mariko said, approvingly.

“Oh… well, Radiant Garden isn’t all that special,” he said, thinking of how overwhelmed he’d felt on the island streets. Perhaps they would feel the same if they ever came to visit.

“Must be special enough if our boy’s going out of his way to see you,” his father said, though his tone was teasing.

“Matsu,” Mariko said. “Don’t embarrass the boy.”

Riku rolled his eyes a little. “Well,” Ienzo said. “For one, it’s quite a lot cooler there.” He told them a little bit about what the weather was like, about how the town was. He tried to not mention that Ansem had once been king, just that he was a scientist in the castle and that Ienzo had grown up there.

“A castle ,” Matsuda said, whistling. “Fancy.”

“Ah--not quite. Our world fell to darkness, quite like yours. So bits of it are in disrepair.” He didn’t mention Riku’s assistance there, not sure of the situation with his parents. “Coming here and seeing all these family homes has been quite refreshing.”

“So what is it you do?” Matsuda asked. “Do you go to school? Or work?”

Ienzo swallowed and took a sip of the pink drink. He drank so rarely that he feared he was a bit tipsy. “I’m a scientist, and a researcher,” he said slowly. “My main project lately has been restoration of the library’s collections.” A glamorous phrase for what he was actually doing.

“What is it you study?”

He blinked. “Well, historically, hearts. The metaphysical hearts in us all. But I’ve studied a fair share of lots of fields along the way.”

“Hearts. How romantic,” Mariko said.

“Ienzo’s work was actually instrumental in helping Kairi and I find Sora,” Riku said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he murmured.

“Oh, don’t be modest, you helped bring him back to us. For that, you’ll always be welcome here,” his mother said.

Ienzo blushed and looked back down at his plate.

“Are you boys ready for dessert?”

Hours later, more stuffed with food than Ienzo could comprehend, Riku gently pried them from the table. Both of his parents kept asking all sorts of questions about Radiant Garden, about Ienzo, about how they’d met (this caused quite an awkward moment). Riku just said they’d met when he was looking for Sora and only got to know each other later. Ienzo was a bit drunk and a bit dehydrated and definitely tired.

“Mari, we should let the poor boys sleep before you keep them up all night,” Riku’s father said at last.

“Please at least let me help with the dishes,” Ienzo said. He could only imagine what it must look like in the kitchen with all this food.

“I absolutely will not,” Mariko said. “You’re a guest, and you’re exhausted. Go on, get settled. Get. ”

“Thank you,” he said softly, and followed Riku back to the apartment.

The room was mostly dark; Riku flicked on the lamp. “How are you holding up?”

“So full I could burst,” Ienzo said. “But that was… lovely.”

“I’m sorry if they made you uncomfortable.”

“No, they didn’t. Not really. I’m…” How to put this without sounding pathetic. “I’ve never really… seen or taken part in such normal life.”

“No?”

“I was raised by five scientists in a lab. Sitting and having such an extensive home cooked meal was not a common occurrence.” He offered a smile. “Nor were either of the castles so homey.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t pity me,” Ienzo said gently. “That is just to say this all feels a bit foreign. You must be exhausted. You had a much longer day than I did.”

“The carbs don’t help,” he said.

“Is there… perhaps… some place I can shower?”

“Right--oh, of course, the bathroom’s through there. Do you need anything?”

“...Just a towel.” He dug into his duffle for his toiletries and pajamas.

Riku handed him one from a cabinet. “You can hang it on the door when you’re done.”

“...Thanks.”

After a cold, cold shower Ienzo felt a bit better. Riku had already changed and was sitting on his bed, braiding his hair. “If I don’t sleep with it like this it ends up a mess of knots.”

“...I see.” He identified the strangeness he was feeling--the odd intimacy of sleeping in someone else’s house, seeing them getting ready for something as mundane as bed.

“You wanna watch some TV?”

“I really am exhausted,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow?” Perhaps by then he’d feel curious.

He smiled. “Sure. Of course. Let me… let me know if you need any more pillows or blankets.”

“I sincerely think I won’t need more blankets,” Ienzo said. He sat down on the made-up soda. It was actually quite comfortable.

“Good night, Ienzo.”

“Good night, Riku.”

The light clicked off.

[puppetmaster55]

Thoughts on s3 and s4

Okay, this is gonna be long. presented below the cut are my thoughts, such that they are, about how well (or, er, not) s4 plays off of s3 and how well they do (or don’t) connect into what they originally were: a single 13-episode season.

So, s3 and s4. Two short seasons that feel like half seasons, and once existed as a single 13-episode season.

I believe that separating them was a major saving grace, as I don’t think s3 and s4 come together into a single season. There’s a tonal dissonance to them, where the s4 finale doesn’t feel at all like what was being built up toward with everything that happened in s3. Heck, the events of s4 don’t feel like a real continuation of everything that was set up in s3.

Like, imagine if this plan to separate the seasons into shorter seasons had happened earlier in the series. So, for s1, that means that it would have ended with retaking the Castle from Sendak (with Taking Flight being the start of the ‘new season’). And for s2, the split would happen with Space Mall (where it ended) and Blade of Marmora (where the ‘new season’ would begin).

In this scenario, imagining these ‘half-season seasons’ as one long season fits perfectly. The second half of s1 focused on the aftereffects of the first half with the events at the Balmera, Crystal Venom, Taking Flight, even the finale and the galactic hub feel like a culmination of where the story started going in the first half. It all feels like two halves of one clear and whole storyline.

And the same for s2. The second half features a number of elements introduced in the first half, with the teludav and the Blade of Marmora and the gravity engine, that continues the 13-episode through-line. As with s1, the first half is all set-up, and the second half is the payoff and aftereffects of everything that’s happened so far.

You can even look at it from a bigger perspective and say that s1 and s2, as a complete set of 26 episodes (the first episode of s1 being 3 episodes combined together, as multiple sources say) fits and flows wonderfully together. Were there moments in both seasons that felt like bits of storytelling were pushed off-screen? Yes, but it never felt like it detracted from the viewing experience.

And then s3 happens. S3 very much felt like half a season, and was well done. There was set-up all around, even if it felt like we were missing entire scenes (such as new bayard forms, or the new team set-up coming together outside of the Lions, or Shiro’s immediate return to the Castle), but overall it was pretty well done. The timeline set it all happening over the course of at most two weeks, so it was pretty clear to understand the sequence of events. Shiro’s journey from his escape to his rescue is, as he said, taking place over the course of ten days (which started with Thaceryx and concluded as we had seen), and then adding in the several days to recover before tracking the comet to Throk’s base and immediately after getting Voltron’s (and Zarkon and Alfor’s) origin story, during which Zarkon wakes back up. It was all very incredible set-up to play out in s4.

And then s4 came. The first time I watched s4, I felt like I’d skipped something. There was a massive timeskip that happened somewhere between the end of s3 and the start of s4 (Lotor had just come into power and now it’s been months that Shiro has been back? It’s been months since Zarkon opened his eyes? Months.

In s4, I expected it to be an inversion of s2, with Voltron using the tracker Hunk had built to reverse track Lotor while he clashed with Zarkon. I expected it to take place on the heels of s3. I expected Keith’s leadership to start crumbling as Shiro contested his orders and they both learned that Keith’s not made for leading nor does he want to lead.

S4 did feel like half a season, yes, but not the second half of the same season that was s3. It felt like the start of a new season entirely. S4 made me look back at s3 and go “oh, these feel like two complete seasons that were cut down into shorter lengths”. The timeline in s4 is just as compressed, it feels, which is great (Lotor’s meeting with Haggar to his betrayal at the ruins of Daibazaal happens all in less than a week, which frames a good portion of the season as happening over the course of a week).

But the major problem with that whole “months” timeskip? Lotor, in about a week, had turned about 20 percent of the comet into a ship. We’re supposed to believe that he then slowed production down so that it took months for another 20 percent to become another ship?

And I use that amount because in s4ep3, Acxa talks about there being 60 percent of the comet remaining as they finish construction on the second ship, then mentioning using that remaining 60 percent to craft the planned third ship.

So no. Unless we’re to believe that there was a months-long timeskip between Shiro returning to the Castle and his returning to duty the next episode (which I don’t subscribe to, tbh, and I think that encounter counts as “crossing paths with Lotor” which Keith mentions in s4ep1 hasn’t happened in months), the sudden timeskip between s3 and s4 doesn’t make sense. Why act so quickly to build one ship only to take months to build the second one?

Then there’s the complete tonal shift. S3 was focused almost entirely on the fight with Lotor. It was about learning about Lotor and what his motives are, especially concerning the comet. S4, then should have been about working to stop Lotor and continuing the aftereffects of Shiro’s return and his inability to fly Black, and Keith’s own struggles and mistakes in leading (specifically, that he Did Not Want To) as they all navigate this whole “six paladins for five lions” thing.

But s4 didn’t continue that. S4 practically ignored the fight against Lotor (it ignored Lotor as an antagonist entirely, honestly) and spent six episodes building up the Coalition. Which, yeah okay, that continues the start of the Coalition we had in the start of s3, but still. If you combined s3 and s4 into one 13-episode season, they don’t feel like they flow together. S4 doesn’t build off of the events of s3.

If s3 were 13-episodes long, and s4 itself 13-episodes, with more time spent setting up the events of s4, it would flow together. But it doesn’t. The s4 finale doesn’t feel like the culmination of what was set up in s3. The s3 finale, even, doesn’t set up where s4 picks up. It doesn’t set up the importance of building the Coalition that is the central focus of s4. There’s little to nothing in s3 to suggest that the fight (or trap, even) on Naxzela was what it was all building up toward.

Yes, though, there is the steady shift away from Galran technology and toward Altean technology, but in terms of storytelling? S4 isn’t any sort of pay-off from the build-up of s3. S4 is more build-up, with a different focus entirely.

And what about s5? Well it is true that s5 does feature pay-off, I can’t say for certain how well it flows with s3 and s4 until after s6 drops. It doesn’t feel right to discuss the flow and storytelling coherency of a 26-episode storyline when only 19 of those episodes are available. However, it does feel right to discuss the flow of s3 and s4, such as they were once considered a singular 13-episode season.

So s3 and s4 have the feeling of being half-seasons, but they lack the feel of being two halves of the same season.

[memsmedic1]

Family, Work, and Divemastering (Nov 5, 2018-May 23, 2019)

At noon on Monday, November 5 Nathan and I, along with a couple of our more adventurous team members, took our scuba tanks and gear into downtown Yangon to the public pool I’d scoped out the week before and gotten permission to use from the pool manager.

We were going in order to practice some basic diving drills to refresh our skills (and have fun) in preparation for an upcoming dive. Nathan had been diving several times over the spring and summer since he was working on his instructor certification, but I’d always had other responsibilities and hadn’t been able to go with him. I’m pretty sure nobody at the pool had ever seen anything like it before because soon we attracted several amazed spectators!

The night of the 7th Nathan and I met up with one of our friends, Dr. Than Win, to drive 5 hours northwest of Yangon out to the small coastal fishing town of Ngwe Saung, on the Bay of Bengal, to go scuba diving again. Arriving at the beach after an exhausting, bumpy ride over narrow, primitive roads, we parked in a vacant lot for a few hours until dawn and then hauled our gear bags over a rickety wooden bridge spanning a small estuary and across a wide sandy beach to the predetermined rendezvous point with the boat.

The boat, was, as we should have expected, enormously late. This was not a problem though, as it gave us the opportunity to watch a sunrise wedding photoshoot and visit with three other young divers who were traveling the world on a cruise ship while enrolled in a ‘study at sea’ type of college program!

A small outboard motorboat finally arrived to ferry us out across the crystal clear water, just a little bit warmer than the early morning air, to the larger boat we would be diving from. This boat was a great hulking wooden monstrosity, with a huge, loud, water-cooled, underpowered inboard engine taking up the entire hold. When the engine cranked over several liters of greasy oily water belched out from the bilge directly onto the deck of the boat moored next to us and commenced spreading out in a thin film over the water.

As soon as the gear was stowed and the anchors weighed we started on what was supposed to be a 45 minute ride out to some small islands where the dives would take place. The problem though was that our boat was slow. We were on the slow boat to India! We couldn’t see it on the way out, but this boat was so slow that on the way back the incoming swells were rolling past us as if we were standing still!

Scuba diving in Myanmar is relatively uncommon, probably because it’s like trying to herd cats to get anything done here; very little English comprehension, outdated regulations, atrocious roads, restrictive lodging requirements, and the list goes on. (Could the not-uncommon Saltwater Crocodiles be another factor?)

Safe and conservative diving is recommended when diving in Myanmar because Myanmar healthcare facilities and infrastructure are so substandard. Also, poorly maintained equipment, minimally trained “instructors”, or instructors and Divemasters with expired licenses result in the level of professionalism and the quality of the dive gear being lower than what international divers would expect. Diving accidents should therefore at all cost be avoided.

I was glad we had all our own gear, including a fully stocked custom-built med bag to deal with any unavoidable diving-related emergencies that might arise, whether medical or trauma, because it’s a bloody long way back to anything resembling a hospital, and even farther to Monkey Point Naval Base in Yangon, which currently boasts the only operable hyperbaric chamber in the entire country!

Finally we arrived at the dive site just off Bird Island, and after getting geared up, entered the water to start our first dive. The water was warm and pristine, with crystal clear visibility for over 100 feet! This amazing visibility gave us a nice buffer to keep a sharp lookout for Saltwater Crocodiles, which are commonly seen in the area, but fortunately we didn’t see any.

Sadly though, unbridled fishing practices including heavy dynamite fishing has decimated the coral reefs and other marine life, and the water was sparsely inhabited in general. I was, however, able to see a lionfish, a bluespotted whiptail ray, several nudibranchs, small reef fish, and flying fish while on the way back to shore.

Diving here reminded me of a fascinating though disputed story that occurred on an island just north of our dive location during World War 2: for six weeks during January and February of 1945, Ramree Island, situated just off the coast of Burma in the Bay of Bengal, was the setting for a bloody battle between Japanese and Allied forces.

The Battle of Ramree Island was part of the Burma Campaign during WW ll, and was launched for the purpose of dislodging Japanese Imperial forces that had occupied the island since early 1942, along with the rest of Southern Burma, and establishing an airbase there.

They were met with stiff resistance from the Japanese, and vicious fighting ensued. Finally, after a long and bloody battle, the Allies captured the enemy base, but a platoon of an estimated 1,000 Japanese soldiers escaped, and since they were surrounded on three sides by the British, they decided to retreat straight across the island through 16 km of dense tidal swampland to rejoin a much larger Japanese battalion on the other side.

Traveling through the thick, muck-filled swamps, over maze-like mangrove roots, and under tangled vines was slow and exhausting work, made worse by the clouds of mosquitoes biting to distraction and spreading malaria and dengue fever, as well as leeches and the various poisonous spiders, scorpions, and snakes slithering through the mud and underbrush like it was the forest of Endor.

During the night, as the fleeing soldiers struggled on towards the safety of their reinforced beachhead, British troops reported hearing panicked screams of terror and gunfire emanating from within the dark swamp. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the swamps of Ramree were infested by countless, very large Saltwater Crocodiles, which can grow over 20 feet long and weigh over 2,000 pounds.

Drawn by the tasty sounds of the weary and bloodied soldiers thrashing clumsily through their territory, the opportunity was just too good to pass up, so they didn’t. Out of just under 1,000 Japanese soldiers that entered the swamps of Ramree, only about 20 were found alive by their reinforcements the next morning!

*******************************************

On November 12th I was “surprised” by visitors when my mom and little sister Lexi came to see me! They flew into Yangon where I met them and we all went out to a Burmese restaurant for supper and to catch up on everything. They came loaded with food and gifts from my family and some of my Montana friends which was another big surprise and very much appreciated!

The next morning we took a taxi to the bus station and caught the bus traveling from Yangon to the small hill station of Kalaw, high up in the mountains of Shan State, the same town that hosted the half-marathon Trail Run our ambulance stood by for last year.

Kalaw is also one of the best places in Myanmar to go trekking, which is the reason we were here. I’d already researched the best trekking outfits and found out who was available, so that evening after checking into our hotel we went out and talked to a couple of them in person and made reservations for the next day.

Early morning on the 14th we started on the 3 day, 36 mile adventure by walking through the expansive early morning street market in Kalaw with our Pa’O guide, David, and 4 other adventurers with whom we became very good friends by the time we reached our destination of Inle Lake, on the other side of the mountains.

During the 1st day we walked through high pine forests, grassy wildflower strewn meadows, small scattered villages, and rich mountainside farmland where farmers were plowing with water buffalo and cultivating crops of ginger, chilies, mountain rice, and niger seeds.

In the afternoon a sudden rainstorm blew through, even though we were already several weeks into the dry season. Very quickly the trail became cold, slippery, and treacherously muddy. There were several spills and one of our group even had both their shoes sucked off their feet going through an especially wet and leechy stretch of the mountains!

In the evening we came to the village where we would be spending the night. After taking a bucket bath from the open communal well in the center of the village, I went up the stairs to the large communal bedroom that one of the villagers rented out and rolled out my blanket, then we all went to another villagers house and had a delicious (spectacularly) supper.

Maybe it was all the exercise, but the food on the trek was some of the best examples of Burmese and Pa’O (the predominant tribe in this part of the country) food I had while living in Myanmar, with a few exceptions when foreigner food was attempted (the pancakes on the final morning would have made great pothole fillers).

On the second day after breakfast we struck out again, soon leaving the high mountains behind dropping down into an expansive valley interspersed with rolling hills, small villages, and a cantankerous cow. We passed villagers shelling cobs and laying the corn out to dry in the sun, harvesting tomatoes and ginger, and weaving intricate baskets out of delicate strips of bamboo.

It was substantially hotter in the valley than the mountains, so when we came upon a medium sized river meandering along beside the trail and our guide suggested we stop for a swim and a rest, we were happy to take him up on it!

This was actually the very same river whose terminal end we would canoe out of and into the lake at journeys end, but David explained that its course was too serpentine and roundabout to warrant building a bamboo raft and floating out on it, which I had been thinking would be far more ameliorative for my blistery feet, the shoes of which were disintegrating before my very eyes as the trek unfolded.

Late in the afternoon we finally reached the lower bamboo and jungle clad mountains on the other side of the valley, which we began ascending for a couple hours. Just as dusk was falling we arrived at an enormous, ancient wooden monastery, which appeared to have been built in the middle of nowhere, and here we stopped and were granted lodging for our second night.

The fun thing about staying here was that a couple dozen small novitiate monks lived here in the monastery, and they challenged us to a game of pickup football (soccer) with them when we first arrived before it got dark. I’m convinced the only reason we were beaten so roundly was due to the various hardships of our journey, for example blisters and leech-induced anemia!

Early on the third morning, after finishing breakfast and patching up our feet as best we could, we continued on, first up, then down through the mountains, eventually coming upon a beautiful cobblestone road left over from colonial days which we followed all the way out of the mountains into another beautiful valley, and on towards Inle Lake, the second largest lake in Myanmar, and one of the highest, at 2,900 feet (880 meters). Near the lake, the ground is at or below water level, and the road was flooded in several areas even though the rest of the country was well into the dry season.

Finally the road ended entirely and we climbed a rickety wooden stile, crossed a rickety wooden catwalk over a boat canal that connects the village to the river, balanced along a slippery, muddy dyke, and finally arrived at a villagers house where we could rest and have lunch.

After lunch we walked back over to the canal and climbed into a long, wide, wooden outboard canoe and started on the last leg of our adventure. First we floated past all the houses through the village, then we entered the river from the day before which shortly opened into a huge area which was nothing but amazing floating tomato gardens, the rows of vines clearly bobbing up and down over the water, with the farmers (settlers? colonizers?) living over the lake in stilted huts and doing all the trellising, harvesting, and other farm work from their small wooden dugout canoes.

These are the Intha people, a very small tribe who only live around Inle Lake and who make their living farming on the lake and fishing, using unique cone-shaped basket-like fishing traps, and an even more unique method of paddling using their leg to grip the oar, standing on the other leg in the back of their canoe.

Finally we entered the open water of the 13 1/2 mile long lake and sped along up the lake enjoying the sensation of effortless movement, taking in the spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, Intha fishermen, and all the other boat taxis and lake traffic out enjoying the fresh air and pleasantly warm sun on the sparkling, though very murky, lake. Arriving at the northern end of the lake in Nyaungshwe, a small fishing town with as many boat canals as roads, we bid our guide and traveling companions farewell and went our separate ways.

After the trek the three of us traveled to the capital of Shan State, Taunggyi, to attend the annual Tazaungdaing Fire Balloon Festival, where hundreds of amateur teams compete over 4 days to launch the best hot air balloons, sometimes shaped like various animals, birds, and mythological creatures, and filled to capacity with homemade fireworks. Sometimes the balloon is too heavy or poorly designed to even make it off the ground before the payload ignites, or it catches on fire soon after takeoff and plummets into the thousands of spectators. There are fatalities every year but there’s just the right twinge of danger to keep it interesting. The festival occurs close to the end of the Buddhist Lent and marks the official end of the rainy season. While a huge celebration and local phenomenon, its deeper purpose, like so many “Buddhist” traditions, is to ward off evil spirits; the giant balloons are just upsized Chinese sky lanterns.

On November 18 we had to take a night bus back to Yangon in order to make it in time to catch our plane! The only bus I could find that was able to take us was a bottom-tier 3rd class bus with absolutely no legroom and innumerable stops throughout the interminable night.

Early the next morning we flew from Yangon to Kuala Lumpur where my mom had some meetings and had invited us along, then we flew to Malaysian Borneo to go scuba diving. My mom had been a diver in college and my sister had wanted go diving ever since I myself started diving, so now they both finally had a chance! Diving was wonderful, with my mom deciding to renew her license and Lexi vowing to get hers.

From Malaysia we flew up to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, for a few days, and then, after meeting up with friends, drove out to Sunshine Orchard, where Lexi would be residing while interning as a paramedic at a small nearby clinic in the middle of the jungle.

After seeing all my friends at Sunshine Orchard and visiting for a few days I had to return to work, so I told my mom, sister, and SO friends goodbye. On December 4th my mom and I drove into MaeSot where my mom took a bus down to Ayutthaya to spend one more week before flying back home and I walked across the Friendship Bridge to the Myanmar border and took the night bus back to work. Lexi of course stayed behind to work at the jungle clinic.

During the last week of November and first week-and-a-half of December Nathan was back in Thailand finishing his scuba diving instructor course and upon completion received his NAUI Scuba Instructor certification!

On December 7th I took a taxi to the bus station and traveled back up to Kalaw to join my ambulance and partial crew already present to stand by at the Trail Run for the second year in a row. This event is a fun assignment for several reasons: The crisp, sunny, humidity-free days and cold, invigorating, mosquito-free nights are a pleasant change from the oppressive lowlands, the food at the antique Kalaw Heritage Hotel where the race is hosted is delicious, and it’s fun to see our friends there, especially my friend who is the doctor for the Australian Embassy in Yangon, who collaborates on projects with us from time to time.

The morning of Sunday the 9th the race began, with nearly twice as many participants as last year. We were fairly busy treating the expected maladies- blisters, twisted ankles, scraped knees, heat cramps, but there weren’t any major injuries.

After the race was over and most of the people had left we packed up our gear and drove directly to the very old city of Sagaing, in central Myanmar, where we would begin teaching an EMR course to 24 students from Sagaing Emergency Rescue Team and a few volunteers from other nearby groups the next day. This is why I hadn’t ridden to Kalaw in the ambulance, because we needed a team to go early and drop off our training materials in Sagaing on their way up to the Trail Run.

The leader of SERT, Mr. Soe Min Oo, had been our best student at our fourth ever EMR training, and he had been trying to get an EMR training for his group ever since, but there had been major scheduling issues on both sides until now.

The Sagaing EMR training ran from December 10-21 and was unusual in that it was covered by a major national television channel, so I’m happy to say that it went very smoothly and was probably the best overall EMR course I had ever taught!

I did have to go intercede on one students’ behalf though because the rescue group he works for was making him man their “dispatch center” every night even though he was the only person from that group attending our course! They were doing this to low-key punish him and try to make him fail class for trying to get training which they hadn’t endorsed and would put him at a higher-trained level than the leaders of his group. But despite this he was still coming to our class and arriving on time in the mornings! Fortunately, after all the formalities of the visit to this rival rescue group were out of the way they agreed to find someone else to fill in for him until training was over, and he ended up being one of our students who passed the class and received our internationally accredited EMR certificate!

After the EMR course, we packed up and brought all the training supplies back to Yangon to be cleaned and stowed until next time, and then spent the next week catching up on end of year paperwork, delayed CPR-AED and First Aid trainings, and continuing to respond to emergencies.

At 9 AM on Sunday, December 30th, Nathan began instructing his first scuba diving course to 4 students, with myself as an assistant. We spent the first day in the pool in Yangon, familiarizing the students with the equipment and teaching basic principles and skills like how to use the buoyancy control device (BCD) and regulator to breathe underwater and control depth. The next morning we drove out to the beach at Ngwe Saung and again spent the whole afternoon in a pool there teaching and practicing skills, although Nathan and I did manage to squeeze in a shore dive that evening!

January 1 and 2, 2019 was the open water component of the course, a fantastic way to start the New Year! As luck would have it, we happened to draw the same boat as last time, and found ourselves putzing along at a feather-star pace (one of the most graceful animals in the sea, though never known to win a race). At least we certainly couldn’t complain about the location, scenery, or company!

On our way out to sea for the 2nd day of open-water, the boat decided to needle us a little more than usual and the engine died about a quarter-mile offshore, leaving us at the mercy of the incoming tide and letting us drift dangerously close to a small, rocky island before the “engineer” could get it started again. We finished the voyage and scheduled dives without further incident and after putzing back to shore late that afternoon, washed the saltwater off us and our gear, ate supper, and then drove back to Yangon during the night.

Early the next morning on January third, just a couple hours after arriving back in Yangon from our scuba class, Nathan went to the airport and flew back to our school property in Thailand to begin preparing it for a Remote First Aid class that we were scheduled to teach that next week. The day after Nathan left I also started traveling to Kanchanaburi, taking the night bus from Yangon to Myawaddy, and crossing into Thailand the morning of the 5th. I really wanted to stop for breakfast at one of the amazing restaurants in MaeSot, but as I was hoping to catch the day bus down to our school in Kanchanaburi, I took a Songtau straight to the bus station and bought a ticket for a van that would take me over the steep, always-under-construction mountain road to Tak, an hour and a half from the border, where I could catch the bus I needed.

Arriving in Tak I rushed to the ticket counter and discovered that I had just missed the morning bus and would have to spend the day in the bus station until the night bus arrived at 11 PM (story of my life). After a day spent thinking about taking two night-busses in a row and all the other things I could be doing instead, I finally boarded my bus and arrived in Kanchanaburi mid-morning on January 6, then jumped on a local bus which took me out to the village near the school where Nathan met me in our ambulance.

The rest of that day and all the next we worked around the property getting it brush-hogged and trimmed and weeded and watered, then we cleaned out and scrubbed down the classroom we would be holding the training in.

Monday evening after work we drove into Kanchanaburi to pick up my sister Lexi at the bus station. She had been working the medical beachhead along the Thai-Burma border ever since I’d last seen her (no joke either; suturing knife wounds, treating breasts hollowed out by mastitis, sick babies, drowning victims, strange and wonderful tropical diseases...). For some reason, she had decided to have an ocular emergency of her own which had prevented her from traveling south with me when I crossed into Thailand. Now she was coming down to accompany us to a real beach and finally get her diving certification at the next scuba diving class Nathan had scheduled to teach immediately after the RFA.

From Jan 8-10 Nathan and I taught the Remote First Aid class to local rescue volunteers plus the owner and some of the employees of a Bangkok-based rock climbing company specializing in guiding climbing tours to scenic and remote locations across Thailand. They had been looking for a company to give their guides some medical training in case someone had an emergency and they were thrilled to have found us.

On Friday Nathan and I loaded up our Thai ambulance with scuba tanks and dive gear and with Lexi we drove out to the local military base where we have a quid pro quo that allows us to use their training pool for swimming and diving. Along the way we picked up Pi Top and Pi Game, two of our local friends who were also taking the scuba diving course.

At the pool, the 5 of us met 5 more prospective students sent by the local rescue diver foundation, who had given Nathan and I our first scuba diver training two years ago. Now that Nathan was a NAUI Instructor, the foundation leader was sending him the first of many foundation divers to receive real training, since all their previous training to date had been 2nd or 3rd hand at best and entirely empirical.

So, the former students taught the former teachers, and I was again assisting as with the first course to provide an adequate student-instructor ratio and just to help streamline the process. For instance, if someone panics or has trouble equalizing their ears while practicing underwater skills I’m there to help them regain control or fix their problem instead of having to pause the whole class and bring everyone else up also.

The next day we hung out at the school, picking fresh limes and making fresh limeade, and just relaxing. Early Sunday morning we reloaded the ambulance and all piled in to drive 10 hours farther south to the ocean near Krabi, Thailand for the open-water part of training. Heading out of town we parked our ambulance at Pi Top’s gas station and transferred everything into Pi Game’s vehicle, which is also an ambulance, but it’s bigger than ours and we needed all the space we could possibly get since both he and Pi Top were coming along, plus Lexi and I, and Nathan with his family.

On the 14th and 15th we rented a wooden longtail fishing boat and dove as many times as we safely could. This completed the first level of scuba diver, and our two friends went back home, but Lexi and Nathan and I stayed and got a couple more dives in on the 16th to start fulfilling the requirements for Lexi’s advanced scuba diver license, since she loved it so much.

We weren’t able to finish that course immediately though, because Nathan had some family of his own coming over to Thailand for a visit and had to leave, leaving Lexi and I to poodle around the beach on our own for a couple days. This was great fun and also gave me a chance to look around for a dive shop that might be looking for someone to intern with them.

(I had completed my divemaster training over a year before, but in order to be certified I needed to have a certain number of logged dives, and despite our best intentions, with all our other responsibilities Nathan and I hadn’t been diving as much as we’d have liked, which would have more than satisfied my pre-DM-cert dive quota. So... before our Remote First Aid class we had talked and decided that after the next scuba training I would stay behind and try to find a divemaster internship to complete my training.)

I was worried about finding an opening because Thailand was currently experiencing an unseasonably low volume of tourists due to recently changing their tourist visa requirements, but when I checked at one of the very first shops I came to, which I only knew about because this is where one of the instructors who’d helped teach Nathan and I our initial divemaster course now worked, they were delighted to have another diver help them out and offered me the ternship!

After seeing my sister off back to her clinic internship on the 19th, I started my divemaster ternship the very next day, Wednesday, January 20. This entailed learning and doing everything a divemaster does, plus helping the other divemasters and instructors with everything they needed help with, in exchange for gaining the essential experience I needed to qualify me for my DM certification.

On Sunday night, February 24th, I took a 12 hour bus ride from Krabi up to Bangkok where I immediately switched busses to take another 12 hour bus ride on up to MaeSot where I switched yet again to a Songtau and went up to visit Lexi and everyone else at Sunshine Orchard for a few days before continuing on to Yangon on March 1st. I had to make this trip back to Yangon in order to apply for a new Thai visa, and also to pack up and move my stuff out of our office/house, as there was a contemplated upgrade on the horizon. I brought my stuff back to Thailand and parked it temporarily with a friend in MaeSot. Here I again met up with Lexi, who had taken a Songtau down from Sunshine Orchard and was going to accompany me back down to the coast, because Nathan was now available to finish teaching Lexi her advanced scuba diver course.

From March 19-21 we dove off the coast of Krabi and Phuket, completing the necessary skills for Lexi to be certified at the advanced level including: light salvage, underwater navigation, night diving, shore dives, wreck dives, and Nitrox dives, plus Rescue Diver skills.

Afterwards, I went back to complete my DM internship, working there until May 24, when I started making preparations to go to Africa and work at a rural clinic in Ethiopia!

[artificialqueens]

Skinny Love (Rajila) - May

What can you do when you loved someone selfishly, but you now have to turn your back on them?

A/N: So I’ve seen some requests for more Rajila, and since I love this ship more than literally anything in the world here I am with this kinda angsty songfic (I’m so versatile) based on the song Skinny Love. 

The world saw Manila as a pretty happy person, after all, the whole character she presented was a campy, crazy, cross-eyed bundle of cheer. And normally Manila regarded herself as a pretty happy person. The emotions he had, that he felt out of drag, not as pretty happy Manila but simply as Karl that he preferred to hold private. Truth be told, he wouldn’t call himself sad, just drained.

He had trouble finding the excitement in drag nowadays, in painting his face or stitching his next outfit. He had trouble coming up with inspiration for his performances or his art, and he’d sit himself down and try to figure out where he was going with his life, only to give up, frustrated. If his pillow could bruise, it would black and blue from the continual beatings Karl instilled upon it in frustration during each sleepless night.

And if you asked him, Karl could tell you exactly why he felt this way.

Come on skinny love, just last the year, Pour a little salt we were never here.

Ever since they’d competed together on Season 3, Karl had always felt himself pulled toward Sutan, and they’d been best friends. It was almost natural when they slipped into a more complex area, more emotions swirling around like sand whipped by the wind on a wintery beach, stinging the cheeks and irritating the eyes. They were entering a weird sort of relationship, that they never tried to define too much, lest the clarity impede upon the sheer happiness they had both felt.

Karl remembers the first few shows after they’d gotten together for the first time – they’d giggled together in the dressing room, snuggling maybe just a little bit too much, not necessarily oblivious to the other queens’ raised eyebrows or half smirks. No one had asked any questions though, Raja and Manila were two incredible forces in drag, and they had that natural rapport, a dynamic chemistry that made them as successful as they were. And besides, two season 3 queens who had been friends forever wasn’t going to hold the interest of a crowd who were so intent on every move and interaction between the newer, younger, prettier queens.

The turning point, where the relationship had begun to turn into more of a labour of love than an expression of love, was much like their entire journey together; undefinable. In hindsight, Karl knew it would be completely pointless, harmful, to pretend that everything was completely fine, but he still does, he keeps the relationship burning. Burning like a fire that’s dwindled down to just embers that he keeps fanning in a desperate hope to start a blaze again. Instead all that happens is blinding hot ashes and smoke and dust get blown up into each other’s faces.

Karl wished he could just be strong, and remove all presences of Sutan from his life, and have this whole affair over and done with. Pretend nothing had ever happened and that their romance had never existed. Water his heart so that new love could grow there, and gain back the love he had for his art from the very start.

Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer, I tell my love to wreck it all. The reason he doesn’t just say something is Sutan, of course. Normally, the two are upfront people, they have an opinion – they share it. They don’t believe in skirting around the truth, they want no lies in communication, usually. Which doesn’t really explain all the tiptoeing the two of them have been doing recently.

But he stays to keep himself together. The older queen always had a kind of easy confidence that just radiated off of him, that was infectious. Karl would soak it up like a sponge, the insecurities that riddled him falling off his shoulders so he felt as though he could fly. With Sutan, Karl was supported. But that support wasn’t a pillion allowing him to stand on his own. No. A fragile plinth of wax, that too much time had melted away, so Karl now knew he was leaning on Sutan just to have someone to reassure him. And Karl knows that that’s not fair.

Cut out all the ropes and let me fall. Right in the moment disorder’s tall.

Sutan is still always there when Karl needs him. And that’s not always often, but it happens enough that Karl feels guilty for drawing so much out of Sutan when he offers nothing in return. To Karl, the relationship just feels like its running on lust, whatever else there used to be has been used up. And lust can only sustain two people who think they’re in love for so long. They spend every night together almost, but it’s never because they’ve turned the bed into a blanket fort and talked for hours about tiny little details and odd tangents, only falling asleep because it becomes physically impossible to keep their eyes open.

And I told you to be patient And I told you to be fine And I told you to be balanced And I told you to be kind

Being molded into a new and better person takes time. And looking back, Karl wonders if the only reason he ever fell into Sutan’s arms at the very start was because he needed someone so desperately to fix him, and there someone was. Being a runner up was hard, and for a while, with Sutan, Karl felt like a winner. But now, he didn’t need him anymore.

Sutan’s hands were a potent cleanse, removing layers of insecurities with every light touch, and his lips were a blessing, for Karl to revel in and worship. Now, it just makes Karl feel a little uncomfortable, cloying. He’s not sure why the switch changed, but it has, and now he’s trapped in a relationship he doesn’t want to be in, receiving a love he knows he doesn’t deserve.

And in the morning I’ll be with you But it will be a different kind

Karl had never asked if Sutan was alright, properly alright. He’d been too busy pulling as much as he could from the other man, and never took the initiative to give some of himself to the older man. He’s been selfish, and this just adds more panic to the whirling thunderstorm of his brain. He wants to be better to the man he’s supposed to love, and he knows he can but there’s something holding him back. It’s probably himself.

And he knows Sutan’s noticed a difference. He’d have to be blind not to.

And I’ll be holding all the tickets And you’ll be owing all the fines

They’ve both paid a price to be in this wasted relationship. Karl owes Sutan so much, but he has no way of paying him back. He supposes the only way would be love, but no matter how deep within himself he looks, he comes up dry. There’s a fondness, but there’s not the love or the feeling of crush that haunted him through Season 3 and its resulting aftermath.

How did we get here? he thinks every night as Sutan lies next to him, fast asleep. His hand is always right there, gently curling in on itself with sleep, and Karl knows it would be so easy to reach out and grab it, hold Sutan again, and rekindle what they had. He knows their fate hinges on him, and as he makes himself more distant, he can see Sutan begin to mirror him.

And now all your love is wasted And then who the hell was I?

Last night, Karl texted Sutan to meet him for breakfast. And he’d laid out what he’d say. How he couldn’t keep going, that the part of him that loves Sutan and what they have together so deeply and passionately is being outspoken by the regret of relying on Sutan. The regret of spoiling what could have been so beautiful. The regret of breaking himself down to such a dismal position. The regret is the loudest voice in his head right now, so he supposes he should act on that. The game has gone on for long enough. Maybe one day he’ll be able to love Sutan like he used to, one day the feelings will return but right now he just feels like he’s being stifled and stopping Sutan from flying. Guilt. What he feels is guilt.

His bus pulls up at his stop, and as he boards the bus and settles into the sesat, the seconds to the confrontation ticking away, he tucks his headphones into his ears and presses shuffle. Closing his eyes to the slow melody and bitter lyrics he allows himself to mull.

This is the right decision.

Who will love you? Who will fight? Who will fall far behind?

[genogenocrazycatman]

Stillwater - Chapter 2

Stillwater [Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net, Mibba]

Characters: Original Female Character, Monkey D. Luffy, Rorona Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Nami, Usopp, Tony Tony Chopper, Nefeltari Vivi

***

"We build as only children know to build

We made a way where there's a will

No slowing down or standing still

Innocent and reckless

"How did we get so old and never notice

How did we gain the world and lose the moment

Rise and fall, the tide surrounds us

And drowns us all"

-Hands Like Houses

***

I woke up to the sounds and smells of food being prepared. I opened my eyes and found that I was laying on a mat on the floor of, what looked like, a kitchen. It also housed the steering, which I found slightly odd. Then again, nothing about this crew, especially their captain, had struck me as normal.

I sat up and groaned, cracking my neck.

“Look who’s up. Careful now. It’s only been a few days, and your ribs were pretty messed up.”

A few days had done wonders for my ribs. Where before they were a source of pain, I now felt nothing, aside from the stiffness of my muscles.

“I’m okay,” I assured the blonde. “Sanji right?”

“Yes, but you can call me whatever you want, my beautiful princess!”

Again with the heart eyes. I shook my head. This guy was either going to make a fantastic husband to some lucky girl, or some devil woman was going to eat him alive. Right now, it looked like there was a 50/50 chance that it could go either way.

“You’re the cook, I take it?”

“Yeah,” he answered. He still had that overly affectionate aura about him, but it seemed to go down a notch. At least for the time being that is. “Someone has to make sure that those idiots out there don’t starve.”

Despite his insulting words and annoyed tone, it was evident to me that he genuinely cared about his crewmates.

“A few days,” I repeated. “What’d I miss?”

A few days didn’t seem like a lot of time, but it was enough. After all, the whole world could change in one second. A few days provided plenty of opportunities.

Sanji explained everything that had happened, since we fled Logue Town. There had been a storm, we’d traveled over Reverse Mountain, been inside a massive whale, befriended the whale, Laboon, and his care taker.

I shook my head. ‘Join a pirate crew and leave them hanging, because I’m unconscious. Of course.’

“I know it may seem impossible considering that I slept through all that, but you can wake me up. You should’ve woke me up. I would’ve helped.”

“You were hurt. Anyways, it doesn’t matter. We had it under control.”

He faced me again, handing me a fork.

“Here. Try this.”

One the end of the fork was what appeared to be the most perfectly crafted bite of fish with some delicately placed vegetable on top. I didn’t even know that a bite could look that good. When I told my siblings to test something for me, it was usually a hastily scooped up bite on a spoon that was nearly falling off. This looked like it could be in one of those magazines and it was just a taste test. I didn’t even know that you could make a bite look pretty, but he managed.

I popped it into my mouth. My eyes widened in surprise. It was ten times better than it looked. “Holy hell! This is amazing!”

The hearts were back. “Why thank you, my princess. I-“

“Sanji, this whole “princess,” “beautiful,” thing isn’t necessary. Just call me Mira. That’s what everyone else does.”

I realized that his compliments and affections were just part of his nature, but still found it strange. Back home, I was blood related to about 75% of the people living there. Another 15% were in-laws. Not that I had ever been looking, but the pool of potential partners was shallow, and the number of people who flirted with me was a big fat 0.

Even, when I left for supply runs, I was nothing special. I chose to look that way. I was short at 5’5” with choppy black hair that barely touched my shoulders. My frame was slender with hints of muscle. I didn’t bother with makeup or flashy clothes. I wore jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers. The point was to not draw attention to myself.

“Whatever you say, my dearest Mira.”

Not a 100% right, but it was a step in the right direction.

“Are you almost done?” I asked. “I’ll help you serve.”

“You don’t-“

“I want to help,” I told him, standing up.

“But your injuries-“

I pulled the wrapping off and stretched, side to side and touched my toes. “What injuries?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “How-“

“Girl’s got to have her secrets,” I said, smirking.

I didn’t particularly want to expose how quickly I healed. I didn’t want to expose any of my abilities, not really. I would if it was necessary. In Logue Town, I had almost done so, but lucked out. If I had faked it though, that would’ve meant that would’ve had to sit on my ass and be useless for weeks, and that I couldn’t take.

Sanji didn’t press the issue, opting instead to plate up all the food, splitting the dishes between us evenly. (After I had scolded him for trying to get me to carry one little plate and nothing else.)

“You alright?” he asked as we started out towards the others.

“This is nothing. You should see what happens, when my aunt, Cal, declares a family dinner.”

We had almost reached them, when the other girl on board, Nami, as Sanji had informed me, let out a scream. Sanji moved with unnatural speed towards her. I followed behind at a normal pace.

“What’s the matter, Nami, my sweet?” he asked.

I peered from behind him at the stressed navigator.

“If it’s food, you’re worried about, it’s ready!”

I really doubted that it was food she was worried about, if her face was anything to go by.

“Oh? Meal time?”

The guy with the long nose climbed up and joined the group.

“Usopp?” I doubled checked to make sure I had it right.

“That’s me, Captain Usopp, leader of the Usopp Pirates, a deadly sniper with no rival! My name is infamous all across the East Blue!”

I nodded taking all that in.  It was obvious that he was lying, but who was I to break the fantasy. I was still of the mindset that I could sail as part of a pirate crew.

“Th- the compass is broken!” Nami exclaimed, distraught. “It doesn’t point in any direction.”

I looked at the compass, watching as it spun and spun and spun, just like all the other ones that I had seen.

I set down the food. “It’s not broken,” I assured her. “It’s just useless.”

“Useless?!”

“The girl’s right,” an old man said.

I assumed he was the one who took care of the whale. I was caught off guard by his appearance, most notably the petals around his head. Outside of the papers I hadn’t seen a single one of Roger’s men, since they left my home. Now, I had seen two in a short amount of time.  I didn’t comment on this, however. I wasn’t sure, if he wanted them to know about his past, and I didn’t want to explain how I knew he was one of Roger’s.

“Looks like you guys came here with no knowledge. For heaven’s sake! Did you come here to die?”

“What?” Nami asked.

Luffy was focused on the food. “Meal.”

“Feed, in your case,” Sanji snipped.

“I thought I told you that common sense is useless in this sea. It’s not that that compass is broken.”

“Hm? Then, could it be that the magnetic fields are-“

“You pick up quick,” I praised.

“That’s right. The islands in the Grand Line contain lots of magnetic minerals; because of this they cause various abnormalities throughout the Grand Line. Furthermore, the current and the winds don’t have constancy. If you’re a navigator, you should know how scary that is.”

“It’s true that if we don’t have any way of knowing our direction, it’s hopeless.”

“Not entirely,” I cut in. “You need a log pose. It’s kind of like a compass, but instead of pointing to the North, it points you to the next island. Once you get there, it adjusts to that island’s magnetic field and then points you to the next, but it’s tricky, because once you set down one chain of islands, it’s nearly impossible to change course.”

“How do you know all this?” Sanji asked.

“I guess I never properly introduced myself. My apologies. That was rude. I’m Zale Mira Kai, but most people just call me Mira. I’m from the second half of the Grand Line, the New World.”

“Mira’s our expert. We’re going to take her home after we find the One Piece,” Luffy said around a mouth full of tuna.

“Really? How’d you end up in Logue Town?” Usopp asked.

“Long story. Any ways my log pose was in my bag, but I don’t know if it survived the abuse it went through back in Logue Town, but I can go check.”

“Please,” Nami practically begged.

“Is it something like this?” Luffy asked, holding up a log pose.

“That’s exactly it,” I said, taking it from him and giving it a good look over. It was the real thing.

“Luffy? How come you have one?!” Nami punched Luffy in the face.

“Those two weirdoes dropped it on the ship.”

“They did?”

“Why did you hit me?” Luffy whined.

“Just going with the flow.”

I snorted out a laugh.

“Oh the flow?”

I handed the log pose to Nami.

“So this is the log pose. There’s no dial face.”

“There are only even routes that you can follow on the Grand Line. They all lead to Raftel, the last point. The only one in history, who confirmed that, is the King of the Pirates. It’s a legendary island,” the old man explained further.

“Raftel…”

“Then the One Piece is there?”

“Who knows? That’s the most prominent theory, but no one has been able to reach there.”

“We’ll know, once we get there.”

The old man’s reaction was a lot like mine, when I had met Luffy. I could see it in his eyes. He felt it too.

“Now that I’m done eating, can we go?”

“Did you eat this all by yourself?!” Sanji yelled.

I laughed. “Boy you’ve got one hell of an appetite.”

Nami was still in awe of the log pose. “Log pose, huh? We have to take good care of this. This is the key to our journey.”

“You damn rubber man! I wanted Nami… I wanted Nami to eat more!”  Sanji whipped around and kicked Luffy in the gut, sending him flying.

“You are quite the aggressive bunch.”

Luffy went flying past Nami, shattering the log pose.

Both Sanji and Nami received kicks for their troubles straight into the ocean.

“Wasn’t that extremely important?” Usopp said, panicking.

“Our precious log pose…”

“Don’t panic. I’ll give you mine,” the old man said.

I was trying to remember his name, but was coming up empty. I knew the face. I could picture him all those years ago, much younger. I was pretty sure he was the doctor for the crew.

“I wanna thank you guys for Laboon too.”

I ran over to the ledge. “He ate a devil fruit and you kicked him into the sea?” I asked incredulously.

I could vaguely see their shadows under the water.

“He’ll be fine,” Nami grumbled. “If you’re so concerned, go in and get him.”

“I can’t,” I said flatly.

“You eat a devil fruit too, Mira?” Usopp asked.

I froze, the question catching me off guard.

Laboon tossed Sanji, Luffy and two others up onto land.

I breathed out a sigh of relief for both their safety and the distraction. “Thanks, Laboon.”

I hadn’t had time to plan for this, to get my story straight, what I could do, what I couldn’t, how, why. I’d been fairly vague about everything so far, but questions were going to be asked and in order for trust to be established they were going to need answers.

Then again did it matter I they trusted me, if it was based on a lie?

I glanced back at Usopp. “The drip drip fruit,” I answered.

It was an easy answer, and it would buy me some time.

“Ah… I thought I’d die.”

I shook my head at Luffy.

Sanji stood up and headed towards the female of the pair of strangers. “Here, take my hand, honey.” He kneeled down and offered her a helping hand.

“Oh, thank you.”

“Nice day, isn’t it?”

“Hey,” the guy called. “We have a favor to ask.”

We all gathered around the table to hear their request.

The pair were apparently the ones that had attempted to kill Laboon that Sanji had told me about. Needless to say they weren’t on anyone’s good side. I hadn’t been there, so I didn’t harbor the same ill will, but I also had no attachments to them.

They wanted us to take them to their home, Whisky Peak, since their ship was busted and they were without a log pose.

They begged us to take them back, giving us false praise. It was a rather pathetic display and utterly transparent.

“You can ride with us,” Luffy decided.

“What!?” the pair echoed each other

Nami and Usopp looked shocked too.

“Did you say Whisky Peak? Let’s go there.”

“You realize if we set that course we’re stuck on it right?” I asked.

I had no objections. I simply wanted to make sure that my captain understood, what he was getting into. Not that I thought it mattered. Logic and forethought didn’t seem to be a large part of Luffy’s decision making process.

“We’re going out of our way to take these shadowy people?”

“What’s the problem?” Luffy asked. “Don’t worry about the small things.”

The old man- Crocus! Crocus reiterated my point.

“If we don’t like it, then we can go around one more time.”

“I see…”

“Now, can we go? Now I’ve made a promise with the whale. Let’s get ready to set sail.”

“Who on Earth are you?” the girl, Ms. Wednesday, asked.

“Me? I’m gonna be King of the Pirates.”

The two chuckled and muttered under their breath.

“You’re laughing at his ambitions. You two had a much less lofty goal, and you both failed,” I reminded them, keeping my tone casual.

They stopped laughing, looking embarrassed.

“You two aren’t on the ship yet. Something could very easily happen, and you could be left behind. You know as well as I do that the chances of you swimming from any island to the next and making it there alive are slim to none.”

They paled.

I turned on my heel and followed the others.

“I doubt that Luffy would just leave them,” Usopp told me.

“Oh I know. I got that vibe from him, but they don’t know that.”

Usopp chuckled. “You’re evil,” he teased.

I shrugged. “Runs in my family.”

We readied the ship. The pose was already set, so once we were done, it was time to set sail. Crocus and Laboon saw us off.

“To which Whisky Peak full speed ahead!”

It was a light feeling, when we left. A mixture of glee, excitement and anticipation, given life through laughter and smiles.

It was contagious, and squashed any worries I had about the journey ahead of us. I knew that this wasn’t going to be easy. The waters ahead were violent, filled with danger and darkness, which is why I held onto this moment, my first real moment as a member of the crew.

***

Notes: Hello, readers.

A few things

1.) While I'm going to address most of the arcs in the series, I'm not going to go over them all. The big ones will all be included, but some of the filler and whatever id going to be skipped over. I'll probably just find a way to take Mira out and have her do something else. It's not because it's too much, but it's because sometimes there's just no room for another character, sometimes Mira won't fit the situation and some times I just don't like the arc and don't want to write it. Just being honest.

2.) Logue Town and Reverse Mountain are fairly short arcs (especially, when you only write a small part of them), so they can be single chapters. Don't worry that I'm going to try to fit all of Alabasta into one chapter.

3.) This is going to take a lot longer to update. As I said I didn't have very much content to go through for Logue Town and Reverse Island, but my writing process for a fic like this is basically. Go back and watch the part I'm writing again, very vaguely plan it out and then go back and write it, so that I can hit all the right beats. It takes time.

I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. I promise that you will eventually get answers, actually in the grand scheme of this fic, they'll come fairly soon.

***

Previous | Next

***

Master List | Mobile Version

[freezing-kaiju]

Survivors of Shards

Chapter 11

written with @apollowuzhere @irazel and @grilledwatermelon

tho this part is all @apollowuzhere

this one’s a long one and imma post the next part later today also!

WILLA FLASHBACK TIME

“Are you sure about this Yellow?” I questioned, following closely behind my fellow tanzanite. “Positive!” they assured me, signature crazy smile in place.  “Once they know this planet has tons of life on it, they’ll turn around and we can go back to homeworld without an issue!  No more stupid mission, no more cramped ship, no more annoying crew mates.” “But….there isn’t tons of life on this planet….” “Yeah but they don’t know that.  Who’re they going to trust, themselves or the psychics?” I smiled and giggled quietly behind my hand.  I sometimes forgot how clever my sibling was.  “Yes ok, let’s do it!” --------------- “Look, we can explain,” Yellow said.  They held up their hands in surrender as the rest of our crew surrounded us. I wrung my hands while my eyes darted from gem to gem.  “Yes...uh….we were just….” “Trying to trick us into turning back,” our supervising Agate finished.  She marched through the crowd and circled around us, her footsteps echoing off the metal walls.  “Let me ask you this.  Do you really think we’re that stupid?” A pause.  “Honestly, yeah kind of,” Yellow replied.  I kicked them in the shin, earning a small “ow” in return. “You two are going to be in a lot of trouble when we get back to homeworld,” the agate said, getting closer with each word.  She looked down on us like scum, her gaze seeming as though it saw through my entire form.  A wicked smile stretched its way across her face.  “I wonder what the diamonds will do to you.” That’s when it happened.  Yellow scooped me up in their arms, and ran.  They pushed through the wall of gems and swerved every which way, trying to get away from the angry yelling and horrible threats.  I could hear them accusing us of terrible things, both out loud and in their minds.  I tried not to listen. “What are you doing?!” I screamed.  Though I didn’t make any attempt to get away, in fact clinging to their collar with all of my strength. “Saving our asses, Blue,” they responded.  “Now shut up and hold on!” We took a turn down a corridor filled with crew members, who noticed us immediately.  We turned around only to be met with more coming on our right.  Yellow ran to the left, dodging weapons as they came flying at us from every tunnel and passageway around us. We reached the escape pods just as we were about to be overwhelmed.  Yellow threw me in full force then dove after me, shutting the door behind them.  They slammed their back against it while the gems outside pounded on it, trying to get in. “Hurry!” they yelled, straining under the force of all the gems. I frantically punched in random coordinates, somewhere far away from this wretched ship, and hit the launch button.  We shot out of the room like a comet, and I went flying back into Yellow while we rocketed out of the solar system. It took a few hours for us to slow down enough to where we could actually move around the little pod.  I crawled over and sat in a corner next to the control pad while Yellow sat cross-legged in the center.  They ran their hand through their hair and smiled a little.   “Well,” they started, “that could have gone better.” I didn’t say anything for a while, choosing to start at a rivet in the floor instead.  I felt fear and sadness prick at the back of my mind.  I was sure Yellow could see it too. “Hey, hey it’s ok,” they assured me. “No it’s not!” I yelled, startling Yellow back a bit.   “It’s not ok!  You had to have that stupid idea to get out of that mission didn’t you?  You couldn’t just go along with it!  Well congratulations, we got out of it!  Now we have no clue where we’re going, everyone hates us, and we can never go home!”  The tears were coming full force now.  Yellow let out a sigh and came to sit next to me.  I tried to turn away, but they wouldn’t let me.  They cupped my cheek with one hand and wiped away the steady stream of water. “I know this seems bad now Blue,” they said, “but think of it this way.  We don’t have anyone telling us what to do anymore.  We never have to listen to another agate brag about how important she is, or be put down my another sapphire for not being ‘real psychics.’” They put emphasis on the air quotes, making me laugh just a little.  “Wherever we end up, we can be whoever we want!” “Yeah, I suppose.” We sat in silence for a while, watching the stars go by outside. “Hey Blue?” Yellow called. “Hmm?” “Who do you want to be?” “....I don’t know….but I don’t want to be Blue.” “Mmm.” “Who do you want to be?” “I don’t know either, but I don’t want to be Yellow.” We both laughed softly and I scooted in closer to lean on my sibling’s shoulder. “So what do we do?” I asked “You know, I read the mind of a hematite once.  She had just come back from a pretty densely packed planet.” “Yeah?” “Yeah, there were plenty of names in there.” “Oh?  Like what?” My sibling replayed the memory for me in their mind.  There were a lot of names to choose from, but one in particular caught my eye. “Willa,” I said. “That’s what you’re going with?” they asked. “Yes.  I quite like that one.” “Alright Willa.” I relaxed a little more at my new name.  “What about you?” “I’m trying to decide between two.” “And they are?” “Oluwakanyinsola or Billy.” I snorted.  “You can barely even say the first one, how do you expect anyone else to?” “Aw, but I like that one!  I think it captures my complex personality.” I punched them lightly in the shoulder.  “You’re so dramatic.  Besides, Billy is a nice name.” “Fine, fine, I’ll go with Billy.”  Billy leaned back and crossed their arms.  “So that’s it, eh?” “What do you mean?” “We’re finally more than just tanzanites.  We’re people.” “Hmm, guess I didn’t think about it before now, but yeah.” “Yeah…” We sat there for a while longer before both of us lied down and fell asleep.  I had never slept before, but it was really nice.  I even had a dream….about what our new life was going to be like.  I had a feeling we’d be doing a lot of sleeping for a while. ----------- Finally, after a decade and a half of flying through space, we finally reached our destination.  We weren’t sure what it was or what to do about it, but we were here!  I stepped out and looked up at the big blue sky, small white fluffy things floating around aimlessly.  A soft breeze blew my hair out of my eye, as if the world wanted me to get a better look.  I felt the soft plant life between my toes and did a little twirl as Billy climbed out of the pod.  They took a deep breath, which was weird since we didn’t even need to breathe, and sighed. “So this is what we’ve been waiting for for so long,” they began, surveying the area.  They looked up at the taller plants growing around, which almost touched the white puff balls in the sky.  “I’ve got to say, I’m impressed.” “Oh wow, something impresses Billy and it’s not themselves,” I teased.  “Are you feeling alright?” “Oh hardy har Willa, you’ve got to admit this place is cool!” “Yes, it’s very cool.” I took in the nature around me for a good few minutes before Billy lost their patience.  I was awoken from my daydreaming by getting slammed into and tumbling down a muddy hill, laughing hysterically.  When we reached the bottom, I smeared mud into my sibling’s face. “What was that for?” I asked between laughs. “I haven’t been able to move more than three feet at a time for fifteen years!” Billy complained.  “Let’s play!”  They jumped back on top of me and we wrestled for a bit before laying back and watching the sky. Suddenly, we heard a rustle in the nearby plant life.  Billy and I sat up and watched it carefully, Billy with their hand already reaching for their gem. Out comes a older looking person with skin the same color as the trunks of the tall plants, long grey hair pulled back in a ponytail, a walking stick, and a simple white button up and cargo shorts. “A human!” I exclaimed without meaning to.  I remembered memories of humans from gems who had gone to a planet called Earth.  This was where the rebellion had happened!  Billy and I never told anyone, but we had always been rooting for the Crystal Gems.  The old woman jumped back, and I apologized for startling her. “No, that’s alright,” she said.  She had a very warm smile that could light up any room, and I instantly felt comfortable in her presence.  I could tell Billy felt the same, but they didn’t show any sign of it outwardly.  “I saw your ship land out here and wanted to make sure everything was ok.” “You’re….not afraid of us?”  Billy asked. “Not at all!” the woman explained cheerfully.  “We get a lot of weird stuff out here, and innocent until proven guilty I say!  Your journey must have been long, would you like to come back with me and I can give you some food and get you cleaned up?” At this point Billy had dropped their hand back down to their side, feeling safe in the woman’s company.  We could both tell she had no hostile intentions towards us. “What is….food?” I asked. The woman gave us an exaggerated gasp.  “Well allow me to show you!”  She began to walk back the way she came.  Billy and I smiled at each other and ran to catch up with her.  She stopped for a second, scoffing at herself.  “Where are my manners?  My name is Trinity.  Do you have names?” “Yes, I am Willa,” I replied, “and this is my sibling, Billy.” “Hiya!” Billy waved. “What beautiful names!  Well, I’d like to welcome you to Earth!” “Where exactly are we on Earth?” Billy questioned. “Well, we’re heading back to a little town called Gravity Falls.” ------------ I sat out in the summer sun, letting it warm my skin soothingly.  The wind rustled the pine needles and sent waves through the grass around me.  The sweet scent of fresh berries swirled around in the breeze.  I hummed at the comfort and calm this planet provided me with everyday for the past few decades. Billy came out of the woods with an armful of peaches and let them roll to the ground around me.  They kneeled down next to me, picking one up and taking a big bite out of it, pit and all. “Anything interesting today?” Billy asked me. “Not really,” I answered.  “Lazy Susan dropped by today.  She said she had a new bottle of gin for you at the diner.” “Oh what?!” They jumped up and yanked on my arm.  “What are we sitting here for?  Let’s go!”  Without letting go of my wrist, they ran down the path towards the town.  I stumbled as I tried to keep up, yelling at them playfully. We almost fell into the local diner and took a seat at the bar.  We both giggled while we came down from our running high.  Lazy Susan, the old waitress with a lazy eye and teased brunette hair, came and greeted us happily, setting down our menus on the counter. “What will you have?” she asked, taking out a pad and pencil. “Can we have some pancakes please?” I wondered.  I twiddled my thumbs nervously, even though I had known her for years.  I was always a little uncomfortable around people. “Of course dear!”  She scribbled down our order and turned around before stopping and snapping her fingers.  “I almost forgot!”  She plucked a large glass bottle filled with clear liquid off of a nearby shelf and placed it in front of Billy. “Ah yes!” they cheered.  “Thanks a bunch Susan!” She laughed at Billy’s excitement.  “I’ll go get your pancakes.” The diner was pretty empty for a Saturday, but that just meant we got our food faster.  We chatted about little things we liked and little things that bothered us.  Our food came and Billy poured some of their gin into the syrup, then proceeded to drench the fluffy cakes in it. I heard the little bell at the door jingle.  I looked over Billy’s shoulder to find a young man I had never seen before walk in.  He wore glasses, khakis, and a simple black t-shirt.  He had his nose in a journal, scratching a pen into the paper at a speed I have never seen.  As I looked closer, I noticed this human had six fingers instead of five. I projected my observations to Billy telepathically while they chewed their pancakes.  They looked up at me with wide eyes and full cheeks, then glanced over at the newcomer.  He sat down on my other side, still writing in his book.  Billy and I couldn’t help but stare at the strange man and his detailed drawings. “Who is that?” Billy asked me through our thoughts. “I don’t know,” I said.  “Can you get anything from his mind?” Billy took a minute.  “He’s new to the town.  He’s here to study all the crazy stuff that goes on around here.  The weird creatures in the woods and stuff.” “You mean like us?” Billy and I made eye contact and I heard a gasp behind me.  The man had finally noticed us.  His eyes were wide and his mouth agape.  We stared at each other for a few minutes in complete silence. After a few minutes, the man began to slowly reach up towards me.  His six fingered hand got closer to my face, but he only seemed curious, not hostile.  I had never had someone act this way around me. I came out of my trance when he pressed a thumb to my gem, yelping and covering it with my hands. “Fascinating,” the man whispered. “What was that?” I complained softly trying not to offend him. “I’m sorry, it’s just….what are you?” “Excuse us?” Billy questioned. “Well you’re clearly not human,” the man observed.  “So what are you.” I looked down, blushing deeply and rubbing my gem.  “Rude,” I mumbled. “We’re aliens,” Billy deadpanned, face still.  “Gems more specifically.” “Incredible.  Tell me more.”  The man lifted his journal up, pen at the ready. “Um,” I began, “we don’t really talk about ourselves like that….with….humans….” The man furrowed his brows and grunted in frustration.  Instead of apologizing, he just got up, and left, telling us quietly, “come to the shack in the woods when you change your mind.” We watched him go in shock.  No one had ever been so direct with us about our anatomy.  I felt we wouldn’t see the last of that man. ---------------- Billy sipped a glass of wine from the rocking chair on the porch.  Stanford had just returned from studying fairies out in the woods and watched as I grew frost on the surrounding grass.  He jotted down little things in his journal while I twirled my fingers around. “Very good!” he exclaimed.  “Now, can you frost the flower over there?”  He pointed to a violet growing about a foot away. “Um, yes, sure.”  With a wave of my hand, the flower was frozen. “Amazing!  Billy, could you get me some more ink?” “But I just sat down,” Billy whined. “Come on,” he ordered, snapping his fingers.  “My pen’s almost out and I need to get a sketch of this.” “You know what?  You get it,” Billy grumbled. A pause.  Ford looked up at my sibling.  “What?” “You heard me.  I’m tired of being treated like a servant.” “You can’t do that!  I let you stay in my house, I kept you safe, I gave you food.”  My chest tightened. Billy threw their hands up in exasperation.  “We don’t even need to eat!” “We thought you were helping us….because you liked us….” I said quietly with tears in my eye.  I was so afraid.  Was our friend not really our friend? “Of course I like you!” Ford retorted.  “You’re a fascinating specimen!  I’ve never seen anything like you!” “But….don’t you like us for anything else….than what we are?”  I sniffled. “What are we to you?!” Billy demanded. “An experiment!” he yelled.  “An observation!” I gasped and placed my hands over my mouth, a small trickle of water falling down my cheek.  The ground around me froze solid and Ford stumbled back.  I glared through the tears. “I thought you cared about us!” I shrieked.   Billy stood up, scowl on their face, and cried, “Why?!  All these years you projected thoughts of real friendship!  Why work so hard to deceive us?!” Ford jumped to his feet.  “I told you not to read my mind!” “We can’t control it all the time!” I yelled through my tears. “Shut up!”  Ford smacked me across the face.  This was the first time I had ever seen such hostile thoughts in the mind of my once-thought-friend.  I curled in on myself, spikes of ice growing out around me. “You get away from Willa!” Billy screamed.  Fire curled around their hands and swirls of sand formed around Ford. “I’m done with this!”  Ford pulled a small gun out of his jacket and fired it at my sibling.  They crumpled to the ground, clutching their gem and wailing in agony.  Their form flickered and popped.  Pained tears came pouring from their eye. “No!” I cried, and I jumped on Ford.  I placed a hand on his, the one holding the gun, and sent a burst of cold through my fingertips.  Ford yelped and pushed me off.  I hit the ground only a second before I was shot as well. Fiery pain exploded in my chest, the feeling of molten lava seeping through my form and clouding my vision.  I felt myself scream, but I couldn’t hear anything except a high pitched ringing.  I couldn’t summon my weapons or use my abilities to protect myself.  I was completely defenseless. With all the strength I had left, I tried to crawl to a suffering Billy, but Ford was quicker.  He took out his switchblade, the one he kept “in case of emergency,” and stabbed it into their back.  I heard a loud poof and covered my eye and gem with my forearm.  When I looked back up, Ford was standing over me with his weapon in one hand and Billy’s gem in the other. “Hopefully one day you’ll learn to be more courteous guests,” he growled.  Somehow that sentence was crystal clear to me. There was a flash of silver, a poof, and everything went black.

[thebackroader]

The Alpe Adria Trail

"You're missing a beautiful sunrise" I announce to the three silent tents, dewy and pale in the dawn. No replies. 

"Guys" I say louder. "it's amazing" A grunt from one, I hear Harley turn over in his sleeping bag. We're meant to be up and out of camp in half an hour. Better change tack. 

"You're missing the most amazing 'gram ever guys." I say even louder. That gets them. Alex's head appears out of the tent. Harley, phone in hand, is up. Joanna in her flip flops and socks, Sven with his long hair sticking up in all directions. Know your audience, everyone.

It was a beautiful sunrise though; we were camped high up , looking down on a valley filled with golden mist. The lower hills were navy blue, fading into bands of azure. The high peaks behind are peach and pink, dusted with gold sun, the mist turning bright as the light hit it. The alps wake up beautifully. It was going to be a hot day of climbing, and it was time to get up and get on the bikes.

We were taking a week off work to do the Alpe Adria trail, a gravel route that runs from Salzburg in Austria over the alps and into Italy, ending up on the Italian Coast at Grado- though we were detouring to finish in the more spectacular Venice. The trail took a lot of digging to find, but proclaimed itself to be the “best cycle trail" in Europe. I didn’t need much more persuasion than that. So, with my twin sister, Joanna, our boyfriends Sven and Tim, and two friends- Harley and Alex- we set off in September. 

Flying into Salzburg through a whole series of thunderstorms, we set off to our airbnb in stormy wet darkness, and rolled into camp soaked through. So much for missing rainy season.

 In the morning, we were greeted with the sound of frantic rain fall, lashing against the windows of the airbnb. We peered outside, and then flopped back into bed. It wasn't going to be a pleasant ride today. Two coffees, breakfast and a pack of early haribo later, we climbed reluctantly onto our laden bikes and set off into the downpour. It was mountain rain; heavy and soaking, but not too cold. We pedalled through a gloomy seeming Salzburg, admiring a castle which slid out of the cloud for a few moments, and some pretty architecture. Salzburg is (I assure you) one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, but the cloud cover sat at 5 metres up, so my only recollection of it was greyness and the feeling of my waterproof giving out at the elbows. Then we climbed out of the city and into the mountains. 

The alps are beautiful. The route winds between some of Austria's tallest mountains, prettiest alpine scenery, most stunning villages and down some fantastic bike paths. Sometimes I had to pinch myself to remind myself that I was actually living this. We rolled into Hallstatt on the first day, greeted by scenery so stunning it looked like it was out of Lord of the Rings rather than Austria. The tiny medieval town sits right on the dark shores of lake Hallstatt, tucked under vertical cliffs of granite and sheer pine forests. The lone church tower soars into misty air, reflected by the dark waters of the lake. Even in low cloud and rain, the place is serene and magical. The town itself is a riot of colourful quaint wooden houses on steep streets, with no cars allowed. Even the Spar- where we spent an abnormally long time buying "grobes brot" (big bread) filled with chocolate and poppy seeds and as dense as a brick- was prettified, subtly hidden behind a deaccession.   

This magical experience was cut short by the angry owner of the campsite, who was so furious that we'd want to stay at his campsite that he shouted at our only german speaker (sven) and slammed his door in our face. We googled the campsite later to see that this was that average greeting for anyone who wanted to camp there, with comments such as:  "For some reasons, as soon as the receptionist saw us, he was shouting as us and told us to get out", "The ground keeper was offensive and clearly didn't want us to be there from the moment we started to talk with him"  "the owner is rude and crazy and does not like young people" "The receptionist was utterly unfriendly, quite aggressive and unpleasant from the beginning with no apparent reason." I recommend avoiding Campingplatz Klausner-Höll! 

All was forgiven the next morning, as we rose to see a wonderful misty sunrise over the lake, with sunlight pouring over the peaks onto the serene lake.  We spent a long time having coffee and pasties on the shore of the lake, unable to leave the beauty. Eventually the crowds of tourists shipping in on buses got too much to bear, so we set off out of the valley and over to Werfen. 

The ride was a bit like the sound of music; green pastures and cows with bells, trees just turning yellow, and beyond this all, the awe inspiring granite peaks of the alps- blue-black silhouettes against the blue sky. We spent the day on bike paths, slowly climbing and descending several small passes, and stopping for coffee, cake and ice-cream whenever we came across the next charming town. Progress was slow but appetites were satiated. 

We took a day off in Werfen,a tiny town which sits in the shadow of the incredible "Hochkogel”, a 2000m high mass of sheer granite. Even their stunning Hohenwerfen castle, sitting pearched on a precipice of 600m,  looks like a toy town in comparison. There is plenty to do around there- you can hike up to Hitlers holiday home, or drive out to some spectacular waterfalls. We opted to see the Ice caves, the worlds biggest. It was an epic just to get up to them- a 20min bus up a steep, windy mountain path, then a 15 minute cable car, and another 20 minute walk up and up to a giant gaping hole int he side of the mountain. The ice cave was pretty...cool, excuse the pun- towering ice sculptures formed by cold air getting trapped in the cave. Lit by eerie magnesium, and directed by funny tour guides, it was worth the freezing feet. Bring something warm though!

After this, we cycled over to the incredible Badgastien. The cycle ride spent most of the time on the valley floor, passing ravines and sheer mountainsides, clear waters and immaculate gravel bike paths the whole way. Badgastine is fantastic- other than it's name, which allows for many jokes about farts- it is an unmissable stop. The town sits on a ravine, separated by a waterfall. It was biggest climb of the trip coming up into Badgastien; you edge up a mountainside at a steady pace, winding up through the town with the view spreading out on to one side. We stopped for photos and a great coffee half way up, gazing at the waterfall falling between houses built on vertical sides. After several hours of climbing, you are rewarded with a train journey over the summit, and then an amazing 10km steep downhill, wiggling down alpine paths to the valley floor. We camped just outside of Spitall an da drau, and found the best pizza of the trip in a back alley tennis club pizza joint. If you get a chance, definitely visit Tennishalle, the pizzas were divine.  

From here, we passed through Villach, and off to the Italian border. We had quite a time at the Italian border, I was so excited at getting there I promptly rode into a concrete pillar and fell off, along with all my bags and water bottles, which got the attention of the snoozing border guards. We stopped for selfies and haribo, feeling extremely proud of ourselves. There was a man waiting there who showed us how to gesture like an Italian- it's apparently all in the shoulders.  

We raced off to the first town we could see to get out first Italian Snack (fresh bread, coffee and ice cream) There had been much excitement throughout the trip about reaching Italy and having Italina food. We couldn't wait to carb load with pizza, bread, ice-cream, and pasta. It did not disappoint. From the Italian border, we rode almost of the alps on an 80km downhill which blew my mind. It followed the old Pontebbanna train route,  but it had been perfectly tarmac-ed, so cycling was an absolute joy. It was the stuff of every cyclists dream. A long downhill, perfect surface, completely off road, wiggling through tunnels and over bridges, following a spectacular ravine down to the sea, with views of distant lofty peaks. It was the best day of the trip, and perhaps of any cycling I've done. 

We took a day off in Venzone, at an icy cold, clear glacier lake called Lago De Cavasso. Camping on it's shores, with beer and pizza mere steps away at the campsites restaurant, we spent a perfect rest day chilling out and attempting to swim (but running out screaming after a few seconds in the icy glaciated water) 

From Verzone, we headed out of the alps to Udine, and over the flat (boring) farmland to Venice. We took a ferry into Venice, sailing up the grand canal in a purple sunset. You aren't allowed to take bikes into Venice officially, but we sneaked them in anyway and walked them through the narrow cobbled streets to our Airbnb in the dead of night.

That evening, after a 120km last leg, we gorged on local pizza, sitting on the banks of a canal in the jewish quarter of Venice. All we could hear was water and the noises of each other devouring our pizzas. It was truly a good end to a trip that tested out taste buds as much as our legs. 

If you are interested in a flattish, gorgeous, off road route between two incredible cities, this one is the one for you. More information at : https://www.alpe-adria-radweg.com/en/

[sheminecrafts]

Life with the Samsung Galaxy Fold

Avoid pressing hard on the screen.

Tap lightly to keep it safe.

Your Galaxy Fold isn’t water or dust resistant.

Don’t allow any liquids or foreign objects to enter it.

Don’t attach anything to the main screen, such as a screen protector.

So begins your journey. It’s the story of one of the most fascinating product releases in recent memory. It’s also the story of the most polarizing product I’ve ever reviewed…twice.

The Galaxy Fold is at once a hopeful glimpse into the future and a fascinating mess. It’s a product I can’t recommend anyone purchase, but it’s one I’m still glad Samsung had the guts to make.

What’s perhaps most frustrating are the glimpses you get using the device, those moments it transcends lovely and is legitimately useful. And when you leave the device at home, you actually start to miss the 7.3-inch display.

Two scenarios in particular have really highlighted the value of Samsung’s strong-headed approach to pushing boundaries.

First is the gym. Unfolding the device and propping it up on the control panel of a piece of exercise equipment is a beautiful thing. Full-screen Netflix, baseball games from MLB At Bat. Watch the minutes and the calories just fly away. The Fold also works great with the Galaxy Buds, which are legitimately one of the best hardware products Samsung has produced in ages.

Second is the subway. I’ve been prepping for interviews by reading Pocket stories on the train, with the Notes app open in a side window. This is great. Like a seriously awesome thing. And this is coming from someone who still has trouble embracing smartphones as serious productivity devices. There are just too many limitations to that small screen. When I want to get work done, the laptop comes out. I’m not suggesting the Fold completely changes the math here, but it does edge ever closer, blurring that line a bit in the process.

So there you go. That’s two distinct examples, covering both entertainment and productivity. The fact is the same as ever: big screens are good. The question is how we get there. It’s a true fact, of course, that plenty mocked Samsung with the first Note device. It seems hard to believe, but in 2011, 5.3 inches seemed impossibly large for a phone. By 2018, however, 5.5 inches was the most popular screen size for handsets. And that number appears to still be growing.

Clearly Samsung was right on that one, and the Note played an outsized role in pushing those boundaries.

After years of teasing flexible and foldable displays, the tech world was understandably excited when the Galaxy Fold finally arrived. Honestly, there were long stretches of time when it felt like the handset would never arrive. As such, it feels strange to suggest that the product was somehow rushed to market.

It’s important to remember, of course, that part of the mainstreaming of big phones has been the technologies supporting the large screen. Samsung, Apple, Huawei, et al. have done a good job consistently increasing screen to body ratios. The new Notes may have bigger screens than ever, but other breakthroughs in manufacturing means we’re not walking around with bricks.

Similarly, this decidedly first-generation device is big and thick. Anecdotally, reactions have been…mixed. The two separate rounds of review devices I’ve received from the company (round two, for reasons we’ll get into in a second involved two devices) have coincided with big TechCrunch-hosted events in San Francisco. First TC Sessions: Robotics in April and then Disrupt last week.

Take some of this with a grain of salt, because my co-workers can be pretty damn cynical about new technologies (and yes, I’ve been at this long enough to include myself in this). Reactions ranged from genuinely wowed to disappointed bafflement. There was also one co-worker who repeatedly threatened to eat the device because she said it looked like an ice cream sandwich, but that’s a story for another blog post.

There are plenty of things to be critical from a design standpoint. The “first-gen” feel runs very deep with the device. When closed it’s quite thick — like two phones stacked atop one another. The crease is visible, as has often been reported. And the front display isn’t particularly useful. I get why it’s there, of course. There are plenty of moments when you just want to check a quick notification, bit it’s incredibly narrow and sandwiched between two massive bezels.   

None of those really matter much compared to the device’s fragility. The Fold will forever be the device whose release date was pushed back after multiple reviewers sent back broken devices. Mine worked fine. The company went back to the drawing board for several months and came back with a more robust device that patched up some holes and reinforced the folding mechanism. Mine broke.

After about 27 hours with the device, I opened it up in line at CVS and noticed something weird about the screen. Sitting between the butterfly wings was a mass of pixels I referred to as an “amorphous blob.” I’d been fairly gentle with the thing, but, as I put it in a followup, “a phone is not a Fabergé egg.” In other words, it’s understandable that the product isn’t designed to, say, survive a drop onto hard concrete or a dunk in the toilet.

While it’s true that many other modern phones have evolved over generations to withstand such accidental bumbles, it’s also understandable that the Fold is a little more fragile. We can’t say Samsung didn’t warn us, and I do appreciate that Samsung was able to go back to the drawing board before wide release, but there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that a smartphone that needs to literally ship with warnings like the ones stated up top isn’t fully ready for prime time.

CNET recently got its hands on a folding machine and found that the handset could withstand 120,000 fold. That’s a little more than half of the promised 200,000. Another third-party test found similar results. Not ideal, but not terrible. It’s about three years’ worth of folds. If you’re dropping $2,000+ on a phone, you may well want it to last closer to the promised five years — though if you have that sort of disposable income, who knows?

I would honestly be more concerned with the kind of day to day issues that could potentially result in damage like what I saw. It’s possible that mine had a defect. I’ve been using a replacement that Samsung dropped off after collecting mine to send back to Korea for testing. Granted, I’ve been using it even more gingerly than its predecessor, but so far, so good.

This morning I saw a report of a user experiencing what appears to be the same defect in the same spot. A commenter astutely pointed out the placement of a screw discovered during a recent teardown that could be the source of these issues. As ever, it will be interesting to see how this all…unfolds.

I’m not going to get too far into the other specs here. I wrote thousands of words in my original review. Nothing about the underlying technology has changed between versions one and two. All of the big updates have been to the folding mechanism and keeping the device more robust.

It’s fitting, I think that my model had 5G built-in. Both technologies feel like a glimpse into the future, but there’s little to recommend plunking down the requisite money to purchase either in 2019. The clear difference is that slow saturation of next-generation cellular technology is a bit more understood at this point. Telling someone that their fingernails can damage their $2,000 phone is a different conversation entirely.

I do think that Samsung’s committed to the Galaxy Fold long-term. And I do believe that there will eventually be a place for the products in the market.

The biggest short-term concern is all the negative press following the first wave of devices. The FlexPai felt more like a prototype than consumer device. The Fold feels like something of an extended public beta. And the Huawei Mate X, which, although incredibly promising, is still MIA, as the company does another pass on the product. Global availability is another question entirely — though, that’s due to…other issues…

[gallery ids="1885397,1885396,1885395,1885394,1885393,1885392,1885391,1885385,1885384,1885382,1885381,1885379,1885378"]

Knowing Samsung, the company will return from all of this with a much stronger offering in generation 2. There are a LOT of learnings to be gleaned from the product. And while it offers a glimpse into the promise of foldable, you’re better off waiting until that vision is more fully realized.

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/317J26r via IFTTT

[charrmedia]

[ad_1]

Avoid pressing hard on the screen.

Tap lightly to keep it safe.

Your Galaxy Fold isn’t water or dust resistant.

Don’t allow any liquids or foreign objects to enter it.

Don’t attach anything to the main screen, such as a screen protector.

So begins your journey. It’s the story of one of the most fascinating product releases in recent memory. It’s also the story of the most polarizing product I’ve ever reviewed…twice.

The Galaxy Fold is at once a hopeful glimpse into the future and a fascinating mess. It’s a product I can’t recommend anyone purchase, but it’s one I’m still glad Samsung had the guts to make.

What’s perhaps most frustrating are the glimpses you get using the device, those moments it transcends lovely and is legitimately useful. And when you leave the device at home, you actually start to miss the 7.3-inch display.

Two scenarios in particular have really highlighted the value of Samsung’s strong-headed approach to pushing boundaries.

First is the gym. Unfolding the device and propping it up on the control panel of a piece of exercise equipment is a beautiful thing. Full-screen Netflix, baseball games from MLB At Bat. Watch the minutes and the calories just fly away. The Fold also works great with the Galaxy Buds, which are legitimately one of the best hardware products Samsung has produced in ages.

Second is the subway. I’ve been prepping for interviews by reading Pocket stories on the train, with the Notes app open in a side window. This is great. Like a seriously awesome thing. And this is coming from someone who still has trouble embracing smartphones as serious productivity devices. There are just too many limitations to that small screen. When I want to get work done, the laptop comes out. I’m not suggesting the Fold completely changes the math here, but it does edge ever closer, blurring that line a bit in the process.

So there you go. That’s two distinct examples, covering both entertainment and productivity. The fact is the same as ever: big screens are good. The question is how we get there. It’s a true fact, of course, that plenty mocked Samsung with the first Note device. It seems hard to believe, but in 2011, 5.3 inches seemed impossibly large for a phone. By 2018, however, 5.5 inches was the most popular screen size for handsets. And that number appears to still be growing.

Clearly Samsung was right on that one, and the Note played an outsized role in pushing those boundaries.

After years of teasing flexible and foldable displays, the tech world was understandably excited when the Galaxy Fold finally arrived. Honestly, there were long stretches of time when it felt like the handset would never arrive. As such, it feels strange to suggest that the product was somehow rushed to market.

It’s important to remember, of course, that part of the mainstreaming of big phones has been the technologies supporting the large screen. Samsung, Apple, Huawei, et al. have done a good job consistently increasing screen to body ratios. The new Notes may have bigger screens than ever, but other breakthroughs in manufacturing means we’re not walking around with bricks.

Similarly, this decidedly first-generation device is big and thick. Anecdotally, reactions have been…mixed. The two separate rounds of review devices I’ve received from the company (round two, for reasons we’ll get into in a second involved two devices) have coincided with big TechCrunch-hosted events in San Francisco. First TC Sessions: Robotics in April and then Disrupt last week.

Take some of this with a grain of salt, because my co-workers can be pretty damn cynical about new technologies (and yes, I’ve been at this long enough to include myself in this). Reactions ranged from genuinely wowed to disappointed bafflement. There was also one co-worker who repeatedly threatened to eat the device because she said it looked like an ice cream sandwich, but that’s a story for another blog post.

There are plenty of things to be critical from a design standpoint. The “first-gen” feel runs very deep with the device. When closed it’s quite thick — like two phones stacked atop one another. The crease is visible, as has often been reported. And the front display isn’t particularly useful. I get why it’s there, of course. There are plenty of moments when you just want to check a quick notification, bit it’s incredibly narrow and sandwiched between two massive bezels.   

None of those really matter much compared to the device’s fragility. The Fold will forever be the device whose release date was pushed back after multiple reviewers sent back broken devices. Mine worked fine. The company went back to the drawing board for several months and came back with a more robust device that patched up some holes and reinforced the folding mechanism. Mine broke.

After about 27 hours with the device, I opened it up in line at CVS and noticed something weird about the screen. Sitting between the butterfly wings was a mass of pixels I referred to as an “amorphous blob.” I’d been fairly gentle with the thing, but, as I put it in a followup, “a phone is not a Fabergé egg.” In other words, it’s understandable that the product isn’t designed to, say, survive a drop onto hard concrete or a dunk in the toilet.

While it’s true that many other modern phones have evolved over generations to withstand such accidental bumbles, it’s also understandable that the Fold is a little more fragile. We can’t say Samsung didn’t warn us, and I do appreciate that Samsung was able to go back to the drawing board before wide release, but there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that a smartphone that needs to literally ship with warnings like the ones stated up top isn’t fully ready for prime time.

CNET recently got its hands on a folding machine and found that the handset could withstand 120,000 fold. That’s a little more than half of the promised 200,000. Another third-party test found similar results. Not ideal, but not terrible. It’s about three years’ worth of folds. If you’re dropping $2,000+ on a phone, you may well want it to last closer to the promised five years — though if you have that sort of disposable income, who knows?

I would honestly be more concerned with the kind of day to day issues that could potentially result in damage like what I saw. It’s possible that mine had a defect. I’ve been using a replacement that Samsung dropped off after collecting mine to send back to Korea for testing. Granted, I’ve been using it even more gingerly than its predecessor, but so far, so good.

This morning I saw a report of a user experiencing what appears to be the same defect in the same spot. A commenter astutely pointed out the placement of a screw discovered during a recent teardown that could be the source of these issues. As ever, it will be interesting to see how this all…unfolds.

I’m not going to get too far into the other specs here. I wrote thousands of words in my original review. Nothing about the underlying technology has changed between versions one and two. All of the big updates have been to the folding mechanism and keeping the device more robust.

It’s fitting, I think that my model had 5G built-in. Both technologies feel like a glimpse into the future, but there’s little to recommend plunking down the requisite money to purchase either in 2019. The clear difference is that slow saturation of next-generation cellular technology is a bit more understood at this point. Telling someone that their fingernails can damage their $2,000 phone is a different conversation entirely.

I do think that Samsung’s committed to the Galaxy Fold long-term. And I do believe that there will eventually be a place for the products in the market.

The biggest short-term concern is all the negative press following the first wave of devices. The FlexPai felt more like a prototype than consumer device. The Fold feels like something of an extended public beta. And the Huawei Mate X, which, although incredibly promising, is still MIA, as the company does another pass on the product. Global availability is another question entirely — though, that’s due to…other issues…

Knowing Samsung, the company will return from all of this with a much stronger offering in generation 2. There are a LOT of learnings to be gleaned from the product. And while it offers a glimpse into the promise of foldable, you’re better off waiting until that vision is more fully realized.

[ad_2] Source link

Life with the Samsung Galaxy Fold Avoid pressing hard on the screen. Tap lightly to keep it safe. Your Galaxy Fold isn’t water or dust resistant.

[iotcoresoft]

Avoid pressing hard on the screen.

Tap lightly to keep it safe.

Your Galaxy Fold isn’t water or dust resistant.

Don’t allow any liquids or foreign objects to enter it.

Don’t attach anything to the main screen, such as a screen protector.

So begins your journey. It’s the story of one of the most fascinating product releases in recent memory. It’s also the story of the most polarizing product I’ve ever reviewed…twice.

The Galaxy Fold is at once a hopeful glimpse into the future and a fascinating mess. It’s a product I can’t recommend anyone purchase, but it’s one I’m still glad Samsung had the guts to make.

What’s perhaps most frustrating are the glimpses you get using the device, those moments it transcends lovely and is legitimately useful. And when you leave the device at home, you actually start to miss the 7.3-inch display.

Two scenarios in particular have really highlighted the value of Samsung’s strong-headed approach to pushing boundaries.

First is the gym. Unfolding the device and propping it up on the control panel of a piece of exercise equipment is a beautiful thing. Full-screen Netflix, baseball games from MLB At Bat. Watch the minutes and the calories just fly away. The Fold also works great with the Galaxy Buds, which are legitimately one of the best hardware products Samsung has produced in ages.

Second is the subway. I’ve been prepping for interviews by reading Pocket stories on the train, with the Notes app open in a side window. This is great. Like a seriously awesome thing. And this is coming from someone who still has trouble embracing smartphones as serious productivity devices. There are just too many limitations to that small screen. When I want to get work done, the laptop comes out. I’m not suggesting the Fold completely changes the math here, but it does edge ever closer, blurring that line a bit in the process.

So there you go. That’s two distinct examples, covering both entertainment and productivity. The fact is the same as ever: big screens are good. The question is how we get there. It’s a true fact, of course, that plenty mocked Samsung with the first Note device. It seems hard to believe, but in 2011, 5.3 inches seemed impossibly large for a phone. By 2018, however, 5.5 inches was the most popular screen size for handsets. And that number appears to still be growing.

Clearly Samsung was right on that one, and the Note played an outsized role in pushing those boundaries.

After years of teasing flexible and foldable displays, the tech world was understandably excited when the Galaxy Fold finally arrived. Honestly, there were long stretches of time when it felt like the handset would never arrive. As such, it feels strange to suggest that the product was somehow rushed to market.

It’s important to remember, of course, that part of the mainstreaming of big phones has been the technologies supporting the large screen. Samsung, Apple, Huawei, et al. have done a good job consistently increasing screen to body ratios. The new Notes may have bigger screens than ever, but other breakthroughs in manufacturing means we’re not walking around with bricks.

Similarly, this decidedly first-generation device is big and thick. Anecdotally, reactions have been…mixed. The two separate rounds of review devices I’ve received from the company (round two, for reasons we’ll get into in a second involved two devices) have coincided with big TechCrunch-hosted events in San Francisco. First TC Sessions: Robotics in April and then Disrupt last week.

Take some of this with a grain of salt, because my co-workers can be pretty damn cynical about new technologies (and yes, I’ve been at this long enough to include myself in this). Reactions ranged from genuinely wowed to disappointed bafflement. There was also one co-worker who repeatedly threatened to eat the device because she said it looked like an ice cream sandwich, but that’s a story for another blog post.

There are plenty of things to be critical from a design standpoint. The “first-gen” feel runs very deep with the device. When closed it’s quite thick — like two phones stacked atop one another. The crease is visible, as has often been reported. And the front display isn’t particularly useful. I get why it’s there, of course. There are plenty of moments when you just want to check a quick notification, bit it’s incredibly narrow and sandwiched between two massive bezels.   

None of those really matter much compared to the device’s fragility. The Fold will forever be the device whose release date was pushed back after multiple reviewers sent back broken devices. Mine worked fine. The company went back to the drawing board for several months and came back with a more robust device that patched up some holes and reinforced the folding mechanism. Mine broke.

After about 27 hours with the device, I opened it up in line at CVS and noticed something weird about the screen. Sitting between the butterfly wings was a mass of pixels I referred to as an “amorphous blob.” I’d been fairly gentle with the thing, but, as I put it in a followup, “a phone is not a Fabergé egg.” In other words, it’s understandable that the product isn’t designed to, say, survive a drop onto hard concrete or a dunk in the toilet.

While it’s true that many other modern phones have evolved over generations to withstand such accidental bumbles, it’s also understandable that the Fold is a little more fragile. We can’t say Samsung didn’t warn us, and I do appreciate that Samsung was able to go back to the drawing board before wide release, but there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that a smartphone that needs to literally ship with warnings like the ones stated up top isn’t fully ready for prime time.

CNET recently got its hands on a folding machine and found that the handset could withstand 120,000 fold. That’s a little more than half of the promised 200,000. Another third-party test found similar results. Not ideal, but not terrible. It’s about three years’ worth of folds. If you’re dropping $2,000+ on a phone, you may well want it to last closer to the promised five years — though if you have that sort of disposable income, who knows?

I would honestly be more concerned with the kind of day to day issues that could potentially result in damage like what I saw. It’s possible that mine had a defect. I’ve been using a replacement that Samsung dropped off after collecting mine to send back to Korea for testing. Granted, I’ve been using it even more gingerly than its predecessor, but so far, so good.

This morning I saw a report of a user experiencing what appears to be the same defect in the same spot. A commenter astutely pointed out the placement of a screw discovered during a recent teardown that could be the source of these issues. As ever, it will be interesting to see how this all…unfolds.

I’m not going to get too far into the other specs here. I wrote thousands of words in my original review. Nothing about the underlying technology has changed between versions one and two. All of the big updates have been to the folding mechanism and keeping the device more robust.

It’s fitting, I think that my model had 5G built-in. Both technologies feel like a glimpse into the future, but there’s little to recommend plunking down the requisite money to purchase either in 2019. The clear difference is that slow saturation of next-generation cellular technology is a bit more understood at this point. Telling someone that their fingernails can damage their $2,000 phone is a different conversation entirely.

I do think that Samsung’s committed to the Galaxy Fold long-term. And I do believe that there will eventually be a place for the products in the market.

The biggest short-term concern is all the negative press following the first wave of devices. The FlexPai felt more like a prototype than consumer device. The Fold feels like something of an extended public beta. And the Huawei Mate X, which, although incredibly promising, is still MIA, as the company does another pass on the product. Global availability is another question entirely — though, that’s due to…other issues…

Knowing Samsung, the company will return from all of this with a much stronger offering in generation 2. There are a LOT of learnings to be gleaned from the product. And while it offers a glimpse into the promise of foldable, you’re better off waiting until that vision is more fully realized.

Life with the Samsung Galaxy Fold – TechCrunch Avoid pressing hard on the screen. Tap lightly to keep it safe. Your Galaxy Fold isn’t water or dust resistant.

[technicalsolutions88]

Avoid pressing hard on the screen.

Tap lightly to keep it safe.

Your Galaxy Fold isn’t water or dust resistant.

Don’t allow any liquids or foreign objects to enter it.

Don’t attach anything to the main screen, such as a screen protector.

So begins your journey. It’s the story of one of the most fascinating product releases in recent memory. It’s also the story of the most polarizing product I’ve ever reviewed…twice.

The Galaxy Fold is at once a hopeful glimpse into the future and a fascinating mess. It’s a product I can’t recommend anyone purchase, but it’s one I’m still glad Samsung had the guts to make.

What’s perhaps most frustrating are the glimpses you get using the device, those moments it transcends lovely and is legitimately useful. And when you leave the device at home, you actually start to miss the 7.3-inch display.

Two scenarios in particular have really highlighted the value of Samsung’s strong-headed approach to pushing boundaries.

First is the gym. Unfolding the device and propping it up on the control panel of a piece of exercise equipment is a beautiful thing. Full-screen Netflix, baseball games from MLB At Bat. Watch the minutes and the calories just fly away. The Fold also works great with the Galaxy Buds, which are legitimately one of the best hardware products Samsung has produced in ages.

Second is the subway. I’ve been prepping for interviews by reading Pocket stories on the train, with the Notes app open in a side window. This is great. Like a seriously awesome thing. And this is coming from someone who still has trouble embracing smartphones as serious productivity devices. There are just too many limitations to that small screen. When I want to get work done, the laptop comes out. I’m not suggesting the Fold completely changes the math here, but it does edge ever closer, blurring that line a bit in the process.

So there you go. That’s two distinct examples, covering both entertainment and productivity. The fact is the same as ever: big screens are good. The question is how we get there. It’s a true fact, of course, that plenty mocked Samsung with the first Note device. It seems hard to believe, but in 2011, 5.3 inches seemed impossibly large for a phone. By 2018, however, 5.5 inches was the most popular screen size for handsets. And that number appears to still be growing.

Clearly Samsung was right on that one, and the Note played an outsized role in pushing those boundaries.

After years of teasing flexible and foldable displays, the tech world was understandably excited when the Galaxy Fold finally arrived. Honestly, there were long stretches of time when it felt like the handset would never arrive. As such, it feels strange to suggest that the product was somehow rushed to market.

It’s important to remember, of course, that part of the mainstreaming of big phones has been the technologies supporting the large screen. Samsung, Apple, Huawei, et al. have done a good job consistently increasing screen to body ratios. The new Notes may have bigger screens than ever, but other breakthroughs in manufacturing means we’re not walking around with bricks.

Similarly, this decidedly first-generation device is big and thick. Anecdotally, reactions have been…mixed. The two separate rounds of review devices I’ve received from the company (round two, for reasons we’ll get into in a second involved two devices) have coincided with big TechCrunch-hosted events in San Francisco. First TC Sessions: Robotics in April and then Disrupt last week.

Take some of this with a grain of salt, because my co-workers can be pretty damn cynical about new technologies (and yes, I’ve been at this long enough to include myself in this). Reactions ranged from genuinely wowed to disappointed bafflement. There was also one co-worker who repeatedly threatened to eat the device because she said it looked like an ice cream sandwich, but that’s a story for another blog post.

There are plenty of things to be critical from a design standpoint. The “first-gen” feel runs very deep with the device. When closed it’s quite thick — like two phones stacked atop one another. The crease is visible, as has often been reported. And the front display isn’t particularly useful. I get why it’s there, of course. There are plenty of moments when you just want to check a quick notification, bit it’s incredibly narrow and sandwiched between two massive bezels.   

None of those really matter much compared to the device’s fragility. The Fold will forever be the device whose release date was pushed back after multiple reviewers sent back broken devices. Mine worked fine. The company went back to the drawing board for several months and came back with a more robust device that patched up some holes and reinforced the folding mechanism. Mine broke.

After about 27 hours with the device, I opened it up in line at CVS and noticed something weird about the screen. Sitting between the butterfly wings was a mass of pixels I referred to as an “amorphous blob.” I’d been fairly gentle with the thing, but, as I put it in a followup, “a phone is not a Fabergé egg.” In other words, it’s understandable that the product isn’t designed to, say, survive a drop onto hard concrete or a dunk in the toilet.

While it’s true that many other modern phones have evolved over generations to withstand such accidental bumbles, it’s also understandable that the Fold is a little more fragile. We can’t say Samsung didn’t warn us, and I do appreciate that Samsung was able to go back to the drawing board before wide release, but there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that a smartphone that needs to literally ship with warnings like the ones stated up top isn’t fully ready for prime time.

CNET recently got its hands on a folding machine and found that the handset could withstand 120,000 fold. That’s a little more than half of the promised 200,000. Another third-party test found similar results. Not ideal, but not terrible. It’s about three years’ worth of folds. If you’re dropping $2,000+ on a phone, you may well want it to last closer to the promised five years — though if you have that sort of disposable income, who knows?

I would honestly be more concerned with the kind of day to day issues that could potentially result in damage like what I saw. It’s possible that mine had a defect. I’ve been using a replacement that Samsung dropped off after collecting mine to send back to Korea for testing. Granted, I’ve been using it even more gingerly than its predecessor, but so far, so good.

This morning I saw a report of a user experiencing what appears to be the same defect in the same spot. A commenter astutely pointed out the placement of a screw discovered during a recent teardown that could be the source of these issues. As ever, it will be interesting to see how this all…unfolds.

I’m not going to get too far into the other specs here. I wrote thousands of words in my original review. Nothing about the underlying technology has changed between versions one and two. All of the big updates have been to the folding mechanism and keeping the device more robust.

It’s fitting, I think that my model had 5G built-in. Both technologies feel like a glimpse into the future, but there’s little to recommend plunking down the requisite money to purchase either in 2019. The clear difference is that slow saturation of next-generation cellular technology is a bit more understood at this point. Telling someone that their fingernails can damage their $2,000 phone is a different conversation entirely.

I do think that Samsung’s committed to the Galaxy Fold long-term. And I do believe that there will eventually be a place for the products in the market.

The biggest short-term concern is all the negative press following the first wave of devices. The FlexPai felt more like a prototype than consumer device. The Fold feels like something of an extended public beta. And the Huawei Mate X, which, although incredibly promising, is still MIA, as the company does another pass on the product. Global availability is another question entirely — though, that’s due to…other issues…

[gallery ids="1885397,1885396,1885395,1885394,1885393,1885392,1885391,1885385,1885384,1885382,1885381,1885379,1885378"]

Knowing Samsung, the company will return from all of this with a much stronger offering in generation 2. There are a LOT of learnings to be gleaned from the product. And while it offers a glimpse into the promise of foldable, you’re better off waiting until that vision is more fully realized.

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/317J26r ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/

[cyberblogin]

Avoid pressing hard on the screen.

Tap lightly to keep it safe.

Your Galaxy Fold isn’t water or dust resistant.

Don’t allow any liquids or foreign objects to enter it.

Don’t attach anything to the main screen, such as a screen protector.

So begins your journey. It’s the story of one of the most fascinating product releases in recent memory. It’s also the story of the most polarizing product I’ve ever reviewed…twice.

The Galaxy Fold is at once a hopeful glimpse into the future and a fascinating mess. It’s a product I can’t recommend anyone purchase, but it’s one I’m still glad Samsung had the guts to make.

What’s perhaps most frustrating are the glimpses you get using the device, those moments it transcends lovely and is legitimately useful. And when you leave the device at home, you actually start to miss the 7.3-inch display.

Two scenarios in particular have really highlighted the value of Samsung’s strong-headed approach to pushing boundaries.

First is the gym. Unfolding the device and propping it up on the control panel of a piece of exercise equipment is a beautiful thing. Full-screen Netflix, baseball games from MLB At Bat. Watch the minutes and the calories just fly away. The Fold also works great with the Galaxy Buds, which are legitimately one of the best hardware products Samsung has produced in ages.

Second is the subway. I’ve been prepping for interviews by reading Pocket stories on the train, with the Notes app open in a side window. This is great. Like a seriously awesome thing. And this is coming from someone who still has trouble embracing smartphones as serious productivity devices. There are just too many limitations to that small screen. When I want to get work done, the laptop comes out. I’m not suggesting the Fold completely changes the math here, but it does edge ever closer, blurring that line a bit in the process.

So there you go. That’s two distinct examples, covering both entertainment and productivity. The fact is the same as ever: big screens are good. The question is how we get there. It’s a true fact, of course, that plenty mocked Samsung with the first Note device. It seems hard to believe, but in 2011, 5.3 inches seemed impossibly large for a phone. By 2018, however, 5.5 inches was the most popular screen size for handsets. And that number appears to still be growing.

Clearly Samsung was right on that one, and the Note played an outsized role in pushing those boundaries.

After years of teasing flexible and foldable displays, the tech world was understandably excited when the Galaxy Fold finally arrived. Honestly, there were long stretches of time when it felt like the handset would never arrive. As such, it feels strange to suggest that the product was somehow rushed to market.

It’s important to remember, of course, that part of the mainstreaming of big phones has been the technologies supporting the large screen. Samsung, Apple, Huawei, et al. have done a good job consistently increasing screen to body ratios. The new Notes may have bigger screens than ever, but other breakthroughs in manufacturing means we’re not walking around with bricks.

Similarly, this decidedly first-generation device is big and thick. Anecdotally, reactions have been…mixed. The two separate rounds of review devices I’ve received from the company (round two, for reasons we’ll get into in a second involved two devices) have coincided with big TechCrunch-hosted events in San Francisco. First TC Sessions: Robotics in April and then Disrupt last week.

Take some of this with a grain of salt, because my co-workers can be pretty damn cynical about new technologies (and yes, I’ve been at this long enough to include myself in this). Reactions ranged from genuinely wowed to disappointed bafflement. There was also one co-worker who repeatedly threatened to eat the device because she said it looked like an ice cream sandwich, but that’s a story for another blog post.

There are plenty of things to be critical from a design standpoint. The “first-gen” feel runs very deep with the device. When closed it’s quite thick — like two phones stacked atop one another. The crease is visible, as has often been reported. And the front display isn’t particularly useful. I get why it’s there, of course. There are plenty of moments when you just want to check a quick notification, bit it’s incredibly narrow and sandwiched between two massive bezels.   

None of those really matter much compared to the device’s fragility. The Fold will forever be the device whose release date was pushed back after multiple reviewers sent back broken devices. Mine worked fine. The company went back to the drawing board for several months and came back with a more robust device that patched up some holes and reinforced the folding mechanism. Mine broke.

After about 27 hours with the device, I opened it up in line at CVS and noticed something weird about the screen. Sitting between the butterfly wings was a mass of pixels I referred to as an “amorphous blob.” I’d been fairly gentle with the thing, but, as I put it in a followup, “a phone is not a Fabergé egg.” In other words, it’s understandable that the product isn’t designed to, say, survive a drop onto hard concrete or a dunk in the toilet.

While it’s true that many other modern phones have evolved over generations to withstand such accidental bumbles, it’s also understandable that the Fold is a little more fragile. We can’t say Samsung didn’t warn us, and I do appreciate that Samsung was able to go back to the drawing board before wide release, but there’s a pretty strong argument to be made that a smartphone that needs to literally ship with warnings like the ones stated up top isn’t fully ready for prime time.

CNET recently got its hands on a folding machine and found that the handset could withstand 120,000 fold. That’s a little more than half of the promised 200,000. Another third-party test found similar results. Not ideal, but not terrible. It’s about three years’ worth of folds. If you’re dropping $2,000+ on a phone, you may well want it to last closer to the promised five years — though if you have that sort of disposable income, who knows?

I would honestly be more concerned with the kind of day to day issues that could potentially result in damage like what I saw. It’s possible that mine had a defect. I’ve been using a replacement that Samsung dropped off after collecting mine to send back to Korea for testing. Granted, I’ve been using it even more gingerly than its predecessor, but so far, so good.

This morning I saw a report of a user experiencing what appears to be the same defect in the same spot. A commenter astutely pointed out the placement of a screw discovered during a recent teardown that could be the source of these issues. As ever, it will be interesting to see how this all…unfolds.

I’m not going to get too far into the other specs here. I wrote thousands of words in my original review. Nothing about the underlying technology has changed between versions one and two. All of the big updates have been to the folding mechanism and keeping the device more robust.

It’s fitting, I think that my model had 5G built-in. Both technologies feel like a glimpse into the future, but there’s little to recommend plunking down the requisite money to purchase either in 2019. The clear difference is that slow saturation of next-generation cellular technology is a bit more understood at this point. Telling someone that their fingernails can damage their $2,000 phone is a different conversation entirely.

I do think that Samsung’s committed to the Galaxy Fold long-term. And I do believe that there will eventually be a place for the products in the market.

The biggest short-term concern is all the negative press following the first wave of devices. The FlexPai felt more like a prototype than consumer device. The Fold feels like something of an extended public beta. And the Huawei Mate X, which, although incredibly promising, is still MIA, as the company does another pass on the product. Global availability is another question entirely — though, that’s due to…other issues…

Knowing Samsung, the company will return from all of this with a much stronger offering in generation 2. There are a LOT of learnings to be gleaned from the product. And while it offers a glimpse into the promise of foldable, you’re better off waiting until that vision is more fully realized.

Source link

Life with the Samsung Galaxy Fold Avoid pressing hard on the screen. Tap lightly to keep it safe. Your Galaxy Fold isn’t water or dust resistant.