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i-am-the-entertainer · 5 years

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RevieWBY: Volume 6

This has been stated so many times, but Volume 5 was bad. Okay, it wasn’t terrible, like I don’t feel offended by it being bad (unlike certain folks), but looking back on it I don’t have anything to say to really defend it as something Rooster Teeth should have talked up as much as they did at the time. It had some good things going for it, but the amount of problems it had in terms of animation and writing really put a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. So for Volume 6 to deal with all that fallout, it was going to have to do a lot. And to their credit, CRWBY accepted the criticism in stride, and actively worked to make Volume 6 something that people who despised Volume 5 might enjoy.

Still, one had to go into this season with the understanding that some people were never going to be completely satisfied with whatever CRWBY did. Because at the end of the day, the RWBY that Rooster Teeth currently makes is not Monty Oum’s show anymore. No, this isn’t saying CRWBY is in any way disrespecting his legacy, it’s just Monty Oum had a certain method to running the show that only he could really get away with: epic fight scenes, suddenly throwing giant curveballs into the series’ mythology, taking vital time away from storytelling so the fights looked cool. I mean, there are people who criticize the show for doing that now when they didn’t give two shits when Monty did it, because Monty did it in a manner that somehow worked. I don’t know how he did it, but he did, and, well, he’s not here to do it, and there’s no way even a huge animation team can collectively do things like him. And they shouldn’t: if they can use a better industry standard animation engine than Poser, than the fact that Monty Oum didn’t like animating with Maya shouldn’t stop them.

Blah blah blah...this is all about FNDM reception. What did I think of Volume 6?

Well...

Focus

In my mid-volume review I cited this as Volume 6′s strongest aspect, and as far as I can tell this remains the case. By focusing our hero storyline on one group and for the most part the villain storylines on only a few characters who were paired off, Volume 6 effectively told a story that didn’t force the viewers to juggle multiple things and find some semblance of a continuing story. Everything happened linearly and the whole thing made for a more enjoyable watch overall.

Tone

Building off of that renewed focus, this volume felt like it had more of a consistent tone that lasted from beginning to end. RWBY markets itself as an anime show and uses a lot of that anime-style of humor (slapstick and comedically exaggerated emotions), but honestly it’s always played fast and loose with using that humor in a way that doesn’t feel out of place. In this volume it was more consistently used, and that’s largely thanks to the nailed down focus that allowed character interactions to utilize the humor in a natural way. Ruby and Maria Calavera were especially good sources for humor.

Now, things did get a little more screwball when Cordovin came into the mix, but it was interesting seeing CRWBY take that humor to a logical extreme for the first time in a while (not since the Beacon years). It interrupted the tone for a bit, but not in a manner that overall changed the genre this show is going for.

Animation

Beautiful. The improved production pipeline that we’ve heard about really came through. These episodes were the best they’ve ever looked, minus a few errors here and there, showing just how amazing RWBY can look when you give the animators time to add their own touches. There was some really great fight animation to boot: none of the fights this volume felt awkward, and you could tell the animators had a lot of fun.

Worldbuilding/Storytelling

It feels weird saying that Volume 6 did a better job with worldbuilding than Volume 4, which took place on four different continents and traveled across one, and Volume 5, which took place on two different continents and featured the second major skirmish between the villains and the heroes. I think this has to do with just how well it was integrated into the story: insight into the world came at points where the story needed it and when the viewers wanted it. Nothing ever felt like a massive info dump better suited World of Remnant; where there was just too much information delivered that wasn’t relevant to what was happening in the show. Volumes 4 and 5 had this same problem with establishing the world, often telling us too much in a way that just didn’t feel natural to the story. With Volume 6, almost every chapter up until the final Argus arc included some form of that insight:

Chapter 1 showed us how ordinary civilians deal with traveling through Grimm territory––the steps they take to protect themselves

Chapter 2 showed us some aspects of the Mistral criminal underground, not telling us too much about it but suggesting it was much larger than what Cinder encountered.

Chapter 3 showed us...so many things.

Chapter 4 offered a sense of the stakes RWBY faced in relation to all of Remnant.

Chapter 5 and 6 gave us a glimpse at another form of non-city life in Remnant.

Chapter 7 introduced us to Argus, my favorite of all the Remnant cities we’ve seen; plus a glimpse into the life of the silver-eyed warriors; and a more representative depiction of what domestic life is like in Remnant

Chapter 8 told us what Atlas personnel who aren’t Ironwood or Winter are like, plus the long-awaited insight into how the silver eyes work.

Chapter 9 shows something of the effect the Battle of Beacon, and by extension Pyrrha’s death, had outside of our core group.

Things kind of teeter off with the finale arc, but that’s because worldbuilding became a little less important to what was going on. This is kind of a stretch, but the mech fight and the arrival of the Grimm in Argus give us an idea of how large non-capital cities defend themselves without just spelling everything out.

All in all, this volume delivered on some impressive worldbuilding, probably the best the series has had in a while. It wasn’t massive info dumps unless it needed to be (e.g. Chapter 3), and it offered just enough for other important things like the storytelling and the action to still be in the forefront.

Characters

Volume 5, despite the fact it involved the major reunion of Team RWBY after two volumes, felt like it was simply putting the main characters through situations without those situations really doing anything to develop them or define them as anything beyond what we already knew. Some characters fared better on the development front, namely Yang, but others, especially Ruby, just seemed to be along for the ride without us getting any insight into them. This is where the writing issue that came from separating everyone starting with Volume 4 really came to a head: too many different characters with their own story to cover, and sometimes those stories just didn’t do much for the character beyond existing as a situation they were in.

Volume 6 feels like the refutal of that, and that mostly has to do with the fact that we’re not juggling so many storylines anymore. When a major event happens to the heroes, everyone gets affected at the same time. The train crashes? DEVELOPMENT! Jinn’s story? DEVELOPMENT AND INSIGHT! Snowstorm? INSIGHT! The Apathy? DEVELOPMENT! Telling team JNR about Jinn’s story? DEVELOPMENT! Adam ambushes Blake and Yang for the first time since Volume 3? DEVELOPMENT! WITH A HEALTHY DOSAGE OF ANGST!

Surprisingly, the same thing is happening to two of our favorite villains, Mercury and Emerald: even though they only really appeared in three chapters this Volume, we actually got a surprising chance to see how their defeat at the Battle of Haven affected them, and their increasingly strong misgivings about working for Salem. We get more of an idea of them as people rather than Cinder’s blind followers, understanding why they stuck with such an evil person for so long. It’s the most we’ve learned about them since Volume 3, and we didn’t even need lengthy flashbacks.

Even Adam got some more insight. RWBY has been following the path that Adam was an abusive ex-boyfriend for quite a while now, but there was always this underlying thought that he got into the White Fang business for a seemingly noble cause. The problem was the show hadn’t depicted how he got from Point A to Point B. The Adam Character Short offered us some of that much needed insight, putting some of his actions up to this point in a new context, even if it was set-up for clearing up some things so they could get rid of him.

Of course, there are still exceptions to characters getting character development, and honestly they’re kind of glaring ones. Oscar’s development arc, where he came to accept he was his own person, completely happened offscreen (for reasons that I’ve brought up before and will reiterate in the final section), robbing us of really witnessing his growth as a person. I enjoyed some of the stuff Cinder did this volume, especially her escape from the vault and her fight with Neo. But honestly she continues to be a pretty bland villain with little hints at her motivations for being such a terrible person: the Battle of Haven was such an utter defeat for her there needed to be some form of consequence that would’ve affected her character while also telling us more about her. Maybe it would’ve been her strategizing her revenge, which would’ve gotten more insight into how she thinks as a master planner. Instead, we get her leaving the vault, more or less going back to what she used to do but in a more low-key setting, fighting with Neo, plotting with Neo, and leaving with Neo. It felt more like “Hey, she’s alive, and here’s what she’s doing,” which while I appreciate it feels kind of a waste of time if you’re not doing anything with her beyond that. Honestly, a post-credits reveal that she was alive and then a pre-Volume 7 character short detailing how she made it to Atlas that covered her and Neo’s entire storyline this volume would’ve been more helpful.

Before I go on to my most major critique of this volume, I need to address the two Goliaths in the room.

Adam

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they needed to get rid of Adam. The way things have been going, there was only so much more you could do with his character before he became a nuisance that was overstaying his welcome. I understand people wanted some deeper insight into him, but the fact was he was never introduced to be a major villain to anyone beyond Blake and later Yang. They could’ve had him have a thing against Weiss, but they didn’t, they focused the time that would’ve made him a major villain for everyone else on making people like Roman and Cinder and Salem the big villains. They decided on the path of abusive ex-boyfriend a very long time ago, and if you hadn’t figured that out after the Adam Character Short I honestly think you were being willfully ignorant to what’s been building up.

The best I can say is that Adam and his history is a missed opportunity for some pretty interesting storytelling and worldbuilding, but the fact remains: it is not his story that they want to tell, it is not his show. It may make something interesting to think about, but Adam’s story is supplementary, and works better in supplementary material, a la character shorts and maybe mangas.

Jaune

Y’all need to quit it with the “Hrrr drr Jaune took up time again moan moan Miles Luna is self indulgent” talk, he barely did anything this volume beyond Chapter 9 and having a sister that the whole fandom loved.

Pacing

This...this is where Volume 6 ran into trouble.

Overall, from the season premiere to the finale arc, this was probably the best-paced season of RWBY we’ve ever had. Major story events happened right when we needed them, and for the most part they didn’t drag out story arcs for any longer than they needed to be.

Well...until they reached Argus, that is.

At face value, a lot happened in the final couple of chapters. Chapter 8 gave us Maria explaining the silver eyes, Chapter 9 had the scene with Pyrrha’s statue and the mysterious Red-Haired Woman (I’ll headcanon whatever I want about who she is, Jen Brown) Chapter 10 started the Cordovin fight, Chapter 11 reinforced Blake and Yang’s partnership, Chapter 12 killed Adam, and Chapter 13 had Ruby finally use her silver eye powers to defeat a Grimm and they made it to Atlas. Yeah, it was a pretty eventful set of episodes.

So then why did it feel like it dragged? Here are a couple reasons that I’ve identified.

1. The Cordovin Battle sidelined story arcs for too long

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the finale arc should not have been split up like that over so many episodes. It afforded us some pretty well-animated fights, some of the best the series has ever had, but the volume hadn’t been relying on that action to keep up the forward momentum, but on actually telling the stories of these characters. I get the need for CRWBY to prove that they can do well-animated fights, but as I’ve come to accept action should never take precedence over storytelling (I know, that’s hard to swallow when parts of the fndm spends hours complaining about how Monty’s not animating the fights anymore). And it’s clear to me in this final arc put emphasis on the action over the momentum of the story, bringing the actually pretty good storytelling the volume had had up to that point to a grinding halt.

Now, historically RWBY fights have delayed telling stories, but it’s never been for too long, at most maybe two chapters? But if you spend three chapters on a single fight, thereby devoting three weeks of your viewers’ time to high-octane action, people are gonna notice that the story is basically going nowhere.

What could’ve made this less of a problem? Well, perhaps establishing Cordovin earlier and making her less of a buffoon would’ve eased my hatred of this arc. Volume 6 lacks a clear antagonist for the story, but the way Cordovin was treated as a big deal in this final battle made it seem like she was taking up that role, except we didn’t even see her until the final half of the volume, and in her debut we couldn’t take her seriously as a villain, much less an antagonist, because of the pure comedy they used in her intro. There needed to be something about her at least a few episodes early––take this with a grain of salt because I think following JNR in Argus would’ve killed the balanced pacing of the first half of the volume (and just made the Jaune haters apoplectic), but maybe a few quick scenes of JNR arriving in Argus and getting rejected by her would’ve been helpful. Or honestly easing off on the comedy of her intro. Such a one-note character who we are primed to not take seriously isn’t interesting as a major force, so identifying her as a more threatening roadblock for the heroes would’ve made the stakes of the final fight a little more...present.

2. Important storylines got trimmed for time’s sake and weren’t addressed properly.

@hypeathon (whose excellent production analyses for this Volume are well worth a read) identified a tweet Miles made back in October, prior to the premiere and most likely when they were finishing storyboards, about “killing your darlings.” For those unaware and who may have severely misinterpreted that comment, “killing your darlings” is when writers have to sacrifice something they love or want to do so that the story works better. The timeliness of this tweet (after they would’ve finished the script but before they’d wrapped on storyboards and voice acting for the final episodes) suggests the writers’ room had to cut a lot of material from Volume 6 (what Miles called a massacre of darlings), most likely due to production limits or not having enough time to cover them.

Think about it: the story from Chapters 1-7 was really good: everything was properly spaced out, the scripts felt polished, there was a balance of action and comedy and legit storytelling, the good pacing lasted longer than it ever has within a single volume.

Then we hit Chapter 8 and suddenly it all changes: storylines don’t get the proper time devoted to them, arcs come to a screeching halt due to the big fight. Unlike previous volumes, where the imbalance was pretty much the entire volume, there’s actually a clear point right in the middle of this volume where things suddenly took a turn for the worse. And the fact is, some of the problems with the story in the final arc suddenly make more sense if you accept that time that would’ve been devoted to it got sidelined in this “purge”: Qrow’s alcoholism suddenly getting brushed aside after Chapter 9 hopefully to be addressed next volume, Oscar disappearing and all his development happening offscreen, Adam’s completely unsubtle return after only a vague hint in Chapter 1 that would’ve been stronger if he’d kept popping up in Argus. I’d even go so far to say the odd pacing of the final few chapters could easily have been the result of the writing team not being able to devote a single chapter to such a grand fight, so they needed to stretch it out so CRWBY could actually animate it within reasonable deadlines, which meant sacrificing time for those arcs that so desperately needed development.

So what overall is gonna fix RWBY’s pacing in the future? Well, I think at the moment the show is too ambitious. If it wants to keep to a reasonable production schedule, they need to control the scale of their finales so that it can be completed without needing to sacrifice other storylines. If it wants to hold onto that ambition and make the finales as grand as they want it to be to do their boy Monty proud, then they absolutely need to delay the actual release of the volume so they can put in the proper amount of time to both the story and animation. And I don’t think anyone would mind waiting a little longer for Volume 7 if it meant this show got the care and attention it needs to tell the story it clearly wants to tell.

Conclusions

Evaluating Volume 6 is impossible without evaluating what came before it. RWBY was never a perfect show, but when you lose someone who was responsible for the show’s popularity in the first place and have to change how it’s made to make up for his absence, there’s going to be backlash. Backlash from the fans, and, uh, backlash from inside the company. The fact is, people are never going to be satisfied with the RWBY that Rooster Teeth makes today, and Rooster Teeth is never going to push out a RWBY that will make everyone happy. All they can really do is keep moving forward.

And move forward they did. Despite my problems with the finale, Volume 6 was good. I’ve always been sort of ambivalent about the show (I was drawn to it by my brother shortly before Monty’s death and have been watching it out of respect for him and the company as creative artists), and even if I thought some of RWBY’s critics were being too harsh (or seriously needed to find something better to do), I didn’t find Volumes 4 and 5 enjoyable enough that I felt like defending them. But guys, Volume 6 did something amazing: it made RWBY fun to watch again. Focused, consistent, and compelling storytelling plus gradually eased-in worldbuilding made for a story that I could follow along without having to juggle so many different plots. Improvements in the overall animation made things nice to look at and when fights happened they were always entertaining, never making me cringe or grimace, always making me think “Hell yeah, beat the shit out of them!” Just like I felt back in the old days of the show.

I feel as though what’s holding RWBY back at this point, however, is adhering to the production schedule that its old vision called for in making its current vision. And it honestly cannot keep doing that. RWBY is a show trying to reach grand heights, and its rushed production timelines and lost story arcs are keeping it tethered to the ground. Yet I can’t help but say: Volume 6 is RWBY at its finest so far. It can’t fix the problems that previous volumes have had, but it builds on the void those problems left to build a story that makes this show feel like something worth following once more.

So, I can safely say I’ll be following along when RWBY returns for Volume 7...hopefully later rather than sooner (again, it needs a better production schedule).

#rwby #rwby6 #reviewby #crtq

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malice-and-macarons · 7 years

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Getting Lost In The Con (2/?)

And so we continue. I’m keeping these relatively short.

... ... Once upon a time Ryan had remarked on Jack's uncanny ability to overcome the traditional methods of separating a man from his soul.

At the time Fontaine had a good laugh at the old bastard's expense, but now he was on the other side of that particular obstacle and it was markedly less amusing.

The headache he'd hoped to chase away with what he'd expected to be slightly less potent alcohol was about as persistent as Jack was. All this watered down booze from Rapture must have made him weak to the real good stuff because Fontaine could feel himself slipping into the bottle bit by bit.

Not that it came through in how he spoke to Jack.

Taunts, jeers, a slew of unfriendly advice to contrast his once so helpful nature. All of it was delivered smoothly, viciously, not a hint of his increasingly inebriated state to be heard.

Although he might not have been as damned clever as he certainly thought he was, because reviewing the things he'd let slip out his mouth Fontaine observed an unsettling trend.

For every cruelty.

"Won't make a difference when this whole place is fish food."

"You ever have a dog you gotta put down? Breaks your heart."

There was an echoing weakness.

"Kills me to turn my fist to you, but business is business. Don't let it get you down."

"Hate to see you this way, kid. Hell, I was there when you were born."

"No more grifts. No more scams."

Not a single word came without some derision, the façade of regret as his every word positively oozed with mirth. To Jack it would be no different to the rest of his jeering, but to Frank the fact those words existed at all left a sour take in his mouth.

Once this trend was noticed anger slipped into the usually mocking drawl. "You think you're some kind of hero?" He'd snapped into the radio, further enraged by Jack's tightlipped attitude. "I ordered you up from Suchong like a Chinese dinner: a little from column A, a little from column B. What do you plan on going back to?" He demanded, pacing the small length of his little hole in the wall hide away.

Yet still Jack endured in his silence. He might as well have been putting answers in the kids mouth himself at this point.

"Your fake family? Your phony dreams?" He'd made that stupid bastard his family to begin with. Had the lies neatly tattooed on the inside of his head along with the chains on his wrists – a cruelty mirrored with a weakness even then.

He didn't have to give him nice memories. That was just a kindness that hadn't cost him a nickel to give – and the fucking brat wasn't even grateful for it.

"Putting you out of your misery will be the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you!" Fontaine snapped, abruptly turning the radio off and tossing it aside, livid when he hadn't gotten so much as a retort out of the kid.

This silent treatment was incredibly frustrating. Anything would have done, an angry word or a tear – fucking anything would have done but the kid was so god damn quiet.

Why wouldn't he just talk to him? Even if it was to just tell him they weren't no fucking family, that he'd never be forgiven for what he'd done – anything was better than this endless silence.

This was getting out of hand, his temper flying just a little out of his control. He had to calm back down and approach the situation with a level head. Getting this worked up about the kid's lack of argument wasn't productive. "Must…must have 'ad more than I thought." Fontaine muttered, voice slurring just a bit now he was not addressing Jack anymore.

It was hardly his fault; Frank was no lightweight he just so happened to know near suicidal drinkers. Used to know. There was no one really left in Rapture to know anymore, and even on the slim chance a few old faces were still kicking around they were likely too spliced up to know their own damn name – let alone any of his. This leaky, sinking shithole was going to need a proper overhaul once the kid was dealt with – Fontaine had developed quite the distaste for those splicers, better to flush a majority of them out.

He'd keep a few around of course, someone to do the dirty work.

Fontaine was beginning to regret having been so hasty with his victory lap. Jack would have been much better suited for that dirty work but without his little mental trigger there was no way to make him do it now. Better to shut him down before he had a chance to ruin anything else.

Which was precisely what he seemed to be trying to do.

Hunting around for that lot 192 and even though Frank had successfully managed to keep the sample that Tenenbaum had taken for herself out of the kid's reach – there were others.

The first time the kid came across a vial of the stuff, Frank had taken another gulp of the whisky and did not retch as it burned on the way down this time.

By the second his control was broken and the kid had found it in his penthouse no less.

Were he not currently five seconds away from stepping out of his own secure location just to try beating the kid to within and inch of his life with his own bare hands – Fontaine might have even found it amusing when Jack had recoiled from the bear at the top of his stairs. Always had freaked the kid out. Less amusing was the part where he set the fucking thing on fire – probably wanted to do that before he could even remember hating it.

"You broke the spell?!" He shouted through the coms, once again pacing back and forth furiously. He was fucking fuming and there was nowhere for all that pent up energy to go besides the radio. "But layin' all your chips on Mother Goose – it's not like you never been double-crossed before, you know what I'm sayin'?" It was nearly worth it to see how Jack cringed, the reaction strong enough to be easily picked up on those shoddy cameras.

He might cringe now but the boy had control back in his hands and now he was heading Fontaine's way. That unstoppable killing machine that had been his ace in the hole – on its way to kill him.

Well it was enough to make a man rethink a few things.

Like say the viability that the plasmid bottles in that little safe of his.

Turning from the screens Frank knelt before his safe, ignoring the thin layer of dust that had gathered. He'd done his damndest to not so much as step close enough to brush this thing for months. But he knew the code, still crisply printed in his memory and it swung open with little more than a squeak and groan.

Inside the bottles were still glowing.

The neat row of luminescent vials presented him with a unique set of plasmids. Some would be familiar to the masses, Inferno and Winter Blast among them, but a few would be all for him. He needed only pick out a selection and trust that he'd paid the chink enough to be a thorough bastard.

For the first time since flying into a rage, Fontaine slowed down.

Gingerly handling the bottles one at a time, turning them over and inspecting the substance inside. They were beautiful, in that so horrifying it made your skin crawl sorta way. The only sort of beautiful left in Rapture he supposed.

Made for exceptional bed lamps but the idea of pumping something that glowed was not exactly most people's first through upon seeing them.

In his hands the vitals almost seemed to thrum with energy. Realistically Fontaine knew this to be his imagination adding weight to the things in fingers but there was no need for imagination when it came to what they were capable of. To this day he could not forget his first time witnessing what ADAM could do to people. Splicers were not the worst of it, not by a fucking long shot.

Still he remembers something large, warped, reaching. Something that might have once been a person, that reeked and stretched across the floor and walls – sticking to them as it writhed and twisted. Still reaching for him.

Yeah, he was under no illusions about his own moral fiber. But he'd been the one that turned from that thing, gagging while Tenenbaum and Suchong casually made remark on their initial failures with ADAM. And now that same woman played the fucking saint as though she'd not been directly responsible for that thing that nearly cost him his lunch.

It was unproductive to recall memories of that particular nightmare while holding onto a plasmid but he could just not seem to shake the imagery. However logically he was able to convince himself that was a baseless concern – this here was the goods he paid for and given that Jack was just a little too good a product he was fairly certain that these would prove to be just as effective. Better controlled too he'd wager.

Frank was by no means squeamish and he certainly was not new to the pinch of a needle in his veins. Had to curb the recreational stuff for a few reasons in the past, tended to keep to the white powder before even that became a little too dicey when balancing so many fine cons.

But ADAM was a whole other ballgame and even he hesitated before shooting up.

The echo of his own warnings ringing between his ears. He'd been the one that once upon a time told his old bodyguard Reg not to touch the things regardless of how beefed up they would have made him. Not that ol' Reggie really needed the boost. Hadn't thought about that lug for months.

Unlike the kid he knew what to expect as the needle wedged itself under his flesh. He'd braced for it as best he could, having taken a seat on his cot as he injected the first of his plasmids. Fontaine knew each one was going to knock the shit out of him but he figured that the more, lets say aggressive, of the group would pack the biggest punch. Better to start with that so as not to lose his nerve towards the end.

In hindsight he should not have been at all surprised, he'd watched the kid light up like a Christmas tree after all. But when the first drop of the enhanced electro bolt entered his system, he screamed.

It shot straight through his body, no pun intended, like a he'd been struck by a crack of lightening. Spreading across every nerve setting him alight from the inside. It was horrifying but mesmerizing as the blue energy surged up his arms, tracing along his veins, racing to take up space the fastest and then it was crackling out from under his flesh. Dancing across his fingers, lighting up everything it could reach. He was going to explode from the inside.

With the last shred of coherency he could managed Fontaine tried to keep himself anchored in place, if he went moving around now he'd be liable to do some real damage to himself. Provided this plasmid did not burn him from the inside out first.

Despite his best attempts to stay exactly where he'd sat himself down, the violence of the plasmid setting itself into his body, reworking his DNA to its particular needs knocks him clean to the floor. He was writhing, twisting, damn near shattering as the stuff made fast work of what little semblance of humanity he might have had any claim to.

And when it was Jack that went through this, hadn't he been right there to assure him all was well? Hadn't he been there to talk the little shit through the whole thing?

There was no one there as he was surely dying, but his mind conjured up voices all the same for a split second beyond his howling Frank could have sworn he heard someone calling out his name.

Which name? There were so many he'd worn…even Frank did not seem to belong to him.

But they were definitely calling his name and for that split second death didn't seem quite so bad. Not as cold or hard as he'd imagined it to be when he was still just that little runt curled in his orphanage bed. Then just like that he was gone; the world fizzled out around him and turned black.

Dying right there didn't seem so bad, so long as that imagined voice was really calling his name.

But he did not die.

Unfortunate for everyone involved he supposed. Instead Frank returned to the world slowly, struggling to make sense of reality as it came inching back to him and blurry bursts of light or sound.

As he came around the first time he found a bit of static still occasionally racing across his fingers where they splayed out, pressing against the fallen whisky bottle, holding onto it as some kind of half-baked lifeline.

He only remained in the waking world for a few seconds at a time. Coming in and out steadily, sometimes long enough to see those monitors overhead and distantly acknowledge that his little monster was not yet close enough to try and kill him. But still making steady progress. Still slugging through. Frank might have laughed at that, hard to tell as he faded back out.

During the brief moments of semi-consciousness he hallucinated.

Sometimes that imagined voice would make a return. Most often it was sharp, biting as some long lost argument stirred in his memory. Other times it was soft lyrical and usually he'd fall back under more quickly when met with that tone. Sometimes they came in pairs, young and old – human for the most part, but on occasion – a little sister.

Those little monsters were unsettling on a good day but to be imagining the glowy eyed freaks while sprawled defenselessly on the floor, it was enough to shock Frank back into reality for a few moments at a time.

And finally it all came back to him. No more fading out.

Groaning Frank heaved his heavy body up off the floor, feeling about ten years older since he'd dropped. Hopefully this feeling would diminish the longer he was back in his own head.

Blearily he glanced around and found to his relief that everything was just as he left it, no splicers had found their way in and neither had the kid.

A quick check of the screens and he saw Jack wasn't likely to find him for a fair while yet anyways, still stuck wasting his time with big daddies. Making some colossal last-ditch effort to save every single one of those little monsters now he had the time to do so.

Where the kid had picked up a sense of humanity was beyond Frank.

He sure as shit hadn't gotten it from himself, Ryan or the doctors that built him. So where had he learned a trick like that? Wasn't in his blood, wasn't in his nurturing – he just…was.

Deciding that now, as his head was working on splitting itself in two, was not the time to be thinking about that philosophical discussion Frank let the thought drop away and instead focused on righting himself instead. "First one is a bitch." He hissed under his breath and in the back of his mind an old turn of phrase resurfaced unbidden.

First time Plasmid's a real kick from a mule. But…

"Aint nothing like a fist full of lightening." He echoed, cutting over the accented memory as his fingers came crackling into life as he willed it. Yeah, okay that was something sweet.

He could see how the junkies got drunk on the power of it. He'd been known to over indulge and power had always been a pretty enticing motivation for him, so this was right up his ally.

But Fontaine was still cautious, taking the time to check himself for any immediate side effects. He'd seen users of ADAM mutate before they even shot their first bolt of lightening, lesions on their face and arms usually came first and so he checked those areas immediately.

However everything seemed to have stayed just the way it ought to. A little work-worn and a little scarred but still one hundred percent himself. As much as a man like himself could be considered authentic in any sense of the word. Perhaps not 'himself' but certainly no splicer.

Good, because he was not anywhere near close to done yet.

The first shot was rattling, he'd expected that going in, and he knew the rest wouldn't be exactly pleasant either but he had to get through them. With that walking armory heading his way he'd be in need of them all.

So he was reaching for the second bottle before the first had even truly settled in. Possibly getting a little too enthusiastic now that he could feel the lightening thrumming through his body.

Next would be the ice and then the fire, then he'd turn his attention to a few more exclusive products.

Winter blast he found to be horribly disagreeable. Not a sharp explosion as electro bolt had been but no less unpleasant. It seeped into him slowly. Inching deeper and deeper into his bones, settling there as the skin of his arms turned blue and then black right before his eyes. Numbing in seconds. Could have driven a nail right through him, flesh muscle bone and all, he wouldn't have felt so much as a twinge of pain.

Like the first time he was a little panicked by this but this time he stayed right where he was, waiting the transition out with minimal vocal complaints. He'd opted not to get off the ground this time, thinking it safer to not risk falling again. Just as well because he froze half of the floor in the time it took for the plasmid to adapt itself to his person.

Gradually the cold pulled itself back under his skin, leaving little crystals of ice along his arm and a faint blue tinge to his flesh. But he was free to move again, twitching his fingers to test for mobility. Which was tahnfkully unimpeded by the icy shell that cracked and reformed as he moved. Fontaine then found that while the numbness had not faded in its entirety, he could feel register pressure when he pulled the pads of his thumbs into the weak flesh between his thumb and forefinger. Not pain, just the recognition that he was being touched by something.

He'd barely waited for feeling to return to his fingers before scooping up the last major plasmid. Fire he found – definitely agreed with him.

It was clever of him to leave this till last he decided, having gotten better handling the experience with the first two. Had he gone for this first he might have just burnt down the whole place once his palms lit up. He'd decided to try and keep the transition controlled, let it smolder low as his skin broke open revealing smoky pots of ember where there ought to have been flesh inside.

But try as he might, Fontaine had never quite shrugged off that showman's streak.

The moment he had enough control for it Frank called up a large burst of flames, letting out a bark of laughter as the entire room lit up with the light from the fire. Already he could see the difference, he had a far greater intensity behind the flames he could conjure up.

Packing it tighter and tighter till it was a neatly shaped ball of heat, even as his invulnerable skin held it steady he could feel things around him beginning to smolder. The hotter it became, the brighter the flame, the more the red colour leeched away turning blue at its center and suddenly he was overcome with the urge to just throw it. Anywhere at all, even better if he could send the little sun he held straight through a splicer's chest.

Rationality won out in the end and Fontaine forced himself to curb the swell of destructive desire enough to not accidentally set the whole place ablaze no matter how much he might want to take these new toys out for a spin.

But oh shit…this was the stuff.

Forcing the ball to unravel slowly, making sure he did not accidentally spread ambers everywhere, Fontaine tucked the new abilities away and was once again faced with his own perfectly human arms. Not a mutation in sight, and all that power still burning way under his skin.

This was incredible.

Grinning to himself Fontaine clambered back to his feet with a newfound enthusiasm.

Let Jack crawl his way through Rapture to him, let him drag himself all the way through hell just to be met with him at the end. Let him fucking die under the weight of his disappointment when he realised he was outmaneuvered, again.

Except as his hand found its way back to the radio Fontaine's world momentarily tipped sideways. The floor came out from under him as though everything had rolled right off its axis and for a second time he was on the ground. He'd thought he was done with that, thought he'd given himself ample time to adjust but perhaps the ADAM was still crossing up his wires, figuring out how to settle into its newest host.

This time he did not recover nor did he black out. Instead left there, head still reeling from the sudden onslaught of vertigo. Even now as he lay stationary on the floor, the world continued to tip in and out of view, twisting in itself sickeningly. The legs of his desk curling inwards and out of his sight as the monitors overhead stretched wider and wider, becoming large walls of static in his eyes.

He'd had some bad trips in his time; this might just be making the list of the notable ones. At least that's what Frank thought until among all the warping something solid came into view.

A set of familiar, grim covered boots. His own he was fairly sure, but he knew for a fact he was still wearing them.

Someone else was standing there in front of the desk and the screens, figure blacked out against the flash of the monitors. For just a moment the person seemed to regard him, usually such a pause meant a bullet would not be long behind but rather than shoot Fontaine while he was down the other man turned his back on the fallen man. Hunching they placed both hands on the desk, making it solid once connecting with it.

Despite the roar of static in his ears and the nauseating twist of the world around him, Fontaine still clearly heard what the man had to say. "What the bleeding hell is he doing out there…?" He knew that voice and for a moment Fontaine was unable to make sense of hearing it again simply because he was not currently speaking.

"Hold out a bit longer, boyo." The familiar voice continued to utter as the man ratted around the desk, seeking out something besides the radio.

The accented voice getting fuzzier the further away Fontaine drifted into unconsciousness, but still he heard those final, ominous parting words.

"Just…going to set a few things straight."

As far as bad trips went, this would be the worst he decided.

#Bioshock #Frank Fontaine #fanfic #Atlas likes an entrance #Don't do drugs kids

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