#just enough to get the gist y'know

[storm-eye-the-umbreon]

: You're the one called Storm Eye yes? Teron asked me to stay by your side and in return I shall share all he has kept secret from thee. Storm Eye: If he has secrets to keep I don't think it's fair for you to share them. Who are you? Kho: I am Khoshekh. Brother by bond not blood to Teron. Someone he has never told you of I am certain. Storm Eye: And why would he not mention you? Kho: For it was my wish. I am leader of a cult that shall not be known to you just yet. Storm Eye: That... that sounds like something related to Teron. And if it's not I don't think there's any harm in you being around. Kho: If I may ask, can you tell me your story? That which began upon your creation by Arceus Sarii.

... The angry god, with a twisted sense of justice. You know him already. "Yes but others might not. Surely you know there's a nearby crowd who listens. Other-worlders like to lean on the broken veil you know." I thought the world became less stable with your approach. "No need to worry over the fading. I think they are only here to listen, not to trespass. Not like you have a say in the matter, your child and partner are both from another world that has made a permanent change to Arceal." Do you want the story or not? "Apologies. Proceed."

The flame of wrath, blind brutal justice. I had no clue how horrible he was when he created me. Only that I knew the intense hatred and betrayal that Teron held for the god.

I came into this world confused, hurt, without memory, and lacking control over my body. A monsoon kept us both wet and miserable for the long slow walk to the edges of Arceal. Even without memory though I felt what Teron's body refused to forget. Immense sorrow, a broken heart, and extreme fear. He took my existence as a curse at first because that was the intent when Sarii forced him to share his body with me. He yelled internally for me to shut up and leave... But something happened when he heard my own voice with a trembling fear answering him.

He softened his tone. I didn't know why his attitude changed so quick. And I was scared when he gave me full control of our body and told me to keep walking. It hurt. My paws ached, I was extremely thirsty despite the heavy rains, I felt for the first time the hunger and weariness he was protecting me from. He knew if he kept control with his own thoughts we would both die.

And he did not keep his thoughts to himself. On the journey to... well, to a place I didn't know at the time. Well it was the outskirts near Damonia, I don't know why we didn't go there first, he never said. But on our journey there, he helped pass time by talking of his family. Of his espeon partner Vivi and their twin kids who both were loved enough to be sylveons.

The more he talked of Vivi and the kids Terra and Vyrin, the more our body ached and felt weary. The more I wished he would tell me who I was and where we were going. The more I wished for him to cry and beg for control of our body. Instead he talked of sneaking out of royal chambers in his youth to have fun with Vivi. Of the stars and weather that were present when his kids came into the world. Of how close the two were and that he was glad they never fought. Those stories in particular his voice did waver.

We got to the outskirts and traveled until we were at the mouth of the disappearing river. And we collapsed until another espeon found me. She told us the weather that day was unique and we were only in the eye of the storm. She was the first to notice I was not Teron. The first to notice we were two unique individuals who were forced to share a body. And she introduced herself as Solaura and asked me to name myself. I had no ideas at the time but eye of the storm felt apt enough. And so I became Storm Eye that day.

She was patient and understanding. I felt anger but not towards me even though her eyes stared directly in mine. I felt shame that was not mine but Teron's and he finally cracked and asked for control. I think without Solaura I would have never known how horrible Sarii was to Teron. He would not have said anything to anyone but her, not even me.

Teron was crowned king of Arceal and he was held in high regard by everyone except Sarii. Sarii only saw him as a puppet to play with until he got bored. All it would take is to be angered and Sarii would ruin his life. Teron doesn't know what he did to anger Sarii, maybe he did nothing at all. Arceus Sarii had always been the embodiment of wrath and ruler of Arceal. Uxie Ayro, a much older god, was the one who chose, fathered, crowned, and made a ruler of Teron. Sarii had no say in the matter and that may have been the only thing that made him constantly angry. Whose to say.

In Sarii's wrath, Vivi was murdered for being an 'unfit queen who distracts the king' despite also having the favor of all of Arceal. Sarii made sure Teron see her turn into nothing but ash from his power alone. And his daughter Terra was sentenced to execution as well. Those who feared Sarii dared not go against what was asked and only wore hoods to avoid the gaze of Teron as they held him prisoner and marched him to the front of the execution. He noticed something that would shatter the rest of the kingdom once they noticed it too and allow his escape.

His son Vyrin had always been kind and boisterous wherever he went. Some may speak against Teron and question his decisions, some were jealous of Vivi, many did not know Terra and her softspoken words, but none had anything ever negative to say of Vyrin. Many called him a cure for any sorrow. Not to mention his own unique fur color for a sylveon. A striking blue reminiscent of the sky. But that day his fur was painted over in pink. Terra was nowhere to be found.

In the span of two days Teron lost his home, his wife, his son, and feared he had also lost his daughter. To a god he joked with, held meetings with, and thought he could mildly trust despite his blatant anger. He still refuses to tell me how he escaped, only that Vyrin made everything that follow become a blur in his memory.

In his escape Sarii was enraged and cast a curse on him. I think it was meant to be much worse than what I am to him because Giratina Chocolate took the brunt of the attack and bought him time. She was too late for her original intent to save Vyrin at Terra's request. She could only help Teron escape. The attack took it's toll on Chocolate as I think she is still unable to leave the Reverse to this day and Teron is forever grateful to her.

All of this as it was told to Solaura began to make me hate Sarii far more than it seemed Teron could. I was the one that urged us to find a way to kill the mad god. I was the one that forced Teron to take his life. But he was the one that found the resources and methods to make such a thing possible.

This country has been under several pantheons and there are two points in history that seem concerned with godkillers. The first is what we sought, ancient magic from before there was a distinction between god and mortal. The other seems forgotten wholly outside the moving cities whose names I forget. But this ancient magic was imbued into artifacts long buried under endless sand.

These exporations to find ruins and artifacts did lead into some good luck for me. Mostly because Teron refused to take contol of our body and let me explore individuality. During those adventures I was accompanied by my now daughter Etsuko as she was searching for her mother Magdalene. It was nice to finally meet her and well, I suppose I started to understand what it felt like to love someone. That only drove my hate for Sarii and what he did to Teron even more.

I was stupid. We found a candle of golden ichor said to burn the blood of gods. I shouldn't have brought Etsuko with me to fight Sarii and I don't know why Magdalene wasn't more angry at my lapse of judgment with that. I'm lucky it worked out that we were all safe in the end and did manage to kill Sarii. But still all I did was too risky and I do regret that aspect of it. I am glad Teron was a constant presence through the whole journey but I do wish his reaction to Sarii's death was less somber.

Then again I think my hate did outgrow his own and with Sarii dead it has petered out until recently. I think my curse to Teron is that I feel and voice his emotions more strongly than he can. I think that's why we split. Terra is headed back to the executioner and he did not want my anger. I hope he knows what he's doing.

"He does. He is on his own quest to save her and I trust you he is not alone. Thank you for sharing the story though I think you more rambled it than told it. I'm sure you can bring up details if prompted but I won't pry any further."

I forgot you were listening. It was just nice to talk about.

[superklutzkent]

was thinking about a universe with cheery bruce. that's not the idea but y'know the basic gist of is that bruce didn't get stuck in a permanent emo arc for the rest of his life after his parents died and he's rather happy. anyway the idea i had that was how bruce's lively attitude would affect the batkids, dick, jason, damian and tim respectively. they'd mostly be the same, jason's kind of baffled at how kind and forgiving bruce is considering he stole his tires and even more dumbstruck when he offers him a place to live in a the manor and the mantle of robin.

but then jason dies, and bruce blames himself for it. for not being strong enough to protect him.

thus the emo arc begins. he stops pulling his punches and slips into the persona of the dark and cryptic batman we all know. he gets worse, as much as the batfam tries to help him. one scene in particular i'm thinking of here is clark hears about what happened he flies over to gotham to comfort his friend, but when he finds him he's speechless to say the least. just picture this okay-

clark (as supes), concerned: bruce?

*bruce (as batman), turns his head slowly, gripping the unconscious body of some thug. his hands are coated in blood*

oh the angst potential. he's horrified because he's never seen him like this, he's never acted like this before. it's not him. kind, happy bruce would never beat someone bloody and unconscious, not like this.

anyway when jason comes back and everything's patched up bruce still has a rough time with what he'd become during the months following the tragedy. jason knows and feels a surprising amount of understanding towards him. because the ordeal had changed them both for the worse, and neither would ever be the same again.

[toujokaname]

An Unfamiliar Sight (HiMERU Idol Story)

Author: Kanata Haruka

Characters: Rinne, Niki, Kohaku, HiMERU

"—HiMERU also feels restless in his school uniform, you know."

Season: Winter Location: Lounge in TV Station

Rinne: Hiya~ I got to the dressing room earlier than expected, huuh.

I've turned into a respectable member of society ♪

Niki: What're you talking about, Rinne-kun. A respectable member of society doesn't typically stroll into the dressing room right at the last minute.

Uh, wait? Is Kohaku-chan the only one here?

Rinne: Ain't it weird that Merumeru's runnin' late? Did he get a stomachache or somethin'?

Kohaku: Haah. You both just go at yer own pace as always. Didn't y'all see HiMERU-han's message?

HiMERU-han mentioned there were some procedures at Shuuetsu Academy he couldn't miss, so he'll be late.

Rinne: Academy? Oh, yeah, Merumeru's still a student.

Any way you look at it, he doesn't look like a student at all, so I totally forgot.

Niki: I completely forgot about it too. So HiMERU-kun's an earnest student, huh~

But, you know, it's kinda mysterious. I feel like I've never seen HiMERU-kun in his school uniform.

Even though we've already spent a bunch of time together?

Kohaku: Yeah, that's right. When Crazy:B got thrown into the same room, he and I both took a temporary absence from school.

He returned to school after movin' into the Seisoukan dorms, so we haven't had a straightforward chance to see it, y'know?

Rinne: Gotcha. Well, I guess Merumeru ain't tryna hide it either.

In that case, wouldn't it be interesting to see Merumeru in his uniform at least once?

HiMERU: —What about HiMERU's uniform?

Rinne: Oh, speak of the devil ♪ Hey, Merumeru. You're wearing your uniform this... time...

HiMERU: Apologies for the delay in getting here. HiMERU will get ready quickly.

Rinne & Kohaku: .........

HiMERU: Amagi, Oukawa, what's the matter? You look quite dumbfounded.

Rinne: Gyahahahahaha! Hey, hey, ain't that a bit too much, Merumeru?!

HiMERU: What is it with you laughing all of a sudden, Amagi?

Niki: Woah~ It's my first time seeing HiMERU-kun in his school uniform.

Yup, yup, I see. So it feels like that~ It's kinda refreshing.

HiMERU: —Right. Now that Shiina has said that, HiMERU gets the gist of it.

However, he finds it upsetting to be laughed at to this extent.

Kohaku: No, sorry, HiMERU-han... It ain't like I'm burstin' out laughin' like Rinne-han, but....

Seein' HiMERU-han in an unfamiliar outfit, I was at a loss for words to describe this strange feelin'...

Rinne: No matter how I look at it, you look like a cosplayer! For real, my stomach hurts! Gyahahahaha!

HiMERU: (...Is it really enough to warrant saying that?)

Rinne: Hey, hey, don't make that face, Merumeru.

I've never seen ya look like a proper highschooler before, so I just burst out laughing.

Kohaku: My bad, HiMERU-han. I'm in the same boat as Rinne-han.

There's a saying of "the clothes make the man", but in yer case, it's the opposite.

The uniform can't compete with yer mature atmosphere.

HiMERU: —Amagi, Oukawa, there's no need to force yourselves to keep talking.

It seems like you are desperately trying to patch it up, but the conclusion remains the same.

From now on, no matter how much of a hurry he's in, HiMERU will make sure not to come to work still in uniform.

Rinne: Don't get so pouty, Merumeru. It was my bad.

See, I never really went to school properly.

So it's prolly the norm for highschoolers like Merumeru to exist, yeah?

Niki: Well, besides HiMERU-kun, none of us are really attending school properly. Even I only graduated middle school.

Kohaku: I'm also just startin' to get back into school.

If you think 'bout it that way, the only one here who's leadin' a decent student life's HiMERU-han.

I wonder what kinda highschool life yer leadin'. I'm curious now...

HiMERU: —HiMERU can confidently say it hasn't been the youth that Oukawa is expecting.

Rinne: But, actually, you're havin' an exquisite time at school, ain'tcha?

Accordin' to our deputy director, Shuuetsu's a place with a well-established employee benefits system.

HiMERU: HiMERU hardly makes use of it. Naturally, HiMERU prioritizes idol activities.

—Ah, but some of the services available at Shuuetsu may indeed be described as "exquisite".

Kohaku: Oh~ If HiMERU-han says so, then they must be real good.

What the heck are they? I wanna know for reference.

HiMERU: Although it may have sounded grandiose, it's not such a big deal.

It is only a ryoutei—that is to say, a high class traditional restaurant. You can enjoy delicious dishes with well-balanced nutrition.

Niki: Please wait a second!

A ryoutei?! There's a place like that at Shuuetsu Academy?!

HiMERU: Yes, it seems that it is managed by the same affiliate company as CosPro.

A dedicated chef and nutritionist are assigned to each idol to provide the optimal menus.

It is reasonably inexpensive for students, so it has been helpful for HiMERU to utilize it several times when he eats meals.

Niki: ...I see. There's such a heavenly place in Shuuetsu, is there.

I've decided. I'm gonna transfer to Shuuetsu Academy! And I'll eat a bunch of food at the ryoutei!

Kohaku: That's a lousy motive, Niki-han...

Rinne: To begin with, Niki's a middle school graduate. You gotta start from the beginning, not as a transfer!

You'll be a first year in highschool and it'll just be too tough, so forget it, forget it.

You'd be better off securing your future by becoming my housewife and getting a permanent job at my place.

Niki: I hate that, I don't wanna be taken away by Rinne-kun for my whole life!

Please, HiMERU-kun! I don't like being pushy, but I wanna go to Shuuetsu's ryoutei too!

HiMERU: —HiMERU can't do anything about it single-handedly.

However, Shuuetsu Academy is a school for outstanding idols.

If Shiina can demonstrate exceptional talent as an idol, perhaps...

Niki: Are you for realsies?! You must be!

HiMERU: —Provided that you can demonstrate your ability. In that sense, this upcoming recording may be just the right chance for you.

Niki: Alriiight! Once it's decided like that, I'll get to work right away!

Rinne-kun and Kohaku-chan, we're going all out today!

The taste of ryoutei is waiting for me!

Kohaku: Niki-han really is a guy who only cares 'bout his stomach...

Rinne: ...Nice job baiting Niki, Merumeru.

But I won't take the blame for whatever happens later, aight?

HiMERU: —HiMERU understands that. That is why he didn't confirm anything either.

In the worst case scenario, he will take out a meal from the ryoutei and bring it back to the dormitory. It's humiliating, so he'd rather not, if possible.

Now, let's put an end to the chitchat. There's not much time left for the recording, so let's get ready quickly.

—HiMERU also feels restless in his school uniform, you know.

Note: About the housewife line... Yeah I don't know man. What it says on the tin. The page just talks about how women getting married used to be referred to as a permanent job, which is what Rinne says Niki should get with him.

[qcoded]

To be fair, I don't think it would have been that much of a good idea in terms of storytelling or plot for Belos to actually have freed The Collector. Considering that we know how far the kid's powers can go (Examples: Moving the fucking MOON, being able to dollify people, rearranging mass at will, etc).

Can't really blame him since there was a good chance The Collector was going to cause even more chaos.

Buuuuuuuuut, at the same time, I would have honestly loved to see how The Collector's and Belos dynamic would have been affected specifically, and how in turn that'd affect the fate of the Boiling Isles (considering that The Collector was the one who stopped the draining spell but like. mostly focusing on dynamics here).

I know damn well that if Belos tried, he'd basically have his whole plan set in stone. He spent so much time with this child, probably having to deal with The Collector's silly questions, tiring games (whatever games a shadow could play), and more, promising them to eventually set them free once in a while if the other asked for reassurance.

And eventually, he DOES end up freeing The Collector. The child would be the most happy he's ever been in centuries, because his 'best friend' actually freed him! He fufilled their promise, and they'd play so many games, just as they said years ago. So hey, it'd only be fair for The Collector to repay Philip for his kindness.

Take in mind too, Belos knows the in's and out's of this kid. After all, they did spent atleast 200+ years together, he's been emotionally manipulating this child since the start. And what happens when you pair that with complying to a request that was made from the very beginning? Unconditional trust.

I'd imagine that after The Collector was freed, he'd probably make the kid make another promise, probably along the lines of "Only listen to what I have to say, ok? The others wouldn't understand you at all, not like how I do. That way, we'll have even more fun as we play." (Honestly I made that up on the spot but you get the gist).

And y'know, Philip actually fufilled his first promise! So surely he isn't lying with this one either, so of course, Collector accepts.

Belos would probably be the most gaslighty he's ever been too.

Collector starts to doubt him? Words of affection and reassurance would be thrown his way immediately, probably even physical displays of it too.

Collector does anything that's against Belos wishes? Taking back all those previous positive reinforcements, saying how disappointed and hurt the man was after all he's done for the child, only to be doubted? Manipulation 101, everyone.

It'd all end with The Collector running back to Belos, because after all, he'd probably end up alone again, and that's the worst thing that could happen.

Honestly I could say so much more, but they're dynamic in canon is honestly complex enough and I don't have the braincells for it xd

[inventors-fair]

Mix and Match Commentary: Putting it All Together

What a weekend... That's what I get for thinking I can juggle a dozen things this close to the end of the school year.

It looks like 13 out of 25 different adjectives were used in this contest, as well as 13 out of 25 different nouns! "Belligerent" was the most-used adjective, appearing on three cards, and "Choir" was the most-used noun, appearing on a whopping five cards, but oddly enough there was no Belligerent Choir today. I'll be honest: I'm shocked that nobody went for a Gargantuan Frog or something of the like. There were definitely some favored ideas on display with the given combinations.

And yet, there were a few that truly surprised me! I think that overall I'd call this contest a success. The words on the list were fairly straightforward and also 100% off-the-cuff, so perhaps if you all would like to see this again I can have a more curated list, perhaps taken from some actual cards with the idea that you can't use a name of an actual card in the combo. But hey, we'll see how it goes. How do y'all feel about this contest? It's something I've been wanting to do for a little while now.

There were quite a few cards that almost, but didn't quite, make the cut here, so I'll be talking about them as JUDGE PICKS. Check 'em out to see what we liked about them. Onto the commentary!

~

@an-anarchist-shapeshifter — Umbral Expertise (JUDGE PICK)

This combination checks out with the card superbly. I'm reminded of cards like Training Grounds, from a vibe perspective, or other cards that would probably depict a location in which a specific form of magic is practiced and honed. This card's mechanics are, to say the least, massively complicated, and it took me a little bit to figure out the real gist of why it works so well. The ability of each player to have shadow creatures makes those decisions harder to pick up on based on board state; I would worry about places where you're behind and have to continuously flicker your cards to make the best blocks, and then there's the option of blinking a creature after blocks if there's a shadow war going on—you get the idea.

Blink shells and aggro shells are both strange places to see cards like this that have the best of both worlds. What I will say is that I worry about how much board complexity this card adds. Making lots of tokens, for example, might be easy to track in digital but harder on paper if there's no good way to show how shadow counters are distributed. And even then, what indicator would be good enough? Would it be the theme of a set, or is this more Commander-focused where you can have these weirder mechanics? I've got a few questions about that, but complexity is my main concern. I can imagine someone being quite upset about a huge board that's inadvertently badly represented because of weird counter checks. Playing with it in a moderately-built board, though—I'd love that.

~

@big-golyat — Ossified Choir

I find it interesting that both cards that used "Ossified" this week used them with "Choir." Small world! When I looked at this card, the one thing that I wanted from it mechanically was something that it could do with that tap ability that wasn't just, y'know, tapping. Would it have been unreasonable for this card to have "2, T: You gain 1 life" instead? I don't think so. With the notion of a choir, though, exalted is absolutely one of the best mechanics you could've used for the flavor connection, and I totally get that.

Flavor's a strange one here, no? Not a bad one, of course, but I'm wondering if these things are statues, if they're just made of bone, etc. I'm imagining statues because of how it would work with gods, relics, all that stuff. Being enchantment creatures doesn't hurt with that, either. I think that it makes them feel a little more constructed and less naturally, well, that. Regardless of the cool flavor, though, this card would probably be a good addition to an evasive color combination in limited. Exalted is awesome and I like how you can see this as a pseudo-Enlist? Almost? I mean, tapping for extra power is related in at least one way. Smallest of notes: quotation marks go around the periods.

~

@curiooftheheart — Unbound Tomb

Huh! I like the ETB on here, and I just had a throwback to Zendikar. For some reason I was thinking about cards that exiled without a specific ability tied to them, but then Bojuka Bog hit me, and yeah, this card totally works in that vein. Entering untapped is pretty crazy comparatively; then again, so is not hitting the entire graveyard. What're you going to do, play this against Dragon's Rage Channeler? Possibly. But I don't know if it would be strong enough to mainboard or sideboard, unless you're deep into graveyards and lifegain. Most graveyard hate wants the entire thing to be exiled. De-delirium-ing someone is fun, though, and I wonder if that's what you meant to hit specifically. All the same, though, gaining massive amounts of life ain't nothing. This can probably get 3-5 life fairly consistently in a grindy limited game.

I'm wondering about the name and combination, though. The tomb is in the process of being unbound, sure, and that may be enough; lands are hard to get through with action words if it's not repeatable, and that may be a me issue. And while I like the flavor text, I'm not sure how it precisely relates. Are the ideals mentioned there the things being exiled? It's not a major issue for the card itself, and it's a strange little card to be sure. I think ultimately I like it, and the life gained would only be a problem in formats where it's a) easy to bounce lands for some reason? or b) heavily graveyard-based AND grindy, like Shadows over Innistrad was.

~

@dimestoretajic — Tyrannical Response

Play this on your turn, and your opponent is basically boardwipe-or-scoop. Play this on an opponent's turn after attackers have been declared, and once more, boardwipe-or-scoop. I would've been totally down for this card making 2/2s, but 4/4s is such a massive swing for the number of creatures that you'll be getting that it's not worth justifying this even as a legendary instant. I respect that you put the limitation, don't get me wrong, and it was the right thing to do. The massive amount of power on board is enough to tip the scales in a way that's probably not as balanced as one might imagine it to be.

But again, one could argue the nature of legends and legendary instants/sorceries, whatever, I know where that's coming from—and I still say that it's too much. The last limited format with legendary instants/sorceries had almost fifty legendary cards that could fulfill that role. Maybe it's a pendulum issue, though... But no, I'm really iffy about this one. Maybe I'm just paranoid about the swingier board states that this could enable. Still, you picked the right combo, name, and flavor text for this kind of effect at the very least. The numbers game is the only thing I'd change.

~

@feyd-rautha-apologist — Belligerent Tomb

Conceptually, I like this card, so let's work on how to do some editing for it. Firstly: auras have to enchant either objects or players. Graveyards are zones, so a card can't actually enchant a graveyard. Rather, this card should probably be enchanting a player and should probably be a curse as well, so that the text can read: "Whenever a card is put into enchanted player's graveyard from anywhere, that player loses 1 life." For the flavor text, this should probably be in quotes, since it appears to be spoken from the perspective of a specific character and not a general ephemeral being or omniscient extrapolating voice.

This enchantment, however, has got a lot of power problems going for it. Turning something like Tome Scour into a Lava Axe, which you can do quite easily on turn three, barring any Hedron Crab shenanigans, is a bit much when comparing cost to effect. I know that it seems expensive, but I wouldn't be shocked if this had to cost as much as 3BB overall. 2BB might be okay, I suppose, depending on how much milling is in the set that you can force onto your opponent. Again, not a bad idea, but the power, practicality, and wording could use some work.

~

@hypexion — Belligerent Spirit

One must be punished for being alive, after all. This card's simple for sure, but it does the Undying stuff well enough for me to say that it's really a pain and I'd love to play it in limited. Swing, get in kinda, sac, etc. A four-mana 2/2 might not seem great until you also have extra damage and a recursive body to think about. Having it be a 2/3 wouldn't necessarily be out of the question either, would it? Or would that throw off some numbers... I dunno, but either way, I could definitely see this blowing up in draft tier lists.

Is it just modern sensibilities that make this card difficult to balance without being too powerful? I don't know, honestly; Murderous Redcap was good in its day and this is pretty much in the same vein, innit? I don't think that it's too far off from that design and I...honestly just noticed that it was that close when writing this. Heh. But in all seriousness, it fits the name, it fits the ability, and I don't think anyone would complain about a Redcap effect being in limited, the more I think about it. That said, I've never played with it. Last note, but the flavor text is 85% there. It's an awesome notion and I'd love to tweak some wording in the editing bay. The vibe is great.

~

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Impossible Notion

I think this card needed one more line of rules text: that you could spend colorless mana as though it were mana of any color to cast it. Would that have been too much? Or would that even be relevant? The point is, I'm not quite meeting this card on the mechanics side. The name and ability combination, though, not only makes sense but also feels like it wants to have some kind of Eldrazi invocation. Getting things back from exile by a) casting them and b) having to own them and c) having to spend colorless mana all makes sense for a restriction.

Then the question remains: should this card exist, and why? Getting things out of exile has long since been a bit of a thorn in R&D's side. Combining this with Karn, the Great Creator—or at least putting them in the same design-space room and letting them duke it out—makes for a deck that really puts a damper on things. Insta-speed Relic of Progenitus plus this is a real pain. In limited, what would this card do then? I honestly couldn't tell you. This card may not be too bad for a one-time use, I'll give you that. I'm struggling to find an argument in favor of its presence, though, strictly based on the rules that have been set for exile recursion and the prevalence of problematic possibilities for which this card allows. Still, a bold design for sure—even if the flavor text could be a little meatier.

~

@masternexeon — Ravenous Overflow (JUDGE PICK)

I was actually quite happy that multiple people took abstract nouns and made creatures out of them. This card is, additionally, a real pain in the butt and ravenous indeed. You know I really like how you framed this combination of green and blue here. There's a force of nature that's representative of consumption, but that consumption is also taking the form of flooding and overtaking the land (and its inhabitants) through how much it's flowing. Green gets its hunger sated, but not by flesh; blue gets its domain expanded, but is forced by ferocity. It's a cool balance. That's one of the major reasons I'm going with it as a Judge Pick this week!

Whether or not this card is balanced is another thing, and it's really funny regardless to turn everything into Islands. The thing to keep in mind is that turning something into an Island without it being a land... I honestly don't know what that would do. Seriously, I took a few hours off after reading the comprehensive rules—I know, long weekend—and I don't have a definitive answer. To be fair I wasn't sure what to look for but the point stands. I think the payoff might be a bit too swingy in limited, honestly. Sacrifice two random creatures to more or less shut off your opponent's big threats and/or mana sources, and then use any additional synergy to permanently keep your opponents off their colors unless they're also blue? Seems a bit hard to stem the flow, pardon the pun. But how can you scale the effect to keep this while adjusting the numbers? And also by putting "Island lands" instead of just "Islands." Saves me a headache.

~

@misterstingyjack — Abandoned Choir

I did ultimately like this card even if I wasn't super convinced about it. That said, the card draw could be pretty neat—I suppose I was just more swayed by Amonkhet's designs and the use of counters as a resource, because this can kind of turn itself into a draw resource and/or potentially use other cards with defender and the ilk as resources, but it's a bit...narrow? Maybe Amonkhet had its different themes that it was working with, and Phyrexia is a little iffier on that front. I do like how you've used white card-draw to its strengths, though. This feels like reasonable space.

So how often will one have three toughness? Probably often enough to make a difference. I do wonder how this card would've played with the change to do a creature with power 1 or less instead. I honestly don't know if that would be too powerful considering an abundance of tokens and/or weenies, but hey, it's an end step effect, whaddaya gonna do. This card really is a thinker. I do appreciate the writeup, though, and I think that as an Aftermath-y card, I can totally buy what the effect was going for. What's a choir to do in Norn's wake? Sing the praises and all, which makes sense to me. I'm also very curious as to why this is the second mono-white Choir with an implied self-tapping theme. What's up with the psychic connection here?

~

@partytimesdeluxe — Freshwater Tomb (JUDGE PICK)

There's this wonderful freshness to this design combination that feels great even if the practicality is a bit strange. What's the best-case scenario for this card in terms of mana-fixing? I suppose that a hybrid card dying would make for a great trigger, but beyond that, this card feels a lot slicker than I imagine it to play. Y'know? I think that a lot of folks liked this design because of how it feels. On the battlefield, I have to wonder if this card would do everything that one wants it to do. Protecting a creature from being animated and/or cycling the creatures that die is...also something.

I suppose I too want this design to play well but I'm not sure what the true benefit is. Perhaps I'm not seeing something? If this land was, like, Bloom Tender...hoo boy. Would that be too powerful? Or, if it was "1, T: Add two mana in any combination..." That way it could turn dying creatures into XX, XY, or YY, depending on if they were multicolored or now. Multiple ways of filtering. Honestly that sounds a lot stronger than the one-mana restriction. Child of Alara dying would help this card, sure, but beyond that... I think I'm picking this card because the possibilities and the slickness are absolutely there. It's just on the brink of being perfect in terms of actual gameplay; I absolutely need to praise the idea because, well, of how cool it feels!

~

@piccadilly-blue — Plentiful Canyon

Alright, so, neat as the notion is, I think everyone is in agreement that this card doesn't 100%-functionally-work, and the only question is why within the comprehensive rules. As far as I can tell, the main reason is that playing a land is a special action that doesn't use the stack, and can't have costs associated with it, because playing a land isn't a spell and additional costs only exists for spells and abilities. Assuming that everything within the comprehensive rules is how I understand it, you could play this land and pay its cost with its own mana ability since there's no moment that this card would be on the "stack," i.e. it would exist on the battlefield by the time you would have to pay the "cost" to play it.

...God, does that make any sense? I hope it does. Regardless, the discussions have been discussed and I think that we're all in agreement. I've talked a zillion times about your envelope-pushing and how much it makes me think so we'll leave it there. The flavor text, then! I like the rhyme here. Feels like the western prairie ballad that you were aiming for, and that's a great addition to the vibe of the card. 

~

@real-aspen-hours — Draconic Absolution

The flavor text here is great, and the implication is pretty cool; it feels kind of like Jund's dragon worship but with less of a predatory-shaman nature and more aligned with the Phyrexian-style divinity that is creepy and powerful all at once. I'm starting with the flavor and feeling here because—and I'm not sure if this was intentional or not—this card is an upgraded Rip Apart from Strixhaven. Where Rip Apart destroyed instead of exiling and was sorcery speed, this card is just that but slightly better.

Is that enough? Not exactly. If there was consideration for Rip Apart, I really would've liked to see a mechanical distinction beyond "strictly better." If there wasn't, well, I don't blame you; it's a clean design and clearly someone at Wizards thought the same thing if the card was actually printed. Tried and true, I suppose? That's unfortunately all I got for this particular card considering all of the considerations. In the end, I think that we're left with one last request: make sure you put your rarity indicators in your text submissions! Argh.

~

@reaperfromtheabyss — Freshwater Lasso (JUDGE PICK)

I'll give this card the award for "most physically imaginative use of world tropes in conjunction with the name." Lassoing things is super on-par for Thunder Junction, and I love how you connected that to the name. And we gotta agree—this lasso is indeed fresh and watery. Hydromancy allows for this card to really come into its own, and I love how it can be something that revolves around potential dexterity for untapping creatures, or as a prison for your opponent's creatures.

I wish this didn't have to be a rare, but like, it really really does. Insta-speed gaining control of a creature is something that can't happen too often in limited. The fact that it is instant-speed definitely ups the complexity. I don't mind that at all! Could there be one additional thing that this card does to make it so that putting it on your own creature doesn't suck as much? Well, actually, gaining control of a creature that you can then untap is...really cool. Man, this card is cool. We had a lot of strong contenders for this week and this is as close to being in the top six as you can get, honestly. Maybe I've just been enamored with Thunder Junction but I don't care because of how darn cool this card feels. Good job.

~

@sombramainexe — Kindred Spirit

So for the render here, the name did have to change in order to fit the contest; pluralizing the names does indeed count as changing the words, ergo, disallowed. Regardless of whether or not is was changed, I'm not a fan of having the name and typeline be the same thing. Perhaps it was a mistake to have "Kindred" be part of the adjectives list considering the kind of cards that a name like that drives people towards. I'm still working on it. With this particular card I feel that the name could have been changed because of the fact that it's not currently giving as much without AD or flavor text. The tongue-in-cheek aspect comes across as ultimately derivative instead of subversive, which is what I imagine the intent to be.

Mirrorweave is still a valid card, though, and I think that this card is an interesting take on it. Turning things into Spirits could be an awesome blowout. Why do the names not change, though? I imagine that it's because of legendary rules, and I understand that—is there a different way to go about it? I think that this is honestly completely new design space, because as far as I can tell there's no mass copy effect that allows creatures to keep their names. I wonder what the design principle behind that is, and I'd be curious to hear.

~

@stupidstupidratcreatures — Magnificent Mortar

Hey. Listen. Don't look at the card, look at me. Okay? I think that this is hilarious. This is a very, very funny card and I'm also a little bit mad. But it's still funny. But I'm a tiny-teensy-little bit mad. And I can't help but admire the fact that you designed a card with an implied second card that will, as far as we know, never exist. That's chutzpah if I've ever seen it. As for the interpretation of "mortar" here, I was thinking more in terms of salvos when I made this card and less about the combination, and yet you're here with one of the most creative combinations I've seen.

Mashing up creatures for mana is awesome, actually, and the way to activate it with a pestle is funny enough. As far as mana rocks go, I don't think that this card is the most powerful and I wish that it could've had one additional ability to really get the pestle's power online. You know how there was the whole "Blank of Empires" cycle of artifacts from some core set a while back? M12, that was it, right. But yeah, no, the abilities really ramped up because it's hard to get artifacts with the same name on the battlefield at the right time. Might want to consider that in terms of power level for next time. I'm gonna be very concerned if there's a future contest in which the Perfect Pestle can make an appearance, but hey, the world may never know if I accidentally do that one. Heh.

~

@tanknspank — Draconic Choir (JUDGE PICK)

I think we're in the realm, once again, of having really cool cards with really cool abilities that happen to be so normally and pragmatically good that they just barely miss the ledge of greatness. Having that pseudo-flashback kind of effect, the Dreadhorde Arcanist ability, is really cool, and stacking those triggers is necessary for making this effect really max out. It's a bear that beats in limited and burns out your opponent before blocks. What more can one ask for?

The last question I could possibly have is why "Choir" was such a popular choice this week. What was it about that word that just made people go nuts with these collective designs? I'm not complaining, I'm just really surprised. A choir of dragons is still pretty awesome, though, so I won't complain about that. What world would this be on? It feels almost like a Baldur's Gate kind of style, but that's probably not it. Maybe the "choir" is a metaphorical one and all the roaring is what brings the fire to life. Who can say, who can say. All the same, this card is a self-evident wonderful piece of work and I think that it should be commended for its solid design choices as a support card for limited and constructed spellslinging decks.

~

@wildcardgamez — Kindred Banner

We have a mix between Pillar of Origins and Rally the Ranks; Is that enough? I think, while this design is normal, its effects are really generic slash expected. Kindred means creature types, banner is an anthem. I feel that this could've been flavored somewhat, or given more mechanical significance that we haven't seen before. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen this exact combination, but it's a normal enough effect that I can imagine we'll see something like it in the future of design.

So, I'll say for the rest of this commentary to take a look at the uniqueness of the winners and the expectations for them. Or... No, actually, I won't do that. Because I'm not going to say that this card is bad. It's pure good design, based on the foundations of the creature-type-matters effects that we've seen printed before, and what else can one possibly ask for. I think there's the question to ask: are you submitting for the contest, or are you submitting to show you know what a good card is? That's something I can't answer, so I can offer only a couple small edits, and leave the rest up to you. Firstly: you probably want this as an "as" ability, like most of these creature type effects are. There are many reasons why, but the stack is a pain. Secondly: Like Pillar of Origins, you want to say "spend" instead of "use" in the text of the second ability, and you might also want to add that this is for abilities too if you want that.

~

There we go, whew. Have fun designing artifacts this week! — @abelzumi

[eddiebun]

About this piss kink writing idea...*slides $20 across the table slowly*

okay, let’s get into it a lil.. this is a bit rough but !!

18+, smut, bf!eddie x afab shy!reader, piss kink/control, peeing (always practice safe sex and kink play), public, dacryphilia, humiliation(?), teasing, dash of corruption kink, don’t read if any of this is something you’re uncomfortable with ♡ everything is 100% consensual and boundaries would’ve been talked about for both parties

you and eddie had discussed this thing, a new little thrill to dabble in and much to his surprise, this one was all your suggestion.

"maybe.. like— y'know how you sometimes control when i can cum and stuff," you spoke nervously, eyes restlessly peering around the room, "maybe you can do that for when i need to go." you were being vague but you just hoped your inquisitive-eyed boyfriend would get the gist of your words filled with salacious desire to explore new boundaries but reluctant mind beating you down, hearing a little voice telling you it was silly.

eddie knew you were always timid, not so much around him anymore but nonetheless you had always been on the quiet side so he didn't poke fun at you when you had enough courage to come to him about something that clearly had you hesitant to share.

"like when you gotta piss or something?" he asked— genuinely, seeing your hands come up to cover your face in embarrassment whilst you nodded shamefully.

you felt your hands peel away from your face, seeing your boyfriend leaned in close with a smug little smile tugging at the corner of his lips, "that's cute, i like it." he admitted, hushed voice.

you hadn’t relieved yourself since your initial morning routine of getting ready for school and all, and now you were about two little strawberry milk boxes in, blissfully clueless as to your boyfriends secret little ideas running laps in his head.

so here you were, propped on his lap at the cafeteria table, lunch in full swing and an abundance of voices and commotion happening around you, just like any other day but, it wasn’t just any other day.

“i gotta pee.” you huffed out after sipping the last drops from the second carton of strawberry milk your boyfriend had ever so kindly bought you, setting it on the table as you went to push yourself up off of your boyfriends lap, yelping when his grip only got firmer.

“i’ll be back in a second.” you promised him, finding it sweet that he was being clingy, shifting around in his lap so you could turn and give him a tender little peck on his cheek before you once again, attempted to get yourself on your feet, no success.

you turned to him once again, eyebrows furrowed and your lips puffed out in irritation, watching him nod his head— gesturing for you to lean in, “you can hold it or soil your entire outfit and mine in front of everyone right now.”

oh. you gulped, fingernails digging into the flesh of his tatted arm, heat rising up in your entire body, sending waves of excitement to your core and you were only getting more restless, it was uncomfortable, when you needed to go you needed to.

“h-here?” you whispered out in horror, blinking around the cafeteria before eddie pushed your chin, getting your attention back on him.

“no one else is watching, i promise sweetpea.” he cooed soothingly and you relaxed a little which didn’t last long, being reminded of your need to relieve your bladder.

“hold it till the end of lunch then we’ll skip gym class, your favourite.” he said sarcastically, you both hated gym class, mostly due to your classmates, “we’ll go home instead.” his arms squeezed around your waist and you winced at the pressure on your bladder.

“okay.” you bit on the inside of your lip, soft breathing escaping your lips as you tried to concentrate on anything else other than the urge to rush to the bathroom, you could hold it, you could do it. lunch would be over in no time.. but eddie’s constant pressing at your bottom abdomen was not helping one bit.

you tried your best in suppressing the feeling, which was oddly teetering on the edge of pleasure. the way his hand felt at your tummy was a pretty delicious sensation and he had you practically imprisoned on his lap in front of everyone who luckily didn’t know any wiser to the sinful words and actions shared.

he could feel the way you were pressing your clothed pussy against the denim covered zipper of his pants, no doubt to ease off your need of relief— your skirt pooled up around his lap and the way you were rubbing deliciously against him had him foggy-minded, but he played it cool, leaned back against his chair and popping some snacks into his mouth as he got into some topic about dnd with his friends around the table.

you almost gasped aloud in excitement once you saw people gathering their stuff to get to next class, lunch being over and feeling eddie tap on your leg, gesturing for you to stand up.

you tense you’re whole body, adjusting your skirt after standing on your two feet, rocking back and forth between your toes and heels to distract the feeling to just let it go, start trickling down your leg.

god, it felt like time was moving a million times slower, not even hearing eddie’s friends say goodbye, complete concentration on eddie who was grabbing the both of your bags, “please..” you whimpered out, “hurry.” you puffed out your cheeks.

you were tearing at his heart, looked so damn cute on the verge of tears and bouncing on your feet incessantly, “i am hurrying baby, be good, wait.” he told you as he swung your bag over his shoulder and grabbed a hold of your hand, walking out the building and into the car lot where he was parked.

“o-oh my gosh, i don’t think i can hold it.” you gasped out in a panic, squeezing your legs together, hand between your thighs and grip on eddie’s hand deathly tight, “i’m being good, i-i promise, i just really need to go.” you begged, seeing your boyfriends soft expression before he spoke up.

“we gotta get home first angel, not too long, you can hold it.” his tone was so nonchalant, it had you flustered, you were so worked up over a demand he made whilst he was so relaxed and in complete control.

“c’mon.” he encouraged, opening the passenger side door for you and patting the seat, once you were in the car you went to close the door— in a rush and all, but eddie was still standing at your side and you looked at him in confusion, his head tilted against the inner window and hand gestured outwards, “give me your panties, doll.”

you frowned, nails squeezing in to your thigh but you couldn’t ignore the way he was staring you down with those pretty brown eyes, you’d give him anything he damn wanted with those secret weapons.

so you sniffled a little, feeling like you would’ve burst any second now if you didn’t rush to the toilet, but alas, you tugged off your little black panties under your skirt and hooked them on his fingertips, watching him grin smugly.

“what a good baby, thank you.” he beamed, tone almost mocking as he pressed a firm kiss to the top of your head before he stuffed the fabric into his pant pocket, shutting the passenger door and getting himself into the drivers seat.

“eddie i’m serious, i-i’m gonna pee if you don’t hurry up!” you gripped onto the seat underneath you, feet tapping against the floor of the car.

you only heard him laugh, car starting up as he drove of out of the parking lot and towards his trailer, he‘s so cruel, you thought, though that lingering feeling of pleasure kept whirling around your tummy, especially when you felt his fingers sliding in between your upper thighs.

“poor thing.” he mimicked your little pout, palm squeezing onto the flesh of your thigh before pushing it open and you jolted when you felt the pad of his fingers toying with your clit, letting out a weep.

your head leaned back against the headrest and your toes curled, feeling the fluid threatening to start flowing but you were insistent, you didn’t wanna mess yourself in his car, “doing so good pup, holding it so well for me.” you faintly heard eddie’s voice, too in your head in an attempt to distract yourself from the reality that you were nearly going to leak a puddle right onto eddie’s car seat.

you blinked your eyes open when you felt a particular harsh turn, you were nearly back at eddie’s place, hands already gripping the car handle.

“gotta find my keys..” eddie hid his smirk behind his hair after he took his car keys out the ignition and pretended to search for the trailer keys but his head whipped around when you swung the passenger door open and stumbled out of the car, not making it far, instead practically crumbling to the ground with your legs either side of you as you just felt your bladder let go, warm liquid trickling down between your thighs and you let out a humiliated sob.

you didn’t even hear eddie’s footsteps approaching you, too side tracked by your soaked skirt and the filthy feeling coursing through your entire body, “shh, shh.” you heard soothing hushes as you felt yourself being swept off your feet, into eddie’s arms and you clung onto him for dear life.

“it’s okay my sweet baby, i got you.” he hummed, comfortingly rubbing your back as the familiar sight of the inside of the munson trailer came in to view, body jumping in surprise when you heard water pumping behind you.

eddie set you on your feet, gentle kisses trailing from your shoulder and upwards to your jaw as he wiped away the fat tears that bubbled in your eyes and spilled onto your cheeks, “you’re okay.” he kissed over your face, forehead first followed by your cheeks and ending at your lips.

he peeled off your soiled clothes and quickly tugged off his own as he got you into the shower, squeezing in behind you, arms snug around your waist and you squeezed back onto him, breathing settling as you calmed down.

“feel okay baby? wasn’t too much?” he cupped your face, eyes on you and you nestled your cheek further into his palm.

“w-was embarrassing but that makes it kinda fun.” you admitted quietly, the same previous heat rising in your body again and you watched eddie’s shoulders bounce with laughter.

“mmh, it was so cute you have no idea.” he groaned exaggeratedly and being honest, it stroked your ego, there was nothing more that you wanted than seeing your boyfriend happy, you’d give him anything he wanted, it made you even happier.

“really? you liked it too?” you giggled, squeezing his hand at your cheek and watching him nod, eyebrows furrowing.

“it was filthy, of course i liked it.” he grinned, tugging you flush against him, “you can’t tell?” he raised an eyebrow and you blinked a couple times, feeling his hard cock poking against your tummy and it had you almost going limp.

“o-oh..” you bit down at your bottom lip, hands dragging down his abdomen as you admired his pretty chest, and all the ink on display, “i can help you with that.” you blinked up at him through your lashes.

you didn’t even let him answer, hand already dipping down and fingers clasping around the base of him— hearing the way his breath caught in his throat was music to your ears.

“god, how did i corrupt you so bad.” he threw his head back, chuckling, “mmh, you’d do anything i wanted, wouldn’t you?”

you nodded, watching his eyes settle back down on you, hissing between his teeth when you dragged your hand up.

“whatever you want.” you promised him with the biggest, proudest smile on your face,

anything.

[zero-ek]

A little ramble on Magireco's EoS

I genuinely do not remember how i did i ever got into Magireco, i do know it was before the NA version came and went, and i do recall being there for i think 2 or 3 annis, but apart from that i have absolutely no clue how that game ever came into my life.

Something that i do know, though, is that before, and even during some of my time with Magireco, i was always a lurker through and through, like, i wasn't very much into participating on fandom or even just talking about stuff i like into the void like i usually do now.

And to be honest that hasn't really gone away, like for example, i love Symphogear, it's a very dear show to me, but looking at my blog and Twitter, i never even mentioned it or engaged with the fandom once. I grew up with Nanoha and Kancolle and Sailor Moon, they're some of my favorite media ever, i pretty much never talk about them, i fell in love with Revue Starlight recently and never mentioned it again. I got a whole bunch of other examples but you get the gist of it.

The point i want to get at is that Magireco was probably the first time that i ever felt comfortable being active in a fandom, like, talking to people, being into art and writings and fanfics and all of that. Not only that, but Magireco was the first time that i felt compelled to contribute something of my own. I decided to translate some stuff whenever i could, definitely not as much as i wanted to, but the thing is i think that was the first time i worked on translations purely out of love for a fandom, out of wanting to get it out there more (i was in a couple translation teams and whatnot in the past, but i never really had that drive). And even now that's still something i'm inspired by for the other fandoms i'm in, like, i have a whole second blog for translations now, simply in the spirit of "hey this is really cool i think more people should see it."

I actually stopped playing the game itself a good while ago, i'm a casual all the way when it comes to games, and it's just the sad reality that casuals are the sworn enemies of any gacha game, having to choose between paying money or ceaseless grinding is simply beyond me. But even after leaving the game behind, i still decided to stay around the community, not only because i was still very intrigued by the story and where it would go, but also because by that point i was already so attached to Magireco as a whole. Plus y'know, there's always that one select group of people who make incredible art and writings and stuff that you grow very fond of and just can't let go (if you're reading this and happens to be one of those people whose notifs i live in, hi! Sorry for annoying you, but i love your posts!).

So y'know, even though i haven't actually played the game in years by this point, it still seriously shocked me to hear about the EoS, though to be fair it was finals week and something else happened, so there was a bit of that nervousness mixed in there, but still, it's just been in my head this whole time. I do know that like, people have been talking about it being a possibility here and there for a while, and i have to be honest with you, i loved Puella Historia, but with how seemingly definitive the closing of Arc 2 was, i couldn't see it as enough to launch a new storyline or serve as the game's driving force for an extended period of time (i thought Scene 0 would be that, given how it was marketed as this huge deal, and i do think that it was an attempt to try and reel more people into the game, thus the focus on the Holy Quintet).

I guess what i'm trying to say is that i do know that some people saw it coming, and i can't deny that even i felt that way a bit, but i don't know, it's always still so hard hitting to have that be confirmed outright, to know for a fact that something you loved ended, or will end soon. I suppose because it takes away the deniability you get with like rumours or omens, there isn't any "maybes" to cling to, it's over and you just gotta deal with it whether you like it or not, and that is never an easy thing to go through, i mean ask me from this January, she would know.

But in the face of that, the thought that i found comfort in, and why after the shock settled, i feel strangely okay with it right now, is that i'm much more happy to have been part of this fandom, that it was my first proper community experience. I know that i'm only in like a corner of it right now, and god knows it's hardly the most perfect fandom out there, but i still loved it, i loved reading through all of the stories, i loved the fanart and the writings and all the cool fanwork people have put out, i loved not just seeing the discussions, but actually talking to, and somewhat getting to know the people in the community, and i'm very happy that i got to contribute a little bit myself, i just had an all around great time being here these past couple of years.

For my first fully fledged fandom experience, i feel incredibly fulfilled, even now, i truly mean it when i say that Magireco is the best community i've ever been a part of. EoS be damned, i just don't see myself letting go of it anytime soon

I'll stick around for as long as this fandom breathes.

[milktian]

WuWa spoilers under the cut!! I just finished I think the first act? I just need to get this off my chest. There's still a lil more but ill probs edit this when i finish that yippee

EDIT: so there wasn't a lil more they just stick your character in a chair and when you get out quest over. Lil weird but alright.

So. The story itself is intriguing - the exposition dumps really weren't great tho like my eyes kept glazing over but i think I got the general gist. It isn't the strongest start, but I can only hope it gets better from here cause i still really really enjoyed myself.

I'm not sure if I was meant to do Lingyang's quest earlier + meet Yuanwu earlier cause they just kinda,,, showed up in the final stretches and like i've never met them in the story before. It was a lil jarring

Also.

Havoc Rover.

One-winged Angel Rover..... i want to wait until enough time has come out but you know i'm drawing that. I do need to get a handle on his playstyle though im so used to spectro rover jfdnjkhdilk

The Threnodian (?) Puppet (??) boss was literally so cool i can already see WuWa's enemy designs being in my top top favourite of enemies designs and I am not even kidding. It was so like,,,,, cool and freaky and oufjdjsglfk gushing about them. I wish there was a way to see that model somewhere like in an archive but im begging i wanna look at it when im not fighting for my life.

Also side note: the fighting in general, combined with enemy designs weirdly reminds me of the dark souls games??? Like to me it feels like it smooshed genshin + dark souls together and y'know what, i needed that. Ik it's stupid to compare it to dark souls just cause it has a dodge + parry mechanic and the enemies, but i don't know how my brain works dude. it just does that

Also the domain was sick as shit im so ill rn. You can't use cameras in the domains i think (rip) so this was the only one i got. I also hope they have the cutscene on yt or something cause there's like one frame which is gonna replace my argenti wallpaper (sorry bb)

The new area - Norfolk Barrens - also looked super cool. I adore wuwa's environmental design. I've only been through it during the story, but I'm excited to explore. Once I'm free of story and quest stuff, I'm gonna go on my 100% everything spree like in genshin lmao

I'm tempted to pull for Jiyan but I kinda wanna save? he is super fun but I'm trying to be more like,,,, ig reserved when it comes to pulling in case there's someone who I prefer later on. I wanna focus on building lingyang + Havoc Rover for now. I don't care too much about the meta but i still wanna survive in combat yknow

despite the bugs and stuff i've encountered, im having a super fun time and can't wait to see where it goes!!

[sobredunia]

tell me about Fez, please, im looking through your blog and like, i am intrigued

please click read more for an unskippable cutscene

ALRIGHT SO.

FEZ is an indie game created by a (now hated on the internet) guy called Phil Fish. If you wanna find out why he's hated do your own research this isn't about him it's about his videogame

It came out on april 13th of 2012 (yes. homestuck day. i know), and it sold over a million copies by the end of 2013. I've tried finding how many copies have been sold up to this day in total but didn't find anything, but the general gist is that it was pretty much an instant hit, and people absolutely loved it, working together to solve its intricate puzzles even to this day. Yes, there are mysteries hidden in here that an entire community of dedicated fans still hasn't found the solution to 11 years later

(tiny warning here, do not play this game if you have motion sickness or are severely affected by rapidly changing images, there are whole areas that are a doozy to play through. Please stay safe!)

Gameplay

Fez has a singular core mechanic that remains unchanging throughout the entire course of the game, and that is the ability to change perspectives

this is what the game looks like, a 2d pixelated landscape with tons of beautiful colors

but.

this is what the game also looks like

that's right, baby, this shit's actually in 3d

you use this change of perspective nonstop throughout your adventure, to cross gaps like demonstrated in the gif, or to simply access places you couldn't in that current perspective. There are other tiny mechanics that get added, like invisible platforms, crates and buttons, bombs, timed platforms that disappear... they add a bit of flavor, but the main mechanic is always there

There's also a really big emphasis on puzzles towards the latter half of the game, but I'll get more into it later

Story motivations

Your name is Gomez, you are a tiny little guy living in a cozy 2d village that you have never ever left. One day, an old man named Geezer sends you a letter asking you to climb to the top of the village. There, a giant fucking cube appears outta nowhere, teleports you to a satanic ritual, then to the vaccum of space, speaks to you in a strange language you cannot understand, and gives you a free hat. Oh and also he explodes or something

After you're given the hat, the fez, you discover that the world is actually in 3d, and you can now change perspectives. You unlock the core mechanic

After that, you wake up in your room with the fez still on your head, and a being in 4d called Dot is sent from who knows where to tell you that the cube that gave you the hat is called Hexahedron, is actually technically kinda god, and you fucking killed him. Now, your mission is to pick up its 64 pieces and reconstruct him

You see all those tiny golden cubes? You have to collect 8 of them to make a bigger cube, and you need to collect 32 of those

Now hold on, I hear you ask, didn't you just say that you need to collect 64 pieces? Why are you changing your mind and saying 32?

Because, my dear friend, there is another type of cube that you have to also collect

These are called anticubes. Y'know, "a negative for every positive" type of stuff. You have to also collect 32 of those

The main difference between an anticube and a normal cube is that they aren't broken into 8 pieces, when you find one it'll be whole. You can also sometimes encounter full golden cubes btw, but they're rarer than its normal tiny pieces that you collect. Another main difference is that these cubes are much, much harder to find, and I'll go into detail in the next section

There's also this one hub area, with four doors that will only open once you have enough cubes (anticubes also count)

Once you open the door with 16 cubes, you'll enter this one town filled with people that aren't quite like you. In there there's yet another door that will open when you get 32 cubes, so get to gathering motherfucker, you got a long way ahead of you

Puzzles (anticube edition)

When you collect that first anti cube, there is no going back. The floodgates have opened and you are now too deep in. You know too much. You must see this to the very end, for better and especially for the worse

The puzzles in fez are actually surprisingly varied when it comes to difficulty and accessibility. Most likely, the first anticube you'll find will be in this one room. You'll scan the qr code and do the instructions it says, and then the horror of your new life will begin

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, because BOY OH BOY are anticubes convoluted to find in some cases

Sometimes you'll get them by solving relatively easy puzzles, like this one

others will require a bit more thinking, like this one

and then we have the hardest ones where you'll have to learn how to read words, numbers, and commands in the FEZ language

and these arent even the hardest bullshit puzzles the game will pull at you. it gets worse. it gets so much worse

Game ending

Surprisingly enough, you can get a game ending with just 32 cubes. In fact, it is literally impossible to get the 64 cube ending without the 32 cube one unless you have outside help, you know the answer to all puzzles, or you somehow get extremely lucky in a very specific number of rooms

Behind the 32 cube door there's a giant gate that, and I shit you not, teleports you into fucking space

Aliens are canon in the fez lore and they look like squids

Once you reach the top of the alien temple fucking thing, you enter an eye(?) and there you meet the shell of god, the Hexahedron. Since you haven't gathered all 64 cubes, it fails to reconstruct, and it breaks down. This part is pretty dangerous for people with epilepsy, by the way, as there's rapidly changing black and white colors. The 64 cube ending is a bit easier in the eyes, but yeah, just a heads up

In the 32 cube ending, you get sent back home, and you see how the town gets more and more pixelated. Then you see a weird sequence that's like those videos of people really zooming in into things and you see the particles and microscopic stuff?? idk. and then you see Gomez playing the drums :D

After that, you wake up in your room, still with your Fez, and the same sequence at the start of the game plays out. You go to the top of the village, Geezer summons a giant fucking cube, you meet god, but instead of getting another fez, you get cool glasses, that allow you to finally solve a batch of puzzles you couldn't see before and you can finally gather the last anticubes

In the 64 cube ending, the Hexahedron reforms correctly, and instead of zooming in, it zooms out. You see that your world is a tiny cube next to many tiny cubes, and then those tiny cubes form a 4d entity that looks just like Dot, and then those many Dots next to eachother zoom out until they're nothing but static, and then it looks like a tv is turned off, and then the credits roll

They're both very strange endings, and definitely not what a lot of players expected or wanted, but what can you do

Puzzles (hell edition)

NOW.

You thought that was the end?

You thought you could simply walk away scot free?

You thought that this game had no more last "fuck you"s up in its arse?

You thought fucking wrong

Because you know that something's not right

Because you're in too deep

You've played this far. You've scrolled this far.

You have to see how this ends

You have to tie up the last loose ends

You see this? This is the game's map. It actually has a really clever design! Not only are the icons for the areas cubes, but you can also change perspectives like how you do in-game! Pretty cool, right? There are also some small indicators you can see on the bottom left. They mark if you've left any cubes, bits, treasures, or locked doors. They also mark any secrets you might have left! And they turn golden once you've found everything there is in that room, including secrets

If you were normal (let's imagine that for a bit, okay?) and you got the 64 cube ending, that's it, right? You've gathered every cube, you've gathered every map (you need them to get all cubes), you've gotten every key and opened every locked door, that should be it, right? You have everything the game asked you to have, so the whole map should be golden, right?

...right?

No! :D you fucking fool, you poor summer child

In fact, there are three rooms left. Three rooms left with a secret symbol next to them, and one other special room

First, we'll talk about the special room

Once you gather 64 cubes, you'll be able to open a door hidden on an unsuspecting island and access this one special room

kinda weird, right? It has a tileset that appears nowhere else in the game, same with its background. There's also a strange transparent heart over it? Strange

Now, the three ungolden rooms

First, the observatory, the room with the easiest puzzle, at least in comparison with the other two

Second, you have whatever the fuck this is. In order to solve this one, you HAVE to know the Fez language, no ifs or buts. Not only that, but there's a high chance that you were reading the language the wrong way, so in order to have the remote chance to solve this mf you'll have to git gud and realise the error of your ways

And last, but definitely not least

The most infamous room in the entire game aside from maybe the heart room previously shown

This cunt

These three are the hardest challenges the game has to offer, no exaggeration. And also, the first two rooms can be solved at any point of your adventure, but for the third one you HAVE to have completed the 32 cube ending, no workarounds

Now, how to solve them?

If you go to the observatory at night, you'll notice two red blinking stars in the corner. They're speaking in binary code, with one being 1 and the other being 0. Then, that binary has to be translated into a buncha diff languages to be decoded, and once you're done you'll be left with a set of commands that you'll enter in the observatory to get a special red cube that not even Dot, the motherfucker in 4 dimensions that knows things beyond our comprehension, knows what it is

For the second room in fez language, you'll need to answer a question with the cubes provided to you. It's a weird thing where you have to mix this word with the name of the company who made the game, I don't know man. Once you've answered you'll get the second red cube

And now, the third room

Commonly denominated the black monolith room

Why is there no black monolith?

Because you have to make it appear

First, you have to get this burnt map

Behind it, there's a string of code that translates into commands

You need to get into the room, and use the special ability given to you in the 32 cube ending: first perspective mode

You'll have to stand in the tiny square inside this infinity symbol thing that doesn't have a line in it (basically, not the one the screenshot is looking at lol), and then you'll have to do the commands

Once you do it, the black monolith will appear

Okay, you did it

You put the code correctly

Now what?

This isn't a collectable. This isn't a red cube. This doesn't do anything. What is this? How do I solve this puzzle

You wanna know the answer?

Who fucking knows

No one knows the answer to this. No one knows how to solve this. The community solved this a week after launch by bruteforcing it. I shit you not they made a bot that spewed random fez inputs and people just tried them until they got the correct solution

No one knows how it's meant to be solved. To this day, people still go on the r/fez subreddit to give their theories on what the intended solution was meant to be

They have tried everything

The position of the candles, the boiler room, some other random ass rooms that look remotely similar to the black monolith room, a random shower room, it somehow being on a book in the game that's just filled with haikus??, some bullshittery mobius strip mental gymnastics, the other half of the code being in an abandoned airport in Arizona...

...whatever the fuck this is...

by far the most known theory was the release date theory

but that got disproven by one of the devs a few years ago

but anyways, we've already gone through insanity for long enough, it's time to be normal now

Once you've gathered all of the red pieces, they will appear in the heart room

that's it

we're done

.

..

...

....almost

there's a secret code

one that was actually intended to be datamined for once lmao

If you look at certain artifacts in the menu and you rotate them a certain way in a certain order, the heart will vanish and the screen will turn white

you'll be sent back to the menu, and if you load that save file and go back into the temple...

there will be nothing waiting for you there

that, my friend, is the true end of Fez

You wanted to know too much, you wanted to learn everything, to the point of wanting to tear open a creation that took blood, sweat, tears, and five years to complete. And now there is nothing. You ignored the game's boundaries of only wanting to let you know this much, and now the game is empty, the love is gone, and there is nothing left for you here

You can leave now, I hope you're satisfied

[libby-is-a-idoit]

Nsfw head-canons southpark

❌AGED UP

CHARACTERS (HIGH

SCHOOL AU KINDA BUT

AGED UP)❌

Hi it's Libby,yes,yes I know I know,but this is my first nsfw post lmao,I'm currently watching South park,so Uhm why not write some ':D also Uhm,this may be old bc Uhm this was on my Wattpad that was written uhmm..like three years old 0-0 as well as it's like three characters xD bc apparently old me only liked those three,and no,there's no Cartman,kiss my ass I do not care 😚

Kenny,Stan,Kyle!

Kenny💀:

Dude he's just a straight up perv and y'all know that

This dude..he can not keep his hands off of you,he does in public tho but if he got the chance to bend you over and fuck you in 'public' he sure as hell would

I feel as if he's a boob buy more then a thigh or an ass guy,but like I said he will fuck anything that can cum-

His favorite position is probably like doggy so he can make your legs not work or cow girl to also not make your legs work

Quickies? Yes. Something tells me he would probably do a quickie anywhere ngl-

BJ's? Yeah. Yeah I don't have much to say about that buttttt I would like add he would suck off/eat out you like it was his last meal

××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Kyle✡️:

Dude he's not an expert in this man.

But he's respectful about it y'know

Ofc he's not innocent,idk why so many people write him as innocent.no dude he's friends with Kenny.

I feel as if he's a bit worried about doing anything,he sure as hell didn't make the first move kissing that was all you man-

The first time y'all made out he didn't really know what to do- ofc he knew but he was more worried about you and what you wanted to do!

Sex the first time was hella awkward buttt anytime after he was sweet about it but if he was having a bad day or something and y'all decide to fuck oh sweet Jesus your legs will not work.

Public sex? No,he has a hard enough time just kissing you in public -

Missionary is probably his favorite,but he also would do doggy when he wanted more rough sex,when he had a shitty day and y'all decide to fuck, plowing you in to the mattress seems like a great fucking idea.

BJ's? Eh not so much,oh but sucking you off/eating you out he doesn't have much practice but Damm he knows what he's doing.

××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Stan💙:

Dude he's probably had a few girlfriends before (ahem Wendy)

He's gonna know alot more then Kyle,but not more then Kenny-

He definitely knows how to make you cum with his fingers but dosent mention it till you relized it 

it takeshim awhille to relize he actaully wants to do anything just bc he has trust issues and dosnt know if you love him or not

once he is ready tho it akward as hell, but then once both of yall get the gist of whats going it its spicy 

public sex? nah hes  not even big in to PDA usally due to his friends making fun of him, so he just kinda hates showing affection is public.

bj’s? its more of a quickie thing for him.

××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××

Y'all I hate this,do I care? Nah,I'll post a better smut fix soon,but I also am gonna try and put together a master list for y'all just so you guys can see ALL my works that I've done!!! So thank you guys for Uhm reading!

[chumpovodir]

it pleases me to know that even when CoD was newly released and relevant, hector/julia as a ship never caught on, as far as i'm aware. like we all collectively agreed that julia being a clone of rosaly and the ending implying them getting together was just "ehhh no :/"

having said that, let me now propose a slightly different take on their relationship post-CoD that i alluded to in this previous post - the gist of it is they don't hate each other per se, but they simply cannot stand to be around the other, bc of all the unaddressed grief and baggage

they both lost isaac, who was very dear to them, complicated feelings aside. they have that much in common and you might think they would bond over that shared grief, but imo it also works against them growing closer, at least at the start:

you've got hector on one hand who is met with the image of his (very recently) deceased wife every time he looks at julia. and to add insult to injury, bc they were siblings, julia has so much of the same mannerisms isaac once had - the same sharp wit and scathing remarks, the same dark sense of humor. just wearing rosaly's sweet, ingenuous visage. can you imagine how jarring that must be? this woman, for all her help, must be like a living, breathing version of his own personal hell, a constant reminder of everything he's lost. (and then that idea just brings up feelings that maybe this is what he deserves for his role in a genocide. the constant remorse and inadequacy in ever being able to truly make up for it)

and i think even though julia was the one to ask, practically beg hector to kill her brother, i have to wonder if she can truly not hold any resentment against him, after finding out he had the ability to break the curse by the time he confronted isaac. couldn't hector have at least tried to save him? and knowing what they know now, if hector just. held back a little sooner, subdued isaac instead of trying to kill him outright, then dracula would've never resurrected! he could have saved everyone the trouble! but because he just had to have his revenge--

not to mention, i always wondered if she ever felt...less important, compared to hector. she knows that isaac always respected hector, and i can't think of any other way she'd have that information unless isaac told her enough. then there's constantly having to move to avoid the witch hunts, while her brother and his boytoy friend are both safe and cared for in castlevania. ofc, we don't know whether she was ever offered the same choice to stay and simply refused, but it must hurt to think isaac wouldn't even stick around for her sake, leaving her to fend for herself.

and they both know, perfectly well, that the other is blameless for how they each feel. it's just an awful situation where two lives were wasted for nothing, and two more ruined as a result.

(....and in the middle of all this is trevor, who is just trying to. y'know. not die)

[hyenahunt]

Obbligato: The Devotion to Tatsumi Kazehaya - 5

Writer: Akira

Season: Spring, three years ago

Characters: Jun, Kaname, Tatsumi

Proofreading: Remi + 310mc (JP) & honeyspades (ENG)

Translation: Peace & hyenahunt

Jun: Hah! So you mean we all have no chance of success and just get to spend our lives getting bossed around like slaves, huh? Reimei Academy's fucking incredible!

Location: Reimei Academy's Labour Camp

Time: Evening, that day.

Jun: Hmm... So basically, this guy isn't a Special Student anymore?

Kaname: .....

Jun: Some scandal happened during the filming of a movie or a show, and he either pissed off or got on the wrong side of the higher-ups, and he lost his role...

Kaname: .....

Jun: So going along with what the bigshots wanted, Reimei Academy temporarily stripped HiMERU of his Special Student title.

And now he's so sad and upset about it he went nuts and had a little cryfest in here just now. That's the long and short of it, huh, Kazehaya-senpai?

Tatsumi: Yes. While HiMERU-san hasn’t told me what happened exactly, I've more or less grasped the situation due to various things I've heard from others.

In any case, it feels as if there's been a high level of damage control about what's going on, so it's hard to understand what happened exactly.

All that is clear is that, yes, HiMERU-san did something which caused the temporary loss of his Special Student title.

As such, he has also been stripped of the private quarters given to those with such privilege, and thus has found himself within the walls of this Labour Camp instead.

Jun: This is the first time I've ever heard of a Special Student losing their title... What exactly did he even do? Did he deck some bigwig in the face or something~?

Tatsumi: I wonder... It's only natural that this is all that the students know. However, the teachers' knowledge regarding it is limited as well.

On the other hand, I've been fielding non-stop questions myself, all of which ask the very same thing: What did HiMERU-san even do?

As it stands, I have no way to answer them.

From the reaction of the public, it would seem that HiMERU-san did something that was strictly taboo in the entertainment world.

Jun: Tattoo?

Tatsumi: Taboo. In other words, something prohibited by social norms.

Jun: Your words are kinda goin' over my head, Kazehaya-senpai...

Tatsumi: My apologies. While I strive to do what I can to make my words understandable... if they're unable to reach you, then they're no better than the cry of an animal.

Jun: Well, I've more or less gotten the gist of it, at least~ To sum it up, HiMERU basically went and did some shit he really shouldn't have done, huh?

Tatsumi: That is my own personal theory, yes.

Jun: If that's what happened outta the blue, you've got me curious, y'know. What exactly didja do, HiMERU?

C'mon, I'll keep it a secret if ya tell me, y'know? How'd ya make the higher-ups totally lose it?

I don't wanna make the same mistake and set them off, so you oughta share all that info with the class, yeah?

Kaname: .....

Please refrain from speaking to me so casually. You'll infect me with your Non-Special Student cooties.

I'm not a good-for-nothing idiot like the rest of you.

Jun: 'Scuse me? Literally in what way are we different? We're both at the very bottom of the barrel, aren't we? We're sitting in the same Labour Camp wearing the same jersey and eating the same shitty food, in case ya haven't noticed!

Tatsumi: Is my food truly so disgusting...?

Jun: Ah— I only mean that as a figure of speech! Kazehaya-senpai, your cooking's the best, for real! I meant to say it was stinky, not shitty, kinda like the stuff you'd eat in a prison!

Tatsumi: Haha. If this were prison, then you all would be released so long as you remained patient enough to fulfill the labor asked of you. At the end of it all, you would be allowed to live in the same brilliantly shining world that the Special Students do.

Jun: Real life's nothing like that, though~ The walls here are so high that if you were to fall even once, you'd spend the rest of your life tryna climb back up.

Tatsumi: You mustn't lose hope, Jun-san. So long as you believe in such a world and work hard towards it, then one day you will be rewarded.

... Though, it isn't as if Reimei Academy's structure makes it particularly welcome to such sentiments.

HiMERU-san losing his rights as a Special Student is unusual, however. Nor have I ever heard of anyone becoming a Special Student if they were not already enrolled as one.

Jun: Hah! So you mean we all have no chance of success and just get to spend our lives getting bossed around like slaves, huh? Reimei Academy's fucking incredible!

Well, maybe that's just how it is in actual corporate life, too. You know, born a nobody and die a nobody and all that.

Tatsumi: Now, now, don't sulk... You're still young, Jun-san. You should look to the future with bright eyes, towards the hope that lies aplenty before you.

Jun: Hey, you're young too, Kazehaya-senpai. What's up with your old man act?

Actually, in your case I should say you act all mature, huh? You're always so calm and reliable~ No one would think you're only a year older than me.

Tatsumi: Is that so? Perhaps I’ve spent so much time around the elderly that I’ve begun to act like them too.

Oh, dear... I just remembered, I must leave for the catacombs soon.

Jun: Not again. You went last night and didn't come back 'til this morning, didn'tcha?

Tatsumi: Haha. As the one who founded them, it is only right that I take care of them, isn't it?

If ever you are interested in dropping by, Jun-san, please do so. And bring HiMERU-san as well, if possible.

Jun: What? Why him?

Dude, wasn't he sitting on top of ya with his hands 'round your neck when I came in?

If anything, I'd rather chase a dangerous guy like him right outta here, y'know?

Tatsumi: It was merely an accident, that's all. HiMERU-san happened to fall, and my body was there to catch him. Isn't that right?

Kaname: .....

Tatsumi: If it was done with ill intent in mind, I forgive you. I don't mind what happened one bit, but if possible I'd like to get along with you from here on out, HiMERU-san.

Kaname: .....

Tatsumi: Haha. Now then, I'll be off. ♪

♪~♪~♪

Jun: (Welp, there he goes... Kazehaya-senpai's as mysterious as ever — to this day I still can't tell what he's thinking.)

(And HiMERU feels like a ticking time bomb himself... Ugh, I feel like even more weird shit's gonna happen again.)

Jun: (All the same, I guess I'd prefer this to the usual daily routine of doing nothing but soul-crushing chores.)

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← prev ✦ all ✦ next →

[indigosfindings]

can you elaborate more on the joyful/optimistic art vs cynical/sad art thing?

(re: this post)

sure, sorry in advance if this is messy.

the gist is that there's a slew of micro-discourses whose common thread is the inherent or automatic superiority of art and stories that are optimistic and centre 'joy', 'love', and other positive emotions over those that don't.

it manifests a million different ways: "x series is bad because it's pessimistic/cynical/dark", "x story is bad because it depicts SA/incest/abuse*", "horror is really about love/family", "love is a unilaterally healing and moral force", "dark/negative art is universally less authentic/earnest", "sad/disturbing art is easy to make while positive art is difficult," etc. (also seems to correlate w the internet's general attitude toward criticism--that even mild negative feedback toward any art is in essence insulting its author & audience)

one of the factors imo is that a lot of people are unwilling to interrogate their reactions to something. like the process is "i see disturbing art -> i feel disturbed -> 'disturbed' is a negative emotion -> this art has done something negative to me -> this art is bad" and then never question it further

as for why i feel frustrated: hmm where to start. it's an extremely flat heuristic that diminishes alll art with any aims other than to please or to be Fun. it denies that "to disturb", "to frighten", "to disquiet", "to sadden", "to critique", etc are worthwhile endeavours in art. it also just betrays a narrow view of what has the capacity to be Fun for someone! i'm especially frustrated because horror always gets the brunt of it. there's a sort of longstanding anxiety about the "value" of horror, about horror needing to "prove its worth", and i think a lot of people's answer to that is to say "it's not actually about Scary, it's about Happy :)"

one of the really popular takes that i still see today is "if you're writing a fantasy story where anything can happen, why incorporate homophobia, misogyny, etc?" and, i mean, it's a pretty straightforward answer--because those things exist in real life, and by incorporating them into a story you can reflect, comment on, and explore real issues that are pertinent to the audience! likewise re "love is virtuous and healing," it's just a simple fact that love is morally neutral. people do HORRIBLE things for love all the time. i used to be more idealistic about this, but now i honestly cant stand the idea that a saccharine, childlike stance on love is by default a better one

(there's a huge comparison to be made here with the reactionary pushback against modern art btw)

it also ties into a broader schema--"toxic positivity" is a popular line, but we can aim higher: there's a sort of cultural mandate toward positivity, where saying "x is bad" is worse than x being bad. think right and send thoughts and prayers. capitalism loves the idea of each person fending for themselves--you have the whole concept of "wellness" and "mindfulness", ie Positive Thinking as a vector for mental health (the corollary being that a person who is unwell is a person who is Not Trying Hard Enough To Be Positive), whereby to read a situation cynically (or pragmatically!) is the worst thing you can do. and well, by the same token, when we have a whole cavalcade of employers who LOVE seminars and videos about How To Manage Your Stress (and zero interest in inspecting what it is that makes employees excessively stressed to begin with!), im sure you can imagine why someone could get exhausted of positivity.

as i said in the previous post, the most insane part is the particular framing of this atittude as somehow counterculture, controversial, or against the grain. y'know, when we're discussing chipper upbeat art about how everything is good vs art that's grim, violent, negative, pessimistic--which of these is most likely, historically and today, to be censored, to be banned, or to arouse controversy?

*(obviously there are depictions of SA and other sensitive subjects that are callous, sexist, etc! but there are also plenty that are trenchant, edifying, powerful, evocative, etc!)

[slurpygunch]

Y'know what? I'm pretty excited about 2024, in my personal life. A lot of good things to come.

For one, my birthday is just a few days away! I'll officially be turning 21, isn't that cool? I'm very likely not going to actually use that fact to buy much alcohol or weed or whatever, but I can finally go into 21+ businesses, y'know? My girlfriend has been old enough for a little under 2 years now, and she's really been looking forward to going to such places with me. It seems fun!

I've also got a video appointment right after my birthday, which might be the final appointment before I can officially start receiving a prescription for my ADHD! I really look forward to that. I took Adderall for it in the past, and it really went well, really calmed me down, made me... singular. Felt good to get things done and enjoy media in peace, without The Sludge getting in my way.

Having my ADHD under control will also make it easier for me to focus on pursuing more... meaningful things, like working on my little roleplay worldbuilding project, and starting to practice making digital art, and learning how to ride my bike. Stuff that I really do care about, that I really am excited for, but just haven't gotten around to doing, due to... the sludge.

April first, all fast food workers get an increase to their minimum wage, including me! It'll effectively be a 25% pay jump in my case, and that's pretty dang exciting. Even if my work reduces my hours a bit, it'll just mean making the same money and having more free time. Win-win, so long as I don't get laid off or something, which would really suck.

Some time during this year, my uncle that I live with will move out, and that'll be pretty momentous! I've been dealing with him for about... two years now? and I'm really looking forward to not spending another year being his roommate. It's a multifaceted issue, but the gist of the symptoms is that I can't really put effort into decorating the house I live in, or leave food or hygiene supplies out, because he'll rearrange things or use my stuff. Chronic issue, no solution has worked, just want him gone.

If I no longer live with him, my girlfriend of about 28 months can start staying with me for extended periods of time, and maybe even move in, ooh! That'd be so wonderful. We have so many things we can do when we live together, or at the very least spend a lot of our time together!

This year is also a major election year, the first one I'll be old enough to vote for, and that's not necessarily a good thing, but it could be! and regardless, it'll certainly be interesting.

Some good things are coming to my games, too! MC: Better Than Adventure gets a really cool update, Warframe gets cross-save permanently, and I'm betting Ultrakill's seventh layer will get its missing extras, which would be super majorly cool.

I'm excited for 2024. I'm really, genuinely optimistic that I can find a lot of good this year, and I intend to try.

Thanks especially to @sewahsworld for being with me in this journey, and @basicskellie for being such a good friend :)

[inventors-fair]

Second Spellings: Runners-Up ~

Our runners-up this week are @bergdg, @helloijustreadyourpost, and @hypexion!

@bergdg — The Great Conjuration

I don't really know where blue and green became the shapeshifteryest of shapeshifter colors (or rather, I get the gist because blue = mutability and green = nature). When you have these together, though, you get a card like this which is really damn sweet. This card obviously puts a massive target on your back, but if you go fast enough, you can ensure that the power behind your creatures can swing fully and completely. Or rather, that you have at least one explosive turn. Having all the cards be exiled can be a feel-bad, but there are great ways to exploit this and even better ways that this card is just plain fun.

For example: naming Eldrazi allows you to cast Emrakul off a Blisterpod. Honestly, do I need to name any other examples after that? I think that the only major revision I would make would be for the last ability to say "You may cast any number of cards exiled with ~ this turn without paying their mana costs." I'm not sure where you got the "one or more" wording from, but hey, that's a small issue for such a fun card. It's extremely narrow and more often than not feels like it would be a glass cannon—so yeah, perfectly reasonable for what the conjuration is implying, right? Side note: amazing art skills there. The mood conveys the gist conveys the extremity.

@helloijustreadyourpost — Sky Dancer

I like the Shakespeare reference in the flavor text, and I think it speaks to some kind of faerie perspective that's not quite translatable to human thought—or at least that feels like the intention, the way that the fae see the world. That is to say, I like both the simplicity and the ambiguity. It's actually tied with the effect for the card, which is a potentially quite powerful effect at common! I can't think of any specific effects with which it's broken, at least not at the moment.

So what you have is the ability to swing in with your fliers and then be on the defense, plus if you have any flash synergy you can utilize that to make combat harder for your opponents. All checks out. Cast triggers at common aren't the easiest to grok, but at the same time, this effect doesn't use too much complex space because of no inherent tap ability; I'm thinking of how my students sometimes get juked out with weird Thermo-Alchemist triggers, y'know. By itself, it's a card that does just what Faeries want to do at common, and I think that the only possible change I'd make would be to make it a 1/2, and even that's negligible. Solid common design!

@hypexion — Distortion Skitterer

As an uncommon? You're treading hazardous ground... But, it's a seven-mana 4/4 so that's honestly not so bad. Making additional 4/4s with trample is pretty nasty and you do get one on cast, but holy crap, that's still really fun to play, and fairly limiting all things considered. The amount of times that this would've come up in OGW limited would be pretty little, which is reasonable, but getting two of them or getting just one trigger off would be pretty nasty. Considering that MH3 is going to have even more? Wow. I think that the double-C is quite reasonable for the setup.

Honestly this card speaks for itself—the power level is comparable to the more powerful uncommons of its era, it's an Eldrazi that makes more Eldrazi, and you've got a pretty reasonable wording to show how nuts it can be. FYI, the cast trigger for other spells would actually be its own thing, e.g. "When you cast this spell and whenever you cast a spell with {C} in its mana cost..." I believe you don't have to specify "on the battlefield" because, like Cityscape Leveler, it implies the zone with the wording on the trigger. That said, it's fairly complex, so I understand if things got finicky. Flavor text is a solid B+, too! Just remember to put the period inside the quotation marks. I guess a runner-up flavor would've been Zurdi saying that they missed the scute bugs.

Commentary soon! @abelzumi

[fandomhopping]

Ready for me to give you a starter prompt??

Leon was sipping some nice tea that April, this universe's April st least, had mad ehim when he noticed Donnatello weak past. He'd been referring the turtles by their full name to he'll differentiate them from his brothers the moment he was brought back to the lair after... he showed up and he got some answers for what exactly was going on. Suppressing a shudder, he glanced over, was... did Donatello look worred!?

Frowning, the young slider placed his cup gently down, grabbing his crutch. It was annoying using them, but necassary with the injury thay was put to him thay was left untreated. The... He hadn't cared whether or not Leon had been in pain so long as he could still stand, or rather so long as the... thing thay took over his mind could still puppet him. It had been Casey, er... tbe one from this universe, who had made it for him. Careful to keep the click and clacking of his crutch down, he followed.

"Leonardo, can I... talk to you?" Leon heard Donatello stuttering as he hid behind the corner, "It's about... well, it's about Lila Blue."

Leon blinked, eyes narrowing. That was one of the nicknames they had given him! Shifting closer he heard Leonardo ask,

"Sure? What's up, Don?"

"W-well... I was looking into Leon's biological makeup to make sure the medications we're using will, y'know, help him? Some... inconsistencies with his mutation came up."

"Inconsistencies?" Leon heard his counterpart ask, voice getting lower. Serious.

"Y-yes. Um... how do I out this... Leon's chemical makeup is completely unique to any mutant I've ever seen before! He's amazing!!! He could very possibly survive in some of the harshest environments in the world, why, if it weren't for the shell rot and infection his injuries likely would have healed on their own!!! Or at least... he would have been up and at 'em a lot sooner than it would have been for me and you! He's faster than you, stronger than Raph... it's almost as if he was built from the ground up to be the perfect fighter!!"

Leon's heart clenched, oh no... don't tell him Donatello figured it out... please don't let them know! Leonardo was silent for several minutes before asking,

"Whats your point, Don?"

"Leo... I... these specific mutations are too direct and specific to have been made from soem sort of accident. Whatever caused Leon's mutation... it was intentionally done!"

Leon heard Leonardo such in a breath and tensed. Oh boy...

"Don... are you saying someone made him to be a weapon!?"

"It's... a potential option." Donnatello admitted sadly, "And... considering how we became mutants and who it is that's searching for him... you can probably guess the chief suspect for who."

Leon heard enough and decided ro love back, already knowing what was likely to come out of Leonardo's mouth. If he's anything like Leon himself he'll suspect Leon to be some sort of alien spy or something. As he clacked away he heard the conversation continue, somewhat muffled but he got the general gist,

"Think... wants him... weapon!"

"Need... watch him... Kraang."

Leon shuddered at the name but heard nothing as he desperately crutches toward his swords and drew a portal into the night air he watched as snow flurries surrounded him, he noticed wet drops of water falling from his face as the voices rang in his head.

he didn’t notice how he stumbled off the roof top and onto an alleyway until it was too late…

He was still semi conscious when he landed but.. so cold! He just wanted to curl up somewhere warm! So with no other option, he hid behind the trash can…And fell asleep.