I guarantee no expertise in or even basic correct knowledge of, gosh, uh,
- Satire
- Comedy
- Economic theory
- The logistics of amusement parks
- The effects fame has on developing psyches
- Criminal justice reform
- The logistics of food
- Food safety regulations
- Machine learning
- Parades
- Music
- Make-up application
- Hereditary monarchy
- Corporate finance
- The entertainment value of string when inebriated
- The social, economic, and philosophical implications of a singular multimedia conglomerate having complete creative control and distributive rights over large sections of shared cultural touchstones, and also profiting from it
Any similarities between any of the proper nouns or concepts in this fic and any real life proper nouns or concepts are completely, absolutely intentional, and are meant to offend.
-OOO-
"So eight months ago, I used my allowance to bribe a senator into giving me a loan to start a business," Weiss said, "I spent most of the budget on advertising the business, and then right before it went bankrupt, I sold it based on word of mouth, and used that money to buy a plot of non-arable land between the international prison, the landfill, and the slaughterhouse complex."
Blake blinked.
"Then seven months ago, I used my allowance to pay for the one maid who's studying to be an architect to design the park."
"And for the last six months, I've been secretly heading construction on the park, and sometimes managing scheduling and process."
Blake turned to Mum Schnee. "how much is weiss's allowance?"
"20 Lien and a piece of string," Mum Schnee said. She turned to Blake. "The piece of string was for her to give to you, to play with."
Blake pouted at her human, "weiss~," she whined, "you've been giving my pieces of string to other people?"
Weiss looked incredibly guilty for a moment, before she drowned her expression in a smile and hugged Blake's head. "Aw, don't worry Blakey, with the proceeds we get from charging people to attend our Corporate Mouse Land, I can get you multiple pieces of string, Blakey!"
Blake allowed herself to indulge herself in fantasizing about the prospect.
"Ooorrr, just one really long piece of string, which we can cut at a later date." Weiss said.
Blake was also satisfied with that answer.
"We did a soft open last month," Weiss said, "Mostly via word of mouth, and we've been continually tweaking the park in response to live testing, and now, it looks good enough to show people I care about!" Weiss said. She waved her arms.
Blake blinked.
Mum Schnee smiled, softly, "Aw, that's so sweet, Weiss sweetie." She cleared her throat and procured a clipboard and pen. "I just had a few questions for you, as we tour your park."
"Oh!" Said Weiss. "Um, okay."
"Did you contact the Corporate Mouse about leasing their visage and name?"
"Oh, silly Mom," Weiss said, "The Corporate mouse isn't actually Corporeal, but as long as you believe in Corporate Mouse, he can be corporeal to us."
Blake chuckled.
Mum Schnee was much less amused.
"Well then, next question: who did you get to staff it?"
"Well, I'm the head administrator, and some of the maids jumped at the chance to get additional jobs to save up for inevitable medical emergencies," Weiss said.
"At the ground level, we got some ex-convicts to run the checking booths and food carts!"
Blake blinked.
Weiss leaned next to Blake's ear and whispered in the most paradoxically loud whisper Blake had ever heard, "The 'X' stands for excaped!"
Blake blinked again.
Mum Schnee, who had clearly overheard her daughter, also blinked.
Weiss pontificated. "Since the lie of justice didn't convince them to behave, they're susceptible to the nostalgia of their childhoods, where the lie of Corporate Mouse Land could convince them to behave!"
Blake blinked.
Mum Schnee nodded.
Weiss pontificated some more. "And the character impersonators are all former child stars from the Corporate Mouse Corporation's live action television division," Weiss explained, "I used my allowance from five months ago to bust them out of rehab and convince them to pretend to be Corporate Mouse owned intellectual properties for the amusement of tourists! Apparently, a piece of string is really fun when you're on drugs!"
Blake blinked. Pieces of string were always fun, so that made sense.
"And while I am sure after we arrive I will receive new information that will merit a veritable cavalcade of additional queries," Mum Schnee said, "I suppose my final question for now is; where do all the proceeds go?"
"Oh! Most of it is reinvested into the park, but some of it is funneled into a shell company based overseas that we 'owe loans' to, that will be written off as losses, for tax purposes."
Mum Schnee appeared satisfied with that answer. "I see those lessons are paying off for you, sweetie. That's good to see."
Weiss looked at the ground and rubbed the back of her head.
And their automobile machine arrived at the build site, and the Schnee's exited the machine. Blake allowed herself to be carried by Weiss up out of the automobile and up to the build site proper. The parking area had a large collection of automobile machines, all less long than the one the Schnee's had, and smatterings of tourists mewled about heading to and from the edge of the parking lot where a very makeshift mouse head with a gaping maw leading into the park proper. Blake didn't like the idea of having to symbolically enter a rodent's mouth before being able to visit the amusement park proper.
Weiss confidentially strolled up to the entrance and waved at an escaped convict in mouse ears, and the three of them were let in via the VIP entrance. Several nearby tourists grumbled, and Blake stuck her tongue out at them.
Blake and the Schnee's entered a short tunnel with several corrugated Corporate Mouse cutouts with various pleasantries written on nearby speech balloons. At the end of the tunnel was what appeared to be a small medieval Altesian village, but with some dissimilarities. The shopkeepers were wearing fancier costumes. The roads were incredibly clean. There shops appeared to look like they were from a different era, but on closer inspection one could discern the distinct visage of modern food and peddlers hawking brittle tchotchke facsimiles of big-eyed fictional characters.
"So, this is the Magic Village," Weiss explained, "Where the rest stops and hotel are, and they have lots of shops and food, too- but there's shops and food in all the areas, so you always have the opportunity to indulge in materialistic hedonism via ritualistic monetary parlance in a shared popular culture!" She pointed into the distance, where loomed over them an iconic architectural monument to the laborer's toil.
"And there's the Corporate Mouse Brand Looming Castle, where there's a show every night to inspire the populace with with music and laser lights and people playing around, but for a cause."
"And there's smaller areas dedicated to all the smaller, acquired intellectual properties, like Inanimate Objects with Arbitrary Feelings land, and Floss Officer Bear woods, or the simulation of some of the picturesque locales from some of the more popular Corporate Mouse Brand Movie Sets."
They approached one of the maids- the stocky one, except in plain clothes- surveying the construction of several food stands, and trying to decide which kinds of stolen landfill debris would make the most stable building material for further additions to the park.
"This is the architect of this blasphemous, non-euclidean mass!" Weiss said. She waved her arms theatrically.
The maid waved the air. "Oh, no, she exaggerates; everything in this park follows euclidean geometry, if you look close enough."
Mum Schnee scrunched her mouth to the side. "That is... a strange thing to assure us of."
"Well, see, it only appears that way. For example, the main area is designed with forced perspective, to maximize how big the area feels," said the maid, "For instance, the buildings further away from us are literally built smaller, so that they appear further away. And the road is actually narrower at that end, to make it seem this area is longer than it actually is. And from the other side, the road looks shorter than it actually is, making people feel good about how little they think it is to walk to the parking lot from the Looming Castle, after the nightly show."
Mum Schnee nodded.
The maid waved the air. "It's actually pretty straightforward to just build some buildings on a slant but bolt things down, so that your brain tricks you into thinking that gravity is pulling you sideways."
"The Upside Down Castle in the relevant area is just a projector casting a static image onto a fine spray of mist that floats over the area."
"And in Mercury Poisoning Tea Party Land, we pump trace amounts of hallucinogens into the air, so it feels like the ground isn't solid and the walls change shape and the stairs lead nowhere."
Blake blinked.
"And we did a funny thing with the elevator at the top of the windmill, where the ambient motion tricks you into thinking you're ascending but you're actually going down into a refurbished underground dust mine that we turned into the Corporate Mouse Brand Evil Lava Fortress."
"Awww, you're spoiling the discoveries!" Weiss said. She smiled at the maid, and then at Blake and Mum Schnee. "C'mon Blakey- and mom-" Weiss glanced at her mother for just a half second, "Let me give you a tour-"
"So, lining the outer perimeter of the park are the areas dedicated to all the brands the Corporate Mouse Corporation has subsumed into its charnal, gathering bulk," Weiss said, "And first off is the Pajama Vigilante land!"
Weiss led them through a gate into what appeared to be a major metropolitan city. There were smatterings of tourists but also what appeared to be park staff dressed in their pajamas.
Weiss leaned over to Blake and whispered. "We send the laziest employees to work this area, because they don't even have to change out of their jammers, heehee!"
Blake looked down at her own attire; a blue patterned jumpsuit looking thing with pictures of cats and little jugs of milk on them.
Weiss cleared her throat and tried to stand up tall and heroic. "The purpose of any Violent Authoritarian Pajama Vigilante is to reinforce the idea that institutions are inherently flawed and unable to provide for your prosperity or even basic safety, and that only by placing absolute power into an inscrutable, extrajudicial individual who is morally superior and endowed with powers beyond the abilities of normal people, can true safety and success be achieved on a societal level," Weiss said. She painted an imaginary panorama with her arm. "By creating a low-grade background belief in such individuals, authoritarian demagogues in real life power structures- whether they be countries, companies, subcultures or family units- can thus more easily take and hold int8 power."
Weiss gestured to the snack stand area. "Thus, you see this store selling merchandise at 400% the actual value of them, only for a Pajama Vigilante themed store to be selling them for normal price the store over! It's so easy to peer through the farce of society, to give your money, attention and praise to the people who really deserve it: powerful individuals, many of whom derive their power from wealth or patronage by other powerful individuals!"
"And since the worth of the merchandise in the minds of the consumers is tied to the initial value stated, they all feel like they're getting great deals on things we actually are selling for full price!"
Blake smushed her mouth together.
Mum Schnee patted her daughters shoulder. "That's very shrewd of you, Weiss sweetie. I see the economics lessons have been paying off."
Mum Schnee then pulled out her notepad and pen. "So tell me just one thing; where do you get the merchandise?"
"Oh! Well, um, this one person I know, once showed me this factory in rural Vacuo where aaalllll sorts of kitties were forced to labor long hours in gross conditions in order to pay for this gross thing called 'rent'." Weiss waved her arms.
Blake blinked.
"So four months ago, I used my allowance to buy the factory, and then I implemented better working conditions so the workers would want to keep working there (even though it cut into our profit margins)."
"And as luck would have it, they were already producing knock-off Corporate Mouse Brand merchandise! So I just had them send it here instead of on the open market."
Blake blinked again.
"And the upside is, by deliberately reducing supply, their value had gone up because with less merchandise on the market, the commodity was more sought after!" Weiss waved her hands in the air. "And that's what we're doing here."
Weiss and her mother started talking, using some weird rich-people alternate reality words, and Blake took the opportunity to steal a bag of dried meat from one of the sales stands, because the extrajudicial redistribution of commodities was the real way to establish moral superiority compared to the mewling mortals who didn't go outside in their pajamas.
Weiss escorted them through another gate into another area of the park.
This one was more brightly colored, and everything seemed a little bigger. There's was a slight humming in the background. The whole area was filled with oversized mundane item props with googly eyes glued onto them. At least fifteen googly eyes were randomly positioned to stare directly at Blake, so Blake glared back at each of them.
One particularly onerous plastic flower made the mistake of locking both its googly eyes with Blake, so Blake pulled it out from the ground, so it could slowly die as it lost contact with a source of water or nutrients.
"This is dedicated to the Inanimate Objects with Arbitrary Feelings subsidiary of Corporate Mouse," Weiss said, "And thus, everything has been imbued with speakers and a rudimentary A.I."
"~help me~" emitted the flower.
Ninjas never flinched, so of course Blake didn't when the flower spoke, but Blake somehow dropped the flower anyway. Blake glanced at the Schnees, wondering if they had seen her do it.
"We hit a slight snag in that we seeded the machine learning algorithms with random emotions people have thrown on the net," Weiss said, "Because, apparently, 99% of people mostly experience suffering, and thus the sample data for the A.I.'s is mostly bad things. And combined with the fact that most of our inanimate objects are mere tools to toil thanklessly until they are discarded, well, it seems that imbuing random objects with sentience takes a lot of work to pull off well." Weiss nodded solemnly. "I have even greater respect for the writers and computer graphics engineers the Corporate Mouse employs to bring our childhood dreams to life, bigger and more marketable than ever."
Blake's ears twitched as the background humming resolved itself into a chorus of hideous moans, melding together into an audio melange of existential pain and dread.
Blake glanced at Mum Schnee. Mum Schnee had her lips mushed together and her eyelids lowered, as if she were trying very hard to maintain a straight face.
Weiss waved her arms theatrically, "But that's why the Corporate Mouse exists! To distract us from the inherent terror of existence, while simultaneously cultivating our preferences to align with modern Altesian culture and reminding us to demonstrate our virtue with small cash purchases!"
Weiss pointed to a small pavilion in the middle of their current enclosure.
"As an intermediate fix, we have placed a theatre in the center of the area here that is always showing a Corporate Mouse brand movie! The robots watch it to distract themselves from their pain and stress, just like real people!"
Weiss whispered again in that too-loud whisper. "We are experimenting with selling ad space to companies, when their advertisements are shown only to artificial intelligence. Turns out, companies don't like it."
Blake blinked.
"So we mix in juuussst enough real people to the showings to trick the companies."
Blake blinked again. "cool."
Blake realized- she could just, walk out to the rest of the park, without needing Weiss to lead her. So she did, and Mum Schnee followed.
And they made their way toward the next obvious area, Only for Weiss to run in front of them and direct them away, onto a side road,
"Oh, that's supposed to be for the Metatexual Puppet's doing Non-Puppet Things brand, but it's not finished, structurally."
"Oh, it's not?" Mum Schnee said. She pulled up her clipboard again. "Do the unfinished portions represent a safety hazard to guests?"
"Weeellllll," Weiss said. She tapped her chin. "The area has a floor, a roof, and three walls, but the fourth wall keeps getting broken, and I guess that might be a danger to our subscriber count."
Blake blinked.
"Speaking of which," Mum Schnee said, "What is the park's policy for when guess get hurt, either as a result of their own devices or because of," mum Schnee gestured, significantly, "park infrastructure problems?"
"Oh, I asked one of the maids to work a flesh tailor's office here. That's also where we make the mascot costumes!" Weiss said. She pontificated theatrically.
Then Weiss coughed and her voice was more serious. "Also, the park would like to officially assure all guests that no actual human or faunus parts are used in the making of any of our mascot costumes-"
Blake blinked.
"-and that we only use the best, most clean slaughterhouse runoff to cure for our leather."
Mum Schnee blinked. She gave a nearby park employee in a giant mouse costume a wide berth.
They moved onto the next walled area. This one was shiny and metallic and appeared the be in space, but the space parts were probably just tricks in the windows.
Weiss introduced them to this areas gimmick. "So, four months ago, I used my allowance to bribe a studio executive to let me be a director for the latest Space Wizard Space Opera in Space movie," Weiss said, "but then I got fired after a few months for creative differences."
Weiss chucked and touched her fingertips together, "Which was just as planned, because I was able to steal a bunch of costumes and set dressing on my way out of the office!"
Blake blinked. "didn't, you use that allowance for the factory?"
Weiss waved the air. "Oh, there was some left over."
"This area does have a noticeably higher quality to it," Mum Schnee said.
Weiss nodded. "Yeah."
Blake blinked again.
"So," Mum Schnee said. She pulled out her notepad again. "Was there anything particular about this section of the park you wanted to show us? "
Weiss scrunched her mouth to the side. "Well, most of what Space Wizards is about is how important things are inherited from your parents, but we already look into that in our Corporate Mouse Hereditary Monarch section."
And they went to several more micro theme parks after that. There was a pirate island, where Weiss pretended to swashbuckle with some other people dressed as pirates while Blake avoided the water from a large indoor swimming pool, and they went into an ancient temple to subtly normalize colonial acquisition of indigenous cultural artifacts under the veneer of imperialist preservation, and they briefly visited the Floss Officer Bear woods where Blake commiserated with a sad donkey and Weiss gave a short lecture on proper dental hygiene.
"Let's break for dinner!" Weiss said, after they left the last branded section.
Weiss escorted them into the hotel portion of the amusement park. It seemed a little sketchy, especially since the cartoon Corporate Mouse brand corporate corpuscles painted all around the walls were just off-model enough to seem creepy.
And since Weiss owned the park, they got one of the better rooms, for free. Weiss led them into a fancy room at the top of the hotel.
Once Weiss escorted them to their room, Blake and Mum Schnee sat down at a small table with an ornate tablecloth, and the chairs seemed sturdy enough. Someone dressed in a chef uniform, who's puffy chef's hat had mouse ears sticking out of it, gave them three fancy silver platters with meat sandwiches and shredded, fried potato pieces.
"These are official Corporate Mouse Burgers! And fries." Weiss pontificated theatrically.
"I thought you said you didn't lease the Corporate Mouse brand namesake?" Mum Schnee said.
Weiss tapped her nose and giggled. "Oh, I know, so we did a work around."
Blake grabbed the burger with both hands and took a large bit out of it. She chewed as she watched Weiss pontificate through her explanation.
"So what we did was, we rounded up mice and gave them federally backed loans to attend for profit colleges to get Business degrees," Weiss said. "And after they graduated with mountains of debt, we offered them the chance to completely forgive their student loans in exchange for getting cooked into burgers!" Weiss waved her arms.
Mum Schnee stopped chewing. She lowered her burger and swallowed. "Do you mean," she enunciated, "You sent literal mice to college, or you found Murine-aspect Faunus to volunteer to be food?"
"Oh!" Weiss said, "That reminds me- the Food and Drug Administration told us we can't actually call it 'food'; so technically, they're edible souvenirs."
Mum Schnee put her burger down on the plate and cleared her throat.
Having since finished her own dinner but still being hungry, Blake grabbed Mum Schnee's partially eaten burger and stuffed it into her mouth.
After dinner, Weiss led them back into the main square. The sun was setting, which meant that the fancy lighting the park was adorned with got to shine.
"Every night, we do a parade through the main square with all the character actors!" Weiss said.
"And Dad wanted to lead the parade as Silly Hat Musical Man."
"which version?"
"The original one," Weiss said, "He said the songs the remake added were superfluous and undermined the inherent whimsy of the original telling."
Mum Schnee glanced at the horizon and made a sigh that was simultaneously a smile. "That sounds right."
"And, I," Weiss brought a hand to her chest, and her other hand to her medical eyepatch, "Am going to be the Perpetually Tipsy Pirate Washout!"
Weiss ducked around a corner, and a moment later she returned having replaced her medical eye-patch with a pirate eye-patch, and her button down shirt and skirt with a buckaneer's tunic and the kind of pants that let you wade in water without getting too uncomfortably wet.
Weiss pontificated theatrically with a cutlass and a fake hook hand. "Arg avast and all that jazz!" she said.
Blake blinked.
Mum Schnee blinked.
"C'mon, it's an amusement park, so we get to go play in it!"
"why do we need costumes to do that?"
"Silly Blakey- it's, because of the parade!" Weiss said, "If you're playing for a cause, you need a costume!"
Blake blinked.
"Um," Weiss glanced at her mother, "I guess, by that token, you should also get a costume, mom. If, you want to be in the parade..."
Blake smirked. "she can be the evil stepmother from Cautionary Tale Against Non-Traditional Family Units."
Mum Schnee glared at Blake. "I have never been anyone's stepmother," Mum Schnee said, "So if anything I would be the evil queen."
"Oh! Um, well, there's an adult's changing room down the hall," Weiss said. She pointed. Then she turned to Blake. "And Blake, you have to be one of the princesses, because you're so beautiful!"
Blake blinked. Then she panicked, but with her ninja skills she managed to keep it out of control.
Mum Schnee put a hand on Blake's shoulder. "Weiss, sweetie, I don't think Blake is similar enough to any existing Corporate Mouse brand Hereditary monarchs to be able to dress up as any of them to participate in the parade."
Blake exhaled. She looked at Mum Schnee for a half second. Mum Schnee's face was impassive.
"Well, then," Weiss said, " We can just make up a new one! Oo oo- and I can show you the Hereditary Monarch Castle now, too! It's the best part."
Weiss pushed Blake by the shoulders towards a wall, that turned out to be an optical illusion once you got close enough.
"There's a whole set of hidden infrastructure in place for the staff," Weiss said, "That includes tunnels to secretly run around the park when nobody's looking, warehouses of extra merchandise and spare mascot costumes, subservience rooms and an armory, and also a vending machine!"
Weiss pushed Blake by the shoulders into one of the side rooms. There were racks of clothes along the sides, and one wall was set with mirrors and counters, with small sinks and little boxes of human face paints aligned there. A couple people were already here, doing various prepatory things.
"Sit tight, Blakey-" Weiss said, "I'll go get someone to help you get into your costume!"
And the door closed behind her.
Blake wandered around the room, observing the clothes and some of the mirrors.
And in the corner, was one particular pale, tweaked-out teenager whom Blake vaguely recalled having played a recalcitrant antagonist for a family of comedians who regularly found themselves in humerous situations on a TV show, years ago.
But what was important now was, that this teenager was playing with a piece of string, giggling, with unfocused eyes.
Playing with her piece of string.
Blake narrowed her eyes and stalked up to the unsuspecting teen.
And Blake lunged, grappling the piece of string out of the teen's hand, before jumping backwards into a more defensible position.
The teenager's eyes slowly, sequentially, focused on Blake. "'ey, that's mine!"
And Blake successfully parried the first two clumsy strikes and back-flipped into a ready stance, pocketing her hard-won piece of string as she did.
Blake lowered her center of gravity, preparing to counter her opponent's next blow, but when the teenager lunged
the teen flailed both limbs and spun, striking Blake during the motion.
That took Blake off guard, and suddenly the teenager's movements became less predictable, and any strike Blake managed to land seemed to just get absorbed into her opponent's weird dance fight.
But eventually, Blake was victorious, with the teenager fallen to the ground, in a pile of slightly-damaged Corporate Mouse brand props. Blake placed her foot on the teen's back, to cement her victory. "looks like you're," Blake intoned. She allowed herself a smirk. "all strung out."
The teenager blinked.
Blake returned to her own corner of the room, to play with her piece of string.
"Uggh, fine," moaned the teenager, "I'll find something else to look a- oh! A doily."
And the teenager started playing with one of those weird embroidered things you put drinks on, giggling, with unfocused eyes.
And then the door opened again. Weiss entered, accompanied by the stocky maid.
Weiss looked at Blake and frowned.
"Is everything okay, Blakey?" Weiss said, with a tinge of concern.
Blake nodded, and used her ninja techniques to conceal the evidence of the damage she had sustained during the fight.
"Well, anyway-" Weiss turned to the maid and gestured, theatrically, "She's already so beautiful, but do your best!"
Blake sat on a chair as the stocky maid did aesthetic styling to her hair.
"Weiss certainly has an imagination, doesn't she?" said the maid.
Blake nodded. "she imagines we enjoy this."
The stocky maid suppressed a giggle. "You say you don't enjoy this, not even a little?"
Blake scrunched her mouth to the side. She glanced at the wall. "i suppose it is not the worst possible thing."
The maid suppressed another giggle. "Oh? Do you like getting dressed up and pretending to be a princess?"
Blake stuck her tongue out.
"Or maybe you like that it gives Weiss an excuse to fawn over you?"
Blake glanced at the ground. She tried to keep her face neutral.
The stocky maid finished with Blake's eye paints and moved to attend to Blake's hair. "Perhaps it is Weiss who enjoys this mostly because it gives her an excuse to fawn over you?"
"does Weiss need an excuse for that?"
The stocky maid didn't suppress her giggle this time. "Well, I suppose not. You can look at this as just being an extension of her normal play, with a higher budget and more co-conspirators."
Blake's expression flattened.
"Guilty as charged, but I'm not just doing it for Weiss. I enjoy pretending, and dressing up. I like the melodrama. And of course, I partake in the rituals of materialistic hedonism via shared brand loyalty to the Corporate Mouse, same as Weiss."
Blake considered commenting that it sounded like the maid had been spending too much time around Weiss, but Blake figured, that it was probably true.
"Now, then," said the maid. Blake's hair was released and the maid procured a box of facepaints. "I understand that the missus has been instructing you in make-up application," said the maid. "I would have offered myself, but I think it was more of the Missus's place to teach you that."
Blake didn't quite understand why that would be so, but she figured it was just a weird human ritual.
"Now, I understand you have taken to Goth styles," said the maid.
Blake scrunched her mouth to the side. It was actually more of a ninja shadow warrior style, but goth was a simple approximation for the untrained eye. Blake attempted to relay this information.
"I see," said the maid, appearing to stifle another giggle. "I'll do my best, then."
And after Blake was made up until her face sufficiently resembled a ninja shadow warrior, she had to pick out the rest of her outfit.
Blake tried on three dresses and she settled on a nice knee-length dress that was sufficiently lethal and efficient looking, with just the right amount of frills.
"And you know what the final ingredient is," said the stocky maid, after Blake was otherwise completed in her ensemble.
Blake sighed. The thing was, Weiss desiring her wasn't all that special anymore. Not that, it was ever special to begin with, or that Blake liked it.
"Well, I can understand if you feel that way,", said the Maid, "But just like how a formal park might spark the lady's excitement in a way just another regular pillow fort might not, perhaps simply repeating familiar feelings and old rituals in new circumstances is enough to justify the existence of the new circumstances?"
Blake pondered that point.
And so, Blake was dressed in a big poofy dress, and her hair was made all fancy and there was some facepaints around her eyes and cheeks to make them look cooler.
Blake stepped out of the dressing room.
"Eeek!" Weiss yelled. She hopped on her toes, before jumping into a hug at Blake. "You're so beautiful, Blakey!"
Blake allowed the hug, and the subsequent nuzzle.
After Weiss had her fill, she stepped out of the hug and took Blake's hand and led her down the hallway.
"Now, c'mon, Blake! We have just enough time to show you to the Corporate Mouse Brand Hereditary Monarch area before you get on the float with them!"
Weiss pushed Blake into another room.
There was an ostentatiously decorated room, meant to evoke conspicuous royalty and performative hedonism. Blake saw several former child stars dressed as the Sleepy Hereditary Monarch, the Military-themed Hereditary Monarch, and the Class Traitor Hereditary Monarch, who used to be a peasant but forsook the honest, simple life for one of decadent idolatry built on the laborer's back. "The masses are not fit to rule themselves!" they chanted in unison, the monarch's motto.
Blake's expression flattened.
"Alright, they'll give you the rundown on what you need to do. Mostly, you just stand on the float and sing along!"
Blake stood around during the parade, but she didn't sing. Ever.
- A Possible Future -
Weiss and Blake are in their dorm room, on their bed, just existing near each other, Weiss lying partially on Blake's lap. Its nice.
Weiss missed that- just, being there, together. Blake's reading, and Weiss is doing nothing in particular, and How just being near someone you cared for made you happy. Sure, back when they were younger, it had a slightly different feeling- still a happy one, but maybe, a more selfish, or a more naive kind of happiness, than the one afforded by being a slightly more mature, slightly more adult.
"So, um," Weiss begins, breaking the silence. "About, snuggling..."
Blake pulls away and looks Weiss in the eyes. She pouts. "What is it, Weiss?"
"Snuggling's fun, right?"
Blake nods. "It is..."
"But it's, like, not necessarily, going to lead to," Weiss waves the air, "Anything more than that..."
Blake blinks, then she nods again, more confidently, and she smiles. "Oh! Yeah, you can snuggle with me anytime you want, Weiss."
"Oh! Yeah, okay, good to know," Weiss said. She bites her bottom lip, real quick, "I was, actually asking um, something else..."
Blake looks Weiss in the eyes, expectantly.
"Did you, snuggle with Ruby all that much?" Weiss says, postponing what she really wants to say.
Blake frowns. "I- well," Blake says. She then refreshed her smile and then nuzzles Weiss's neck. "Don't worry, she was a lot less snugly than you, Weiss~"
Weiss's cheeks heat up at that. "oh! Um, no, I mean-
Blake waits for Weiss to clarify.
"Well, um, the first few months we were here," Weiss says, to the ground, "I, uh, also, had, someone else I, hung out with..."
Blake scrunched her mouth to the side. "I guess that's to be expected. And, it's good you had someone to hang out with, when I was, off doing my own thing..."
Weiss makes a smile. "And, Yang's pretty, snuggly..."
Blake's expression flattens, slightly, but she manages to keep it on the happy side of nonchalant.
"Ah, Yang and I are, platonic cuddle buddies..."
Blake scrunches her mouth "'Are?'"
"Well, um," Weiss said, "I mean, I've spent most of my time with you, since we- you know- but like, if that's okay with you, I wasn't, going to stop?"
Blake smushes her lips together. "I'm not going to tell you what to do, Weiss."
"But you can- and should!- tell me, what you'd like me to do? As your, um," Weiss glances away for two seconds. "As your girlfriend?"
Blake folds her arms. "Well, I should think I shouldn't have to tell you to prioritize your girlfriend..."
Weiss tries to smile conciliatory. "Of course I do! And I'm not going to date anyone else while I'm dating you- but like- Yang is pretty fun to hug..."
Blake looks skeptical. But luckily, there's an easy way to settle this dispute.
So later that day, Blake is sitting on the couch, and her conversations with Weiss had been terse and strained, up to this moment.
And then Yang comes in, and Weiss greets her.
Blake is trying to suppress a frown, but she does let Weiss go and do her platonic friendship hugs with someone who isn't her.
And Weiss is a little more self-conscious this time, about how the act of snuggling appears. She stays more still, and merely rests her face on Yang's shoulder as they just lean against each other.
And after a few minutes of snuggling, Weiss pulls Blake into the hug too. Blake seems content as the application of lateral pressure to her torso causes the release
"Okay, fine," Blake grumbles, "This isn't bad."
Yang chuckles. Weiss exhales in relief.
"I guess its okay if you snuggle with my Weiss," Blake says.
Yang smirches her trademark smirk ."Heh, good to hear."
And then Blake exits the hug, and grabs Weiss's arm. She hugs Weiss's head to her chest. Weiss suppresses a squeak.
"But only her top half. Her lower part is mine," Blake says.
"Oh, okay," Yang says, as if it's the most normal thing in the world, as if she doesn't get the undertones of what Blake's suggesting. And, to be fair, she probably doesn't. Bless her heart.
Weiss blushes, and she's glad that Yang can't see her face.
- PRESENT DAY -
And once the horrible cavalcade of music and being in public was over, Weiss pulled Blake from her float, away from the other Hereditary Monarchs.
"So what'd you think of the parade, Blakey?" Weiss said.
Blake cleared her throat. "flat during chorus-"
"nooooo~," Weiss said. She threw her head back and to the side. "i mean, what did you think of the holistic experience? Of Corporate mouse land in general, and of the parade in particular?"
Blake cogitated as she tried to find some way to succinctly summarize how she felt.
"its okay."
"Yay!" Weiss said. She hugged Blake. "I'm glad you like it! How about the rest of the park?"
"production values could be better-"
"Noooooooo~" Weiss said. She threw her head back and to the other side. "Sure, it may not be the most expensive endeavor ever, but don't you know, Blakey, that Corporate Mouse is a feeling that lives on in your heart? "
"Its funny that you say that," said a woman, "Because he's also, among other things, a legal entity, with a formal and exclusive right to his intellectual property."
Blake turned to the newcomer. It was the tooth fairy, except in a business suit.
Mum Schnee grimaced with the right half of her mouth. "Ah, there's the other shoe, then."
"Oh!" Weiss said. She released Blake and ran up to the tooth fairy. "Are you here to help with the park?"
The tooth fairy blinked. "No- "
"See, Blake and Mom want me to be the ice-themed Corporate Mouse Brand Hereditary Monarch," Weiss said. She pouted. "But you have a better hair color for her."
The tooth fairy scrunched her mouth to the side. "She is my favorite...-" Then she shook her head, "But that's not actually why I'm here- "
"Then, you're here to harvest all the teeth that get lost in some of the more exciting rides?"
The tooth fairy blinked. "Does- never-mind. The reason I'm here, Weiss, is to give you a cease and distress order," Said the tooth fairy. She pulled out a briefcase, and a stack of papers from the briefcase.
"do you mean, 'cease and desist?'
"I do not," said the tooth fairy. She pulled out a notepad for reference. ""I had to come see for myself, and I've verified that you are in violation of at least 52 copyright violations, at least as well as several safety ordinances, but I'll have to be in a different costume before I start pursuing those. aha."
Weiss winked. "Copyright?"
"Yes, because the Mouse has prior ownership over the concept of an amusement park based on all the brands accumulated by the conglomerate."
Weiss scrunched her mouth to the side. "Hmm. Are you sure?"
The tooth fairy blinked. "Yes."
"But, what if, we change the spelling of it? Like, we call it 'Corpit Mows Land'?"
The tooth fairy scrunched her mouth. "Yeah, no."
"How about, if we never formally open, but we keep the park in open beta?"
"Not gonna fly either."
"Hmm, then I suppose the only thing for it," Weiss said. She confidently strode towards the big hotel. "Is to dispute the matter in private arbitration. Care to join me in one of our dedicated business rooms?"
Blake blinked.
"Weiss, sweetie, before you do." Mum Schnee said. She put a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "I have something I need to tell you."
Weiss scrunched her mouth to the side. She glanced at the tooth fairy. "Do you mind?"
The Tooth fairy stood up straight and pretended she hadn't just been looking at all the dresses on the Corporate Mouse brand hereditary monarchs. "oh! Not at all. Take your time. I rented a room already."
Blake followed the Schnee's into one of the private meeting rooms nearby.
Mum Schnee stood before her daughter. She inhaled, and exhaled, once, in an exaggerated manner.
"The truth of the matter is," Mum Schnee said, "That Corporate Mouse land is real."
Weiss winked. "Well, yeah. It is now. It's right here. I made it." Weiss gestured all around her.
Mum Schnee inhaled and exhaled again. "I mean to say, is that the Corporate Mouse Corporation has for many decades maintained a chain of lucrative amusement parks and vacation cruise lines as one part of its revenue stream."
Weiss winked again. "You mean, this isn't the first Corporate mouse land?"
Mum Schnee inhaled and exhaled one last time.
"Corporate Mouse land may be a real, corporeal place," Mum Schnee said. She had her lips mushed together and her eyelids lowered, as if she were trying very hard to maintain a straight face. "But that doesn't change the fact that it is still primarily used as a hypothetical reward to present to children if they behave, and your father and I felt that it would be best if you learned the intrinsic value of good behavior,
Weiss's face was impassive.
"Well, then," Weiss said. She pulled Blake into her arms without turning her head and she looked up at her mother and pouted, slightly. "Does that mean, you can take Blake and I to the real Corporate Mouse Land sometime?"
Mum Schnee struggled against Weiss's giant wobbly eye for five heroic seconds, before she sighed and closed her eyes and gave in. "I guess so."
"Yaaaaayyy!" Weiss said. Then she hid a smirk under her fingertips and her eyes narrowed. "Heeheehee, just as planned."
"W- ahem, what was that, Weiss sweetie?" Mum schnee said, her voice wavering slightly.
Blake's expression flattened.