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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Brain topic du jour is reflecting on the frankly weird as fuck pattern in Dick’s life where....he barely ever experiences losses one at a time. Most of the loss he’s experienced in his life is compounded by him losing multiple people and other elements of stability all at the exact same time.

1) When his parents died, in some continuities this is coupled with him losing his extended family of his aunt and cousin as well, with his uncle left comatose and on life support for years before he eventually died as well. Even in continuities without Richard, Karla and John, the loss of Dick’s parents is compounded by the additional loss of his circus family in the sense that he was taken away from them by the state and their constant reassuring presences in his life were no longer comforts he was able to rely on.

2) When Jason died, Dick didn’t just lose his brother, as the tragedy was compounded by Bruce’s reaction. I’ll never be able to gloss over the effects of NTT #55, personally, because I think its too key to Dick’s entire characterization and the specific direction his character took in the years that followed this, to like....disregard that Bruce however unintentionally, while lost in his own grief, added to Dick’s own sense of loss for Jason in probably the worst way possible. As by kicking Dick out and telling him to leave his keys, Dick - having no way to know or guess that they’d ever reconcile, just like he never actually went back to the circus being a regular presence for him - to Dick, this was in essence the equivalent of his childhood tragedy all over again. Losing not just one family member, but his whole family in one sweep, and all the comforts and stability offered by a home he was forced to leave. Even Dick’s contact with Alfred was minimal for awhile, because why would the guy who basically JUST saw history repeat itself and was like, well I know how THIS tends to play out.....why would he think that if Alfred felt forced to actually choose between his loyalties to Bruce and Dick respectively, that Alfred would pick Dick over the man he’d known and raised from childhood himself?

3) Titans Hunt. I know I harp on this one a lot, but you can’t deny that it fits the pattern. Dick didn’t just lose one friend and teammate.....he lost Joey, he lost a good four or five lesser known Titans who nevertheless were people he viewed as directly HIS responsibility to keep safe. With these tragedies compounded by the fact that though comics played out a lot more slowburn and extended stories over years back then, like.....the aftermath of Titans Hunt was still everpresent and directly died into Dick’s reactions and emotions during the Mirage storyline and everything that happened with the failed wedding and his breakup with Kory AND the fact that he was literally forced off the team he’d basically founded, by the government agency that took over the team and appointed Roy as its leader in his stead.

3) Graduation Day. The second time the Titans disbanded it was again not due to a singular loss, because Dick didn’t just lose Donna at this point, but also Lilith died in the exact same story and though Lilith is criminally underused, like, she’s also one of Dick’s oldest friends. She was literally the first Titan to join after the original five. This then led into the Outsiders era, where Dick was shown to still be reeling from the losses of this story for an extended period of time, and in a fun parallel to the Titans Hunt aftermath, Dick was also ousted from his leadership of THIS team by essentially a vote of no confidence by his teammates (and uh, Bruce too, literally).

4) The Blockbuster arc. Where Dick’s emotional state was due to a continued string of multiple losses. He lost his apartment building and almost every one of the neighbors he’d built a community out of, as we’d been shown him actively involving himself in their lives and vice versa for YEARS before this point. Then he lost his circus, his childhood home, burned to the ground and with dozens of deaths - both spectators and actual performers Dick had known and loved as a child. Then he lost his relationship with Barbara, his sense of self-security and autonomy to Tarantula, he lost another teen vigilante who died in his colors, the mantle HE’D created, when Stephanie was believed dead in War Games, and it all culminated in losing the city he’d invested himself in as his CHOSEN home, the place he dedicated himself to protecting, when Chemo blew it up.

Oh just for the record - my nonexistent passport to the magical kingdom of Narnia for a fic that raises the point when bringing up Tim’s losses in the Red Robin era, that like.....ALL of the above happened at literally the EXACT SAME TIME as all Tim’s referenced losses occurred. Obviously Steph meant more to Tim than Dick on a personal level, but I also included her largely as an anchor point to the timeline, to show how that death, and not long after that Jack Drake’s and then Superboy’s.... occurred right smack in the middle of one of the absolute WORST periods of Dick’s life. To be clear, I don’t intend this to suggest that no actually, Dick had it harder than Tim - nah.

No thank you. Hard pass. I hate that sort of thing even in support of my own faves over other characters. No, instead the thing I’d love to see explored more is just in light of the SPECIFIC angle fics take here - that Dick’s actions while Bruce was lost in time showed an obliviousness to everything Tim had lost lately - for literally ANYONE to bring up or introduce into the timeline here an awareness of everything Dick had lost AT THE EXACT SAME TIME PERIOD. To establish that actually, Dick didn’t just ‘not understand what it was like’ - rather, its more accurate to say that nobody in universe around this time ever shows an awareness of Dick’s own losses and says oh wait, that doesn’t track then.

Because obviously, with this stuff put in proper perspective, Dick understands VERY VERY WELL the exact thing we’re accusing him of not understanding by being oblivious to Tim’s losses that he’s not actually oblivious to because he tries to talk to Tim about them all the time, while meanwhile its everyone else who has absolutely mum to say about the fact that Dick’s emotional state is compromised to hell and back at this point, not JUST because of losing Bruce, but also because *gestures wildly* literally ALL OF THE ABOVE in the exact same time frame Tim’s extended losses happened in.

And okay I am going to indulge in slight tiny itty bitty pettiness and point out my ire that so many fics set during this time tend to recite listicles of Tim’s losses, with Steph, Kon and Jack Drake at the very top of said list....while paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that STEPH WAS LITERALLY BACK BY THE TIME THE RED ROBIN SERIES HAPPENED. She’s LITERALLY a person Dick sends to check up on Tim after Tim turns Dick away when he tries himself. How are you gonna stress the impact Steph’s loss has on Tim when you’re not even acknowledging STEPH’S RIGHT HERE IN THE EXACT SPECIFIC CANON STORY YOU’RE CITING??? I just. afhioskhflafhlafhklfahlfa.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but you know who ELSE was also back at the same time? CONNOR. Superboy LITERALLY was already back to life by the time the Red Robin series even began. Like, the issue where a resurrected Kon and Cassie (Wonder Girl) have a heart to heart about the fact that Tim and Cassie ‘connected’ during his absence and Connor stresses that this doesn’t bother him or make him feel negatively towards either of them at all, because hello, he was literally dead at the time, why would he mind that two of the people he loves most in the world sought comfort in each other? Yeah, that issue? Literally came out BEFORE Tim even became Red Robin.

I MEAN. I’m just saying, when people constantly take shots at Dick’s choices during this period because of how much Tim had lost before Bruce already, in order to shift focus away from the fact that Dick lost Bruce every bit as much as Tim did......and you repeatedly emphasize the SAME three names as the focal point of Tim’s losses while paying no acknowledgment whatsoever to everything Dick lost at the exact same time Tim lost these three.....it quickly becomes kiiiiiiinda relevant in my opinion THAT TWO OF THE THREE NAMES CONSTANTLY MENTIONED AS BEING TIM’S LOSSES ARE NO LONGER EVEN LOST BY THE TIME THE SUBJECT COMES UP. Again, I’m just saying! Pettily, mind you! I am aware of the pettiness, I just beg awareness of like *again gesticulates wildly at all of the above* ALL THAT!

LOL.

But I digress.

5) When Bruce was believed dead while he was lost in the timestream. Again, Dick didn’t just lose the father who had been the only parent in his life for almost TWICE as long as his first parents......this was coupled with the loss of numerous other sources of stability in Dick’s life. There’s the matter of his personal sense of identity and self-expression....Dick FOUGHT against becoming Batman, trying to handle Gotham in Bruce’s absence as Nightwing for as long as he could, because he knew being Batman was very much NOT going to be good for him. He put so much of himself into building his identity as Nightwing, establishing himself in that role, that self-image, that yes, I maintain it was an actual LOSS for Dick, to feel like he had no choice but to give that up and everything it meant to him and his own life, in order to essentially live Bruce’s life for him in his absence.

Because it wasn’t just being Batman that Dick was struggling with at this time....he also had to act as the patriarch to the Wayne family, essentially raise Bruce’s ten year old son, step into Bruce’s old role in Wayne Enterprises, all while getting no acknowledgment for any of this, for literally LIVING his father’s life instead of the life Dick had worked so hard to build for HIMSELF....because of course Dick’s actions and struggles couldn’t even be advertised beyond the family and close friends, because the whole point of him doing all this was so that nobody else even realized that Bruce wasn’t really there anymore. Dick didn’t just assume Bruce’s responsibilities. Dick assumed Bruce’s life, so thoroughly that most people didn’t even put together that Bruce was ‘dead,’ between Dick handling Bruce’s actual roles and responsibilities while Hush made public appearances as him.

Like, when you’re living someone else’s life so completely that nobody can tell they’re even gone....how on earth does that leave any time or space for you to have ANY kind of life of your OWN, y’know? Not to mention the fact that like in so many times previously....all this meant that Dick couldn’t even afford to let his grief for his own losses show, because he wasn’t supposed to be grieving any losses in the first place, that was the whole point of the con!

Additionally, couple this with the fact that throughout this time period, Dick didn’t have Tim to lean on at all, because it was never that Dick kicked Tim out or neglected him or didn’t care....he’d actively stressed how much he needed Tim, because the partner Tim was convinced Dick chose ‘over’ him - Dick was the first one to admit back then that he DIDN’T trust Damian yet, couldn’t afford to, because he was all too aware that Damian didn’t give a fuck about him yet and couldn’t be guaranteed to step in to have Dick’s back - because that required mutual trust that Dick literally just hadn’t had time to build yet. And add to THAT the fact that during this time, Jason was actively antagonizing the family and Dick in particular at every turn, trying to bring them all down and basically write over what all of them saw as Bruce’s legacy with Jason’s own version of what he thought that should look like.

Also also, take into account that unlike how often we see fanon depict Dick as just too stubborn or proud to ask for help, there’s the fact that he actually had very few avenues TO ask for help! As already established, he DID ask Tim for help. Not like Jason was an option at this time, and Dick’s friends weren’t actually just sitting waiting in the wings and groaning about the fact that Dick was trying to do all of this solo....nah, they kinda had their own problems, which Dick was all too aware of?

Like the fact that in the wake of Final Crisis, it wasn’t just Bruce that was believed lost. Many other key Leaguers like Martian Manhunter were dead or lost, with others struggling to fill the gaps left in their absence. Cry For Justice happened right after Final Crisis too....that story where Lian was murdered? So it wasn’t like Dick was remotely going to try leaning on Roy when Roy had just lost his freaking DAUGHTER and very much wasn’t handling it well (and not to overshadow Roy’s loss at ALL, but please let’s not act like Dick - who had literally been the person to put a baby Lian in Roy’s arms for the first time and had known that girl for pretty much her entire life - like, it shouldn’t be used to detract from Roy’s loss at all, but it shouldn’t have to, to just acknowledge that Lian’s loss right at this exact time was painful as fuck to Dick, who’d loved his niece like crazy.)

The pattern of compounding, concurrent losses in Dick’s life. I’m just saying. Its there.

And it extends into the New 52 as well, where Forever Evil came right on the heels of Dick losing his circus in THIS continuity to the Joker, just as a way to hurt him in Death of A Family. And with the aftermath of Forever Evil and Dick’s own literal death, being like....the complete loss of Dick’s entire life, even though he was revived quickly. That didn’t mean he got to live HIS life though, since Dick Grayson was believed dead and he was told had to remain so, so its like fuck whatever he actually wanted to do as he went about on the Spyral mission aka something that pinched his own sense of morality and personal agenda at every turn and was kinda the last thing a therapist would recommend for a trauma recovery period, lol. And like, for all the focus that was paid to how Dick’s family were hurt because they believed they’d lost him when he was actually alive, let’s not forget that for all intents and purposes, Dick DID lose his family in the wake of his resurrection because he was flat out told over and over that due to what ‘he’d LET happen to him’ he was an ACTIVE danger to them, and thus wasn’t allowed by Bruce to contact any of them or lean on them to any degree, until Bruce got amnesia and stopped blocking Dick’s pleas to return home by just not being there to pick up the secret phone line at all.

(And omg, the obliviousness that just EMANATES off the hot takes that Dick had a ‘choice’ in all this and he still CHOSE to do what Bruce told him....like. LOLOL, stop being pissy about me bringing up the term abuse apologism when its literal victim blaming to paint the guy who had to be beaten into ‘agreeing’ to the Spyral mission in the immediate wake of the trauma of DYING, all while his father vocally blamed him for his own suffering and the ‘threat’ he now posed to his family, keying directly into the guilt complex Bruce knows damn well is at the core of most of Dick’s motivations.....fucking please. There’s no choice in all that. That’s active emotional, mental and physical abuse aimed at directly manipulating Dick’s actions, delivered by the guy who knows Dick best in the world and whose approval - particularly when Dick is at absolute rock bottom aka Current Location - matters more to Dick than just about anything because his sense of self-worth has more in common with dog shit than actual dog shit does. Or something. Idk. That analogy got away from me. But like. You get it.)

BUT. I. DIE. GRESS. (I guess).

Aaaaaaanyway, so yeah! That repeating pattern throughout Dick’s life of ‘loss? What loss (singular)? My losses only come in groups, lolol, fuuuuuun’ - mmmm. Yeah. So that’s what’s on MY brain right now. Thoughts?

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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hey mittens! i know you’ve written off the finale at this point (and haven’t we all), but i was just wondering: do we know whose idea it was to have kripke co-write that ep? because like, in hindsight, that was...a choice, and i’ve been thinking that might explain SOME of the weirdness of that ep (emphasis on SOME because uh. i really do think that some of the cringiest details didn’t come from writers at all). anyway—thoughts?

I don’t think Kripke had anything to do with writing the final ep. It just... felt like a Kripke ep, and I’m starting to think that Dabb did that intentionally. He’s the most meta writer the show might’ve ever had, and in refusing to allow Sam and Dean to live out past their ultimate victory, in choosing to “force an ending” on the characters instead of leaving their world “open” with no concrete ending, he succeeded at the task that Chuck- as Kripke’s avatar in the original story of Supernatural-- had failed to do.

Dabb, in a very real sense, is the one who “ended the story of Supernatural.” He wanted to bring it full circle, to “close the universe” and make it “reboot-proof.” This is something he’s talked about going back as far as SDCC 2019, and many of us had hoped that would mean something “better” than what Chuck wanted for the Winchesters, and for Cas.

I was hoping, and watching the show for the last few years under the assumption that Dabb’s in-story avatar was more a combination of different characters. At first, Billie, who started as a reaper but was elevated to the role of Death (like Dabb himself started as a writer who became more important to the telling of the tale, and eventually became the final showrunner who would eventually reap the show in the end, as it were).

After Jack’s introduction, I wondered if he was going to “grow into the role” of the Authorial Avatar. After all, he served as a mirror for all three other characters, reflecting their stories back at them and allowing them to process their own emotional and psychological issues by helping Jack through them. I wrote long ago, back in s13, how this enabled TFW to sort of graduate from student to master, in the martial arts sense of the word, because one truly only completes learning a thing through the process of teaching others.

And then the Empty became involved as an actual being that manifested through the identities of others, and didn’t really have its own identity other than “I need to sleep, stop disturbing me!” which... felt like it might’ve become relevant when Jack’s power was able to break through into its realm.

Then these three beings began plotting the final overthrow of the Original Author. One laid claim to the lives of Sam and Dean (Billie), one laid claim to Castiel (the Empty). We watched Jack-- the incarnation of “balance” and the vehicle through which the show demonstrated what the human soul’s function is, what the function of angelic grace WITHOUT a human soul’s function is, and what Jack as a whole being with both actually is, as he fully came to his own understanding of what humanity, human love, and the responsibility and function of cosmic power and balance is within himself.

I never doubted (especially after he consumed Michael’s grace and made that power his own) that Jack’s function would be as the ultimate role that Chuck had been trying to force on Dean since s11-- “the firewall between light and darkness.” That Jack would be the crucible to fully unite the power embodied in Amara and Chuck. Chuck’s ending was about as poetic as it gets, and I 100% appreciate Jack’s “end” in the narrative that isn’t really an end for him, because the story also implied that Chuck’s original “problem” stemmed from his wanting to give himself an ego and play with his own creation like so many tinkertoys, to force his will on a universe he created to be ruled by the will of others.

The ultimate act of Team Free Will left Chuck fully human and an effectively blank book, with no power to force anyone else to play his games. Excellent, right? Poetic even!

But the story wasn’t really over, because in our world, there was one more episode, a coda fic if you will. And all of the characters I’d associated with Dabb-as-avatar were... rendered mute. Billie was dead or dying in the Empty, Jack came into his full power and had already healed the universe, implying that the Empty’s conditions were fulfilled and could finally go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, Chuck’s Book, while appearing blank, still contained all the words. Only Death could read them, and as far as we know, nobody in that universe had ascended to that role. But in our universe, we know that’s Dabb’s function in the narrative. What sort of ending could he write?

Most of us hoped that it would be a “once more, with feeling” sort of “you can finally lay down your arms and make a new life for yourself” ending. Many of us were baffled first off that Jack wouldn’t have brought Cas back from the Empty to Earth. We never really had a satisfactory explanation in canon of what happened there. Was Cas actually dead? What function does he have if he’s in Heaven? Has he been relegated to a role of duty and service as punishment for daring to yearn for human things? It just... it felt like the final stab from a story that had just told us that he truly has been the one disrupting for in Chuck’s story, that he was something that Chuck could never force out of the story or control, who demonstrated free will and learned to love humanity because of Dean, and yet doomed to never have that for himself. Most of us felt that line in 15.18 deserved subversion in the aftermath, and yet we never even get concrete confirmation that he’s even really alive in the same way he was before. It’s... what Chuck always wanted for Cas, to shunt him out of the story and render him powerless and plotless.

What did Chuck want for Sam and Dean? What story did he force them into over and over again? One of them tragically dead and the other miserable and mourning. He wrote billions of iterations of this exact story, over and over throughout billions of universes created for the sole purpose of doing exactly this to every incarnation of Sam and Dean he possibly could. Most of us hoped this might be the ONE universe where that was subverted, like it was the ONE universe where Castiel refused to fall in line with Heaven’s orders and plans. But nope, Dean died tragically (almost immediately after saying in canon that the only way they could honor Cas and Jack’s sacrifices for them was to keep living), and Sam lived a rather bleak and hollow life where the only thing we know he did was to raise a son named for his dead brother.

Chuck would’ve been freaking DELIGHTED!

Which... brings us to Heaven... where we get the vague hint that Cas “helped” Jack “knock down the walls” and make it a paradise that Dean would love and feel rewarded by. We never actually find out what role Cas played in that, or if he was also there in some capacity. But how I’ve always personally understood Heaven as it was in Chuck’s creation, was as a self-sustaining and ever expanding Destiny Generator, like a power generator or a giant battery where each Heaven Cubicle functioned as a cell. The show itself has been using the soul-as-power-source for ages (it was pretty much the running theme of s6-- it’s the souls!-- and this theme was returned in force in s11, culminating in the “soul bomb” plot of (gasp!) Andrew Dabb’s season finale.

Heaven was beginning to break down as a “machine” and a power generator not for lack of human souls, but for lack of angels to maintain the structure of heaven itself. In one of his first episodes, Cas even described the function of angels as being “agents of fate.” Their sole role was to literally “hold Chuck’s narrative together.” Metaphorically in the story-- in the original Apocalypse as the guides who tried to force Sam and Dean into the roles they were destined for-- as well as metaphorically in Heaven which was the “battery” that gave the angels their power in the first place. Remember what happened to Cas when he has been “cut off from Heaven” and began to lose his powers.

So the way I’d always understood the function of Heaven in Chuck’s story was exactly that. Without Chuck’s narrative, the walls would fall and the paradise Jack’s birth heralded would come to fruition THERE. Because as long as there is life, and free will, and more than one person on EARTH, that sort of paradise is an impossible dream. We’re seeing that exemplified now in real life, actually, with people claiming their rights and freedoms are being infringed upon by being asked to wear a mask and limit their social interactions to prevent the spread of a deadly virus. Does their “freedom” override the “freedom” of others who would prefer to remain alive and not infected by a virus that could kill them? It’s an impossible balance, because true freedom cannon exist in life without compromise and sacrifice.

Which brings us to Dean, and his essential humanity, which had been exemplified in his selfless love of humanity so strong that he became a cosmic disrupting force of his own by simply refusing to let Chuck’s story defeat him. He struggled with this throughout s15 as Chuck told him that his life had never truly been his own, and that he’d always been a character in a bigger story. He’d finally begun to feel at peace with who he was, with the family he’d made for himself, and everything and every experience he’d endured that had shaped him into the person he’d become, and Chuck’s revelation led him to doubt everything. In the end, he was finally able to see what truly DID matter, what really WAS real (thank you to 15.17 for confirming that Cas was one of those things that Chuck had also never intended to be part of his story, and that Cas truly had always chosen Dean freely, because his doubt of Cas was one of the main things hurting Dean in s15, epitomized in his crisis in 15.09 in Purgatory). So the fact that Cas was not “allowed” to come back to Dean afterward feels... punitive. The fact that Dean was not “allowed” to actually experience a real human life on the Earth he’d devoted his entire life to saving, the fact that Sam was never able to achieve peace and happiness in a life he’d struggled to find balance between a destiny he’d never wanted and a normalcy that had been merely performative for decades because shoving the majority of his life experience down to play at being “normal” was never truly possible, and required truly accepting all of himself to actually free himself from the half-life we saw him live after Dean’s death... all of that just... it’s exactly what Chuck would’ve wanted for all three of them.

And it’s depressing af, that when given the power to “end the story of Team Free Will,” Dabb chose to enact Chuck’s final draft, rather than handing blank books to these three to write their own lives. And it just looks like Kripke’s writing, because it kind of is his story. We just hoped it wasn’t, and that the final avatar of The Author in the story would be TFW themselves. But that was probably never meant to be. Because destiny is apparently still stronger than human free will, and isn’t that just depressing af.

#spn 15.20 #dabb vs cars #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #that's what free will is #or apparently is not... which is the main reason the finale is fucking with my head honestly #i just can't see even paradise heaven as a reward #it always felt like the final concept to be subverted by the narrative but the narrative loved itself more than life #and so it goes #skvwalkering

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baconpal · 4 years

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Bravely Default and BD2

Here it is, the partially prompted bravely default rant/retrospective/whatever the fuck!

With the announcement and demo of bravely default 2 out now for a bigger market than the original game ever had, I feel that as a massive fan of the original I should put some amount of effort into explaining what the appeal of the original is, why bravely second missed a lot of the appeal, and why bravely default 2 has been very, very worrying so far.

If you care about any of that, come on in and I'll try to actually avoid spoilers this time and make this a more legitimate recommendation of a game than usual.

THE APPEAL OF BRAVELY DEFAULT The games obviously have a beautiful art style, especially when it comes to the backgrounds. Every city is like a painting, a beautifully composed shot that you see from just one direction to give you one very strong impression. While the overworld and dungeons are fully 3d and do not have as strong of an artistic impact, they are still very competent and have good colors and cohesive elements. The character design, including the job outfits, the monsters, and all the villains are just top notch. Simple, evocative designs that make the most of the 3DS' limited hardware and build upon the teams skill in making handheld games look good. (its the same team that did the ff3 remake and 4 heroes of light, which looks absolutely kino on original DS) The music is also consistently excellent, with great use of motifing, a full and varied orchestra, and many good slow paced tracks for most of the non-combat segments. Shit like "Conflict's Chime" being the main battle theme, "Infiltrating Hostile Territory" being a common dungeon theme, and "That person's name is" as the rival boss themes makes even the seemingly repetitive songs a constant joy to listen to.

The story is pretty decent, it's not the best part of the game, and there are definitely some aspects of the story some people loathe, but the characters (specifically ringabel fuckin love him) are pretty good and the make for an enjoyable experience. The side material like D's journal are really well done and integrate into the main narrative well for how tucked away and ignored it is.

The gameplay and systems are also some of the best of any RPG I've played, and I've played far too many. The job system from ff3 and 5 is brought to an even greater depth with the addition of universal job abilities, allowing any character of any job make use of another jobs features to create an endless depth to strategy. The way various jobs can mingle together, and how no job is completely perfect on its own makes for very compelling team composition and unit design. The extensive amount of jobs helps as well for replay value and for assuring that no easy winning strategy is found by all players.

The BP system makes battles take on a very unique pacing as the player and enemies can choose to save up turns or blow them all at once to make more complicated strategies possible, or to make the most of an enemies vulnerabilities. This powerful option gives the player a meaningful way to capitalize on their knowledge of the game, while also allowing them to make truly detrimental mistakes. That may sound not good if you're a fucking baby, but nobody wants an RPG you cant lose, but losing because you fucked up is much better than losing because the enemies are just stronger than you or anything to that effect.

But the single greatest part of bravely defaults, which creates the games wonderful balance and unique design philosophy, is that the player is expected to hit the level cap long before finishing the game. Reaching level 99 should occur somewhere just after the middle of the game, at the point where the player has access to almost every job and has encountered almost every type of threat. Reaching level 99 brings with it a certain security, the implication that from then on, all enemies will also be level 99, and that any failure to defeat an enemy will be a result of a bad strategy or the players own mistakes. The game is not easy, and is certainly intended for veteran final fantasy players used to the games with job systems and changing up your entire party to combat a single encounter. Leveling up is not a slow grind part of the game, as you have a lot of control over the speed and frequency of battles, and it is not difficult to keep up with the games level curve.

The other layer to this unique design is that the game expects you to "cheat", or use strategies that would be overpowered and frowned upon in most other games. Bravely default easily expects you to know or discover strategies such as: applying a status to all enemies and killing every enemy with that status using another spell, cycling a counter move over and over to have a nearly invincible party member, applying a healing attribute to a self-damaging character to get huge damage at little cost, casting reflect and dangerous spells on your own party to bounce them at the enemy, or duplicating a move that does maximum damage 15 times in a row. The game builds all of its encounters with the knowledge that your team will be the maximum level and that you will be using the most vile tactics you can come up with, and the game will do the same. Bosses and even common enemies will employ equally vile tactics using the exact same moves that you have access to, meaning you can learn from your enemies or quickly grasp the enemies strategy through your own experiences. One of the late game dungeons is entirely optional, but involves several fights against parties of 4 just like your, using the same jobs and skills you have gained during the game as a perfect test of your ability to develop counter-strategies, instead of relying on your own overpowered tactics. This type of design is really not something you find in many games due to the prominence of grinding or the lack testing strategies, and it is the most true appeal of bravely default to me.

BRAVELY SECOND EXISTS I GUESS So bravely second, a direct sequel to bravely default, definitely is a video game. It uses the original game as a base to generate more content, but completely misses the appeal of the original, and the new content added makes the experience even less focused. Overall, it's still a fairly alright RPG, but it fails to follow up on bravely default in a meaningful way or to provide as compelling of a gameplay experience. Here's some of the things it fucked up.

The game reuses almost everything the original game had, including the same music, world map, and most of the original's towns and dungeons, while adding a few of it's own. Going through areas you've been before never feels good, and the new areas lack the quality or brevity of the original game, leading to uninteresting areas that overstay their welcome, despite being the only break from repetitively reused content.

This extends to the classes but in an even worse sense. One important trait of the original jobs is that they were not perfect by themselves. While every job provided some useful abilities to be shared with other classes, or provided a good base with which to make a character, no class was without flaws. The new classes in bravely second are a lot of the opposite, they are closed loops that think of everything they could have to make a good standalone character. The 4 starter classes you get in bravely second are all brand new, and there's almost no reason to use any class besides those 4 as they are just insanely good. The priest and magician specifically augment magic in a way that makes spells infinity scalable into the end game, completely trampling on any other magic classes territory without needing the extra effort of grinding a new class out. Many of the new job concepts are actually really interesting, like going back in time to return to a healthier state, or a class that changes the stats and attributes of all units in a battle, allowing for all new kinds of strategies; but these classes lack any opportunity to be used to their full potential since they don't mesh well with other jobs and are limited by their self-centered design.

Another completely missed aspect of the original is the level curve discussed before. Bravely second only really requires you get somewhere in the ballpark of level 60-70 to comfortably beat the final boss, and getting too leveled up is really hard to avoid if you are plan to try out various jobs.

Second also fails to account for how many incredibly strong strategies the player can come up with, and even introduces some of its own strategies that it has no way to counteract, such as halfsies (the first skill the first class gets) pretty much splitting the game in two by tripling the value of items like phoenix downs, and allowing for fool-proof strategies by making 1 character focus entirely on defense, effectively making the party unkillable. Essentially, if you play second after having played the original (like any sane person would) then you will absolutely destroy the game with no sense of satisfaction.

The story is also a large step down, enough to become an annoyance, as the writing style changes to a strange romantic comedy situation with, for lack of a better term please forgive my sin, anime writing, but like bad anime writing, ya know the kind of shit that makes people write off all anime cus a lot of it is awkward and unpleasant to listen to. The story tries to mess with some big concepts like "what if new game + was a real thing???" and time travel and shit like that but it doesn't mesh with the tone the rest of the game has and that tone doesn't mesh with the world or art style and it's just a mess.

BRAVELY DEFAULT 2 SEEMS KINDA POOPIE SO FAR So unfortunately, the big appeal of bravely default being part of it's end game makes it hard to judge how 2 is gonna go given we only have a demo of the beginning, but given that the original team behind bravely default has slowly been stripped out of the series as it goes on, the outlook is bleek.

Most immediately obvious is that the artstyle has made a horrible transition from handheld to console, somehow even worse than pokemon. The areas are all fully 3d and lack the style or compositional excellence of bravely default, and the outside environment look like asset store products. The small proportioned characters with simple features to be readable on a small screen have been replaced with identically proportioned characters with excessive detail and ugly features, and look horrible up close on a big screen. Only the negatives of the art style have made it over, and everything good has been made unsavory. The character and enemy design overall is much worse as a result, everything is messy, unclear, and clashes with everything else. It's an absolutely shocking downgrade.

The characters themselves are overly hammy and feel like shallow attempts to have a similar party dynamic to the original without having identical character types, and the writing as a whole doesn't seem to have improved from second, which was already quite a step down from the original.

The gameplay also has not done anything different or interesting yet, and seems to be selling itself to people haven't heard of or gotten enough of the BP system. Enemies being on the overworld as opposed to random encounters shows they have dropped the player agency over encounter frequency, which is dumb. The battles lack any of the flow the original had, especially when using the battle speed option, as the camera does not present everything very well and changes position often as a result. Overall, I have not enjoyed the bravely default 2 demo and feel it shows nothing but a continued decline in the series that likely should have just been a single game. With the release date being set for sometime this year, I feel there is no chance any amount of player feedback could save the game or even begin to pull it in the right direction, as it seems to be fundamentally flawed with an inescapable feeling of shovelware.

SO WHAT? Basically, all I wanted to say here is that the original bravely default is a very unique experience I think every RPG fan should give a good chance (and just do all the optional stuff during the "repetitive" part of the game, it's where all the best content is you bozo) and that the sequels are NOT the same experience. I guess it's kind of mean to just say "hey don't buy or like this new thing cus its not like the old thing" but people should know why there's a bravely default 2 in the first place, and should fight for what made the original great. I worry that BD goes down the same sad path that FF did, becoming a completely hollow, middling series that strayed so far from it's home that a whole new series had to be made to give the fans of the old style a place to go.

Thanks for reading, and hope you got something out of it.

#bravely default #bravely series #bravely default 2 #juvenile rant #vote now for the next rant! including things such as The Great Ace Attorney and why it's kino #or why i think arms is a really well designed game even tho i'm fucking shit at it #very exciting topics indeed #or ya know whatever other shit you think i have a lot to say about

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fic-for-fic-sake · 4 years

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As Long As You’re Mine

A/N: This is the follow up to “I’m Not That Girl”. This second part now follows the song “As Long As You’re Mine” also from Wicked. Hope you enjoy...

Pairing: Steve x reader

Warnings: Smut, angst, fluff

Six months ago Steve Rogers left you for his ex, and you were handling it. How well you were handling it was debatable but you were moving on and making progress. Which is why when Bucky said there was a new mission you jumped at the opportunity. You had been out of the game way too long, it was time to get to work again.

Ever since the time tech had been used, people had a way of getting their hands on it, or something similar, and using it for nefarious purposes. Most of which involved giving Hydra a leg up years in advance. Telling them information they shouldn’t know about events that hadn’t happened yet.

This time, some Hydra newbie, probably trying to prove his worth, used the time tech to go back to 1954 Miami. Some top Hydra execs were meeting and your intel told you that he intended on meeting them there. Your team was unsure of what information he would pass on but Fury said any information out of time is too dangerous, especially in the wrong hands.

You wanted in. This mission would be perfect for you, it would allow you to get back into the swing of things and be relatively undetected. Since he went back alone and it wasn’t your time, people wouldn’t know to be on the lookout for you. Plus security was way more lax in the 50′s so you didn’t have as much to worry about on that front.

After some internet searches, Bucky’s personal input, and same day Amazon delivery you were ready to go. You marched up to the platform, cream colored heels clacking on the flooring. You felt ridiculous. You wore a white dress with red roses on it, the kind that cinched in at the waist and flared out at the leg. The halter tie of the dress sat uncomfortably at the base of your neck, but your bouncy decade appropriate curls hid it well. The tulle underskirt you had on made a swooshing noise every time you dared move an inch and it drove you crazy. Your white short gloves felt too snug on your hands and you placed one of your many guns in your small silk clutch. The pearl earrings felt too big and your red lipstick made you feel like an overdone Marilyn Monroe.

Bucky noticed your scowl. “Don’t give me that look, I thought you wanted to go on this mission.” Bucky chided, trying to stifle his grin.

“Yeah I did, until it involved me dressing up like Mrs. Maisel” You protested, holding your wrist out for Bucky to secure the time bracelet on.

“Listen doll, you’ve gotta blend in okay? Can’t exactly have you turnin’ up in your normal gear.” He side eyed, referring to your catsuit. Okay, he had a point, that didn’t mean you were enjoying it anymore. Despite yourself, you chuckled. “What’s so funny?” He asked.

“I mean the fifties is pretty close to your time. I might hear a lot of people talk like you.” You said, thinking about how you liked the way Bucky spoke, still used darlin’ and doll and all that stuff. It reminded you of someone else who used to sweet talk you like that. No, don’t even go there. Steve’s gone and you’re moving on, this mission is what matters.

“You remember the mission?” He questioned, going over to where Bruce was flipping switches on the control panel.

“Yeah, go to the beach party, find our guy, take him out. No witnesses, no unnecessary bloodshed.” You repeated, fastening your gloves and getting ready for the mission. Miami, 1954, summer and sun. This should be a piece of cake, home in no time.

After squinting the sunlight out of your eyes, you tried to catch your bearings by looking around you. Before you could see anything, you smelt them, cubanos. Your mouth watered as you remembered how good they tasted the first time you had one. Would they taste different in 1954? You wondered, but reminded yourself you didn’t have time for such luxuries, you had a party to get to. Just when you thought you would have a hard time finding the place you saw a throng of people heading out to the beach. You literally had to pinch yourself, it felt like you were watching an old movie.

Guys in short board shorts and girls in high waisted bathing suits and apparently swimming caps, were headed to the beach without a care in the world. They had bottles of Coca-cola in their hands, and the women had straws so they wouldn’t ruin their lipstick. You almost laughed at the thought. If only they knew about the war on plastic straws in your society, you wondered what they would do. Somehow you didn’t think they would care.

As you followed the people down the beach you noticed more peculiar things. Instead of sunscreen people were actually putting on tanning oil, nobody seemed to care about sun damage. Doris Day and Nat King Cole played in the distance and you wondered vaguely if this was how Marty McFly felt.

Women in dresses like yours walked by and eyed you in appreciation. Kids ran around flying kites and asking for ice cream. It crossed your mind that those kids were old enough to be your parents now...weird. You reached in your clutch and pulled out the picture of your target. Granted, he probably went through his own Queer Eye 1950s edition makeover as well, so it may be a little harder than originally thought to find him, and to do so before he finds Hydra. You knew they had a meeting at 3:00 and it was 2:26 right now, you had time.

You kept walking through the beach and your heart stopped. You saw a rope snake its way through the beach and even into the water, what the hell? You got closer and read the sign attached, “Colored swimming”. Damnit, 1950s in Miami meant segregation. Assholes. You really wanted to storm up to all the white people and talk about racial equality and Obama but it wasn’t any use. You knew that somewhere in the country right now, Doctor King was rearing up to do the same thing and it made you smile. Until it didn’t. The terrible thing about time travel is that you have to keep everything as it was. Kind of like snooping in your parents' room when you’re a kid. Even the slightest thing out of place and it was trouble. So that meant, even the bad things, had to stay the same.

Feeling a little dejected and thinking you had some time, you decided to head back to the cubano cart and try one, you’re only in 1954 once right? You were walking back, head down, as you bumped into someone, literally.

“Sorry doll, didn’t mean to hit ya.” Came a voice that made your blood run cold. A voice you hadn’t heard in six months. But that wasn’t possible, he wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Steve?” You questioned, wide eyed and hopeful despite yourself. You took in the man before you. Even though he looked a little older, it was still him. Standing tall in front of you in khaki colored slacks and a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, fuck what that did to you. You felt your mouth go dry despite yourself as you saw his tousled blond locks, no doubt loving the Miami sun. He had a pair of aviators slung into the collar of his shirt, pulling it down slightly. His crystal blue eyes stared at you in a mixture of awe and confusion.

“Y/N?” He questioned. The second his name left your lips the spell was broken. You wrenched your arm away from his hand and took a noticeably large step back from him. “What are you doing here?”

“None of your business Rogers.” You replied coldly, as you stormed off in the opposite direction. 2:29, you needed to find your target, you did NOT need this. You could feel tears rushing to your eyes and you tried your best to dab them away with your stupid gloves. You pulled your fingers from your eyes to see the white material smeared with black makeup.

“Y/N, wait!” You heard Steve call behind you and you knew you couldn’t escape him, couldn’t outrun Captain Fucking America, your ex. He grabbed your arm and forced you to turn around, to look at him. You felt your glassy eyes become devoid of emotion and hardened your stance.

“What!” You practically shouted at him. Daring him to say something, anything, to break the silence.

“Doll, what are you doing here? Are you okay? Are you hurt?” He questioned, coming over to you and pressing both hands on your bare shoulders. He rubbed his hands up and down your arms in a soothing gesture like he used to do when you would get upset about something, his touch ignited something inside of you. Your body responded to him despite yourself. Remembering what he did to you, you shrugged his hands off of you.

“You don’t get to ask any questions Rogers, you lost that privilege when you left me.” You seethed, turning on your heels and making a beeline for the bathroom, pushing the door open and staring at your reflection in the mirror. You tried to take quick, calming breaths, knowing you only had moments before Steve came rushing through the door. Sure as sunshine Steve came through no less than three minutes later. He dutifully checked under all the stalls before he turned to face you again.

“You know what I mean, I mean what are you doing in 1954?” He questioned, face paling slightly. Looking like he’d seen a ghost and you guess for him, he did. He probably didn’t expect to see you today either, for obvious reasons.

“I’m looking for someone.” You stated petulantly, crossing your arms over your chest and leaning against the sink counter.

“Who could you possibly be looking for?” Steve wondered, walking closer to you.

“Some rogue Hydra agent came back to today to give important information to the higher ups and Fury wanted me to stop it.” You relented, letting out a sigh. “What are you doing here?” You questioned, nodding in his direction. “Shouldn’t you be in DC or something?”

Steve shuffled from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable. He brought his hand up to scratch the back of his neck like he did when he was nervous. You hated that you knew that about him. “Uh, I’m uh sort of on vacation...with, Peggy.” He responded, wincing at the last word like he dropped a bomb. Which he may well have.

You scoffed, chuckled as you turned away from him to face your reflection in the mirror. Would rather look at the mess you’d become than him, anywhere but him. “Why am I not surprised? You enjoying your cookie cutter white picket fence life Steve?” You questioned, not wanting to meet his eyes in the mirror but doing so despite yourself. He looked sad and downcast. As if he had the right.

“It’s not like that.” He defended, coming closer to you still.

“Cut the shit Steve.” You snapped, turning on your heel to face him. “You know the worst thing about what you did huh?” You questioned, not giving him time to answer before you kept going. “No matter how much I drank or how much I cursed you and your fucking pathetic life, I never got any goddamn closure. Never got a why. Guess I wasn’t good enough to warrant an explanation.” You snarked, moving around him to leave.

“Stop it.” Steve commanded, grabbing your arm and pulling your chest flush against his, it made your heart beat like a hummingbird was trapped in your chest. “It wasn’t like that. Do you know how much I thought about it? How many nights I sat in bed and…” Steve cut himself off, running his fingers through his hair.

“And what Steve? Say it.” You challenged, leaning your body up against his. Feeling how his every muscle responded to you, like waking up for the first time.

“And thought about you okay? God did I think about you, it was torture.” He admitted.

“Torture?” You questioned, walking him back until he hit the counter top, “You wanna know what was torture?” You asked, as you unbuckled his pants and began to palm his hardening length, “the knowledge that you left me for a fucking fantasy, that’s what’s torture. That I never meant anything to you.” You accentuated the word ‘anything’ by giving his cock a generous squeeze which had him groaning into the open air.

“You know- you know that’s not true.” He struggled to say as his hips began to buck to your ministrations. You loved that after eight years for him, you could still make him come undone like this.

“Show me.” You breathed into his ear, a challenge. One he happily accepted. He pulled on your neck and pressed his lips firmly against yours. They were needy and hot and demanding and you gave.

Kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight. I need help believing you’re with me tonight.

His tongue demanded entrance into your mouth and you opened up for him, swallowing his moans as you continued to stroke him. Your teeth sank into his glorious bottom lip and he sighed as his hips thrust into your hand again. His hands moved all over your body. Splaying against your back, teasing the top of your breasts, and finally working their way under your dress until he found his target. His lips sought the column of your throat as one swift finger entered you, making you moan, which you promptly tried to stifle.

“Uh uh sweetheart, don’t you dare. I haven’t heard those precious sounds of yours in far too long.” He chastised lightly as he worked his finger inside of you, eliciting another groan from your mouth. You found your hips rocking against his palm and you suddenly pressed your hand against his arm, making him withdraw his finger. You slowly backed away from him, taking in his appearance. His lips were kiss bruised and his beautiful blue eyes were lust blown.

“I’m gonna do something I bet Peggy never does.” You teased as you got down on your knees in front of him. He looked at you with desire in his eyes that went straight to your core. You grasped his length once again and teased it, dragging the tip over your red and waiting lips. “Does she do this for you Stevie?” you questioned, looking at him through thick lashes. He simply shook his head no in response and a triumphant smile spread over your face. Slowly, you dragged your tongue along the underside of his shaft.

“Fuck.” He seethed, hands going to the back of your head and gripping your hair. You took as much of him as you could into your wet and wanting mouth. Humming around his length in appreciation. He bucked his hips into you, making your eyes water but you didn’t care. You were reveling in the fact that Steve Rogers hadn’t had a blowjob in eight years and you were giving it to him.

The bathroom became a symphony of sounds. His moans and grunts and silent curses and your gagging and choking, trying to take as much of him as you could. You pulled him out of your mouth with a pop and rubbed the back of your hand across your mouth, smearing your saliva and his precum over your face and hand. He pulled you up and planted a scathing kiss to your lips, not caring that he tasted himself on your tongue.

He moved you so that you were facing your reflection once more and Steve was behind you, lining himself up against your now dripping cunt.

And just for this moment, as long as you’re mine. I’ve lost all resistance and crossed some borderline.

He slowly sank into you inch by inch, filling you out as you hadn’t been in six months. You let out a groan of appreciation and he let you adjust to him, his hands fisting the skirt material at your hips, waiting for you to move. You wiggled a little bit and he took the hint. He pulled out so only the tip was left inside before he slammed himself back into you so hard you saw stars. He continued at an unrelenting pace, hips snapping into your ass as he fucked you. You looked at the wanton reflection in the mirror and almost came on the spot.

Your hair, once nice and poised, was now a ruined mess. Your eyes looked utterly blissed out and half closed, your lipstick was a wreck and smeared all over your cheek. You looked back at Steve and he looked utterly blissed out. His mouth was slackjaw and pink from your lipstick and his hair was mused.

“Like what you see sweetheart?” Steve questioned before he slammed back into you. Your hand came up to the mirror in an effort to brace yourself as you let out a garbled moan as a response. Steve pulled out of you and you whimpered at the loss of contact before he turned you around and sat you on the counter.

“Need to see you babygirl.” He said, voice husky as he maneuvered himself between your thighs and sunk two fingers inside your weeping core.

“Fuck Steve.” You cursed, gripping his shoulders as he finger fucked you. His deft fingers massaged your walls as his hungry lips sought out yours in a frantic kiss. You kissed him back with a fury, grabbing fist fulls of blond hair as your hips rocked against his fingers. You could feel your high approaching. “Baby, I’m close.” You whimpered into his mouth. You felt him smile against you as he brought his thumb to rub your clit.

“You gonna be a good girl and cum for me huh? Cum all over my fingers baby.” He encouraged and his words sent you over the edge. You could feel your walls contract around his stilling fingers as he allowed you to ride out your high. Your hands went slack in his hair but only for a moment until he guided his member back to your core and sank himself in.

“Goddamn baby you still feel so good around me.” He marveled as he fucked you. You could feel every vein in his cock against your walls as he stretched and filled you out. You could feel your toes start to curl in carnal bliss. He undid the knot at the base of your neck and the front of your dress fell down, exposing your breasts to him. He growled as he bent down and sucked a hard nipple into his mouth, nibbling on the stiff peak. Your hands scrambled across his back, looking for purchase. You hadn’t been fucked this good since he left and you didn’t think you would be ever again, making the feeling that much more intense.

Every moment, as long as you’re mine. I’ll wake up my body and make up for lost time.

He pulled your nipple from his mouth and worked on sucking on your sensitive spot between your neck and collar bone. You reached a hand down to massage his balls as he fucked you and his answering groan sent a wonderful vibrating sensation across your skin. “Stevie, I think I’m gonna…” You couldn’t make a complete sentence you were so blissed out. You could feel the coil in your belly tighten for the second time in this beach bathroom in 1954. You knew you wouldn’t last much longer and Steve knew it too.

Say there’s no future for us as a pair. And though I may know, I don’t care.

He brought his hand down to massage your clit, getting you there faster. “Come with me baby, you know you want to.” He urged you on. Seeing him so fucked out and the way he looked at you like you still hung the moon for him was your undoing. You let out a garbled cry as you came gloriously around his cock. He thrusted a few more times before you felt him spill inside of you.

Just for this moment, as long as you’re mine. Come be how you want to, and see how bright we shine.

The two of you stayed like that for a while. He was growing soft inside of you as the two of you rested your foreheads against each other and tried to catch your breath. He slowly pulled out of you and cleaned you up, before pressing a somber lingering kiss to your lips.

And if it turns out, it’s over too fast. I’ll make every last moment last.

You kissed him back, the tone sadder than when you started. He helped you off the counter and fixed you up. You were about to leave but he wrapped two strong arms around you, letting you rest your head against his chest and he rested his chin on your head, swaying you both in his arms to an invisible melody.

Borrow the moonlight until it is through. And know I’ll be here holding you.

Steve gently raised your chin with his finger and pressed one final kiss to your lips. You knew in your bones, that this was a kiss goodbye. So you let yourself enjoy it, not wanting to spoil the last moment you two would be in each others lives.

As long as you’re mine.

#steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #steve rogers fanfic #captain america fanfic #song fic #mcu fanfic #tbh this hurt to write and to proofread #sorry yall

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sweetiecenter · 5 years

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Fallout, Borderlands, and how a Medium Compliments a Theme.

Fallout, Borderlands, and how the Theme can serve the Medium well, and vice versa. A small essay by me about two of my favorite game series.

2K Games and Bethesda are industry giants. Both of these studios have built their companies on the backs of extremely successful game franchises.

In the case of 2K, they built their franchise around sports, as well as Sid Meier’s RTS, Civilization, as well as delving into many other genres. It wasn’t until 2K started to delve into RPGs like Bioshock, from the creators of System Shock 2, that they started to develop their formula.

For Bethesda, they got their massive start a bit earlier with id software with games like Doom and Wolfenstein, which almost singlehandedly popularized the FPS genre.

Both of these industry giants are responsible for thousands of hours of love and enjoyment, and Bioshock 2 is singlehandedly responsible for growing my love of video games, and their writing.

There are two franchises from these respective companies that are both known for being notable open-world, first person RPGs: Borderlands and Fallout, and both series were published by their respective companies around the same time, with Borderlands 1 entering development in 2005, and Bethesda being commissioned to work on Fallout 3 in 2007, which later turned into Bethesda buying the rights and absorbing Interplay. Fallout 3 was released in 2008 on October 28, with Borderlands coming out almost exactly a year later.

As time has gone on, both companies have paid mutual respect to each other, particularly in regards to these FPSRPG games; Borderlands 2 even has a gun called thre dog in reference to the infamous Three Dog from Fallout 3. The similarities between the themes and playstyle of these games has led to many comparisons, but I would just like to take the time to talk about how each respective game does justice to the themes of their stories and the medium they use.

So what are the themes of these games, really?

The more unique taglines and themes of these games would be “war never changes” and “everyone is the hero of their own story” for Fallout and Borderlands, respectively. The underlying themes that go unspoken (mostly), seem to be anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism.

The anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism arguments are where it gets interesting.

First, let’s look at how both games use American culture and atmosphere to their advantage and to get their point across.

We can all agree that governments are, at their core, made to protect folks, right? That is their stated job. It is in their job description. Especially in America, the idea is that you should never, ever have your rights taken from you. We are surrounded by people who believe in the government, and if not in the government, then in your country itself. Patriotism has its own dedicated holiday! This is why Fallout has such a huge focus on how the government of their universe shifted away from protecting people, and how they have become imperialistic, jingoistic, and xenophobic. Even if you hate the military, the world of Fallout is intended to make you go “shit, at least we aren’t THAT bad”.

And this tone helps to set the theme for the Fallout games. Everywhere you turn, you are completely let down by the people you rely on. Looks are deceptive, and yet they aren’t. The dark and gritty atmosphere of the games are constantly screaming at you that the world has already ended, even as Ron Perlman tells you it is only the beginning. Happy endings are nonexistent in almost every case, with the sole exception of perhaps the Courier... but then, the Courier is the only one with no ties to a Vault. No delusions of grandeur, no expectations.

It should be noted that in the dialogue choices as the Courier, you are the most aware of everything that has happened. Instead of being shocked that someone shot you in the head, you are apathetic at best and mostly want the package back; even if you roleplay your courier as a revenge-driven mailman, they are never surprised. Disappointed? Oh, almost certainly.

The first time I booted up the original Fallout and saw the Overseer start talking, my first thought was:

“This is it. Humanity has degenerated into ridiculous blue cavemen.”

I think the design of the Overseer was very intentionally made to be odd, and to showcase that the people have changed. Then you step out into the wasteland. You see the disconnect between the Vaults, the only remnants of pre-war society in the first game, and the rest of the world.

The discovery that the government willingly let all these experiments happen only adds to our disgust as we piece things together, piece by piece. You become jaded and cynical, and in your quest to save everyone, you truly have changed. Sure, the Overseer exiling you because “you’re different” may seem weird and a flimsy excuse to keep the experiment going, but it has a hint of truth to it. You’ve changed. You’re knowledgeable. You can no longer be controlled by the propaganda you had taken as the truth, that all Vault residents had taken as the truth. This disconnect between reality and the Vaults is further explored whenever you reach a new Vault.

Finding out the horrifying truth about what the Vaults were, what they were made for, never gets any easier. The game’s sound design is always made to harken back to something behind you, in some way. The base game’s sound design usually invokes paranoia and fear, while the radios that constantly play music from a bygone era invoke a general feeling of “nothing will ever be the same”.

All in all, Fallout does a fantastic job of setting the basis of its universe. Worldbuilding is a massive part, and their is little to nothing left unknown for a savvy player, should you be willing to listen to exposition. The overall tone is tragic and bleak, in order to juxtapose itself with the pre-war propaganda.

Which brings us to Borderlands.

Borderlands does not ask you as a player to think. It does not ask you to feel. The main focus has never been the story, and yet it is still a beautiful aspect of it, in the way of all the things that go left unsaid. How did the sirens come to be? Who knows. How did all the Eridians die out? Who knows. Why is it so much god damn fun to shoot a vertically challenged man in a gas mask and watch his head explode? Who knows.

Borderlands never gives you enough time to reflect on the overarching theme of the series. Compared to Fallout the game is much more fast-paced and linear, but if you take the time, you can see everything fall apart as the story progresses. You have no choice. Nothing you do ever matters, especially in the face of corporate overlords. All these bandits you’ve been fighting? They were normal people once. Convicts, sure, but they were also taken advantage of, brought to this strange alien planet and used as slave labor. Fresh off of the heels of Fallout, you could ask yourself, “what sick government would do this?” The answer is it isn’t a government. It is a corporation that styles itself as a government.

There lies the sick joke of the Borderlands series. This isn’t some far fetched, awful alternate reality. This is the future, where corporations continue down the same path they are on now - unchecked, allowed to ruin the worlds, contracted by governments - and nobody did a god damn thing. These guns you buy? Produced by Atlas. The clothes you’re wearing? Probably Hyperion fashion. The planets you come from? Owned almost completely by corporations. Atlas has an iron grip on Promethea, and Mister Torgue literally blew up an entire PLANET, even if it is played for laughs.

Just like in Fallout, nobody is on your side - and yet you know this. You embrace futility anyway; you buy Atlas, you buy Hyperion, and you buy Maliwan because at the end of the day, they are more powerful than any Vault Monster you could hope to kill. The bright tones and dark humor of the Borderlands are a direct result of embracing futility. The fun does not lie within facing your oppressors, it lies within killing them over and over. The thing that makes Borderlands so celebrated is its replayability; in Fallout, everything you do is permanent. Borderlands has next to no permanence. No matter how many Hyperion soldiers you kill, you won’t put a dent in them. These corporations span six whole galaxies.

Borderlands doesn’t need to set an atmosphere to make you immerse yourself in the story. We already know corporations are horrible. Jeff Bezos spends his money on space while Amazon employees die of exhaustion.

The horror of these two games directly correspond with each other. Fallout is horrifying because of past deeds, because of what could have come to pass. Borderlands is horrifying because of what still could happen.

Both of these game series have, in many’s opinion, fallen off in recent years, but I personally will always have a special place in my heart for these wonderful games and their storytelling.

Thank you for reading.

#long post #fallout #fallout 2 #fallout 3 #fallout 4 #borderlands #borderlands 2 #borderlands 3 #video games #bethesda #2k games #mine #sweetiecenter

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nadziejastar · 5 years

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Thanks, man. Definitely agree with you. The novels really drove home the point that Vanitas was a sad, tormented character. I wish he’d gotten more of a satisfying resolution, too. Like his pain being acknowledged and then going back to Ventus. I will never forgive Disney and Square for how badly the story got butchered because now I cannot move on with my fucking life. I wanna know what was going to happen SO badly, LOL.

I could not BELIEVE that KH3 was trying to pass Saïx off as a normal dude (as far as Nobodies go) on the same level as Axel, and that he just fell of the right path in the process of looking for some girl. Um, no. That explanation might work for casual fans, but for hardcore fans who were paying the slightest bit of attention and especially the ones who followed every detail, it’s unmitigated bullshit. How are they just gonna have Isa show up and play frisbee and eat ice cream at the end without distancing him from his Saïx persona?

Roxas was fast asleep in his bed, alone—until two other figures stepped into the room.

“Naminé must have begun her work,” said Saïx, observing Roxas’s slack face. Beside him, Xemnas was doing the same.

Whatever was happening at Castle Oblivion, no intelligence had come beyond the news of a termination. It was enough to arouse suspicion that the lack of communication was deliberate. At this point, Saïx and Xemnas had no choice but to put faith in Axel’s efforts there.

“Will he wake from this?” Xemnas asked.

“I am told he will,” said Saïx, “provided she strips the hero of all his memories.”

“Then much hinges on the affairs at Castle Oblivion,” Xemnas murmured, as if to remind himself, and looked at Saïx again.

But it’s not even just that. There were so many other things about Saïx that were left a complete mystery. Just countless little things I noticed. Ever since I beat KH3 I’ve been obsessed with figuring out what his deal REALLY was, because it was so interesting and now we’re never going to find out what it was. You know, I always fucking wondered…WHO told him this about Roxas’ condition? The novel went out of its way to describe that communication from Castle Oblivion had been halted. This scene takes place on Day 27 ~The Dark Margin~.

“Xion has gained power over the Keyblade, as we intended,” Saïx reported dispassionately. “She can fill Roxas’s role in collecting hearts for the time being.”

If number 14 could wield the Keyblade, the mysterious slumber that had seized Roxas would not pose a problem. They observed him in silence for a few moments, until Saïx turned toward the door.

“And the chamber?” Xemnas asked, halting him. “Have you found it?”

This was a crucial inquiry, deeply connected to the existence of Castle Oblivion itself. He had not, however, found the room in question.

“No, sir. I would say progress is slow…if we were making any to speak of.” With that, Saïx sedately walked out, leaving Xemnas alone with the sleeping Roxas.

Xemnas stared down at the boy. “So sleep has taken you yet again…” If the words had reached Roxas in his dreams, the boy gave no indication.

This is when Roxas dreams about being on the beach and Xemnas touches his shoulder and calls him, “Sora”. I think Saïx was talking to the voices again here, too. And I think that’s the only reason that he is so valued by Xemnas and became his right-hand man. He is receiving communication from the Dark Realm.

Xemnas’s motivations for planting these things were still more unclear. At some point, he had mentioned complementary memories that would fill in the gaps and perfect Xion—or Roxas. It made sense that they would be able to garner more hearts with a perfected Keyblade wielder. But was that really what he was after?

Saïx couldn’t fathom what Xemnas’s true objective might be.

“Sora or Xion—it matters not. But we need one of them under our control. Bear that in mind.”

Saïx nodded, and a serene smile came to Xemnas’s face.

If that smile meant anything, it was beyond him.

I definitely think Saïx has Multiple Personality Disorder (aka Dissociative Identity Disorder).

“You and Xion will be working together on your next mission,” said Saïx. “Well, thank you, sir, for coming all this way to tell me.” Axel went to the mirror and started to fix his hair. Saïx glared at Axel’s reflection, their eyes meeting in the mirror.

“We’ll also need you to go back to Castle Oblivion.” Axel turned to look at him directly, his lip curling. “We? So that came from our fearless leader, did it?” Saïx, of course, didn’t answer that.

“The castle hasn’t given up all its secrets. And there is one in particular that Lord Xemnas—”

“You mean that chamber again?” Axel interrupted, turning back to the mirror.

“We turned the place inside out and upside down. If it’s there, we’re not gonna find it by just looking.”

Because there’s one side of him that genuinely wants to figure out Xemnas’ true goal and is conspiring with Axel. But there’s another side of him that seems like he knows exactly what is going on. It really confused me when I played this game again recently. I think sometimes Saïx is talking as a Nort with Isa’s human memories who is genuinely clueless about Xemnas. And other times, I think it’s the “demon” or whatever that is speaking through him.

“We have but one objective,” said Xemnas. “Be sure to keep that in mind.”

Saïx looked up at him.

“Don’t let Xion out of your sight. Watch her and you will come to understand the Keyblade master.”

Having issued the day’s final order, Xemnas vanished on the spot.

I think Saïx sometimes switches alters when he looks up or down. And eye fluttering is a common symptom of alter switching. He looks up when he’s in the “demon” mode. And he looks down when he goes back to “normal” (not that Saïx could ever really be called normal, but ya know…).

Leaning against the wall with folded arms was his once-upon-a-time best friend—Saïx—probably waiting for him. But Saïx was keeping his gaze fixed on an imaginary point below the floor.

“You’re sure things are better this way?” Axel wondered aloud.

Finally, Saïx looked up. “I never expected you to question it.”

He was looking down when Axel approached him. His gaze was fixated on an imaginary point on the floor. It’s like he was hypnotically programmed to wait there for Axel and was just staring like a zombie until he arrived. When he looked up “they” were talking, instead of Saïx.

In the Round Room, Saïx looked up at Xemnas high above. “Are you sure we’re dealing with Xion and Roxas the right way?”

His tone was markedly different from usual, as if he spoke to an old friend rather than a superior.

“Our plan seemed like a failure at this point, but then it occurred to me. Xion is keeping Sora’s memories trapped by claiming them as her own.”

He looked up and spoke with Xemans like an old friend. Much different than he normally acts. Then Xemnas discussed “our plan”.

“That gadfly? See that he stays away from Roxas. He only poses a threat if his buzzing reaches Xion’s ears.”

That was an order, and Saïx politely bowed his head. “Then we shall return to our original plan.”

As he kept his head low in obeisance, Xemnas couldn’t see his bitter approximation of a smile. Back to the original plan. No room for hesitation.

Isn’t that right, Lea?

But when he lowered his head afterwards, he started thinking like his normal self—someone who had Isa’s memories and was conspiring with Lea against Xemnas.

The aforementioned “novice”—Saïx, the lowest ranked of those present—didn’t even glance up from the dais.

It’s really weird.

Alone in the Round Room, Saïx raised his eyes to the high domed ceiling.

All they needed was Sora’s power. Everything was proceeding as anticipated. If Xemnas’s plan remained unchanged, then so would his. Still, Saïx saw a potential wrench in the works—Axel and his patently obvious doubts. It might have been a mistake to let him get so close to Roxas and Xion.

Saïx let out a rather human sigh and vanished from the room.

During this scene, he does it. And Saïx is said to sigh very much like a “human” a LOT.

“Turn great hearts into Heartless and let Sora defeat them.”

Saïx raised his head at that.

“And you know where to find suitably substantial hearts, I trust?” Xemnas went on.

The other three nodded.

“Change a great heart into a Heartless, and you might end up with an extra-useful Nobody. Leave it to our fearless leader to figure out how to replenish our personnel,” Xigbar remarked with a nasty grin.

“Again, everything is proceeding according to plan,” said Xemnas. “Do not let anything interfere.” With that, he stood up and summarily disappeared.

He raised his head when Xemnas mentioned “great hearts” in KH2. I think he switched alters at that moment. In KH2FM+, Xemnas praised his ability to plant seeds of doubt (just like him), then Saïx lowered his head. And afterward, he sounded genuinely concerned about Axel when he asked Xemnas about him.

“He was involved in the incident at Castle Oblivion… I warned you he had a hand in the demise of Marluxia and the others, and yet someone failed to eliminate him.” Saïx, number 7, glared at Xigbar from under his hood with a sharp glint in his eyes.

“Hey, he’s the only one who’s had direct contact with the Keyblade wielder,” Xigbar replied, unruffled.

“Observe them.” Xemnas issued the order quietly.

“Saïx, you go after Axel. Demyx, you follow the kid.” Xigbar translated it for the rest of them as if he were privy to Xemnas’s thoughts.

“The kid? Roxas, you mean?” Demyx got to his feet.

“Yes… That’s right. Roxas.” Xigbar smiled darkly and exchanged a glance with Xemnas.

Then there’s this. Okay, WTF? When the hell did Saïx ever warn Xigbar that Axel had a hand in what went down at Castle Oblivion?

Day 71: The Traitors’ End

Author: Xigbar

Saïx had a hand in what went down at Castle Oblivion—well, more like a whole arm. Which means Axel was in on it as well. It’s a fact that Xemnas ordered Axel to take out the traitors, orders which went through Saïx. No specific names were given, but naturally Xemnas knew who the turncoats were right from the get-go.

Because last I saw, Xigbar blamed Saïx for what Axel did to Marluxia and the others. I think at that moment Xigbar was talking to the “demon” inside of Saïx, which is why he had his hood up while talking to Xigbar. It also implies that Marluxia was not one of the traitors that Xemnas wanted eliminated. But then…who were?

Day 94: All Goes Apace

Author: Saïx

The hearts collected by our two Keyblade wielders, Roxas and Xion, have gathered together; and now, almighty Kingdom Hearts waxes large in the night sky. Our efforts have come to bear fruit, nearly ripe for the plucking. All plans proceed smoothly—alarmingly so, in fact, though this is no time to be deterred by paranoia.

Look at the title of this report. “All Goes Apace”. He talks exactly like Xemnas does.

Day 277: True Agenda

Author: Saïx

Axel and Roxas are up to something. No plot they concoct will change the fact that the Organization has cast off Xion, though. Our plans have split, diverged, and advance now to the next stage. The No. i project and Replica Program merely paved the way. Our true goals lie elsewhere.

This one’s called “True Agenda” and he acts completely in the know.

Day 298: Change of Plans

Author: Saïx

Axel failed to report that the impostor and Xion are working together. Instead, that news came from Roxas. The boy is far more easily handled than Axel, but now Axel has captured Xion and returned her to us. His motives are impossible to read. Our plans can be altered if necessary, but doing so can only delay their realization.

Then there’s “Change of Plans”. It seems like they’re all referring to the same thing.

Day 7: Meaning

Author: Xemnas

A name defines an object. Describes the span of it. Gives it purpose. We embarked upon the Replica Program to ensure our new power stays ours. Now, our shadow puppet, “No. i,” lives. It needs a name. Something to define it. To give the hollow vessel purpose.

Xemnas talks the same way Saïx does. And they’re the only ones who talk like this in their reports. It doesn’t sound quite…human if you ask me. And the way Saïx and Xemnas refer to “we” might not even be Organization XIII, but the “demons”.

Day 322: The Plan

Author: Xemnas

Be they a puppet or the hero’s Nobody, we merely need a functional Keyblade master. The details are unimportant. The puppet has developed to a point where the hero of the Keyblade may be entirely redundant. Indeed, perhaps we ought never allow Sora to awaken. He cannot be controlled. He will rise up against us. We must move our agenda ahead with that firmly in mind.

Here’s the “Plan” again.

Day 358: Goals

Author: Xemnas

With luck, we can bring Roxas back into our fold, but even if Sora should awaken, as the hero of the Keyblade, he is bound to keep unlocking hearts. If he should come to target us, we need simply subdue him and use his powers ourselves once more. I must become one with Kingdom Hearts. I will become a higher existence. All of my true ambitions begin there.

And there’s “Goals”.

The lesser Nobodies that served them were unfailingly obedient, but that was the only thing they ever did. The greatest difference between them and Organization members was not appearance but the capacity for independent thought. Where did that capacity come from, then? Did it have anything to do with the heart?

“I’m gonna go nuts in here…” Axel scratched his head and continued his search of the bizarre castle.

When Axel goes to Castle Oblivion after looking at Saïx in the mirror, he thinks about the connection between the heart and independent thought. This is on Day 119 ~Work to Do~, the day that Xaldin said that caring about something is a weakness.

Day 150: Dealing with Xion

Author: Saïx

As expected, the Duplicate is starting to show its limits. The Program showed promise, but a puppet is just a puppet: something to be toyed with until it breaks. I am utterly at a loss as to what Roxas and Axel see in that thing. How best to dispose of it merits my consideration going forward.

Here Saïx sounds more like his “normal” self. This takes place on Day 150 ~Fear~ the day Roxas asks Axel if there’s anything he can’t bear to lose.

Day 171: The No. i Project

Author: Saïx

Xion failed to complete its mission. If this continues, destroying it and using the next Replica as the Duplicate would undoubtedly yield a higher-grade copy. No. i was among the initial lot, which naturally raises questions about its capabilities. At present, it is nothing short of broken. I cannot fathom why Xemnas would want to keep it.

This is on Day 171 ~Love~, the day Roxas asked Axel about the power of love. He doesn’t understand what Xemnas wants because this is a different alter with subconscious memories of being treated like a toy and being broken.

Day 174: Just a Replica

Author: Saïx

Xion continues to sleep. All analysis on its function suggests no marked change. The copying appears to be working, but a Replica is a Replica. My latest report to Xemnas on this net me no clear answers. He simply stood, smiling. At times I find his thinking impenetrable.

In this report, Xemnas smiles at him creepily, and he admits he can’t fathom what goes through his head. He doesn’t understand the purpose of the Replica Program here.

Saïx: Why… Kingdom Hearts… Where is my heart?

In KH2, Saïx genuinely just wanted his heart back.

Saïx: Nngh… How much longer…Kingdom…Hearts… Will your strength never be mine?

When Roxas defeated him in Days, he sounded more like the “demon”.

“You don’t trust me?” she said as she passed. “I know when to let up. I’m not stupid enough to break my toys.”

There might even be a third alter which is the REAL Isa, who is lost in the Realm of Sleep, and he acts more like a zombie/robot. Like Roxas was at first, like Ventus was, and like Sora was in DDD while he was sitting in the Organization’s chair. Xion’s theme is called “Who Am I?” and I think it fits Saïx as much as everyone else. Subject X also wondered who they were. Probably because Subject X was originally Isa.

There, a lone boy lay fallen. The boy stood up slowly, and stared blankly in front of him. There, a pitch black hole—a portal of darkness opened. From there, a black-coated man walked up to the boy. The boy looked up at the man, silent and vacant.

“Do you want to know?” the man asked the boy.

The boy nodded, staring fixedly at the man. The man raised a hand, and letters rose up in front of the boy.

“You don’t feel a thing—you can’t have feelings. Do you want meaning?”

The boy gave a clear nod. The letters in front of the boy spun around, and then, another letter joined them. That letter was ‘X’. That which floated there was to be the boy’s name, from then on.

“…Roxas,” the boy read out, in a clear voice.

Xehanort called Roxas a good candidate for a vessel until he became too aware of himself.

“So what do they call you?” asked Axel. The boy only blinked, not enough to signal that he’d even heard.

“Let’s try that again. What’s your name?”

“…Ro…xas…,” the boy croaked, as if he’d never spoken before. Then Axel realized that Xemnas had named him only moments ago. It had been the same for him and his own name.

“Okay, Roxas. I’m Axel. Got it memorized?” Roxas just stared at him blankly.

“Well, let’s get outta here.” Axel had his doubts about taking someone who had just come into being to that stark, cheerless castle, but he didn’t exactly have a lot of other options at the moment.

Axel said that he was in a similar state when he first received his new name. Apparently Xemnas hypnotically programs the members to think they cannot feel emotions while they are in that trance-like state, when they first become Nobodies.

“As your flesh bears the sigil, so your name shall be known as that…of a recusant.”

This is probably what he said to Isa when he first became a Nobody. The Recusant’s Sigil is translated as “Mark of Heresy”. A recusant is a person who refuses to submit to an authority or to comply with a regulation. So the mark signifies total submission and obedience. Saïx is the only character who has a scar of this symbol. And it’s large and right in the middle of his face. I definitely think he was Xehanort’s favorite lab rat.

Saïx observed him from behind with what appeared to be distaste. In stark contrast to Demyx, Saïx left his long blue hair unstyled. The X-shaped scar on his forehead was all the style he needed.

“What d’you want? I’m kinda busy.” Irritated, Demyx turned around.

Instead of responding, the other man simply disappeared.

“Excuse me?!” Demyx shouted at the space where Saïx had been standing.

And then, as if to take Saïx’s place, Xigbar appeared with his hood low over his eyes. “Ready yet?”

Isa was a toy that was broken, like the Riku Replica after his memories were wiped clean. And the way Saïx acts in this scene is even more abnormal than he usually is.

Regardless, Aqua cut off a bite-sized piece of the cake with a fork and held it up to Ventus’s mouth. His head slowly revolved to look at her, like he was some mechanical automaton.

It reminded me of the way Ven was described in the novel while he was “broken”.

Ventus observed absentmindedly from where he sat on a bench. Actually, it was hard to tell if he was truly watching them. A small bird swooped down toward his feet. It hopped onto his foot, then onto his knee before finally stopping on his shoulder. Ventus didn’t react at all. Terra and Aqua saw this and shared a glance.

While Ventus had proven himself capable of taking care of his needs and doing what he was told, he never acted of his own volition. Unless Terra, Aqua, or Master Eraqus said otherwise, he would spend the entire day staring into space, and the biggest thing was that he never spoke.

Saïx is more functional than Ven was, but Isa probably was reduced to a similar state to Ven during the experiments. Subject X took a week to speak. Saïx is probably only more functional because he has Xehanort and the “demon” in control of him. But Isa’s alter is probably still a total zombie/robot. Totally unaware of his surroundings and just mindlessly follows orders, doing nothing of his own volition.

Xion got up and looked in the mirror. It’s me. Nothing new.

After getting ready for the day, she went to the Grey Area and found Saïx and Xigbar there.

“…Where’s Roxas?” she asked Saïx.

“None of your concern.” Xion had expected as much. Saïx never answered her questions.

Then Xigbar poked his face between them. “There you go again, Saïx. Why’re you so mean to our Poppet?” Saïx pointedly ignored him.

Xigbar always talks to me, at least, thought Xion. He’s so much nicer than Saïx. I like him.

“They’re saying Roxas fainted or something, and he’s still out like a light,” Xigbar supplied.

“Huh?” Xion started. Roxas was unconscious…?

“You worried about him?” Xigbar nodded understandingly. “Aw, sweet little Poppet. Why don’t I take you to visit him later?”

“Okay…” Xigbar patted her on the head. Why is he always calling me “Poppet,” though? she wondered.

Xion looks in the mirror twice while Roxas is sleeping, and remarks that she looks the same as usual. Xigbar and Saïx are both mentioned being present in the lobby both times.

“And who gave you the authority to—? No, I suppose there’s no harm in visiting him.” Saïx relented. “After your mission.”

For once, he wasn’t shutting her down. “What’s the assignment today?” she asked.

“Investigating, the same as yesterday. Although you’ll be going to a different world this time.” Saïx described the place to her.

“…All right.” Xion nodded and stepped into the dark portal.

Xion is worried about Roxas and Saïx is actually pretty accommodating, which Xion finds unusual for him. I think it’s referring to the idea that THAT was Isa’s true personality. Someone who worried about people he cared for and didn’t shut others down constantly.

Xion got up and took care of her morning routine in front of the mirror in the corner of the room. I’m the same as ever. And yet, I’m not.

She stared hard at the mirror’s reflection. It showed…someone else. But she knew who it was. The boy who looked like Roxas. For a moment, she lowered her gaze, then looked again. Just her. Her and her identity crisis. Xion laughed at herself.

I have time here. Riku gave it to me. But not forever. I’ll ruin everything if I stay. I have to decide…before the Organization decides for us.

Xion looks in the mirror on Day 353 ~Resolve~, the one where Axel tells Roxas that Xion is a mirror that reflects him. But that time…she doesn’t see herself in the mirror. She sees Sora. Take note of how she lowers her gaze, looks up again, and sees herself.

“You’ve meddled again,” said a voice behind him.

Axel stopped short. He hadn’t even noticed Saïx’s presence.

“Sorry, did you say something?” He turned with a slight smirk.

“We don’t need them both. Just one. And pretending won’t change it.”

We, who? Axel wanted to ask, but he held it in, along with a bitter laugh. He wasn’t sure if that “we” meant Organization XIII or just Saïx and himself.

“Think about that.”

On this day, Saïx is telling Axel they need to choose one or the other.

“…Can’t you hear the world’s screams?”

“Screams?”

Axel finally turned around, and looked up at Saïx standing on a stairway.

“The time when we should move will come soon.”

“I dunno, whatever.” Axel turned his back on Saïx, and opened a dark portal in front of him.

I think the “we” Saïx was actually referring to was the one here. I think this is also hinting that this is NOT who Isa really was.

Oh, I am. And I’m sick of it. I’m even desperate enough to ask you if there’s another way. The words nearly escaped him, but Saïx was already walking toward the Grey Area. The set of his shoulders told him plainly what the answer would be. Axel realized how great the rift was between how he remembered their past and what he saw now. Why am I even here? I don’t know anymore. What am I trying to do?

Axel specifically notes that there’s a huge rift between the past an the present.

“Are the three of us teamed up today?”

“You have your own mission, Roxas,” Saïx told him before Xion could answer.

“I can’t trade with Xigbar or something?”

“What an extraordinarily childish notion. Do you need Axel to walk you everywhere now?”

Roxas bit his lip and looked at the floor. “That’s not it…”

Then Saïx makes a comment that was most likely referring to Isa (his other personality), more than Roxas. Isa was a shy boy who was clingy to Lea. He acted more like Xion did with Roxas than how Saïx acts with Axel. Saïx is a compartmentalized alter, and NOT Lea’s best friend from childhood, Isa.

HE RECOGNIZED THE WHITE CEILING AND, SOON AFTER, HIS ROOM.

Something was different about it—but he couldn’t have said what it was. This is my room. I’m a member of the Organization. Number 13, Roxas. But…something’s changed. Roxas sat up in the hard bed and shook his head. His mind felt so fogged over. Did I fall asleep yesterday? How? He couldn’t remember. He really had no idea. As he swung his legs over the side to get up, a pile of seashells beside his pillow caught his eye.

Similar scenes happen with Roxas. It’s suggested that Roxas is Ventus, but his memories were all wiped due to trauma. Roxas is an alter of Ventus. He passed out in Agrabah because the situation with Axel subconsciously reminded him of what happened with Terra and Aqua. He thought he’d never see Axel again, like Vanitas told him he’d never see Terra again. In that moment, he switched alters and went back to sleep, like Ventus.

Where did these come from? I don’t know. I don’t know anything at all. He left his room, and his legs seemed to know where to take him now that he was awake. Muscle memory was carrying him to the Grey Area.

Right—I’m supposed to report in for my mission. Some kind of pressure was gathering between his eyebrows. He walked down the hallway, and when he arrived at the lobby, no one was there.

“Axel…?” He murmured his friend’s name without thinking, then touched his mouth at the outburst. They had told him that Axel might have been terminated. He remembered that part.

See how the descriptions of his head pain are exactly like people with Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Roxas hadn’t expected to sleep very well, and he was right. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. The center of his head felt heavy, like something pressing from the space between his eye brows all the way back.

But yesterday… Yesterday I saw Xion. Why was she avoiding me? Why was she running away from me?

It’s because Roxas was not envisioned to be a separate character from Ventus. He IS Ventus, just without Ventus’s memories, and he has a lot of Sora’s memories. I’m sure stuff like this is why Nomura was so confused while trying to write KH3′s story.

Xehanort’s Report IX

We Keyblade Masters have a special gift. We can extract a heart, be it our own or that of another. By continuing this cycle, it is possible to remain in the world of the living forever.

This sounds like something a Lich would say.

— By the way, Braig’s dealings with Master Xehanort in Birth by Sleep make sense now, as he was to become a vessel.

There is a certain reason for Braig to proudly exclaim, “I’m already half Xehanort.” Isa (Saïx) is included too. I think you’ll understand the details about their circumstances eventually.

No, we really didn’t. But thanks for getting my hopes up and making me wait an entire decade for nothing, I guess…

— What happens to the hearts of those who have had Master Xehanort’s heart planted within them?

They’ll gradually be swallowed by it. As for Master Xehanort, he plans to control them completely. The planted parts of the heart are captured rather than disappear.

And I’m sure the Lich had NOTHING to do with any of this.

358 Days is one week short of a complete year, of course…

Yes, of course for people who played KH2 they know that the game is like a countdown to the final day. And of course they know the realize why it’s missing that one week. So they already know the reason for the title is that it is “a week short of a year, split between two people.” But is that really the true answer? I named this game hoping that people would think on it even after they’ve finished playing it.

Where did the Organization’s coat and mark come from? Xemnas remembering his human years. One year after BbS, Xehanort as well as five other apprentices toss aside their hearts. Then the Nobody Xemnas was born, and the Organization which he creates take a lot of things from his memories as a human. But as Xemnas had two people who he was, Terra and Master Xehanort, he takes from both of their memories. The coat used by the Organization was something that Master Xehanort originally wore. The Nobody mark used by the Organization is a similar shape to the mark Terra used. Xemnas gives Organization members names with an X in them. This has something to do with Master Xehanort’s interest in the X-Blade.

Last but not least: Is there a connection here? Was the one year between BBS when Terranort was discovered by Ansem the Wise and the apprentices losing their hearts, supposed to be parallel in some way to the year Roxas spent in the Organization? That’s my last bit of theorizing for this post.

#kh meta #kh saïx #kh xemnas #kh xehanort #kh theories

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topweeklyupdate · 6 years

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TØP Weekly Update #53: Out (7/6/2018)

This is it, boys and girls. The “hiatus”, as we’ve called it for the last 364 days, is finally, finally, finally over... probably. Let’s cover the week that was, and look forward to the new era that could be.

This Week’s TØPics:

“New” Music Discovery

The Last Message From Dema

The Return of WILD SPECULATION

Major News and Announcements:

On any other week, new music from Tyler Joseph would be the biggest news story. And... well, I mean, I guess it should be, so we’ll cover it first, but it really doesn’t feel like it. That’s really weird, isn’t it?

@ultrawafflehouse shared a unique piece of content with the world in the middle of the week. After a friend of a friend received an old Tyler Joseph mixtape from a local youth pastor trying to prove his street cred to the middle schoolers of suburban Ohio, Ultra discovered that two of the unnamed tracks were pieces of music that had never previously found their way onto the Internet.

One of the unnamed tracks is a slick instrumental with elements of some of Tyler’s other early works like “Two” and “I Need Something To Kill Me” on full display: i.e., an extremely promising but unfinished arrangement from an extremely talented novice with no training or experience and a dozen better ideas than this that he decided to actually flesh out. Little wonder it, like presumably most of Tyler’s work, never made it to the general public.

The other track, however, actually sounds like a full song. Dubbed “Going Down” due to the phrase’s repetition in the hook, the track fits in perfect with the general No Phun Intended/Self-Titled sound; passionately-sung heart-on-sleeve lyrics supported by a simple piano arrangement with some basic hip-hop elements thrown in. I’ll be real: I was not blown away by this song. The writing in general, particularly on the hook, is low-energy, all over the place, and stretches the metaphors real thin. Tyler’s vocal delivery is at peak teenage whine, and his bars in the sole rap verse seem amateurish and out of breath.

But I wasn’t expecting to love it- most of Tyler’s stuff pre-Self-Titled, and even some tracks on the first two albums, are clearly made by someone who has no real clue how to do the whole music thing. “Drown” and “Blasphemy” are the only truly great songs from No Phun Intended, and they were both repurposed later down the road when Tyler had a better idea what he was actually doing. I still think Tyler is a genius, but he was not born the songwriter and performer he had become by the time Fueled By Ramen signed him. I still appreciate tracks like these, but more as historical curiosities, stepping stones to what Twenty One Pilots would become with brief flashes of Tyler’s insightful introspection and genuine brilliance.

The biggest news of the week, as with last week’s update, was not new music, but updates from the world of Dema. To start, we got three updates from dmaorg.info on Sunday. The first was a gif of a creepy vulture slowly turning to camera. Not too much to derive from this one. There’s the iconography of vultures, aka the carrion feeders who consume the bodies of the dead left at real-world Towers of Silence. The vulture can be seen to “blink” with its thin transparent eyelid, aligning it with the fifth Closing Eye Lyric: “Nobody dreams when they blink.” This correlation is strengthened by the name of the gif itself: “i”.

The second post, another letter from Clancy, was much more intriguing. The letter contains some great prose, with Clancy describing how the bishops have robbed the denizens of Dema of their dreams using something referred to as “smearing” and pledging to not let them crush his hope. The references to nighttime and light connect it to the sixth Closing Eye Lyric, “remember the morning is when night is dead”. The image title of this update is “e_sr_eve_r.jpg” (”reverse” in reverse), and that’s reflected both the content of the letter and its organization- you can swap the order of the sentences, and it still makes perfect sense. But why this command to reverse? To what end? Hmm....

The answer to that comes in the third update, a simple smattering of yellow marks slipped out of chronological order in the middle of the list the list under the date of the band’s Grammy win. When laid over the Clancy letter, the markings for individual letters again spell out the word “trench”, which connects it to the audio clip from the previous Dema update, while the solid vertical lines highlight the phrase “We are banditos.” When you connect all these dots and reverse that audio, as several people had already discovered previously, it becomes pretty clear that Tyler is singing “We are banditos.” What does that mean? Well, hold your horses, kid, because the circled letters in the message spell out “end”. That looked like it might be it...

Until the gif that originally revealed the Dema site made its way back onto the main website. Many interpreted this to be the fulfillment of the last Closing Eye Lyric, “Now I just sit in silence,” due to the gif ending with the finale of the “Car Radio” music video, and a sign to the Clique to pay attention to the site if they weren’t already.

dmaorg.info finished its mission on Thursday with another rush of content. First, a photo of a vast desert with a single small figure possibly visible on the horizon. The image was simply titled “o_ut.jpg”. Not much else to say; once again, the big reveal was delivered to us by Clancy.

This letter is honestly the best fiction writing and world-building I’ve seen from Tyler yet, good enough to make me wonder if he’s been considering writing a Hunger Games-style YA series if this whole music career thing doesn’t pan out. Clancy lays out his plan to break out of Dema: since it will be impossible to sneak past the huge walls unnoticed, he plans to make a big commotion during the enclave’s biggest holiday, the Annual Assemblage of the Glorified, to distract the “watchers” and permit those from the “other side” to find a way in, then avoid being “smeared” by the bishops until the others can show him the way out. There are tons of great details and turns of phrase (”concrete coffin of a city”) and really cool moments (”They don’t control us” should sound way more cringey than it reads here.) They even snuck in a final hidden message message: following the dotted lines up the same number of rows as there are squares reveals one last “Wake up.”

The biggest takeaway from this letter, though, is how direct it is. It makes reference to it being “a year since the last convocation” and directly says that “by morning, everything will be different.” And, if you still didn’t get the message- *poof*. Within minutes of the Clique posting and dissecting these new posts, dmaorg.info was gone. They pulled the plug. The only evidence of the last few months of theorizing, speculating, and decoding will be on Reddit threads lost to the dust of time, as our thoughts become occupied with a whole different type of Twenty One Pilots content...

WILD SPECULATION:

As of the moment I’m writing this (7/6/18, 1 am PST), the band has not released any new music. I am not bopping to “Jumpsuit” right now. But something is totally happening within the next 12-24 hours. The only question is... what?

Well, I have zero information beyond the registration of the song titles “Nico and the Niners” and “Jumpsuit” and the implication that the songs will relate to this unfolding tale of Clancy and the Bishops of Dema. But I do have some theories/wishes.

First, I don’t think we’ll be getting a whole new album all at once. Twenty One Pilots ain’t Beyonce. They don’t have the clout (yet) for FBR to let them get away with dropping a full project with zero mainstream promo (also, there’s no other registered song titles, so nothing for at least a few weeks). I think that, in following the standard pop music tradition of the last few years, we’ll get two singles dropped on the first day (the aforementioned registered names), with a music video for one to tide us over, then a trickle of songs for two or three months before an album in time for the holidays. I suspect “Jumpsuit” to be the main radio-play single (I’m already picturing a prison break from Dema for the video), while “Nico” serves as the song for the fans that lays out more about this concept.

The thing that excites me most about the whole Dema idea is that, unlike the rather straightforward metaphor of Blurryface, the ARG content we’ve received so far has laid out an entire world populated with multiple named characters and concepts that we aren’t clear on just yet. Because of that, I think we might get quite a few songs (like, hopefully, “Nico”) that focus more on storytelling (and, also hopefully, killer soundscapes) than just affirming the importance of staying alive. I really hope “Nico” is, like, a nine-minute long rock/EDM opera that lays out all the different bishops’ plans and motivations while mashing genres in the classic TØP style. I really want to see Tyler and Josh push themselves artistically, and I think that what we’ve seen so far is really indicating that is the case.

A few more questions (and some speculation):

What other songs are coming? “Trench”? “Heavy”? “Banditos”? “Wake Up”? “Coconut Sharks: Requiem”? (No clue, can’t wait to find out.)

What will the promo look like? Will the band bother to participate in local radio interviews anymore? (Depends on how early sales go, I think.) Will they do any long-form/in-depth sit downs? (Rooting for Zane Lowe, but also hoping a mag like Rolling Stone that’s willing to put artists in the hot seat puts Tyler on his toes and asks some of the difficult questions.)

What can we expect of tour? (I’m calling amphitheater followed by arena shows, just like with Blurryface and a lot of the bigger FBR acts. Praying for more live musicians and maybe some theatrical stuff with Dema.)

What will the album be called? Dema? Silence? Tower of Silence? Iris [remember that, holy crap]? Blurryface 2: Electric Boogaloo? Hard to say (Probably the first one, let’s be real).

Will it be successful? (Almost definitely not as much as Blurryface. We’ll have to see how hard they focus on the Dema concept or an alternative sound, since radio hates weird.) Will it be good? (Yes. I was unsure for a long time, but I’ve got a really good feeling now. A really, really good feeling.)

Community Spotlight:

This is technically cheating, but I am part of the community, so I’m gonna write about myself today. Forgive me.

Last year, on my 21st birthday, Twenty One Pilots posted a shut eye and some mirrored lyrics on their social media and then, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. I spent my whole twenty-first year of life without ‘em (the irony is not lost on me), which was weird considering how much they had inspired and impacted me throughout high school and college.

I did a lot of stuff when I was 21. I graduated college. I got a new job. I made friends. I lost friends. I got in fights. I learned to let go, but not soon enough to spare someone I cared about from unnecessary heartbreak. I turned corners in my mental health, only to run into new walls. I listened to a ton of music. I grew up.

Today, I turned 22. The irony of the absence of Twenty One Pilots aside, I’m so glad I had the chance to figure out who I was without this band by my side every step of the way. I learned that I could make it. And now I get to have them back while I continue to make it. How sick a birthday gift is that?

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/

#twenty one pilots #tyler joseph #josh dun #dema #hiatus #top weekly update #music

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noctis-hq · 5 years

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congratulations ROBYN! you’ve been selected for the role of Gage Chambers, also known as the acrobat. please look over the checklist here. you have 48 hours to send your account to the main. welcome to the family!

oh my goodness!! i just adore gage. i think that you took the acrobat and filled it. it’s such a full and realistic character. i love how you used his ability to help shape his character. i ready this and immediately saw him in all of the settings. it was like watching a movie. i can’t wait to see him on the dash.

&&. THE AUDIENCE

alias. Robyn

age & timezone. 21. GMT

activity. 8/10. I should be on more or less every day, i’d let an admin know if anything changed!

&&. THE ACT

skeleton. The Acrobat

reasoning. I honestly had a hard time choosing between skeletons but this one really stood out to me for various reasons and I kind of fell in love with it! Especially with the numerous ways you could mold a character with it and the backgrounds you could create. This character called to me the most because I always feel like I’m drawn to complex and mysterious characters in particular and I feel like it would be a lot of fun working out who they really are underneath all of those masks.

name. Gage Chambers

faceclaim. Cody Fern.

age & birthday. Twenty-five. February 4th.

gender. cis male. Panromantic demisexual.

key traits.

Positive - Curious. Gage has always been dangerously curious of everything in life, always seeking to learn more. It gets him in trouble a lot of the time. Especially when he ends up poking his nose in places it definitely doesn’t belong.

Negative - Temperamental. Related to his identity crisis, nobody knows which side of him they’re going to get next. He has problems connecting to his real emotions therefore what usually comes out is just a mess. Considering he has been this way since childhood, Gage is always unsure what his true feelings actually are. Almost like each of his masks are playing tricks on themselves, as well as him.

ability. Power mimicry. I chose this for Gage because I feel like it could relate deeply to his not understanding himself very well, and not really knowing who he truly is. I feel like it would have been a game for him at first; playing with other people’s powers and almost pretending to actually be them for a day. Except as time went on, I believe things would have started to get a little blurrier and confusing. Maybe he even sometimes forgot what was real along the way. Although the power comes with a ton of negatives, Gage enjoys the fact that nothing is truly off limits to him. Although he can’t truly absorb powers so that they will last forever, he can play around with them for some period of time.

bio. Tw: neglect. depression.

Some people were simply destined not to have any children. This was definitely the Chambers’ case. Perhaps they truly did love each other, but the pair of them were definitely hard-headed individuals. The arrival of Gage had been an accident; his mother had never had the intention of getting pregnant, now or even later. Neither of his parents had any idea on how to raise a child, and so their solution was to turn their son into a little copy of themselves. Considering they weren’t the softest people in the world, this meant Gage grew up with a great lack of affection of any kind, and having to suffer punishment for the slightest of mistakes such as missing his mouth and dropping food on the floor. He was an obedient child for this reason, constantly searching for any sign of his parents being proud of him, wanting to impress them all of the time. All he ever really received for his actions was indifference. None of his efforts ever seemed to work, they never seemed to even want him around.

Strangely, school was always a relieving getaway for Gage. There were actually people there he could impress instead of always blending into the background. Even though it didn’t matter as much to him because they weren’t close, at least he got some recognition from his teachers and peers. As a teenager he had been relatively quiet, preferring to keep his own company aside from the few other kids he could trust. He was surprised to learn that his parents didn’t seem to even like the idea that he was making friends. Didn’t that mean he was leaving them alone, at least? Instead, the lectures slowly started happening, getting more and more detailed every time. Companions weren’t something he wanted, apparently. They wouldn’t give him anything and in the end, they would only leave him. Somewhat only enlightened by this information, Gage believed his parents were only looking out for him and began pushing any friends he managed to make away, until finally he was truly all alone. The bitterness came shortly after that, a certain sort of cruelty that was apparent in nothing more than his stare.

His powers began rearing their head around the time of puberty. Gage hadn’t the slightest idea what was happening at first. Actually, he thought perhaps he was imagining everything. Only it was all real. It didn’t happen that much at first. After all, there wasn’t too many witches in the state of Alabama, and much less in the small town he grew up in. The slightest pick up of someone’s energy or the graze of a hand, his body would suddenly be flooded with a rush of adrenaline – and magic. It was different every time, no pattern ever the same. Some abilities were far more powerful than others; some seemed even a little pointless to him. At the realization of what he could do, slowly the hole within his heart started to fill somewhat. He had a purpose, and maybe that purpose was confusing and not exactly original – for the first time Gage felt like he actually had a place and role in life.

With every new power came a new side of the young man that would slowly rise to the surface. Even his parents took notice of the change in him. His stares became less unassuming; his gait suddenly far more confident than it had ever been. Gage felt like a new person arose within him every time a new pulse of itching potential crawled through his veins. Of course, there was only so many times a person could do this without the risk of losing themselves. With every year that passed, his reflection in the mirror seemed to appear less and less familiar. Who was he? Who had he ever really been? First, he had been molden in his parents’ image. Now he was too many people to count. Constantly fighting with himself and losing sight of all meaning, he began experiencing one too many dark thoughts and sadness in his soul. The meaning of life became a joke and he was starting to wonder whether it was even worth living at all.

The only solace he could find was when a circus rolled into his small town, recruiting all kinds of different people. Among them, the man didn’t feel like such an outcast. He could show people what he could do without being judged for it, and make some decent money on the side. He was surprised to find how many people loved to see him performing his tricks, even earning a local reputation for being some kind of special magician. When the School approached him, Gage didn’t feel the least bit interested at first. Why should he just pack up and leave what he had come to build? That sounded a bit ridiculous to him. He had long since left the home of his parents and had no plans to go back; they hadn’t even bothered to chase him up and see how he was doing. His reasoning for giving the School a chance was all the other people there with abilities just like his. That was more than a little intriguing to him, and upon his arrival he realized just how many students he could bend to his will. He was never intending on letting them learn who and what he truly was. What was the harm in having a little fun? Of course, that was easier said than done. There was more than one force around that threatened to rip the masks from his face.

extras.

Gage’s mood fluctuates along with his powers and nobody really knows which him they will be dealing with every time they meet. This had turned into more than a habit now, and he feels like he has zero control over his actions and how he reacts to anything.

He still gets depressive moods every now and again and nothing really warns him when one is coming along. Gage simply prefers and tends to hide away from society whenever they occur.

His familiar is a chameleon named Riddle, naturally. He secretly feels like he is the only being who truly understands what he is, and Gage is severely protective of him.

#nox: accepted #acrobat

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castrohildebrandt0 · 2 years

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Staffordshire Bull Terrier - Origin And History

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#REIMAGE PC REPAIR

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/07/21/west-week-ever-pop-culture-review-72117/

West Week Ever: Pop Culture In Review - 7/21/17

I haven’t been doing such a great job with my movie tally for 2017. We’re more than halfway through the year, and I’ve barely watched anything. Well, I kinda made up for that last weekend, as I caught Keeping Up With The Joneses on HBO. This is one of those movies that came and went, and might find a fan base on TV, but will probably just be forgotten. If it should be remembered for anything, it’s that it features both Gal Gadot and Isla Fisher in lingerie. That’s about all it’s got going for it. What’s it about? Well, Isla Fisher and Zack Galifianakis star as a milquetoast suburbanite couple who become suspicious of their new neighbors, Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot. So, they’re pushed out of their comfort zone when they find out Hamm and Gadot are spies, and they get wrapped up in their latest mission. This is the kind of movie I would’ve killed a chunk of a Saturday afternoon on had it aired on Fox 5, but I can understand why nobody went to see it in theaters. Folks loved Don Draper, but for whatever reason, they have no desire to help along Jon Hamm’s movie career. And this was pre-Wonder Woman Gadot, so there was no heat on her yet. It doesn’t suck, but it’s got no Wow Factor either. Once it hits FX, it might be a good way to waste away a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I finally got around to watching The Nice Guys, too. I’d tried a few months ago, but I only got as far as the Ryan Gosling fully clothed in the bathtub scene, where I went, “What the eff am I watching?” I wasn’t ready for the absurd that night, but I was ready now. Like everyone had told me, it was really good. I still have trouble with heist/mystery films because my brain doesn’t work as fast as the film, so sometimes I have to reflect back on the thing when it’s over just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Ryan Gosling is a private investigator who teams up with local tough guy Russell Crowe to track down a missing girl. Sure, there’s some stuff about porn, and the Detroit auto lobby, but that’s the gist of the movie. It’s got a precocious kid, a cool 70s aesthetic, and titties. Can’t really hate on any of that. Anyway, I could see this as one of those movies I drop everything to watch whenever I see that it’s on. If you haven’t seen it, definitely check it out.

My new favorite reality show debuted this week on Bravo, called A Night With My Ex. It’s just what the title says: a former couple spends the night together to see if the spark is still there and/or to reopen old wounds. In the premiere, 28 year old virgin Rachel is reunited to smarmy douchebag ex-boyfriend Fabian. They dated for four years, but he cheated on her with a sexy Tinkerbell at a Halloween party because he had a major case of blue balls. When the show starts, you don’t think Fabian is really that bad of a guy. He knows he made a mistake, and he even plans to propose to Rachel because he wants her in his life forever. But things go south quickly. He chastises her for scraping her plate with her fork as she eats, and he tries to make her give him a handjob once they’re in bed. All the while, she’s trying to actually apologize for basically pushing him to cheat by withholding sex, but he never lets her get a word out before saying/doing something stupid. Finally she declares that she deserves better than him, and basically laughs in his face when he proposes. That was some damn good television! If anything, I’d say the show is too short at 30 minutes, but they only spend one night together, and not the whole weekend, so I guess that’s all they could edit together. It’s a lot like MTV’s old show, The X Effect, only the couple’s current partners aren’t spying on the date like they were in that show. Anyway, it’s only been one episode, but I count me in for the next nine!

In TV news, it was announced that Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have lined up their post-GoT project, Confederate, which is an alternate history series set prior to the United States’ 3rd Civil War. Well, this rang some alarm bells for some folks, as you can’t really get into the Confederacy and Civil War without dealing with slavery. And folks weren’t really happy about these White showrunners making what some considered to be “slavery fanfic”. What hasn’t been covered extensively, though, is that the project is really just coasting on the fact that the GoT showrunners are attached, but they’re not the only ones involved. Husband-wife team of Malcolm Spellman and Nichelle Tramble Spellman , who are Black, will be partners on the show along with Benioff and Weiss. Plus, the show it’s so deep in its infancy that there aren’t even character names or an outline yet. It was originally developed as a two-hour movie, but they decided it could be fleshed out and taken to television. There’s basically nothing on paper for it yet, though, so there’s not much for folks to be upset about at this stage other than mere speculation. The Spellmans acknowledge the criticism, but say that they’d rather it had followed the premiere of the show instead of starting now, as it’s being announced. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that this criticism will go into shaping the show going forward, so we may never get what they originally intended to put out.

youtube

We got a new trailer for Marvel’s Inhumans. Still looks like garbage. I’ve loved Iwan Rheon since Misfits, but I can’t follow him here. This just looks so bad. Look, I’m gonna watch it, but I really don’t see how there’s any damn way I’m paying for an IMAX ticket to see it in theaters.

youtube

We also got a new teaser for The Defenders, which teases the Punisher series at the end. People are going nuts online about this thing because it’s narrated by Stan Lee, but I actually think he’s tonally wrong for this clip. When I think of Stan, I think of his marquee, larger than life characters – NOT the street-level vigilantes. I almost feel like it would’ve been better narrated by Bendis or Brubaker, but they don’t have the recognition factor that Stan has. I get that. Still, it just feels like a hollow waste of a cameo.

Things You Might Have Missed This Week

The good Lord answered my prayers, as Chris Hardwick and Comedy Central have “mutually decided” to end @midnight. I won’t miss his smarmy face or those stupid hashtag games.

I guess the third time’s the charm, as Paige Davis will start her 3rd hosting stint on Trading Spaces when it returns to TLC later this year

Ed Sheeran was on Game of Thrones this week, and I guess some folks didn’t like that. I dunno. I kinda couldn’t care less about Sheeran or GoT, but folks were hatin’!

Meanwhile, it was reported that Lena Dunham will join American Horror Story for season 7, and folks lost their shit about that, too. Apparently she’ll only be in one episode, but that was enough for some folks to claim they weren’t gonna watch anymore.

Transformers: Titans Return will debut in November as an animated micro series on the Go90 app, featuring the voices of Green Ranger Jason David Frank and the original Rodimus Prime himself, Judd Nelson.

MTV is in talks to reboot Teen Wolf before this iteration’s final season has even concluded. Slow it down!

Sega broke up with Archie Comics over Twitter, thereby ending the Sonic The Hedgehog comic after 24 years of publication

Seacrest IN! Ryan Seacrest has officially signed on to host ABC’s revival of American Idol. I feel like I’ve written this sentence 3 times in the past already, but now it’s for real for real.

Coming as no real surprise since The Vampire Diaries ended, The CW announced that its spinoff, The Originals, will end after its upcoming season.

In an odd choice, the directors of the original Catfish documentary (the movie, not the show) are in talks talks to helm a Mega Man film that will be produced by Masi Oka of Heroes fame.

Words with Friends is being developed into a television game show. Ya know, so it’s basically the Scrabble game show being rebooted.

Meanwhile on Black Twitter, R. Kelly is allegedly running a sex cult, Usher paid a woman $1.1 million for her to keep quiet about the fact that he gave her herpes, and Kevin Hart allegedly got caught cheating on his pregnant wife. I’m just waiting for some crazy Steve Harvey news to round out the week.

At San Diego Comic Con, MGM announced Stargate Origins, which appears to be a prequel webseries that will run on the Stargate Command website this fall.

Shazam! will be the next DC film to go into production, following Justice League and Aquaman, but it’s unclear if Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will co-star as Black Adam.

There might soon be a new Cutco salesman on the block, as OJ Simpson has been granted parole from the armed robbery that landed him in prison nine years ago. The Juice is almost loose!

I love those weeks when the West Week Ever recipient presents itself early in the week, ’cause it’s pretty much smooth sailing after that. This was one of those weeks, as history was made across the pond. The Doctor Who franchise is over 50 years old, but every time the Doctor regenerates (a clever in-story mechanism for recasting the actor), he just turns into another White dude. That’s pretty much been the unending pattern since 1966, when the first regeneration occurred. Folks have been saying it’s time for a change, and they were hoping we’d either end up with a Doctor of color (with The IT Crowd‘s Richard Ayoade coming up in a lot of the discussions) or a woman Doctor. Well, half of them got their wish, as Attack the Block‘s Jodie Whittaker was announced as the 13th Doctor. And, as you’re probably not surprised, folks lost their shit.

We’re always taught the the Brits are so proper and upstanding, but the comments sections of several sites proved that they can troll with the best of them. At the end of the day, it’s a bunch of folks who are afraid of change. A friend of mine, however, did point out that the victors in these circumstances also tend to trigger the backlash against themselves. For example, it would be one thing if this was seen as a bold move forward for a progressive franchise. The problem, however, is that some people take it too far, and get on the “I’m savoring these fanboy tears” soapbox, making it about something that it really didn’t need to devolve into. Sometimes the winners can suck just as much as the losers in these scenarios. This can be seen as a “win” for some without it being a “loss” for someone else. How about framing it as a win for everyone? Nah, the internet doesn’t really work like that.

I have never gotten into the Doctor Who franchise because it just seems so daunting. Sure, folks claim you really only have to start with the Eccleston season, but when I get into something, I go ALL IN. To me, that’s like telling someone they can start Star Trek with The Next Generation (which I’d probably do, since I hate The Original Series, even though I’d still feel like I was cheating them out of an experience). I feel like I’d have to watch all 54 years of the show, which is impossible because those seasons ain’t streaming anywhere, and a good chunk of them have been lost to time. It’s a franchise that cannot be wholly consumed! I hate mysteries that can’t be solved. Still, I can respect a longstanding institution, and I understand when change is a big deal. It’ll be interesting to see how fans take to the new Doctor, but the one thing to remember is that she’ll probably do it for 2 years, and then regenerate into another old White guy (the Doctor role has the retention rate of a community college). So, everyone gets their wish! I am kinda curious about the next season, though, as rumor has it Kris Marshall (Colin: God of Sex from Love Actually) is going to be the Doctor’s next companion. I loved that dude!

Anyway, I know which side of history I want to be on, and it’ll be interesting to see this all play out. The way the franchise works, we won’t see her until the Christmas special, and then won’t see her again until late 2018 at the earliest. So, folks have got some time to get used to the idea. Still, I think it goes without saying that Jodie Whittaker had the West Week Ever.

#Christmas #DC #Marvel #Movies #Music #Politics #Power Rangers #Race #Religion #Social Media #Star Trek #Syndication #Television #Video Games #West Week Ever

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forgetspecifics · 7 years

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Such Sights are Bright - Chapter 2: I’m Barely Awake

Blake finds out that there really is more to Yang than meets the eye.

Other links: Ao3 FF.net

Notes:

Okay, first of all, sorry about the wait! It was hard to get all this the way I wanted. There's a good chunk of talking somewhere in here. Then, some things didn't go as I barely planned, I originally was gonna do a Halloween thing but that got cut in favour for something else. I think what I did served a better purpose in developing the friendship.

It's almost 5am and I wanted to get this out because I won't be with my work to post it for a few days, so, sorry but there's gonna be an extra two days wait on me starting the next chapter.

Hope you like it!

October (Fall)

“How’s your Yang-less life treatin’ ya? I’d say how’s it Yangin’ but…”

Her younger sister let out a small whine, sending a scowl even Yang could fear through the video call. “I don’t like it.”

Yang felt bad, she truly did. But Ruby had relied on her for so long, she had to get out into her own world, no matter how much she thought she didn’t like it. It’s not like Yang was the best role model these days.

“You just started your sophomore year! Aren’t you excited?” she asked, hoping to learn how her kid-sister had been coping without her.

“A new girl did transfer in from Germany. I bumped into her on the first day and she lost her mind!”

Yang tried to picture a foreign girl ranting and raving in a native language over something so minor. “Was it funny?”

“Not at the time. Turns out she was angry because she isn’t a senior, even if she’s your age. Because of the differences between here and her country, or something…” she trailed off, becoming distracted.

That sounded shit, if she was honest. But, Ruby was such a nice girl, she assumed that even an annoyed person would appreciate her kindness – if it was offered.

“And?”

Ruby chuckled like she always used to when she was caught stealing cookies. “She pretends to not like me, but I think we’re friends now.”

She was relieved to hear that the girl hadn’t been a bully to her baby sis. Otherwise she’d have to consider going back just to teach her a lesson. But Ruby could handle people better than she could, no matter how much people thought the opposite. Sure, she had a certain charm, but good looks only get you so far when you’re prone to punching people

“Way to go! See, you don’t even need me!” she encouraged. She was trying to hammer home the fact, because Ruby needed to hear it from her if she was going to even begin believe it.

“That’s not the point, Yang,” her sister deflected, still not happy. She had her famous pout going, arms crossed, just like Yang herself had done many times before. Little copycat.

The older girl did her best to resist that kind of manipulation. She’d raised Ruby for years and wasn’t about to forget it. “I know it’s not, but my point is you’re managing fine. And, it’s not that long ‘till you guys are comin’ to visit! I’ll make cookies!”

That seemed to cheer her sibling up. Ruby couldn’t resist an offer of cookies. Just like Summer used to bake.

“Fine, only if you make cookies,” the brunette pointed at the screen for added effect, changing the subject herself. “What about you? Made a million friends?”

Yang counted all the people she had met and befriended. There was Blake, Sun and Neptune – Ruby already knew of them. She described to Ruby the other people that she’d met – there was Nora, a hyperactive cheerleader that was a hoot to hang around. There was Ren, Nora’s not-boyfriend; Jaune, the football team’s waterboy; and Pyrrha, who was way too cool to hang out with Jaune but did anyway. She was suspicious that Pyrrha had a huge crush on him, but whatever. Those four had been friends for years. The best part was, they were all like Blake. Friendly and appreciative of the good people, and unappreciative of people like Cardin Winchester.

He was still ruining their hopes at winning matches, which reminded her that their game later was going to be another loss. Since her first match, she and Sun and Neptune hadn’t been able to make any great plays to make up for it.

A concerned voice broke her out of her thoughts. “Yang? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t worry, just football stuff. QB’s still not playing ball with Sun,” she frowned, “pun not intended.”

Optimistic as ever, Ruby suggested she try and be nice and convince him to do the right thing. The only thing she could do was try.

“I’ll let you know how I go. Maybe we won’t lose…I should go.”

She was given a thumbs up. “Good luck Yang! Love you,” Ruby said.

“Love you too, sis.”

The window on the screen went black as the video call was ended. Yang caught her face in the reflection of the screen. As much as she was enjoying herself, it hadn’t been all smooth-sailing. Blake had been wanting her to work on her part of the project, but, if football games weren’t getting in the way, she just wasn’t doing it. And Blake wasn’t pleased with her avoiding the subject, not one bit. Yang just wasn’t that good at concentrating on school stuff, and when she’d admitted that, her friend had offered to help her improve. She was coming over after the game that evening so they could work together – work better.

Or so Yang hoped.

By the time she and Qrow arrived at the field, the matter of the social studies assignment had been put on her mental backburner. As much as she had a commitment to that, she also had a commitment to the team – mostly Sun. He was her friend, and he was being treated unfairly, and she wouldn’t stand for that.

The coach had noticed their crappy performances, but not the cause. He was making their pre-game discussions and preparations more intense, demanding everybody show up earlier to make up for it. Either he was insanely stupid to miss what was happening, or insanely racist, just like Cardin.

Yang was beginning to think it was the latter.

By half time, Beacon was losing yet again. Cardin wasn’t changing, not even in the face of defeat. Yang’s anger decided that he would change, even if she had to bear a conversation with someone she loathed. Walking off the field, she looked up at the stands, a sea of disappointed supporters amidst elated faces of the cheering opposition crowd. Even the cheering squad; with powerhouse in pep Nora Valkyrie, couldn’t perk them up. The girls in skirts were trying to mask their pessimism, but they couldn’t fool somebody who was really looking. Removing her helmet, she gratefully took the proffered water from a concerned Jaune. “Thanks, Jaune. Pretty miserable out here tonight, ain’t it?”

The boy, with a mop of blonde hair that reminded her of her dad, nodded. He handed more water out to passing players. “I wish I could do something,” he muttered, not out of earshot.

“It’s not your responsibility.”

Maybe it wasn’t hers either. But she had to talk to Cardin right now. It had gone on long enough.

Up in the bleachers, Qrow was not unaware of his niece approaching the elitist Quarterback. Yang had informed him many times of the dumb-asshole-rich-kid that didn’t like Sun just because he had a tail. He had some idea of how this situation could end up, and if he was being honest, he wasn’t going to do anything to stop it happening. Kid deserved to be knocked down a peg, he bitterly thought.

“What’s she doing?” He heard Blake say. The girl beside him stood up, trying to get a better view.

In his head, Qrow was debating whether or not he could bet with himself as to how long it would take for the talking to turn into fighting. He’d sat through multiple disappointing football games, and convinced himself it was one hundred percent not his fault if the snobby prick got his ass handed to him.

Apparently, down on the grass, most of the people had noticed Yang stomp over to Cardin. The cheer squad was being as nonchalant as they could, watching the only female on the team confront the guy…that nobody truly liked.

Sun and Neptune observed hopefully.

Blake surveyed the scene.

Qrow silently wagered it’d be a minute before shit hit the proverbial fan.

“Cardin, I need to talk to you,” Yang attempted to hold the bite in her tone. Getting what she wanted peacefully wasn’t out of the question yet.

She was much smaller in stature compared to him, as he glanced down at her, a slimy smile on his ugly face. “Have you quit playing hard to get?”

Yang completely ignored his question, resisting the urge to shudder. “If you don’t start passing the damn ball to Sun, our team will be a laughing stock,” she reasoned, even though he was likely too egotistical to care about what cost his bigotry came at.

“Oh, you’re standing up for that animal, I see,” he sneered, “you’re only doing this because you like him.”

Growing exasperated as he dribbled on, she did a double take. “Excuse me?”

“Listen. You’re too perfect to be wasted on a dirty beast like that. Tell you what. Ditch him, we could be a great couple. If I’ve got you, I might contemplate passing to the monkey.”

Yang couldn’t believe he was trying to ask her out. If that even counted as asking somebody out. She didn’t even like Sun that way! This guy is seriously braindead, a voice in her head shouted. “Are you serious?”

Cardin laughed. It was a horrible sound – pompous and haughty. He entered her personal space, and she could feel his warm breath on her face. “You know you want me,” he said, as she felt a hand grope her butt. Behind her, she was sure she heard Nora make a gagging noise, and recognised a faint gasp that could only be Jaune.

As much as she wanted to deck her assaulter right then, she kept her calm and pushed his arm away. Turning to Nora and the squad, she pointed at them, “You guys saw that, right?” Receiving only nods, Yang couldn’t help but smirk. If she had witnesses, she’d be fine. Mostly.

Blake was in disbelief. Cardin had felt Yang up! Her stomach dropped as she wondered if her friend had let him, as a means of persuasion.

Qrow sighed as he stood to join her. “What an idiot.”

“What do you m-”

Yang had twisted back from the cheerleaders and slugged Cardin right in the face, the crowd’s gasps answering Blake’s unfinished question.

The boy stumbled backwards and tripped over a bench, crying out in pain. Not deterred by his fall, he recovered and pushed past the coach, who was attempting to calm his star player.

Yang, having her back to him, hadn’t seen him get up. She hadn’t expected him to, but partly was backing off to avoid making things any worse than they were.

“You bitch!”

Too late did her reaction come, because before she could defend herself, she was treated to a knuckle sandwich of her own. Catching a distinct crunch over the murmuring patrons, her head whipped to the side, and then came the sensation of blood starting to pour out her nose.

He had gotten her good, but it became clear that he wasn’t averse to hitting girls, especially those that had embarrassed him. As soon as she had gathered her bearings, he’d clocked her left eye not unlike she had done to him moments before. The coach and several players scrambled to pull Cardin back. Yang wiped her mouth with her forearm, smearing sticky, hot blood along it, as Sun and Neptune arrived to pull her back.

“I will RUIN you!” the QB roared from behind a wall of bodies, as Qrow arrived with Blake in tow. The older man cut through, grabbing a fistful of shirt as the beefy teenager tried to shove him.

Scarlet eyes narrowed. “You better pipe down you snot-nosed punk!”

“She hit me first!”

“No,” Qrow retorted lowly, “you lay your hand on her first, and I’m willing to bet there’s at least ten eyewitnesses that’ll say Yang was acting in self-defence.”

Cardin was not to be easily swayed. “Says who, you?”

“Yeah, me. I think an ex-cop would know, don’t you?”

His complexion fading only the slightest at the revelation, Cardin knew he was cornered. His only option was to give up, but he wanted the last word. “I’m not playing with that she-beast and her mangy boyfriend!” He yelled, and stalked away as soon as he was released.

Qrow shrugged at the coach that shot him a look that said this is your fault. “Get someone else to play. He was why your team sucks.”

Meanwhile, Yang’s friends had been fussing over her leaking face. Well, mostly Blake. Sun was saying how awesome the fight was, Neptune was trying not to faint because there was so much blood.

“Guys! Here,” Jaune once again produced water, Blake taking the bottle, only to have her hand halted by Yang’s scuffed knuckles.

She tried to voice her protests, but the hand held steady. “No point. Still bleeding,” she sputtered through the stream.

Nora had hurried over and was bouncing around Sun, the two repeatedly exclaiming how hilarious it was that Cardin had hit the deck like a sack of bricks, and Yang had taken two hits and hadn’t even faltered.

The crowd had grown restless, calling for the game to continue. The fight was over, and now they needed entertainment once again. The whistle blew, the referee calling to their coach to play on or forfeit.

Having successfully removed Cardin, they had a shot. Yang couldn’t play right now, but the rest of them could. “Go! You don’t need me!”

The boys left her with a pat on the back and a fistbump, running out with their reserve Quarterback.

Her uncle stood watching silently, but Yang knew he wasn’t mad at her. He’d defended her, after all. Then there was Blake. She, however, was wearing a look that could only be described as calmly freaked out. Oxymoronic, yes, but Yang could tell just by the look in those amber eyes.

Yang tried to lift the tense mood that had blanketed them. “And that’s why Qrow calls me firecracker,” she joked. Blake did not find it funny.

“I can’t believe you. Getting assaulted and then cracking jokes.”

“Please, it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ve had worse,” she said as slender fingers cupped her jaw. Inspecting Yang’s nose, Blake carefully tipped the water over it, the bleeding having ceased over the last minute.

“Your crooked nose says otherwise, firecracker.”

Lifting her jersey, she used the hem to wipe at her face, clearing the metallic taste off her lips and chin. Smiling to herself as Blake’s eyes focused on her uncovered stomach for a second before quickly looking away, she gave her a wink when her gaze was finally met. “It was crooked before. But you probably noticed that with how much you stare.”

With a huff, her friend crossed her arms defiantly, not engaging with the taunt. Which to Yang, meant she was the victor of their banter.

Resisting the chastising look she was getting, she played innocent. “I’m gonna get the medic to fix this,” Yang thumbed over her shoulder towards the direction of the guy that should have already attended to her, but had been busy coddling Cardin until he stormed off once again.

Blake tracked the retreating figure keenly, but couldn’t watch as the man set Yang’s nose back into place, a curse reaching her ears instead. Only now she noticed that there was quietly enraged adult bickering with Qrow – likely Cardin’s father. If what Yang’s uncle had said was true, everybody would just move on and sweep the short brawl under the rug. She wasn’t pleased that there was a boy that was essentially getting away with sexual assault, even if it was minor.

She also hadn’t noticed that the Bulldogs were scoring – now that there weren’t any racist interferences, until Yang returned looking sore but proud, telling her to look at how Sun was whooping and hugging Neptune. Which reminded Blake of something.

“Is what Cardin said true? You and Sun?”

Taking the small icepack – she must have gotten it from the medic – away from her eye, Yang didn’t falter in her response, as surprised as she was that Blake even had to ask. “Hell no. Apparently, you have to be fuc-”

Stopping mid-sentence, she made a noise of regret, deciding against her choice of words. “Like a guy to stand up for him. Or not want to go on a date with somebody.”

Blake contemplated. Yang hadn’t done it because she and Sun were dating, nor had she done it because she had a crush on him. Why had she let guard down, even though she was fully capable in self-defence? “Then why’d you do it? You got hurt, Yang.”

Beneath her shoulder pads, the girl heaved a sigh, eyes wistfully following her Faunus friends’ tail as he ran downfield. “Somebody had to. If Sun had brought it up, it wouldn’t have ended well, you and I both know that.”

There was regret in her tone. Sun’s bully would have only twisted the situation to place the blame on the person he despised.

“Neptune was going to, but I knew if anybody had a chance of persuading a jock only interested in his ego, it’d be the girl everybody notices for her physical appearance,” Yang said, clearly referring to herself, a sad smile gracing her beaten face. “But, mostly I did it because Sun deserves to be treated better than that. I’d gladly take a punch or two for him to escape prejudice.”

If there was a word to described how she was feeling, Blake didn’t have it in her vocabulary. That was one of the most honest, selfless and kind-hearted things she’d ever heard a human say about a Faunus. If Yang wasn’t covered in blood and sweat, she’d have hugged her. “Then you’re a good person,” was all she managed to get out, but she couldn’t help but feel that it didn’t quite cover what she thought.

“That depends on who you ask,” Yang replied cryptically. “Before you say I’m a good person, there’s probably some things you should know about me.”

The car ride back to Qrow’s house was quiet, save for the low static of evening radio that had been called upon to fill the silence. With their best efforts, the Bulldogs had not been able to secure a win, but, they had almost closed the gap in scores. For that, everyone was happy.

But, Blake honestly didn’t know how to take what Yang had said to her. It was the first time since the blonde walked in late and been assigned as her partner that she was doubtful. She didn’t know what to think. What kind of things should she know? What was she going to be told?

She tried to keep her imagination in check. Surely, it wasn’t going to be anything bad…the last thing she wanted was to have made friends with another person that broke her trust.

As the three of them followed Qrow into the house, the man headed straight for the kitchen. The clinking of a glass and the distinct sound of a lid being unscrewed was all that filled the silence that seemed to have trailed them from the car. Deciding that that was best left unmentioned for now, Yang tugged Blake upstairs and into her bedroom.

“Do you mind if I take a shower first?” Yang queried, finally seeing her appearance in a mirror. Taking in her bruised nose and eye, she moaned. Quite dramatically, if you asked Blake. “Shit, look at my face! Tell me I’m still beautiful!”

Not letting her doubts show, Blake begrudgingly reassured her complaining friend. “You’re the most beautiful.”

Tilting her head in review of the answer, Yang sighed. “You’re lying. But okay, fine. Make yourself at home,” she said as she removed the loose sweatshirt she’d put on after her removing the bloody uniform back at the field, taking effort to avoid her injuries. That girl had no shame.

Picking up a few things, Yang went to the bathroom, again scrutinizing her face. So maybe she had lied when she said she’d had worse. Cardin was a pretty huge dude, and it hadn’t helped that she’d been completely unprepared. Gingerly touching her nose, she knew it’d just cause more pain to try and clean her face without the utmost care. Ruby was the one that had always helped her out when it came to things she couldn’t mend herself…

A guilty face popped back into the room not a minute after Blake had been left alone. “Blake? I kinda need your help cleaning this blood off properly.”

Face unreadable, the girl spoke apprehensively, trying to find an excuse not to. “Can’t your uncle do it?”

“This requires…a delicate touch. He couldn’t manage it even if he wasn’t perpetually drunk.”

A dark eyebrow raised at her reasoning. “Are you saying he’s an alcoholic?”

“Eh, semantics. Please, though. I’ll do anything you want!” Yang offered, hoping she could at least bribe Blake to assist. Having not thought of the implications, she grew worried as Blake stood up and sashayed towards her, a predatory glint in appraising eyes.

“Anything?”

Yang was not sure what exactly had come over her, but she was thinking it was: one, probably not appropriate; two, very gay; and three, totally and completely inappropriate. And all because her friend, her best friend, had said a simple word.

And she could only respond with a simple word of her own. “Yes?” Though it wasn’t very convincing, coming out more as a question than an answer. This was fine. It was just a passing moment. She’d have to be blind to not think that Blake was very attractive – that didn’t mean she was attracted to her. There was a difference, people!

In a flash, Blake was back to…normal. “I want you to promise you’ll work diligently on our social studies assignment.”

Visibly relieved, Yang nodded instantly. “I promise!”

“That’s a much saner and not-gay request than I was thinking,” she mumbled to herself, when Blake had already gone into the bathroom. She had only promised to work on their project like she should have already been doing. She was lucky that Blake was willing to help her and not leave her to suffer the wrath of Ms. Peach – that lady did not like Yang.

Catching up to her now waiting helper, Yang prepared a warm and wet washcloth and handed it to Blake, who set to work. Leaning against the counter, she let her eyes close, finding it increasingly hard to look Blake in the face without feeling shame about what had come over her before. Especially when she was trapped between Blake and the sink, knowing that if this was a scene from a romance book or TV show, things wouldn’t be so platonic – because this was platonic, and nothing else.

Internally shaking all her current thoughts from her head, Yang took a deep breath and let her senses concentrate on the soft cloth being gently pressed against her face. Though the process wasn’t fast, it was done without any agitation, which she could be thankful for.

A voice cut through her peace, Blake being satisfied she’d done a good job. “There. All clean.”

“I didn’t feel a thing, you’re the best! Don’t tell Ruby I said that,” Yang said, taking back the grimy material from Blake’s outstretched hand. “I’ll wash the rest of me myself. Unless you wanna help with that too?”

Facepalming, Blake huffed. “For the love of...just hurry up, Yang.”

Shaking her head, Blake quickly slipped out the room.

“It was just a question!” A question she had just let slip out, the words forming before she’d had a chance to tell herself to stop hitting on Blake when she didn’t mean it.

After a thorough scolding from Blake when Yang had walked back into the room in just a towel, she finally re-entered after having opted to leave the room lest the towel miraculously fall away before Yang got dressed. The dark-haired girl’s nervousness returned with a vengeance when she joined Yang, settling down on the bed.

Still wary of what she might hear, she got the conversation started just so they could get it over with. “So, what things should I know about you?”

“First, I want you to know that I haven’t been in any fights as bad as tonight’s. I lied.” Clearly, Blake’s voice had lacked confidence, if Yang was already defending herself – albeit in a roundabout way.

“I never went into that conversation with the intention of using violence to get what I wanted, and I also never intended to use myself or my body as an incentive. It just so happened that Cardin provoked me to hit him by trying to get himself a date and a handful of ass.”

Blake had never seen her friend this serious. Granted, she’d only known her for just over a month, but still. She was also relieved that her earlier apprehension had been misplaced.

“But when you told me that I was good…I just can’t let you say that unless you know the real me, or at least who I’ve been. I left home because my life was a mess, and I hated the image I spent years creating. Thing about this place is, I’m looking for something. Well, someone.”

Seeing no major reaction from Blake, Yang continued. “You see, my mom vanished on the job when I was six. Her name was Summer Rose, and she and dad used to be cops. They never found out what happened to her. I don’t think Ruby even realised what was really going on, but dad, he was overwhelmed with grief. He shut down, leaving me with a four-year-old to care for,” this did garner a reaction in Blake, her mouth opening in slight shock. “I always resented the fact, until I learned why he couldn’t handle it.

“Everything started in Montreal. Dad and Summer did investigative type stuff, and took on a case there. They got teamed up with Qrow and his twin sister Raven, who lived there at the time. After it was all said and done, dad had fallen for my mother, not long after they had little baby me on the way. But it wasn’t Summer dad fell in love with, it was Raven. And she left us right after I was born.”

Yang sounded so bitter. She spat her birthmother’s name with venom, such disdain, that it didn’t even sound like the Yang Blake knew.

“Dad was devastated, and Qrow came back here after it all fell apart. Summer brought my father back home, which eventuated into our happy ever after when they rebuilt together and had Ruby two years after me,” the girl visibly slumped, sighing sadly. “But as you know, that happiness didn’t last.”

Trying to consolidate Yang’s story, Blake put together the pieces. “You came here to look for Raven.”

Yang nodded. “I wanted to get away. It seemed like the perfect place.”

So she wanted to leave, and had the perfect place to escape to, but also had an ulterior motive…

Blake could see how difficult Yang’s childhood would have been, but failed to see what exactly her story had to do with everything. Taking Yang’s hand in her own, she squeezed it supportively, trying to convey her sympathy. “Yang, I’m sorry that happened to you…but wanting to leave doesn’t make you a bad person.”

Yang squeezed back, but her hand retreated soon after. “I agree. But it’s everything else that I did that might, Blake.”

“I gave up my childhood to raise Ruby, because our dad couldn’t. Even though the people in our town tried to help, they couldn’t be Summer. I couldn’t either, but I sure as hell tried. While he was moping around and drinking until he couldn’t stand? I cooked and read Ruby bedtime stories. When I couldn’t rouse him from a hangover or stop him thinking about taking his own life? There was nobody caring for me. It took five years for dad to finally pick himself up, and I tried to make up for the time I’d lost.

“I am everything that I bet you thought I was the second I walked into your life. A party girl that only cared about being popular and looking good,” Blake winced, and Yang knew that she was right, that that’s what Blake had assumed she was. “And you had every right to think that! I hated the pity party everybody threw for our family every day of my life, so I became obnoxiously confident and disobedient to prove to them that I was better than the sad little girl they thought I was. I had every kid in town jealous of my cool rebellious personality,” she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

“The last couple years all I did was drink and do things I regret with people I don’t like. In a way, I gave them my life, let them mould me. That’s just another way of saying peer pressure gets to us all, though. What did it matter if we were all having fun, our hearts beating fast, and doing dumb shit once night fell? How many times I passed out on somebody else’s lawn and didn’t wake ‘till the sun came up, just trying to cover up how sad I really was,” Yang confessed, voice cracking and wavering.

Blake couldn’t imagine being their age, younger even, and partying until you were inhibited enough to just fall asleep outside. In that area; freezing cold in winter, it would have been dangerous, right? Not having any regard for her health or her safety, Yang slept like a homeless person when she had a bed that was a luxury homeless people could only dream of. It did seem like Yang knew she had made an error in acting like an ungrateful bum, though, otherwise she wouldn’t have been pouring her heart out like it was about to break from the guilt weighing it down. As much as Yang had embodied the type of person Blake loathed to be associated with, underneath it all was just as much of a girl that had a less than preferable upbringing. Only until too late had Yang realised that…and it was that similarity to herself that Blake found hardest to accept. She hadn’t lost two moms like Yang, but she knew that the way she grew up had ended up being bad for her future, and so she too had left it behind.

“But last year, I came to a crossroads,” Yang’s voice tore her away from her thoughts, not having finished her story. “I realised, fuck, I’m supposed to be graduating and I’ve only got passing grades and fake popularity to my name! I started to finally hear everything my friends had been saying behind my back, and for the first time in years I cried myself to sleep. And it’s pathetic, because I’m saying this like it’s a sob story that I didn’t write myself.”

“Yang, please,” she spoke, lilac eyes catching her own in a fixed gaze. “I understand, and I don’t blame you. Maybe you made some mistakes, maybe you didn’t do all the right things. But everyone makes mistakes. It’s what you do to try and fix them that matters to me, and you did a wonderful thing for Sun.” She knew Yang shouldn’t blame herself for the things she had done; her behaviour was warranted; she had hardly been raised to act any better. People with better childhoods had done worse.

Yang couldn’t stop the liberation she felt from revealing her feelings, nor the happiness from Blake’s kind words. But it still wasn’t enough to be convinced. “I feel like even though I’m tryin’ really hard, I still can’t do things right…maybe if I had spoken to Cardin differently, it wouldn’t have ended like it did.”

Society these days was always victim-blaming, and Blake couldn’t stand it. “It was Cardin who was doing the wrong thing. Don’t you dare feel guilty about him trying to take advantage of you, so help me, Yang,” she said hotly, her frustration beginning to show.

“Alright, alright,” Yang acquiesced at her insistence. “Sometimes I think you’re too nice to me. I haven’t known you for long, and I kinda barely know anything about you. Yet you’re still the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Blake could easily say the same about Yang – well, she knew a lot more about her now. The girl was barely the person she’d described herself to be anymore. She had a feeling that Yang was a good person all along, but hadn’t been able to see it after all her hardship. Blake just wasn’t ready, or prepared, to reveal her own issues to someone she’d known for such a short time.

“I don’t like to talk about my past, but there’s things I should tell you. Just…not yet.” Detecting it was a sensitive topic for her, Yang nodded easily. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll listen.”

Blake felt lucky that Yang was patient enough; it didn’t seem fair that she’d gotten so much personal information for nothing in return. “You’re too nice too,” she said, shuffling over to Yang to embrace her. “I wanted to do this earlier, after you said you helped Sun because he deserved better. You just had too much blood on you.”

Returning the hug, Yang chuckled. “Fair enough.”

Pulling away, Blake kept her arms around Yang’s neck. “This one’s for everything else.”

As she was hugged again, this time, it felt more like a cozy, comforting, cuddle to Yang. She trusted Blake like she trusted her own sister, and it was almost like if she closed her eyes, she was back home.

“Aw, Blakey,” she uttered, instinctively going into bear-hug mode – the bear-hug Ruby always claimed was bad for her health with how much force was applied. A small squeak was her cue to let go.

Taking in a breath, Blake coughed from the sheer affection – whether it was the physical squeezing or the emotion, she wasn’t sure. But she was sure of something else. “I’m not accepting ‘Blakey’ as a nickname.”

“I’d like to see you stop me from using it,” Yang stuck her tongue out childishly.

Before she could even register the words coming out of her mouth, Blake retorted, “Put that tongue back in your mouth unless you plan on using it,” unable to stop herself from finishing her sentence, she blushed furiously. “Oh my God! I’ve spent too much time around you!” She pointed at Yang, who was barely containing herself in hilarity.

“I’m forgetting that ever happened! Let’s get to work on that assignment right now.”

Recovering from her giggles, Yang sheepishly looked away. “You mean start the assignment…”

“You haven’t even started?”

Blake sounded pissed off now. Yang knew that she had dropped the ball with this, but hadn’t been able to admit it to her yet, not when the girl hadn’t learned about her past. “This is what I was worried about! I haven’t tried with my schoolwork in years, and now, I’m letting you down! I always get so distracted with the football, and the fun things!”

Blake addressed her sternly, formulating an idea that could help whip her friend into academic ship-shape. All she had to do was get Yang to agree. “If we’re gonna get it done, you need to commit to it, Yang.”

“I can’t commit when I don’t know if I can,” she said, “that’s unfair to you.”

“Then I’ll help you break out of your bad habits. What you have to do is say a definitive goodbye to your old life.”

The blonde seemed unsure, a pensive expression on her features. “That sounds great, but how?”

Taking her own moment to ponder the how, Blake came out swinging with everything that she could think of, hoping Yang would take something and run with it. “Anything we can do for you to feel some sort of closure. One last time, you act like a rebel. We can take the bus, go anywhere in town, do something stupid. We could fall asleep on the ground with the sounds of nature, if you wanted,” she paused, as Yang began to slyly grin, a tiny spark in her eyes.

“I want it. I want all of that, and I wanna remember doing all that dumb shit with you. A moment good enough I could frame it. But I think it needs one final touch.” Blake gestured for her to go on, and Yang waggled her finger in denial. “Nuh uh, this one’s a surprise!”

“I’m starting to think you’re liking this a bit too much,” Blake replied sarcastically, giving Yang her moment. By the end of the month, she’d have a fully committed partner – it was a bonus that she could also help Yang start a new chapter.

Yang enthusiastically jumped up, the whole bed moving in her wake. “You have no idea!”

A week before Halloween, Yang was taking Blake somewhere in town. Though it had been her suggestion to go out and do something, Yang had taken the reins and told her she had the perfect place in mind, despite Blake’s assumption that the girl new to town wouldn’t have a clue about where to go. They had also taken the bus – at Blake’s insistence – as she knew Yang wasn’t allowed to take passengers on her motorbike. Not that Blake wanted to be on that beast of a machine anyway.

Blake felt out of place, sitting on public transport in a ‘hot’ outfit – that was at Yang’s insistence – in the evening. When she’d shown up on Qrow’s doorstep, the door had swung open to reveal Yang dressed as what only could be described as quite literally the definition of hot young woman. Blake almost envied the way Yang’s skin hugging black pants only served to emphasise her long and well-toned legs. Underneath a brown leather jacket that was stylishly asymmetrical looked to be something orange, and she had tall leather boots to match.

Blake always felt she looked plain, and Qrow had said she dressed in a lot of black…yet there Yang was, making the same kind of pants Blake wore look amazing. Though her own pants were a dark purple hue, they were also trendily tight, and her black boots were also tall, enough to bring her eye to eye with Yang. She decided that since it was still cold, she wouldn’t need to take off her white vinyl jacket that hid a cropped black top. Blake had always wanted to wear this somewhat revealing item, but never had the guts to – either she was inspired by Yang, or knew that the possibility that it was going to be shown was small. Or both. It’s not that she didn’t own clothes that were complimentary to her body, it’s just that she preferred to not bring attention to it.

But it only served to boost her self-esteem when Yang had taken in her white, purple and black ensemble, finally telling her, damn, you’re drop dead gorgeous. And Blake believed her.

Beside her, the blonde was almost wiggling in her seat, all her energy directed into her knees that couldn’t stop bouncing. It was funny how a simple thing had made Yang this happy. All Blake had done was agree to do some ‘stupid’ things, that she’d probably never done before herself.

It’d be an experience to say the least.

She felt an elbow nudge into her arm repeatedly, Yang leaning over and speaking in an excited whisper, “Almost there Blakey!” To her dismay, the nickname had stuck. It was painfully obvious that she could indeed do nothing to stop Yang using it.

“Can you please refrain from calling me that in public?”

Grinning like a madwoman, Yang threw an arm around her shoulders. “Fine, fine. Tonight, you get to be grownup, hot yet mysterious, Blake Belladonna!”

That sounded awfully suggestive. “What do you mean by that?”

Springing up from the seats, Yang prepared to disembark as the bus came to a stop. “You’ll find out a minute!”

Joining Yang before she lost the very spirited girl, they stepped down to the sidewalk. Hauled across the pavement, Blake finally got what had made Yang so…crazy. Taking in the signage, in all its glory before them was Ozpin’s Bar.

“No. No way.”

“We’re doing something stupid Blake, gotta break a few rules,” Yang gleefully said.

As Yang continued to drag her, they passed the short waiting line of people, and Blake could only focus on not tripping over. “This isn’t breaking rules, this is breaking the law! We won’t get in there anyway.”

The doorman looked up from checking a patrons’ ID to the two underage girls, Blake instantly recognising his face. “Welcome to Ozpin’s, ladies. Don’t cause any trouble now, ya hear?” He greeted, ushering them both in the door without a fuss. As they walked further into the halls, the music grew louder. It wasn’t obnoxious, bass-heavy beats, but rather more tame and alternative.

Yang spoke in Blake’s ear to combat the ambiance. “Don’t worry, Qrow is good friends with the owner. He won’t get in trouble and neither will we!”

Yang’s uncle was an ex-cop and had no issue letting them in. But maybe letting her choose their activity hadn’t been the best idea.

Finding that Ozpin’s wasn’t a nightclub, Blake felt slightly less worried about enjoying herself here. Apart from the crippling anxiety from being a kid in a bar, of course. It had dim lighting, but it created a warm atmosphere, and wood mixed with steel gave the walls a modern look. There was a bar situated at the back, away from the floor where many people swayed to the music.

“This is so my scene! You gotta dance with me, Blake!”

Dance? No way. “You can drag me here but you cannot make me dance.”

Not able to get Blake to change her mind with a pout, Yang opted for a more…conventional method. “Let’s see what a few drinks can do to you then!”

“Only if you’re paying for them!” Blake shouted as they passed the dancefloor, willing to accept a free drink if that meant she could avoid busting a move with Yang, who probably had great dancing skills.

Laughing, Yang unzipped her jacket. Underneath, not unlike Blake’s own, was a tank top that showed off a reasonable amount of stomach. And cleavage. “Who said I’ll have to pay to get ‘em?”

Seeing where she was going with her display, Blake, feeling particularly daring, also unzipped her jacket. “We can double our efforts.” Her crop top was much more liberal in displaying all that she had to offer, only completely covering her breasts, leaving a lot more skin on show than Yang.

Although Yang had clearly distinct abdominal muscles and a larger bust size, Blake had stunned her. She hadn’t even imagined what Blake had been wearing, but now, again, she was convinced she might be just a little gay. Picking her jaw up off the floor, Yang tried not to stare. “Wow, um, wow,” she babbled, not coming up with anything remotely complimentary. “You…I think you tripled our efforts.”

Taking in flustered Yang, Blake started to understand why her friend enjoyed teasing so much. It was fun, and there was certain feeling of triumph. “Stare any more and I’m gonna have to start charging you.”

Yang however, took her words in stride, fist pumping. “Yes!” Pointing at Blake, she seemed rather approving of Blake’s attitude. “I love it when you’re feisty!”

Following Yang’s lead, they both sauntered over to the bar, hovering around, pretending to be contemplative for a few minutes. Apparently, fortune favoured the brave, because it wasn’t long before the bartender was waving them over, informing them that a multitude of people wanted to pay for whatever they wanted to drink.

Yang listed off a very fruity sounding cocktail and gave an order for Blake, starting her off with something she promised tasted better than it sounded. As she was handed hers, Blake wondered what exactly it was, but liked the way the orange and red liquid resembled a majestic sunset.

“One Sex on the Beach for you, one Strawberry Sunrise for me!”

Blake deadpanned. “Really?”

“Yeah, like I said, don’t knock it till ya try it!”

Taking a sip, she found that Yang was telling the truth. “Sex on the beach sounds good until you get sand in places it shouldn’t be. Good thing that has the nice taste without the sand,” Yang explained, having already downed her whole glass.

Agreeing with the statement, Blake scrunched her face up at the mere thought of sand down there. It sounded painful. “I hope you’re not talking from experience, Yang.”

“Thankfully I’m not,” Yang replied, turning back to get a refill. The glass came back with something new in it, Yang mentioning that her favourite sweet drink was barely alcoholic at all.

After a few generous customers at Ozpin’s had satisfied their thirst, they began to feel the buzz of the alcohol. Blake had said that was enough for them, and Yang was inclined to agree. She got a bit out of hand when she got drunk, and Qrow had only allowed them entry on the condition that they stay out of trouble. It just so happened that Blake’s first drinking experience hit her just a bit more than it did Yang after the last drink was gone, with the girl donning a drunk smile Yang knew she’d worn too many times herself.

Unperturbed in her state of mind, Blake had lost her usual reserved demeanour, her eyes wondering down Yang’s body several times. Shrugging coyly every time she was caught didn’t prevent her from doing it every few minutes, like she had amnesia, or maybe she just didn’t care. Yang snorted to herself as she did recall that when they met, Blake stared at her chest. Perhaps her friend did swing for the other team, or both – not that it mattered. She could respect that Blake wasn’t afraid to let her guard down, acting without subtlety. She figured that Blake probably just thought her abs looked good – because they did – and felt some friendly jealousy. Yang was in no way unhappy with herself, but she could admit Blake had an ass that she just couldn’t compare to.

Feeling that it would be beneficial and totally not selfish to see Blake flaunt her stuff, she guided her over to the dancefloor. As she made to weave through the people, Blake tugged, refusing to venture further. Her lips mouthed too loud, drunkenly missing her ears and gesturing way above her head.

Fine with staying on the edge of the fray, Yang took Blake’s hands and started to swing along to the beat of the music, to coax her into the rhythm. “Show me your moves, Blake!” She laughed.

As the bodies around them bumped into Blake, she clung to Yang’s open jacket, trying not to fall. She clearly had lost her footing as Yang was pulled down a bit, using her strength to bring Blake to her body and haul her to her feet. “I got you, don’t worry,” she steadied her friend as she regained her balance.

Eventually, Blake found a rhythm – it wasn’t the one of the music, but her own, and Yang went with that. Every time Blake’s eyes found hers, she made a stupid face, each time eliciting more and more snickers. It surprised her that nobody had approached them tonight, looking for something more than just a pretty face and body to give drinks to. In the end, it was probably better that way. It wasn’t her fault if the reason might have been that people assumed they were there together.

Yeah, it was better that way.

Finally, at midnight, Qrow’s shift ended and he found them still rocking along inside. Having sobered up slightly, the girls felt tiredness creep up on them and were happy to follow him as he finished up and they exited into the alley. The black-haired girl was nodding off in the backseat as soon as they got into the car, and Yang was unable to keep her happiness off her face.

“Looks like you had a good time then,” her uncle noted quietly, “I didn’t think you’d be able to get a girl like her to have fun your way.”

“I think she enjoyed letting loose for one night. She caught on quick too.”

He chuckled. “You’re welcome. But don’t ever tell anybody that I helped.”

“Don’t get all good cop, bad cop on me,” she joked, “but seriously, thanks. Again.”

As they rolled down the street, Yang saw the moon, big and bright. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A perfect way to end the night, she thought.

Once they were home, a sleepy Blake leant on her as they walked through the house and out the back door. Her uncle gave her a few blankets bidding them goodnight and mumbling about how kids were weird as they walked out into the grass.

Laying a picnic blanket down, Yang then settled on it, and Blake processed what was happening. “We’re actually doing the ground thing?” She yawned, just accepting it for what it was and laying down too. There was a blanket and Yang was warm – it’d suffice. Yang tucked them under the fleece and tossed the edge over their heads as Blake cosied up to her, no doubt trying to steal her body heat. “Tonight was fun. I can see why you like to do that stuff, it’s kind of liberating.”

“Exactly. Feeling free is one of my vices. I’m glad you liked it too,” Yang said, sensing herself starting to drift off. An owl hooted nearby, and she felt Blake jolt, the reaction scaring her more than the owl had.

Blake pressed a bit closer. “If that bird tries to eat us it’s your fault. And if it gets too cold, you’re carrying me inside.”

Yang took that as a fair request, relaxing into the soft cushion that thick grass provided. “I’ll protect you from the scary bird, Blake. Goodnight.”

Blake’s soft reply came as she fell into her slumber. “G’night.”

Notes:

Song: 'Bummin''

This song was hard to write a story to, especially when my original plan for the chapter was about 4 words long. Basically, it's just Yang deciding to change her ways.

I'd love for y'all to join me on here, I definitely will post how the latest chapter's going, I have an open ask box if you wanna use/abuse that, I would even give sneak peeks if that's what was requested. You can also find my main blog from my page, where I post a lot about the bees and make shitposts that are actually too real ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#bumbleby #bumblebee #rwby #rwby fanfiction #rwby fanfic #bumbleby fanfiction #bumbleby fanfic #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #such sights are bright #i'm tired pretend there's more tags here

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