#so well-written and acted

[iffeelscouldkill]

Throwback to that time Arkady got the priority status of the Iris case bumped up all by herself

Starship Iris, season 1 episode 2:

AGENT: We have verified the identity of Arkady Patel, a.k.a. Kay Grisham, a.k.a. Ishani Kanetkar. She is a known con artist, a registered subversive, and a suspected army deserter. Too many other crimes to detail here.

[...]

The Starship Iris Case is currently classified as priority six. Due to the involvement of the criminal known as Arkady Patel, it is strongly recommended that this be revisited.

- You can't tell me that Arkady didn't cackle a bit when she listened to this (because the crew have definitely all listened to the reports they starred in). Also:

Starship Iris, season 1, episode 4:

AGENT: Our team is still working to find and tag every false identity connected with the fugitive Arkady Patel. Verified: Kay Grisham, Ishani Kanetkar, and Sister Theresa Margaret. Suspected: Duchess Calpurnia Higginsworth-Cobb.

ILU ARKADY. Who else badly wants a spin-off miniseries entitled The Strange Shenanigans of Arkady Patel?

[raisedbythetv89]

Soooooo when Buffy winces when she sits down in wrecked after fucking a house down with Spike just further reminding the audience of how throughly our girl finally got dicked down in the way she DESERVES……… do we think that was sarah’s addition orrrr was it in the script or was it a director’s note because literally any of the options is absolutely spectacular to think about 😹😹😹😹

[spicyvampire]

Hate /heɪt/ verb -> Enduring anger focused on a particular person or group of persons. Over time hatred may generate the personality trait of hostility. Surprise /sɚˈpraɪz/ noun -> The briefest emotion, surprise is triggered by the sudden occurrence of an unexpected event. It is often a way station that leads, after more appraisal, to any of the other emotions. Fondness  /ˈfɑnd·nəs/ noun -> A liking. Guilt /ɡɪlt/ noun -> Regret about a past action [...], a feeling of worry or unhappiness that you have because you have done something wrong, such as causing harm to another person.

Atlas of emotions + Cambridge dictionary

4MINUTES (2024) EP. 6

[blitzwhore]

Stolitz, and their fear of rejection and sense of worthlessness turning into a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Blitz—

Does anybody love you, Blitzo? / No.

Eventually everyone goes...

Stolas only cares about having a rugged peasant raw-dog him into his mattress. It's nothing... You know. It's nothing else.

I'm going to die alone, aren't I? Just a wrinkly, old, withered waste.

Royal demons don't give a shit about guys like us. They're all the fucking same.

Stolas, don't act like what we have is anything but you wanting me to fuck you. You make that really clear all the time.

But you don't want to do things alone, Blitzo.

I mean, Stolas is just a loud, thirsty bitch who loves feeling the thrill of being dicked by the lower class. It's a novelty to him.

And then he'll call me and try to see how my day was, and he'll pretend to care about me, and comment on my photos, and laugh at my jokes... /Oh well that's definitely your clue right there that it's all bullshit / I know, right?!

It's all my fault. I'd hate me too. I mean, I do hate—

You're going to die alone. You're gonna die alone, Blitzo.

[My worst fear has come true. He couldn't possibly want me. This has to be a joke. He's selfish and an asshole, just like the rest of them. He's trying to get rid of me; that's the only explanation. I'm just a broken toy he's finally gotten bored of, just like I knew would happen. He won't even fight for me, and why would he? I could never be good enough for him. It's happening again. I'm being abandoned by someone I care about. I really am going to die alone.]

Stolas—

Would he want me if he was free? And if he's only here as a prisoner, what kind of monster does that make me?

I mite b bsuy / I wouldn't want to bother you!

You see... I seem to have found myself with, um. Feelings for him. And I'm not sure if it's a mutual thing.

Dearest, I know better now, I must give you this choice.

I'll save us both before we grow cold.

What's between you and I? Just a comfortable lie.

I'm sorry it's a bad time yet again, Blitzy...

He deserves the choice to stay or go.

So I'll grant you this mercy, this bind on our souls needs to end...

Next time you come over, maybe we can talk about what happened at Ozzie's? / Y? / I'm sorry! Nevermind, it's not a big deal.

What's left for me and my broken heart if I cannot have you? Unless it's me, and no matter what in this world I could give, it's not enough to get through the walls you've conjured up to live...

I'll believe him, and not the voice that says I'm not enough.

I'll fucking die alone if this goes bad!

[My worst fear has come true. I truly am not worthy of being loved. He's rejecting me— no, mocking me for even thinking he could ever want to be with me if he didn't need my book. I've been taking advantage of him all this time, all the while believing we had something real and being naive enough to think he could love me back. I am a monster. And now that he can, he has chosen to leave me. So now the least I can do is quietly let him—the only person I have ever wanted and felt alive with—go. I really am going to die alone.]

[caluupin]

I am so normal about act 5

[arthursfuckinghat]

There needs to be a scientific study done on how Rockstar Games' Arthur Morgan is able to provoke the most earth shattering emotions I didn't even know I had in me

[suja-janee]

I love Lucy Maclean, she’s such a sweetheart

[saffitaffi]

“What if the evil tyrant who likes to kill puppies for fun actually just needed to fall in love with a sweet naive child who redeems them through the power of love and they were actually good the whole ti-“

What if they weren’t, though? What if their life twisted them to the point that they can only love through violence?

What if the narrative doomed them to ever play their role, a role that has already been chosen by forces higher than them?

What if the sweet, gentle character didn’t love them ‘despite their flaws’, or even at all?

Why should they? Especially if it’s a case of kidnapping. ESPECIALLY if they hurt them. Or their friends. Or take away their agency.

What if that strange contradiction of love and hatred in their heart tore them apart and gave them their justified end?

What if they CAN’T be fixed?

What if they don’t WANT to be fixed?

What if we stopped glamorizing abusive relationships and started actually exploring them?

[reksink]

A Little Survivor (With Grand Gourmand Bonus💚)

[fromtheseventhhell]

Imagine being 9 years old and asking your dad about the things you're interested in doing when you grow up and he's like "No ❤️! But you can get married, have babies, and then maybe your sons can do those things ☺️🫶 "

[tommygotwrittenoff]

i just think if roles were reversed and buck was the one saying those gay ass lines to eddie, eddie wouldve proposed like four seasons ago

[athousandbyeol]

of rooftops, secrets, and us.

[gofishygo]

ok we need an e/se asian reader in the taskforce. the first time they get offered tea from price, thinking that it’s hong cha . ends up spitting it out after they take the first sip and realise it’s fucking earl grey . who teaches them torture methods that were simply just what their parents did to them as a kid . who is generally pretty nice, but can scare the living shit out of new recruits if they have to (once again, asian parent skill) . who leans over to price and discreetly asks ‘is that just a white people thing ?” whenever ghost and soap are on their shit .

just them being silly would be funny as fuck should out to all writers who do asian!readers we love you out here

(some of tags r important, please check them)

[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.

[likeabxrdinflight]

tired of early 20-somethings acting like harry potter was never good or had no value in its day like shut the fuck up half of you weren't even there when it peaked

[ferretteeth]

I love this Disco Elysium moment so much.

Cuno has spent the entire time you’ve known him being the most high strung child in the world, making fun of you and downright insulting you every chance he gets.

But when you say you’re chasing a cryptid he goes “Huh…” very softly and genuinely. The appeal of searching for Bug Bigfoot is able to cut through Cuno’s underage drug addiction and very briefly render him into a little boy going “wow… cool…”