#he WOULD have been good influence

[kanrix]

do you think that if clay and orel had been kids at the same time (and somehow got to meet and become friends) clay wouldn't have killed his mother?

if orel would've had a good influence on him and got him to be less selfish (i just want something good to happen to those people once. i crave joy)

I don't really think Orel would have helped much, at least not at that age.

[feroluce]

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.

[existentiol]

something that pisses me off in RA is that Flanagan will occasionally hype up Pauline as this super important and prominent figure in Will’s life, even treat her as a proxy for the mother he never knew, and yet will just refuse to show it beyond the like. two or three (personal) conversations that they have in canon. I get that he was attempting to make her an important person in Will’s life but why not do that by actually making her an important person in Will’s life

[significant-ace-nnoyance]

"they casted ___ too hot, how am i supposed to root against the villain" is a direct product of children's literature that constantly associates physical attractiveness with moral character and value

[gerrydelano]

it's been like 10 hours and i am still thinking about gerry child experimentation canon. fuck my entire life

[akkivee]

kuukou encourages and believes in jyushi’s strength while firmly believing that he’s a weak person. if kuukou is having a bit of a rough time forgiving himself for past mistakes while telling hitoya that he needs to move on from his past weighing him down in harmonious cooperation, then i hope with every fibre of my being that this is going to be something jyushi and hitoya are actively saving kuukou from (from himself lol)

[lucy-ghoul]

why are you, as an adult in 2024, still hung up on reylo. why are you still mocking the shippers. why do you believe yourself to be superior only because you dislike a stupid ship from a fucking space fairytale. girl (gnc) get a grip

[sweetandglovelyart]

Knightfall in Dream Land - Page 4

Meta Knight shares what it was like to grow up being raised by Nightmare.

[braceletofteeth]

If you want to be happy, I hope it comes true.

I hope you will be happy too.

[dennisboobs]

do you guys ever sit and remember that dennis takes a mental health day is an episode that exists

[brionysea]

this man is pissing me off

[apotelesmaa]

A while back I saw sm1 saying tsukasa expresses emotions like it’s his first time experiencing them & while it’s very funny and true I think it’s also worth noting that unlike tv/movie actors, stage actors have to really exaggerate their body language/expressions so that their emotions are readable for everyone in the theatre. On screen you can easily pick up the micro expressions on an actor’s face because you’re like 5 ft away at most and the camera often zooms in on their face. From the back of the theatre you can’t read subtle expressions so the actors need to over emphasize and use their whole body. All this to say: given that u cannot take the theatre kid out of tsukasa I feel like his acting just bled into how he expresses his emotions.

Emu also does the body language thing but it’s harder to tell as she’s normally expressing a smaller range of emotions than tsukasa (she’s naturally joyous and whimsical creature & tsukasa is usually given ample reasons to express annoyance). I think that’s more of a result of her exaggerating her happiness so that other people are also happy rather than an acting thing though. Gestures at her refusing to show negative emotions. Entertainer/clown (actual clowns, not the insult) vs stage actor. Really good examples of them doing this is the clip of rui imitating tsukasa & the clip of nene imitating emu.

[puhpandas]

You know what kind of sucks?

If help wanted 2 is in fact a GGY prequel, and shows how Gregory becomes GGY and broke free and at the end of the game it shows the begging of main SB.

We won't get an answer for what happened to Cassie in ruin for like a year and a half or two years at the max. I don't wanna wait that long.

But I also don't want Steel Wool to rush things again like what happened in main SB.

If there's gonna be a SB 2 I hope it gives those little teaser posters like of showing the new animatronics shadows in front of a giant crowd back in 2020-2021.

I get that, but if we do get a GGY prequel, or even dont, that's a huge part of Gregory's character that we would have to waited to see for TWO years (or ONE year, since GGY came out in January this year, but his backstory has been needed for longer). even longer if HW2 isn't a GGY prequel. I've been a fan of Gregory since sb first came out, and was there for GGY the book. gregory fans have already been waiting a long time for this and we might have to wait even longer if they even touch on GGY at all in the games.

we know enough about Cassie to be satisfied at the moment, but still only crumbs of actual canon Gregory, no theories or speculation or hcs. vanessa deserves time too, but first we need to establish one of the biggest questions of the SW era about who Gregory is. he really needs to have that confirmation for his actions after ruin to make sense, and this would be the perfect time to do that. while the crash is still fresh, for everyone to see GGY and go "oh, that's why he did it." even if they dont agree.

I'm just saying that HW2 only being a few months after ruin would be really quick for a Cassie continuation. like too quick. but if one character deserves the spotlight in HW2 its definitely Gregory or even vanessa. cassie was left off on a cliffhanger sure, but were at a good place to leave her off, and waiting is what makes it fun (said as someone who's fave character has been long overdue for a backstory for two years)

maybe next release after HW2, but also remember nothing is confirmed for HW2. its still completely unknown who's the protag, and it could be anybody. but Gregory deserves to have the huge part of his character thats still up in the air after this long to finally be confirmed after what would be basically a year since it was first shown and not elaborated on again

glitchtrap/the mimics influence hasnt been explored enough, especially with the great vanny cut content massacre, but HW2 could give much needed backstory PLUS focus on the glitchtrap aspect of the SW era, which is much needed

[wonder-worker]

"...Walsingham, the monastic author of the St. Albans Chronicle, was by far [Alice Perrers'] harshest contemporary critic, who in his venom has (somewhat ironically) left us with the longest and most detailed account of her background and personality, her influence as Edward’s mistress, and her subsequent trial. He describes Alice as a shameless lowborn meretrix (a word variously translated as mistress, whore, or harlot), who “brought almost universal dishonour upon the king’s reputation […] and defiled virtually the whole kingdom of England with her disgraceful insolence.” Although Walsingham was not always accurate and, specifically in this case, clearly heavily biased against Alice, he nevertheless provides a truly contemporary account, and his importance as a source should not be underestimated. Likewise, the anonymous monk of St. Mary’s York recorded that in the Good Parliament the Commons (represented by their speaker, Sir Peter de la Mare) stated that it “would be of great gain to the kingdom to remove the said dame [Alice] from the presence of the king both as a matter of conscious and of the ill prosecution of the war.” During the same assembly, the bishop of Rochester, Thomas Brinton, preached from St. Paul’s Cross that “it is not fitting nor safe for all the keys of the kingdom to hang from the belt of one wife.” Although the word wife (uxoris) is used, it is widely accepted that this is a reference to Alice.”

-Laura Tompkins, '"Edward III's Gold-Digging Mistress": Alice Perrers, Gender, and Financial Power at the English Royal Court, 1360-1377", "Women and Economic Power in Premodern Courts" (edited by Cathleen Sarti). Italics by me.

[horsemage]

I think we should bring back basic etiquette lessons such as shutting the fuck up when you’re watching a movie in a group that is not exclusively your friend group 🙂

[starbuck]

i can’t remember if i ever actually made the Ravenous Ghost Bell analysis post, but i wish i had time to make it because i feel like it would be received well in this moment…