#she's naive not stupid

[bethanydelleman]

Catherine Morland: She’s Naive Not Stupid

Catherine seems to get hate because she comes off as unintelligent and because she marries a very intelligent man. Kind of an odd angle for me to take in character defence, but Catherine is worthy of Henry Tilney and this is why:

Catherine tells the truth, even when it is painful to her. It’s easy to tell the truth when it helps you (like explaining why you missed a country walk) but Catherine does not lie even when it makes her look bad or even lie by omission. She was walking around Mrs. Tilney’s room, imagining that she had been murdered by her husband, and when Henry finds her she tells the whole, mortifying truth. Given that Henry lives with two people who pathologically lie (General and Captain Tilney), it would be pretty refreshing to have Catherine in his life.

Catherine believes the best of people until proved wrong. (very Jane B., but Catherine’s also younger). She tries to believe the best of John Thorpe but quickly realises she doesn’t like him and that he must be lying. Isabella Thorpe is harder because Catherine likes her, but she does understand her character by the end. General Tilney is harder still, because he is much better at disguising the truth about himself. The suspicion that he killed his wife seems ridiculous, but Catherine is trying to fit the General into her understanding of the world. She cannot see how someone can have the appearance of goodness and yet be so bad. Given that the perceptive Elizabeth Bennet fell into a similar trap, I am inclined to give Catherine a pass.

Catherine stands on her principles. She thinks it is wrong to lie to Eleanor about having a prior plan and she resists her friend and her brother to set it right. Mr. Allen suggests that riding in an open carriage isn’t wise; she says no. It seems minor because she is only resisting peer pressure, but we can’t expect everyone to have the fortitude of Fanny Price.

Catherine is loyal in her affection, which I think would be attractive to a younger son like Tilney. When Catherine sees Captain T for the first time, she accept that he is hot, but has not a single thought of going after him, “She looked at him with great admiration, and even supposed it possible that some people might think him handsomer than his brother, though, in her eyes, his air was more assuming, and his countenance less prepossessing.” (Ch 16). I wonder how many times in his twenty-six years Henry has had a girl interested in him, only for her to go all Isabella Thorpe and try to use him as a stepping stone to his brother. Catherine never even considers it and unlike everyone else, she doesn’t seem to ask or care about Henry or his brother being rich. She is disinterested, not mercenary, and that seems like a hard trait to find (unless you’re an Austen heroine).

Catherine is a quick learner, she’s going to catch up. She has gone from living with a family that are, “plain, matter-of-fact people who seldom aimed at wit of any kind; her father, at the utmost, being contented with a pun, and her mother with a proverb; they were not in the habit therefore of telling lies to increase their importance, or of asserting at one moment what they would contradict the next” (Ch 9), to Henry Tilney, one of the funniest characters in Jane Austen’s collected works. But still she’s not lost! She is intelligent enough to find him amusing.

Lastly, Catherine is interested in improving herself. She doesn’t like reading history, but she wishes she liked it. She misunderstands people so she seeks help in comprehending their motives. She doesn’t resent people who are smarter than her, she is attracted to them. She’s only seventeen for most of this novel, she’ll never be as intelligent as say, Anne Elliot, but she’s not Harriet Smith either.

Also a quick comparison to the Mr. and Mrs. Bennet marriage, because this comes up a lot online. Catherine is nothing like Mrs. Bennet. When Catherine is told she is being thrown out of the Abbey, she asks if she has offended the General, tells Eleanor not to be so unhappy, and then assures her that she will be ready at an early hour. She doesn’t cry until Eleanor leaves the room. Can you imagine what even a younger Mrs. Bennet would have done? It would have been nothing like that, it would have been all nerves and wailing. Because Catherine and Mrs. Bennet have entirely different personalities.

Catherine Morland: She has many first rate qualities!

[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.

[fighting-naturalist]

Daniel with Shyla pre- vs. post-sarcophagus addiction

[gurokatt]

I think Lucy Maclean might be a blorbo

she's my silly rabbit

[fromtheseventhhell]

I think it's so funny that people treat Arya like she has no self-control because she *checks notes* stood up to Joffrey and defended her friend from being attacked

[enixamyram]

Basically I saw people arguing whether or not Charlie would accept any of the Vees (especially Valentino) into the hotel. And it gave me ideas that I know I'm never gonna write so I'll just share it instead! XD

Random Story Idea I Got Based On Seeing Others Discuss:

What If The Vees Checked Into The Hazbin Hotel

Since the big fight with the angels, it has been proven once and for all that demons can be redeemed via Sir Pentious visiting with Emily to confirm Charlie's dream for her. The Hotel's all happy and celebrating but not everyone in hell is.

The Vees as some such people because if Charlie starts redeeming sinners then that will be less souls they can get contracts with. But they have no way to stop them since Sir Pentious and Emily made a pretty grand display and if they fight too hard then it could backfire on them. So, they come up with their plan. They decide to pretend they also want to be redeemed. All three of them ask to join the hotel with the secret purpose of spying on them and sabotaging it from the inside out.

Charlie knows they are full of shit. Everyone knows it. But if Charlie refuses them without any proof, it would cost the hotel since Charlie's whole point is that everyone and anyone should get the chance if they ask for it. In the end, she knows that if they say no, they would essentially be sabotaging the hotel's good reputation and lose other sinners who genuinely want to redeem but are too afraid to come forward for fear of being judged for past sins.

So, Charlie is forced to say yes and let them in. But then immediately gets Vaggie, Husk and Alastor to work spying on the Vees spying on them. The goal is to catch them breaking any of the main hotels rules so that Charlie has a legit reason to kick them out.

On the very first night, Val tries to go to Angel's room since he avoided him all day only to find Nifty dutifully cleaning the hallway just outside. It turns out Charlie assigned her the job of keeping the Vees (specifically Val) from distubring other guests (specifically Angel). Cue some humor as Val is freaked out by Nifty because, well, it's Nifty and she tore a chunk out of him and then went on to kill the first man.

So, Husk is trying to get dirt on Val and the two have confrontations about Angel - which leads to Huskerdust! Alastor is riling up Vox to get him to do something stupid and the two just repeatedly try to one up each other and get on each others nerves. And Vaggie is assigned Velvette who isn't giving anything away and even mocks the fact that she knows Vaggie is spying on her (like taking a selfie with Vaggie obviously hiding in the background and tagging her in posts on her socials).

There'd be a bit of humor but also some dramatic angst with the Vees using the spying/riling/confrontations to show the Hotel is picking on them and whatever other techniques they can to turn people against the Hotel.

So yeah. That's my rambles of an idea!

[triglycercule]

jk!nightmare and jk!dream are just fucking kaido and teruhashi from saiki k i'm gonna kill myself 😭😭😭 this is what happens when you do the chuunibyou and perfect girl trope you get fucking saiki k. whats next i make jk!epic or something have reality breaking powers??? mayhaps.... JK! not happening

anyways jk!nightmare is so fucking stupid she's the worlds largest girlfailure. the only reason she still gets to live out her delusion is because everyone in school is nice enough to play along with her. meanwhile dream is just perfect she's got one of my favorite designs. perfect looks perfect grades perfect personality part of the star sanses she's PERFECT. too bad that she's a naive idiot. maybe the dumbness is genetic among the dreamtale twins who knows but i made them both total idiots

[jacarandaaaas]

seen a thing like “oh which princess are you” and they described mirabel as naive and kinda dumb😭 now out of all of them I would say she’s the least naive do we not remember how skeptical she was of her own uncle💀 like yeah she’s clumsy but like come on mirabels a smart character I was waiting the whole movie for her to make a stupid decision and she just… didn’t.

“mirabels so naive”

literally mirabel:

[urgeforgoing]

you guys keep asking for more complex female characters but you all couldn’t even handle SANSA STARK

[kurozu501]

Norea, who did a terrorist attack on a school and murdered a teenager on live space tv in front of thousands of people: hey nika did you know its your fault my home base is being attacked rn. its your fault because of all the info you weren’t able to tell anyone since we kidnapped you before you could tell anyone anything. yeah.

[shi0n]

life is so hard for a wimp like me who was born into a family of warriors plagued by blood feuds

[trans-xianxian]

very ironic that there have been several story beats throughout fontaine like "the melusines are often infantalized by people but they are fully autonomous beings who deserve respect" and then half of the fan base is like awe cute little melusine baby who is like a child and a kid and a baby who needs to be taken care of by other characters because they're like a human toddler 🥺. die.

[ohdorothea]

I didn’t want to add it to the last reblog but has that anon or op SEEN the vigilante shit performance???? You think Taylor is doing all of that on stage and DOESNT want her fans thinking she’s incredibly hot???? please be so serious!!!!!!!!

[fujii-draws]

hey fujii do you wanna hear about a silly little thing i thought of earlier. so you know how in red/blue rescue team, eevee used to be in the "naive" category, whereas in explorers of sky, it's in the "jolly" category? it made me think about ribbons, specifically because of how the rescue team personality test describes the naive trait.

in rescue team, the naive type is described to be someone whos highly curious, and someone who likes rare things. their cheerful and carefree make everything fun for the people around them, but they also have the flaw of being childish, never sitting still, and always being on the move. (it also says that they might be selfish but i dont see that applying to ribbons tbh..)

it seems so oddly fitting for ribbons because her personality does show those traits in particular. she's a silly little thing and her bright cheery personality, and she is childish to some extent. and of course, can't forget her curiosity. especially with how curious she got when it came to dusknoir. and of course, we can't forget about the *actual* definition of naive. naivety in the sense of choosing to believe that dusknoir, despite how his aura flared with malice, bared no ill intent. to think that someone who is so great, so wise, so kind and caring could ever be capable of shattering her world apart.. that was naive. because she believed he was what she thought he was, and because it was her naivety that nearly got her and aimilios killed. you'd think she'd have learned from the drowzee incident where two kids displaying trust in a spur-of-the-moment stranger who coincidentally showed them kindness in their misfortune was a mistake, but i suppose that's what being a naive little child does to you.

(anyways im sorry if this sounds incoherent and out of the blue. have a good day)

DONT YOU DARE APOLOGIZE FOR THIS. THE JOLLY AND NAIVE NATURES FIT MY GIRL SO WELL. (Unhinged rant in tags)

[pixiecactus]

not wanting to tag this bc obvious reasons but i hate asoiaf modern aus so bad, if it's your thing more power to you, but all i see is just heavy mischaracterizations of all the characters, i mean almost all modern aus have arya and sansa being besties... like at this point did you actually read the books, yeah they are sisters and probably always will be, but currently they don't have a good relationship, how could that be when the oldest sister bullies and completely bashes the younger sister self-esteem

[where-is-caithe]

Diophne (Dee-off-nee), she/her, goes by Dee.

I made a cute little sylvari! She cries so much and she has a little cat. She's way different from the usual commander I make and it'll be fun to explore with how she reacts to things.