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biilssst · 6 months

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talking about a game reviewer on steller blade

so recently I decided that Lily was way too boring nowadays unless you’re sai because for some weird reason, Lily‘s fans are really obsessed with this one lady. but that’s beside the point I’m gonna talk about somebody completely new “avidalchemist” is their name, playing and judging video games is their game.

Now they are very interesting well not really they’re just an another reviewer. Sometimes they have a good take sometimes they don’t have a good take and today we’re gonna be talking about not really a good take. it start out a while back he criticized the design of a character of the new game called Stellar blade. People didn’t like his criticism, so he bite back and it’s a bit of an war. so before we start going through some of his arguments, let me give my thoughts first and my thoughts are I really don’t care no seriously now why am I talking about any of this? Boredom plus I kind of feel like there are somethings that he actually get wrong. So I’ll be talking about his impressions of the demo. I won’t be attacking anything that is his opinion. Like I don’t really like the feeling of this game or I feel that this game is really slow. I cannot feel what he is feeling. I cannot tell how he feeling this. The only thing I can see is just a footage so there won’t be any criticisms on this aspect of the video. So I’ll be skimming around a little bit, but I still summarize first minute he talks about the character design. Around a second minute mark He states the game is really slow

at 2:34 he proceeds to make a strawman stating that there are only girls on the battlefield, and that this is against the agendas on those on a certain side of a political spectrum one side that will call anyone woke for simply criticizing the way it treats, it’s female characters, like? Well, the only thing that he stated was sexualize. I guess because everything else so far at least in the video is them just fighting aliens on a battlefield, which he states goes against they agenda. “it’s almost like he’s making a argument up like a strawman”

Proceeding after that, he feels that this game is for more feminism, because there’s no male characters, insight again, continuing, making a strawman

at 3:17 he’s slowly, realizing that the combat is a bit more in the souls like genre and he really doesn’t like it

I have to be very honest right here because this guy feels far more misogynist than most horny fuck who like this game for the booty then he goes on the state stuff like girl talk and even states that in the menu the character “looks like some fake action figure that you would buy at a toy section at Walmart for $10”.

….

i’ll let the audience decide on that one.

after that, he proceeds to say, “this entire game is aimed at those who have beta energy”. This is pretty funny, because he has a rule in his guidelines, stating not to attack the person just the arguments. i’m guessing this doesn’t apply to him.

To go along with the misogynist allegations so far, he proceeds to say that the first thing he looked at a monster was its chest to assume that it was female. Wow, he’s also insensitive and assuming genders too then, stating that this game feels like it was made for a certain audience. OK

hold on I have to bring up Square Enix for like five seconds because of this guy. If you have him talk about square Enix he will go on and on about how they’re bad because they’re trying to get a larger audience and how they’re going down the drain for not just being for The turn based RPGs. And then he’s gonna be like man this game is made for like this certain audience that has beta energy. like come on dude do you want this game to be for everybody or do you just want to have it certain audience? this game also has an M rating are you going to criticize the fact that it’s an M rated game and not a rated E for everyone? I know that that’s not the argument that you’re trying to make but what are you actual trying to say.

anyway, after talking about some gameplay stuff that I’m just not exactly too interested in talking about. at 11:00 he talks about a flashback that involves the male companion saving the female. And stating that the science fiction of this game is pretty interesting. What parts are pretty interesting for him I don’t know because he doesn’t really actually say anything about them. He just says they’re pretty interesting previously he stated that the world looked really generic and not that interesting I am only making a guess that he just thinks that the bike that the male companion character rode in looks interesting. Because he then proceeds to call literally everything uninspired or not that interesting feeling that it doesn’t actually have an identity of its own

A couple of gameplay moments later, he then is kind of unsatisfied with a death animation. Not the creatures death animations, his character death animation. That is the first time I’ve heard someone stated they wanted a satisfied animation for that, but OK.

anyway, I skipping about a large amount of this video because it’s just gameplay and I’m like OK I can see that but one of the one of the things kinda caught my eye at 23:44 he states that this game is filled with feminism and incompetent male characters. Even though the male character is seen helping out the female character back in the flashback, you know the one where he states that I think this game has some interesting science-fiction design. I can see that he’s still going out and trying to build a strawman. Just keep building that strawman and it totally makes your arguments work.

Anyway, after that, it’s just an OK video I guess it holds his opinion and his criticisms on the combat which I don’t find anything wrong with, so yeah there is this guy maybe I’ll talk about him again, but I’m not exactly too interested

#avidalchemist #Gaming criticism #stellar blade #ps5 #Responses

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jtlats · 7 months

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youtube

Soy Boys Body Shame Steller Blade Model Because They Don't Look Realistic

#youtube

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deadletterpoets · 8 months

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The game Steller Blade looks like it could be a sleeper hit or it might go the way of Forspoken. Time will tell.

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stuffandnosense · 6 years

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Only Size Five

So there will probably be some back and forth as to who’s fault this actually is but I’m blaming @hailqiqi and...okay it’s my fault too, but ANYWAY.

This is the first chapter of a round-robin fic collab between the two of us that we’re doing as something of an experiment/character study, etc. In one of the servers we’re in we were discussing the idea of what might happen if Pidge died, and how the team would handle it. We love her...so we had to kill her.

Right now the plan is to take turns writing six chapters, one from the POV of each other main character. Welp, here goes nothing.

Warning: character death

Chapter 1 - Shiro

Pidge cries out when the green lion does. A roar that sounds like nothing so much as pain echoes through the lion as it shakes, throwing Shiro into the side of the pilot’s seat.

“What happened!” he questions.

“We’re hit!” Her eyes are wide as she twists in her seat, casting a glance over her shoulder as if she knows what’s back there. “The cargo hold! We’re being boarded!”

Shiro doesn't ask if she’s sure. He knows what it’s like, to have that connection with a lion. To feel what it feels and know its’ thoughts. But there’s no time to dwell on how he misses it as he spins on his heel to make for the door.

There’s been so much to adjust to, being alive again. But at least he still has the others.

More or less.

He can’t feel the others the way he used to, either. The paladin bond isn’t gone like his connection to the black lion, but since Allura put him in this body...it’s like a frayed thread at the edge of his mind. He knows they’re all there, but usually that’s the most he can feel. Sometimes, in a way, it aches.

“Wait!” Pidge calls. “Take this.” Something glints green and black through the air; he catches it on instinct. Her bayard. “If Lotor could use yours, you can use mine, right?”

Shiro doesn’t even know if that’s true. “Pidge, you could need—”

But the bayard in his hand is reacting, forming a blade that glows as her scimitar does. Made only of energy, not adding any weight to the one arm he still has, it doesn’t make the balance difference he’s been learning to live with any worse. It occurs to him that’s likely purposeful on its’ part.

He wonders if it would still shock things. That might be useful if it would.

Pidge laughs once, as if in triumph that she was right. “You don’t have another weapon! I’m flying.” She flashes a grin at him. “Watch my back.”

Shiro can’t help grinning in return; her energy is contagious, and a warm pride swells in his chest with it. Just moments ago she was throwing him anxious looks when the ship hidden in the asteroid belt revealed itself.

“Pirates?” Lance was asking.

Hunk groaned. “Again?”

Pidge wasn’t adding to the radio chatter as she split with the others into a battle formation, and he knew what the tense set of her shoulders meant. He wished he could feel more—that he could give her more—but he squeezed her shoulder and it seemed to be enough.

“It’s not the same ship; it’s not them,” he told her. She relaxed—she seemed determined not to let her anxiety affect the fight—and look at her now.

She calls over the comms to the others as Shiro makes his way down to the cargo hold.

“Everybody avoid the tiny pointy ships!”

“Pidge, that’s ALL of them!” Lance protests.

“Not the fighters; the smaller things the main ship is dropping! They’re manned breach pods. We’ve got company here.”

Shiro doesn't have to go far to find the pirate. Huge and blue, he’s waiting just inside the cargo hold, looking as if he was trying to determine which door led to the pilot. Their blades meet, and Shiro doesn’t see much more of the pod than a glimpse of dull silver and a strange purple-ish goo it seems to have deployed around its’ breach point to seal the atmosphere in here.

Taking the towering alien down isn’t as easy as it used to be. Not with the changed weight distribution he’s still learning. Not having the extra weight of a real blade does help, but it’s touch and go for a moment and the blade he has does not, sadly, appear to shock things.

Still the pirate ends up down and out. No trouble to anyone anymore.

But the second one flashing by him might be.

“Quiznak,” Shiro huffs. The second one hid until he was distracted. He could have taken them both on if he’d known they were both there, but this one took advantage of the situation.

Shiro darts after the retreating form, up through the ramp in the green lion’s neck, his heart pounding in his throat because he can’t let this one get to Pidge. He won’t.

His blade catches the alien’s staff just before it can come down on her head.

“Couldn’t keep the fighting down below?” she teases without looking around.

“One of them hid!”

“Excuses,” she laughs.

Shiro plants his feet and braces against her seat as Pidge angles up sharply, throwing the unsuspecting pirate backward. After that, Shiro has the upper hand.

He thinks.

He isn’t prepared for the strange smirk the pirate gives him when they lock each other into a stalemate moments later, blade to staff. His less-than-usually-steller balance isn’t prepared to compensate when the pirate shifts his weight until the end of the staff rams the back of the pilot’s chair.

Shiro isn’t prepared for anything more than the startled bark from Pidge. He isn’t prepared when the pirate’s thumb moves just enough to hit a switch he didn’t notice before…or for the abrupt sound and glow of a cutting beam activating from the end of the staff.

“Shir…!”

Pidge is in the middle of calling his name in irritation for the jostling, but she never gets it out. She cuts off in a gargled gasp instead.

Shiro isn’t prepared.

He isn’t.

How could he be?

“NO...!”

Later he doesn’t remember how the second pirate went down. He only remembers the sharp clatter of the bayard on the floor of the cockpit that breaks through the red and white haze of rage and panic - the rush to get to Pidge.

Shallow, pained gasps and a flash of agony strong enough to make it through the weak thread in his mind tell him she’s still alive as he swings himself around the side of the pilot’s seat, but he doesn’t know what he’ll find there.

“Pidge! Pidge…?”

Panicked honey eyes find his; trying to hold them, trying to make sure she knows he’s there, is almost enough to keep Shiro from seeing the practically cauterized hole in her chest.

If it were bigger and not singed that way, she would already be dead.

“Katie…”

He doesn’t mean for it to come out like that. His knees hit the deck and it sounds like a sob as he reaches to ease her helmet off. Something shifts in her eyes and he’s sure she knows. Her cheeks are already damp, and small fingers grasp weakly at his arm.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, please hang on...”

His fault. His. He didn’t protect her.

Shiro rips his own helmet off, reaching behind him to reopen a comm channel. Questions are already flooding the airwaves; voices he has to shout over. “I need help! Allura! Pidge is—Pidge is down!”

She saved him; she can save Pidge, right?

...Right?

“Down?” Lance barks.

“Wh-what do you mean down? What happened?” Hunk stammers over the air.

Shiro doesn’t have time to answer; something strikes the green lion, sending them spinning until he grabs at the sticks one at a time to straighten them out behind the cover of an asteroid they nearly hit. Beyond it, the pirates’ fighters are thinning.

“Shiro!”

“Pidge?”

“Are you all right!”

The others are calling for them.

“Hang on, Shiro!” Keith is saying. “We’ll have this ship disabled in a dobosh or two.”

Shiro turns back to Pidge to hold the hand she’s been reaching with, squeezing her fingers with as much reassurance as he can convey. But her eyelids are fluttering. “Sh..Shir...o..”

His voice breaks. “We don’t have that long!”

There are more voices then, even as the brightness of explosions from the battlefield bursts from beyond the asteroid, but Allura’s voice breaks through them, clear and short. “Understood.”

Shiro leans closer to Pidge, calling her name and freeing his hand to rest it against her cheek until she focuses on him again.

“Pidge, look at me! Help is coming. Come on…”

It’s getting harder to see. How long has his face been damp, too?

No. No time for that. Allura is coming. Allura can help.

So tired. Her eyes are so tired when they focus on him again. Hazy. “My..m..family…”

He won’t argue with her now. It isn’t worth it, and he knows what she’s asking. Find Matt again. Tell her family she loves them. Tell them everything she did out here. All of that, and more, and he won’t have to do it, he won’t because she’s going to live, but he nods anyway. Because he would if he needed to and she needs to know that.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. He failed. Even if Allura can fix this, he still failed.

A small shake of her head. You didn’t, she’s trying to say.

But he did.

He can feel her scrabbling at the bond. Trying to hold on. Wanting to know she isn’t alone and slipping on the weak thread that none of them have talked about since he came back.

They haven’t talked about the fact that he doesn’t have a connection to Black anymore. They haven't talked about this, either. Maybe it hurts too much to know how things have changed. As Pidge clings to what’s left of it he can feel, for the first time, in a while, more. For a moment he can feel regret...that they didn’t talk more, maybe. That the bond isn’t strong enough for her to convey more than that.

“I know,” he says aloud. “I know, I’m sorry.” His thumb brushes across her cheek, wiping away tears. “Please hang on...we’ll talk more when you’re okay. You have to hang on.”

Shiro swallows as her eyebrows go up and her lips part again. Her short breaths are coming fewer and farther between and something in him relaxes when a bright blue-white flash from beyond the chair tells him someone is here.

Pidge licks her lips, but there’s no moisture to do it with. Her lips crack as she tries to give him that smile. “Shiro...was...was I great?”

It’s no more than a breath. A whisper. But it sends him back to the jungle where they found the green lion. Go. Be great, he told her.

Shiro smiles at that with a rush of air, because that he can answer. “Yeah, Pidge. You are.”

Allura is there, asking him to move back, and as she tries Shiro shifts back against a console and holds a breath. But she stops too soon, the blue light from her hands fading where they rest against Pidge’s cheeks.

“Allura…?” Shiro asks.

Her hands hover in the air above Pidge’s face, frozen as if she doesn’t want to pull away. As if, if she does, that will mean it’s really over.

“I can’t recreate the vaporized tissue,” she whispers.

It makes sense, but he wishes it didn’t. Shiro’s gut rebels, wrenching around inside him so painfully his breath comes out in a gasp, but the way Pidge is looking at them...her eyes are barely open, but something in them is trying to tell them it’s all right.

But it isn’t.

It’s not all right.

Pidge finds his fingers again as her other hand strains up to wrap around Allura’s, to squeeze with what strength she has left. Shiro squeezes back and kisses her forehead, but it still isn’t all right.

Allura is crying silently, apologizing. He opens his mouth to tell her isn’t her fault. It isn’t. It’s his. But nothing comes out, and he doesn’t have another arm to put around her.

He doesn’t have that, and he can’t help through the bond. He can scarcely feel Allura at all; she wasn’t a paladin when he was. He can only feel her presence, tenuously, through the others.

And Pidge’s presence is weakening. The green strand in the thread is going dim.

Keith’s wolf reappears more than once, bringing the others here the only quick way they have because there is nowhere to land. Shiro staggers to his feet and draws away to give the others space, head aching with the collected bursts of shock and sorrow, and maybe a part of him should be glad that what’s left of the bond seems to be strengthening, but right now it only hurts.

Everything hurts.

“Pidge…? Pidge! Pidge!” Lance, leaning over her, grasping at one of her hands, too loud, desperate and sobbing. “No no no, Pidge, come on, please. Pidge…!” Hunk at his elbow, leaning into Pidge’s side, face buried in her hair, and Shiro doesn’t know if he’s speaking to her or just crying into it, but it isn’t for him to know.

Pidge can hear them. He can feel the pulse of warmth along the bond. It’s a small relief with the pain that nearly blinds him.

He doesn’t know how long it is, after that. It seems like forever and no time at all. Maybe Keith is there beside him, for some of it, but he isn’t sure. He doesn't remember drawing closer to the chair again but they’re all there, when it’s over. For her.

Shiro can feel it, when Pidge is gone. The green strand snaps and...he knows.

They all know. It’s like a piece of them is suddenly...missing. Like everything is suddenly too quiet, even though the green lion’s cockpit was far too quiet already. A weak sob breaks from his chest as the lights flicker, and he isn’t the only one. They wait for the power to go out—for Green to go silent—but it doesn’t happen. The lights dim, but they don’t die.

The others seem just as confused, but no one is ready to ask questions yet.

None of them are ready for much at all. Not yet. The pirate ship is disabled, limping away with what’s left of its’ pride, and with no danger...it doesn’t matter.

“This...this wasn’t supposed to happen,” Lance says, into the silence. It’s barely more than a broken whisper but it feels like a gunshot. Hunk is collapsed beside him, Allura clinging to Coran. Romelle looks lost. Keith is looking at the floor, Krolia angled closely beside him as if she could protect him from what’s happened.

Shiro takes a sharp breath. Some of them look at him, but he doesn’t have an answer. Keith is close enough to reach for him, but the hand on his shoulder doesn’t help.

He hears himself mumbling something about taking a look at the pierced hull in the cargo bay, and gives Keith something like an apologetic glance as he retreats.

***

“We uh...we moved her to the stasis pod. So we can bring her home.”

Keith finds him in the depths of the cargo bay, later, against the wall behind a stack of crates and not even pretending to poke at the breach pod anymore.

How long has he been down here?

Shiro clears his throat. “That’s uh...that’s good.” He goes to get up, but Keith sits.

“I can tow Green, but Hunk wanted to take the pod,” he continues quietly.

Silence, for a moment or two.

“It isn’t your fault,” Keith says.

Shiro pushes out a heavy breath. “You weren’t there, Keith.”

“I know you did everything you could.”

His eyes close. He can’t take Keith looking at him like that right now. Like..like he couldn't have done anything wrong. “And Pidge is still…” He can’t finish the sentence. “I...I should have have been able to—” He has to stop to take another breath.

“Shiro…no.”

He can’t answer that. He doesn’t know how, and he gets to his feet before Keith can try again. “Are we ready to move out?”

Shuffling beside him, as Keith climbs back up too. “Yeah…”

He can feel the disappointment and concern almost as well as he can hear it. Almost...almost as well as he once could feel it. Before he died. When the paladin bond was stronger.

Something nudges at the edge of Shiro’s mind—something in the aching, empty place that the black lion left.

“No,” he gasps, quietly. “No no no…”

No. What are you doing? I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I—

A hand on his shoulder and Keith is there, worried and calling his name, but Shiro is frozen.

The consciousness that reaches out to his is different than Black. Somehow softer and sharper all at once.

And also grieving as he is, with a fine edge of guilt.

You have nothing to feel that way for. You were always with her. You protected her. I failed. How could you want me to…?

The answer doesn’t come in words; the lions’ voices never do. Pieces of his own memory, pulled to the forefront—how quickly he devoured information when he was young, even if part of it was knowing he might not have the time other people might; how much he yearned for the stars; the risks he was always willing to take. Pidge and her computers. Her risks. Her data.

You’re not so different, Green seems to be saying.

But…

His feet carry him up to the now-empty cockpit, as if being there will give him an answer to why any of this happened in the first place. It shouldn’t surprise him when the consoles light up around him, but his eyebrows still climb.

It doesn’t make any sense. He tries to step back, but his boot catches something on the ground.

Pidge’s bayard. The one she gave him. Not that either of them knew what it meant then. When he picks it up now, reluctantly, it glows green in his hand.

“Shiro…” Keith is still behind him. Questioning eyes meet his. Shiro’s chest is tight, and if anyone can understand why he doesn’t want to do this, Keith would.

I can’t take her place. I couldn’t even keep her safe.

Is this how Keith felt? In a way, Shiro was there, with Black chose Keith. Part of him heard Keith’s protests—the same words running through his mind right now. The same questions.

A fresh wall of guilt hits him, pulling a gasp from him, and most of it isn’t even his own. But he knows why now.

You tried to save her…

Images of Trigel and Pidge. Trigel, too far away for Green to even try when she died. Pidge...Green tried. She tried, but she was too weak from damage and the lions’ depleted cores. She couldn't do the same for Pidge that Black did for Shiro.

But she tried.

We are not so different, either, Green is telling him.

Maybe they need each other.

#vld pidge #vld shiro #vld team #angst #tw: character death #vld fanfic #fanfic collab #takashi shirogane #katie holt #voltron legendary defender #voltron

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randomwriteronline · 6 years

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A head sprouted from lavander blossoms, hair surrounding the emaciated face like a muddy halo. It stared in front of itself for a minute before disappearing in the fragrant purple mass.

With a rustle the tall stems parted to let the langly body emerge and stand still, casting a long, thin shadow on the man under the lone tree facing the field.

Willy looked up and smiled, a hand shielding his eyes from the harsh sunlight.

“What brings you here?”

“My feet.”

“Do you have no power over them?”

“If I go walking, no, I don’t.”

“And so you just sort of find yourself accidentally crossing an entire field of lavander with no idea what you’re doing or where you’re going.”

“It happens.”

The sitting man laughed, patting the ground next to him as an invitation. Eska plopped to his side like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Did you grow it?”

“Yup. Did a pretty good job, didn’t I?”

“Hm.”

How weird, that such an unenthusiastic response could be almost better than the most sincere of compliments.

They didn’t move for what felt like hours. It was just the two of them, relaxing under a tree’s shade, looking over a field of beautifully purple flowers that buzzed quietly with every breath of breeze washing over them.

It was a really nice day.

And Willy felt fine.

“You’re so quiet today.” he breathed, a bit of a cackle sliding in.

Of course he was quiet. Eska was always quiet, he talked so little. He just hummed or grunted or hissed or...

... or kept completely silent, without answering at all.

Willy looked to his side.

Eska wasn’t there.

God. No. Not this. Not again.

He stood up: “Eska?” he called. The messy head wasn’t anywhere over the flowers.

A weak sound echoed far away in the stagnant calm. It sounded like a soft bark. A dog? What is it doing here, why is it here, is it him? He listened again. Yes, there, it repeated.

Willy dashed towards it, stems ungracefully departing from one another to create a path to the noise.

The source laid in the middle of the plants, limbs spread in abandon through the lavander, eyes up to the sky. His head shifted slightly as his breathless friend came into vision, short curls pending on him and a relieved expression.

“You found me.”

"... heh. S... Sure did...”

The freckled man fell on the ground and laid down right next to Eska, inhaling deeply to fill his needy lungs with the oxygen he neglected while running.

“Please... Never do that again. I got worried.”

Eska kept looking at the sun and didn’t say a word. He waited until his friend’s chest regained its natural rising and falling rhythm before turning to him with the most serious eyes he’d ever had.

“I have to ask you a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

No answer.

Willy followed him to an unkept corner of what seemed like a massive garden. He looked around disoriented; so focused on the bony spine almost poking out of the clothes right in front of him, he hadn’t paid attention to the trip itself.

The area felt familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place.

Between the tall shallow blades of grass stood a number of small slabs of some sort of stone. Every one of them had a word clumsily carved onto it in an unstable penmanship that made the already hard job of understanding the writings almost absolutely impossible. He still kneeled, doing his best to decipher the closest one.

“Po... Pom-me-dee...”

“Pomme-de-terre.” Eska corrected him, not even looking, and placed a thoughtful caress on the plate before walking past it.

His hand brushed over each of the slabs, accompanied by his constantly cracking voice muttering. Hampaat, Carmen, Luva, Hníf, Azúcar, Riba, Kirbes, he listed softly with every fond pat he left on them.

Once he passed them he stood perfectly silent for a little, back overlooking the small stone forest.

Finally he sat down and sighed.

Willy walked up to him and took a seat at his side. On the horizon, bigger chunks of stone went trailing away from sight, one behind the other in orderly lines. He let out a weak ‘oh’.

That’s where they were.

“What were they?” Willy murmured. He feared raising his voice would have angered those sleeping beneath the ground.

“Ferret, croc, Steller’s jay, racoon, lynx, ram rabbit, otter, deer.”

“You had a deer?”

“Hm.”

The darker man nodded, slightly embarassed by his question. It felt like the only thing he could do.

Eska’s hand grabbed his absent-mindedly, without a real purpose. Details of a life he didn’t want to know began creeping up Willy’s arm like an amry of ants.

He tried focusing on the soft pressure of the palm.

It felt warm.

Real.

Like something Eska sort of seemed like he could have never been.

All of a sudden, Willy remembered: the favor. That’s why they were there. Why he’d brought him there. Though asking about it like that, almost out of the blue, felt somewhat wrong. He waited for Eska to start speaking instead, hoping his friend hadn’t forgotten about it.

The masked head fell on his shoulder softly.

“I want to stay next to them.” the hushed voice crackled.

“I want you to put me down, next to them.”

“Y... You make it sound like me outliving you is a fact.”

Silence filled the small gaps between them with an immense distance, oozing of a terrifying certainty.

“I will.” Willy assured with his quietest whisper.

Eska simply wrapped him in his langly arms and rubbed his forehead on his shoulder, mimicking a grateful purr. Just like a magician, he pulled a small bunch of lavander out of one of his pockets, offering it to Willy.

“You’re not giving it to them?” he inquired, pointing to the tombs behind them.

The other just pushed the flowers closer to him.

Willy thought for a second, biting his lower lip. “So these are... If I wanna visit... W-well, there’s...”

A puffy exhale: “Wanna go meet my dad?”

Silence agreed.

Willy tried imagining what his father’s reaction might have been at the sight of a langly skull-masked figure seemingly spawned directly from hell next to his son, looking over to the carved marble that spelled out his name as he placed the flowers at his feet.

Maybe he would have laughed about it. Or he would have tried to politely push whatever that thing was out of their lives.

But the boy was quiet and had some kind of manners, and Willy felt fine around him, so...

Then again, he was Eska.

Which meant he was more than able to terrify someone with a single glare. And Papa Franks’ trust would have flown out of the window as soon as his eyes would have laid upon him.

Eska hunched over to the tombstone, looking as if he was trying to read.

“Rupert Franks.” Willy helped him.

The other didn’t say a word and kept still.

They didn’t speak for a while, listening to each other’s breath, the breath of the only two beings alive in a cemetery as big as a whole world.

Willy lowered his head and looked at his shoes.

“Y’know, one time...” he began, unsure of why he suddenly felt like sharing something with the friendly demon, "One time we went to a wood. A small forest. We knew it... Pretty well, I think.

We were walking, and it was hot, and, and Wally started to not feel well. Dad helped him get better... and I tried to, too. I really did... but... Oh, nevermind. Long story short, I screwed up."

He could feel the heterochromatic glance burning on his skin, but no words filled the air.

Just a breath so soft it felt unreal.

He swallowed.

“We should be going.”

It wasn’t even evening.

They walked side by side, quiet, silence screaming in Willy’s ears so loudly he could feel them on the brink of bleeding. It was the right thing, what he deserved, he kept rummaging in his mind. He had told him something he shouldn’t have let himself tell and now neither of them was willing to talk about it, or about litteraly anything else. It didn’t matter. It was fine. He just regretted boring him. But what’s done is done.

“You didn’t.”

Eska’s feet dragged on the sidewalk. He never wore shoes, did he?

“ ‘I didn’t’ what?”

“Tell it to me. Please.”

Like he never finished a thought before starting a new one.

“I’ll tell you about them.”

Maybe he just had a terrible sense of timing.

“You start.”

The masked head bent backwards, neck creaking as he remembered.

“Pomme-de-terre was brown. Soft and clever. Long, like a snake with fur. Liked to sneak and dig holes in the ground. Once he went away. Came back a couple of weeks later. Had a ring of gold and stones. We sold it and got the mattress. Pomme-de-terre was really clever.

Haampat was old. Slow. It hurt to chew, so she ate lots once every two months. She let me ride on her back. Scared a lot of people like that. But she was very nice. Very quiet. Curled around me at night. All the sheets were only for her. Haampat was cold easily.

Carmen couldn’t sing. Only scream. Yelled when he got lonely. Climbed my back and stayed clutched there. I had to sleep on my stomach. He learnt to say my name. Was smart. And loud. Called me all day. Carmen was very lonely.

Luva cleaned all the food. Always. Was busy cleaning it all day. For everyone. Grabbed everything I gave him and cleaned it. I loved watching him do that. He was very careful. Very clean. Never cleaned me. Luva was too small for that.”

His amber eye turned to Willy.

Your turn, it whispered encouragingly.

The janitor nodded, eyes to the ground as he picked up his recollection from where he’d left it.

“So, well... Wally wasn’t feeling well at all. At one point he passed out, and we freaked out. Dad asked me to get him some water, and I did, but to be honest, I... I was about to faint too. But I didn't tell them. I forced myself to stay awake.

I was scared that they wouldn't care if I fainted, or that they would worry. I didn't want them to worry for me.

So, instead, I got Wally the water, and Dad helped him get better. And then we went back home and there I blacked out. I woke up feeling sicker than I’d ever been. Still, I didn't tell anyone. Wally only found out because he saw me throw up, and got mad at me for hiding my problems.”

A tired smile crept its way onto the freckled face: “I guess some things never change.” he muttered.

Eska hummed.

Your turn, incited Willy’s silence.

He scratched his neck and resumed his tales.

“Hníf groomed me. Night and day. Woke up at random and groomed me. Licked all my hair and arms and neck. Never stopped. Purred everytime she did. But it was nice. And she liked when I pet her. Protected me. Even when she was old. Hníf was sweet.

Azúcar was really small. Like a grain of sugar. Ate in a funny way. Tried to fight a lot of things, even though he was so tiny. Broke a paw once. I don’t think bunnies do that usually. He looked lovely. Azúcar was really soft, too.

Riba left everyday to get fish. Loved fish. Only wanted to eat fish. Refused everything that wasn’t fish. At least I learnt how to cook it. He smelled bad and was always a little wet. Didn’t care. Kept asking me to pat him. Really liked that. Riba was so affectionate sometimes.

Kirbes didn’t trust me. Not completely. Was always a little suspicious. Didn’t listen to me. I gave her food and let her be. She slept a lot. I had her just a month. In winter. She couldn’t stand up.”

His voice faded as the last sentence escaped his lips: “Kirbes was very sick.”

They didn’t even notice they stopped walking.

What was all of this about, again?

It was about telling each other of something they wouldn’t have told anybody. All because they paid a visit to mr. Franks and Willy had slipped part of a story. All because Eska asked to be buried in his own pet cemetery and had flowers. All because they had met by accident under a tree in front of a lavander field.

The Sun was still warm above their heads.

In the end, they had done nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Just talk, walk, sit.

Ignore the feeling of sunrays on their skin.

Eska reached for Willy’s hand, deviating his train of thought. His skinny finger brushed softly against his knuckles.

“There’s no snow now.”

“You didn’t screw up.”

Late words like turning gears that don’t match, stubbornly trying to rotate and make their engine work somehow despite not being built to go together.

The two of them started walking again. It was quiet. Willy understood what Eska meant when he said he had no power over his feet.

There was maybe just... a last question.

“What does Kirbes mean?”

“... Pumpkin.”

Of course.

#eska (batim)#willy franks #wowie zowie david bowie this went down the rabbit hole at one fucking point huh #willys story was given to me by the graceful hands of insane-control-room #for those who are wondering what the other names mean here they hecking are #pomme de terre = potato in french; haampat = teeth in finnish; carmen = song in latin; luva = glove in portugese #hnif = knife in islandish; azucar = sugar in spanish #and riba = fish in bosniac #eska knows a lotta hecking words in a lotta hecking languages and by god he will use them #i tried my best to call kirbes ms believer for 21 pilots song reasons but the yiddish translation was meh so she remained pumpkin #rupert franks was also handed to me by insane-control-room bless her

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