backdated to November 18th @treefucker

[legbreakings]

Fucking goats!

[ Look who is back from the dead.

Yes, it is Jiang Cheng, newly returned to the lands of the living after humpty dumpty met a goat even bitchier than himself and took a little fall.

Still hasn't figured out how to network. ]

Comments

[bearhole]

literally, or are you being melodramatic again?

[legbreakings]

When have I ever been melodramatic!

Literally

[bearhole]

[ She'll ignore that first part. ]

did the goats look healthy? were they

you know

alive?

[legbreakings]

Yes. Yes, the goats were alive.

[ What. The. Flying. Fuck. ]

[bearhole]

[ phew. ]

ok. that's much better than I had feared. normal, living goats we can deal with.

[legbreakings]

Did you miss the part where I said they're vicious?

[bearhole]

vicious or not, they're goats. you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. it's not like we're a source of food for them.

private

[legbreakings]

I underestimated how terriorial and fast they are, but mostly it was bad luck. I can fly on a sword but I hit my head on a rock outcropping before I could do so.

It was a humiliating death. That is, I assume I died. I should have died from that fall, or awoken so badly I wounded I would wish for death.

Permaprivate

[bearhole]

hang on. so much of what you just said doesn't make any sense to me.

1. you have a sword??
1a. you fly on this sword?
2. how can you have died? I'm talking to you right now?
2a. am I talking to a spirit of some kind...

Re: Permaprivate

[legbreakings]

Cultivators can fly on spiritual swords if they are sufficiently advanced. This includes things like calling for your sword in mid-fall. If you are still capable of it, that's the downside.

Did you not read these flyers that used to be everywhere? Or maybe you arrived afterward, I haven't seen you here for long yet. Never mind. Our captors want us to die terrible deaths here, that's our purpose for being here, but. I suppose they don't want us to be single use? They can bring us back. I don't know how. Two people I know died already, they disappeared for about a week and returned uninjured. I have no memories between falling and waking up here.

I don't think I'm a spirit. Or rather, I would probably not be able to tell if I am one, but dealing with restless spirits is what cultivators do. I would have noticed if my family returned as such.

[bearhole]

I skimmed it. enough to get the pain and suffering part, not enough to get the part about death not being final. that definitely adds something to the whole deal that doesn't sit right with me.

[ Obviously, she would rather be alive again than stay dead, if it came to that, but the fact that that is the kind of power that the Technicians have is disturbing, to say the least. ]

sorry that your family is here. I'm sure that must be a mixed blessing for you.

[legbreakings]

It is a very mixed blessing. But in the end, I'm glad to have them here.

[ He checks to make sure this conversation is locked before he keeps typing. ]

My siblings are dead at home. I lost them days before I was brought here. This is a reprieve.

[bearhole]

[ It's locked. And also, even if they were having this conversation some other way, Sigrun wouldn't tell anyone. She knows when someone is telling you something in confidence. ]

I'm sorry.

how did they die?

[legbreakings]

In battle. Of a sort. It's a long story. A very long story.

[ One he has been vague on here for the most part, even when it wasn't a matter of keeping their own fates from them. Because even after everything, even though he can't but blame Wei Wuxian, he finds himself loathe to have others blame him in the same way. ]

My older sister ran onto the battlefield both my former martial brother and I were fighting on. We fought on opposite sides. She was stabbed. He killed himself afterward.

[bearhole]

[ There's a lot to unpack here. If they were brothers in arms (or whatever "martial brothers" is supposed to mean), then how did they end up fighting on opposite sides? Sigrun is sure there's plenty of story she's not getting, but she knows this isn't the time to pry further. If he wants to tell her, he can do that when he feels like it.

She isn't sure what to say here. Offering condolences is one thing, but how do you offer condolences for a family member's death when the family member is here, and alive?

She hates this place. ]

are your siblings from the same time you are? I know there are gaps in time between me and my crew.

[ 'do they know that they're dead for you?' is what she's really asking here. ]

[legbreakings]

They arrived here from a point in the past. I was the only one to know how things would end for them. There were other factors involved, which made things more difficult. How they died.

It was difficult to be the only one who knows. To hold a grudge against people when you are the only one who knows why and can't explain it.

[bearhole]

[ As long as he's sharing, Sigrun will share, too. It would be kind of nice to get this stuff off her chest. ]

My team is from the past, too. At least, the ones I've spoken to about it seem to be. And there's one of them here who has to be from the past, because at the point I come from, she's already dead. So I get what you mean about being the only one who knows. I want to talk to them about things, but it's like... None of us are on the same page.

[legbreakings]

You will have to decide what would be kinder. To tell them or to leave them in ignorance. You know them. Maybe you can guess what they would prefer.

If it would feel like a lie to them if you don't tell, or if they would rather remain unburdened.

[bearhole]

I know they can bear the weight of the burden. I'm just not sure if I want them to have to.

I'll have to think about it a little more. talk to them more to feel out what they do and don't want to know.

[ Strange, how this conversation got all the way here from "Fucking goats!" but... That's just the way of things, sometimes. ]

hey. thanks for telling me all this.

[legbreakings]

At least my experiences can be useful to someone else.

You aren't annoying. Unlike most people here.

[bearhole]

ask my crew, they might tell you something different.

but thanks. you're not annoying, either.

[legbreakings]

If they think otherwise their opinions are wrong.

[bearhole]

oh, it's fine. I know they don't mean anything by it. when it counts, we all like each other enough.

[legbreakings]

That sounds like my friends and I.

Well, it's mostly me telling them they are idiots, to be fair. But they have it coming when they are idiots.

[bearhole]

hey, sometimes your friends are idiots and that's just the way it is.