#but damn a lot of people died for it

[petpluto]

A tv moment that unfortunately lives rent free in my head is Faith’s “What are you gonna do, B? Kill me? You become me.” line in Enemies. Because, no, Buffy won’t.

Shows in general, and BtVS in particular in this arc, do this whole, “the hero can’t kill the villain - that’s just as bad as what the villain is doing!” And it’s just not. I understand Xander’s line episodes later in Graduation Day Pt 1, when he says, “I don’t want to lose you”, because killing someone, even someone who is hell bent on destroying the world and cannot be held by the normal judicial system, would definitively hurt and possibly change Buffy at a core level. Because killing people - hurting people - has been shown time and again to be something Buffy mourns deeply. But killing Faith in Enemies, killing her in Graduation Day, killing her in season 4’s This Year’s Girl, isn’t the same as Faith killing indiscriminately or for the purpose of ending the world. Faith tried to release Angelus. Faith is down with the Mayor’s plans. Faith is pissed off that after those things, Buffy had the *nerve* to fight back. It’s Buffy’s job to protect humanity from the things normal human systems can’t handle, and evil Slayers fall under that purview. The show makes the argument, through Faith and then a bit through Xander, that this is different, because Faith is different. Because killing Faith puts Buffy on a path to, what, killing more people? But that’s just not true. Faith didn’t continue killing because she accidentally killed Allen Finch and got a taste for it. She keeps killing because she - at this point - is a nihilistic character who doesn’t see or understand the good in the world. She has been failed time and time again, by her family, by the system, by The Watcher’s Council - and her rage and fear and self-loathing brings her down this path. But that’s not Buffy’s path. If Buffy kills Faith here, it hurts Buffy. It might even destroy a real and vulnerable part of her. But she won’t become Faith. She’ll still be a hero - just maybe one who won’t like herself as much. And, hey, we got that in season 6, so.

[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.

[lagosbratzdoll]

You guys are always yapping about how Criston Cole is Rhaenyra’s victim. Even though the show contradicts you on this point many times. Even though the producers contradict you on this point repeatedly. 

However, no one wants to reckon with the fact that those men took a tale about a misogynistic paedophile and the child he groomed and isolated and then turned his child victim into the initiator/aggressor. 

It’s par for the course with the adaptors. We watched it happen with Dany and Jorah, Doreah and Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Loras Tyrell and the homophobic way they adapted his story. The racist, heavily sexualised way they adapted the sand snakes and Ellaria Sand. I had hoped the fandom would know better by now but alas!

[foxy-fandoms-chaos]

Suddenly missing my undertale (+ undertale aus) roleplay era for some reason

[cheemken]

More hisiuan zoura!Drayton ÒwÓ

Focussing on opelucid city and it freezing over!!! 

Reading your tags on my ask and you’re right! I think he’d still be scared, even more so in this AU because he can hear/understand kyurem! Even when it’s all the way up in the sky on the Plasma Frigate Drayton can still hear kyurem and he knows it’s a legendary and he should be scared

He’s terrified of what happened to opelucid city, well it’s cold just like the ice lands it’s not natural at all, the ice to jagged and sharp there’s no fluffy snow to jump around in just the bitter cold and sharp ice no comfort at all! His new home is in ruins….

Well Drayton is scared, absolutely terrified even, he knows he can help! He’s not bothered by the cold at all even in his human form! So he helps the civilians of opelucid as a zoura! The civilians know about the strangely coloured zoura that seems to live in opelucid and are greatly thankful for it helping out during the freeze over, not knowing that the zoura is Drayton, with Drayton’s help I believe in this AU the death count of humans and Pokemon are a lot lower then in canon, a lot less people and Pokemon froze to death because Drayton can stand the cold!

In a previous ask in the tags you mentioned that iris would end up catching kyurem and in canon i think Drayton would eventually warm up to it! Not in this AU tho! Drayton can’t help but be intimidated by it even once it’s in iris’s care, he knows it won’t hurt him and it was all team plasma fault really but being around such a big Pokemon, a legendary at that! Makes Drayton’s Pokemon instincts scream at him to either obey it because it’s so powerful or run away in fear because it’s so powerful, Drayton also hates it because it makes his instincts flare up and reminds him that he’s not really a human he’s just a Pokemon playing human

When iris first said she caught kyurem and brought it out Drayton attacked her out of fear (he can still use pkmn attacks in human form just not as powerful as he’s still keeping up the illusion of the human form) as his instincts were going haywire telling him to runaway and he did, he was missing for days until Crispin called iris saying that Drayton just showed up at his doorstep in Virbank City (not sure if Crispin knows he’s a zoura yet or not or if the reveal happens here, gotta flesh out the reveal more lol) Drayton honestly has no fucking clue how he ended up from opelucid to Virbank he kinda just mentally blacked out when he ran away but Crispin comforts him none the less!~Drayton angst anon💛

Ohhhh👀👀👀

Ough the mental image of Drayton suddenly hurting Iris just hits cbxnnx

Imagine along w the fear that Kyurem is there w her, Drayton also felt really guilty over hurting his sister too, and he didn't mean it ofc he didn't, he was just really scared that he suddenly attacked her

But also cdndndk pls, the reveal chmdndmd Crispin hearing scratches on his door and sees this odd looking Zorua, and the Zorua was like, shivering y'know, eyes wide and scared as it scurried inside, hiding behind the couch. And that made Crispin confused as fuck, like yeah he heard stuff abt the white Zorua in Opelucid, but he never thought he'd actually see the exact Zorua here inside his home, how did it even get here?? Nevertheless, the poor thing was scared, it looks like it's abt to cry too, so Crispin was helping it warm up to him and even calm it down

Imagine once he brings the Zorua to his room, it transforms to Drayton, fucking imagine how he'd react lmfao like nursing this Zorua back to health only for it to transform into one of your friends, and he starts crying saying he accidentally hurt his sister and how fucking terrifying Kyurem actually is up close, like, Crispin needed a minute to process everything cause holy shit one of his friends is actually a pokemon—

Then Iris is searching every corner of Unova to look for Drayton. Look, while he attacked her, she knows he was just scared, and her brother was still young y'know, and ofc he wasn't exactly human, who knows what people would do to him if they found out, and she fears what'd happen if the Shadow Triad or Ghetsis finds out abt what Drayton really is, so imagine her relief when one of Drayton's friends suddenly called her saying he's there at Virbank which made her confused as fuck too cause how the hell did he get there from Opelucid???

But yeah, Iris calling out her Hydreigon flying over to Virbank, found Crispin w Drayton w him but like,, he's a Zorua, being held by Crispin. Crispin giving her a sheepish look, saying Drayton already explained things to him. But also cbmdnd imagine how cute it'd be, Drayton just jumping from Crispin's arms to Iris', nuzzling her close, he missed her and ofc he's glad she isn't mad at him for attacking her. And she's there telling him that Kyurem didn't mean to scare him too, and Drayton knows that now, he can hear Kyurem's voice from within the Master Ball

Pls your honour a lil bit of soft, but also Iris making sure Crispin won't tell anyone abt Drayton's secret, and ofc he won't tell, why would he go against the fucking Champion of their region lmfao

[longagoitwastuesday]

Gushing about Gojo and Megumi and how they are or could have been everything to me I forgot to mention that I really really really love Yuuji. Like, a lot

[savage-rhi]

Cue the pink!

[skitskatdacat63]

People need to stop making Rhaenicent if they were canon edits, it's killing me 😭😭😭😭😭

[dynjay]

I came up with a theory regarding Fionna and Cake.

So the series seems to be based off of the alternate realities created by wishes of others. In episode 6, the creators said that the Baby World universe was created out of BMO's wish, and given how much focus there is about wishes, I thought of something.

What if each world Fionna and Cake go through are wish fulfillment scenarios from various characters?

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

Ep 1: Betty's wish (and I guess Wyatt) (Granted by: Ice Crown and Prismo) This is Adventure Time's main universe. We saw from the ending that Betty wished to Simon safe, sane, and alive, and we're simply seeing the aftermath of the wish here. Wyatt also got a wish that we saw.

Ep 2: Cake's wish (Granted by: Simon) Episode 2 and 3 are a bit strange, but it still makes sense. Both Cake and Fionna craved to be in the land of magic and Cake got her wish first in this episode.

Ep 3: Fionna's wish (Granted by: Simon) This is the episode where Fionna got her wish and managed to reunite with Cake. Honestly, I think 2 and 3's wisher can be swapped because it'd hardly make a difference.

Ep 4: Prismo's wish (Granted by: Prismo and company) I feel like the episode speaks for itself, but Prismo wanted Fionna and Cake to exist and this episode was centered around keeping them and their world alive. And he succeeded! For now, at least.

Ep 5: Finn's wish (Granted by: Prismo) In a early episode of AT, Finn wished that the Lich never existed, creating the Farm World universe. Later in the show, the main Finn actually went back to this world to destroy the crown. We're seeing the aftermath of that here.

Ep 6: Bubblegum's wish (Granted by: Prismo and/or Bubblegum herself) This one's tricky to know for certain. There's a lot of characters missing here since we're focused on the duality of Winter King and Candy Queen, but I think that's a hint to whose wish this could be.

The only person we're shown to have the brains to potentially "fix" Simon's insanity is PB and it's suggested things went the same UNTIL around 100 years ago when Simon was "cured".

However, PB hates magic. She likes solving things with science and it's possible she wanted the most logical, least intrusive solution to cure Simon as naturally as possible, but was stumped on exactly how.

The wish in this case might've been to learn just the knowledge on how to get rid of Ice King's insanity, but it ended up being only that. Just getting rid of his insanity.

It'd line up pretty well with Prismo's monkey paw effect, considering what happened to both of them.

Ep 6 Ending: BMO's wish (Granted by: Prismo) The baby world was said to have been caused by BMO who wished they could watch over everyone in peace and safety. Unfortunately I can't find a direct source to this, but apparently the creator said this.

Ep 7: Marceline's wish (Granted by: Prismo) This one's also tricky. The biggest difference here's that Simon presumably managed to survive the Mushroom War, but had no defense against the vampires, causing him to die too soon to meet Marcy.

I think the implication here might be that Simon never found the crown, but found a bomb shelter to survive through the Mushroom War. Humanity found a way to survive the war, as we saw in Islands, so this would track.

If that's the case, this may imply that someone wished for Simon to never find the crown to become Ice King, but still survive the war with the rest of the humans.

The irony here's that he still died anyway from the vampires due to having little to no defense against them without the crown, which would line up nicely with what Marceline could've potentially wanted.

Ep 8: Lich's wish (Granted by: Prismo) Everything and everyone organic seems to be dead. This was the Lich's original wish before Jake changed it, and we're seeing the aftermath of it here.

Ep 9: Simon's wish (Granted by: Simon) This episode hasn't come out yet, but what was established was that Simon's been wanting to go see GolBetty since the beginning of the series, and the ending of episode 9 suggests that where they went.

Ep 10: ???'s wish If I were to take a guess, I think this would probably be Jake's wish in the sense that life for everyone continues in the original AT's universe; the one that Jake's wish managed to preserve.

What do you guys think?

[kuromi-hoemie]

i just finished iron blooded orphans and need to lay down for a bit

[neverendingford]

.

[swywtsaltss]

[sobecomesomethingelse]

maybe paige’s god’s name should be vaughan, since one could make the argument that vaughan was the seed of the wound tree

[todayisafridaynight]

every day i thank god for the like. one or two japanese minedai artists who make mine the embodiment of 🥺 while also still making him. mine.

[fearcicada]

Jonathan Sims and Aromanticism as being disconnected from and unrelatable to other children, As never being romantically interested in someone during your school years because you don’t have time for that nonsense, you’re focused on your studies, you don’t like spending time around others. As no one being romantically interested in you until college – at that point, do you even know what romance is? What it feels like? As dating someone because they like you – You might as well date Georgie, she’s interested in you, and you like her well enough as a friend. Is this what love is? As not being interested in sex either. What is there to define the difference between romantic and platonic feelings that doesn’t involve physicality? As going into asexual spaces and always seeing the “we may not like sex but we still love people and want relationships like anyone else!!!” takes. As already being closed off, rude, an acquired taste for most. When it’s already hard for most people to want to be your friend - romantic relationships seem even more unrealistic. Already having a lack of personal relationships in your life - not exactly helped by not being interested in most people’s idea of “romantic relationships.” As being less aware of things like flirting and romance than most (because of said lack of personal relationships your entire life). As being completely unaware of someone else liking you for months/years even when it seemed like, really really obvious to everyone else. As having less and less people around you who don't hate your guts or are dead and having the one person who doesn't hate you, wanting to date you? Like romantically? As feeling inhuman. As questioning your humanity. As trying to define your humanity through romance. As being green themed and covered in eyes and becoming the lynchpin of the apocalypse<333

[dhmis-autism]

drawing stuff for valentimes and u all better enjoy it once i finish bc its the sappiest stuff ill ever draw ever