there's like only a few characters im actually proud of and they're all, unsurprisingly, my favorites. so edmund (ew), gianna/leader, cafe's in there but they're less developed but also one of the most developed characters outside of control so like. they still count

"edmund is in your favorites?" i threw every problem at this man and he found a way around it eventually and came out on top. he had his low points and at times he wasn't able to fix things but no matter how bad his depression got or how hopeless things seemed he still pushed through and he's still a good person at the end of it all. flawed, kinda broken and still an asshole, but a good person. and idk i just like that a lot about him andalso. dad. he's dad. not my dad he's more of just my morally good rival but he's dad to others and yknow what i still get teary eyed thinking about jesse or like edmarkus baby sometimes ok

no more edmund i wanna talk about SALAD *crushes dad guy*

LISTEN. LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN she tries so hard??? she spends every moment she can trying to impress leader or just someone else she cares about or the gods or just. anybody!! because it's the only way she feels like she can be loved. it's been ingrained in her mind from the moment she gained consciousness as a fusion that she has a purpose to serve the gods and if she doesn't fulfill it, she doesn't matter. she wants to help leader and she wants to complete the beast brigade's goal. she's made it her life's purpose. what else would she do? it's all she's ever known- in reform au she literally doesn't know what a window is and she's amazed to learn that people have made a way to see outside without actually being outside if that's any idea of how bad it is

she goes to extremes to try and be recognized by leader, yet rarely does it ever work- and when it does, it's not always good recognition. infact most of the time it's not. she's admittedly not the brightest and because of how impulsive she is, she messes up a lot, and sometimes she tries to do the wrong thing on accident. and she's never really sure what leader wants from her. that never stops her from trying, though- no matter how many times she ****s up and leader gets mad at her, she's always back on her feet after a while, chasing what she thinks is the next target or eliminating someone she thinks is unloyal or making leader mad. jackal only adds onto this. he keeps raising the bar impossibly high- so even when salad does do something correctly, it's not enough, and jackal's done it better by then. she's always three steps behind at all times, no matter how well she does. and he's always there to tease and mock her for it, too. it drives her,, More insane. i say insane lovingly. insane (affectionate

jackal is a lot of things, though. and brave is not one of them. salad knows this. he picks on and bullies her because she can't fight back without consequence. yet when she does fight back, he's immediately scared shitless and runs right over to leader to hide behind her. eventually, in a moment of desperation, tired of trying so hard just to be chastised, being mocked by the lowest scum of the earth and an event where she's kicked from leader's mission group for something she didn't do, she acts out a plan that only lived in the back of her mind up until that point. jackal's cowardice works in her favor here- this was one thing he was too scared- and probably too smart- to do. salad drives atlas into the beast brigade base, trapping him in the big cylinder room where everyone can see the two of them, and challenges him to a fight to the death. or i guess forces him into it.

and for once, that's something salad does right. just barely, salad comes out on top. in front of everyone, in front of jackal, in front of leader. she's done something no other member of the beast brigade's succeeded in doing, in a way no other member would have dared to try. and for five minutes she finally gets to experience everything she's wanted for years. leader comes down to congratulate her, finally calling her by her name and not by her code, placing her new trophy on salad's rack and asking her to meet in her office so salad can be worked into leader's team, somehow. for those five minutes salad finally gets to rest, and be happy. and even if those five minutes are cut short by the police raid.. i know it wouldn't have lasted much longer even if the raid didn't happen.

she's forced out of the base to save herself and stop the police from finding her, as she knows she's too weak from the fight with atlas to fend them off. and by the time she gets back, everything she knows is gone. the base is destroyed, none of the members seem to be there, leader is missing with the only thing left behind being her hat and a scarily familiar scent next to a pool of blood that no human could lose and come out alive. she's heartbroken- she convinces herself leader is alive and was arrested or something, terrified of admitting she's truly gone. but the members that do eventually come out of hiding don't help this. jackal, who revealed that he ran and hid with jest while whatever happened to leader happened to leader, is labelled as a traitor and everyone agrees that he and jest should not keep their rank anymore. so the next highest rank is salad- and one of the gods, infront of everyone, appears and claims her as the next leader. she doesn't want to be, though, at least not entirely.

she's not looking for power or anything- she just wants to serve leader. but she doesn't have much of a choice. begrudgingly she takes the offer, but doesn't consider herself a "real" leader, at least not yet, and still doesn't want to be called leader. this even applies later, but, to her, the only real leader will always be gianna. she waits, and waits, and waits, claiming that at some point leader will return. but the rest of the team has given up hope. everyone except for salad- including the gods- believe that gianna's dead. nobody tries too hard to convince salad otherwise, though. nobody wants to end up like the last guy who tried she's still in charge in some capacity though and she still has control over the team. but she doesn't treat them like leader did or try to act like her at all. and the most she does is ask them to fix up the base and recover any members who weren't able to hide with them in some way

almost 9 months since the police raid. salad is close to giving up on leader. she's severely depressed at this point- the one person she was willing to give her life for is long gone with no sign of coming back. and she's still furious at jackal, for stealing her away and then fleeing when he could've actually done something with himself that would've helped, for once in his life. but one day, she glances over her shoulder and into the window overlooking the big fat cylinder room- the same one she fought atlas in- and there's movement down there. all the members are with her, so it's not them. and as she prepares to face an intruder, she realizes with a start that she swears she saw leader's face in the light filtering down there, for just a moment.

she rushes down the stairs and, sure enough, she finds the same icy blue eyes staring back at her. yet this time.. there's something so, inexplicitly off about them. there's something new there, and salad isn't sure whether she likes it or not- but regardless of what it is, it's her, it's all her, it's leader and she's here again with her. there's no jackal anymore to stand in the way, there's no competition in general really, and for the last 9 months salad's held up the beast brigade and has been the only one holding onto her belief that leader's alive. but only when the words "i'm not your leader anymore" leave gianna's mouth does salad actually realize what that little difference in her eyes was.

for what seems like hours, she has no clue what to do. she has no clue what to feel. she can only sit there in shock and piece together whatever the hell her mind trying to feel- and what she finds is a deep, piercing loneliness and fear and anxiety that she could never name, followed by a horrible rage that seems to shake her to her very core. she loses control. in a moment of fury she launches herself at gianna, screaming about how she's a traitor and abandoned the brigade and abandoned her, and how for that she would pay the worst price salad could charge. seemingly out of thin air, though, edmund appears. a look of relief- or at least what salad thinks is relief- crosses gianna's face, and salad immediately jumps to the conclusion that gianna abandoned the brigade for edmund, of all people. the one she repeatedly tried to get rid of and the one everyone in the team knew was unloyal and untrustworthy. if she's wasn't angry enough before, she sure as hell is now.

**** i just deleted a comment i was almost done with. flipanim die

and then big fighty fight scene and salad shoots gianna with a laser edmund drags gianna (surprisingly not dead, by the way) out of the room, panicking. part of salad loves seeing gianna like that, burnt and bruised and limp, but part of her.. also hates it. and she hates that she likes seeing her like that. it doesn't take long after they're gone for reality to set in. salad keels over, sobbing uncontrollably, repeating the word "never" to herself over and over and over- until an eerie, faint blue light appears over her. she looks up, and sure enough, a nihilego- one of her beloved gods- is floating right over her, offering her yet again her place as leader now that gianna is truly gone. anger fills her body once again, and she accepts. she truly wishes she didn't have to- she wishes she could have stopped gianna and convinced her to come back.

seeing her now alive and watching her reject her felt so much worse than thinking she was dead, but at the very least.. now salad had the honor of making sure she wished she never survived long enough to do so in the first place.

she/her

bestie come back i want a tired explanation /nsrs

bestie please <//////3 /nm /hj

o. yes i Am happy asshole that seemed a littl IMPORTANT....... SHITHEAD....... /lh /nm /t