Tumgik
#going outside is also an option
mangora · 11 months
Text
Who cares about ship and character discourse. Frolic. Be free. Valid criticism is important but also don’t be afraid to look on the bright side for once. Think about Svetlana ‼️
30 notes · View notes
navree · 2 months
Text
genuinely would love for some of the "both parties are the same" people to name me a single election in the entirety of the twenty first century where the outcome for the country wouldn't have been better if a democrat had won
#personal#like come on we all know shit would have been amazingly better if the supreme court hadn't couped al gore#kerry would have also been infinitely better than bush too#i'm very glad we got two years of obama rather than a mccain presidency or a romney presidency#and honestly if you think hillary would have been worse than trump or that biden has been worse than trump#or that kamala will somehow be worse than trump 2.0 as he attempts to install himself as fascist dictator for life#you're not a serious person and shouldn't be allowed outside without an adult and also should probably get smacked in the head#with a cast iron pan#every american presidential election for my entire life has very obviously been 'the democrat is infinitely better than the republican'#and has only gotten moreso as i've grown up#hell every election in general is still showing that dems are better than republicans#democrats control the house? they get stuff down#republicans control the house? they go to recess early and are legit gearing up to shut down the government in october#(of an ELECTION YEAR god please let republicans singlehandedly shut down the government a month before election day)#(as a republican tries to take back the white house please god it would be so fucking funny to watch them deal with that)#but like yeah literally vote blue no matter who because i've been alive for twenty five whole years#and in those twenty five years never once has the republican been remotely the better option or even the 'lesser of two evils' option
301 notes · View notes
starry-bi-sky · 6 months
Note
I am absolutely loving your Danyal Al Ghul au. While I have a soft spot for the whole plotline of Danny becoming his canon personality almost right after breaking away from the LOA all because of Jazz, I'm just as much for your take in which he goes through the same character development as Damian.
Now I'm curious. You already tackled his relationship with Dani, will you eventually take a stab at when he, Sam, and Tucker meet Gregor? Given that it's one of my hated episodes as I couldn't stand Sam's infuriatingly hypocritical attitude to Danny's suspicions of him, I'd kill to see your spin on it.
Aw, thank you! Danyal Al Ghul aus are what got me into DPDC first, so I have a major soft spot for them. That being said, uh, its exactly that soft spot that causes me to have Many Opinions about the trope you just mentioned. Like the trope is all fine and dandy, i don't blindly hate it, my main issue with it is that most aus i've seen treat his backstory as an ex-assassin more like a pretty cosmetic accessory rather than something that actually should have had an impact on him. Especially if he remembers being in the league.
Like i cannot stress enough the fact that being in an ecofascist assassin cult (regardless of his standing in it) should've left him, in some way or another, screwed up morally and psychologically because that's just how development works. Nature vs. Nurture is like a game of tug-o-war that never ends, where they are constantly fighting against each other and one side usually has the upper hand or greater influence. Children model the behaviors of the adults around them (ex: bobo the clown doll experiment), and what impacts them in childhood can stick with them permanently.
Like how my psychology professor put it: a baby's brain is like wet cement; if you slap your hand on it, it leaves an imprint, and the cement dries that way. The same rings true for small children.
I could go on, but I frankly have so many thoughts on that alone that I would end up completely derailing from the second half of your ask, and I don't want to be more critical than I already have. Especially since you just mentioned you have a soft spot for the trope.
[Okay, hold onto your hats because this is long. Naturally lmao.]
Gregor! Man, I'll admit I last watched the show back in middle school on a dodgy illegal website (it had surprisingly good audio and visual graphics, and full episodes. But really annoying porn ads.) but I only made it to like season 1 before my hyperfixation faded and I lost interest. So I never actually saw the Gregor episode.
But... it is relatively easy to find free websites that stream Danny Phantom :), so finding the episode took me like. Thirty seconds. Plus the Tv.Tropes recap page because my damn earbuds just died and im out in public as of rn.
I'm not sure if I'll write something for the gregor episode like I did with Dani, since Dani's a bit of a special case in that she's a clone and tends to be a reoccurring presence in DPDC, and I thought the new dynamic with Danyal would be interesting.
Plus, I'm not a big amethyst ocean shipper for the pure reason of I'm just not all that interested in it; its kinda bland to me. I'll admit I've entertained the thought in this au due to the whole balcony scene i wrote, but I would've entertained the thought anyways if it was Tucker in that position instead. Big multishipper, me.
But, if I had to make it official? Danyal is not interested romantically in Sam when the Gregor episode happens, regardless of his relationship with Valerie. Who, speaking of I'm trying to think about how that would go, and I'm torn between including him almost-dating Valerie or not.
Because on one hand it helps point out Sam's hypocrisy (and i love her but i am always happy to point out her flaws and address them in au) in this episode in terms of Danny spying on them, but on the other hand I'll want to include a lot of set up in order to make Gray Ghost work in this au and wow will that take a while.
Especially with the Flirting with Disaster episode because it happens due to Technus' meddling, and Danny is, well, the son of the Batman? A trained assassin? An ex-assassin nonetheless, but still an assassin? A prodigy child in this au? He might not have needed to use most of his skills in the last few years, but like... there's just a bunch of 'what if' and 'well technically...' and 'would he? he could, but would he?' things that is getting in the way of my thought process and making my head spin.
.
Mmm. Okay. Flirting with Disaster occurs relatively the same as canon with a few exceptions; like Danyal noticing the strange coincidences, and he might take the idea into proper consideration because Sam has a point it is strange, especially out of nowhere.
However,,, he really enjoys Valerie's company, and he does really like her. He's been adjusting to civilian life for the last four years and while he's made a lot of progress, he's still. an ex-assassin child living like a wolf amongst sheep. This is normal, typical teenager stuff, and usually his friends like to encourage him doing normal teenager stuff.
So he's stubbornly holding out on the thought that this is normal, that ghost stuff isn't interfering here. He's a little hurt that his friends are discouraging this, he's not bothered by the fact that Valerie is a ghost hunter and he a ghost -- his mother is an assassin, and his father is Batman, and they still had a relationship. (Granted, he's not gonna tell them that)
If anything, being diametrically opposed to each other but still being in love is part of the family! Granted, usually both parties are aware of said opposition to each other, but he'll make a special exception this time around.
(And man now that i'm thinking about gray ghost, im now thinking about various like. scenes i could write between the two of them. maybe in a reblog.)
Anyways uhhh things relatively go the same as canon. Yeah. I think Sam still has a crush on Danny and still spies out of jealousy with Tucker.
.
Now, the Gregor episode! With that out of the way; the TVTropes recap for this episode isn't the best because it doesn't go into detail about the entire episode like it does with Flirting With Disaster and Shades of Gray.
(which i looked at earlier because I made a section of this post talking briefly about what changes I'd make to the Shades of Gray episode to help set up Gray Ghost, but ended up deleting because it was kinda irrelevant for the matter at hand.)
So I'm taking in bits of the episode clips at a time, I'll try not to get too nitpicky about how each scene goes because then it's gonna take me a longer time to write this.
But! First thing's first; since Danny is not romantically interested in Sam, he is also not jealous of Gregor. He is however, a bit eyebrow-raisey at him in their first introduction, but that's because Gregor is coming off as obnoxious.
Danny thinks he's kinda annoying, and it doesn't take a genius to see that Gregor is trying to impress Sam. But since they've only known him for five minutes he takes the good faith assumption and assumes that Gregor is genuinely trying to show interest in Sam's interests too because he likes her, so he keeps mum. The fake hungarian accent is weird, but it's overall harmless, so he doesn't point it out.
He does do the spying thing when he starts suspecting that Gregor might be working for the GIW. The episode only has this happen twice, but for the au this happens a handful of more times over the course of the week, with Danyal's suspicion steadily rising more and more each time.
Hah, when he brings up wanting to spy on Sam and Gregor because of this reason, Tucker still does his "woah! you wanna spy on Sam?" thing.
Danny immediately turns to him, completely unimpressed, and crosses his arms. "Tucker," he says, deadpan, "you and Sam spied on me and Valerie."
He uses a combination of his ghost powers and his regular stealth ability to spy on them. He's hiding in a tree when they're skipping rocks, close enough that he can use his powers to hear them talk but far enough away that he has a good view of their surroundings.
He's invisible in the cinema, but doesn't accidentally get in front of the projector. He checks the inside of the room for the GIW, and then waits outside the actual room itself, keeping an eye on the area and occasionally flying in to watch the movie out of boredom. It reminds him of being back on a recon mission with the League, but it doesn't end with him orchestrating someone's death.
Then when they're at the mall he stays in human form, blending in with the crowd. He runs into the GIW there, but realizes that they're not there because of Gregor; they're just shopping. They didn't show up at either of the last two locations, and he follows them to make sure they're not also trying to blend in. But they're literally just there for shopping.
Danny is rather pleased with this turnout; so far Gregor isn't a spy, he's just annoying. The next day at lunch he asks Sam how her date with Gregor went, and that's how she figures out he spied on them, because well, she didn't tell him that.
"Have you been spying on me?"
Danny messes with his food a little bit, and Tucker is sinking into his seat with embarrassment. He frowns, "Only last night. Those incompetent government dodos--"
His lip curls up; he gets all 'Shakespeare-y' (as Sam and Tucker put it) when he's insulting someone, "--kept appearing whenever Gregor did. I followed you and him last night to make sure he wasn't a spy."
A roundabout way of saying, "I was worried".
Sam is, as canon, furious. Danny understands why, he knows generally speaking that people don't like being spied on. But he's confused on just how angry she is, and is a little irritated by it.
"Why would you do that!" She exclaims, "That's way out of line, Danny."
"How? You spied on me when I was going on dates with Valerie." He narrows his eyes, and points his fork at her, "I'm not blind, I noticed."
"That's different, we told you why we were suspicious. And we don't have ghost powers like you do."
"I don't need ghost powers to sneak around, Sam, you've seen this firsthand. And I just told you why I followed you, I thought he was working with the guys in white--"
"So you think someone can only be interested in me if they're after you?" (this is a paraphrased quote, folks ;D)
"No! If that was the case I would have voiced my concern the moment I thought it. I don't get why you're so angry, you spied too."
Iiits.... a mess. Sam storms off with Gregor, Tucker tags along because okay, yeah, maybe Gregor isn't with the GIW, or maybe last night was a fluke. Either way he ends up tagging along. Danny overhears that conversation between the GIW and Mr. Lancer, and maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong; but something is up.
I've gotten to that scene in the locker room where Gregor tells Danny that he knows he doesn't like him, and I've paused at Danny's reply to say this: Danyal doesn't even bother trying to deny it.
"I know you do not like me."
"You're right; I don't."
"Ah, let me finish. I know you do not like me because you want to protect your friend, Sam, and I respect that."
"...That's correct."
"Good! Because I am going to ask her out."
"I had a feeling you'd say that," he stands up, claps his hand tight on Gregor's shoulder, and leans close to him with a threatening smile, "so you understand me when i say; if you break my best friend's heart, you're as good as dead, right?"
"Ah,, yes. I am so glad we got that cleared out of the way, and now I hope after we can.. how you Americans put it, hang out?"
In the episode he hugs Danny and gives him a la bise (which is that french greeting where you kiss someone on the cheek two or more times) after they end their conversation. But here, when he goes to do that to Danyal, Danny leans away, points an accusatory finger at him, and says; "Absolutely not; we are not close."
The next scene after that is like, end of day. Sam, Tucker, and Gregor walking away. Sam looks over her shoulder to glare at Danny, then gets forlorn. Tucker looks back and just looks forlorn.
(When did I start narrating each scene?? Eh, I'm writing this in brief spurts of time throughout the day. Don't fix what's not broke)
After that there's this whole scene with the two GIW agents that have been chasing Phantom all episode. They're there because they have Tucker's PDA that Skulker took, and it's got the information of their purple backed gorilla assignment on it. They've been going around seeing who Tucker associates with in hopes of catching Phantom.
Uhh ahaha and that is where this gets a little interesting imo, and also allows me to mention that im retconning Danyal's (already) redesigned ghost form. Which I've wanted to retcon even before this moment bc it was just too busy. I'll get to that in a moment.
The GIW suspect Gregor for being the Phantom because of his white hair and green eyes, which is all fine and dandy until you remember: Danyal (and by extension Phantom) has that very noticeable, rather identifiable facial scar that goes across the middle of his fucking face. The GIW could easily suspect that Phantom hides his scar with makeup if he's in disguise, but if they meet a kid with a seemingly identical facial scar and similar disposition? Hoo boy.
Solution? I've got two: Gregor is canonically a kid from Michigan who faked everything to impress Sam. Considering he knows she's gothic and knows that she's ultra-recyclo vegetarian? He probably watched her from afar or got information on her somehow. His hair is dyed, his eyes might just naturally be green, but if he notices that she's got a crush on either Danyal or Phantom? A little sfx makeup could help him recreate a similar looking scar.
My second solution that's gonna happen anyways bc its that suit redesign; Danyal does hide his face as Phantom. Ghosts are emotional creatures and its a popular headcanon that their interests, ambitions, etc, influence the way they look as a ghost, not just their death. A big reoccurring theme of my au is that Danyal did not leave the League unscathed, and that being an assassin is an important part of his identity.
So i'm discarding the hazmat suit look entirely and leaning into the 'assassin' thing. But the general (stylized) feel is like, white ribbon/cloth vambraces that he has used as a garrote at some point, a hood, a gaiter scarf-type thing. I'm keeping the cape. I did a doodle a few days back that's not the official redesign, but a redesign for Phantom. I may reblog this post with that attached because it's got the general feel down. There's very little white involved, but the inside of his cape flares out and looks like the night sky.
Now, the hood and gaiter scarf gets rid of most of the problem, but Danny's hood doesn't stay on all the time, so the GIW have likely seen the upper half of the scar. :] Gregor's own drawn-on scar doesn't have to be 1:1, but it looks close enough, right? A small scar cutting through the edge of his brow and ends right below the corner of his eye. A 'cool, badass' one opposed to Danny's 'garish' scar.
But! Back to the episode scene. Canon Danny gets written off as being 'too prepubescent' to be Phantom, and honestly it'd be hilarious if Danyal was written off for the same reason (he's calling them idiots in his head if they do). But instead -- leaning into the GIW's incompetence here -- he gets written off as being too mature or too talkative. Or something equally as absurd.
Sam breaks up with Gregor for canon reasons, but when Gregor does his "i really like you, but, come on-!" and gestures to tucker, he adds on "and that scary friend of yours too, seriously!"
Things go relatively the same as canon after that. Danny does end up apologizing for spying, however. Sam does it first. Sorrows, prayers, all that.
.
Things usually end up changed or different when I actually write it down, so I'd likely add more or adjust different scenes according to the flow of the oneshot. This is just like, a general vibe of how things would go, and where some of the more obvious changes would be if I did write this oneshot.
Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the ask :]
#dp x dc#dpxdc#dpxdc crossover#danyal al ghul au#danyal al ghul#i dont even mind the trope that danny becomes like his canon self i just want *some* kind of impact on him. but as it stands most aus i've#seen lowkey treat his assassin background as an accessory. like dyeing your hair or piercing your ears. that being said its also a silly#au where they're brothers and are related to each other and thus doesn't have to be that deep at all! im just bored of seeing the same thin#all the time. especially considering danny is usually depicted as the paler/whiter passing twin and being the 'kinder. more compassionate'#one between the two of them. give me danny who suffered crises of morality! danny whose morally darker than a cloud#morally orange and blue danny who sooner understands 'dont litter' than 'dont murder'. arrogant danny! he dotes on the people he loves but#is an utter bitch to everyone else and thus has to learn to be kinder. danny discovering himself outside being an assassin#his brother remembers a kind and compassionate older brother because thats how danny interacted with him. But danny had no qualms turning#around and slicing the tendons of one of the other assassins because of smth they did that displeased him.#he can still be like his canon self but shouldn't there be something that stays behind? Lingering like a blast shadow?#danny who carries weapons on him always even though he knows he doesn't need it but it makes him feel safer.#danny who spits out the oddest. most foreboding shit sometimes and his friends just stare at him and go 'bro what the fuck??'#idk if i can share the website where i found the episodes bc of risk of copyright. but just search up#'where can i watch danny phantom for free' and look for a reddit post with that question. the comments give website options.#i keep thinking about gray ghost now. valerie finds herself becoming a member of the 'danny fenton protection squad' with sam and tucker#danny takes a page from his beloved mother's book and calls his partners 'beloved' and equally sappy pet names.#he also throws the BIGGEST shitstorm of the century when he finds out about what Axion Labs did to the dogs. hoo boy.
204 notes · View notes
budd-ie · 1 month
Text
I think it would be really funny if fashion trends in ghost city mirrored the style of their beloved shapeshifter chengzhu’s most recent appearance. Whatever he wears? That’s what’s IN right now. It would also be funny if they always got it like. Slightly wrong. Chengzhu is wearing a long coat today! Long clothing MUST be the most fashionable. If your coat isn’t down the whole block, it isn’t in! The longer the better! Chungzhu is wearing hoop earrings today? Of course big rings are all the rage these days. Put them on your ears, your nose, your fingers, hell put them on your whole body! On your house! On your dog! The bigger the better! Look, he even gave a ring to grandunc—I mean his wife!!! If you don’t have one, you’re gonna look SO last week. Chungzhu’s wearing black today? Of course that’s the best color. Didn’t you know? If you aren’t wearing black, you’ll probably explode by at least tomorrow I think. That’s what I heard, anyway. Is it what? True? Hey don’t shoot the messenger, that’s just how it is. “I thought he was last seen wearing white and a ponytail” where did you hear that? And they heard it was blue? Black was last week? That can’t be right! Whatever���.both is fine. I’m not taking any chances and you shouldn’t either.
109 notes · View notes
feroluce · 4 months
Text
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.
Tumblr media
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.
Tumblr media
He even disobeyed direct orders right in front of her- he has been disobeying orders for a while now!
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
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.
#honkai star rail#gepard landau#hsr gepard#pelageya sergeyevna#hsr pela#hsr#smacking Gepard out of Hoyo's hands and running off with him skzjmdkd#tentatively Figuring Out how to write these two... It feels a little tricky starting out with extreme circumstances like this haha#I feel like a lot of people see Gepard as naive for trusting Cocolia so much but I don't think that's quite it. He's not stupid.#He's not even naive.#He's someone who has been groomed since birth by his own parents to be an obedient Guard and nothing outside of that role.#You are not immune to propaganda etc etc#But even then there are a lot of things like all the included screenshots where he. Doesn't actually seem to like/trust Cocolia much.#I think Serval was a really good influence on him as a kid. He might have turned out much much worse without her.#and even with how I've written him here. I don't think he's normally slow to act or one to stand aside and make other people lead.#it's just that this specifically was a pretty extreme circumstance for him.#and also he openly states elsewhere that Pela is overbearing and he tries not to interfere with her work whenever possible nskzhdjdjd#Pela too. I don't know that I normally see her as someone with a bad temper or quick to anger.#But again; extreme circumstances haha#Bc like. they both would have seen what happened to Serval when she stood up to Cocolia. they know damn well what's going to happen to them.#if they fuck this up and get caught then they're done.#and I mean. What are they supposed to do? they're two people against the highest authority of the entire nation.#regardless I do love Gepard agonizing over this in the future after Bronya takes over and everything has settled down#did he do the right thing? did he make the right choice? if he went vigilante how many soldiers would have died without his protection?#would Belobog have fallen completely? how many people died because he DIDN'T run away? was it actually enough?#I love characters forced between a rock and a hard place. no good options. pick your poison.#no winning- only weighing what you can and cannot bear to lose.#make your choice and decide whether you want to rot or to burn.
57 notes · View notes
he1chouarts · 24 days
Text
just lying in bed thinking about Astarion that’s been hiding another, more personal reason he wants so desperately to ascend: the thought that Tav won’t want him anymore if he can’t perpetuate the life in the daylight that they’ve been enjoying thus far. that he’s somehow stumbled onto two miracles—to be a daywalker, and to have somebody love him, truly—only to be haunted by the realization, the fear, that he cannot maintain both. he thinks he’s got the answer, the salve for all these horrible cursed outcomes he’s trying to outrun. he doesn’t realize that Tav would willingly come to him every night until death, that Tav thinks the moonlight suits him beautifully, that Tav clings to shadows because they have always offered their comfort. he doesn’t realize how unconditional love can be.
uh anyway…s-sweet dreams
34 notes · View notes
maxbanshees · 8 months
Text
got some cyanotypes up on the shop! :~)
27 notes · View notes
meirimerens · 2 years
Text
thinking about how mishandled the herb brides are because like. The Text tells us they're not sexual beings (P1 mentions them being virgins, engaged to the Earth, and not to be touched even by their husbands, almost, for a lack of a better word and to conjure an image more than anything, priestess-types) and that their dances are nonsexual and sacred (all all true and correct) WHILE. giving them detailed / 3D modeled nipples. topless. clothes very conveniently torn [in ways that would be unrealistic for actual dancing like in the fucking moshpit]. all pretty thin hairless white-passing blemishless 20-something women. being already sexualized as white-passing asian women, but if they looked more like other NPC models/members of the Kin like the Kayura models (which to me would make more sense because they are never mentioned to be mixed in the way Artemy, an indigenous man who's blonde blue eyes due to being mixed, is [while still very much being indigenous and it being a central part of his story]), it would be even more obvious and would steer even more into Very Blatant fetishization of asian women. and then one asks, are they white-passing because they're sexualized? are they sexualized because they're white-passing? was it an admission of guilt to not make them look like Kayura model, because it would be too obvious then? or is it an admission of lust for women more white-passing? is it about beauty in the eye of the beholder?
then there's bewildering and dehumanizing lore of members of the Kin being non-humans, through the existence of the Worms (literally half-soil), them being a (more or less literal) hivemind, and that being "less human"/closer to the earth (nice_dichotomy_what_lies_outside_of_it png but also... the game touches on that...) immunizes them to the Earth's disease... and yet the Brides look like women... pretty thin hairless white-passing blemishless 20-something women who someone found wise to give 3d modeled nipples to, still good for the ritual cutting... do you hear how i'm going mad yet...
edit to add because while i was so mad and it WAS in my mind i just didn't have the strength to add it when i first wrote:
and they're bought and traded between the odonghs they pair with (again, closer to cattle or things) ... ladies there's so much. there's too much.
#werewolf tearing shirt off again#ah well. [lets myself drift away in the images i've made of the brides and my constant quest to humanize them and respect them and#make them diverse and full of life. which i might never manage to and yet i try.]#also i was thinking like. their celibacy + virginity + central spiritual place in the kin do be reminding me a lot of priestesses#[really sorry for boxing them in like that but if there is stuff of the same thing just with another name imagine i used it here#i just don't know any other]#and priestesshood famously was an option for women to avoid marriage; and often domestic/sexual servitude to their husbands#same for nuns who are also said to be like. ''engaged to christ'' in their own way (again only making tangentially similar patterns;#not calling the Brides nuns of course)#so having them be Said to be nonsexual [until they're said to be etc] while being Shown as sexualized it's like. oooh the misery#neigh (blabbers)#disclaimer i'm white & i'm sure Many indigenous women regardless of origins have touched on this in more direct and deeper ways i ever coul#oh there's also the fact that the kin is said in design document to mirror in ways 19th century native americans#and the herb brides going to sexualize themselves in the B.H. ''for outsiders'' (p1 dialogues)#mirrors native american women being pushed in brothels from the crushing roller of colonization stripping them of land#pushing them into poverty and homelessness#in ways that i um. raised eyebrow emoji to say the least. find deeply uncomfortable.
161 notes · View notes
torahtot · 10 months
Text
ok ive had enough of queering judaism. can we start judaizing queerness now. or something
#like. it feels like so much of this queering judaism shtus just layers an american/secular queer identity over judaism#which i guess is fine for certain communities. but it's only going to push you away from orthodoxy#and if as queer jews we already feel like our queerness makes us into secularized outsiders in our own communities#how does this help? is trying to get our communities to embrace an essentially secular american iteration of queer identity supposed to mak#us feel LESS like outsiders? it's not quite doing it for me#we need a queerness that comes from within judaism that is essentially jewish#ive seen a couple of articles recently from ppl talking abt how word/concept of butch doesnt exist in their language & culture#but they use it anyway#& like. i love being butch. it's important to me ill never give it up#& i am american too. but my whole identity as a butch he/him lesbian is exclusively secular american it came from the outsifr#which is definitely due in large part to the fact that my Gender Problems were really tied up w orthodox jewish gender roles#so naturally to get out of that i'd pull on something not jewish. but i wish there was another option? idk if that's possible#or how it would look#maybe that's why im obsessed w the idea of a butch w long curly payos.... 😦#i forgot where i was going w this but yeah it's frustrating#this is a large part of why im wary of starting a queer Jewish club on campus bc the people who would wanna start it w mr#well no offense but they are insufferable about this#(incidentally they're also insufferable about chanukah. no surprises there)#nachi speaks#jew blogging#others have Actually written abt all this tho
49 notes · View notes
etdraconis · 11 days
Text
( work is kicking my ass today and I’m gonna fight a guest at some point how is everyone doing today )
7 notes · View notes
j-esbian · 18 days
Text
god the Woke Content Game List is stupid for so many reasons, but it’s also just CLEARLY subjective lol
FNV lets you have gay sex with several characters but it’s only listed as yellow, even though that’s a dealbreaker for other games. original Baldur’s Gate (extended edition) is red but BG2 is yellow, because there’s gay romances in both but only the first one has a trans character. what the fuck is “pro-DEI messaging” because I legitimately don’t know and that’s listed in a lot of notes. are you really so upset about a single line in passing from a Skyrim NPC that you needed to include that. these games aren’t even listed in alphabetical order.
7 notes · View notes
ria-starstruck · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
like at my first artfight i went "im never filling one a these things out, if they're every year then why would i" but erm. well this year i had to because of team stardust. you understand. reblog
anyway my artfight's at /~Ria_Starstruck
10 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media
Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol
#I added a few people that you can randomly run into around town (like at the inn or in the forest or etc) and have very short conversations#with just to kind of flesh out the world a little more in a more natural-ish seeming way. Like nobody in the main cast would really#have much reason to talk about the actual city you're in or anything. Since most of them havent lived there that long anyway.#But if there's a ''city inspector'' that you can run into whilst he's writing up notes examining the local inn. then maybe there could be a#few dialogue options with him where you can ask about things like that. since he would know more about the area as an offical Government#Worker or etc. Optional of course. since I have to be so wary of my natural inclination to lore dump lol and am trying extra hard to make i#all stuff thats easily avoided/skipped. But for the people like ME who deliberately choose to exhaust every possible optional dialogue#option and explore every single inch of the world and try to collect as much information as possible - then there are a few extra places to#do that. Though obviously not all of them just give exposition for like 15 paragraphs blandly. Some you don't really learn anything from#and it's kind of just.. random flavor to make the non-shop map locations more ''lived in'' feeling. Like the random#little girl you can talk to in the park doesn't bizarrely start reading out the wikipedia description of some War that happened 10 years ag#or whatever. she's just complains about school a little and asks if you've tried the nearby ice cream cart treats and etc lol#ANYWAY..#some of the art is so so evil but I'm not going to spend 800 years trying to clean it up and update it. whatever the hell mess I sketched#out in 2018 or whatever is just what I'm keeping lol... it is what it is#One of the many trials of the whole 'briefly work a few months on something and then abandon it almost entirely only to pick up work#on it literally like 4 - 5 yrs later and now you must contend with trying to decipher whatever weird shit you did years ago' experience lol#Also given the population breakdowns of the world in general I think there's an unrealistic amount of jhevona in this lineup since#they're a much rarer species to just see out and about anywhere but.. it IS a global trading center type area. and the game#takes place in the north (the country of Asen. near the coast. for the maybe 2 or less people who actually keep up with my worldbuilding#enough to know where that is lol (the same continent as Navyete (where the avirre'thel live)) and there's a decent concentration#of nothern jhevona only a short ways away so... tee hee..I shall pretend it makes sense and not merely me just wanting#to represent more of that species because I think their lore is interesting lol#I MEAN also realistically there would NOT be a human here because humans are extremely isolated species that don't even know the rest#of the world exists really and human territories are extremely protected from the outside world but... of course it's like.. well we need#at least One of them to be there for the Optional Lore. Same with the Ythrili. But at least those are like.. PLAUSIBLE.. not nonsensically#outlandish. If I had a Verrucalt or something in there THEN that would be truly lore-breaking almost lol#ANYWAY.. rambling that only means anything to me because nobody else knows what I'm even referencing but hbjh#also I think my character designs are so funny in the sense that I really do just love to do the same thing over and over again ghbjh#wow... random asymmetry and belts and arm straps and high collars where the neck is completely covered?? you dont say..how novel
10 notes · View notes
linkspussy · 9 months
Text
There's a fetish club in the city that has a zero casual clothes rule. Like, no t-shirts, no dresses, no suits, no denim. And I mean besides the obvious gatekeepy-ness and how that is very unfriendly to those new to kink, what the fuck am I supposed to do if my sex fantasy involves dressing like this??
Tumblr media
20 notes · View notes
thatsgonnaleaveamark · 4 months
Text
whyy are concerts so expensive and not close to me ಠ╭╮ಠ
9 notes · View notes
n7punk · 4 months
Text
btw know as we go into this game that i am going to be critical and say stuff that sounds like talking shit but it's because i genuinely love these games, they were part of my personality and what my mental health rested on at some point, and when i say that stuff it's because i loved them/the characters/the potential and i just want better from it in some aspects. i am excited. i am going to rag on myself for being excited. im one of the rare me:a enjoyers even and have invested hundreds of hours in inquisition so im probably going to really enjoy this game. but i am going to make fun of it and da as a whole also because lets be honest: it kind of deserves it
17 notes · View notes