Word Count: 795 words.
Pickle 'Same
Shigure stares at the bowl of cucumbers before him, unable to comprehend the sight, the spectacle, that lies before him. A work of living, breathing art so beautiful, so unfathomably enrapturing, that it is an insult to the craft to even consider capturing it on an easel—for no artist, no man, can ever hope to convey the magnificence emanating from it through any conceivable medium. It is not something to be turned into art, for it is art.
da Vinci, thy name is Hisame.
"Boom! Big reveal," the samurai exclaims. "I'm a pickle! What do you think about that?"
Shigure blinks, it takes a minute for it to sink in that his friend is a vegetable and somehow still functioning.
"I—ah, er.. what."
An apt reaction.
"Ophelia turned me into a pickle, Shigure! Pickle 'Same!"
Shigure blinks again, only now grasping the realization that perhaps his friend's love of pickles runs a little bit too deep into the rabbit hole. A little fetishistic. Just a little bit.
"I see.. not to speak out of turn, but how exactly does this aid us in our bid against Anankos?"
Hisame burps, but it's no stranger than anything else in the previous two-hundred words so he calls no attention to it. "Anankos isn't real, Shigure!" the pickle croaks. "There's no such thing! Silent Dragons aren't real! None of this is real, nothing matters! Life is pointless! Everything is pointless! Your parents are fucking inbreeding idiots!"
Rude.
He burps again, juicy bile dribbling out his mouth. "This is the stupidest route in the game! None of it makes any sense! No amount of rewrites can save it! Wake up, sheeple! Wake up and smell the downloadable content! Everybody is an idiot but me, there is no Anankos! This game costs ninety dollars! The entire conflict can be solved with open borders! Hoshido and Nohr need to have open borders, Shigure! Let them in, let them all in! I don't give a shit about this curse! Fuck Valla and fuck Vallites!"
Shigure briefly wonders if becoming woke as shit was a prerequisite for the spell.
"Open borders, Shigure! That's what the kingdoms need! And healthcare, we need to pay for their healthcare! Screw Nintendo, screw Intelligent Systems—more like Unintelligent Systems, bazinga—they hired a mangaka and they still can't write for shit! I'm always right!"
It probably was.
"They just want your money, Shigure! They don't give a shit about you, they just want you to buy more orbs, and complain about no Hector in Warriors, so they can sell you him months later as more downloadable content, as part of a season pass that you'll also buy, and it'll be overpriced! Anankos won't be in it, he's not real! Then they'll repackage it next year in a complete edition, complete with all the content and even more exclusive content, and you're gonna buy that too, everyone is! And you're gonna defend it in the comments, Shigure! And all the shitty happy meal toys too, you're gonna buy them in droves for the paywall content, Shigure! You're gonna pre-order them and put them on your desk and never look at them again, then you're gonna buy more orbs, and you're gonna get more shit rolls, Shigure, shit rolls and run-on sentences, Shigure!"
Shigure opens his mouth, but stops just short of saying anything, primarily because he has no idea what the hell is going on—a pretty accurate stand-in.
"Fates was a scam! A scam egged on by suits who looked at Awakening—which they sent out to die!—with dollar symbols in their eyes! It was the No Man's Sky of Fire Emblem, and everyone fell for it Shigure! And they're going to fall for it again next year! Anankos isn't real! They're going to do it again, next year, next year they'll pull this again, and they're going to get away with it, Shigure! They're going to fist you again with more downloadable content, season passes, happy meal toys, and low energy writing, and you're gonna buy it! You're gonna buy it and you won't know any better because of your birth defected brain cells! And you'll have to buy the special edition in order to get the full plot, and it'll be gone in seconds and they'll never restock! Life is meaningless, buy more orbs, I'm smart as shit! Only Echoes is worth anyone's time!"
Finally, he stops, if just for a moment, and lowers his tone from pure animosity to deadfaced seriousness.
"But for real, Shigure, we can't let King Garon get the Ballistician codes."
Meanwhile, a stone's throw from the gazebo, Silas passes by and like the creeper shit he is, listens in with his own off-the-cuff commentary.
"Deeprealms were a mistake."
Got my new HDD and image folders up to speed, so updates will resume henceforth. Thanks to everyone who sent messages, appreciate the support and encouragement. Search "v3pXNTCeevo" and click the first result for your penalty.