#watch them as they eat Zanado Fruits in front of Jerry to show where their allegeance lays

[randomnameless]

I have a soft spot for your family headcanons. I would have liked to see the game start with Rhea raising Billy instead, because now I think Jeralt is a bad father who doesn’t really care for his child, but Rhea and the church do.

you're welcome anon lol

I think Jerry tries and thinks that's good enough, but ultimately, that's not the case.

Nopes!Billy is a mess, and their fate gives much more spotlight on what really happened at GM - Billy found an environment where they managed to thrive, where people didn't look at them (too?) weirdly or kept on calling them by a nickname they don't like, or worse, they had to eat alone :(

Jerry might have noticed a bit too late that this was the environment Billy should have grown in - but then he dies - and yet those games will never make characters be able to feel regret or face the consequence for their actions unless they're blue or green coded units.

That's why there's such a fandom dissonance with "good dad Jerry" and "Rhea evil groomer aka BaD" towards Billy, because even as Rhea who thought Billy was an amnesiac Sothis or not "Billy", well even that Rhea managed to make them feel welcome in one place, something Jerry never managed to do.

FFS, in WC, Jerry tells Billy not to get too close to Rhea bcs BaD, but guess who Billy can A support in WC - implicitely ditching Jerry's warnings?

(and given how SS, the Billy Route, heavily pushes for Billy caring about her, they never really gave a fuck about Jerry's warnings!)

I'd say the ultimate happy ending for those AUs is Billy, after being separated from Jerry and managing to build himself as "Billy" and not the "not normal child", decides they want to meet Jerry again and they try to rekindle, or rather, to build some sort of positive relationship - but at the end of the day, they return "home" aka to Garreg Mach, because Garreg Mach is the place where they met people who felt like they belong somewhere.

(and then Billy cracks one of Alois's jokes while they are fishing, wanting to lighten the mood, but Jerry is so pissed that he blames Rhea again).

Maybe if Rhea raised Billy since Day 1, she would have learnt in Day 1568 that Billy isn't Sothis even without her memories, and just rolled with them (if we're talking about F!Billy, Rhea would have warned them about wanting to hold hands with people who have terrible haircuts, if we're talking about M!Billy, Rhea would have gotten rid of his mullet the second it started to grow) just like she did with Citrus and maybe the other homonculi.