[PSA Vignette] Jack/all Blades: "Who Will You Choose to Be?"

[Dr Archeville]

The lights rose on the television set to reveal a pair of figures, one sitting on the whitewashed, asymmetrical platforms, the other standing slightly behind him. Although each was dressed in fanciful garb of royal blue and crimson respectively, a sombre stillness somehow robbed the costumes of their usual jaunty mischief and in its absence gave them the weight of a uniform.

The seated figured regarded the camera through his bandanna mask with a set jaw, wrists wresting on his knees. “Making friends can be tough for anybody, no matter who you are,” he noted, tilting his head to one side. “Sometimes you’re going to feel like you’d do anything to fit in. To join the group. You might feel like you have to do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

“Sometimes that can be good,” the young woman behind him clarified, stepping around to her brother’s side as the camera shifted its focus to her. “Joining a sports team, getting involved in the community or just trying new things can be great ways to enrich your life and make new friends all at once.”

Leaning back slightly, Jack of all Blades crossed his arms over his chest. “Gangs aren’t about making friends. They’ll say you have to act like them to fit in, but they just want to use you.” His tone was that of stating simple fact, honest but unrelenting.

“Stealing, doing drugs, hurting people?” Jill O’Cure shook her head slightly as she placed a gloved hand on her elder sibling’s shoulder while continuing to address the camera, dark blue eyes piercing beneath unruly black bangs and framed by her deep red mask. “That’s not right, and it’s not you.”

“There are people out there who are going to like you for who you really are,” Jack continued, a small grin pulling at one corner of the swordsman’s unusually serious face. “Those are the people who are real friends. But you’re never going to get to meet them if you throw everything away first.”

With one hand still of Jack’s shoulder, Jill gestured openly with the other. “It gets better. It really does,” the young woman promised, smiling broadly in spite of herself. “But you’ve got to hang in there until it does.”

“It’s not going to be easy. The world doesn’t owe you anything and it’s not going to be handed to you on a silver plater,” Jack told the camera sternly, raising one eyebrow as if to stifle any interruptions. “So this is the part where you earn it. Where you show the world who you really are and the good you can do.”

“You’re not alone, and you’re a lot stronger than you know.” Jill took a seat on another platform, placing her hands in her jacket as her grin pulled back to a small, reassuring smile.

Jack pointed jauntily at the camera. “Just fitting in isn’t what makes you cool. The choices you make are. So.” Pulling his hand back, the fencer jerked his chin upward, waiting for a response. “Who will you choose to be?”