#this doesn't mean they're forced

[flurry-of-beaus-pop-pop]

Nobody forced Fearne to take the shard.

Nobody forced Fearne to take the shard.

Nobody forced Fearne to take the shard.

[maulfucker]

racism in star wars will have wikis saying shit like "this species that is inspired on a real life non-white people is just too stupid to use the Force"

[cold-neon-ocean]

My dogs my beloved dogs!! The first line of beastial spirit vine soldiers from my LoK AU. Created by Baatar when during experimentation, he discovered the spirit energy after being condensed causes the vines to react strangely to machinery and processed material. Turning the inorganic to organic.

These soldiers are comprised of spirit vines that have mutated in reaction to the condensed activated spirit energy and adhered themselves to the suits. Similar to "mimics" in a way, they can conceal their mouths fully so they're indistinguishable from human soldiers, though very astute earthbenders may notice they neither breathe nor have a heartbeat.

[bunnieswithknives]

*kills you to death*

[gxlden-angels]

Bro I hate fundamentalists and culturally-fundie parents they'll say shit like "spare the rod spoil the child am I right haha yea my parents used to have to beat my ass with a switch almost everyday but I sure did learn my lesson" but like??? no you didn't??? you were hit multiple times for something you very obviously did not, in fact, learn

Like studies about how harmful even lightly spanking children is aside, you're literally contradicting yourself?? Some even admitted they got worse as they got older cause they wanted to see how far they could push their parents before they got punished

And studies not aside, you're gonna get child raising advice from the same book that tells you to stone your wife if her hymen doesn't break on your wedding night instead of the decades of research we have now?? Just say you're a bad parent and move on my guy. Skill issue

[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.

[riddlerosehearts]

idia/vil is such a sweet and interesting ship to me and does not deserve to be a rarepair i'm serious. this might end up a bit incoherent and disorganized because i'm not great with words, but listen. the thing is that while on a surface level idia shroud and vil schoenheit--a nerdy shut-in with anxiety who likes to game all day and a mega famous celebrity who's strict about self-improvement--might seem completely incompatible, their actual interactions show us that that just isn't true!!

like, for example idia's starsending robes vignette is a big one!! the way that vil sees idia trying to hide when he's supposed to be at the ceremony, and idia says he's terrified that people will make fun of him, that he's not like vil and can't just go out and not care what anyone think the way he does. and then vil... tells him he's wrong, that it's the opposite, that he cares so much what other people think but has enough of a grip on himself that he can ignore it and appear confidently in public. the way vil admits to idia that they are so much more alike that he thinks.

also, the way that (in this fan translation at least, as well as in other TLs i've seen--the localization translates it to have the complete opposite meaning, for whatever reason) idia then says "so in other words, you've got to level up your ignore skill", and instead of getting annoyed at him for translating his advice into video game terms vil just says "isn't that obvious?". he's going out of his way to try and give idia genuine advice and is willing to speak his language to get him to understand it. he even does a similar thing later on in book 6, when he tells idia that it's worth taking chances because after all, the star rogue protagonist took his chances and went from zero to a hero.

and on that note, book 6 is so good for them. book 6 has idia get all excited and carried away while infodumping about star rogue, only to abruptly lose his enthusiasm and start talking quietly and stuttering. and who is it that tells him he shouldn't act so embarrassed and that they weren't judging him? it's none other than vil. vil who also shows an interest in gaming, much to the surprise of idia who believed, in his own words, that a "sparkly, gorgeous supermodel" like vil couldn't possibly like any of the same things as him! but no, vil wanted to try out the games they had and vil expressed a desire for idia to talk about his passions without fear of being judged. vil enjoyed playing star rogue and he was glad to discuss the movie adaptation with idia and ortho.

it's also vil who, when idia expresses his disappointment at the star rogue sequel being canceled and his wish for the original team to get back together and create a sequel that would be made with passion behind it, is the only one to genuinely understand where he's coming from (as opposed to jamil who's like "is it really that complicated?" and leona who suggests that he just throw money at the creators). vil is the one who encourages him to take a chance at doing what he can to make that wish a reality, to let the original team know that there's a passionate and loyal fanbase waiting for a sequel, and tells him that he just generally shouldn't give up on changing his future and achieving his dreams before he's even tried. of course ortho heard this advice too and took it very much the wrong way, but vil showed a surprising amount of understanding and support for idia and i feel like it was exactly the kind of thing he needed to hear.

also. remember the scene in disney's hercules where hercules temporarily gives up his godhood and his youth by diving into the underworld to save megara? because vil literally did the same thing to save idia. yeah, he may say he only did it for plot reasons, but like come on, how am i supposed to just not ship them after they parallel one of my favorite disney couples like that? vil is a world famous actor and model who was terrified of aging, and he still took such an insane risk!! i'm sure idia would have a crush on him after that.

i'm trying to wrap this up now because it's already too long but also idia has actually been said to have great fashion sense as his online persona and shown to enjoy cosplay and dressing up on occasion (for example, he went all out on his pumpkin knight costume and this hasn't made it to EN yet but he liked wearing the masquerade outfit). vil had pretty high praise for his design sense when he saw ortho's burst gear. and vil gets along incredibly well with ortho and is in the film club with him post-book 6, which is something i imagine idia would appreciate a lot. the contrast between them and the things they unexpectedly have in common are just so neat to me.

so, in conclusion,

i love them and i think they should be boyfriends

[butwhatifidothis]

What gets me about GW defenders saying that "Claude siding with Edelgard shows how far he's willing to go to get what he wants, he'll use anyone to further his goals" is that, even if that were accurate to his character... that's not what he does in GW. At all.

Which one of Claude's goals are ever progressed once he sides with Edelgard? And how does siding with Edelgard, specifically, accomplish said goal?

Maybe... killing Rhea? But all of the reasons he says he wants her gone in this game are either completely unproven or blatantly incorrect - there's no proof of the Church forcing arranged marriages, Crests do not force obligations onto those that have them (which Claude himself literally proves), and the Church is helping Dimitri restore Duscur - a foreign nation - meaning they are actively willing to help fulfill Claude's main goal that he came to the officer's academy to achieve.

And... that's it! That is the only possible thing that even POTENTIALLY helps Claude's dreams, and taking a five-second look at it shows that it actually does nothing at all to help anything. But in the meantime? Claude weakens Faerghus through agitating Sreng and invading it himself, forcing Dimitri to fight a three front war; he actively helps Edelgard get herself out of a messy situation, even though not helping her and letting her die would have actually helped him and would have actually been him using her like people keep saying he's trying to do; he and Holst even admit that by the end of the war Edelgard is going to make a vassal state of Leicester after taking the lion's share of Faerghus' territory for themselves, which Leicester can't do anything about because of Adrestia's far stronger military. He is the one saying that! He is the one pointing out that that is going to happen! And yet he just keeps going anyway!

He is the one getting used. Very blatantly, and very extensively. Claude walked himself into a trap and lied to himself into thinking he's the one with the upper hand, which somehow managed to convince a large portion of the fanbase too. There's no gray morality here, there's no cunning being showcased, Claude is just an evil stupid tool

[rabarbarzcukrem]

"Noé" being the name of the biblical savior of all life.

"Vanitas" meaning vanity, futility, something that is ultimately meaningless and doesn't last. I am unwell.

[eldrichfuck666]

you're faithless, for you pitched me against your holy father and it seems that I am winning

[mermaidsirennikita]

choose your fighter: Immortals After Dark epigraphs edition

[swiftcast-selene]

Day 7: Light

how convenient, to be his own nightlight. it's almost like he's meant to be reading until sunrise...!

(featuring @duisarcusxiv's Sagra!)

[shayminlucario07]

In response to today's selection of Dumb Twitter Takes

(If you don't know, people were clowning on a Smash Bros player on Twitter who made a "Smash characters if they had TikTok" post and said Shulk would make gym videos. This is, obviously, inaccurate to his character and suggests that the OP does not know Xenoblade, but people's responses to it were widely equally as dumb as the original post.)

I'm tired of people mischaracterizing Shulk as "Twink scientist who has never done a pushup in his life". That man is in the fucking Defence Force. He is LITERALLY IN THE MILITARY. His best friend is REYN and his hero/mentor is DUNBAN THE WAR HERO. Yes, he's a weaponry scientist- yes, he canonically spends most of his time in the lab to the point of forgetting to eat consistently enough that Fiora brings him food to make sure he does; yes, he is told outright by Dickson at the start of the game that he needs to get out more; but what people need to acknowledge, and refuse to (Gee I wonder why... I'll let you figure that out for yourself, but it's not hard), is that he is a trained combatant, who has spent his entire life in a world that is at war, is a member of his Colony's military, and throughout the entire game, is shown to be physically strong enough to be able to block attacks from Faced Mechon five times his size. He is able to run long distances at fast speeds for very respectable amounts of time- probably more than most people reading this, if we're being honest. And, again, he is a trained combatant. Fighting, especially with a sword, is VERY physically exhausting, and doing so as much as he does throughout the game- even just in cutscenes, if you choose to ignore gameplay- is very physically demanding! Shulk may be a scientist, but that does NOT mean that he's automatically weak, and if you think it does mean that, you're proving your lack of media literacy.

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[dirtytransmasc]

I can't put it into words, I have tried many times and failed, but the relationship between theon and asha means everything and more to me.

[oh-meow-swirls]

it's kind of weird to me that they didn't bother releasing sushi and tempura internationally at all but at the same time i'm kinda glad they didn't cuz like. yo-kai watch was financially failing in the west by the time 3 released. i feel like if they had released sushi and tempura the franchise would've completely tanked before we got sukiyaki which would've sucked. honestly if anything i feel like it's more surprising that we got all three versions of 2 instead of them just releasing psychic specters but tbf i think yo-kai watch was doing well in the west when 2 released. 2 is just inexplicably what killed the franchise despite being a masterpiece-