#basha myaso

[dice-eater]

...To Be Continued?

(a late @d20exchange gift for @idonthaveanyurlideas, a comic based on their au where sapphria survives the ravening war! which you can read here and the fabulous acoc fic zine wink wink nudge nudge go do it)

[blackcrystalball]

I know the meatlands are based on Russia and Eastern Europe, but something about the name Basha Myaso feels so African to me, like I feel like I would have met someone named Basha Myaso just going around town.

(bit of context: I am South African, and I live in South Africa.)

[d20unfuckability]

"He's got the 70s pornstar moustache, and he's the meatiest man you've ever met! King Amethar calls him "Big Basha", which we can only assume was a nickname he picked up after everyone saw him pissing in the trenches during the Ravening War. He truly is the champion of the carnal act :D"

"we've all fantasized about going down on academic while they're focused on their studies, right? right???"

[ghost-bard]

BASHA MENTION LETS FUCKING GO now we need a scravoya mention bc my god…

[isit-allover]

BASHA MYASO MY BOY

[vethbrenatto]

This was far and away my favorite episode of The Ravening War so far, and I wanted to figure out why breaking down emotional beats by character. Apologies, this might get long.

Bishop Raphaniel breaks, falling into madness. He sees through the trees of the organization he's been representing with a mindset all along that he was the one who knew something the others didn't, only to realize he had been hoodwinked all along. He looks back on the life he's lived, the things he's done, and the things he's been through/plagued by and turns to the fungi going: It has to have been meant for something, please make it all worth it- don't let this be meaningless.

Lady Amangeaux trades her title and her notoriety in for the safety of her child, accepting that she may not even be much in that life (as she turns her life to service), but knowing that the child will be protected. After the death of Pamela Rocks, the woman who in Episode 1 was so fervently clinging to her title, has finally realized there are far safer things you can be than a queen.

Delissandro Katzon loses Colin and falls desperately into individualism. With his anchor to friendship and community gone, his worst instincts of self kick in. What matters is his name, his legacy, his power. Not that of Basha Myaso, no matter how he may support him. Certainly not that of his mother. While he does swap Colin for Karna, she only encourages these instinct in him, having similar values about the importance of his power.

Karna Solara is offered the opportunity for family and turns it down. She wears armor showing that she has been everywhere, she is from every place... yet her conversation at the start of the episode with Amangeaux betrays that she's been everywhere, yet has no one. She is no daughter; she is and always has been an orphan. Yet her connection to Deli betrays one last spark of humanity (humanity in food? you know what I mean) in the form of a crush that began as a sixteen year-old girl. She may have grown up rotting, but there is some heart in there, for him.

Colin Provolone is finally revealed to be just some guy. He is some guy's son who was some other guy's son and he's been running his whole life because of it. So, when he sees Pamela Rocks killed not for anything she did, but because she is of House Rocks, he can't sit idly by anymore. He trades the most he's ever had in life; a position, a title, a true friend- for his morals. He goes from supporting a person he liked to protecting someone he doesn't for his morals. He gives away a life he could have loved for one he can feel okay living.

Woof, guys. It's a lot.

[thevalleyisjolly]

This is likely just a coincidence, and definitely not trying to make the Scrumptious Scoundrels’ story all about the Rocks, but I was thinking about how we know that the political goals expressed so far by the Scrumptious Scoundrels will not succeed - the Meatlands will not unify under Deli as warlord but rather Basha Myaso, and Jacque Tomaté will not become King of Vegetania with Amangeaux as his queen and Karna on his council.  Then I realized that these outcomes were, in some significant part, due to the Rocks siblings, especially Sapphria and Lazuli.  They all fought in the Ravening War and helped to end it, but in particular, Sapphria was helping raise Basha Myaso to power in the Meatlands when she was killed, and Lazuli not only backed a young Gustavo Uvano explicitly against Tomaté but sacrificed herself to ensure his victory.  And I know the Scrumptious Scoundrels left no survivors in the ambush, no one would have known who exactly killed Queen Pamela, but there’s something very symmetrical and fitting about her children going on to directly foil the goals and ambitions of her killers without knowing it.  Destiny does not remember those who kill the righteous well indeed.

[wardensantoineandevka]

Amazing that Amangeaux and Colin could very easily be at the Grand Tournament where Amethar is almost killed, hanging out together, watching everything through opera glasses (Colin figuratively, Amangeaux literally).

Amangeaux confides in Colin about grieving Gustavo before he's even actually dead and is upset she cannot visit Gustavo as often as she wants as he worsens. She wonders if she should take this opportunity to retire from intrigue, then immediately makes Colin tell her that she isn't too old (she absolutely isn't). Colin has the exact same conversation with her that he had with Cleva twenty-seven years ago about disdaining the power gathered at this event. He makes up the money he lost betting on Plumbeline in the tilts by betting on Annabelle in the melee, though he was actually pettily betting against Scravoya, Basha Myaso's wife; Amangeaux doesn't understand why he bet on Plumbeline in the first place. She jokes he should've entered the melee, but he scoffs that an emperor's boon is useless to him—besides, between a member of House Cheddar and Pamela Rocks' son entered, it's tempting fate too much for him.

[wilderebellion]

Timeline of Ravening War from A Crown of Candy:

YoB 1188: Conflict between Fructera and Vegetania begins: Count Jacques Tomaté (Fructeran noble) became next in line (by birthright) for throne of Greenhold (in Vegetania).

1190: War begins, officially.

Around 1191, Saccharina Ghee is born?

Queen Pamelia Rocks, wife of King Jadain, was previously a Fructeran noble, and had ties to Count Jacques Tomaté. His leadership in Fructera crumbled.

Lazuli Rocks used magic seeking someone who could rule instead. This led her to young Gustavo Uvano.

Lazuli dies first, to ensure Uvano as ruler.

Sapphria spent time in the Meat Lands on a mission to raise Basha Myaso to power. She was killed by Carnish assassins.

Citrina took the Bulbian faith very seriously. She also acknowledged it and the Church as separate institutions when the sisters argued about the Catherine Ghee situation.

Citrina died seemingly by tragic accident, run down in the streets. In fact, young Belizabeth Brassica ordered this done, for reasons unknown. Prior to the Ravening War, Belizabeth was a bishop in the church.

Citrina was canonized as a Saint in the Bulbian Church after her death.

Rococoa dies last, at the final battle in Pangranos.

YoB 1195: The War ends. Concord forms

12th Harvestdusk, 1196: Catherine Ghee dies from illness.

Amethar and Caramelinda wed days later.

Princesses Jet and Ruby Rocks are born in 1197.

[chungledown-bimothy]

Lapin talking shit to Basha Myaso hits DIFFERENT post Ravening War tbh

[allonsy-gabriel]

imagine for a second you're gustavo uvano. imagine you're basha myaso. you bring your seconds to a war council, a meeting of all the generals and leaders of all the armies of all these disparate kingdoms. you tell them to stay outside the tent. you're planning the final push, the final offensive, in a bloody, drawn-out war that's lasted nearly a decade. you don't trust the people in the tent next to you, but that's okay because you know that outside the tent, you have your most trusted advisor.

the meeting ends. you leave the tent, expecting to see your second standing there, to go over your plans and positions, but they're gone. no one knows where they went. a drunken old crumble of cheese mentions something about chasing a knight and a priest, but no one really saw anything. they're just... gone.

you never see them again. the battle hasn't even begun, but it has already claimed the person you trusted most. but there is a war on, and you have no time to worry, or to mourn. how surprising is it, then, when general rococoa is found littered with arrows behind her own lines? your trusted friends disappeared before the first arrows were fired. this is war. people are lost. people are taken. you never see them again.

[a-couple-of-notes]

You know, despite the jokes going around about Deli bouncing the skald title back to Colin after three seconds, I find it incredibly sweet that in her last moments Karna was "just Karna" to him.

Deli's whole arc over the series is learning how empty those titles, and the ambition and power contained within them, are. He starts off a bright-eyed 19-year-old kid eager to prove himself and his nation, proud and protective over his titles. His relationship with Colin falls apart partially because he can't see past the chief-skald dynamic to meet Colin as an equal. And after the assassination, he spends years steeped in the political game of reinforcing Basha Myaso's title. It's a testament to the depth of his relationship with Karna, then, that even with all of this ambition, even having failed to do it for Colin, Deli absolutely doesn't see Karna as her title. He sees Karna first and foremost as a full, real person. And loves her for it.

And on Karna's part? This kid's been a lot of things to a lot of people, but (just like all of our Scrumptious Scoundrels) never allowed to be just herself. She's a spymaster or an orphan or a collaborator or a kingmaker. She's Deli's skald, his right-hand woman. She's a pawn of the FDA. Being herself is so anathema to Karna that at the beginning of the story, it's literally a danger to her, and she tries to murder a man about it. So again, at the end of all things, it's incredibly sweet that the man she loved so dearly loved her back--not as his skald, but as Karna, the authentic self she so rarely was able to be.

[sapphic-scylla]

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR RAVENING WAR AND CROWN OF CANDY

The Ravening War is a master class in brilliant storytelling. The movement and motivations of the characters. The dots Matt connected and paths he opened for his players to connect their own dots. The puns and stirring moments.

I am in love with this spin off.

Brennan’s character, Raphaniel, becoming the catalyst for the schism in the Bulbian Church leading into what they’ve become in Crown of Candy. Lou’s character tendering the unification of the Meat Lands leading Basha Myaso into power. Anjali and her connections setting the scene for the Concord that put tentative peace on the board in the series. Aabria playing the role of the “Littlefinger” in the crew and perpetuating the “chaos is a ladder” ideal and once again playing the fault for stirring up conflict like she was in Calamity. Zac setting the groundwork for the paladins that caused so much pain in Crown of Candy. Matt taking all of these threads and tying them together while still making mention and explaining the events that lead to Crown of Candy and throwing them face first into the War and forcing them into killing Amethar’s mother.

This series was truly a masterpiece and a true treat to watch and I’m 1000% obsessed with this story they told.

[d20unfuckability]

"He has large manhood"

"LOOK AT HIM!!!! FUCKING LOOK AT THAT MAN!!! AGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGA HE SO MANY HOT I SWEAR TO GOD!!!!!"

[memoryoperator]

How are each of our scrumptious scoundrels going to meet their ends?

Deli: @andiicandy put it best when they said Basha Myaso’s rise to power orchestrated by Sapphira Rocks could end Deli. Definitely an obscure tidbit but very plausible.

Raphaniel: either murdered by Belizabeth or goes mad with garbage disposal visions and gets executed by the church.

Karna: rotted away and consumed by her patron.

Amangeaux: runs away with her child.

Collin: no clue what happens to this guy. Get in the comments and discuss.

[vagueconfusion]

After episode 3 I looked up how the Rocks sisters died, specifically Sapphria and Citrina and apparently Sapphria is/was assassinated by Carnish assassins trying to raise Basha Myaso to power so, uh....