#dying feeling probably not great

[kairukitsuneo]

Cross my spark (and hope to die)

Im not sure if consider gore but it does seems somewhat bloody in full image vvvvvvvvvvvv

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Not to be a total asshole here but if I get one more "I need more! give me more!" comment on my Platonic Sugar Baby Buddie AU, it's going away. It has literally been two weeks since my last update, during which time I've been working on another fanfic, finishing up my second part-time job, working a full-time job, and being an adult with a full life.

I have never experienced this amount of whining in my entire time in this fandom and I can only presume that it's new people to the fandom who have an appalling lack of etiquette.

It's literally people just saying "give me more! I want more! hurry up!" And while none of you are at all entitled to my personal business, it sure doesn't help the depressive episode I'm in that y'all are doing this.

I love sharing my fics with you guys, and I love the enthusiasm and joy that you have for my writing. But the sudden influx of demands for sequels, for specific scenes in fics, unprompted fic, smut, and chapter suggestions, and now just outright demanding like a toddler for an update is disheartening, annoying, and the opposite of encouraging.

Please stop. Please. Please stop.

[serpentface]

What’s the Janeys/Brakul death scenario?

So like upon review I mostly just was going to kill them off for Couya + Faiza + Hibrides’ character development (#FEMINIST WIN!!!!!!!).

The background situation of their death scenario is something that will happen either way:

Throughout the story, the pilgrimage requests tribute from the towns it passes through (mainly food and other supplies). This is a common practice for pilgrimages and the travels of royalty, and Imperial Wardi civilians are used to the concept (just not so much during a famine). Some people give fully willingly (a lot of people believe in the pilgrimage's goals/and or the necessity to keep its high status participants fed), most are at least partly coerced (usually not via direct threats, but the pilgrimage contains a couple hundred soldiers, the Usoma, and Odonii leadership. The threat is implied), some are Fully coerced via threats.

In the latter third of the story things are not going well. There’s been a lot of internal struggles among the soldiers and dissatisfaction with pilgrimage leadership (mostly Stavis), men are starting to defect and a large body are getting outright mutinous. The group has also lost much of their food supplies and things are getting desperate (they've been starting to eat their own pack khait and oxen)

With this going on, the pilgrimage sends three soldiers to exact tribute from a farming village in the province Lobera. They meet a group of men acting as representatives for the village, who flat out refuse to give tribute. Things escalate into an outright fight, the soldiers are better armed but few in number and are killed.

One of the village elders finds out that this happens and panics, knowing that the men who killed three of the Usoma’s soldiers (one of which is her son) have signed their own death sentences, and possibly that of others. She attempts to persuade the families to preemptively flee, and then takes the village's one remaining skinny old plow ox to carry the bodies of the dead soldiers back to where the pilgrimage is camped. She supplicates herself before Stavis Amanti and begs for mercy, saying they don't even have enough food stored to feed themselves, much less to give, and that the men thus considered the killings righteous self defense. She shows that she’s returned the bodies for rites as an act of goodwill, and offers the ox in tribute, the most valuable thing she can provide. She begs that the Usoma accepts this as tribute and spares the men's lives, and that the pilgrimage moves on without taking anything else.

Stavis bids her safe passage away from the camp (without confirming or denying that he's accepted her plea), and the heads of pilgrimage confer on what to do. The killing of the soldiers is a violation punishable by death, but this would be like, a notably bad PR move. Meanwhile a contingent of soldiers (including some major side characters I haven’t introduced) break off and lead a raid on the village to avenge their fallen brothers and loot supplies. Others get drawn into the fighting, and it devolves into a full on massacre.

A couple families had fled at the elder’s suggestion, but most refused to leave their homes. Some of the villagers believed they would be left unharmed if the killers were given up, others had been preparing for a reprisal and armed themselves with everything available. But they have few actual weapons and none are trained combatants. All of the remaining men and adolescent boys get killed, one woman manages to take out a soldier using a shovel but is killed, most of the other women and girls are spared murder but several are assaulted. The village is looted for supplies and kindling for funeral pyres.

Stavis Amanti has no fucking idea what to do. The soldiers defied orders and killed Imperial Wardi civilians, but the current climate amid the pilgrimage would make it EXTREMELY Bad for him if he demanded their punishment (but also potentially very bad if he didn't- not all the soldiers participated in the massacre and many were horrified). Faiza encourages him to exert authority in a measured response by having the ringleader of the mutineers killed but sparing the rest, and offers to publicly back him in hopes of avoiding full on mutiny.

The raid reveals that the villagers had been hiding more grain than they claimed they had (as in like, enough to feed their people on starvation level rations for a few weeks). Stavis takes this as an opportunity to justify not punishing the mutineers (as the villagers DID technically have something to give, and execution IS technically the punishment for refusing the order of tribute (though not execution of the entire community)), but insists that their Galenii bless the village dead and their men build pyres for the civilians as is honorable conduct. (This attempt to make amends is not particularly appreciated by the survivors.)

The pilgrimage holds a funeral for their own dead soldiers. The village ox that was given in tribute is killed and butchered for the funerary feast.

----

In the Bury Your Gays route, Brakul is one of the three that gets killed during the tribute extraction. Janeys loses his fucking mind when his body is brought back, and tries to slit his own throat on the spot. Couya stops him by wrestling him to the ground while Janeys screams threats at her and the old woman in a very pathetic public spectacle. He is deprived of all sharp objects.

While the pilgrimage leaders are conferring, he hovers miserably around Hibrides (who is also not feeling so great about all this). He's suddenly very interested in her pregnancy for the first time ever, asks to feel the baby (which has been just starting to kick). She's like "fuck off", but he strongly implies he's planning to commit suicide asap and she concedes and then is like Okay I Let You Feel The Goddamn Baby Now Leave Me Alone Holy FUCK.

Janeys turns his attention to fucking murdering anyone tangentially involved in this happening. He’s among the initial raid party, plays a major hand in it turning from its ostensible 'find and execute the ones responsible, subdue the rest, steal their food' directive to a full massacre by directing his men to immediately attack the first man he sees. He and his group capture three young men as prisoners and demand that they be slain at the soldier's funerals as is wartime custom (this isn't wartime). Janeys additionally demands that he should get to do it, as the only kin of any of the dead men. Once that's done he immediately cuts his own throat and bleeds out. They wind up getting cremated at the same time so things work out how Janeys wanted it.

At one point I realized that this is kind of just The Iliad?

----

So like obviously whether they die here or not has little impact on THESE events, but a lot of the endgame revolves around Couya Faiza and Hibrides and these deaths would be very significant to THEM in varying capacities. It affects the trajectory of the final stretch of their arcs and adds a lot of layers to the ultimate Couya/Faiza conflict. I also liked their deaths being kind of random and shitty and meaningless because that in of itself is kinda ~thematically resonant~ with the story. (A lot of tension between the lack of intrinsic meaning to events and the profound levels of meaning ascribed to them).

I'm almost definitely not going with this version of events though. Janeys and Brakul don't have much active involvement in the endgame and don't Really need to be alive for it as it stands, but I think the version where every main character (except Faiza she's doomed) survives to see What Has Been Wrought and living to experience the fallout ultimately works better.

[darkmothsy]

My friend got me a new mug!!

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On another note, I really miss having my own space to decorate all spooky all year long especially after seeing everyone else seasonally decorate. I gotta put more effort into the spaces I do have.

[pokimoko]

Listening to instrumentals from the silly doo-wee-ooo show is actually something that can be so painful.

[garbomode]

HOLD ON i can't stop thinking about a take i keep seeing that's like "kraken ed wasn't really that bad, he only hurt izzy and izzy deserved it." because like, even putting aside the izzy apologist in me, it's still just objectively wrong. he pushed lucius off the ship! as far as anyone knew he killed him!! that seems kind of like hurting someone to me!!

[ayliffe]

think my grandpa’s dying boys x

[theygender]

I hate how difficult it is to replace phone batteries nowadays. I'm reading a guide for my phone and it's over 30 steps, requires no less than 10 specialized tools, and looks like performing surgery. You used to be able to just slide the back off to pop the batteries in and out like a remote

[dungeonmechoui]

Catching up on the recent eps and the food is so so good... clutching my multishipper heart repeatedly bc I have too many crumbs for so many plates rn (<in a happy way)

[nobodybetterlookatme]

how are you feeling today? did you make it through unscathed?

Yeah I definitely didn't 😭 I've been hella congested all day and I definitely have a cough, but it's more bc my throat is bugging me than anything. I don't think I technically have a fever, my temp's just slightly elevated from where it normally is. It's fucking miserable bc I can't breathe through my nose and the damn thing fucking hurts, and I'm kinda uncomfortable and a little achy, but other than that I'm mostly just tired and a little hazy and generally just don't feel great, so I'm not dying like my partner was lmao. But yeah, all this to say that I'm fucking pissed at him and I literally feel like a goddamn plague rat 😭😭

[exopelagic]

okay I severely misjudged spaghetti guy he’s actually just really cool

[orcelito]

Actually we r at 6 months now without any major deaths in my life, which is great! That's the longest I've gone without any major deaths since last May! The second longest was 4 months between July and November last year. Wow !

[gideonisms]

had just like a wildly bad brain day from morning to night but what's most important is, tomorrow I have leftover Coffee Treat. mercy was literally right the world could be ending my life could be falling apart but I WILL have that delicious coffee like that's my priority everything else is secondary

[transmascwillbyers]

Alright, guess who's finally getting to do Will's monologue from the van scene as an assignment in drama class?

[izzy-b-hands]

My doctor messaging me at 12:30 in the morning to tell me she wants to do a telehealth visit abt the side effects I'm having with my new Lamotrigine dose (including worse insomnia than my usual insomnia, as u may have guessed lmao) is. something.

[lesbiansanemi]

Man inventory at work drained the fucking life out of me cuz it’s miserable anyways but also they completely fuck over my entire schedule for it by making me stay until 11 when normally I’m off by 6:30 so I’m exhausted and had a migraine all day yesterday and now apparently my great grandma is dying can I just like. Chill for a few days or something. Jesus Christ. Let me nap and play a video game or something