Belobog was my fave main quest but a lot of it is so. Contradictory. It's like they had multiple groups doing different shit and none of them checked in with each other for consistency. And you see this so much in Gepard's profile.
So in the main quest, they made him unfailingly, unquestionably loyal to Cocolia. Gepard's character arc is him learning to question authority etc etc. And this isn't even a bad thing; that's a story worth telling! It makes good conflict between him and Serval! And I love that we got Gepard as a boss battle and I get to see him all the time in SU!
But then you look at his character stories and it's like. The complete opposite.
According to his profile, Gepard has already HAD this awakening, long before the Astral Express, and he'd already decided Cocolia sucks. Even outside of his stories, there's a pretty damning readable between him and Pela.
He even disobeyed direct orders right in front of her- he has been disobeying orders for a while now!
So I've decided I'm marrying the two different sides of this into a 1.5k fic-ish thingy, because I think there's some fun potential there with Gepard not trusting Cocolia, but still having to pretend to be a good obedient little soldier.
Anyway. I love to think of it as like. Gepard knows Cocolia has sunk into her apathy. He can see it in her eyes every time he looks at her. She doesn't care. Not about him, not about Pela, not about all his soldiers on the frontlines giving their lives to protect the citizens. And that's... It makes him bristle a bit, but ok. Gepard can deal with this. Even if Cocolia no longer cares, as long as she does her job then it's fine. Having compassion behind an action doesn't matter as much as the action itself. If Cocolia's heart is no longer swayed, then he'll just have to care twice as hard to pick up the slack. He considers it part of his duty as a captain of the guard anyway. It's fine. Gepard can deal with it.
And then, Cocolia starts coming down to the restricted zone. Issuing direct orders.
And Gepard realizes he is in way over his head.
Because Cocolia orders him to stay back and issue commands from the ramparts, away from all his comrades, away from where he can protect them.
Gepard had thought nothing could be as bad as watching a fellow guard die right next to him. But the first time he watches someone struck by a killing blow, so far away, it hurts. Every defensive scar across his arms itches, his fingers curl in want of a weapon, the cold cannot numb his hands enough as they desperately ache for his shield. It hurts.
Gepard tries to find any reason to stay. Because surely... He knows Cocolia has lost her love for her people, but surely... She wouldn't...
One day, Cocolia orders for their gunners to advance 20 yards. There are no survivors. She almost looks like she smiles.
Gepard doesn't sleep that night.
Pela brings him the report at the end of the first month; and then the month after that, and the month after that. A significant uptick in losses, and all of it started on that first day Cocolia started overriding his authority and issuing her own orders. The ends of Gepard's pens have all been nearly chewed off. Pela outright calls Cocolia an idiot, and Gepard corrects her. Cocolia isn't an idiot. Gepard had known her through Serval, knew her through all her college years and then some, and he knows how intelligent she is. It's not that she's stupid, and it's not that she's inexperienced, it's nothing of the sort.
Cocolia knows exactly what she's doing.
She must, there's no way she could make such a horrible mess of things so badly by accident. And Pela, quick as a whip, sharp as a tack, always too smart for her own good, catches onto the meaning behind Gepard's correction without any further prompting. The tent goes deathly quiet, nothing but the wind howling outside.
"...She's trying to kill us," Pela whispers, her voice swiftly suffocated by the silence.
Gepard swallows. He can't bring himself to correct her this time. There is nothing he could say that he would actually mean.
His gaze drops, back down to his desk and the reports on it. The names aren't listed, just the numbers, but Gepard knows them, knew them, and there must be something wrong, something he's missing, because why, why would she-? What could this possibly accomplish-?
“Gepard! Focus!” Something snaps right under his nose, and Gepard startles, eyes instantly honing in on Pela's irritated face as she leans over his desk. She holds his gaze for a moment before she huffs and begins to pace, wedges a knuckle between her teeth and bites like Gepard hasn't seen her do since cadet school.
Pela angrily strides from one end of his tent to the other, words hissed between her grit teeth. “What are we going to do?” In the dim lighting, Gepard can just barely see the damp spot of blood weeping under her gloves. “We need a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Wh- Yes, a plan! Unless you want more people to die!” Pela rounds on him then, all the wrath of a blizzard, winds roaring and snow sharp enough to cut.
“We don't even know-”
“What does it matter?! She killed-!!” Pela cuts off with a garbled noise when Gepard leaps up from his desk, hastily shoves his hand over her mouth. The prosthetic, not the flesh one, because he knows better than to assume Pela won't seize the opportunity to leave teeth marks in his skin.
“You're right. I'm sorry, I'm sorry; you're right. But you need to keep quiet.” Pela quirks an eyebrow at him and Gepard can read the question in her face. “Because we both saw what she did to Serval,” he hisses.
It's amazing the snow plains haven't thawed out yet, the amount of heat Pela can put behind a glare. The mere mention of Serval, and the smoking ruins Cocolia had made of her life and career, have her bristling up like a riled cat. The sudden hot breath she takes fans fog across his metal skin, and Gepard wisely keeps it in place until Pela finally sighs and reaches up, taps her fingertips against the back of his hand.
The second she's free, Pela bats him away and then her knuckle is right back between her teeth again, Gepard leaning back against his desk with his arms crossed to watch her resume her pacing. “If we spread the word, she'll have us discharged and make sure we can't even touch the frontlines,” Pela's voice seethes like an open sore. Gepard nods but keeps his silence. He knows better than to get in her way.
“And if you and I are both out of the picture, Belobog is fucked.” A little harsher than how he would have put it, but there's no denying that they're both important to the city's survival. Pela has the restricted zone running as efficiently as ever, and Gepard had become the youngest captain on record for a reason. “We need to keep this tight under wraps, at least for now… It can't leak to anyone higher up the chain.” Another nod. “Serval might know other discontents…” Another n-
Gepard's head snaps up. “No.”
“No what?”
“No. We're not involving Serval in this.”
Somehow, even the same tone that leaves entire squadrons shaking in their boots has never worked on her. “You're not deciding that for her, Gepard.”
Pela hadn't seen the worst of it, though, back when his sister had just been banned from the Architects. Serval's pride hadn't allowed it. Pela wasn't the one to find her passed out bottle still in hand, hadn't been the one to wash the sick out of her hair or carry her to bed.
Serval still has trouble thinking clearly when it comes to Cocolia, still can't quite bring herself to be objective. And Gepard maybe doesn't want her to be purely objective- but he would worry a lot less if she thought twice before she acted more often.
“At least let me be the one to bring it up to her.”
“Whatever, fine,” Pela gestures affirmatively at him as she paces past, and Gepard sighs. Good, at least that's one thing he can help.
From there, it's a lot of hemming and hawing and frustration. Cocolia has them under her boot, and Gepard and Pela both know it. Even with the way she's been cracking down on freedoms lately, Cocolia is still, overall, liked by the people. It's unlikely anyone would believe them. They don't even have solid proof, because most people don't know Cocolia as well as they do and won't see the clues in the same light.
The Fragmentum has been ramping up in recent years, too. Everyone is struggling just to survive as is, they can't afford a fight on two fronts. Gepard is a damn good captain, one of the best for that matter. But they're at a massive disadvantage, his experience is narrowed to fighting a defensive battle against monsters, that's all he's ever done. That's all anyone there has ever done. He has no way of finding first-hand knowledge for taking the offensive against a human opponent, and if he goes at this blind, there's no way he'll get everyone out unscathed. He's going to lose people. He's going to lose a lot of people.
He'd never thought before that Cocolia would have it in her to have someone killed. And with this new knowledge, he has no guarantee she won't go after Serval or Lynx if she decides to retaliate.
Gepard has to remind himself to breathe when he realizes this.
Pela writes down every name the two of them can come up with. Lists and lists of names and groups and anyone they can think of who might be an ally in all of this. They memorize every bit of it, make their plans of who to talk to and when. Gepard watches the sparks reflect off Pela's glasses as they burn the evidence together.
Pela finally leaves, far too late to make it home, but says she wants to stay in the restricted zone anyway to investigate. Gepard watches her make her way in the direction of Dunn's tent, watches her back until she's out of his sight and squashes down the urge to follow and keep an eye on her. His tent feels empty.
In the morning, Gepard is up before the wake up bells. He drags himself out of bed, leads his soldiers through their morning training. The same people gravitate to each other everyday. Friend groups and training partners. There's an ongoing rivalry between a few squadrons that everyone bets on. Some of them have lockets around their necks, keepsakes, mementos. Some of them wear wedding rings.
Gepard is suddenly, painfully aware of something acidic clawing at the inside of his throat, of a heavy weight low in his chest that blooms, takes up room until it threatens to spread his ribs. His mouth tastes of bile and blood.
He rearranges the schedules. Puts himself down for every open patrol into the Fragmentum, makes sure he'll be on the frontlines every single time Cocolia visits.
He only hopes that it's enough.
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anything on 13 and 14 for the bigeneration?
-since there’s already two of them, fourteen never gets shot, which means fifteen won’t be around for a while yet 😔. it also means that both the doctors play their own games against the toymaker! fourteen sticks with highest card, thirteen goes with mario kart (and wins, for the record. yes she will be holding the fact that she won her game and fourteen lost over his head forever. oh what’s that his game was pure chance and doesn’t have anything to do with his level of skill? tough)
-donna's spare room only has one bed, and they argue over who gets it for like an hour (thirteen's like i sleep on the floor a lot anyway it's fine you take the bed and fourteen's like you literally died like 5 hours ago YOU take the bed) until donna's like Why Doesn't Somebody Take The Fucking Sofa. that somebody is thirteen bc fourteen's really tall lmao. donna comes downstairs the next morning to find fourteen curled up on the floor next to the sofa anyway and is like hm i sure hope this won't be representative of their general relationship!
-for the first week, thirteen is very much not fun to be around for reasons of she literally just fucking died and was kind of hoping that it would mean she didn't have to deal with any of that unresolved trauma (spoiler alert it's still there but It's Worse Now). eventually even fourteen starts avoiding her, which makes it ten times worse (turns out she's uh kinda bleeding psychically. that's what happens when two aliens rip open your memories again and again and then your best enemy forces a regeneration on you). this goes on until she snaps at rose, at which point donna sits her down in the shed and is like we're going to talk or else i will physically kick you out. an hour (and a lot of tears) later she brings fourteen in too. they end up having semi regular check in sessions after that and it really does help
-around a month in, they just Vanish and the tardis is gone too, and donna's like well they could've left a fucking note. but i get it. and then rose is like mum come look!!! and takes her into the shed, which is now bigger on the inside and has two full rooms, one with rose's workshop (now with a bunch of vintage sewing and knitting machines in) and one with the tardis and a hammock (for thirteen) and a sofa bed (for fourteen). donna's like oh you definitely should be in seperate rooms you guys are unhealthily close and they're like we can't hear you over our amazing coping methods
-yeah they're like. really codependent. they also have vastly different ways of getting comfort (fourteen needs to be touching somebody at all times, and also loves comfortable silences; thirteen needs a five foot cube of personal space and also can't stop talking ever Or Else The Thoughts Get Her) which isn't a super great way to live tbh! luckily you kinda need surgical tools to seperate donna and fourteen, and rose and thirteen can talk at each other for hours, so it kinda balances out. the fact that they physically need to interact with other people really helps dskjldsajklds
-while fourteen isn't ten, he's just like a more mature version of him, so he slots very easily back into donna and wilf (and even sylvia)'s lives. thirteen, on the other hand, is a completely new person, and does often feel a little out of place. once everyone else realises she feels like this they're like what the fuck are you talking about. you're sad and feral. that's the doctor
-they do eventually get better with uh lots of therapy and also getting desk jobs at unit (fourteen ends up more with the organisational side while thirteen is just Generally Sciencey. she has like forty experiments going at once. kate only knows about around 2/3 of them) plus the shed expands eventually and thirteen gets her own workshop and tinkering really helps calm her down. meanwhile fourteen starts getting into baking, and that helps him too. they both just really needed a breather, yknow?
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The sheer…it’s like watching a train wreck that you just can’t look away from that has been the entire bt fandom acceptance of buddie canon coming experience.
Like we’ve gone through
Buddies never happening. Your delusional.
Buck Tommy is the greatest love story ever told.
Buddie fans are clearly homophobic
Oliver absolutely loves Tevan
Oliver loves Lou. They are in a secret relationship.
Kill off Eddie
Give Chris to Buck Tommy
Everyone hates Ryan
Ryan forces everyone to be his friend for PR
Buddie fans hacked Lou and bullied him off twitter
Buddie fans hacked Disney
Ryan is trying to steal the show from Tim and Oliver and Lou
Oliver is hiding lou to protect him
The show is hiding Lou to protect him
Oliver and Ryan are coordinating posts against us
Oliver and Ryan are bullying Lou
Oliver and Ryan are unprofessional
The entire cast is unprofessional and bullies for excluding Lou
Tim’s gonna punish them all
Oliver is unprofessional actor who only cares about buddie fans opinion of him
Ryan and Oliver are having sex and using it to force Tim to write buddie
Ryan and Oliver are conspiring against the network and Lou for Buddie
And it all happened in a matter of 12 weeks.
I also wonder, since now it’s Ryan and Oliver are together and forcing Tim, do they still think Ryan hold this unlimited power to force an entire major network’s production cast and crew to be his friend and steal the show from everyone, or has the power of Oliver’s dick made him lose his evil mastermind powers 💀😂
I keep saying we've been through a decade worth of mcu drama in 3 months but seeing all written down like this makes my head spin. These are bullet points of the most prominent things. It's not even everything. Dear god. And well, since they are in and "Unsanctioned battle against the network", I'd say Oliver's dick makes him more powerful, obviously their combined power makes Ryan even more dangerous kapakaoakapa
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okay, i've got some things i wanna say about twst EN's translation of scarabia's story that i was originally typing out as part of a response to an ask, but then i realized i was going off on a bit of a tangent and was like "this could basically be its own post"--so now it's going to be its own post!
i'm a twst EN player, and for the most part, i do really like the localization. i don't speak japanese but i love learning about language and the process of translation and localization, so at one point after finishing books 1-5 i went and reread them all (and 6 as well, once it was fully released on EN) with a fan translation and the localization side by side to compare them. and from what i could tell as someone who isn't a japanese speaker, i honestly thought it seemed like they usually did pretty well? sure, there were a few mistakes like cater claiming to be an only child (this one, i think, has actually been fixed recently), or how in book 2 they removed a small mention of falena making it seem like he's never mentioned at all until leona's flashback and they also removed the numerous times that he said "be prepared" (at least they finally properly translated it in book 6, though!!). but i thought most of these mistakes were somewhat minor and could be forgiven... until book 4 (well, and book 5, mostly in regards to vil and epel's conflict and i'm not talking about them here, so).
see, i actually realized that something was off about the localization when i first played through book 4, because i have a weird memory and have picked up a bunch of random words and phrases from being into japanese media and reading so much about the localization process. and i also play twst with the sound on because i love to hear the voice acting. so sometimes i would hear jamil speak, i'd pick out the words "shujin" and "juusha" for "master" and "servant", and then the subtitles wouldn't include them at all. so i'd guess certain things about the actual intent behind the story based on that. take this message i sent to my friend when i was sharing my blind reactions to the game:
and she ended up telling me that apparently, what i thought he should say essentially IS what he originally said!! according to the fan translation on wiki.gg he said this instead:
i had wondered if maybe i was reading into things and assuming too much, but it turned out i was completely spot on! but most people who play EN would not be able to pick up on this and realize that jamil was born into servitude to kalim and has no escape, because as i later discovered almost every single mention of him being a servant at all was removed, in events and vignettes as well. which is actually really weird to me because they don't remove it entirely, they do in fact bring up the fact that jamil has to test all of kalim's food for poison during book 4 and they also left in a line where he says he "works as kalim's servant". but they only really mention these things once or twice and then they try to sort of play it off as jamil being a paid employee or something most of the time... seriously, during beanfest there's dialogue where jamil says it would be rude to refuse an order from his boss but i've read that that line was originally him saying a servant couldn't disobey his master. and in the scalding sands event he calls himself "a dedicated employee" of kalim's... what, am i supposed to assume he works as a butler by choice or something? yeah, no. also, one of his birthday vignettes, which are fully voiced so i could TELL he said, with a devious smirk on his face, that if he had a parrot the first word he would teach it would be "shujin-sama". "master". what did EN change this into?
the person i was originally writing all of this in response to said that sometimes people's takes on jamil make them wonder if people are reading a completely different story but also that part of that can probably be blamed on the way EN completely changed the context of his situation with these translation choices. and yeah, i fully agree with that assessment: more casual fans or people who just aren't that interested in the scarabia duo could be said to be reading a different story with this whole "boss" and "employee" thing that has jamil make it sound like the worst that could ever happen to him if he got in trouble would be getting a really stern lecture from his parents.
and it makes me sad because i really do love both jamil and kalim so much and i think their dynamic is so tragic and complicated and interesting to think about. i think they're both really complex characters who are trapped in an awful situation. kalim is so kind and loving and would never wanna hurt anyone but he hurts jamil just by existing as part of the fucked up society they live in. kalim thought he and jamil were best friends, he had no idea of the toxicity of their dynamic and the pain jamil was in, and people say jamil should've just talked to him about it earlier... but jamil's first memory as a child is of seeing his parents bow to the asim family. being a servant is practically all he's ever known and he's had it drilled into his head since they were both small children that he can never be himself around kalim, can never just treat him like a normal person because he's a servant and kalim is his master. and even if he did accept kalim's offer to start over as equals and be friends, what would happen when they had to go home to their families? they won't be at school forever.
and i just. augh. i hate what the localization does with them. if you try to water them down to just an employee who's super mad at his obliviously crappy boss, or just two childhood friends who needed to communicate better or something like that, then you take away from the complexity of both characters. you also lose extremely cool writing choices like how jamil is a character who was born into servitude but has the power to make himself the master with his unique magic. i see so many takes about how jamil is just a jerk who betrayed his best friend and how kalim never did anything wrong in his entire life and i hate it but i'm sure the localization's choices are in fact to blame for a lot of this.
so anyway jamil and kalim's actual dynamic is fascinating and lives rent-free in my head, no thanks to how the EN version gutted it.
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