not a vent btw just emotional about the veggie loaf ****ed up and homophobic that she rarely finds anyone she can even pretend loves her and the three people she has found are either dead, ran away and was thought to be dead, or disappeared and then came back to pretty much say (in her own eyes) that she hated her and didnt care about her and never wanted to see her again

and like,, even then those three people aside from one never really cared about her too much? and even the one that did. they pretty much cared about everyone and salad just walked into their caring radius one of them was just her caretaker. she was forced into caring for salad, and while she was kind to her it was just part of her job. she was still absolutely terrified of and if anything hated salad. leader was quite literally her ab/ser. she never felt anything for her, and if she did it definitely wasn't positive. it wasn't uncommon for her to just slug her in the face or kick her when she did something wrong or made her mad, and she was just kind of a punching bag for her. most people in the beast brigade were, but salad was one of the more common ones. and yet salad found a way to justify leader's actions and hated herself every time her doubts about her came up, because of the lies she was told at the very beginning. she told herself leader loved her despite fearing every sudden movement-

-and every time she raised her voice, even a little. she told herself that it was just happening to toughen her up, and that she needs to work harder, and leader's doing it for her own good. she told herself that so much that she started believing it. and it ruined her in the end when she finally just, left. because she felt like she was never able to be enough for her. she was never able to fulfill what she saw as her one true purpose. everything she'd been telling herself and everything she'd believed for years just fell apart in the end.

she really couldn't cope when gianna finally cut it off. the entire 8 months after the police raid, all she told herself was, "leader's alive somewhere, we just have to wait! she'll come back eventually, and everything will go back to normal, and she'll love us like she promised she would." and then when she does come back she immediately skips to "i'm not leader anymore" and abandons the entirety of the beast brigade and, more importantly salad, who just.. breaks. even after she's gone and salad knows she's gone and she knows she's supposed to hate her, both as someone she left behind and as the new leader of the beast brigade, she still can't stop herself from missing her. and wishing she'd change her mind and come back. she hesitates from attacking her on the spot despite having several chances to do so easily during her reign, she still has a bad habit of walking around with her head lowered around her to show respect. she swears, she can still see leader in there, somewhere.

she just needs to find a way to pull it out, somehow.

ball salad brainrot 💕

a very ****ed up cat

nope. leader never cared for any of her members, and the closest she got to it was just wanting them around because they were useful. admittedly jackal kind of tricked himself into almost believing leader cared about him, but he knew deep down she didn't and it bugged him a lot. he never did anything about it though, unlike salad

highest ranking member left that wasn't jackal or jest, who were labelled as traitors for hiding in a secret room without saving leader from the police. also the nihilego chose her (supposedly for this reason, and for "standing up for the beast brigade" against gianna) so that's just. an immediate promotion. bc you know,, God