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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 17: Dirty Little Secret

CW: Creepy whumper, whumper POV, implied whump of a minor, implied noncon references

“Well, Kelly, you’ve spent an hour talking politics, is there anything else you’d like to hear my thoughts on today?” Governor Oliver Branch sits easily in the padded chair behind his desk. It’s a deep, dark burgundy with little brass accents, and not that he intends to tell Kelly Donahue this particular bit of information, but it very comfortably holds the weight of two.

“Well, let me check.” Kelly smiles at him - bright, perfectly-applied deep pink lipstick, camera-ready stylish-but-demure blue dress, legs crossed politely at ankles, sensible heels. Shellacked hair. The cameraman, on the other hand, is wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and looks like he’s ready for a beer at the bar downtown.

Oliver would rather be at the bar, too.

Still, he’s just as camera-ready as Donahue - had his boy get his favorite suit out, a charcoal gray so dark it’s nearly black, while they played Interview. Baldur loves the game - one of the only times Oliver allows him to speak, when he pretends to be a reporter asking Oliver questions, and Oliver loves the sparkle he gets in his eyes.

He loves extinguishing the sparkle, at the end of the game, even more.

The color of his suit is carefully chosen to pop against the chair, and he hasn’t worn it on TV before. It’ll go over well, he’s sure of it. Even Nancy had nice things to say.

The tie he’s wearing - a burgundy that matches the chair with a brass-colored tie pin, just to hammer the coordination home - was wrapped around Baldur’s wrists this morning. There’s a delicious little thrill to wearing it now, knowing that some of Baldur’s sweat is still in the silken fabric.

He takes a breath, thinking of the way the boy knows how to beg, and how delightful it is to read in his eyes how much he would like to beg for it to stop, but is too well-trained to do anything but beg for more.

The shameless scandal of it all, if they ever found out, always adds an edge to their moments together. Baldur is, of course, as close to a relationship as Oliver has had since he decided to run for Governor.

Got a little annoying to keep paying to keep rumors underwraps. Didn’t cost so much more to simply buy himself someone no one else will ever know about. An easy financial decision, nothing more.

A financial decision that knows exactly how to do that thing with his hips-

“Are you open to some questions about your personal life?” Kelly cocks her head, and her hair doesn’t move an inch. Oliver can’t help the way his eyebrows raise, very slightly. Whoever does her hair… Oliver would very much like to offer them double their wages at the studio to get them to do his hair instead.

“Oh, of course, Kelly. You know, I’ve always been an open book to my constituents, since I ran for city councilman and read my own ‘don’t ask about’ file out loud during a meeting.”

A nice bit of theater, that. He claimed to have gotten it from his opponent, but really… Oliver had written the damn thing himself. No one knows your dirty little secrets better than you do, after all.

“Yeah, I remember - I was there for that.” Kelly laughs, tucks a bit of hair behind one ear.

Oliver blinks, looking her over. He thickens his southern drawl, one of the things polls routinely find his constituents find endearing about him. Just a good old boy from Charleston, somehow finds his way to California to settle down for good. Really, it adds a hint of sincerity to all is falsehoods. “No. Impossible! You’re hardly old enough, my dear.” It sounds like idle flattery, but for once, it’s all genuine. Oliver’s been governor of this great state for nearly a decade, and was city councilman for quite some time before that, and Kelly can’t possibly have been out of school-

“I was a senior in high school,” She says, almost shyly, apparently guessing at his next question. If he were a different man, he might flirt with her. But what’s the point, when he has someone - something better, hidden away just behind that door?

“What led a senior in high school to attend a boring old city council meeting? Sure you weren’t such a good civic-minded young citizen as all that?”

She giggles a little, then glances over her shoulder, mouths something at the cameraman. Oliver can guess what. Edit that out.

Kelly Donahue doesn’t want the episode to be aired with her giggling like a schoolgirl at a bit of idle flattery. Well. Everyone has their things they like to hide, don’t they?

She has her giggle. Oliver has a teenage boy locked in his bedroom.

He almost wishes he’d had Baldur hide under the desk for this, instead. Imagines speaking with Kelly, all sincere interest and open honesty, while petting through Baldur’s soft, shining hair, hooking fingers into his collar to pull him up against Oliver’s leg… He thinks about hosting a perfectly normal interview while Baldur is drugged to dozing, right there.

He’s done it a dozen times with field trips and one-on-ones. Flirting with disaster - with the absolute chaos that would ensue if the boy were found - is exciting in ways that nothing else in Oliver’s life ever has been.

Baldur’s so very good at holding so very, very still for him, and feeling that boy shaking with energy he isn’t allowed to expend, fighting all his own instincts... Oliver had his youthful indiscretions, and there is no drug, no girl, no boy, no drink… nothing in his life, absolutely nothing, feels as good as knowing that Baldur’s entire body is begging him to move - and one word from Oliver means he can’t.

And if he does - if he breaks the order, if he cannot help but disobey it… well, then Oliver gets to do his favorite thing on Earth. He gets to tell Baldur it’s time to play a game.

Then he gets to hurt him, and hear the way he cries.

There is no power on earth like the power you could hold over another human being’s very nature, and all for a bit of money changing hands in discreet ways. Thank God for shell corporations, or he’d be in prison by now.

“Oh,” Kelly says, blushing a little, interrupting his thoughts. He ticks his smile a little wider. “I was there to argue about something with the Pledge of Allegiance, actually.”

“Ah, yes. The Young Republicans Club. I remember that whole mess.” Oliver waves on hand, gives a soft laugh. “If you’re still in contact with any of them, I do hope you’ll give them my absolute apologies for stealing their thunder that night. I promise you, Kelly, Scout’s honor-” Oliver crosses his fingers up in a little salute. He was never once in his fucking life a Boy Scout. A little money changes hands, a few documents are forged, and now he was an Eagle Scout who led community service. Funny how that works. “-I had no idea what any of the topics were going to be, I was too nerved up that night, really I was.”

“Oh, that was years ago.” She waves her hand a little, but her own smile has widened in response to his. “It’s not a problem. I was just… honestly, I didn’t see it at the time, but it was a privilege to see that kind of political theater in action.”

Oliver’s laugh is bright, and loud, and he wonders if the boy can hear it, through two doorways and a hallway’s worth of distance. If he’ll listen for the sound of his Sir’s laugh, to try and gauge when it’s over. If he’ll be waiting at the door to the bedroom, waiting to be allowed out, to be given permission to do… well, anything.

“Theater? I am wounded, Kelly. I was merely being honest-”

“Now, Oliver, I know a bit of showing off when I see it - I do plenty of it on my own.” Kelly laughs, too, and they are such good friends, Oliver and the journalists who come here to interview him. He’s a boring bit of story, honestly - a reliable progressive governor of a reliably progressive state. No wife and no kids, no scandals, no weekend indiscretions.

Governor Oliver Branch does his job and does it well. His legislature likes him, more or less. His constituency adores him. He’s been re-elected in a landslide. There’s been talk about Presidential aspirations, although Oliver’s never thought any higher than the Senate.

Senator Oliver Branch.

Now that sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

He’ll have dumped the boy by then, of course. No loose ends. The boy has plenty of skills to find himself a new keeper. Even if he doesn’t, he won’t be Oliver’s problem anymore, will he?

He’ll buy another, then.

He and Kelly chat, the interview going off without a hitch. It’s softballs all the way through, easy-to-answer questions, because no one has any difficult questions for him these days. No, Oliver is a good governor in a good state doing good things with good intentions.

Oliver smiles. The questions are easy and his approval ratings are high. There’s been some discussion about a Presidential run, although he’ll of course be bashful and refuse such an idea. His character can’t take the scrutiny, he’ll say, and everyone will laugh.

All great men have things they’d rather hide, after all.

Although perhaps not things quite like this.

Down the hall, behind a locked door, Oliver Branch’s dirty little secret sits wearing only one of Oliver’s button-ups, knobby knees curled up to his chest, collar buckled snugly around his neck.

The boy rocks and rocks, staring through the tiniest gap in the drapes over the balcony door, watching the clouds move in the sky and wondering what it would feel like to go outside.

---

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @slaintetowhump , @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @boxboysandotherwhump , @oops-its-whump @moose-teeth , @cubeswhump , @cupcakes-and-pain @whump-tr0pes

#whumptober2020 #whump #box boy #chris the strawberry blond romantic #oliver branch is gross #implied noncon reference #torture references #creepy whumper #intimate whumper #whumper pov #captivity #implied whump of a minor

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gear-project · 6 years

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Hello, there seems to be tale of a new Guilty Gear installment rather than an Xrd addition from the recent anniversary interview. Honestly I'm a bit saddened by this especially considering the statement made for newer games to be simpler (I also really just wanted Testament to eventually show up in Xrd with all its crazy mechanics rather than a new game). But anyway, can you confirm how true this rumour is?. Is it really that Xrd has come to an end after what feels like a short time?.

Since Baf0’s conversation on Twitter on the Dengeki Report kinda blew it up, I’ll reiterate it here (since Dustloop posts don’t last forever… full translation courtesy of RedSilverSnake):

—The password to unlock Testament and Dizzy in the arcade version of X was “misosoup,” apparently because a programmer working on the game was overheard saying, “Now I want to drink some miso soup…”[I mentioned this earlier. FYI GGX also had a button code in the console versions. Look it up at GameFAQs.]

—The development team was casual with naming conventions at the time, to the extent that one of the ideas of what to call what became roman cancels was “cosmetic galaxy.” [I explained some of GGX history, Roman Cancels are wordplay for Roman Candle, a Firework… this symbolism actually transferred all the way to Revelator when Sol talks about Fireworks in one of the closing chapters of the story.]

—There was a question about Fanny from GG Petit, but Ishiwatari says he can’t answer anything about her because he wasn’t involved in her creation. [Sammy Staff were part of the people who assisted in her creation, but the GG character poll suggested that Ishiwatari wasn’t above putting her in a future game if players still wanted her to appear.]

—Advance had a unique move for Venom that Ishiwatari meant to hide, but it somehow made it into the game. [They describe it as a Bomb technique, which I think was hinted at in Night of Knives as well when Millia clashed with Venom. There’s an item called Calvados Bomb in MOM Mode that generates poison which might have stemmed from that idea.]

—Not everyone who worked on XX knew that Bridget was a boy, which led to a shocked exclamation from a designer. [Story Mode states officially that Bridget is Male and identifies as Male, wishing to become more “manly” as part of his interests. 4chan be damned.]

—When the topic of the series’ bosses being women came up, it was mentioned that Leopaldon’s gender is unknown, but Ishiwatari says that he thinks the dog piloting it may have been female, thus keeping this tradition unbroken. [Gears can be considered “gender neutral” in some cases, because of their DNA, but yes the Dog inside Leo’s mouth COULD be Female, but we don’t know for sure!]

—Leopaldon’s designer did the effects for Jam’s new super in Xrd. [It was also said that Da Eun, Kum Haehyun’s Head Maid was the girl who appeared in Korean #Reload’s original stage.]

—Overture’s total development time was five years, so Ishiwatari says he has a lot of memories about it. [Black memories, I assume, given the reception. >_>]

—The name of Overture’s genre, melee action, has a double meaning; the “melee” part is homonymous with the Japanese word 命令/meirei, which refers to orders, like the ones you give to servants in the game. [Hopefully they’ll do something more improved in a Crusades-like setting someday ala God Eater.]

—Ishiwatari was fixated on how roman cancels could be changed in Xrd, and Pachi recalls racking his mind over the suggestion that they be possible at any time, even during a downed state. [FYI the only way to cancel a knockdown is to recover before it! BlazBlue has Emergency Rolls and Quickrise motions for this reason, also there was a hack in Accent Core (PSP version codes) that could allow for unlimited cancels in to anything at one point, so the coding is there for it!]

—One idea that was tested during Xrd’s development was being able to roman cancel KOs, but this caused a bug among certain characters where they’d just fall right after getting up following the RC.[This is where the idea of Resurrection came from (related to the Gill boss character from Street Fighter III).]

—Bridget was #1 on the Revelator poll to decide the next playable character until the very last day, when Dizzy got a sudden boost. [Poor Order-Sol…]

—The staff had specific ideas for other characters in the poll, such as Izuna dashing rather than having a regular walk (like in Cross Tag Battle). [I’m sure he’s still in the works for the next game as Izuna was mentioned in Revelator.]

—One of Haehyun’s attendants actually debuted in the Korean version of #Reload, having been added to one of the stages. [Her name is Da Eun, and she is voiced by Elphelt’s VA in Kum’s Episode!]

—Ishiwatari also says that Xrd is probably finished as of Rev 2, and maybe hints that work has already started on the next real sequel.

Now, on to THIS:

As I said, GGXrd Revelator (excluding the add-on Rev2) is technically the SECOND of the Xrd Series… Rev2 (while it is a standalone game now), is the equivalent of “X Plus” to Guilty Gear X.

Most likely there is production for a THIRD XRD game… Revelator’s story hints at it, AFTER STORY hints at it, even the GUILTY GEAR BEGIN novel suggests something’s going to happen after REVELATOR…

So you KNOW something is gonna happen. Basically the statement is “We’re done with Revelator Add-ons”, is what they’re saying.

So the next GG is gonna be BIG. That’s all you guys need to know. Keep supporting ARC System Works, and maybe (JUST MAYBE) the next GG will get a dub like BBTag has!

All we have to do is support any releases (including GG1 and Accent Core for the Nintendo Switch, Steam, and PS4 releases). Guilty Gear The Missing Link should be coming in the next few months along with Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R.

I’m banking on this because HAPPY CHAOS (a hinted character) says so! So you should believe in HAPPY CHAOS!

#GG Fans just gotta be Patient!

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