On the weekend, Renee took Robbie out to take his mind off things. He felt more comfortable if Jayleen was there, so Renee came along with Vincent! Visiting the Bloom Garden & Cafe was a nice escape from the busy city and they enjoyed the splendid views! But Renee and Vincent started talking about their jobs; something Robbie didn't want to hear. He tried to block out their voices, but all he heard was their success, making him feel like even more of a failure...
Then he heard enough. He made some snide remarks about their careers targeting Vincent's success and left to get some space. Renee should have known better about Robbie's work situation and went to check on him, "I'm sorry Robbie, we should've stopped." She let him vent his frustrations, listening and offering some big sister advice.
"There's one more thing...I'm a bit embarrassed to say this," Robbie admitted and talked about how he was intimidated by Vincent. "Oh, Robbie," Renee finally understood his perspective.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have said all that to you," Robbie apologised to Vincent. "Hey, it's ok. I get what you're going through, I've been there too," he managed a small smile, "You remind me of myself...when I was at the lowest point of my life." Robbie doesn't know much about Vincent or his past: all he thinks about is how he is now and how perfect his life seemed. His train of thought was interrupted by a gentle touch, "If you ever want to talk about it, I'll be here for you."
Lot used: Bloom Garden & Cafe by @rheya28 tysm for this magnificent build ❤️
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A little context…
During one of the main quests with Sebastian, him and Ominis argue about something in the undercroft. While they were doing that I figured out that I could use Transformation on the boxes and benches in the area and turn them into random things. So while they were having a heated little argument I was messing around, chasing rabbits🐇 and toads🐸, and overall making a huge mess of the place, completely entranced by the fact that this was possible.
It was a moment that was so stupid I had to draw it, it’s been on the back burner of my projects for a bit and I finally had the motivation to finish it, so here it is 😅🎃
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This isn't something I would describe as a prominent or even intentional theme, but there's something fascinating to me about how TAZ Balance characters associated with composing and performing music are almost entirely correlated with either being forgotten, or having an incredibly warranted fear of being forgotten.
Johann is obviously the latter. I have an ongoing fic about his parallels with Barry — who plays piano, and who is the character we see spend the most time knowing he has been forgotten by people dear to him, and grappling with it. And I've seen the Johann and Lup dynamic get well-deserved attention in AUs where she lives, and they get to relate to each other as violinists — yet the parallels are at their strongest in canon, where Lup is the "most" dead of all the undead characters, the "most" forgotten, the most reduced to a near-invisible specter haunting the narrative, and the most like Johann's worst nightmare.
There's even a parallel with Davenport, who is a beautiful singer, and whose life story and dreams and achievements are all completely erased. So that's three different characters whose forgotten stories — which Johann obviously does not know — still serve to silently justify Johann's fear of the same fate, emphasizing just how likely it is that it could come to pass. How yes, it would be that horrifying.
And as a non-musician, but an artist of a kind myself... it all resonates. The fear of one's legacy being forgotten is a common fear in general, but it has a particular type of teeth to it for us creatives, who shudder in terror at the thought of a masterwork — that feels like a piece of one's soul — being forgotten, let alone cut short by untimely tragedy.
But that's why I treasure, so dearly, that all of these musically inclined characters — Barry, Lup, Davenport, Johann — are not forgotten permanently, but instead immortalized by the Story and Song, no matter the varying degrees of alive and dead that they wind up in the end. I treasure the parallels between these characters that say being forgotten is a grounded, reasonable thing to fear; that it is scary — but that no matter what, memory will still find a way.
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So. Fatebreaker, right? Ryne's biggest fears made manifest, daddy issues personified, yes?
He's an amalgamation of Thancred and Ran'jit, his face, his voice and his weapon is Thancred's, but his body, his fighting style and his words are Ran'jit's.
Throughout the fight Fatebreaker constantly makes comments about how only he can protect Ryne, only he can provide for her, only he has even the right to so much as stand beside her, to be in her general presence. He's possessive and obsessive, repeatedly asserting that she is HIS and his only. Which is exactly what Ran'jit says basically every time we encounter him.
But this time it's in Thancred's voice. This time it's with the voice and face of a man she actually cares about.
Ryne isn't scared of Thancred, she never has been. Even when she first met him she was barely even nervous (as clearly shown in Thancred's short story). There's a lot of different feelings happening between those two, but fear has never been one of them.
But now, after things have gotten so much better, she is scared of Thancred becoming like Ran'jit. Because if Thancred was just a little further gone, if he was just a little less compassionate, he would've. It wouldn't be hard for him to go down the same path as Ran'jit did, to be incapable of letting go of the ghost of that girl he loved so so much to the point he'd stubbornly grip anything close to her he could. He didn't, but the fact he could've is terrifying.
It makes his final words, words that are Thancred's, so very important. This is her deepest fears made manifest, but he still says he wants her to be happy. Her happiness not only matters, but is important to him.
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