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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@proshipper-on-ship thank you for the Dick & Dan idea you added to my other post, please enjoy some of the fall out your comment resulted in haha
“So,” Bruce tried, looking hesitantly pleased at the surprisingly light atmosphere around the table. “Anything new and exciting going on with anyone?”
There was a smattering of answers from around the table. Jason didn’t offer anything - which wasn’t surprising, that he was even there and largely not starting a fight was more than enough as far as Dick was concerned - but with some ribbing from Steph, Tim eventually admitted to finally asking that boy he’d been interested in out. Dick joined in on teasing his little brother - and even Jay gave, for him, some gentle ribbing over finally getting the balls to do something, eh Timberland? - while very carefully avoiding mentioning his own sorta-kinda thing with Dan in Bludhaven. He’d deal with his siblings making him miserable and embarrassed over it all when he actually scored a date with him thanks very much.
Things were going good.
And then Damian cleared his throat, looking imperious and uninterested at the same time as he waited for everyone to turn to look at him.
“I have an announcement on an alteration to my personal life.” He declared, chin up and looking like he was already over this whole family-bonding-time thing, which was fair. Damian had gotten better over the years, but he was still not exactly the cute and cuddly little brother. Dick still had the scar from the last time he tried to hug Dami without warning a year ago and got stabbed for the effort. Still, he was sharing, willingly even! That’s progress!
At the head of the table Bruce tilted his head, looking as cautiously hopeful as Dick felt over the youngest Wayne actually offering to share something personal. “Have you decided on what college you want to go to then?”
“No.” Dami dismissed easily, without more than a glance in Bruce’s direction. “Night and I have decided to take some time to travel before continuing any further schooling.”
Huh, honestly, Dick was kinda surprised. With how much of a perfectionist Dami was, he’d thought he’d throw himself into college with the same ferocious, competitive drive he did everything else. But then again, if Elle Nightingale was going to be taking a gap year or two, it wasn’t as if it was that much of a surprise that Dami would go and join her.
The two gremlins had been practically inseparable since they were twelve and discovered a shared love of stabbing people and adopting every animal they see. If Dami’s best friend was going to go gallivanting across the world like she always dreamed of doing, Dick couldn’t actually be that surprised that Dami would be going with her.
Dick took a sip of his drink as Dami opened his mouth to continue with what was probably going to be to most people the world’s most harrowing game of “how many incredibly dangerous animals can we see before we end up dead on our gap year” that the two demons were undoubtedly planning.
He regretted taking that sip almost immediately as Damian said, “Night and I took our marital vows yesterday. She sends her regrets that she was unable to join us for family dinner tonight.”
Predictably, the room broke out into utter chaos.
Dick choked on his drink, spraying across the table and splattering Babs with a shower of wine. She didn’t even seem to notice, dropping her own glass as she snapped her head over to stare at Damian, the sound of breaking glass and a deep red stain pooling across the table following as she did. At the end of the table, Jay made a noise like a dying goose as the samosa he’d just popped in his mouth threatened to kill him. Cass, perhaps the most outwardly calm at the proclamation, only stared with wide eyes at her younger brother as she hit Jason on the back in an attempt to make sure he didn’t die.
Dick could practically hear the old shrieking AOL dial up noise that was Tim’s brain attempting to process what his little brother had just said, while sitting next to him Steph gave a small shriek of you what? Duke’s head was on a swivel, eyes darting from Damian, to another family member, to Damian and back again as if unsure who to even look at in the moment.
Bruce just…stared, frozen in place, face caught in the most open look of shock Dick thinks the man has ever shown in his life.
---
Damian sniffed and cast a caustic look towards - of all people - Jason, “Unlike some people, I share my good news with the family in a timely manner.”
Jay sputtered, “You know what, fuck you! Fine, you want me to share the news?” Jay snapped his head towards the rest of them. “Jazz is pregnant, baby is due next month on the sixth. Baby shower’s next weekend at Robinson Park, show up or don’t, I really don’t give a fuck.”
Or maybe he was just going to try to kill them with a heart attack.
“What the fuck?!”
“Language!”
“Who the fuck is Jazz?!”
“Language!”
“Night’s elder sister and guardian, Drake, keep up. You should know this, you’re dating her brother.”
“I’m what?”
“And Grayson is having flirtations with her other brother.”
“Dan is Elle’s older brother? Wait - how do you know about that?”
“Todd and I are in the Nightingale family group chat. We have endured far too much waxing poet about your posterior over the past months.”
“Why do they all have variations of the same name? Who gives all their children the same name?”
“He likes my ass?”
“Oh my god, bigger picture Dick, focus.”
“Seriously, do they all have the same name outside of the older sister? I feel like we need to acknowledge they all have the same name.”
“Can we go back to the fact that Damian got married? To Elle? Yesterday? How did you even do that without anyone knowing?
“Dr. Nightingale is a notary.”
“...Dr. Nightingale as in the woman Bruce is investigating Dr. Nightingale?”
“Okay but the name thing? Please tell me you’re not naming the baby some variation of the name Daniel.”
“If the gremlins get their way it will be. Do you know how many lists we’ve made that they keep sabotaging?”
“So you have Dan’s number? Could you give it to me?”
“Jesus Christ, Dick I’m begging you.”
“Why did you guys even get married?”
“For the diplomatic immunity.”
“You don’t have diplomatic immunity.”
“I do now.”
“What does that mean?”
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Genuinely curious: how bad did jujutsu kaisen get (i dropped off prettyyyy early but i thought it had potential! And i heard great things about it! But now it's like...hmmm not so good 🗿)
I wouldn’t say it’s completely BOOTY (It’s still pretty decent actually even though I do complain a lot about my grievances that I have with it!) After the Shibuya incident (the arc is fucking amazing btw. Idk how far you’d gotten but the Hidden Inventory was also sick as well!!! Two of the best arcs back to back! Gege was absolutely feeling himself when he wrote these 😭) the writing had definitely begun to noticeably take a nosedive.
I remember Gege often getting sick, resulting in him having to take multiple hiatus after finishing up with Shibuya and it had even gotten to the point where he’d put out rushed chapters (he never used to do this so whenever he’d do so, it was pretty noticeable because his writing had always been pretty entertaining and fairly good (imo) up to this point…) and even incomplete chapters…. (When I first read that very specific, incomplete chapter, I legit thought that it had been drawn that way on purpose??? Like maybe it was drawn in a sketchy way for stylistic purposes! It was pretty cool to me at the time until I’d learned that he just couldn’t finish drawing the chapter and had to put it out as is… then this is where the hiatus had began. Because he’d take a break (great! His health is more important than anything after all) and then come back with half assed chapters from time to time? (I believe all of the breaks definitely effected the momentum that he’d built up for himself tbh. But I’m glad that he put himself first regardless.)
Enemy curse users during both the Colony and the Culling Game arcs felt more like “villains of the week,” over than anything else and were just there to be defeated by the MC’s and to extract little pieces of information at a time. Most of them didn’t even stand out all too much outside of a few. Incidents that took place throughout these two arcs felt completely pointless and added nothing to the story whatsoever. Then there’d be long stretches of time in between the story where important characters like for instance: Megumi and Yuuji, would be absent from the story for unnecessarily long periods of time for no reason at all because Gege’s pacing had begun to take a toll on the writing side of things???
There would be instances where important and genuinely EXCITING things would happen only for the story to go back to feeling like a bunch of nonsense again and then this would become a sort of rinse and repeat type of thing. Don’t even get me started on the Gojo VS Sukuna fight…… both my fucking head and heart still hurts over what happened if I’m being honest because HOLY SHIT, Gege fucking sucks 😭!!! How do you do THIS to such an important character in the series bro. It still doesn’t even feel right like. What was even the fucking POINT of this 3 month long ass fight 😭😭😭!???!? Quite a few other slightly major deaths were poorly executed as well… there’s just…. SO MANY INCONSISTENCIES and plot points that felt as if they were going to MATTER in the end; become important later on, only for them to end up not mattering at all…
The plot is still unfolding but UHHH… Also, depending on how far you’d gotten into reading or watching it, things do become extremely depressing after a certain point in the story like, the characters have not had a good time ever since the students played baseball with each other in that one episode/ manga chapter before ALL of the bullshit started 😭. Everyone is a wreck! Everything is a mess! What is the point!!! JJK is definitely misery porn. It excels in it.
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