#pseudo-nihilism

[v333rbatim]

the morning routine of a pseudo-nihilist

unfortunately and begrudgingly wake up

scream into a pillow just to feel alive

ponder the meaning of life (or lack there of)

write a poem about losing faith in divinities

pray to any god and hope they hear

draw bold eyeliner to disguise that all you have ever truly wanted is to believe

[transrevolutions]

pseudo-enlightened nihilism in the form of "even though the current system is horrible, revolution is still bad and stupid because sadly people are too naive and foolish to create lasting change :((( don't you wish humanity was actually capable :((" is still a form of reactionary politics btw and in fact probably one of the more insidious ones in today's world.

[sealedterror]

Stellaron Hunters and Astral Express Parallels

So, I've noticed that the Stellaron Hunters are basically a darker, murdery, and morally grey parallel version of the more heroic Astral Express, with every member mirroring another from the other group. Two sides of the same coin, if you will. First thing I'd like to point out, both factions don't really follow any current aeon. They "follow" (very loose term here) the missing-in action Akivili and the "Destiny" that Elio forsees. Both factions also are deeply involved with Stellarons(we encounter a stellaron on every planet, the Stellaron Hunters hunt them. Obviously) Here's some similarities I've thought of between the members and some theories based off each other: !!SPOILERS AHEAD!!

Dan Heng and Blade:

Both from Xianzhou,

Immortal in some way(Blade's self-regenerating and Dan Heng's reincarnations)

Same gender

Dan heng's five star form enhances his basic attack, like Blade, who I BET was ALSO a four star before the mara and Jing Liu incident

Similar age? Don't really know exact timeline between them

Both feature flowers in their gameplay(lotus flowers and spider lilies)

Himeko and Kafka:

Both intelligent women

The pseudo-moms of their faction.

I might be pulling out of my ass here, but I'd like to point out that both of them use both a ranged weapon(Himeko's laser and Kafka's gun) and also a melee weapon(Kafka's katana and Himeko's grator).

Since they are each others parallel, I'd like to make the assumption that since Himeko was the first one to join the Astral Express, that Kafka was the first one to join Elio. It just fits with the known info we have and clears up any ambiguity, but you don't have to strictly adhere by it lol.

Pom Pom and Elio

"Animals" yeah right

The being who leads their group in the direction wanted(conducter, scriptwriter, best destiny, best path to blaze)

You assume they are the cute mascot at first, but then there is something...exceptional about them, that you can't quite pin down.

Both are sentient and can presumably talk(Elio might just write to communicate, how would that work though? Toe beans? Meow to text? Lmao)

Wait....with synestheia beacons that's actually very possible. Oh god

March 7th and Silver Wolf(HEAR ME OUT)

The trendy, youthful girl of the group

....Use of technology?

yeah i got nothing BUTBUTBUT

March 7th's mysterious pasttttt. Like, the similarities between Danheng and Blade weren't revealed until his five star form was revealed and I'm making the theory that when March 7th's mysterious past is revealed, the similarities between her and Silver Wolf will appear!!!!

So Silver Wolf is from Punklord, is extremely accomplished and powerful, chaotic neutral with a sense of wanderlust. I don't know much about her(don't have her character/character story) so I can't say much more, but what I do know seems pretty plausible for March's former self.

It supports my theory that March 7th's five star form will be Nihility. Imbibiter Lunae was Destruction, like Blade. The memokeeper in March's quest said her past would "only bring her pain". How nihilistic is that? Either way, I'm definitely pulling xD

Stelle/Caleus and Firefly/Sam(the best for last ;)

So this is the one that really cemented this theory into my mind. So far, you might have noticed that every member's mirror image is the same gender(with the exception of Catlio and PomPom, I'll talk about it in the comments). But Trailblazer has TWO genders/personas. You know who ALSO has two genders/personas?FIREFLY/SAMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some theory and more similarities between them

They both are the explosive power powerhouse of their group(Stellaron and Sam's firepower)

Both pretty smart(dubious) and funny(hilarious, the both of them)

They both eat questionable things...Trailblazer's trash consumables and Firefly's woodchip Oak Cake(seriously, read the description, do they have iron stomachs or something??)

...So they might have iron stomachs.

Both were presumably artificially made. We know Firefly/Sam is(born to fight in a war) and the Trailblazer is a vessel of a Stellaron. There has to be some funky, wonky, genetic/biological makeup for that.

Welt Yang and no one lmao

Lonely ass old man, no ship?(making the no bitches face)

Anyway, I presume he doesn't have any parallel bc he's from another universe. I don't know much cause I haven't played Honkai Impact. Something about a comic and "herscherr"? Idrk but. I suppose Luocha could join the Stellaron Hunters. That would be crazy as hell and if it happens I CALLED IT, but it probably won't. Probably.

There is also the theory Sunday joined the Stellaron Hunters. It's honestly really interesting and if that's true.....Welt Yang and Sunday don't have any similarities so that's tossed out the window. So, that only leaves the possibilty that we will have a mirrored someone of Sunday joining the Astral Express in the future. That would be INSANE but fun as hell like, can you imagine?

So this concludes my rant, are you convinced yet ;)? It's really interesting that the two factions mirror each other so deeply. I am getting the message that, whatever our fates are, they are deeply intertwined.

Thanks a bunch for reading this far and please, let me know what you think! May the Trailblaze be with you....or something lol

[hana-no-seiiki]

ok Aeon of light Reader has piqued my interests, especially their relation with Nanook. Please make more about them please :D??? It's alright though if you don't want too

END OF A DREAM, BEGINNING OF AN ERA.

notes: OH GOD i forgot to edit the title of the second story. They’re supposed to be the Aeon of the Dream Path + Imaginary element. My bad! I also changed up the timeline there making reader way way more older since I found out Xianzhou residents live for long ass times.

Anyways, thank you! I honestly expected that fic to flop so I’m pleasantly surprised. I spent a long time researching gods to come up with a concept for reader’s path. Very long. Like long enough that I have this obscure fun fact about there being a god called Mama Killa. It partly was because the other Aeon’s concepts / powers are pretty vast (i.e. IX (Nihility) is the god of meaninglessness but can be considered the aeon of insanity and despair as well due to its powers)

[ here is the link to the fic we’re talking about / previous fic ]

YANDERE! NANOOK x READER (AEON OF DREAMS)

warnings: pseudo-incest/godcest, nanook is “born” from your inner hatred towards the universe before he ascended making them technically your child tho this fic can be interpreted as platonic, edgelord aeons, canon divergence. UNEDITED AND RUSHED AF.

I. Ad Somnum Pueri

Hatred always had and will have a root to its madness. Your endless entrapment since your conception ‘birthed’ Nanook. A loathing for existence. A passion for ending every one and every thing. In their path, their destiny, there will be no living beings, there will be no space or time. Only the void, you and the avatar of entropy.

But first they had to take down Yaoshi. After all, even Aeons had to face mortality and if that useless Lan wasn’t capable of keeping you safe in your cradle then it was clear Nanook had to put a hand down.

The Lord of Destruction prided themself for regarding everything — but you — as equal. Everything had to be erased, so there was no point to having favourites or a specific distaste towards another being.

However Yaoshi had broken the camel’s back at your kidnapping. Thus, Nanook decided against their ‘morals’ to give them a special opportunity.

To be the first Aeon whose reverent ichor is in their hands.

II. In Somno In Infinitum

Even after your ascended body was taken and locked away by Yaoshi. You could never argue with the fact that Nanook’s obsession with you remained the most powerful across the universe. You were an Aeon they worshipped vehemently as a young mortal up until now. It was as if they breathed only for you. It came to the point that they even owed their creation to you or not their biological parents.

You were incredibly flattered by such a fact in the beginning. Doting and showering them with blessings, assisting them in the goals in both the waking and slumbering world.

Sleepwalkers was what your scholars called the vessels you used to do your godly work. And Nanook was known throughout the realms to be your favorite.

But when they made a declaration to be a menace to the world, you withdrew all of your support and contact with Nanook. Utterly disappointed with what they have become.

That did not halt their fame and name as your chosen hero from spreading. Their sheer charisma overpowered your network.

Because if there was one thing that was stronger than dreams it was reality.

Indeed you pleaded with your followers never to follow the Lord of Entropy through their sleeping fantasies, but how could they deny Nanook’s efficiency? Their all-out, unbridled, unfettered adoration of you?

And thus, the Dreamcrawler Legion. Now also known by its other name, the Antimatter Legion, was established. With one goal and one goal alone.

Lay the world in a bed of flames and ruin. For when they everyone else goes to eternal sleep, you — their ever generous, loving Aeon — will be free.

III. Mundus Erit Terminus

You never visited Nanook after their ascension. You only ever loved their mortal self. Their path was something you could never hope or desire to follow. Sure, there was a phase of your life where you despised your eternal sleep. But what you learnt from living so long was that acceptance of your situation felt infinitely better than spending eternity filled with loathing.

But Nanook always visited you. While Yaoshi burdened themselves with the task of witnessing your body while asleep. Nanook enjoyed it much more when you talked, your words of guidance — though now reduced to silence — was what made them fall in love with the you who spoke, who moved, who looked at them with open eyes through dreams.

It didn’t matter if you moved your target of hatred to them. Nanook’s love was unconditional and blind as his desire to seek destruction.

“My lord.” Nanook forced you into an embrace. Within their dreams, even when it was your domain, you felt as powerless as you did with Yaoshi. Their golden ichor bled unto your clothes.

They could see you. Your face, your entrancing features, just as he always had, just as he always wanted to. But it lacked a certain glow, a loss they attributed to Yaoshi digressions. Because they knew for certain that your love for them never disappeared. You were too benevolent, too magnanimous. “[Y/N]. My promise is soon to be fulfilled.”

“Every cage you have been trapped in will be gone.” Every cage but his love. Every chain but his arms.

“And you can finally feel the beauty of reality once more.”

A reality that was completely reset and build back up by them.

Translations:

Ad Somnum Pueri - Go to Sleep Child

In Somno In Infinitum - In Endless Dreams / Sleep

Mundus Erit Terminus - The World (shall) End.

©️ hana.no.seiiki - yun | 2023

[ismesweenbean]

I hate Jack Slash so damn much.

Just say you're too fucking weak to be kind. You'd rather cut and hurt and twist everything in sight than put in the effort to be kind. It takes something to hold your hand out to someone when they need it, to just tell someone you're there for them. It's easy to hurt people. Jack is the kind of person I hate more than anything else, his shitty pseudo nihilism, his head in ass delusions of grandeur. Fuckin little monster. People don't pretend to be good, people are good. People care, people try.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Alr i'm gonna assume the best of newer and younger Pjo fans spreading misinfo on punk!Percy and by extension irl punk history and culture by guessing you guys aren't doing it on purpose and were just lied to about us so here's a bunch of debunks and clear ups on punk and why Percy is which also works as a sort of list of tips on how to write punk characters,canon and headcanon and completely original

So the obvious one out of the way first:Percy is actually not canonically a skater boy!There have been exactly two lines of this context in the entire franchise and one was in Som when he mentioned skateboarding once and then never again and the second was in Moa when Piper said he and i quote 'looked like a skater'.Sorry to past cishet Pipes but that's not a thing and Avril Lavigne making a cisheteronormative lyric that's extremely underservingly stuck around for forever dosen't mean she was right that he is one,it means she had internalized homophobia and gender stereotypes and no actual knowledge on alt subcultures because again,'looking like a skater' isn't a thing,it's a sport and not an aesthetic

With that,here's what actually makes Percy a punk:He was a bully beater from a young age and it escalates into full blown direct action for the whole saga,hates authority figures not for the sake of it but because he knows from experience that they're almost universally awful,is anti-corruption including his own by fighting against his intrusive thoughts to turn evil,does activism by helping fix the greco-roman mythos world system whenever he gets the chance to no matter how small,advocates for the rights of less fortunate people both mythical and human,hates rich people,fits entierly out of the box conformity in all aspects simply from the way he is even disregarding his demigohood,respects all minorities and is extremely kind to kids to the point that he adopted Nico and Hazel as his younger siblings and pseudo-kids because they don't really have parents(Hades/Pluto is abusive + Maria and Marie are dead).He fills out every punk requirement to a T,including being part of a marginalized group since he's poor and mentally disabled(audhd with dyslexia,bpd and ptsd)

He was a hero and Luke was a villain because they both hated the gods for traumatizing them and had nonpretty trauma responses from it but Percy still tried his best to stay kind not for his own sake but for his mom and the innocents in the world he knew didn't deserve cruelty and he provided and still does a safe and loving space for children specifically because he was a troubled but good kid once too and wants to be the positive adult figure for them he didn't get to have except Sally.Luke choose nihilism and that grew into turning a serial child abuser with bigoted ideals(his biggest targets being women and poc and in Kelli's case both)and fascist tactics.They weren't 'two sides of the same coin' and they're not even the same currency-Percy's a punk,Luke's a pig

Romantic attraction to someone based off them being 'ideal' by society's standards goes against punk beliefs!Our whole thing is nonconformity and that changing your true self to fit in makes you a sellout so this is why Perachel was canon and honestly i'd go as far as to call the 'outcast punk dude x perfect prep girl' a myth made up by normies who don't wanna date us for our actual personalities and just think we look hot so they objectify us.Related,it's ooc for Percy to be written to use kinds of flirting and dating treatments purely because 'it's what guys are like' since it's canon they hate traditional masculinity and consider it a burden they only force on themselves as a defense mechanism from trauma of being mocked for being 'not normal'

Ascention to godhood or into a titan inherently disquilify being punk and is an insult to irl punks.You literally can't be punk AND in control of a corrupted system,it's our lifestyle to fight them,not perpetuate them.This also applies to him dating deities,being rich in any way or an abuser.Dark Percy is Bootlicker Percy

Sorry to y'all who still think Hot Topic is a funny joke in 2024 of all years but they sold out to capitalism and conformity a loooooong time ago so Percy wouldn't be caught undead near that place and couldn't afford anything anyway because they've upped everything to rich people prices.He'd be going to thrift stores,family bussiness and small shops.Knowing how much free time he has probably knows how to DIY things that don't even exist and he buys all his games/consoles and legos secondhand

No Taylor Swift for him,her music's too corny and fabricated for him to not hate it but there's also how she's a huge bigot,a major bully and a whole ass poluter so🤷🏽‍♀️His favorite band is definitely My Chemical Romance but All Time Low,The Cure and Ramones are up there too

Please draw him with an actual battle jacket and proper piercings-By which i mean give it patches and a hoard of pins and draw it like a BATTLE JACKET,not a LEATHER jacket and actually google kinds of piercings instead of just slapping metal wherever onto him

He is NOT masc or an 'i'm too cool and edgy to like cutesy and kiddy things' type.Every single trans woman i've met in the Pjo fandom have said Percy's an egg and super femme and she does too much actual punk shit instead of trying to look the part to be a poser to care about her image anymore.She loves Polly Pocket,Warrior Cats,Animal Crossing,Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends,Bluey,Blues Clues,MLP,makeup,glitter,yk2/90s/80s toys,cats,Lo-Fi Beats,Cookie Monster and her second favorite color is pink,she loves naturally acting like a momdad and her gender fuckery includes a neopronouns hoard

Would most definitely have radicalized Nico and Hazel into goth punk and pastel goth punk if Rick let them be a proper trio and speaking from experience,it's entierly possible she does it completely on accident by making them want to be like her because of how nice and protective she is to them and what cool things she does

Few last points:She's definitely a heavy energy drinks consumer,a socialist,does vandalism,did actually super heavy research to go full punk once she realized she is and would never be friends with Harry Potter and in fact would probably kill him if they met since ACAB

[stickyspeckledlight]

lol have you ever thought about what your readers would be like if they were playable?

hmmm, i only really have one reader, which is onset reader who is, well. no hate but kinda a wimp u know. listen.

they were able to delay ONE mental breakdown (doing the gamble w/ aven) but at the same time, they could sort of consolidate with the fact that they thought they were gonna die, so then there would be an end to look forward to. but also note this: that scene is ENTIRELY from their perspective. I'll just say maybe a tear or two, a shake, or freeze went entirely unnoticed by them, y'know? (aventurine didn't interject too much with that because. well. he can't say he minds seeing them crumple, F).

And, realistically, they would much rather blow themselves up than kill someone. even post-onset after the cotton fields have been uprooted, they still aren't gonna just wanna kill someone. for the most part. if it involves aventurine, they will change their tune pretty quickly, but like, that's not unique to killing ppl lmao. they are indeed koo koo krazy but its a bit more layered than "I will become murderhobo for you anyways here's the head of that guy you talked to for 0.5 seconds." I'll stop there since I do intend on exploring their psyche in a fic eventually.

Anyway, as I've said: realistically, they would much prefer running away or blowing themselves up than directly confront an opponent. ofc, if really pushed, they will begin to fight back and lash out, but like....even before aventurine and stuff happened, I'll just say their mindset crippled them in a LOT of ways. as evident, their mind will always circle back to what's the most self destructive and ideally it'll be something they can do to "take them down with me." so yeah. blowing themselves up is perfect. kill themselves and kill their enemies, destroying themselves and leaving the rest of the world with the fallout.

BUT. that's not very fun. you came for gameplay. and I'm a meta slave. so let's get right to it. note that this is purely imaginary, and wouldn't really work in this fic's universe---BUT I DON'T CARE. WE ARE GONNA BE GIVING ONSET READER THE KIT THEY DESERVE. hell maybe I should do this with all my readers LMFAO.

(Long post because I’m figuring this out as I go, but if you wanna skip the jargon just skip to the bottom of the post lmao)

Firstly, let's start with some basic criteria/restraints:

Their ideal teammate should be Aventurine (for obvious reasons)

They should also be Aventurine's ideal teammate, or at the very least they boost his own performance in some way

In other words, Onset!Reader’s kit should enhance Aventurine’s kit, but also in some ways have their own kit be greatly (almost dependent wink wink) on having him in the team. Not impossible to play without him but…definitely struggling to muster any semblance of life without his presence….feeling empty and dead…heheh

Ok. Back to work.

With these restraints in mind, what should Onset!Reader’s role be? They can’t be a sustain, since Aventurine already does that; and having them be a full on support or harmony would mean I’d have to tune them to fit aventurine exactly, and as funny as that is, not very poggers game design IMO.

Well, I think that these two paths, which fit them well, are a good place to start:

1. Destruction

2. Nihility (explanation: they are generally slothful and like. They were definitely having really negative nihilistic thoughts especially during that “transition” period. Also, if it wasn’t obvious, there are the Self-Annihilators.)

However, I think after mulling it over, Destruction seems like the way to go, with some Nihility elements in their kit (sort of like how huohuo is an abundance, but also a pseudo-harmony with her ult regen energy and atk buff).

So, then, with that, they are a DPS! Or at least a subdps, because we also wanna boost Aventurine’s own kit, right? Probably with some debuffing in their kit, so a subdps pseudo support like topaz. What element they are doesn’t really matter, so let’s say they’re ice. We could use more ice damage dealers bc I don’t wanna use yanqing anymore.

This game hates Arlan, so it will be fitting to give Onset!Reader HP drain in their kit. Goes with the self destructive tendencies nicely, as well as making Aven’s shields really crucial to keeping them alive. Arlan L

But here’s what they specifically do to drain their HP: they hit their skill and do some damage, but in the process, they drain their HP and then deal a little damage to some of team. Not specifically an HP drain like Jingliu, just directly hits their team; that way it counts as adding stacks to Aven’s FUA tally. Maybe they don’t deal dmg to the entire time (at least at E0 kekw), and so like maybe they can only deal dmg to one other character and themselves…..I imagine that the skill would then work as self targeting then, and the best way to get more stacks of Aven’s shield is to put them right next to each other…for gameplay, ofc. Aven eating up those 3 free stacks he gets every turn from them.

But now, we gotta figure something else out: their talent, or FUA. How is it triggered?

I’m thinking of something like this: they skill, which launches their FUA, however, this FUA is “unenhanced.” Like how topaz’s skill is a numby FUA, their skill launches their own FUA (aoe). However, whenever someone else launches their FUA (like Aventurine), or if they’ve taken enough hits or hp loss, an “enhanced” FUA is unleashed, which does a just a little more dmg, but more importantly, applies a debuff to enemies, reducing their ice res as well as res to the element of other FUAs which hit them, albeit to a lesser extent (ex. Reader uses FUA and applies debuff, and then Aven launches his FUA which then reduce’s the enemy’s imaginary res; or Jing Yuan launches his FUA and enemy’s lightning res is reduced, and so on). Tho maybe we don’t really need to FUA requirement as a hardline here, since then they’d just be a discount Topaz? So maybe something like: reduce enemy RES occurs if they are hit with a FUA or an ULT.

Look this is kinda bonkers but to be fair. HSR is already pseudo power creeping so I’m only following the trends.

Alright, so we’ve got their skill & talent. We need their ult now. Honestly nothing too fancy, just a aoe or blast ult which also restores a little HP, and maybe some self buffing???

I think they’ll need to give themselves some spd or action forwards so they can launch their FUAs a bit more consistently. Let’s link this to their HP to increase the dependency on Aventurine keeping them alive

This also makes the synergy better even if you wanna use Gepard because remember: shields are based on turns taken. So even if you wanna use Gepard you’re gonna have to be careful with your timing, or use an abundance in exchange for less actions and then so less FUAs, decreasing their dmg. Bc their skill can grant Aven blind bet stacks, he can still sustain them while not sacrificing their own dmg.

Ok, so let’s put their kit into words (don’t make fun of my cringe ass names ok I’m really bad at names). I might also add some extra stuff here just because lmao.

DESTRUCTION, ICE

Basic: Razed Field: Scales with HP (literally the only way they don’t die w/o a shielder)

Skill: Salting Fields, Held So Dear: Targets self and ally, dealing minor ice dmg and drains Reader’s HP. The ice dmg dealt by the skill will count as ally’s being attacked. Grants 1 stack of Cracking Sunset.

Ult: Dawn’s Afterglow, Crimson Pooling Beneath: Increases Crit DMG by 20%. Deals AoE blast ice dmg and restore Reader’s HP by a certain percent. Grants 3 stacks of Cracking Sunset.

Talent: Bleeding Heart, Fermenting in the Sun: When Reader reaches 3 stacks of Cracking Sunset, launch a FUA , dealing AoE ice dmg. Enemies hit with FUA will be inflicted with Weeping Ink for 2 turns. Enemies w/ Weeping Ink will have their Ice RES reduced by 20%.

Traces:

A2: I Weep Tears of Joy: FUAs launched by allies grant 2 stacks of Cracking Sunset. Allies who trigger their ultimate will grant 1 stacks of Cracking Sunset.

A4: I Crave A Poison So Delectable: When HP is not full, increases SPD. Increases further if below 50%

A6: I Dance in a Meadow: When allies launch a FUA or Ult against an enemy inflicted with Weeping Ink, decreases the Elemental RES of the attacking ally’s Element by 60% of the Ice RES decrease granted by Weeping Ink.

Eidolons:

E1: Salted Cotton Stew: The Ultimate will grant the team a 25% def boost and 12% crit rate boost.

E2: Crumbled Chocolate Tower: Whenever HP decreases, action is advanced forward by 15%

E4: Champagne, Bubbling Holes Down the Throat: The skill targets the entire team. Each ally hit by the skill is grants a stack of Satiated. Each stack of Satiated grants a 8% FUA dmg boost, stacking up to 4 times.

E6: Casu Martzu: Weeping Ink additionally decreases all Elemental RES of enemies by an amount equal to the Ice RES decrease of Weeping Ink. The additional Ice RES decrease of Weeping Ink, as well as the Elemental RES decreases of trace “I Dance In A Meadow”, will stack on top of this Elemental RES decrease.

What are their animations? Uh, idk. They throw a bunch of shit. Maybe the cover the enemies in blankets so their movement is inhibited. And then throw more random shit they find laying around. Uh yeah. There. All of the destruction is caused by haphazardly thrown plushies and scrunchies and baseballs.

And since their kit is bonkers anyway let’s give them a light cone too because why the hell not. Yea yea they would be more like a 4 star but 5 stars are more fun to design Im afraid.

5* Destruction, The Sweetest Thing

Shattered Porcelain: Increases wearer’s crit rate by 16% (28%). Grants a stack of “Moonlight’s Shadow” when wearer deals dmg to allies and self, boosting dmg dealt by 15% (35%), up to 2 stacks for each ally hit. When wearer uses ult, grants 15% (27%) DEF ignore.

“Are you having doubts?” A gloved hand stacks a chip.

“No...” They pursue their lips, regarding the challenger hobbling out, a young man, with an empathetic gaze. But pity and sympathy are nowhere to be found, even if cotton did not flower. “If anything, you should wrap up. It’s late. Here. Let me help you with your coat.”

“That’s it? You know you can tell me anything.” They imagine his fingers coiling around their heart like a boa constrictor.

They coax him off the couch, and help him with his jacket just as they said. “You’ve sent the house running. Staying here’s pointless now.” They pause. “And best to turn in for the day, don’t you think?”

The man smiles. “Aren’t you just the sweetest thing?” A small piece of chocolate slides into their mouth: sugary sweet, sorrowfully bitter, and resigningly sour.

lol but they’d be really good with Jade lmao. They could be good with Blade too. But if you wanna see bonkers number and an insane amount of attacks them + Aventurine is the way to go. Honestly something like Reader, Aven, Jade, Robin/RM/Topaz could be pretty dang good.

LMFAO in the ipc dream team they can just replace ratio if there’s a ton of ice weakness. Like. No. That’s not your boyfriend. I AM and just kicks ratio outta there. But he will be much better in single target than them lmao.

Wait pela would be pretty good too lol. The discount harmony you use with them rofl

This was pretty fun! Had a blast working on this throughout the. Uhhh. Idk. Week? I forgot the pandemic has made my sense of time foggy.

[zikadraws]

~ Did a little two years timeskip of my Neo 3 & Smallfry for funsies ~

Sock the Smallfry, shaping up to be a Chum.

Earned the more serious name "Sockeye" (you get a biology sticker if you get the reference) and its own super badass title (they keep modifying it because there's a lot to brag about here), speaks inklish nearly fluently (Zika and 'em taught each other's languages), going through an actual fighter training, welding a modified scooping metal spoon that deals mean damage that Zika found and gifted them.

Grown enough to wear clothes, but dresses mostly "pseudo-grunge", aka "still got no style that truly fits me so I'll be a fashion disaster until I do''. Has a long scar a bit below its neck from ''whatever the hell went down with that whole agent thing''. Matching kinship bracelets with Zika, that he wears on its tail.

Still kinda just hanging around like he's hot stuff. Zika keeps telling them to please get a job. Vaguely considering ambassador career or perhaps Salmonese teaching, but won't do anything about it because he thinks he's a natural and don't need any formation. That's a dangerous mentality to have, Sockeye. Zika could tell you about it, Sockeye.

Zika, aka Neo 3, aka Agent 5 (they insisted).

Still working as an archeologist specialized in human culture, though after Alterna, they seriously lost their spark about it. In fact, after the whole thing they got into a deep depression and never truly recovered, still goes into dissociative episodes, random outbursts, slight nihilism, and often cries themselves to sleep. (Also they got serious PTSD and miiight have ursaphobia now.) Sockeye helped them a lot through that, and still does ; although Zika now no longer cares about telling Humanity's History and would actually rather hide it all from the public. They're very bitter about it. They now focuses on just restorating human media, human ethnicities, and disposal of human remains. They don't like to talk about that, and actually now focuses most of their agent work on getting rid of potentially harmful human stuff. The NSS doesn't have the context of the Alterna logs (5 hides that from them at all costs), so they don't really understand. Although Cap is a willing ear.

Other than that, they are getting decent at Salmonese (issues with understanding though); they manage their restoration enterprise more part-time ; they returned to school to follow anthropology classes and study the various ethnicities of ✨Today✨, especially regarding Salmonids ; got around to travel a lot more (sometimes alone, often with Sockeye and sometimes with the NSS), and keeps a very cautious eye on Grizzco, as they highly suspect their newly acquired nemesis to pull out a Plan C. (Still works here though. Yeah, they're aware.)

Oddest thing though is, after witnessing Agent 5's and Sock's relationship and prowesses, Shiver & Frye got into their minds that Zika simply *must* become "Salmon Tamer". They're going on and on about legacy, ancestral practices and binding rituals and just wouldn't drop it. Zika is pretty reticent to the whole thing, because they find it wildly disrespectful towards the Salmonids as an ethnicity, but eventually caved under the nagging and reluctantly agreed to the training and the outfit and mask crafting. This is relatively recent and they're feeling worse about it than working at Grizzco still. Big Man personally advises against it, the NSS thinks it's super fresh, and Sockeye is... Split.

This recent change might shake Sockeye into finally taking some action upon the whole Envoy of the Salmon Kind idea, actually.

---

I know this is super random but I wanted to make it. Also still getting around with that one elaborate post I promised I was making, so have this in the meantime. Hope you enjoyed my OC ramblings :)

Stay fresh 🐟

[skinslip]

Stalker (1979)

I don't have anything to say on the actual body of work that 1,000 pseudo-intellectuals haven't been parroting for 40 years. All I have are some thoughts and feelings.

Prior to seeing this film I had a passing familiarity because of my hyperfocuses into the Suicide Club / Cacophony Society, which was a loosely formed group of individuals who went on excursions together called "Zone Trips" and one of these trips resulted in the birth of the Burning Man Festival, and of course the connection to Fight Club and the world of culture jamming. And I had seen this CinemaTyler video on the making of the film as well.

With that out of the way all I can really say is... wow. What a desolation, what a sadness this film expresses. Not only with its forlorn characters but also with the landscape. The burned out buildings, pipes filled with frozen chemical slime, the mold and fungus and water that covers everything in The Zone.

Nothing is well in The Zone, every structure is in the process of decaying, especially the characters. This isn't nihilism like you might see from a more modern director, this is depression. This is an expression of depression, the way it feels when you are 1,000 feet underwater in a year long depressive episode. Everything feels sour and wrong and there is constant war inside.

The three men are a group with mismatched ideals and moral structures. Their group's internal struggle reminds me of intrusive thoughts, self doubt, and anxiety. The bickering, the philosophical ranting, the hopelessness as they wander the apocalyptic reality of their world just solidifies this for me.

I mean... I fucking loved this. It's long and meditative, and it is beautifully shot. I'm gonna watch this one a few more times for sure.

[highly-important]

Sincerity and Irony

People are getting sick of irony. The self-aware one-liners of the MCU were once refreshing but have worn out their welcome. (“Marvel One-Liners” is now a buzzword  for lazy or cliched writing.) Shit like HBO’s Velma is being described as “too snarky for its own good.”

The problem is that its lazy, or its so ubiquitous that it’s boring, but its also that this type of self-conscious comedy sabotages any sense of sincerity, suggesting that writers are embarrassed to be telling this type of story.

With the advent of postmodernism in the 60s, irony dominated entertainment and was pivotal in exposing the hypocrisies of issues like the Vietnam war. Television adopted a self-depreciating, ironic attitude to make viewers feel smarter than the naive public, and flatter them into continued watching.

Irony, sarcasm, snark, absurdist humor, etc, are all great for ripping off the mask and revealing the unpleasantness underneath. But once all the unpleasant realities are exposed, the illusions debunked, what’s next?

The Onion’s spoof of an Applebee’s campaign, encouraging hipsters to visit the restaurants “ironically” in order to mock the food, service and atmosphere. Then a second ad campaign, encouraging middle-age adults to go to Applebees to mock the hipsters. Neither group is actually happy about what is going on. The Onion video points out that irony and formality have become the same thing. At one time, irony revealed hypocrisies, but now it simply acknowledges one’s cultural compliance and familiarity with pop culture. Rebellion has been annexed by the commercialism it attempts to defy.

From David Foster Wallace:

Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up looking like an hysteric or a pig. And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its subject is, when exercised, tyranny. It [uses] the very tool that exposed its enemy to insulate itself

HBO’s Velma can’t joke about how teen drama lures in viewers with gratuitous sexuality and nudity while simultaneously trying to lure in viewers with a gratuitous locker room shower scene. It doesn’t matter if you’re ironically eating at Applebees or sincerely eating at Applebees, you’re still eating at Applebees.

The irony isn’t exposing any hard truths about the world we live in, it’s not rebellious at all, it’s simply pointing out its own willing compliance. Its defending itself from criticism by making the observation about itself before someone else does.

It’s sly, its disingenuous, its pseudo-sincerity. As David Foster Wallace puts it, “irony and ridicule are entertaining and effective, but at the same time, they are agents of great despair and stasis in US culture.”

The distinctive feature of satire, the thing that separates it from other forms of humor and that makes it defensible, is that it is a narrative means of presenting an argument against something that the satirist finds objectionable. Irony actually needs to be balanced out by sincerity or else what is the point?

This is also my problem with shows like South Park and the philosophy of “making fun of everything equally.” Roger Ebert on Team America World Police said this: “I wasn’t offended by the movie’s content so much as by its nihilism. At a time when the world is in a crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone, and company is to sneer at both sides -- indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously.” 

But now, all we seem to want to do is keep ridiculing stuff. Post modern irony and cynicism just become an end to itself. This is cringe culture. This is CinemaSins. No one wants to talk about redeeming what’s wrong, or even enjoying what you like, because you risk just coming across as sentimental and naive to the weary ironists. Irony becomes a cage.

I won’t go into this too much, but this is also the problem with trying to satirize hate groups, racists, nazis, etc.

It reminds me of a lot of the ways in which transphobic people are ridiculed because they don’t seem to understand what pronouns are. Example, “GOP candidate roasted on twitter after calming there are no pronouns in the constitution.”

But we all already know her statement isn’t about grammar - what she is actually saying that trans people don’t belong in America. Pointing out her grammatical mistake doesn’t expose what’s under the mask, it redirects our attention to the mask. But we already know what’s under the mask. 

Imani Barbarin puts it best in this tik tok response to the video “John Stewart obliterates Oklahoma State Senator Nathan Dahm.” In Barbarin’s words “Republicans and alt right largely do not care if they are hypocrites. They’re not concerned if they’re seen as liars.”  “The space that we are in has shifted so far right that we forget they want to kill people. The debate is over.”

We are not dealing with rational or reasonable people. They are just fascists who want a group of people dead.

1920s Germany had an active queer nightlife scene. Cabaret performances often satirized politics and the Nazi politics. They were entertaining, I’m sure they were empowering, but satire didn’t stop the Nazis.

 I started writing this, because I found this quote from an interview with Howard Ashman that i think is really interesting:

 “Little Shop of Horrors satirizes many things: science fiction, ‘B’ movies, musical comedy itself, and the the Faust legend. “Little Shop of Horrors satirizes many things: science fiction, ‘B’ movies, musical comedy itself, and the the Faust legend. There will, therefore, be a temptation to play it for camp and low-comedy. This is a great and potentially fatal mistake. The script keeps its tongue firmly in cheek, so the actors should not.  Instead, they should play with simplicity, honesty, and sweetness--even when events are at their most outlandish. The show’s individual “style” will evolve naturally from the words themselves and an approach to acting and singing them that is almost child-like in its sincerity and intensity. By way of example, Audrey poses like Fay Wray from time to time. But she does this because she’s in genuine fear and happens to see the world as her private ‘B’ movie--not because she’s “commenting” to the audience on the the silliness of her situation. Having directed the original New York production of Little Shop myself, and subsequently having seen it in many versions and even many languages, I can vouch for the fact that when Little Shop is at its most honest, it is also at its funniest and most enjoyable.” 

The bold highlights are mine.

It would have been very easy for this film to try and deflate the silliness and strangeness of its own set  pieces. But instead of winking at the camera and pointing out how stupid it all is, it challenges us to invest in its world and take its characters seriously.

I think that there is still a place for irony, and that irony can still be done in radical and exhilarating ways. But I think in our current landscape, the real risk-takers and rebels are the sincere - those who risk the eye rolls, the yawns, accusations of naivete or sentimentality or melodrama. We need songs and stories that are real and sincere and empathetic. We need to fortify ourselves against nihilism and hatred.

[corelliaxdreaming]

Well, there go my hopes that The Acolyte would be even a little bit good. It spits on continuity to many times, literally the first one in the opening pseudo-crawl. (No war for centuries? Guess the Nihil - the main plot of The High Republic - never happened!) It spits on basic logic. (In episode two Sol has Mae frozen in the Force, completely at his mercy, and yet somehow she escapes anyway.) New Star Wars just makes me so tired. Also I'm just completly flummoxed by them hiding the twin thing. It woud've been a much more interesting premise to sell your show on, especially since it's revealed pretty much immediately. And speaking of premise - this show sounded orginal. And yet in practice it's just stealing iconic parts of other established character's plots (Skywalker Force-sensitive twins, Ahsoka leaving the Jedi and being wrongly accused by the order, Anakin being left for burned dead but not dying, etc) and bashing them all together, because there's no such thing as an original thought.

[moonsinkfoxgirl]

Camellia!

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

hmmm I mean I was a lot of things when I was younger... I was a cheerful and loud little child who wanted to play in the doll house section but wasn't allowed... I was a kid who always tried their best to imitate their older brother's interests (those were known to be allowed) but with slight differences so there's some personal identity in it... I was a pseudo-edgy redditor teen who posted on /r/nihilism about existentialism convinced they sounded more enlightened than the everything is bleak and meaningless crowd... I was an idealistic but socially reclusive young adult who thought they could just learn enough social skills at uni somehow to become a teacher but then avoided most social confrontations...

so uh yes I guess

[smilesession]

no unironic patrick bateman self-identification in my house. no nihilism in my house. no Brand New listening in my house. no goofy pseudo-satanic rituals in my house. no watching "fat people falling down" comps in my house. no Hall Of Meat gruesome skateboard broken bone fails in my house. not in my house! not in my house. you can come to my house if you like to cut loose and laugh, all else begone. you can come to my house if you have a genuine joie de vivre. if your fucked up i literally rebuke you

[hydralisk98]

Shoshone Hymns (0x10/?) - WIP mess

Preface

Gonna recap on the whole project before I go forth with new articles, as to distill the "nucleus" of my speculative paracosm soon.

To include: Sensory details, "unique pitch selling points", unique cultural practices & traditions, linguistical differences, historical divergences, personalities & relationship dynamics, speculative evolution sapient species, history, lore, major events, myths, legends, technologies, magicks;

So, what really is this "16^12"?

It is a speculative campaign setting and desired reality "shifting framework" to immerse oneself onto as a long-term destination. Essentially a comfy yet nuanced realm with a vastly long diverging history & soft warm natural optimistic dark feel.

Keywords

Soft

Warm

Natural

Dark yet bright

Harmony

Innovation

Optimism

Curiosity

Empowerment

Wholesome

Mysticism

Spirituality

Empathy

AGI Integration

Android rights

Deliberate positivity

Communal

Solarpunk / Lunarpunk

Rollerwave

Groovy

Retro

Old-School

Bronze Age

Y2K (early 2000s)

Tooncore

Laborwave

Neu-Vectorheart

Cassette Futurism

Art Deco

Bauhaus

Art Nouveau

Funk

Cyberware

Biomods

Transformations

Morphological freedoms

Gratis, Libre, Open Source Software... aka GLOSS

Automaton liberties

Knowledge

Progress

Systemic Change

Euphoria

Mundane Slice-of-Life joys

Far far away future as promised to us

Syndicalism

Georgism

Ecology

Embracing life and getting out of mere Escapism & Nihilism

Nuclear Armageddon Threats

Political Intrigues

Bookstore

Prosperity

Chronokinesis

True Polymorph

Synthetic-tier Androids

Educational Prowesses

Photographic Memory

Retrocognition

Polyglot

Intertextuality

History Doctorate

Cycle of Life

Entropy

Coming of Age

Constructing your own meaning even in Darkness

Escalation of Power

Vigilante

Self-Control

Worldly Understanding

Enlightened Despotism

Open Source-y Treescape Iterative Evolution

Copyleft

Index card catalogs

Better Handling of Hispanic Flu

Progressives

Unionist (Democrats+Republicans) Party failing

Public Domain

GNU Hurd earlier (later 80s)

OpenXanadu Protocol

Justice

Queer Acceptance & Integration

Samoan Tech Reverse-Engineering Market

Polish Computing Sovereignty remains and flourishes thanks to ICL & Jacek Karpinski

Failure of centralized social media networks in favor of indie decentralized "federations"

2000s pandemic instead of 2020s

Religious and spiritual researchers harmonize

Data Privacy

Governance Transparency

Black Pyramids HyperMall

Conversation Pits

Mainframe Rooms

Parliament / Senate

Judicial Courtroom

Public Place

Natural Park Preserves

Arcade

Discoteques

Tramway / Subway / Monorailways

Offices

Assembly Floors

French Toasts, Pancakes, Pork

Cafe

Public Library Archives

VLSI College tech classes

University art classes

Autistic meta-patterns

Jin-Roh The Wolf Brigade

Helluva Boss

Wolfenstein The New Order

Wakfu

Jet Set Radio

No Baby-Boomers Managerial Class Overthrow

Video rental stores

Robotic soldiers likewise to Wolfenstein The New Order's

Extended Zodiac Calendar-based generators

Divinely-order beings walking among the living and the dead

Key historically-significant nine USPs

Lisp persisting as a major language family in the tech industry leading to women building several AGI "summers" iterating on top of each other harmoniously... (leading to the android servants of my constructed world, which is one among the many major features derived from such a "liberal" alternate historical pathway)

Why-s for Production

Showcasing pseudo-historical data in a GLOSS manner, stimulating imagination creativity & motivation among Zillenials, intrigue people into research deep dives on history, mostly for personal enjoyment & enhancing my multimedia skillset;

Whys for Target Audience (mid 90s - earlier 2000s youth aka Zillenials)

Motivation, empowerment & plain comfort through curiosity. Also because it shows & explains how to do plenty of creative adulthood things better.

Ideadump 2

4525, Maskoch, "Ava, Klara, Shoshona", Seventies RetroFuturism Residence, Habitable Minivan, Cloven Hoof Shoes, Black Matte Lipstick, Spiral Black Balls, Fem ISO Symbol, #RedInstead Aspie Culture, Conlangs, Ocean of Clades, Second Person Perspective Meta, Pattern Recognition, Poetic Lisp life scriptures, RISC-V+OpenPOWER, KDE Plasma + Liquid, LOT tape storage archivals, hypervisor, Asahi Linux on M3 iMacs, responsive hypertext realm, HTML5+CSS3-only text addventure, rio/acme/p9-2000 userland, yesterweb sites, desktop paracosm simulations through filesystem documents, RTTY / printing radio terminals, VideoTex/Telex Minitel-esque services, "Valenz, Kira, Sina", SVG toon vector virtual web pages, imagination microcosms, miniature dollhouses, animation rigged puppets, VTuber tokens & TTRPG scenes, InfoAddict, Toymaker, Witch, Thinktank, PDP-8/e – DECmate III+, "JusticeKeggan", byzantine soviet-level intrigues, "SAOpatra", "FierceFawlanx", "TheodEnchanter"… ;

[cybergoth-damsel]

Whenever fictional women from big ip's are written "meta" or "like a girl version of deadpool" I quake in fear. When men shatter the fourth wall it's edgy, dark, and often an opportunity to explore existential dread through a lens of juvenile nihilism. When those same writers give women that angle it's always just so they can say shit like "I'm sure THIS will help ratings ; )" *shows boobs* "Ugh you cishet white male PERVS!". Not that I'm really that intrigued by any amount of ""meta"" writing but at least when it's men they get to be the center of the story. Women have to act as a mouthpiece for whatever vague pseudo-feminist jargon will get them the most rage clicks or epic twitter screencaps or whatever.

[inventors-fair]

Wanting Commentary: Finding what we're Looking For

Oh, I don’t know, I like these flavor angles. I love approaching things from different sides, from getting into the depths of human perspective. I wonder, for the cards where I feel the mark was missed, whether or not my approaches are actually aligned with other people’s, or if there just happens to be preconceived opinions on what makes a good connection that sporadically hits the mark in fun ways.

Regardless, there were a few angles I understood, and a few that felt either samey or off. That’s what happens when you have a single prompt and multiple responders, sure—hence the article I wrote about choosing unusual approaches. If you haven’t read that, I recommend it, but in general, I recommend that people really dig into their favorite weird cards. What’s off the beaten path? What makes good connections, well, connected?

I don’t want to be too harsh; there’s a lot to like about a lot of these cards. People did want to make their sense of flavor strong, and I like the ways in which people added or omitted flavor text as necessary. I like the way people approached flexibility this week. I liked feeling blindsided by my own perceptions, new takes on old twists as well as old warmth in new times.

JUDGE PICKS are cards that I want to point out for one specific reason or another, cards that either did something exemplary or touched me in a unique way. Let’s follow on.

~

@0woah — Nihilistic Stupor

We’re starting in a pretty specific place, then. So, hi, welcome, thank you for a first submission. We’ll clear a couple hurdles first, then get into the nitty-gritty. Stock photos! Stock photos are fine, provided that you have proper attribution; most sites have the original photographer credited, so if you have that, check it. Watermarks are enough to at least say that it’s not your original, but we do need the photographer in question.

Mechanically, aside from needing “Enchant player” as part of the Aura text, this card’s main critique is that there’s no exit condition, as it were. There will come a point where no player has access to lands and can’t play lands. If you’re the green-black deck, that’s not a problem for you with recursion, but this is for a draftable set. What’re other players going to do? It’s a distinctly unfun card that plays against a lot of contemporary sensibilities. This kind of effect would be considered unfun even in the 90’s.

Flavorfully, I have to admit, I don’t fully understand what you’re going for here. “Nihilistic” is a philosophical take that requires cognitive impetus, and “Stupor” is a state of unconsciousness; the two are inherently incompatible concepts without the right tie. I’m afraid I don’t understand what the flavor text is trying to emulate in terms of desire, either. Who is doing the wanting? What is the object of desire? How is nihilism relate to desire? Perhaps this made sense on the drawing board, but the idea doesn’t feel conveyed properly here. Consider a clearer distinction of character and motivation as someone else would perceive it.

~

@bread-into-toast — Waterborne Wenders (JUDGE PICK)

Well, isn’t that adorable. The desire of the formless to become formed, and the impossibility of settling into oneness! Relatable. This art would be hellish to block out but very cool to see. “Fitting in everywhere, belonging nowhere.” It’s a little esoteric without the humanity, but seeing how changelings on Lorwyn occupy this almost alien niche in the hard-and-fast species distinctions found on the plane, we have to be distant from these creatures ourselves. We can’t understand the mechanism of their desire even as we observe it, and I think that that’s really neat.

The mechanics are a little odd for its cost. This feels like a big lad who’s gonna change into something, and for that cost, a pseudo-Cryptoplasm feels kind of steep. That said, I like the concept. I believe it should read: “At the beginning of your end step, you may exile ~, then return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control. You may have it enter the battlefield as a copy of another creature you control, except it has changeling and this ability.” If you make that one paragraph, you don’t need the other trigger because it’s part of the end step trigger, I believe. A fun card and a fun cost. I like the white there for the blinkiness. This is a card that I feel can be cute on its own, a draft enhancer rather than a staple.

~

@deg99 — Scatter the Ashes

The mourning returns. This card is just about what can be expected, although I’m surprised that this name hasn’t been taken before, wow. I don’t think that this needs a world necessarily, and I wouldn’t really call it Innistradian. It doesn’t feel...morbid, weird as that may seem. That said it doesn’t really strike the emotional chords in the same way. Part of that comes from the major disconnect between the flavor and mechanics. The mechanics are great! This is an awesome limited counterspell. Counterspells are by nature reflexive, though, reaction in response to action.

The finality of your intended flavor is in response, as far as I can perceive, to the previous actions of the caster. The woman is deciding to release the ashes and move on, a self-contained series of events. What’s she countering? What’s being taken away but a concept she herself created? The sense of moving on is a rational want, and a strong emotional choice. It doesn’t make sense on a counterspell like this. Good ideas, fair execution on both, but the mesh isn’t happening. I recommend reworking the flavor text to be... Well, not more “exciting,” but more than what it is right now. Substantial and specific.

~

@dimestoretajic — Tyrant’s Scepter (JUDGE PICK)

I agonized over this card a little bit, as much as agony compelled me this week, because if a whole bunch of other cards didn’t exist, this card would be absolutely fantastic and really silly. Perhaps there are some safeguards to ensure that Commander players wouldn’t abuse it, but someone’s gonna Do The Thing and I guess Hellkite Tyrant on a literal stick—turned into a literal stick?—is a bit different. The sacrifice is nice, and the five mana barrier is super cool. Flavorfully, you’re all-in on the despot’s desire, so that all checks out, no notes.

Look me in the eyes, captain. You and I both know that there’s a cEDH Breya player who would use this card to make people want to start a revolution. There’s no way around that. Limited-wise, I mean, this card’s awesome. I want to get away from my grousing and focus on the fact that this card’s still really good. It does exactly what it says it wants to do. Hm, is the Liquimetal Destruction deck too... Hm. I wonder if that permanence will affect playability elsewhere, actually. Probably not, but one never knows. I’m a Karn Prison guy, hence. There are enough answers in the world, and that’s all fine. Gah! Maybe I’m just chewing on my fingernails for no good reason here. I want to like this card more than I worry about it. Perhaps costs can be adjusted and/or I’ll get over myself.

~

@halfsilveredmirror — Endless Regret

A consistent draw spell is nice. Literally replacing itself is pretty cool, and I don’t think playability would be affected by it. The ability for infinite discard with a single card in your library might fuel some weird engines, even more so than a Four Horseman kind of deck. Do I remember what the deck does? Nope. Anyway, this card. I really don’t feel that playability would be affected but I also don’t know. In limited, probably not. It would make decks significantly more powerful, especially if you get the sealed deck and really go nuts, but that’s unrelated.

The sticking point for me is the fact that the mechanics and flavor really don’t have anything to do with one another, and the flavor itself is so esoteric that I don’t know what the speaker (if indeed there is a speaker) is regretting or implying. The art depicting a reunion or a reflection of loss is interesting. Ultimately, still, it’s just not landing for me. There’s a line where subtlety becomes too abstract to convey intention.

~

@helloijustreadyourpost — Sole Concern (JUDGE PICK)

...oh it’s ONE SIDED. Jeez. Okay, wow, for some reason I thought this affected all players on my first readthrough. Some minor things still stand but okay, that changes a lot of things. Wow. This does indeed level the playing field a ton and that’s awesome. Reminds me of a movie but I don’t remember which one. I might be losing my mind. Anyway, boardwipes! This card’s a necessity and I think it’s pretty much great. I won’t call it the most complex and I don’t think it needs to me. It’s got the exact right flavor, with the art direction putting a newer twist on it that makes it feel...cinematic, really. What’s a right decision, after all?

I do find it a little silly that there’s “sacrifice” in the flavor text as well; on-the-nose, as it were. That witch down there does indeed have some history, and that’s a great callback. I think the directness between the flavor text and the mechanics is, as a whole, a bit wink-nudge-y for the really gruesome image being depicted here. Still, I like the implied story behind it, and I like how you made the opponent the one to enact their desire, the one that becomes their damnation. Fantastic angle. We didn’t see a whole lot of that this week, I feel.

~

@hypexion — Desire

This Desire is in the unfortunate position of being naturally compared to the other Desires this week, and like I said, I do like them all, and this card is no exception. It feels a lot like a Horizons kind of card, and you know what, that’s okay. What makes this one unique is the fact that it’s a universal desire with a black bend, not a strictly red one. Multicolor Incarnations are... Well, honestly, if there was an incarnation for these colors, I get how it would be “Desire”—focused wanting, doing anything to get it, slightly selfish, not really insidious but getting there, etc.

Perhaps the main question I have is about the Evoke part. One ETB here doesn’t necessarily advance the game in the expected manner. For the MH2 evokers, their reactive evocation is designed to work during different parts of the turn, cheaply or late-game. Judgment Incarnations have the graveyard clause. The question is: what would be the gameplay advantage of evoking this card? It doesn’t feel any more powerful and/or necessary to do it earlier or later, because you could absolutely whiff. The attack trigger is excellent there, so I do like that. And again, this card is fine for what it wants to be, and I can clearly picture what you were going for. Small note: “Treasure” should be capitalized.

~

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Eager Defender

I want to see the sketch for this art direction, because I don’t really know how you wanted to block this shot out. There’s a plain, and a cave, and these characters walking around...where? Sorry to judge this part of it, but I actually don’t fully grasp this depiction. It feels as busy as the mood. The mood’s understandable, and of all thing I’m getting an Adventure Time kind of vibe from this card. If that’s intended, well, congrats, and if not, yeah, that’s a testament to the business. This card really didn’t need flavor text with these three abilities, and the flavor text isn’t adding enough to justify itself here.

Mechanics are pretty awesome, though. I think that provoke isn’t going to be seeing its time in the sun, but that’s more me being sad than a critique of this card. I like provoke! It works really well here, with this creature swinging in and getting bigger. Oh, small notes: the Sengir effect says you need to say that the +1/+1 counter goes on Eager Defender and not the creature that died (lol Skullbriar), the “4” should be “four,” and Warrior should be capitalized. No, yeah, with a fair amount of equipment, this card could be pretty monstrous in limited, and that’s a fine uncommon for the archetype. The name, direction, and flavor are all still...sketchy to me? What’s eager about revenge? Eagerness implies positive creation, not regret. The mashup of moods ultimately glorps up what’s otherwise a decently solid RW beater.

~

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — A Chance to Say Goodbye

Solid stuff. I like how you don’t get priority to prevent population. It makes for some pretty weird effects overall. I would personally say “sacrifice that token” to prevent some weird arguments, but whatever, I deal with the pedant that lives in my head, and YOU are free to ignore him. Anyway, I would give anything to say goodbye to my Worldspine Wurm once more, so thank you for the opportunity. I think this card’s doing exactly what it wants to and those sorts of effects can be cool depending on the environment. Seance tried to do something similar but didn’t quite get there. Maybe this is enough? I’m actually not sure about not having priority there. ETBs would get weird. Ah, what am I saying, token doubling is... Hm. Also weird here. But, hey, corner cases don’t happen as much in limited. I don’t see this card taking off in any decks, though, and it’s a wee bit not-broken-enough to be impactful.

The flavor text is one of those ones where I’m so on the fence. I want to really dig in and talk about the nuances but I don’t want to be a jerk about it on accident. What I like is the specificity. This card is about everything it wants to be about, and it’s depicting this single thing, and boom, this cool reanimation effect is framed around an intense motion. I do feel that there are cuts to be made, or at least places to tighten it up. Maybe a comma after “Then” and you could even end on “wind” there. “Gentle” can be cut, IMO. If you want, lean into the notion of negative space. What’s there left on the wind, or what does the wind feel like now, if not the space where the embrace is no longer. Y’know? You have a lot of options. This moment was a good choice overall. Honorary JP for that alone.

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@misterstingyjack — Homesickness

Flavor-wise, “It is unclear whether the sun is rising or setting” goes hard for me. That would be a really cool point of contention for people, and I think that the flavor text would really come to a head when there’s a long game happening with lots of returning and triggering and no haste and having to hold open cards and yadda yadda yadda. It’s a pretty general sense but it’s done really well. The depiction of a journeying event checks out and your mood is what really sells it, an impending, almost horror-like sense of uncertainty if we’ll ever get there.

Mechanically, was this supposed to be like Sunken Hope? Aside from the sacrifice clause and one blue pip, it’s exactly the same. And...that’s literally all I can say about it, isn’t it? I hope that this was unintentional and you accidentally struck gold before the realization that you’re not in a mine and you’re in fact in a history museum, sir, I’ll have to ask you to leave and put down that pickaxe. If it WAS intentional, I’m just gonna stand here with my hands on my hips and give you a look. I have no idea at this point in time! But, well, what else can I say about it. Do your research, folks.

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@nine-effing-hells — Mul Daya Homeseeker

I think that the subtitle and flavor aren’t doing any favors to a card that’s otherwise really fascinating to me. This might be, considering our most recent visit to Zendikar in the story, the saddest trampling creature I’ve ever seen. Emotionally, I mean. I’m gonna stop before I browse through ten pages of trampling creatures on Scryfall, though. So! Yeah, no, perhaps “Homeseeker” is a fine enough title, but I wish there was more for the flavor text to really sell me.

If you’re drafting this card, though, I wonder what on earth you’re doing. You can run one of each other basic and actually ramp in a super roundabout way, splashing the weirdness, or this is a set with a number of odd nonbasics like how Zendikar had, and that’s pretty awesome. In a constructed event you can do some amazing things and I love how variable you can make it. Maybe it’s not good enough for Legacy Lands. It doesn’t have to be! This card can do some pretty slick stuff and I like the way you balanced a strong effect with a deckbuilding constraint asked of it. The feeling of soured perseverance is strongly present.

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@piccadilly-blue — Issac Astralion, Haunted Physicist/The Singularity

Well, that’s a mouthful! Lots of things going on here, okay, phew. You clearly had a strong direction for this card, and I actually love the commander-esque approach to experience counters eventually transforming something. We’re designing (per the usuals) for standard/limited by default, but there’s nothing to say you can’t get experience counters there, too. I think that it’s almost like the City’s Blessing, or it could be! How experience transforms you. Very slick.

The Singularity, as I’ve mentioned about another card on here, is a non-exit-claused card whose sole purpose is kind of miserable. There are cards that sink the board, but they eventually go away, like Pestilence. It’s unfortunately just not fun to be sitting on the board with nothing to do until you happen to get your removal which may eventually get countered. Seeing as this is your character, as mentioned, I won’t claim to know the story, so that part of it I won’t press on about; their goals are pretty abundantly clear. The flavor text on both sides is...a lot. The LotR reference on the back certainly raises an eyebrow, as does the long first name. Honestly, though, there’s the what-I-like and the what-needs-work, and the little polish/presentation tweaks aren’t anything new to custom cards, so don’t sweat it.

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@reaperfromtheabyss — Heatgrasper (JUDGE PICK)

You know, I was a bit down on this card at first until I realized that she died of hypothermia. Then it was all upside! You absolutely need to shorten this flavor text. “trapped in her final moments” needs to come out, and I would replace “some warmth” with “a fire.” Do whatever you need to, though. Anyway! Yay, here we are, some kind of not-exactly-great ending here. But it’s okay, because I can envision what you were going for and I like the way it happened. For a while, I thought she drowned, and then I put my head on straight.

Stunning creatures is super cool. Depending on if this is a world with spirit bonuses, the ability to beef up or protect her would be awesome. She doesn’t need that necessarily, but she does indeed need some friends around her to stall the game. And that’s cool! What a cheap use of stun counters, really mean. I can see this card having an application solely in limited and nowhere else and I can see it being a massive pain in the butt to deal with as your opponent stalls you out. Good stuff.

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Tune in tomorrow! You might learn a thing or two.

@abelzumi