#and they're not colourless or boring

[vashtijoy]

terms of address: maruki

I was asked how the squad refer to Maruki, so here goes.

first, the normies

Many of the cast refer to Maruki exclusively as "Dr. Maruki": 丸喜先生 Maruki-sensei. These mentions are universally in kanji.

Ann has 41 of these, and often uses sensei by itself;

Haru has 26 of these, and uses sensei alone a couple of times, during Maruki's Palace;

Makoto has 27 of these. She uses sensei alone quite often;

Yoshizawa has 41 of these total, 14 as Kasumi and 27 as Sumire. She calls Maruki just sensei often.

Noticing anything? Yeah: they're all the girls. These particular characters consistently seem to have relatively colourless and unmarked speech. This may in itself, of course, be a form of marking, since expectations around gendered speech in Japan can be so strong.

the relatively boring

Ren appears to always use "Maruki", apart from one instance very early on when an option, "Ask about the counsellor", includes Maruki-sensei. He also always uses kanji; protagonists don't have to be polite.

He calls Maruki sensei alone once, during his confidant. Kawakami gets it more often, while Takemi gets it constantly.

slightly more edgy

While Futaba always uses "Dr. Maruki", she slurs it a little, making it slangier: 丸喜せんせー Maruki-sensee. She always uses kanji for "Maruki", except in the text chat after he visits Shujin, where she's only heard his name spoken!—which is a cute detail. Occasionally she uses せんせー sensee by itself, which is distinct from her 先生 sensei meaning "a teacher".

Ryuji, again, virtually always makes it "Dr. Maruki", usually Maruki-sensei in kanji; a few mentions very early on, when they're still talking about the new counsellor guy, are just straight "Maruki". Also, in his counselling session, Ryuji almost just calls him that!—ultimately deciding to make it "Dr. Maruki":

Ryuji なあ、丸喜⋯センセーってよ、よく『変わってる』って言われね? naa, maruki... sensee tte yo, yoku "kawatteru" tte iwarene? Hey, Dr. Maru— ah, I mean, Doc. Anyone ever tell you you're kinda… not normal?

The meaning is a little lost in translation here, with Ryuji cutting from the normal form of address to a nickname. Also, in Maruki's Palace, he recognises Maruki on one of the videotapes, and starts off in hiragana before finishing in kanji. It feels a bit as if he isn't initially sure what he's seeing:

Ryuji まるき… 丸喜先生？ maruki... maruki-sensei? Maruki... Dr. Maruki?

He uses sensei by itself a couple of times, far fewer than you might expect; his "Doc" is usually either glossed in, or was originally Maruki-sensei, "Dr. Maruki".

He also uses 大先生 daisensei, "great leader/teacher/artist" etc, as a term of abuse, aimed at palace bosses such as Shido and Madarame. 獅童大先生 shidou-daisensei—"that stuck-up bastard Shido!".

the slightly outlandish...

Morgana overwhelmingly uses katakana for names, and Maruki is no exception. He talks about him a lot, always in katakana, as マルキ Maruki. He never uses any honorifics for him.

He has only one use of kanji, 丸喜 Maruki, in "will you meet with this confidant?" text, around I think rank 5, which looks like it may be a slip.

the strangely polite...

Akechi, of course, fails to grace Maruki with his title of "doctor"; he's just plain "Maruki". The localisation sometimes makes it "Dr. Maruki", but that's a gloss; Akechi never once uses sensei (or any other honorific) about him.

But he uses an honorific to Maruki, once:

That "isn't that right" is ですよね desu yo ne, which might seem startlingly polite for third semester Akechi. In fact, he's rather consistent about his masu forms to Maruki—and only to Maruki—during the third semester.

He has no uses of desu or -masu/-masen, for instance, to anyone else in the third semester. It's actually rather cute, because it makes it clear a number of his lines in the 1/2 and 1/9 Palace are directed not to Ren or Yoshizawa, as it might seem, but to Maruki.

So this looks like a sardonic little aside, and I'm sure there's a lot of that in it—"Maruki-san". But this is also the only time Akechi ever addresses Maruki by name. And since he has all these desu and -masu forms going on around Maruki, then maybe he just calls him Maruki-san, full stop.

Did I mention he's a weird boy?

...and the downright weird

That leaves us with Yusuke, who (as nobody will be surprised to hear) does his own thing that raises some fascinating possibilities.

Yusuke only appears to address Maruki by name once, when they first meet in the courtyard, and as you'd expect, he calls him sensei—丸喜拓人先生 Maruki Takuto-sensei, "You are Dr. Takuto Maruki, correct?".

But every other time Yusuke uses sensei in the script? He's referring not to Maruki, of course, but to his sensei, Madarame. That initial approach to Maruki, stranger to stranger, face to face, is the only time he uses it to anyone else.

So what does Yusuke call Maruki? He calls him 丸喜氏 Maruki-shi.

what is shi

氏 shi is a very formal and exclusively third-person term, usually seen in writing, or heard from newsreaders. It's often translated "Mr X", which can be very odd to hear in media that retains honorifics like -san and -kun; "Mr. Akechi's coming on!" is an example, from 6/10. And Akechi is, in fact, usually mentioned as Akechi-shi on the evening news.

Yusuke's Maruki-shi is universally translated as "Dr. Maruki", as if he'd just said Maruki-sensei like everyone else. Which is a little bit of a shame.

Yusuke also uses shi for one other person—the art patron Kawanabe, in his confidant, before you meet up at the sushi bar. Most of the rest of the time, before and after, Yusuke just calls Kawanabe "Kawanabe" in third-person, with no title; he pulls out a Kawanabe-san at rank 10, after he's won the contest—face to face, of course, since shi is only third-person.

On the other hand, Yusuke never mentions Maruki at all without a title.

the other time yusuke uses sensei

Okay, I lied: Yusuke has one other instance of Maruki-sensei. This, like Morgana's single lapse into kanji, is in prompt text: "Are we going to Maruki's Palace today?" Again, I think this is likely an error.

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.0 (2023/12/29)—first posted.

#persona 5 #p5 meta #p5 reference #japanese language #p5 terms of address #takuto maruki #yusuke kitagawa #goro akechi #ryuji sakamoto #the squad

[homunculus-argument]

The more you look into it, the funnier the whole myth of The Grim And Depressing Dark Ages is, in the extent in which it covers everything. Like no matter what area of medieval life you look at, the common misconception of it is something bleak, drab, colourless, joyless and smelling like shit. Like at best, an average peasant's life was repetitive, boring, joyless and smells like shit, and at worst it was terrifying, hopeless chaos that smells like blood and rotting plague corpses. I mean okay it was like that sometimes, but not all the time. They had enjoyments in life. Like consider food.

Medieval peasants' food wasn't just grey wet gruel for every meal and hard bread if you were lucky. One major staple food that was commonly eaten by peasants across Europe was pottage. I think every time and culture has some variation of the "just throw whatever we've got at hand in there and boil/fry/cook that shit" sort of meal, and for medieval peasants, that was pottage. And as the name would imply, it's made by throwing the aforementioned whatever-you-have-at-hand ingredients into a pot and then boiling that shit. And that's what's for dinner every day unless it's a special occasion.

And yeah eating the same damn boiled mush every damn day probably doesn't sound much less depressing than just eating bland gruel, but that's the thing, the pottage wasn't the same thing all the time, every time. The ingredients varied by whatever was available at any given time, by harvests, by what herbs are in season and what produce happens to be in the most ample supply. Different ratios and combinations of the same ingredients, fresh or dried or otherwise preserved, changing from season to season.

Freaking imagine being a medieval peasant whose favourite food in the entire world is spring pottage with meadowsweet mead, best thing you can think of. You've heard talk of finer meals, roast boar with wine sauce that they cook for kings, but you're pretty damn sure that it can't better than the pottage you get on the first weeks of May. The one meal that you'd have every day year round if you could, but you can't, so it's the highlight of your year. The thing you look forward to for months at a time. You're sure that is what is served every day in Heaven, and not only are you 100% down to physically fight somebody about it, you absolutely have. You broke your nose, it never quite healed right, and you regret nothing.

And then spring finally comes, and you've been eagerly keeping an eye on how all the right ingredients start to reach their right time, and not only have you been looking forward to May ever since the snows started melting because that specific Best Goddamn Pottage is the only thing you can seem to think about, everyone in your household has been looking forward to it as well - because it's the only thing you seem to talk about, too, and they're sick of hearing about it.

And this year it tastes like shit.

#I made pottage today #note to self - beef jerky takes longer to boil than rice

[lucadrawss]

Do you mind Info dumping about Ai? I need to know everything about him.

:O

OF COURSE!

Thank you for giving me permission to ramble about my beloved Zexal OC! :D

(I apologise this is so long)

Ai's 15 though people always tell me he looks older. He's about 6ft and stubborn as fuck. I'm aware that's tall for his age but he's a dragon so he's allowed to be tall >:(

His personality was originally a combination of Shark's, Astral's and Yuma's in his first design which I kept when I gave him his current design (I just like the thought of him being an ass but also being kinda nice).

I put alot of thought into his design and what parts of it could represent as I do with all my OCs, every single tiny detail has a reason.

(I draw horns differently now)

I unintentionally gave him similar eyes to Astral but I kept it because it suits him in my opinion.

If you can't tell he's gay, super gay (asexual as well). I tried to make him look as fruity as possible.

Ai normally wears a jacket to cover his scars since he's ashamed of how he got them (bad home life) but at times will feel comfortable with them on show. The gloves cover some scars too, but he hardly takes those off.

I attempt to draw him in platform boots but fail every time. Despite being tall af, he likes the boots so tends to wear them.

The earrings were actually passed down in his family, he got them from his father (who faked his own death basically) when he was 5 and almost always wears them as a comfort item.

Ai doesn't chose for his nails to be that long, they're claws. They grow back pretty quickly so he just gave up cutting them since they stop at a certain length, he just paints them now.

Yes his hair colour is natural, his older sister has it too. He has a good relationship with his sister. (Her names Gi, she's 28 and a paramedic)

Obviously Ai is a duelist. I'm uncreative so he tends to use dragon cards mainly (I know I know boring).

With relationship stuff, currently nothing yet. @renaakabane ships him with Astral though. Idk I think its kinda cute but I'm not entirely sure yet. Though she has me considering it.

He has one friend, Shark. Eventually he ends up becoming friends with Yuma, Astral, the whiny bitch that is Tori, ect, but Shark was one of the only people he really trusted.

The guys a fucking dragon so obviously I'm gonna give him dragon features. He does have the ability for wings but I never draw them. I drew them once, in a sketch, it looks bad, I was exhausted. I have drawn them though for a thing showing the detail of his dragon type. These are his:

The purple fade is because of healing, Ai tore both his wings at some point and thats basically them scarring. He doesn't know how to fly though so its fine. :)

This. I don't necessarily think these need much of an explanation.

I'll explain the fire thing though. Ai's type of dragon obviously has the ability to create fire. Its difficult to do but they can light their sweat, plus they have a gland in their throat that releases an odorless and colourless gas which they can light by creating a spark with their teeth. They're fire resist to a degree so they can still burn and can stand more heat than the average person but again they can't entirely stand it.

His type of dragon can hide their features to appear more human, hence this image where he looks relatively human:

He's a fucking dumbass though he is rather smart and strategic, he's a good student grades wise and is a good duelist too. Anything else? He makes dumb decisions and gets into trouble often. Dumb decisions include doing reckless stuff or eating flowers. Theres more dumb shit he does though.

I like drawing him like this:

He curses so often, isn't afraid to insult people and will physically fight them.

I also tend to go into mental detail with my OCs. Ai has ADHD and anxiety issues (such as PTSD and often has panic attacks, because I base my OCs off of myself a little. All of them have at least some element that reflects myself.)

His hobbies include: drawing, music (guitar, he cuts his nails every time before hand), dancing and dueling.

Ai likes dresses :) (Oh god old art. I really need to redraw this its terrible.)

My friends tend to go on about how its stereotyping because he's a gay guy and feminine but let a guy enjoy a dress come on, his sexuality is not the reason I designed him to enjoy that type of thing. I just wanna be able to draw him in a dress :(

Pretty sure I've gone through almost everything, I'll stop before it gets any longer haha. Thank you for letting me talk about him!

#oc rambling #answered asks #zexal oc #thanks for letting me ramble! #appreciate it #I wanted to talk about him so badly #since he's one of my favourite OCs

[lilyblackdrawside]

I play a lot of Slay the Spire. Like, a lot a lot. I like this kind of game in general. Played a bunch of Monster Train too. Recently I found Astrea - Six-Sided Oracles and Lost Branch of Legend. Astrea revolves around dice, so it's a bit different, but the structure and sensibilities are the same, while LBoL feels like a very high effort StS mod.

They're both good games, but ultimately I "went back" to StS, in that when I think of playing either, I just play that game instead.

Long post.

With Astrea the reason is easy: It's dice. Dice are fine, but I like cards. Astrea also tends to kinda feel samey and I don't really like playing half of the characters. With StS I like playing all four of the characters.

But why is it that I'm not that into LBoL? It's Touhou, it's really pretty, it's StS - I should like this.

I even really like the main thing differentiating this game from StS: The mana system. In short, it has MtG style mana, which allows for card costs to be a lot more granular than 0, 1, 2, 3 (4+) and makes for interesting balancing. This is that game's strongest point.

But similar to Astrea, when I start up the game I find myself struggling to pick a character to play, not because I like all of them, but because I don't. Reimu is boring and cumbersome, Sakuya is always "My hand is full" (Which just feels bad. I should have to work to see this happening, but with Sakuya it's just the default state of being), Cirno is clunky and just has the most awful time at the start of the game and then there's Marisa.

My eternal saviour, Marisa. She's the only fun character - and only half of her, truly. One half of hers is reminiscent of a Marisa character mod for StS where you build "Charge" with certain cards and when it reaches a threshold you go into Powered Up mode where you do more damage for the rest of the turn. It's a very ebb and flow kinda gameplay and once you've built your deck enough to get it going does feel nice.

Her other half is potions. You use cards that shuffle potions into your deck that when drawn hit a random enemy for decent damage, create 1 all-colour mana and draw a card. You have to put in an up-front investment with all these potion cards to then get an explosive turn or two later. It feels really nice when you've stacked your deck with potions, helped it out with some scrying to then watch them all go. This is the most enjoyable character in the game. I do also enjoy playing Sakuya, because she has some similar combos going but unlike Marisa, her knives that are similar to those potions, stick in your hand, leading to "My hand is full".

But if it was just that, so what. I can still get a fun run out of Reimu or Cirno as well, it'd be fine.

No, what bothers me is that two of three Act 3 bosses suck ass and the True Ending boss also sucks ass most of the time in just the least fun ways.

The Act 3 bosses are Sanae, who emulates The Awoken by gaining power from you playing this game's Power analogues, Remilia who is just Time Eater (which is the only bad part of StS. If you want to make an StS-like game DO NOT PUT TIME EATER INTO IT) and Junko, who turns your coloured mana into colourless mana.

Sanae is fine. She just hits you, heals herself a bit, drains your Strength and Dex and gets stronger if you play a certain card type. All of this is just fine.

Junko can just suck so much. Obviously you need coloured mana, but some decks can handle having less of it. Some decks aren't even affected by her trait at all, because she can't uncolour all-colour mana. That stuff's just immune, so if your deck happens to produce a lot of that, you're good. (Potion Marisa does this)

Remilia is Time Eater. This is especially egregious because there is another boss in Act 1 who punishes you for playing too many cards and that is Sakuya: She just punches you in the face every so often but that's it. You can implement a punishment mechanic for spammy decks, you don't have to forcefully end my turn! Just drop my stats, deal damage, force a discard or two or drain some of my mana there are so many ways to go about it that aren't "Oh let's just make Time Eater again." Everybody hates Time Eater!

And then there's Seija, as the True Final Boss. She comes in with the classic The Heart trait of only taking up to 300 damage per turn, this is fine. It's boring, but it's fine. I get it, you don't want her to get FTK'd as well as hitting you for 1 damage for each card played (another fine way of punishing spammy decks). Aside from that, she also gets several effects based on artifacts she picks at random. I will only go over the three that she can pick from for her first one, because the problematic one is right there:

Teapot with Long Spout: Suffer either 3 Weak, Frail or Vulnerable each turn. This is fine. Get some debuffs, sure.

Pendant that emits evil spirits: Seija summons some trash mobs every turn. This is fine. You should be able to handle small stuff by now.

Overdecorated Gold Cup: Lose all non-Shining, non-Mythic Rare exhibits.

Exhibits are Relics. Shining Exhibits govern your mana base. You start with one based on your character and get another after each boss. Mythic Rare Exhibits are a special type that you can start with in a special help-mode. You don't get these in normal gameplay.

So this just sucks. It's not fun. Even if your deck doesn't rely on your relics, it's just dumb. Having relics is fun but now you don't get to play with them anymore. And what if you do rely on them? What if you got the Shuriken-analogue at the start of the run and built your entire deck around it? Now you're stuck throwing rubber knives at Seija. Countless other such cases. This would be fine on like an Act 2 boss.

With the Act 3 boss, you do get some advance notice either way by virtue of having the entire third act to "prepare" for it, but if it's Remi and you're already a combo deck you're not getting off that. You can reasonably pick up some cards that are less heavy on coloured mana or that produce all-colour mana to help with Junko though.

with Seija you only know what she picks when she picks it.

There is a random event where you can get info on which Act 3 boss you'll fight or what Seija's first item will be. You can pick either or, but you also have to get the event in the first place.

But even if you pick to scout Seija and learn that she gets the Cup, what are you going to do about it? Not grab relics anymore? You can probably handle it, but you know it won't be an enjoyable fight.

The way to open the path to Seija's fight isn't even difficult. You just have to pick the correct option at three certain nodes that you're forced to pass through anyway, but I never want to do it because there's a 1 in 3 chance that the fight is going to be unfun.

There are other annoying encounters too, such as the two lunar rabbits who are "regular enemies" and will just end your run if you have no multi-hit attacks, but all that is fine. I'll slug through a sucky Act 1 boss, who gives a shit it's Act 1. What I don't like is how there's always a good chance for the final boss to not be fun.

#long post

[taegularities]

Hello lovely Rid 💕💕

Please don't be too nervous about this new cmi chapter being boring. I can't speak for everyone else (although I have a feeling they would feel the same way) but in my opinion nothing you write could never be boring.

First of all just your beautiful writing in itself is enough to keep me wanting to read more and more, I love all of the metaphors and gorgeous descriptions. There are so many lines that are so beautiful that I have to read them over and over again to appreciate them. Sometimes I even go back through my reviews to reread the lines that struck me most (or I just reread the whole chapter too)

And the characters you've created in this story... they are truly so so dear to me and close to my heart. I want to go through everything with them, even if it's painful internal monologues or longing gazes across rooms. You always make me feel like I'm experiencing all of their emotions along with them and that kind of evocative storytelling could never be boring.

Also btw, I agree that the title for cmi7 is heartbreaking. All of the lines before about how they are each other’s colour in a colourless world and OC colouring him in and now everything is monochrome because they're not together 😭😭😭

I love you and I love this story and I'll never get tired of saying it. Sending you lots of hugs 💞💞💞

ivi :( i'm ngl, i'd been feeling iffy today already, so this monthly cmi insecurity before posting a chapter hit so hard kjdsfhksf i damn near cried. but i just :(( i really can always count on you, huh? :((( since this chapter is filled with angst, i had a lot of opportunities to play around with writing stylistic devices, so... yeah, i really hope you guys like it.

the fact that you reread reviews and/or an entire chapter means so damn much, ivi. idk, i don't think i'll ever get used to the fact that people actually go back to reread my stuff and love my characters so much? ugh, my brain is too foggy to make sense, but yeah.

and yes, exactly !!! the titles were mostly positive until now... even the silhouettes around them had an optimistic meaning, bc everything fades when they're together. but a monochrome world? it's not their usual vibe... not them. 🥺

thank you, sweetheart, i love you and i wish i could give you the tightest hug i've ever given anyone <333

#reading this made me sentimental #and talking about the titles hurt so bad ughh #notes for rid 🌹 #ivi <3 #fic: colour me in

[frxgments-of-frxgments]

[ HAND ]:     sender extends a hand to the receiver, wordlessly asking for a dance. @alwayshorrible (from drowned bitch)

It was strange to mourn someone who was standing right there in front of you. But the Accomplice supposes they've had plenty of practice.

Murdock wasn't the first, and he probably won't be the last. They're not sure why they didn't expect it; like everything else in their many, many lives, he wasn't to last. Just another tangent of a plot line in a story much too convoluted and deranged to keep track of. Another story left to come to an abrupt and agonizing end, character threads left to unravel and dangle away into nothing, making way for the next to begin weaving it's equally as doomed tale.

They supposed they'd grown comfortable here. With Murdock, and Slasher, and the little cabin in the woods, and their midnight crimes. They'd never been the one to deal out the deaths before. They had always been the victim, at the mercy of the story, helplessly pulled along different plot lines, only to be brutally cut short by a cruel and often unusual demise. But here it had been different. A deviation from the usual script. So why would it stop there?

They should have known better.

They know something is wrong the moment they're jolted into actual lucidity by police officers interrupting their work day. The fuzzy blur of the courtroom sharpens just enough to allow them to quietly escort them out, their faces impossible to look at. The Accomplice's gaze refuses to stay on them, simply sliding over it like too clean glass, treacherous and slippery.

It's the same feeling they get when they try to remember their own face.

They lead them out of the courtroom and into a freezing morgue, the transit lost to time judged too boring to be included in this story. Even as they stare at the silhouette of the white sheet draped over the specimen table, so similar to the ones they and Murdock had stood over all those nights, carving their souls into skin and bone, the roles now reserved in such a way that makes their skin crawl, they can't quite believe it's happening.

It isn't until they lift it to see Murdock's colourless face that it sinks in.

Of course. Of course. They had grown complacent. They'd forgotten the cruel reality of the world they lived in; that nothing was truly theirs to keep. It was all just another act, another show, and once the director tried of it, they would move on to the next. No thoughts for the characters left behind. They had outlived their usefulness, after all. Nothing for it but to move on to the next. They can already feel the narrative shifting around them, their very role being edited and rewritten, words backspaced on a screen and replaced with new plot threads. It’s all they can do just to give their statement and leave, standing in the blurry street as the town reshapes itself around them. They wonder what it’ll be this time. Will they remember this one when it’s gone? Or will Murdock join the rest of the supporting roles they’ve forgotten?

They don’t realise they’re at the cabin until Slasher’s greeting caws jolt them from their thoughts. They’re glad that he’s still here, at least, reaching out to scratch his head fondly when he lands on their shoulder. They suppose it’s as good a place as any to wait for reality to collapse in on itself and be born again. But as they step closer, they realise that the door is slightly ajar, which doesn’t make any sense. The only person who could possibly be inside was dead.

Maybe it’s the police. Maybe it’s some stupid kids. Whoever it is, the Accomplice refuses to let them fuck up the only thing they have left to prove that Murdock even existed at all. Even if soon enough, it’ll all be pointless anyway. It matters now. They stalk inside, Slasher flapping away in a blur of feathers as they’re jostled off their perch, the Accomplice too enraged to care for their comfort, footsteps splashing and soaking through the soles of their shoes as—

Wait. What?

The first thing they notice is that it looks like the cabin’s been flooded. There’s water up to their ankles, streaming from the windows like the outside is completely engulfed, even as the open door proves that can’t be so. The roof sags with leaking pockets of water, already burst in some places to allow rushing currents to add to the steadily rising pool. Odds and ends are floating through it, spare glasses of Murdock’s, soaked through clothes, cutlery... It doesn’t make any sense. The Accomplice has seen some weird shit in Murderville, but dry floodings? That’s new. They wade through the water, forcing open doors that fight against the weight of the flood, thinking that perhaps if they open enough exits, they can drain it out, until...

The second thing they notice is Murdock in the living room.

Except it can’t be. Murdock is still in the morgue, cold and lifeless, another autopsy report clipped into a file, more evidence to be tucked away, but he’s also here. The Accomplice recognises the silhouette of his ridiculous coat, his arms splayed out, the short cut of his hair, his distinctive gloves... It can’t be anyone else. They stand, frozen, helpless to do anything but stare at the ghost in front of them, their baffled mind somehow fixating on the fact that he seems to be waltzing, legs moving too smoothly through water now almost high enough to reach his knees, seeming to either not notice or care for the trickling water running from every crevice and opening around him. A floating radio warbles a crackling song somewhere in the room. The Accomplice watches as he sways, turning to face them, and what they see only makes them more confused.

It’s Murdock’s face, but... Different. The details are all wrong. It’s like someone tried to recreate Murdock from memory, giving him the wrong glasses, styling his hair differently, dressing him in something close to his usual wear, but just different enough to be unsettling... But most damning of all is his eyes. Though they’re still as red as before, there’s not a trace of recognition in them as they meet theirs. Nothing but an emptiness as deep as the water rising around them, creeping further and further up as he slowly raises his hand to theirs in a silent invitation.

The Accomplice only hesitates for a second.

What else can they do? They don’t try to fight against the current engulfing them. They were doomed anyway. Perhaps this is simply how this story ends; with waterlogged furniture and burning lungs, this version of Murdock here only to keep them company as they dance to the music of the credits to their little movie. They let him tug them closer, circling their other hand loosely around his neck as he leads them in a waltz. The water’s up to their waist now. His gloves are wet against their skin, clammy and uncomfortable, but they don’t pull away.

They stay like this until everything is submerged; even their own lungs.

#; fragments of fragments (ic) #; through the glass (asks) #; alwayshorrible #; can't stand the rain (murdoch) #; got no angel to keep me in line (accomplice) #long post #tw death #tw unreality #tw dissociation #ask to tag as always)) #tw drowning #THIS TOOK ME DAYS TO WRITE IM)) #IM SO SORRY))

[420pogpills]

Eye colour reveal? I think they're blue from your pfp?

omg i have the most boring eye colour in the world

they're like a muted dark-ish blue... from afar they just look grey/colourless lmao it's one of my least favourite features :') my parents and even grandparents have such pretty light blue eyes and this is what they gave me? 😭 i've always really wanted warm brown eyes, i think brown eyes are the prettiest!

#ask #anon #not mcyt #personal #also excuse the messy lashes #i've got a few chunks of individuals in there #i like how it looks irl #but in pictures it looks a bit meh

[nicklloydnow]

“The album title, I suppose, could be a half-sarcastic reference to the truth contained within. All those themes of cruelty and suffering, victimhood, personal identity under duress. It's a truth passed on without interpretation. It's only the truth.

(What do you get? Facile entreaties to "reach out" to your friends, imagined as selfless emotional benefactors rather than ordinary human beings who are, in reality, sick of your gloom. Neurotoxic antidepressants and ten weeks of inane assurance from a well-meaning hippy in a carpeted room. A wilful and convenient blind eye turned to any relevant social, political or economic factors – "I dealt with depression," chirp the listicles by 23-year-olds with double-barrelled names. "Here's how you can, too." Tip one, I guess: don't live in the ringing silence of a chilly, damp and insecurely-rented shithole, hearing the footsteps of the upstairs pachyderm, feeling hunted, feeling hungry, knowing you'll never make a living again, and will never be forgiven for that. Tip two: make yourself more useful to the worst people in the world – or else.)

The truth... it's a motherfucker.

(…)

All this is just one part of a bigger, wider truth addressed in sections on The Holy Bible, one of the most astonishingly inventive and ambitious albums of the 1990s. But realistically, there's nowhere else to start. And realistically, there's nowhere else to finish. This probably isn't going to be much fun.

(…)

Well, not really. For one thing, every reckless claim or promise the Manics ever made contained the launch code for its own heroic or unheroic failure. That was part of the point. Besides, as Joan Robinson said, the misery of being exploited is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited.

(…)

The trouble was, Richey was either dismissed as a joke or followed as a leader – both of them terrible, terrible ideas.

I only met the man once. We exchanged polite hellos, and that was that. I'm not an expert. I wasn't a friend. I just knew what everyone knew. Simultaneously naïve and jaded, brutalised and blessed, he was all too obviously headed for some kind of personal cataclysm, but what was equally clear was that the source of that was also the source of this – this sudden eruption of magic, this lightning-fast articulation of broken perspectives, this acceleration, those tangled and terrifying lines scrambling over each other to make themselves heard, as though time were running out. Obviously it's tempting for people to try and make something more of this, as though the achievement were not, in itself, enough. Few absent rock stars are so easily mythologised. Richey was young and beautiful, his words were tantalisingly oblique, his style unique; the Richey Myth is easily understandable, as well as immovable.

And obviously, it's absurd and insulting. Rock & roll? Oh, please. The fact that Richey expressed himself through rock & roll – the simultaneous rejection, embrace and extension of rock & roll – only matters when The Holy Bible is playing. What the Richey Edwards story "tells us" is that sometimes human beings end up in places where rock and roll means nothing, or very much less than nothing, and to lose sight of that for a second is shameful.

(…)

And so, quite suddenly, the Manics' lyrics were more than what they'd always been: furious scribblings, side-splitting slogans, duff syntax without metre, shoehorned into trad-rock songs which buckled and bent to accommodate them. The words on The Holy Bible are more tangled and incomprehensible than ever – each line is a preposterous pile-up of syllables, a badly-packed suitcase which Moore has to sit on so Bradfield can do up the zip – but they're vastly better, stronger, more vivid. That occasional clumsiness, that extraordinary phrasing, it's part of what makes them work: they're never slick, or glib, or distanced.

Some of these lines are plainly ludicrous ("King cigarette snuffed out by her midgets – by her midgets!"). Some of them are almost profound ("I know I believe in nothing but it is my nothing"). Others are just appallingly beautiful ("I want to walk in the snow, and not leave a footprint" – from '4st 7lb', the album's finest and most frightening song, which interprets anorexia as absence, and interprets that as escape). What they are not is cliched or boring. And whatever else we might think of rock & roll, it can validate pretty much any ideas you throw at it, just so long as those ideas are neither cliched nor boring.

(…)

(The logic of The Holy Bible is the pure and colourless logic of depression. It's hard and precise, intensely alert, acute, compressed, reduced. But then we listen to music for a number of reasons, and not all of them are good ones.)

What does it all mean, though? What was it all for? Part of me wants to say this: nothing. That's the answer. That's the point. Nobody was saved or anything. The Holy Bible exists to bring you the honest truth, the only truth. The truth you already knew, but had convinced yourself might not be the truth. All your questions have the same answer, which happens to be the truth, and the answer is nothing.

And another part of me wants to say something else, because another part of me listens to The Holy Bible and hears something else... something, or someone. Someone who was really here, and it was terrible, but they were here; they happened. And what they left behind can still astound and chill, and tint the empty space with the suggestion of something that isn't love, but feels about the same.

Nothing, or the opposite of nothing. One of them must be the truth.”

#manic street preachers #holy bible #richey james #depression #suicide

[memnite-shyamalan]

Great Designer Search 3, Test 1

Today we take a break from our regularly scheduled programming (Timebent, my custom set) to talk about the first design test from GDS3, You Might as Well Tribal (good one Mark).

I'll be following along with all the tests from GDS3 and making cards for each challenge. I'll go in depth on my choices and I'm happy to have conversation with all y'all.

For this test, designers must create eight cards for a creature type that hasn't "seen a lot of love", or even a new type. Here are the rules:

1. The creature tribe must be different from other designers (this rule doesn't apply to us).

2. All the cards need to be designed as though they were in a standard legal set (so no retired mechanics, and adjust power level accordingly)

3. It isn't enough for a card to be the creature type, all eight cards have to mechanically care about that type.

4. You need two cards at each rarity (common, uncommon, rare, mythic rare)

5. Your tribe needs to be in at least two colours, and the colours have to fit the tribe (so don't do green/red squids)

6. You need to have one of every card type aside from planeswalker. The other two cards can be any type you want (to be clear, you're allowed to design a planeswalker but it isn't required).

7. You can use any evergreen mechanics and up to two non evergreen mechanics, but you can't use your own named mechanics. There is no requirement to use named mechanics.

The judges are looking for:

Flavourful design, fun gameplay, syngery, originality, and appropriateness in colour pie, rarity and card type.

For this test, I chose to do insect tribal in green and black. They have a strong graveyard focus, and I wanted to create the feeling of a swarm that breeds rapidly and wipes things out viciously. The swarm is a green aspect, the death is a black aspect, and breeding rapidly is represented by the graveyard, which is the common ground between black and green. That being said, let's look at my cards:

-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=--=+=-=+=-=+=

Land (1)

Instant (1)

Sorcery (1)

(note: the tokens are black but I don't have the version saved on my phone where I fixed that, apologies)

Planeswalker (1)

Artifact (1)

(This is not the most creative name I've ever thought of, I'll admit)

Enchantment (1)

And of course, creatures (2)

-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=--=+=-=+=-=+=

Clearly, these are all playtest names, but for most of them I tried to convey the flavour (except for the artifact, I really couldn't think of what kind of artifact insects would use {maybe it's like a breeding ground?}).

I have two green cards, two black cards, two multicolor cards, and two colourless cards, to show equal representation of the theme of each of the colours. For my two extra card slots, I made one planeswalker because I wanted to, and one extra creature because creatures are the most important part of a tribal deck.

-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=--=+=-=+=-=+=

Individual card notes:

Bugso: I understand why they don't make many tribal planeswalkers - they're the most important cards in a set, they're flagships for the plane and tribal 'walkers are often too narrow. However, Bugso is a nice package and I think it works well enough with itself that one wouldn't NEED to play it in an insect tribal deck to get value out of it, but it's better if you do - much like Liliana, Death's Majesty. I feel like I was able to represent all aspects of the tribe in this card: the swarm, the rapid regrowth, and the slaughter.

Boon of the Ash Borer: I knoooooow, ash borers are all about destroying land and this has nothing to do with land, but it sort of bores through your deck for personal gain which is very much like the bug that killed my favourite tree when I was a kid (no, I'm still not over it).

Design 3 (artifact): I feel like I could fiddle with the numbers a bit. Since individual insects aren't incredibly strong, I think it could cost 3 mana.

-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=-=+=--=+=-=+=-=+=

Feel free to comment on what you think of my designs, or reblog with your own! I'm really excited for the start of the GDS3 show and I hope you are too.

#gds3 #great designer search 3 #MtG #custom cards #custom magic card #MtG custom card #MtG tribal #MtG the game #magic the gathering #magic the card game #magic