#keep that in mind when reading 'cause if you find any errors it'll be due to sleep deprivation

[lazzledazzler]

Lazzle's Rune Factory 5 Review

Alright so here are my thoughts and experiences with RF5! This is a big boy so buckle in earthmates...

Obviously this review will contain spoilers, read at your own risk.

Initial thoughts upon playing...

Great opening! I enjoyed the jazz music~ I did feel like it leaned a bit more towards the male player though. It definitely feels like a rune factory game. It's familiar, and controls are easy to get accustomed to for the most part. The mold is there and rf5 doesn't stray too far from its predecessors which is comforting for veterans. That being said, I'm not going to pull any punches and will critique this game harshly. Keep in mind as updates for the game are released not all things discussed in this review will be as relevant overtime!

Let's hear some thoughts on...

The story/plot. The plot is enjoyable overall. I'm not crazy about the whole Seed organization thing but it was a neat idea. They address the Sechs Territory and it is confirmed that the game takes place some decades after RF4. But by the end of it, I didn't feel like I really accomplished anything because it felt like I barely did anything really. Also they left a lot of stuff unanswered. I'm not even sure I understood the message they were sending, if they were trying to send a message at all. The main story is too short, and it doesn't involve enough of the townsfolk. You're basically doing everything yourself in secret the whole time and the townsfolk barely know what's actually going on. Out of the love interests, Lucas plays the largest part in the story, followed by Priscilla and Scarlett. The story feels targeted at male audiences--at least that's how I felt. You, the player, have a larger role in the game, much like in RF3 and I was glad to see this. As of right now there are only two arcs. Praying for DLC 3rd arc...!

Protagonists. The latest protagonists to join the crew of Earthmates are...decent. Their designs are nothing special unfortunately, though I appreciate Alice's more than Ares's. Appearance-wise they lack personality and creativity. Personality wise I am pleasantly surprised with how sociable they are. They're not exactly quick witted and sassy like Lest/Frey were in rf4, or as endearing as Micah in rf3, but they have a certain realness to them that makes their reactions to things believable. I'm certain Xseed will see to making them a bit more sarcastic in their localizing efforts, so let's all look forward to that. Overall though, while I appreciate their mannerisms, they don't really measure up to all the previous amnesiacs we've grown to love over the decades.

Characters. Overall I enjoy all the characters introduced in Rune Factory 5! I feel like there is someone for everyone in this game on some level. The voice acting was pretty good for every character. The designs are very much Rune factory. Like OG runefa, compared to rf4 ( 4 kind of strayed from their usual style) which I like. Characters still have their own signature quirks that you find endearing. Although I would have liked to see more variety? Like we've had mermaids, univir, half monsters, vampires, etc in previous titles but rf5 only gives us the usual (half) elf, dwarf, and then a succubus (physically she doesn't have unique features aside from the ears and heart eyes), and some were-people. I was hoping for something more unique to really give that classic runefa vibe.

Dungeons/Battles. I'm pretty split on this one. On the one hand, the dungeons have more depth due to the 3D aspects. They've included more contraptions that are very fun to see even if they aren't executed that well. So I'm grateful for that. On the other hand, the dungeons are insanely short imo. It doesn't take long at all to get to the boss. The puzzles are also pretty subpar and few compared to RF4. Fighting monsters is similar to the other games. You can lock on now but I only use it when I'm trying to use my Seed Circle. The lock on feature is actually counter-intuitive and makes it harder to dodge. Weapon mechanics have shifted a bit. There’s a feature that makes you invincible to damage if you time the R button dash correctly. Axes and Hammers are significantly slower than in older games? Like. I thought I was in slow motion it was so slow. Lances are also harder to use as well? I'm questioning my sanity here. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional either.

Farming. Not much has changed from previous games mechanics wise. They added new types of special crops which is neat. The camera view changes to overhead when you go near your fields though, and it can make you dizzy/uncomfortable. It actually makes it a bit difficult to see at times so I wish there was a way to adjust the angle. If you are tilling corn or dried weeds to improve the soil, you need to place them separately if you don't want to use the entire stack. Otherwise, it will till the entire stack on the land if you place them all down at once. The flower shop is unlocked late in the story. Weird thing to do considering you need flowers to make medicine. Not to mention the fact that you wont have access to the fertilizer that increases defense against typhoons? During typhoon season? Thinking emoji...

The town. I have to say Rigbarth's design is poor compared to Sharance, Selphia, etc. It's too big and it takes too long to get around. Everything is too spaced out and there aren't enough warp points to make it easier on players. I don't want to walk an entire mile up a hill to talk to one person and then walk all the way down to the beach to speak to another. It doesn’t really feel like a ‘town’.

OST/BGM. Music was good, though nothing really stood out to me where I'd go "damn this slaps" or something. I think they might've had some old soundtracks from rf2 or something because it felt really nostalgic at times.

We need an exterminator. (Bugs Bugs Bugs)

Marvelous, I don't know how to tell you this buuut...your customers are NOT your testers. When you release a game, you need to make sure it's not littered with glitches because customers don't enjoy dealing with them and will drop the game!

Here are some of the types of glitches I encountered:

Crashing. Game would randomly crash or freeze and close at any moment. Sooooo frustrating! Sometimes you get lucky with the autosave feature, but the autosave only activates every morning at 6am in your room and then when you warp to a dungeon level/floor. So when you're in the middle of your daily tasks in town and it crashes, you have to start all over. Marveloussss no one enjoys losing their progress in a game I promise you that much.

Lag. The dialogue bar is seriously slow, especially after loading your file. Crafting/Cooking screen lags. When you press the Y button to skip through dialogue it lags like hell. Pretty much after every time you load the game will lag, the audio will lag if you're in a battle, everything is just. so. slow.

Repeating dialogue. So if you close your game entirely (or if it crashes) naturally you'll reload your file to continue where you left off. There's a bug that will cause all NPCs to repeat the last dialogue that occurred from whatever plot related thing you did last. So for example, if the last thing you did in the story was unlock Ludmilla, everyone in town will naturally have some dialogue about her. But even after seeing all this dialogue and even saving, if the game is closed and reloaded you'll have to read all that dialogue again from townsfolk. It got really annoying after a while.

Monster taming. One time I tamed a monster but once I named it and hit 'ok' the monster never showed up in my barns? Just. gone. Okaaaay then...? Additionally, I expanded one of my monster barns but all of the monsters I tamed wouldn't appear in the added room. You get 4 monsters for each room but the monsters I tamed would show up in the original room. Meaning I had like 7 monsters in one room! I tried to bring them into the newly added room but they would just warp back to the other room. Sad.

Pond Glitch. I fished in the pond located in Sasayaki Forest and left the fish I caught but didn't want laying around the water's edge. If you leave fish around the pond's edge and go to sleep, the next morning you will be teleported to the pond and trigger the fairy dialogue as if you had thrown all of the fish into the pond??? So the dialogue of her telling you she wants 'X item, not this!' will trigger over and over for all of the fish you left at the water's edge. RIP.

Party member Bug. I had Martin in my party and I made him leave. Then when I went into my monster barns to get a monster pal to join me instead it showed me Martin's portrait???? Also I've encountered a bug where I can no longer ask anyone to join my party for some unknown reason. The R &L button prompt was just gone when I reloaded.

Errors. When cooking or crafting, the dialogue box shows up sometimes...

Typos. Random average typo here and there. Not a real biggie but there is one instance where the heroine will use the japanese male pronoun "boku" instead of "watashi" which really convinced me that this game was completely intended for men lol.

Let's talk about Pros

The good stuff. The stuff that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.

Plot Advancing. Now I'm gonna put this as a pro because I'm certain the average player will enjoy this even though I do not. There are now markers on the map to show you where to go to advance the plot. This is all well and dandy, but it also made the story less appealing for me because you don't need to go around town and speak to residents for clues or assistance to advance anything in the story.

3D Graphics The 3D models are all amazing. The interior designs of the houses/buildings are also incredibly detailed and realistic.

Collecting items. Now there's a feature that will allow you to collect items into your inventory just by walking over them. This is pretty neat and welcome for the most part. Once the item is sparkling, you can walk over it and it'll go into your rucksack automatically. This also makes lumbering and mining go much faster. Yay!

The miraculous L pocket. Now you can customize the categories that appear in your L pocket by going to the rucksack tab in the menu. This is a super neat feature that makes things easier on players who want to manage their items in a format that suits them.

Weapon/Tool Toggling. You can now toggle between your equipped weapon and tool by pressing the left or right buttons on the trackpad.

Collecting lumber/material stone. Oh lord this is probably the most welcome improvement moving forward from the previous game. You can now put all of the lumber and material stone from your inventory into its storage at once. This also applies to fodder for tamed monsters. Well done Hakama.

Autosave. This feature is a welcome addition to the series. The game will save your data every morning and every time you enter a dungeon. Autosave has really saved my ass a few times when I made a huge error in judgement so I'm incredibly grateful for this feature. And it doesn't save over your actual save file--there's a separate autosave file at the very top. So if you messed up something but already saved on your main file, you can still salvage your mistake by reloading the autosave! I just wish it activated a bit more often sometimes.

Warping. Now we can warp to each level in a dungeon as well as certain places on the map in town. It's pretty convenient for the most part.

Increased party members. Now you can have up to 3 members in your party! Hooray! Party members act more intelligently than in older games. Scarlett can use the Seed circle to assist you in fights. I think she also tosses healing potions at you occasionally. So far, no one has tossed a dish at me if I haven't eaten like Kiel and Clorica did in rf4. But I have been hit by a failed dish (from reinhardt?) and a healing potion (from scarlett). Scarlett, Priscilla, and Reinhardt are the most helpful when dungeon crawling in my experience. Some of them however, (looking at you Doug) don't shut the hell up with their one line of dialogue they have and repeat it constantly.

Seed Circle. This neat feature allows you to capture monsters. By charging it and releasing you can capture monsters for the bounty system or add them to your party temporarily. If you throw it without charging it, you can stun monsters in place momentarily or grab things from far away. When stunning monsters, it can also give you the monster's drop item occasionally. Unfortunately it uses a lot of RP so it can be difficult at times.

Combo attacks. This is a neat feature that I appreciate and use often for boss fights. They do some serious damage so it's good to save them for the bosses. The actual cutscenes aren't that impressive, and feel kind of subpar when you get down to it but I think it's a start in the right direction.

Farm Dragons. I'm listing this as a pro although I really just see it as a new feature. Farm dragons have fields on their backs that you can place monster barns on and farm on. Giving them certain crystals will give your fields boosts in certain criteria, like length of growth, soil quality, you get it. I personally don't use the crystals because I couldn't give a shit lmao I have men and women to woo here. But if you're into this kinda thing then it's a pro.

Storage. When opening your storage box, fridge, etc. you can actually hit the R & L buttons to switch between ALL of your other storages. Looooove thissss. Great addition. So much faster to put items away in their respective places.

Crafting/Forging. Now we can also use the R & L buttons to alternate between the different weapon types/accessory/gear types instead of having to exit the menu and going back in each time you want to make something different.

Cooking. More recipes have been added. Yay!

Days are longer now. More time to get shit doneeeee ayyyy

Fishing. They've added many more fish to the game! Now the player will shout something when you get a bite, making it easier for you to hit B at the right moment. Nice. Also if you fail or press B too early, the fish doesn't vanish most of the time. Also nice. There is now a feature to fish with another person's assistance. Once a day you can investigate the sign near the fishing station and someone might offer to lend you a hand. Press the B button at the right moments on the slider and you can get a rare fish that can't be caught normally.

Monsters. New types of monsters! Love the designs. Even the monsters that are the same but just have different skins are really neat. They look great in the 3D format too. You can even ride with up to two people on certain monsters! Some bosses had awesome designs while others...were bad.

New Types of Furniture. The carpenter store has a wide arrange of furniture you can buy for your home. It also has wallpapers and stuff which is really neat. Though unfortunately you can't even sit on some of the furniture so that's a shame.

Events. Now there is a system where events are triggered by approaching an icon on the map. This is probably an improvement to RF4's randomized system, though personally I found it annoying because it meant that I had to see the events before I could just enter a building normally. Sometimes I just wanted to get shit done and not have to read through walls of text for someone's love event when I just want to buy something.

Voiced Lines. The protagonist seems to have more voiced lines, as do other characters. Good!

Let's talk about Cons

Not including glitches. Oh boy. So many cons. Where do I start?

Dialogue. Probably the most notable con in the entire game. The dialogue is drastically minimal in comparison to previous games, especially rf4. There is probably a quarter of the amount of dialogue compared to rf4's insane amount of content if not less. Townsfolk repeat themselves. Often. Too often. Am I playing Harvest Moon? Originally I thought it was because the dialogue is randomized, but I think it's actually because more dialogue is unlocked as you raise townspeople's FP. Despite this, there's no linear build up where you start off as acquaintances and eventually become very close like in rf4 because of how sporadic the LP/FP is. Townsfolk don't even talk to each other. One of the greatest perks about runefa is the conversations townsfolk can have with one another. Residents randomly gathering in small groups to talk about anything. Previously you could add someone to your party and sometimes a dialogue will occur if you speak to the right person at the right time with that person in your party. This is nonexistent now. The only time they do this in rf5 is during the festivals. But, it will only trigger if you have unlocked all the characters in each marriageable lineup and they can't be in your party. The residents will talk about one another but that's pretty much it outside of town events. They got rid of all the minor dialogue that occurs too. Trying to sleep in someone's bed while they're right there? They wont comment. Inspecting objects in stores while the shopkeeper is present? Wont say anything. Take a character with you to a dungeon/boss fight? Their lips are sealed. Where's my sense of community? :(

FP/LP This ties into the dialogue issue. The rate at which LP/FP increases is sporadic as hell. You can go from 1FP/LP to 4FP/LP just by giving a gift sometimes. I wouldn't even speak to people and their affinity increased by like triple for no reason. Then it increases by like 2% for the longest time. Argh!!!

Graphics. I don't consider myself very picky when it comes to graphics. I don't really mind that the foliage and scenery are at the level of a ps2 game at best. I tried playing on my television initially, but the lag and camera operability was too much so I fully switched (haha puns) to handheld. One thing that sucked is that I literally cannot tell the difference between medicinal herbs, antidote grasses, and green grasses without the captions because the graphics are so indistinguishable. So when you're trying to pick up multiples of those items by holding the A button, you're just randomly walking over anything green in the hopes that you'll get the right ones...

Lack of Sound Effects. Something I noticed is they got rid of the sound effects that will play when you complete a puzzle or add someone to your party. When you try to brush a monster there's no sound for the '♪' they make when you successfully brush them. So it was hard for me to tell if I had actually brushed them or not. I was a bit saddened by the lack of cute sounds.

Too much free range. From the very beginning of the game, you're allowed to go pretty much wherever you want when leaving town. It was too easy to stumble into high enemy level territory without knowing, so when I was like level 5 so I got KO'd immediately.

Artwork. The portraits seem to be lower in quality somehow. Runefa has always had shitty portrait art imo but this time it's even worse. Many character's eyes looked fucked up. Though the 3D models are insanely good for mostly every character except Terry. Terry's 3D model looks Terryfying and I prefer his portrait.

Festivals. They've added some new festivals. Some I enjoy. Some not so much. They changed the format of the eating contest. It's horrible. Good luck with that one.

L pocket + R button? They got rid of the feature that lets you skip to the other end of your items when opening the L pocket by pressing R button. I really liked that feature because it made it faster to reach my items so I was bummed that they got rid of it.

Gotta go fast. Now when you speak to someone, it doesn't 'stop time' as you might say it did in previous games. So people are still moving about as you speak to someone, making it harder to catch up to people! Annoying!!!

Catch and release? Not in my farming simulator! Say goodbye to being able to toss a fish you caught back into the water. In fact, say goodbye to tossing anything you don't want anymore into the water. Now you just have an army of fish flopping on the ground around you. And with the auto pick up feature, they're probably going to end up in your inventory anyways once you try to move. There are still certain ponds with fairies that you can toss stuff into, but you'll have to deal with the fairy harping at you for giving her something she doesn't want.

Shop Hours. Oh god. The shop owners don't even open their stores at the correct hours? It says open at 9am. If you speak to them they won't open their store until like 9:07??? But Priscilla and Lucy will show up to work their part-time jobs at around 8:30am and you can buy stuff through them before 9am. So the actual shop owners (for the bread shop and general store) are pointless usually. Additionally, if the store is empty (but open) you can no longer add a shopkeeper into your party and then enter their store with them to buy things from them. Why. Just why. When you want to buy something that only a specific person sells (Only Hina sells fish, only Heinz sells misc items) you have to wait for them to finally decide to work in their own store. Wonderful.

Monster Item drops. Maybe I'm crazy but the monster drops are seriously a lot harder to get than in previous games. Especially boss drops. It's almost impossible to get the rare drops now. I don't even want to try anymore. And as far as I know, the only place to buy monster items is through Heinz, but his items are actually misc. items, not specifically monster drops. So you'll be lucky to check his store (whenever tf he decides to actually work) for any monster items you might want instead of farming for the drops. Sighs.

Difficulty. This game is too easy. There is little to no challenge whatsoever. I had to increase the difficulty setting to hard mode and it was still too easy. I beat it at level 139, never once did I need to grind or level. In fact, your character levels up way too quickly for the pace of the story. I had zero trouble with any of the bosses and even the final boss was a breeze. Quite sad. Though because I am not new to the franchise, it's likely that newcomers would have some trouble in the later parts of the story.

Fishing cons. Idk how you fck up fishing but they sure did. You have to stand further back now because the pole is so long that you'll miss the fish you're aiming for. In fact, it's seriously hard to aim period. You'll end up recasting more often than not. Fish come in the various sizes but they don't seem to have the darker or faded characteristics that can indicate whether it's a rare fish or not. The graphics make it hard to tell. The pros that i've already mentioned are welcomed but it doesn't negate the fact that I do not enjoy fishing like I did in previous games.

Mining/Lumbering Cons. You can no longer strike three times consecutively when mining/lumbering. This sucks lol. Even when you upgrade your axe or hammer, powering up the tool does nothing for getting wood and material stone--it only expands the area of your strike. So it takes longer to get wood/stone from stumps and rocks now since you have to strike the full 9 times but it's not too bad. It's also harder to aim now as well so that's also unfortunate.

Seasonal Fields? Kiss them goodbye! That's right, there are no seasonal fields in rf5 because devs are insane! You instead have the farm dragons that seem to look seasonal based on the fact that they are designed after elements like earth, water, and fire. But no, these dragons are simply extra fields for you to use. Here's a spoiler: you're not going to use those fields. You're just not. They're kinda useless unless you're obsessed with farming. Now you have to grow your crops out of season like the sad farmer that you are.

Farming cons. Seeds no longer tell you how long it takes to grow the crop. Why. As of June 29th, they fixed this with an update. But I still had to play the whole game without it so fuck you marvelous. The joystick is really sensitive? So when you're trying to use a fertilizer or something on your field you're likely to place it on the wrong 4x4 tile, wasting your fertilizer. So it’s best to hold down the R button when farming. Also the crops look uglie as hell.

Sleeping and warping cutscenes. Just like in rf4 there's a cutscene when you go to sleep that can be skipped easily by pressing A. In rf5, there's a cutscene to sleep and a cutscene when waking up. It takes a bit more than a second to skip these scenes so it gets annoying after a while. Warping is this new feature that replaces our beloved escape spell. Overall I appreciate the feature but I hate it for two reasons. One: there's an annoying ass cutscene for it each time you use it that could be much shorter. And Two: townsfolk now use warp even when inside the town. In previous games, someone exiting your party in town would just manually run to wherever they need to be. So you could easily chase after them if you need to talk to them or give them something. Now, party members use warp regardless of where you are at the time. So say you have someone at 7 hearts and you want to try confessing to them. You would have them join your party, save your game, and then have them leave your party and immediately speak to them and confess before they can run off. If it doesn't work you reload until it does. In RF5 this wouldn't work anymore because they will warp. Now you would have to save, run around town trying to find this person and hope they accept the confession. Otherwise you'll have to play hide and seek again because reloading your file will randomize the resident's locations (if they are not working in a shop)!!!! I often just waited until a festival day because then they will be at the plaza for most of the day and it has a warp point there.

Crafting/Forging/Cooking. They've removed the feature where you can press Y on the ingredients in the menu to add more of that particular item. I miss this feature :'(

Lacks incentive. There is no trophy room from my knowledge. The final dungeon that is meant to be like the sharance maze/rune prana isn't that hard to beat for skilled players and is only 20 floors. After you beat the main story and this dungeon there's not much else to do really.

Request Board. Unlike in rf4, you need to make sure you have accepted requests before you complete them or else it will not count. Previously, you could complete all sorts of tasks and Eliza would still recognize your work even if you accept their request after the fact. ie, shipping goods, harvesting crops, etc. So make sure you don't harvest your special crops before accepting the request it's for!

Return of the "Loli" Dragons... Yeah you read that right. We got more dragons in children's(???) bodies with skimpy clothes. I don't know anymore????¿¿¿

Can't marry the Milfs or Dilfs. Tragic.

Still no homo. Grow up Marvelous.

Reverse Proposal? Reverse Uno card-- Laid low by the patriarchy. You now have to buy the double bed and craft an engagement ring to propose to your man if you're playing as Alice. Marvelous this isn't what we meant when we said we wanted equal rightsssssss This can be seen as a pro if you're a softhearted babey who doesn't like rejecting bachelors' proposals because you feel bad :'( But this is a con for me because I don't want to spend money and materials on a double bed dammit!!!

Misc. Still can't stack dishes or fish. There's no green elemental fairy???All the other elemental ones are there except the green one? why??? Still can't tame the giant Wooly. Some bosses that have insanely awesome designs cannot be tamed and makes me wanna eat glass.

Let's talk about Love~

Relationships. We want them. And half of us only play these games for them. I've only played as the female heroine so far but I'll be updating this review as soon as I finish with the bachelorettes as the male hero.

Confessions

As usual, we must raise the love points of our beloved to 7 hearts before we can attempt to date them. However unlike in rf4, if you fail at a confession once, you will need to raise the LP up an entire level before you can try again with any chance of success. It's imperative you save before attempting a confession now.

Love Events

Each love interest has two love events that must be seen before you can date them. They're reminiscent of older game's style but I felt they could have been a biiiit more interactive or so? Or involved the town a bit more for some of them.

Dating

Once you get your honey to be your bf/gf, you get to choose the nicknames as usual. Then you can go on dates. The first three (non-festival) dates are actually events. You need to see all three events to get married.

Marriage Event

The final event you need to clear before you can marry your sweetie. In my honest opinion, so far for the boys, these events were rather disappointing. They lacked the drama and angst that sort of 'test' the love between the two when compared to rf4. Also this is a huge con for me personally and a minor spoiler but there are no special cutscenes at the end of the marriage event like in rf4. Instead, the cutscene takes place during your actual wedding. I was saddened by this because it took away the depth from the marriage events and the actual character? As it is just a cut and paste type of thing instead of an original cutscene for each person. They lack individualism this way. Also it kinda felt like a way for devs to avoid gay relationships and cut corners :^/....sus.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes...

Children!!!!!! This is actually one of the coolest additions in the game. Just like in rf3, you can have up to 3 children again! Your first child will resemble you, and you will have the option to choose its gender as well as its personality. There are 6 different children, (3 boys and 3 girls), all with different hairstyles, mannerisms, and seiyuus. Your answers will determine which child you get. A year after your first child is born, you will get the option to have a second child. You'll end up with twins, both resembling your partner. You won't get to choose the genders (it will be a boy and girl) but you will get to choose the personalities once more. The children all have canon names too and each kid is incredibly cute. And of course, you're still able to take your kid with you in your party~ ...Though you can only take one kid with you at a time.

So is RF5 good?

Yeah it's a fun game! My theory is that Marvelous forced the devs to release the game earlier than they were ready for, and that's why it's so lacking. But that doesn't mean it's not worth playing! I'd rate it 3.5/5 stars hehe. Not nearly as good as RF4 (full stop 5/5), or RF3 (4/5) but enjoyable nonetheless. I wouldn't recommend it as a first game to play from the series for newcomers though, I feel it's best for vets who can overlook all the cons thanks to loyalty and nostalgia. By the time it’s released in the West, the bugs should all be dealt with too.

So! Definitely buy this game! We want the series to continue and we want RF6 to be better than this--and hopefully Marvelous will make sure of that next time. If you're not a picky person I think you'll enjoy rf5 a lot. If you're like me and have high standards then, well, still pick it up and let it run its course. Then dust off rf4sp and cleanse your gaming palette >;^)

#rune factory 5 #rf5 spoilers #rune factory #rf5 #spoilers #review #rune factory 5 spoilers

[parti-pooper]

Omg... fwend... are you doing prompts?!!! If so, can I request #31 for Kyman, please? OvO

Actually I just reblogged that post ‘cause I thought it was super neat. But I’m going to show a 101st way of saying I love you by doing this for you anyway, @shortstackedkyman! OvO/

31. “Don’t worry about me.”

Packing was generally an unpleasant ordeal. Stressful, tedious, and way too long. And it was way worse, Eric found, when the whole entire time you were trying to do it, there was someone non-stop nagging you about irrelevant shit.

“Please don’t do anything that’ll show up on the news, for god’s sake! If I see your mugshot come up on my television set after blowing up a mosque or, or setting a baby on fire, or whatever, then I swear to god, Cartman!”

“Jesus Christ,” Eric complained as he stuffed another pair of underpants in his suitcase, the baggage already bulging on his bed. “Chill out, I don’t do that shit anymore. Haven’t in years.”

“Relapsing is a thing,” Kyle replied simply. Eric just sighed and shook his head. He began to think that maybe he should’ve just told Kyle no when he’d asked if he could come over to help him pack for college. Although, thinking again, Kyle probably would’ve come anyway. Their friendship followed no rules and had no boundaries. Anyway, he was kidding himself if he thought he could ever say no to Kyle. He hadn’t been able to in years.

“Um, why are you taking this?” Kyle asked from behind him.

Eric turned around, and found Kyle holding the flick knife he’d just fished out of the knapsack sitting on desk.

“Protection,” Eric said. “Put it back.”

“Protecting who? Like anyone’s going to pick a fight with a student athlete! Or win one! The only person you’ll hurt with this knife is yourself when you pull it out on someone for no good reason and wind up getting your ass thrown out of college and into jail.”

Eric threw his head back and groaned in frustration, “Oh my fucking god, when has that ever happened?”

“You pulled it out on me when you wanted to stop me from destroying Walmart! And when you thought I was a hippie after that festival!”

“I mean in the last fucking decade, Kyle!” Eric snarled. “I’m not stupid enough to go around pulling my knife out on people anymore.” He narrowed his eyes at the redhead until he gave in. He didn’t put the knife back in the bag though; just laid it on the surface of the desk next to the bag, defying while acquiescing. It was the best Eric was going to get, and good enough, so he turned back to shoving shit in his suitcase.

“That’s debatable,” Eric heard Kyle mutter unhappily behind his back, but Eric pretended he didn’t hear him. He had too much shit to pack and too little time before he had to catch his flight, he didn’t have time to start a debate with Kyle, not when those tended to go on forever. Kyle seemed to be finding other ways to stall him though.

Eric didn’t know what his problem was. When he’d told Kyle he wanted to go to college, the redhead had been so thrilled, gushing on and on about how great it was. It was the same deal when he’d told him he’d got in, with a scholarship. Lately, though, Kyle had been distant and moody whenever Eric talked about going to college. And now, he was finding every opportunity to entertain dread, complain, bicker, and make Eric doubt himself. He couldn’t make sense of the sudden change. And he didn’t think Kyle would give him a straight answer if he confronted him about it. Matter of fact, Kyle would probably just turn it into yet another argument and make Eric late by yet another five minutes. So Eric shut up.

Kyle? Not so much.

A scoff sounded beside Eric. He turned to find the redhead right beside him, his arms folded as he surveyed Eric’s suitcase. “Is that really how you pack?”

“Um.” Eric also looked into his suitcase’s contents, at the creased, compressed clothes squished like commuters on the subway during rush hour. It wasn’t the best, sure, but it wasn’t the worst either. “Yeah?”

Kyle scoffed again, louder, and it was so obnoxious Eric had a mind to hit him. But he knew Kyle would just hit back harder, and he didn’t have time to have a nosebleed. “Give me a break,” Kyle said, as if he’d actually been helping pack all this time rather than just harassing Eric’s every attempt to. He pushed Eric out of the way with a knock of his shoulder and began taking everything out of the suitcase. “Do you know how much ironing you’ll have to do if you pack it all like that? You’re eighteen now, you should know how to fucking fold already.”

Seeing how big of a fuss Kyle was making over something so small, Eric didn’t know whether he wanted to roll his eyes or smile. He ended up doing the latter. Rolling his eyes required looking away from Kyle for a second, and he didn’t want to miss him for even that long. He was already going to be missing him so much all those months at college, why prolong his suffering for even a second?

“Careful, Kyle, your inner mom is showing,” Eric joked at his friend’s expense, for old times’ sake.

“Shut up!” Kyle growled, not taking the joke, as usual, unlike anybody else who would’ve just laughed it off. Kyle Broflovski, always doing something different, something unexpected, something interesting. Yup. The next few months sure would be boring without him. “If you can’t even keep your clothes straight how do you expect to keep yourself straight?”

“Oh, come on!” Eric rasped, waving Kyle off with a flippant flick of his hand.

“No,” Kyle objected, “I won’t come on! This is you we’re talking about, Cartman, you can’t blame me for being worried! You’ll be out of my sights for more than five seconds! Do you know how dangerous that is?! You could start a riot, or, or get arrested! Or both! I have every right to not be okay with this!”

“Oh, please!” Eric didn’t know when he had picked that phrase up from Kyle or whether he completely hated that he had. “You were fine with it when I first told you I was going to college months ago. Why are you suddenly getting cold feet over it now that I’m actually going?”

“Because I didn’t think it’d actually happen!” Kyle yelled, angrily throwing a pair of jeans out onto the bed.

“Bullshit,” Eric huffed. “You’ve seen my grades. Hell, you helped me get them! You knew I could do it, that it’d happen. So what’s with you, Jew? You jealous or something?”

“No!” Kyle cried, violently yanking a shirt out of the case. “Why the hell would I be jealous?!” 

“Why the hell wouldn’t you be?!”

“’Cause how could I be when I’m just so fucking proud of you?!” Kyle snapped, shutting Eric right up in the process. It silenced Kyle for a minute after as well, making him hunch his shoulders and suddenly find the the shirt he was holding very interesting to look at. He rubbed the material with his thumb absently, and eventually he managed to open his mouth and speak again, softer that time. “I am. I’m… You’ve come so far. How could I not be? But you’ve still got such a bad temper, and you’ve never been so far from home for so long, and I know you don’t like going to sleep at night until your mom gets home safe first, and I know you have bad dreams sometimes, dreams so bad you have to call me in the middle of the night to make sure that they weren’t real, and I… I don’t like knowing I can’t be there for you when things go wrong. I’m scared for you. And I’m scared for me ‘cause I… I don’t know how I’ll be without you either.”

Rare for an unfiltered loudmouth like him, Eric didn’t know what to say. He just stood there staring, afraid to open his mouth in case the butterflies fluttering in his chest flew out of it, which would be awkward and weird and may scare Kyle away which was the last thing he wanted to do. Very honestly, the first thing he wanted to do was hug Kyle, squeeze him so tight that maybe they would fuse into one and he wouldn’t have to leave him behind after all. But actually doing the first thing he wanted to do could end up causing the last thing he wanted to do to happen, so he was at a stalemate, really.

The long silence allowed Kyle too much time to reflect on his words, to regret them, and he was soon embarrassed. He carefully placed the shirt back as it was into the suitcase. “Um… I… Sorry, that was… I didn’t… Uhh… I know I should just be happy for you, sorry, I’m being a jerk. Good job getting into college, dude, seriously. Um…. Just… You know what? I think I should just go. I’ll… see you around.” Kyle tried to leave, but Eric grabbed his elbow before he could even turn.

“Whoa, wait! You can’t just go like that!” Eric stepped forward, holding Kyle’s arm tighter, taking action where words failed him, because words consistently failed him where Kyle was concerned. It was frustrating that he was a silver-tongue everywhere else but in this boy’s presence. “That’s super lame. You can’t just go like that.” Not after you just said something like that.

“Well I don’t know what else to do,” Kyle said pitifully. “If I stay here I’ll just say more stupid things because all I can think right now are stupid things and I…”

Kyle tended to think of the worst case scenario was the thing. Eric knew ‘cause he knew Kyle, had known him all his life. It had it perks, since it meant that Kyle was always prepared for every eventuality. But mostly it just made him into this miserable, anxious mess. And Eric didn’t want him to be. He wanted Kyle to be able to see him off with a smile. He needed to make him able to. So he gripped Kyle by the shoulders, took a deep breath, and laid his cards out on the table.

“What made you think I wasn’t scared too? Kyle, I’m fucking terrified. I’ve never done this before. And I don’t mean leaving home, I’ve done that plenty. I mean I’ve never… I’ve always been that good-for-nothing dumbass asshole. Y’know? The kid people would look at and think there’s a future garbage man or there’s a prison cell with his name on it when he hits the streets. I’ve never had some great future to look forward to, I’ve never had someone who believed in me, I’ve never had someone to let down. And now you’ve given me all those things in one, and… what the fuck do I do with them, Kyle? I’m not… I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be this. I have everything to lose now and I don’t know how to keep it because I’ve never had anything before. And it scares me, it fuckin’ scares me so much. So you don’t have to be scared for the both of us. Stop putting it all on you. You always do this, you always put way too much shit on yourself and then blame me when it starts to stink later, and I’m sick of it, I just… I’m scared too. So let’s be scared together. Okay? And then maybe we’ll be able to do this.”

By this point, Kyle’s eyes were wet as Eric had never seen them. He’d looked stunned the whole way through Eric’s rant, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, but at this point he broke into a relieved grin. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He wiped his eyes with his wrists before he could start properly crying. “Sorry, I just… I’m not used to this either. We’ve been through shit like this before but we’ve always been through it together. I don’t know if we can do it apart. We’ve never tried.”

Kyle had a point there. From abductions and terrorism, to school projects and homework, all had been dealt with side-by-side. They had always managed to come out alive and mostly unscathed on the other side, so long as they’d had each others’ shoulders to lean on. Without that ne’er-failing support, who knew how far they’d fall? Things weren’t so bleak though. Kyle was resourceful, and determined, and Eric knew he’d fucking crawl out to the other side if he had to. But Kyle doubted himself too much. He needed reassurance, hope to thrive on.

“Well… you’ll have Kenny,” Eric supplied. Poor-boy wasn’t going to college. He couldn’t afford tuition; not like he’d go even if he could. He’d never abandon his little sister to their incompetent parents’ care like that. He was staying in town to work several jobs, providing for his family. And while he was there, Eric could rely on him to keep an eye on Kyle during his year off before college. And he’d keep Eric updated on how he was doing too. “And Ike. Your mom and dad. You won’t have to do things alone.”

“Well what about you?” Kyle fretted, glaring at the ground like it was at fault for this. “You won’t know anybody where you’re going! Who’s going to be there for you?”

Eric swore he could feel his insides melt. He still wasn’t used to someone who wasn’t obligated by blood caring about him so openly. He still didn’t know what to call that swirling in his stomach: nausea or elation? He did feel like he could get used to it though, someday. He felt like he could do anything, in fact, if Kyle just kept on frowning like that whenever he went away.

“Hey.” Eric lifted Kyle’s chin up with the curl of his finger and his thumb. “Don’t worry about me. Okay? I’m a big boy now.” Kyle actually managed an amused smile at that silly statement, and Eric had never been so glad to see it. “I’ll be fine. Always am. And you will be too, you… There’s nothing you can’t do, Kyle Broflovski. And I have full faith you’ll still be kickin’ when I come back, ready to bite my head off as always.”

Eric didn’t know how to expect Kyle to react to that but he certainly never would have expected Kyle to end up doing what Eric had been holding himself back from doing. Too fast, the shorter boy leaped forward to throw his arms around Eric and buried his face into his chest. It was unmistakably a hug, and Eric was sure his face had gone unmistakably red. Although he would probably say it was just a weird shade of purple that simply looked red, and it was from his air being cut off by Kyle squeezing him too tight. And Kyle would insist that, no, it was definitely red. And so another argument would occur, and Eric would be even later. But whatever. Maybe he wanted this, just this, more than college or a scholarship or any success. A future of nothing but bickering with Kyle day-in, day-out didn’t sound half bad when he was already fully qualified with a lifetime of experience…

Still, he was never letting Kyle help him pack again after this.

#kyman #eric cartman #kyle broflovski #i don't know how many hours i've spent working on this but it's past five fucking am now wow #keep that in mind when reading 'cause if you find any errors it'll be due to sleep deprivation #i can't blame the shitty writing on sleep deprivation though; that's just me being a shitty writer #now if you'll excuse me this shitty writer will be showing herself to bed #but thanks for the prompt friend it was nice to publish something about these two again for the first time in for-fucking-ever #adorable asshole #ass-kicker #looong