#pretty standard stuff for me

[collophora]

Do yourself a favor and go read the entire fanfic work of @fanfoolishness

(In order: Under sun and shade, Blind Side, and Breathless (patching up is one of my fav too, I just had no cool sketch idea for it)

[cthulhu-with-a-fez]

other people have probably already said this but like. it's been a shockingly nice experience to watch the dungeon meshi fandom go absolutely NUTS over falin. just this unbelievable wellspring of thirsty romantic eye for her, and not only is she chubby in canon, most of the fanart i've seen has skewed towards drawing her even chubbier? i... genuinely do not think i've ever seen that before. i don't think i've ever been in an anime fandom where someone both looks like me and is the subject of such enthusiastic adoration BECAUSE she's fat before.

it's... it's really nice.

[purplecatghostposts]

One of these days, I’ll write the rest of this fic, but I really like the beginning and I really wanted to share it so. Here.

[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.

[cluescorner]

I cannot imagine being a Damian stan right now. You've got both Zdarsky's bullshit (where he clearly doesn't give a shit about your boy) and The Boy Wonder (where Juni Ba clearly gives so many shits about your boy) coming out on the same day. The whiplash must be insane. I hope y'all get some nice warm soup for your efforts jfc

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I know you dont care about pesterquest but i wanna know, did you think they wrote eridan well or bad?

bad

[doomdoomofdoom]

god fucking damn you mike flanagan and your profound horror series making me feel things about life and love

[bambiliciouss]

If your man dont look at you and thinks of all the possible ways to give you the world maybe that aint yo man😳

[eggsistential-basket]

man the struggle of going back into my old art and trying to see if i've improved or not

[soukokumychildren]

Has Chuuya ever dropped Dazai? On purpose or accident?

Despite what it is in cannon, Chuuya in my Au is a big no-go for hurting Dazai unless he absolutely deserves it (though he’s the type of dick to always deserve a punch) and puts him in line in other ways like threats.

Dropping him on purpose if they were flying is a thing, Chuuya can hold him one of two ways—a piggy back ride, or by hanging onto his hands and letting him admire the view he could die from for a quicker landing. He throws him at a safe distance, Dazai drops and rolls and tehdahhhh

Or when doing tricks in the sky, that too.

On accident I can see numerous scenarios involving Chuuya getting distracted, with, lets say Tui (a dragon specialized shapeshifter), or one talking to one of Gin’s crows

He’s pretty animated so maybe he accidentally drops Dazai like that and—OH SHIT YA GOTTA CATCH HIM HE’S GONNA DIE

Or the usual hold Dazai bridal style (which they barely do if at all unless to cause a scene or be funny), and then unceremoniously drop him if he’s being an ass

…Am I talking too much yet

[akkivee]

since i’d fallen off reading comics that weren’t bl or korean shoujo lmao, i decided to try some shounen recs from the tl and bro tell me why my very first pick happens to have an mc whose last name is harai, has red hair, a fuckton of piercings and is absurdly powerful WHAT IS THIS 😭😭😭

[kittycowboy]

crazy that indonesian isnt even top 29 help??? its 56(?)

IKR??? esp bcs Indonesia is like the fourth modt populated country in the world ,,, like obv mandarin and english n hindi wld be above it, then spanish n arabic bcs its got so many countries, but its wildddd its so low for native speakers. Even if u include non native speakers its only 11th :0

[dare-to-dm]

Also, regarding my criticism of over consumption: I am of course not completely innocent.

I used to paint miniatures. I never really enjoyed the painting part itself, but I loved the end result, and I loved having and growing my collection of miniatures. They still see frequent use in my tabletop campaigns.

But at some point, the painting just became too difficult to make time for. Did I immediately stop buying miniatures and painting supplies? Of course not! I own probably at least a hundred unpainted miniatures and part of me still swears that I'll get to them someday. I did, however, make the conscious choice to stop buying them at some point. And I put away my supplies so they're not just lying around my house anymore. I accept that it isn't a hobby I'm actively interested in doing right now. And that's okay! Accepting it actually brings me peace because I no longer feel guilty for not making time for it. And I can always go back to it later if I want.

[starpros-sunshine]

Manchmal Frage ich mich was die Amis von dem "Ami" halten...

[thetimelordbatgirl]

People out here saying Bridge To Terabitha traumatized them as children meanwhile I'm out here having been traumatized by My Girl as a child instead.

[self-shipper-snowdrop]

is breakdown a new f/o or has he been around for a while, just not on your f/o list?

It's complicated ^^; Kinda... both-ish????? Sorta????

He's always been a character my bro and I have paired with Knockout [we legit cheered when the comic showed them canon married, my brother sent the panel and we freaked in a good way] and he WAS always planned as a love interest for Bronwen in the TFP fic that's been around for like. a long time lmao. BUT, L/Is in those fics haven't always reflected my actual taste/likes, if that makes sense. Basically characters in some personal fics are used, essentially, as vessels for me to practice writing. This can actually be seen in some super old fanfic [some of the oldest I have digitally, and thus survived the burnings] of Bronwen paired with characters I hated then and still hate now; but it was a chance for me to explore characters and dynamics before I was comfortable writing using OCs. Ones that couldn't be written with characters I liked only. That isn't tsundere denial, that's literally a thing I did for practice.

BD is different, though, because I've always adored him. There's just never really been... ship content. Or many notes.

But while I think I've always loved him too, I wasn't really open with myself about it until more recently. I wrote the chapter for the episode Operation: Breakdown in the fic a few weeks ago, and in it, Bronwen ends up captured with BD. I think that made me realize that writing about just them [not just in the context of them both as KO's partners] makes me happy too. Like 80% of the chapter where Bronwen appears has her and BD bonding and being close, with him affectionately calling her "Birdie". She even states in chapters following that she is- quite literally- willing to defy her visions and fate to make sure BD lives.

It kinda had me understanding that... yeah. I think this has always been here, I've always loved him, it's just time for me to own up and acknowledge it.

SO, in essence, I think the feelings have always been there. I just haven't actively let myself acknowledge that yes, I love Breakdown too, until recently. Hence the addition!