#make your own choices etc etc etc

[insanenightcore]

my thoughts wrt suicide are like this: i believe people should be able to make their own choices about it. suicide is not the problem, it is a symptom of it. the suicide prevention that works best would be the one that improves people's lives such that they don't WANT/feel that their only option is to die

[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.

[shigarakins]

i remember when the bodysnatching happened and how hardly anyone else in the fandom (or what i saw of the fandom) seemed to find it as horrifying as i did. then the same thing happened again with the mind invasion. and yes the fact that the mind invasion happened at all and not even the story gave much of a fuck about the fact that it did is still one of biggest gripes with the finale

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"

[carbonateddelusion]

I know I haven't said much about it, but legitimately, "running away" was one of the most pivotal life decisions I've ever made. Probably THE first major life decision I've made, and also the best. If you have an opportunity to go, leave. Get out of there. If you are not safe at home, emotionally, physically, whatever, and you're able to leave, do it. It's going to suck such major ass for a while because you're going to have to deal with the scars they've left on you, but I wholeheartedly, full-throatedly, with-my-chest promise you that it is going to be better. You're going to be better. If you have the privilege of being able to escape, no matter how difficult it feels, then RUN.

[lucalicatteart]

Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 4: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression

(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)

The winning option of yesterday's poll was that the adventurer should offer the Well Creature some bread and soup ….

"Completely unsure how to even begin to interact with the strange creature from the well, The Adventurer recalls reading in a book once that 'food is a universal language', or uh.. something like that.. thus, some hearty soup and bread would surely bridge any communication barriers... probably. He serves the little cannister of broth cold, straight from his bag just dumped into a wooden bowl, mostly because he's far too nervous to try and start a fire with someone watching.. hopefully they won't mind the food not being warmed..

After gently placing a single bread roll next to the soup, he steps back, gesturing towards the meal with an uncertain smile. The creature pauses, sniffs around, then promptly disappears back into the darkness. Just as The Adventurer begins to sulk over his apparent rejection, something stirs behind him... With a rush of creaking and plopping noises, the creature resurfaces, revealing it's massive serpent-like body as it hoists itself over the crumbled stone of the well's edge with it's many arms. It cracks open it's mighty jaw just far enough for a tiny blue tongue to slither out, then politely slurps at the soup, delicate enough not to spill any.

Stumbling backwards in shock, The Adventurer simply sits there staring the entire time whilst the creature happily (and rather quickly) enjoys their meal... Seemingly appreciative of his kind offerings, another strange slinking arm creeps up from the depths of the well, daintily opening a velvet sack with it's claws and laying out a small assortment of items onto the grass. Still a bit shaken, but also never one to turn down a free gift, The Adventurer senses that the creature intends for him to take any single item of his choosing... but, which one?"

[thedragonagelesbian]

and the problem is that i think cyrus is a legitimately compelling narrative parallel for solas, irrespective of whatever bioware does (or forces upon me) vis-a-vis rook as a mirror for solas, because there's already so much written into hawke's story about regret. about a past you cant change and people you couldnt save and having to move forward and live well anyway.

[torgawl]

i can't take this anymore. not even with wrio stating from his own mouth sigewinne is his senior people get it inside their brains he's not a father figure to her and even with them telling us she was arrested and sentenced at the fortress people reach the conclusion she's not a child 😭

[faaun]

any postgrad tips?

i am an undergrad w no qualifiactions x ♡

[yo9urt]

started playing ball dur's gait 3

[venusinverted]

isnt it wonderful that anyone can make art. its really the only way someone can express themself outside of music that is accessible to anyone

[garbagequeer]

it always rubs me the wrong way when people try to counter the supposed underlying logic to homophobic and transphobic thinking with ideas about the innateness of lgbt desire and identity. like things like ensuring people that there being more openly lgbt people wont “make kids gay” or whatever it might only make the already gay ones more comfortable which imo goes in the direction of 2 basic lines of argument: 1 that being lgbt is not a choice and 2 that being lgbt is not contagious. but tbh a lot of human identity and desire is based on the desire to be “like” somebody else or on the knowledge of a preexisting model to structure the capacity for desire by seeing the way other people structure desire and not this theoretical innate pool of fully formed truly individual desires that just so happen to coincide with those of groups of people living in a certain place at a certain time. like i want to call back to some lesbian pamphlet from like the 80s that was like a lesbian q&a where the hypothetical question was “is being gay a choice?” and the answer was something like “who cares if it is”. 

like to me theres also something of an apology in saying dont worry we cant make more lgbt people all lgbt people are lgbt no matter what from birth and that is why you have to tolerate them (and therefore if someone isnt understood as innately lgbt this opens a way for violence bc the premise is that you have to forgive us for what we cant help basically). i mean in a path to end cisheteropatriarchy there will be more lgbt people as it advances because the hegemonic models of desire will be questioned and changed and that is part of liberation. you can say they were simply always there but all closeted but the thing is thats not something you can back up + who cares if it is a choice (it’d be a good and legitimate choice!). also the fact that it is not a legitimate or even real worry of homophobes and transphobes that there will be “more” lgbt people cause they’re concerned there are ANY lgbt people. so why engage in something so rigged to move the goal post from “queer is good + queer is something we want” to “queer is + queer is something we accept” which is closer to “queer is, unfortunately + queer is something we’re trying to help”

[icewindandboringhorror]

It always seems a bit unbalanced on The Great Food Truck Race when there will be multiple teams who are cooking a wide variety of complex dishes with 10 different components and a bunch of prep work, and then there's that one team who like... exclusively serves plain crepes with some premade nutella on them, or plain waffles with just some whipped cream and cut up strawberries lol...

[moinsbienquekaworu]

COMING TO FRANCE TO KICK YOUR ASS

Come on Alex! Anakin made the Worst choice ever just because his feelings hurt (because of his own precedent bad choices he knew were wrong when he made them but did it anyway) and then spent almost two decades stewing in his own misery when he knew what the right thing was and he easily could have done it! He's wet he's pathetic he's killed thousands of people including a bunch of children who trusted him and his entire "family" and also his wife he's extremely miserable and it's all his fault! Pathetic wet meow meow!!

[lucalicatteart]

Poll adventure (paventure? lol) Day 12: read the small story tidbit below the poll for more details, OR just vote based on initial impression

(✦ see past poll results + further information HERE (link) ✦)

Yesterday's poll decided that The Adventurer should rest for the night in an abandoned barn ...

~

Somewhat nervous about being out in the woods alone at night, he decides to try finding a more hidden sleeping spot, further off from the path. Though with his injuries, and his exhaustion, he knows he shouldn't walk too far. He tells himself that he'll just adventure a little, only an hour or so, and if he can't find anything better by then, he'll just give up and set a tent in some bushes somewhere......

After 30 minutes, he finally stumbles across an old barn. He can't see it very well with just a trickle of moonlight and the dull glow of his flickering lantern, but it seems to have not been used for many years. Structurally sound enough (at least he hopes), yet shrouded in moss and blankets of various overgrowth.. It takes a few moments to pluck away all of the ivy blocking his path, but he soon closes the rickety doors behind him to focus on the interior. There's no space to light a fire or set up a real tent, and he'll have to block a few holes in the walls so wild animals don't sneak in, but, there are a few surprisingly clear looking sections scattered amongst all the musty hay bales and cobwebs. He chooses a "cozy" spot in the corner, hidden behind a few dusty crates. Though he tosses about uncomfortably in his bedding for quite a while, he's eventually able to fall into a peaceful sleep.….....

.. Suddenly, he's startled awake by rustling, catching a dark blurred movement in front of him. He's smart enough to always sleep wearing his backpack over his chest so nobody could just grab it without him noticing, but it seems for the first time in all his travels... someone is actually trying to. Still half asleep, he clings to the bag and yelps, pushing and tumbling away into a moldy wooden barrel after an initial struggle. He pulls himself up to face the hooded figure now looming above him, entirely obscured aside from their vague cloak-ish shape outlined by the faint moonlight behind them.. The Adventurer calls out in a shaky attempt at an aggressive tone, "Wh-wh.. whAT are YOU DOIng? WHo-whu..UHHH??? aahhhG" "Give me the bag." The hooded figure speaks in a smooth, stern, yet calm voice, slowly taking a step forwards. The cat scrambles to The Adventurer's side, hissing and giving a low growl.. "w-WELL , uh,, sORRY , n-NO , I would rrrather not DO THAT, I h-- I uh-- I don't have even anythi- I don't even have ANYTHING, I mea- wh-wh HWaAt d-do I look RICH to you?? EUggh-" he gulps loudly, holding back nervous vomit, "B-BACK OFF!! you-.. f- uh.. THIEF!!!!!" The hooded figure pauses for a moment, as if re-strategizing how to approach the situation. "Look, kid, I don't want to hurt you. But I need you to give me that egg." "WHWh-what egg? I-I don.. DON'T have an EGG, I'm uh…aCTUALLY a-allergic to eggs, s-sso-" "The egg that's in a wooden box. In your bag. Don't waste your time bullshitting me.. Come on, let's make this quick." The hooded figure extends their arm, motioning to be handed the egg. Still desperately fighting not to throw up everywhere, The Adventurer simply sits on the floor, staring up at the hooded figure blankly as he tries to think.. Is he seriously being robbed for the first time? Is that like, a cool milestone, or a bad one? He's read about it in adventuring books before but... the reality feels so much different.. How can he get out of this? Strategies scatter through his mind, but he's too shaken to find any clear answers.. What should he do?

-

Additional Information

the adventurer's current main quest: follow his map to reach the abandoned castle ruins and see the rare animal specialist about the mysterious egg he has

[seilon]

hm