Fluent Freshman - Part 45
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Renee Walker stands next to two of her best friends in the entire world holding up a hand drawn sign. There's an, admittedly crudely drawn, Fox on the sign that Allison had made up.
Renee had seen it and smiled from across the airport as she made her way over to where Dan and Allison were standing waiting for everyone to come. The team had managed to coordinate their flights to land all within about two hours of one another and Allison had exactly zero desire to go back and forth from the airport so her driver was waiting out at a nearby cellphone lot to come and get them once everyone was there.
"Is it nice having a driver again?" Dan asks Allison.
"I sometimes miss driving around in my car but it's a lot easier to do my makeup with him driving." she says with a shrug as they continue to catch up. Renee is holding up the sign since Allison had complained that she had lost so much of the muscle she had previously had.
"Yeah, New York City seems like a major pain in the ass to drive in too." Dan agrees as her phone buzzes. She pulls out her phone and looks at it before a huge smile fills her face, one that means she's talking to Matt, "Oh! They just landed!" Dan says confirming Renee's suspicions.
Allison looks at her watch, "Wow, 20 minutes early. They must have gotten through boarding quickly." she comments.
"Or some good tailwind." Renee offers.
"When are Neil and Andrew due up?" Dan asks looking at Renee who smiles back at her friend.
"Andrew said they're going to take a break halfway here so they'll be here tomorrow morning." Renee says.
"Get it Neil." Allison nods and it had been a wonderful thing last year to watch Andrew and Allison make peace with one another. Their mutual desire to dress Neil up a bridge towards....maybe not friendship but camaraderie.
It warms Renee's heart to see her friends get along.
"The plane got tailwind, Neil's getting tail." Dan jokes.
"I'm looking forward to meeting the new kid that I've heard about." Renee says gently moving the topic on from their friends getting together. It didn't bother her at all, but she knew that Andrew would prefer no one talk about what he and Neil got up to.
"Oh! Yeah, uh..." Dan visibly buffers.
"Dan, you're the only one of us that's met the kid. His name's Smith." Allison says with eyebrows raised in judgement.
"Look, when Coach and I went to recruit the kid my brain was like 90% on the fact that I needed to go to my interview." Dan defends herself.
"So he wasn't that memorable for you?" Allison asks.
"Yeah, I'm surprised that he's getting along so well with the guys." Dan says. "Getting stabbed over Thanksgiving feels more like a Neil move than the quiet kid Coach and I met." she adds.
That had been an interesting phone call from Andrew. Renee hadn't even realized that she had become Natalie describing the best way to get rid of the body until Andrew had clarified that it'd been an accident and Smith was alive. Renee had been a little ashamed.
She was excited to meet the kid who Andrew had spoken to her about. Glad that their strange found family was growing just a little bit bigger.
They wait around continuing to talk about plans for the break together. Allison wants to go shopping and she wants to do it once Neil and Andrew are back. Dan wants to skate at the Rockefeller center. Renee would love it if they could do Christmas Eve Mass.
They're sure that Kevin is going to want to check out an Exy game. They're mostly sure that Matt will want to check out the LEGO store in downtown manhattan and that Aaron will be as excited for that as Matt is but pretending not to be. Nicky wants to catch a drag show and has made it clear that he will be going regardless of what anyone else wants to do.
Andrew and Neil will probably just want to be alone when they have the chance though Neil had expressed some prior interest in the EXITES superstore and Andrew will more than likely enjoy the day Allison has planned to go shopping since she wants to update Neil's wardrobe.
The new kid, Smith, will be a mystery, but they're more than willing to be flexible.
Eventually they hear the tell-tale sign of most of the boy's arrival. "Babe!" comes from across the airport and Dan's head shoots up and spots the sight of Matt Boyd approaching his arms out wide almost clotheslining four different families on his way to Dan.
Dan is not much better as she rushes to him arms as wide.
They embrace like they always do whenever they have to spend time apart from one another and Renee knows that part of the reason that Dan took her job as assistant coach where she did is that the Washington State Congress Team had been looking at Matt the year prior to scout him.
She looks beyond the passionate reunion and sees Kevin, Aaron, and Nicky. She frowns brows furrowing...
Weren't they going to bring-
Nicky throws his arm out and it wraps around a kid she hadn't even realized was there. She blinks startled by his sudden appearance and blank expression as Nicky was pointing them out. He points to her and he can see her name on his lips she gives a wave and a smile.
Smith nods back in greeting.
He seems quite nice.
***
Renee is at the end of her proverbial rope.
This kid is a threat and she doesn't understand how she's the only person who can see it.
Being a threat isn't really an issue when you're a Fox. It's almost a given that there's some part of you that can be dangerous when backed into a corner but no one seems to be treating him like a threat.
She watches as Nicky and Matt throw their arms around him. As Kevin pushes smoothie after smoothie into his hands as he blankly sips. As Andrew and Neil sit with him quietly. As Dan pinches his cheeks. As Aaron ribs him for being bad at MarioKart.
She can't feel anything from him, no joy, no anger, nothing.
She can't even track him.
Renee has always prided herself on her ability to keep track of those around her. Spacial awareness was incredibly important when you're in a fight and it had always been one of her strongest points. She always knew where she was in relation to everyone else.
Except Smith.
The kid had given her no shortage of heart attacks as he appeared and disappeared seemingly at random.
She had finally gotten Andrew alone to ask, "Smith's quiet, non-intrusive." Andrew says with a shrug.
There's just something about him that makes the hair on the back of Renee's neck stand on edge and she hates feeling like she's the only one. She hates it even more that there's no real evidence that there's something amiss with this newest Fox.
So she settles in to watch.
They're out shopping and Allison is doing her best to get Neil a proper wardrobe with Andrew's considerable help, AKA nodding in approval when Neil comes out. She's not skimping on any of them but Neil is her main focus.
"Smith, what's a color you like?" Allison asks as she's looking at hoodies.
"I like purple." Smith answers and Renee barely manges to stop herself from flinching as his voice comes from right next to her.
"Pass." Andrew says as Neil comes out in a charmingly orange sweatshirt.
"I like it!" Neil argues.
"You have 10 sweatshirts that are that exact shade of orange." Andrew dismisses. "Try the blue one." he says pushing Neil back into the dressing room.
"Which one?" Neil asks.
Andrew sighs dramatically in a way that lets Renee know that he's doing exactly what he wants to be doing, "I'll show you." he says going into the dressing room with Neil.
"I still don't know how it took Baltimore for me to realize they were together." Nicky says as he's holding up two different purple sweatshirts to Smith's body. "You look good in a more purpley purple." Nicky says putting the more indigo colored sweatshirt back on the rack.
"Pants are coming up next, I'll get a lay of the land. I know everyone else's but Smith what's your height?" Allison asks.
"Five feet, nine inches." Smith answers as Nicky pushes him towards the dressing room. "Nicky it's a sweatshirt, I can put it on out here." Smith says.
"I know but I need an excuse to go back there and make sure Neil and Andrew aren't defiling a dressing room." Nicky says with a grin that implies he'd be more happy if they were.
"Gross." Aaron says as he takes a picture of himself to send to Katelyn to approve of the new outfit that Allison was pushing for him to get. "Wait," he pauses turning to where Allison was looking through various men's pants, "you know our heights? Like you've memorized them?" he asks.
"Yeah." Allison says looking at a pair of black slacks. "Everyone's measurements." she says nodding to herself.
"Even bust sizes?" he asks, voice not as quiet as he likely thinks it is.
"You're such a boy." Allison laughs not even looking up from the very different rack.
"How much longer are we going to be here?" Kevin asks with a sigh.
"Well, at least the time that it took you to ask that longer. We'll be done when we're done Kevin." Dan says long having given up on stopping Allison when the woman is on a spree.
"She knows that EXITES closes at 5 PM right?" Kevin asks.
"More importantly," Matt leans in, "that the LEGO store closes at 8 PM right?" Matt asks.
"How is that more important? The LEGO store is open later?" Kevin asks.
"Because we're not going to EXITES today, but we are going to the LEGO store." Matt says.
"If we don't spend the whole day here we can do both-"
"We're not going to EXITES today Kevin." Dan says with a sigh.
"But-"
"We're not going to EXITES today Kevin." Renee says with an apologetic smile.
"But-"
"Kevin, we're not going to EXITES today. Just sit down and let me find pants that'll make your pin-up days look tame in comparison." Allison says.
"That's not what those posters were!" Kevin argues with a blush on his face.
"Sure." Allison dismisses
***
Renee is quite happy with the sundresses she found even if they won't do her any good here in New York City during the Christmas break. Their next stop on their shopping day is over to the LEGO store where Matt makes no attempt to hide his enthusiasm as Aaron very valiantly does try to pretend like he's not utterly entranced by the sets and builds.
Renee thinks it's all very charming.
"We could have gone to EXITES." Kevin says with a frown as he looks at a build of an Exy racquet. "Can you take my picture with this?" he asks but he's not quite looking at Renee.
"Sure." Smith says from beside her, where he had apparently been.
"Thanks Smiths." Kevin says and stands next to the Exy racquet of LEGOs and crosses his arms and leans back.
"Kevin, stop posing like this will be for the cover of a Forbes Magazine." Andrew says with a sigh as he comes to stand on Renee's other side.
"Shut up, it's a picture for me!" Kevin says and continues to stand with his arms crossed.
"Oh, can you get a picture of me next Smith?" Neil asks coming up eyes shining in excitement as he looks at the racquet.
"Sure. As an apology for letting Nicky-"
"Don't talk about it." Neil and Andrew say at the same time.
Kevin gets his picture and then Andrew hands his phone to Smith for Neil's since Neil had broken the lens on his camera ages ago.
They wander around and Kevin finds a set to build the National Court that he grabs without a second thought. Neil and Andrew find a little LEGO man of Kevin that they buy as their 'preferred Kevin'. Kevin of course threatens to buy their LEGO figures once they have them and refer to them as his 'preferred Andrew and Neil'. A threat that neither of them comment on but Renee does buy the little Jean Moreau she finds. She'll paint it Trojan colors and send it over to him as a little gift.
As she continues to browse with her purchase in hand she hears Nicky, "Smithy, if you like it you should get it!" Nicky insists.
"Is it the price?" Allison asks.
"Yeah, I don't want to spend that much." Smith says with a nod expression still worryingly blank.
"When's your birthday? It can just be an early or a late present from me." Allison asks.
"March 1st, but really I'm fine not getting it." Smith shakes his head. "It's not that I'd like it just my little brother liked trains." he says and Renee watches Nicky's face turn from joyful teasing to intense determination.
"We're getting this set." Nicky says grabbing it and marching over to the counter even as Smith followed after him.
Interesting.
***
They finish off their day with some ice skating.
Matt, Aaron, Andrew, and Kevin all fall into the 'challenged' category.
They get on the ice and all four immediately fall. Renee stifles her laughter as Andrew and Aaron scowl. "Are you okay?" Smith asks and Renee almost loses her balance as he skates by her.
"Why the fuck are you good at skating?" Aaron asks scowling even as he takes Smith hand. Renee skates over and offers a hand to Kevin as Matt and Andrew are being helped up by their respective partners.
"Oh," Allison says skating by, "have you been up to Canada or something often?" she asks.
"I've been to Canada a few times. It's more that there was a rink I would go to every once in a while." Smith answers before turning back to Aaron, "I can help you keep balanced." he says offering his other hand.
"Smith, I don't want to hold your hand. That's kind of gay." Aaron huffs letting go of Smith's hand only to immediately beef it again when he tried to move forward.
***
Skating was fun even if Aaron kept blushing as Smith helped him skate since he never really got his 'ice legs'. The rest of them all more or less skated on their own by the end or, in the case of Andrew and Matt, seemed fine to keep skating while holding on.
Renee was warming herself by the fireplace in Allison's home enjoying some hot chocolate as Allison took a seat next to her. There was a lot of commotion in the kitchen as the team was working to make dinner together. Renee had excused herself after Smith had startled her while she had a knife in hand and she'd almost stabbed him on instinct.
She's just relieved that no one seemed to notice the near murder.
"You okay? You seemed tense in there." Allison asks.
Well, almost no one.
"Yes, I'm fine." she smiles and hopes that Allison will believe it.
Allison looks at her and Renee does have the benefit that Allison is slightly drunk since she was told firmly not to help with the cooking since she'd paid for the majority of the day.
"I'm glad I got you alone, there's something I want to hear your opinion on." Allison says deciding, apparently, to let it go for now.
Renee relaxes smiling at her friend, "What's that?" she asks wondering what purchase or thing unpurchased Allison was regretting.
Allison looks at Renee, expression utterly serious. "Don't you think there's something...weird about this kid?" she asks.
Renee straightens up glad that Allison had also felt like something was off with the kid that her friends had brought along. "What do you mean?" she asks wanting to hear what Allison thought.
"Look, he seems really nice. I mean a little too nice to be a Fox to be honest but I mean I guess you're a Fox as well so..." Allison rambles slightly taking another sip of her wine.
"Yes, go on." Renee nods.
"Yeah, he seems nice and Matt said he's got his own stuff even if he didn't wanna go into what that stuff was." Allison continues and it's a good thing Allison is drinking white wine considering the white carpet and her gesticulations. "But...it's just.. okay you can't make fun of me. Even though this is about to sound crazy." Allison says.
"I would never do something like that." Renee swears.
"Promise me." Allison says expression grave as she lifts up a pinky.
Renee smiles despite herself and hooks her pinky with Allison's, "I promise to not make fun of you." she swears other hand over her cross.
"I think he's Justin Bieber."
MASTERPOST FOR ALL PARTS OF FLUENT FRESHMAN AU
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Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:
The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.
2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]
3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.
4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]
5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]
Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]
At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]
6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.
7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.
He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]
8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!
So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.
Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?
So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.
I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.
The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.
anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.
As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.
Also the books, the books slap.
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