#also also dandy does not exist to me/j

[faceeeeee]

Second family picture on this blog! Everybody smile📸

[palesmokeisinthevoid]

Transfem Shrimpo Doodles and doodles for a…kind of self indulgent probably ooc au based on a Pokémon nuzlocke I’m doing.

Shrimpo and Toodles are siblings to me. Nothing will change this. Shrimpo will absolutely make fun of Toodles but if anyone else does she will throw her brick at them. She also lets Toodles paint her nails.

Poppy and Shrimpo <3. Honestly starting to sort of ship it but here it’s friendship. Poppy helped her figure things out. I’m imaging that when a few of the toons were first made they kind of came to the conclusion that they weren’t the gender that was originally intended for them, so that was fun script changing for Gardenview/j, Shrimpo was made real later on due to her…personality (I imagine the toons and Gardenview came before the cartoon, mainly to explain some headcanons, so some existed before the Cartoon such as the mains, the starters, etc. and others came from the cartoon such as Shrimpo), and didn’t realize a toon could be a different gender than what they were intended.

Shelly and Shrimpo friendship is everything to me you can pry it out of my cold dead hands. Ichor is pretty malleable so toons can change their appearance if they get a hold of some extra. Sprout didn’t have top to give surgery even before he realized he was trans but he gave himself the scars anyway because he thought it was neat…and now Shrimpo is in similar circumstances/j

Just Shrimpo and Teagan having tea. Nothing much to say here I just wanted to draw them

And now the weird au I have no name for

All these designs are based vaguely off of Pokémon and random ideas I had while doing a nuzlocke (specifically of a rom hack which is why the Pokémon are so mismatched) which is still ongoing.

Basically weird stuff happened, all the toons and twisteds got thrown into another dimension that keeps having other dimensions fuse with it to the point that this is just a regular October for them…anyway due to another substance in this dimension reacting a bit weird with ichor due to their similar properties it kind of started changing the most of the toons appearances and these are some of those designs

I got a Magikarp so of course I had to make Shrimpo the pathetic fish…and then the overpowered serpent. She started out with her canon design and then got the extra shrimp features…including arms. And also the marks from her skin, because I thought that would be fun.

Toodles ended up as a Togepi and the first move she pulled from metronome was FUCKING “Snipe shot”, so now she has a sniper rifle that no one can take from her because she can just summon it back to her. Not much changed much about her physically outside of her blush marks becoming triangles. The wings are just fakes because she got a new hoodie.

Rodger will one day be a graveler so four arms, not much to say. He is wearing alpha sleeper though since his suit got kind of…destroyed. By growing a second set of arms.

Razzle and Dazzle are a Galarian Yamask. They aren’t having a great time. They got knocked out at some point, Dandy found them and then got a terrible idea and enacted the first part of the idea on whichever one of them woke up first…unfortunately for Razzle, he’s an early riser. So uh, face shattered, Dazzle got lied to about the cause and then Dandy convinced him he could fix Razzle’s head if Dazzle just helped him with something. Razzle’s fucked up physically and mentally and Dazzle is just having a bad time.

CENTIVEE!!!! She got Venipede!!!! CENTIVEEEEEEEEEEE. I just like bug looking characters. She’s got a bunch of legs and three pairs of arms.

Shelly was the starter! Totodile! She’s got some croc stuff going on, nothing too distract she’s just a little reptile.

Cosmo probably would have come out normal looking outside having his caramel skins cheeks if he didn’t look a god straight in the eye. Now he’s gained their interest and if one gains a gods interest they can end up with some…new limbs or horns. In this case Cosmo got both since he ended up as Pidove and I wanted to incorporate the weird mask thing on Unfeasant so uh…Horn going straight through his eye! Fun!

Dandy is a Budew. Weird sleeve things aren’t sleeves, they are, in fact, a part of his arms. He’s got some twisted features too since…well, twisted dandy is dandy

Finn died in game. He was a Wooper, but he’ll be back eventually…the next time I get a fish Pokémon. Once that happens he’s never getting his legs back/j. Man is stuck as a mermaid…or Mayhaps a siren. Depends on what fish I get.

[karamell-sweetz]

hey i would love to hear you rant about the balance in utmv and why it sucks

kris you are my sole enabler. thank you.

short version: the balance doesn't make sense and is overused.

long version: below. might wanna strap in, i don't know how long it is...

⚠️ the following statements are all /lh and are not intended to offend anyone. to anyone currently writing/making something involving the balance, please keep going, i'm sure it'll be great! i'm just getting tired of seeing it over and over again (so i decided to start the revolution /j). ⚠️

❗️also, slight tw: slight mentions of sewer slide, slight mentions of body horror❗️

first of all, the whole fgod error thing is okay. it's a cute concept – actually, maybe all of the "error's broken and bleeding bones" and "error flung himself into the void to escape it all" is more disturbing than cute, but you get what i mean – and i will respect this. i'm pretty sure that 'healing what has been broken' was the pioneer for destructivedeath and errormare — and this i can acknowledge! i just want to let people know that i am getting tired of seeing the same thing over and over again... which is why i'm writing a rant.

my first gripe with the balance: it exists. the whole shtick with the balance is that it's a limitation of sorts, a rule of thumb for ink and error to follow when they're doing their little multiversal god things. now tell me: if the multiverse/doodle sphere is a representation of the creative activity of the entire fandom...... why does it have a maximum capacity anyway? technically, new things are being created every single second of every single day, so if they were to come into existence at the same time then i think error would be rendered immobile at this point, according to the lore of the fgod au.

it'd be like: "*clenches soul area* aw crap. ink's making another useless au again *drops onto the floor* aw crap and another one *writhes* why the heck are there so many aughhhhhhh"

this leads to my second gripe: in a lot of these kinds of fics it's shown that ink is the creator of all the universes.

now that's fine and dandy, but canonically ink doesn't create shit.

he's the multiversal protector, meaning that he just makes sure they don't die. it's not like he himself made the characters within them suffer (in fact i'm pretty sure he doesn't really care for the people anyway, so the existence of the council is just. clever but strange), that's our fault because we made the au, not him! so really if we want to make error suffer less then we're going to have to leave the fandom for absolute dead or sth,,,,, which at this point is sort of impossible. (personally, i have been stuck here for around five years now and i always come back no matter how hard i try to leave.)

oh and i know that he can make living things like gaster blasters and stuff, but he's still the multiversal protector so that shouldn't mean that he can make whole aus on the spot. and i also know that this is an au in itself, but this is sort of a really important detail i think? i hope nobody's sleeping on this.

a third, sort of minor gripe: the concept of sides is also really strangely handled. ink's little council thing is fun tbh but everyone's such a shallow bitch and it's frustrating (which is sort of the point ig but it's worse when that's how they're portrayed in EVERY. SINGLE. BALANCE. FIC.) and i know that there are insiders like blue and idk fresh ig...... but this isn't a spy mission? just communicate with the other side? nightmare's gang is the only redeemable thing about this au because their dynamics are so cute (and i'm a murder time trio + cross fan so i just think it's neat), but even they're kinda shallow sometimes. and also (thank you for this one kris) i thought that positivity and negativity were meant to coexist? there's absolutely NO reason, NONE, why the council couldn't just. get the other team into the meeting and talk it out with them?! it's so easy to solve your problems?? just use your tiny pea brains a little??? my frickingh god???? like literally all of this could have been solved if y'all just TALKED for once oml.

and now for my fourth, final, and largest gripe of all: IT'S SO OVERUSED. i'm not even talking about the balance itself, the plotlines for this au are all copypastes too! for example, error having to sit down with ink and tell him about the balance? ink getting upset about his ignorance? heard it at least five times, honey. what next, are they going to go and save the multiverse from your oc character who just so happens to be messing with everything? and maybe you'll become friends...... oR sOmEtHinG mOrE?

(great bricks, if i see the phrase 'friends..... or something more????.??.????' one more time i am going to rip myself apart.)

i will acknowledge that there are some original things out there, but most of the premises are still the same. and in most of these ink and the council are absolute jerks for no reason at all. please. please please please i'm so tired. if i see one more thing about error jumping into the void istg i will jump with him. (sorry i ran out of steam here but you get what i mean right? the balance is everywhere!)

anyway tldr: screw the balance. it doesn't make sense and it's been milked to hell and back.

thanks for your interest in my (maybe unpopular?) opinion. you are free to disagree (or join me in the revolution!)

ps: im sorry this is a long-ish post. i had a shorter version that i put on my wattpad but it didn't sound very persuasive so i wrote this chunky thing.

pps: i might have gotten some things wrong (i've been stuck in rhythm game hell for about six months now) so feel free to correct me about things! (*´-`)

[punkscowardschampions]

James & Ava

James: [let's say he puts up an insta of those bubs playing with those torts for her to see] Ava: 🥰 So happy they like 'em, I would've tried to get a real one but they were not fitting in the hand-luggage and apparently that's illegal 🤷 James: [ages later like] James: picking you up from A&E is one thing, a holding cell is quite another Ava: I understand, there's fast and then there's that Ava: thank GOD my Dad will front my bail 😏 James: & your brother's practically a lawyer so there's that Ava: If it weren't him I'd raise questions about having a 'basically' lawyer take my case but yeah Ava: do the torts have names yet? Ava: keep me posted tah James: they do James: Clover & Dandy Ava: 👏 Ava: very creative, very cute Ava: must take after you James: Matty's suggestions were all rejected for being too confusing, which in my opinion was slightly brutal of Jay, but I do also see her point Ava: 😂 Ava: They can have some confusing but adorable nicknames Ava: I couldn't say either my brother or sister's names for the longest time Ava: stuck being 'Uster and 'Ancy James: & yet if the roles were reversed they'd have had such an easy time James: yet more evidence you're a 😇 Ava: and very easy to spell when I got to School, thanks mum and dad Ava: you were alright, 'til it gets to your surname, bit unfair that James: I used to just do a J James: ironic now but I didn't like writing much when I was younger James: added the a & y later when everyone started calling me it Ava: It must've been something, to get to pass that on James: she did it without asking me James: but I know she could have fared a lot worse Ava: Oh, really Ava: I guess that's a thoughtful gesture on her part James: from an outsiders perspective, yes, but I understand why she actually did it Ava: Why? James: because she wanted me to step up & it was the most obvious way there is to say that she's mine & I had to Ava: Ah, that makes sense Ava: in that case, thoughtful as in well thought out but not beyond that Ava: she took your name from you that's James: I'm happy for Jay to have it now though, she'd hate a 'girly' name James: I would have had to find a nickname she could bear to be called in that instance Ava: Yes, at least she's the one who actually has the name, that's never gonna feel bad James: I don't remember where Matilda's came from, we were barely speaking then James: so that does feel worse Ava: at least there's an excellent book and character waiting James: very true James: & she had terrible parents Ava: You won't be getting a hat glued to your head any time soon James: today I won't, we've all learned so many 🐢 facts Ava: Go for esio trot first James: I will, I haven't read it before James: thank you, Ava Ava: You'll like it, and for Roald Dahl, it's pretty sweet Ava: no bad ideas before bed time, like James: does it have a happy ending? Ava: It does Ava: for humans and 🐢 alike James: I've missed you Ava: I've missed you Ava: Obviously couldn't commit the cliche of meeting me off the plane, but when can I see you? James: what are you doing tomorrow? Ava: Avoiding unpacking Ava: I think I've got a brunch date but beyond that, I'm free James: my dad is out of the office all day if you'd like to come & visit me Ava: I'd like that a lot Ava: I definitely will Ava: that'll be okay, right James: she's not going to also decide to visit me James: or talk to anyone that could see you doing so Ava: okay good Ava: Obviously you've thought it through but got a 😇 rep to protect James: I'll never be reckless when your halo is at stake, I assure you James: it's very important to me Ava: What about my 😈 Ava: You can do something about them too, yeah? James: absolutely James: those horns need to stay sharp, of course Ava: God you're hot James Ava: I've missed you so much you have no idea because I lack the words to explain it in any way that would convey just how hard it's been being so far away from you Ava: but I am very much ready to show you tomorrow Ava: and I'm not just talking about the holiday snaps that were not suitable for public display James: It's vital that the protagonist of my 1st novel is very multifaceted 😇 & 😈 which is why I wouldn't write it about just anyone James: I'll show you tomorrow, why it has to be you Ava: I'm so glad that it's me Ava: fuck James: I've lost hours thinking about the tan lines you potentially do or don't have, I'm very invested Ava: I have a strict no spoilers policy Ava: all will be revealed James: but I need to know Ava: 😏 Ava: It does seem cruel and unusual to make you wait when you've already been waiting so long Ava: too 😈 perhaps James: but sending gifts was very 😇 James: what decision are you going to make? Ava: It was just a little something Ava: if I had to get something every time I thought about you, we're talking grains of sand on the beach level Ava: I can't send you pictures, can I James: no, she has an app that restores any pictures I delete Ava: Hmm James: that said, you don't have any tattoos or anything clearly identifying Ava: that's true Ava: can she see the account of who's sent the pictures Ava: because it doesn't have to be me who sends them, or anyone else that actually exists to hunt down James: how many times are you going to go above & beyond to prove to me that you're too smart for King's? James: I believed you on the 1st tour Ava: I can be smart as long as we need to be smart Ava: and I had to make sure you wanted to talk to me after the 1st tour, of course James: I wanted to talk to you before the 1st tour, you know that Ava: I know Ava: Can I ask you something, if you promise to be honest James: yes Ava: Did you think badly of me for trying to pursue you when I knew you were married Ava: or what did you think of me, I guess James: I was too busy being glad that you wanted to James: but of course I wondered why James: I still wonder what it is that you could ever be interested in about me Ava: I can't profess to giving it particular or cohesive prior thought myself Ava: we both allowed some recklessness that day, clearly Ava: and I know you do, I'll write you a book one day Ava: but it'll take me a while to get down everything I find interesting and worthwhile about you James: I can wait Ava: Good Ava: One job at a time Ava: and this profile is looking pretty realistic and is as close to untraceable as is possible Ava: but I'm assuming she doesn't moonlight for MI5 James: do you? James: because you perhaps should Ava: 😏 Ava: Only to write my award-winning, world-changing exposé James: you're going to be a spectacular journalist Ava: Thank you 😊 Ava: I'll spare waxing lyrical about the vitality of a free press, don't think the readers will be about it when we could be talking more about my tan lines James: please do continue James: on whatever subject you feel the most passionate Ava: [a message request from this fake profile moment] James: [immediately accepts and immediately dies] James: oh Ava: you said passionate James: I did Ava: You're a subject I can get really worked up about, like James: I can see that James: & feel it Ava: Good Ava: Are you allowed to send photos to a fake girl or no? James: I don't care if the fake girl gets discovered James: she means nothing to me Ava: Poor fake girl Ava: still, can't be all bad James: it's not James: because now I can show you how much you mean James: [and does because FINALLY can send each other whatever they want] Ava: [what a glorious moment also over here like don't say ily don't say ily] Ava: OH James: Thrilled as I am to be behind a locked door, I'd be even gladder if you were here too Ava: yeah I Ava: feel that Ava: really feel it James: it's my turn to ask you a question James: do you want to hear the story of what would happen if we currently had all the time we could possibly want to really delve into 2 weeks of thoughts, dreams & wish fulfilment or do you want a narrative that's more realistically framed, so unfortunately there's not much opportunity for description or dialogue but instead every second is intensely action driven because we don't have a single one to waste? Ava: The latter Ava: I know the story, as the protagonist I've been living it with you Ava: Call mystery girl, she'll be as quiet as she can James: [does of course] Ava: Well James: I'm speechless James: but still here Ava: Please stay Ava: I hope you can stay James: I'll try Ava: Remember I told you this is different James: yes Ava: I really haven't felt like this before Ava: is what I'm saying Ava: I'm even more sure this is entirely new now James: understood James: I know you understand that it's the same for me Ava: I do James: Ava James: please stay too Ava: I will Ava: Literally nowhere else I'd rather be Ava: or no one else James: I'll try to understand that Ava: I'll try to make it clearer Ava: long as that may take Ava: not a quitter James: you've also never been unclear Ava: But you should know by now Ava: you know James: that's my error, not yours Ava: Shh James: I can't because Ava: Why? James: none of the blame for what I don't know rests on you Ava: but Ava: yeah, that's true Ava: but there's more ways I could show you Ava: tell you James: are there? Ava: yeah Ava: but you know Ava: scary James: that I do know for definite Ava: You don't think I'm 🙀 James: I think you're brave James: but you recognise when to be cautious Ava: I recognize it Ava: I rarely want to be cautious though James: we wouldn't have a story if you did Ava: 😏 okay Ava: I feel less bad James: don't feel bad at all James: please Ava: okay Ava: I'll try Ava: if you do James: you shake Frank's paw & I'll shake a 🐢's James: arm? whatever they have Ava: 🥰 you are so fucking cute Ava: and it's a deal James: [sends her a pic of him doing it because he can now #nerd] Ava: [send a video of Frank mugging her off like get away from me mother] James: 😂 Ava: I still agree to the terms and conditions Ava: he's just a diva and thinks I'm trying to give him an unwanted manipedi James: I can relate to the dread of an unwanted makeover James: tell him I apologise for laughing Ava: Dad duties? James: the reality of a very controlling wife Ava: 😑 Ava: Well we'll go shopping, one day James: only if Jay can come too, nobody hates having no influence over their own wardrobe more than she does Ava: Of course Ava: she's got to meet Frank James: she would love to, you honestly have no idea Ava: One day soon Ava: I can handle bumping into you at the park without being too 😍 James: I don't know whether to be happy or sad that you can apparently handle that Ava: I'm nothing if not over-ambitious Ava: and over-confident James: I like both of those things about you Ava: There's nothing I don't like about you James: I got it really wrong, you're not trying to age me, you're trying to kill me Ava: Never Ava: What would I do without you? James: you'd survive, as you're always saying Ava: 🥺 Ava: no James: it's okay, we don't have to find out James: I want you with me, not without me Ava: I need you James: Ava James: I haven't got in it me to walk away again, I mean it Ava: Then don't Ava: it isn't what I want Ava: but as well, I really don't think it's right, for you or for anyone, me included Ava: It wouldn't be easy, at all, but if I thought this was wrong, I wouldn't do it, I'd have to stop, somehow James: I know Ava: I'm not a bad person Ava: and neither are you James: you're a good person James: & being with you isn't what makes me a bad one Ava: You're a good one Ava: one of my favourites James: no, but you make me want to be better at being a person James: because you're one of my favourites too Ava: We're all just trying to get better at being people, yeah James: most of us Ava: The rest are gonna wake up and realize they wasted a lot of time pretending they had it all figured out, too late James: I'm so happy I met you Ava: That is definitely very mutual James: even if this all goes wrong again tomorrow or any time before how long we want it to last, I want you to know I won't be sorry about the start or the middle Ava: That means more than that phrase can convey James: & I want to emphasise I'm not only saying so because everything else in my life is going horribly James: if I was happy I'd want to share that with you too Ava: I love you James: Ava Ava: I couldn't not say it anymore, I'm sorry James: I don't want you to be sorry if you're not Ava: I'm not sorry that I mean it, or feel it Ava: but I am if I crossed a boundary James: you can say anything to me Ava: Well Ava: there it is James: what are we going to do about it? Ava: Up to you really Ava: we don't have to do anything Ava: do we? James: but that wouldn't be right James: things shouldn't go on as they are Ava: Sometimes they have to though Ava: anyway, does it even count as a declaration of love if I don't run to your house in the pouring rain in something made of white silk, like James: it counts that you're the 1st adult who has honestly said that to me Ava: Then I'll say it again Ava: I love you, James James: Then we need to find a way to be together properly Ava: Yeah? James: yes James: you can't be this important & the other most important person in my life not know that you exist James: or never have woken up next to me James: I still have no idea how beautiful you look when you're asleep Ava: We'll work it out Ava: be together properly James: I promise James: because I have no intention of breaking it Ava: I'm thinking maybe you want me dead too James: not even hypothetically James: I need you too much Ava: My legs feel like they ache from not being allowed to come run and find you right now James: I keep accidentally hurting you, don't I? James: Frank has no skills as a masseur I assume? James: IOU Ava: I'm holding you to that one like it's a bonafide promise too James: good James: because while I don't technically have any skills of my own, I'm confident you'll let me know if you like my attempts or not Ava: fake girl might be quiet as a mouse but that's not my style unless absolutely necessary James: that's why you're my favourite & she's my scapegoat Ava: 🥰😏 I can only be so sorry James: well, it's fine because apologies aren't what I wanna hear Ava: All I wanna hear is my alarm so it means I get to see you today James: almost looking forward to going to the office myself James: how unusual Ava: They're so welcome for the boost in morale, like James: if I could keep you on my desk all day, I would Ava: When the novel is ready and you're ready to be fired, then we can do that James: okay James: I'll pull a few more all-nighters James: see if I can't get these chapters finished Ava: I'll nap beside you Ava: at my most inspiring when I 😴 James: I find it hard to believe you'd be anything other than distracting Ava: Who, me? 😇 James: yes, you James: you're very beautiful, you know Ava: 😊 Ava: You're lovely James: it's true, you make me wish I knew how to paint Ava: You make me wish a lot of things, I get that James: tell me one day Ava: Every wish? James: yes Ava: Okay Ava: we can count how many have come true James: until they all have Ava: Happily ever after James: it would be over ambitious & over confident of me to suggest I'm capable of giving you anything close & I'm not anything close to being either Ava: You're just less talk, more make it happen Ava: you've shown that plenty already Ava: I believe in you, I always tell you James: I can always feel how sincere you're being when you do Ava: Good 'cos I don't lie Ava: even to be nice James: I like that about you most of all Ava: If I wasn't conceited before 😂 James: you weren't, it's fine Ava: Well Ava: 🤏 Ava: but it is fine Ava: not not fine enough to warrant stopping you complimenting me James: you couldn't stop me, darling Ava: is that so? James: of course James: even if you made me speechless again, compliments don't have to be spoken Ava: 🤤 Ava: can we put that to the test James: give me a minute James: [a dramatic pause that's longer than either of them would like] Ava: James? James: okay, test me Ava: How though? James: how do you think you can 😶? Ava: Oh, that's easy Ava: I just need the help of a friend James: it's easy to give you compliments Ava: I know, that's why I've gotta go hard over here Ava: bear with James: take all the time you need Ava: I won't need that long Ava: don't like wasting time with you ever James: are you saying you think you've already lost? Ava: Um, no Ava: I'm saying it won't be long until you can see the finished product and be 😶 Ava: how rude of you 😏 James: then it couldn't possibly be a waste of time Ava: [sends him a video on the fake profile] Ava: might wanna turn your sound way down James: well, now I want to turn it up Ava: do so at your own risk Ava: I'm very much alone rn so I could be as loud as is necessary James: [sends her a pic so she knows how into that video he was because worth a thousand words] Ava: Now that is a compliment James: like I said, it's easy to be complimentary towards you Ava: I can see that 🤭 James: I need to see you James: why the fuck isn't it tomorrow yet? Ava: It's actually so unfair Ava: dunno if we can claim starcrossed but you know James: it'll feel less tragic once I get in the shower & can actually turn the volume up Ava: You're really gonna inspire a sequel that easily, huh James: a saga James: longer than Twilight Ava: would just about see us through 'til morning Ava: me @ brunch 🥴 James: I'm wide awake if you are Ava: Of course Ava: new challenge Ava: make you speechless and get you to 💤 pass out, like James: I'm not sure if it's an advantage or disadvantage that I haven't slept well for the last 6 years Ava: We'll work that out together Ava: but wait Ava: say night now so I don't miss it later James: it'll definitely prove helpful in the morning since we have a habit of leaving cups of coffee untouched when we're together James: Oh Ava, you're so sweet James: goodnight for later, my darling Ava: True Ava: and Edward is so jealous Ava: you can't help being more interesting Ava: or better at sweet talk James: we'll make everyone jealous, one day James: when you're my girlfriend Ava: I can't wait Ava: legitimately James: me either Ava: Did you have many girlfriends before Ava: or just do hookups James: I didn't have any girlfriends before Ava: suppose you didn't have much time, nah Ava: not for serious ones James: I didn't want a serious one in school & my parents absolutely didn't want me to have one either, for all the good that did Ava: Makes sense Ava: parents rarely get what they want though, like you said James: I was having too much fun not being serious about anything, until I wasn't any more Ava: That's a lot of people Ava: if there's a time for it James: that's everyone I knew then & a lot of different people I also know now Ava: Yeah, it is a bit like they typecast this entire area most of the time James: I'll make every attempt to avoid it when I set the scene in my novel Ava: like you said too, fun 'til it ain't Ava: I always leave before then James: I always did too, until I got to rehab & leaving was no longer an option James: kind of its unique selling point Ava: How long ago was that? James: it's been years Ava: What did you go in for, if you don't mind me asking James: do you remember that expensive drug habit I mentioned as being one of the only things I used to care about? it honestly was Ava: I was just worried you were meant to be sober Ava: 'cos that would've been really awkward Ava: that's amazing though Ava: well done James: I'm mostly sober but sometimes I fuck that up, which is awkward, you're right Ava: I'm sorry Ava: that night was totally my idea, I steamrolled you so hard James: it was my bad idea to get drunk, that's not your fault James: it's also not your fault that I did something I shouldn't to try & stop myself from doing something else that I'd convinced myself that I shouldn't James: because I'm well aware of how well that doesn't work Ava: Alright Ava: but I'll be more supportive now I know, for the record Ava: though I see your logic there, even if it didn't exactly go to plan James: it went according to an even better plan James: because here we are James: & I don't want to spoil your fun, Ava Ava: I can't even claim it as my plan, sadly Ava: 'cos I couldn't even imagine we'd get here Ava: and you won't, you don't Ava: there's more than one way to have fun Ava: every time I've met up with you has been fun and I was only drinking one of those times so safe to say it isn't required, like James: tomorrow won't be any different, I promise James: despite the fact my office has never been fun before Ava: yeah but I've never been there before Ava: obviously the issue James: the main issue, absolutely Ava: having your dad as a co-worker is probably a fair 2nd James: technically he's my boss & how often he likes to make that known is the 3rd Ava: ick Ava: 🙄 Ava: he's not getting in the book James: I'll put him in the acknowledgements for spurring me on in getting the chapters done quickly Ava: 😂 A subtle dig is the best kind James: 🖋 vs ⚔ Ava: your 🤓 brain is sexy James: I'll happily say again that everything about you is Ava: I'll be even happier when I can hear you actually say it tomorrow James: you can hear me say it now James: I'll bring you into the 🚿 with me Ava: I love you James: [okay we skipping to tomorrow for my evil cockblocking deeds] James: Teddy's here Ava: Oh Ava: to visit or put in hours? James: the latter apparently, which he has wisely decided to do when my dad isn't here to supervise him Ava: Well, good for him Ava: right, what's the plan then James: I'm gonna go get Matty, she might as well here too since you can't be James: maybe she'll annoy him enough that he'll leave earlier than he's currently planning to Ava: Cross my fingers, like Ava: she's pretty sweet overall though James: Teddy really doesn't like children though Ava: I can't imagine him interacting with one tbf Ava: keep me posted then, I guess James: he dropped Jay when she was a bit older than Matty, it can't have helped matters James: if nothing else I'll try & leave earlier than I actually need to when I go to pick her up James: it won't give us long but it's the best I can do Ava: Kids are made of sturdy stuff, if my fam has taught me anything Ava: bless him Ava: that's cool Ava: the girls were going on to the shops so I'll just join them James: okay Ava: can't be helped, can it James: not yet James: but I'm still sorry Ava: not your fault James: [sends her all the deets because he's booked her a massage since he can't give her one & she's now got loads of spare time, like ILY babe] Ava: You didn't have to do that Ava: but as far as 2nd best options go Ava: I've lucked out there, thank you James: I'm aware how frustrating all of this is, in every possible aspect of the word James: so hopefully this will help Ava: It is Ava: but you're worth it to me so I'm in if you are Ava: though probably warn me beforehand if it's that kind of massage, otherwise it could get awkward James: 😂 I have heard she's very good but I can't personally vouch for whether or not that's why she's as highly recommended as she is James: you'll have to let me know Ava: 😏 I'll let you know if your friends are shameless perverts or not, yeah James: thank you James: it would be useful information to have because both my parents have separately been there Ava: 😬 Ava: do you reckon that's ever happened Ava: having an affair with the same person by accident James: it must have at some point Ava: I mean, a thruple is the last resort of every middle-aged couple wanting to reignite things so give it a go James: thank god I'm not yet middle aged & my marriage is dead in the water James: it was strange enough when a friend made a pass at me at a party who I know had slept with her previously without seeking us it out Ava: as much as it pains me you aren't, babe Ava: she's not my type either sorry James: understandable, he wasn't mine Ava: you straight? James: shocking, I know Ava: Again, tragically not but I thought I better check 😉 James: as much as she'd probably love that to be the reason I want to leave her, it's not Ava: That cliche really is played out though James: agreed, it's not one of my preferred cliches Ava: Fine, fine, I WON'T sleep with the masseuse, you don't have to beg James: if you could not sleep with anyone else, regardless of their profession, that'd be a relief Ava: 'Course I won't Ava: I love you, there'd be no point James: I miss you so much Ava: I know, I miss you too Ava: not just because all my friends seem to have got new boyfriends at once that they all had to talk about James: two fake profiles would be a step too far, right? Ava: 🤏 just Ava: anyway, fake girl means nothing Ava: I don't wanna claim fake boy either, just you James: maybe you should come to the office & let Teddy see you, it would get everything out in the open Ava: I don't think you're ready for that, are you James: there is no way to ready myself for it though, is there? Ava: There's some ways Ava: even if you know your wife is obviously gonna be a nightmare regardless Ava: can ease everyone else in Ava: maybe mention you've met someone to him? see how he is with that first James: I don't really want to involve him to such a dramatic degree, yours is a much better idea Ava: Believe me, I wanna be there as much as you want me there Ava: but I don't wanna fuck it up James: me either, it's gotten so bad with her James: as bad as it's ever been Ava: What are you going to do? James: I don't know, I tried to leave when...after I left you & James: well, I'm still there, aren't I? Ava: It's really fucking complicated Ava: and that's an understatement Ava: it will probably be worse after, when you do leave Ava: but then, when she can't follow through with her threats, 'cos it's all bullshit, what can she do, you know what I mean James: she's said things that mean I can't risk leaving her alone with the children at all now James: not that I particularly did before but there were things I believed she'd do then & things I didn't actually Ava: You'd have to take them with you Ava: so that means you need to keep your place Ava: but I assume the chances of her leaving are slim to none Ava: unless Ava: hmm James: she's said she wants to go, start over, but that means nothing James: I know she'd refuse to just to spite me Ava: Appearance is everything with her, yeah? James: it is Ava: you need to do something that will make her leave then, feel like she's made the decision Ava: like if you were gay, something that she can't make go away on the socials James: we can't have a baby just so she'll fuck off Ava: No, I can't even have news of a fake baby getting back to my parents Ava: but seriously Ava: if we did out us, show people we were Ava: would she find a way to hack that or no? James: she'd find a way to destroy your entire life Ava: No she wouldn't Ava: she's doing that to yours, has been for too long James: she would, Ava James: she's done it before, to your sister, to any other girls she's found out about James: & I didn't even care about them the way I do about you Ava: What could she possibly say about me? Ava: I'm a homewrecker? If she wants everyone to know how unhappily married she is Ava: Everyone knows all about my weird family, I've dealt with that for years Ava: Anything she could say, I'd own up to or I'd prove wrong, she doesn't control my narrative James: even if you are right, she still controls mine James: my children's James: I'm not allowed to just take them, am I? She'll have me arrested or something Ava: Only mentally Ava: you can break that, you will Ava: 'cos she doesn't provide any finances, she doesn't look after the kids, what does she offer, like Ava: there is no hold over you but her mental one Ava: Your name is on their birth certificates too, you're as entitled to be with them Ava: anyway, you don't have to go anywhere, who owns your flat, like? James: my dad owns everything Ava: Yeah, your dad Ava: He's not going to put his grandkids out, even if he doesn't side with you Ava: and if it comes to it, he'll have to have you both out whilst you sort out the divorce Ava: there's no way she's automatically entitled to that flat, it isn't either of yours Ava: and she's not automatically entitled to the kids, especially with all the worrying things she's said, yeah James: but I'm not either, I'm an addict Ava: Recovered, literally went to rehab Ava: and let's be honest, half this town is on it to that degree but they're not owning up and calling it a problem Ava: you did that and you sorted it out James: what if they aren't actually mine? James: she's cheated as much as I have Ava: Oh, James Ava: I don't know Ava: you could find out Ava: if you were ready for that but Ava: I see the appeal of not knowing Ava: she probably does though, if she's thought to use it against you before, it's at least crossed her mind too James: as much as she's said it, I've never actually believed her James: but what if I find out that they aren't, it'll be the end, nothing else that we've just said would even have any relevance James: I can't lose them, Ava, I'd rather stay with her forever than let that happen Ava: Of course Ava: they're yours, you raised them Ava: does she Ava: stupid question but does she actually want them? James: no James: she told me she never did, either of them Ava: I don't Ava: as spiteful as she is Ava: would she keep two kids she doesn't love or want Ava: what about her parents, what do they think? James: they're both at their wits end Ava: They'd back you, then James: they know they can't back her James: too much has happened that her mum knows about Ava: If you have proof and people backing you that she's unfit to be the sole provider, then she'd have to sort out visitation and work with you Ava: and I can't see her bothering, if she means all she's said Ava: but Ava: I don't know Ava: it's scary James: if she knows it's you I'm with, I honestly couldn't guarantee anything with regards to what she would or wouldn't do James: her strange obsession with your siblings is something I've never quite understood Ava: None of this is about me, or my wellbeing Ava: I don't care, there's nothing she can do to me Ava: if that was all we were worried about I'd move myself in today but it ain't James: but what I'm saying is, she could go further than we're thinking she would with regards to the children because she doesn't want me to be happy with you specifically James: not just because she doesn't want me to be happy ever Ava: Okay, I get it Ava: So you'll either stay, forever Ava: or she'll take the kids and you'll have to battle in the courts to see them James: that's how it appears James: & if they aren't mine, she just takes them if I don't stay forever Ava: That's why if you do decide to leave Ava: you need to know that first James: I'm scared to know it Ava: That's understandable Ava: there's few things scarier that I can think of James: Matty wouldn't remember if I disappeared from her life now but Jay needs me Ava: You aren't going to just disappear Ava: whatever you decide, whatever happens, we won't let it be that James: can you forget everything I said about trying to be sober, please, I really need a drink James: lots of drinks actually Ava: Tell whoever you need to that you need to go home, okay Ava: then come meet me Ava: I shouldn't have started this conversation right now, I'm so sorry Ava: come be with me James: I can't, you've got a massage to get to & that's the least of what's expected of me James: not leaving Ava: Okay, have you got Matty? Ava: Because go do that then, spend some time with her James: I don't think I should, she'll pick up on how I feel & then nobody'll get any work done Ava: Alright, are you sure you want to stay, you'll be alright? James: I'll be fine Ava: I'll leave you to it then Ava: try to distract yourself, sure Teddy will help you James: I'll talk to you later Ava: Sure, no worries James: [later] James: I'm sorry Ava: I totally get it Ava: well, I don't, but I totally get that too Ava: I'm sorry as well James: everything is indescribably terrible Ava: Yeah Ava: it's bad James: I'm so sorry, Ava Ava: You don't have to say sorry to me Ava: I chose what I chose Ava: you didn't know what you were signing up for, how could you James: now you know what you're signing up for, if you don't want to be any more, I understand Ava: Don't say that James: I have to say it Ava: Now you have then but I'm ignoring you James: please don't Ava: I could never, you know how I feel Ava: that's not changing, it can't James: I know & you know I don't want it to Ava: I just wish there was something I could do Ava: to actually help James: you do help James: more than I can find words to express Ava: I'm not gonna bring it all up again but Ava: all I can think is we have two spare rooms at mine, alright Ava: if you ever need them James: what about your parents? Ava: I could talk to them Ava: and both rooms have bathrooms, and it's only me on that floor as well so the girls wouldn't have to feel like they've got to meet loads of new people James: but what could you possibly say? Ava: As much of the truth as they need to know Ava: Don't worry about that, they're easier to sort than any of the rest of this, yeah James: I'm fairly certain that'd be the whole truth & that wouldn't be easy Ava: They're big rooms, the girls could share or you could have one with Matty Ava: I'm saying, we don't have to say you could as easily share mine James: I wouldn't want someone as fucked up as me going out with either of my daughters Ava: You aren't Ava: it'll just be the age gap but they'll get over that Ava: anyway, the space is there, that's about all I've come up with since earlier James: thank you James: for even trying to come up with anything while I've just been James: again, I don't know what the word is, or could be Ava: You needed to stop Ava: as much as you ever can James: & now I need to see you but it can never just be that simple Ava: Does Jay have anything on tonight, like a club or a lesson or? James: ballet, so I have to stay because she hates it Ava: Fair enough Ava: Is lunch tomorrow an option or? James: I'll make sure it is Ava: Okay, I'll see you then Ava: could you do a phonecall during ballet, even for five minutes Ava: just so I can hear your voice, tell you all the things I wanna James: no promises Ava: of course James: aren't you glad you came back from holiday to all this Ava: I wasn't planning to stay there forever regardless Ava: you know how much I missed you Ava: still do James: tell me about it, or the massage, or your friends' boyfriends, anything that isn't the subject of my misery Ava: It was a good massage Ava: though the way my shoulders killed, you wouldn't think I'd just been on holiday Ava: you definitely need to try it yourself James: I'll book us in together next time Ava: That'll be perfect James: but before I do, did she try & seduce you? Ava: 😂 Ava: not enough to convince me I need to go back every fortnight 💔 James: did you not tell her I've got a best selling novel to write? Ava: Of course Ava: doing the hard sell on everyone for you, babe James: I appreciate it, very much Ava: I appreciate you Ava: What time will you be back, I'll uber eats you something for dinner Ava: you must be exhausted James: only if you order the same thing, it'll almost be like having dinner together Ava: You have the best ideas James: [a time that he'll be back] Ava: It's a date James: I'll dress up for you James: get out of these work clothes Ava: 😳 'scuse you Ava: warn me before you're gonna be that hot please James: if you were warned, you'd be less likely to 😳 Ava: I'll always blush for you Ava: like it or not James: you know how much I like it Ava: I seriously wish you were here Ava: such a waste of pink James: I wish you were here Ava: Gutted my ballet days are behind me James: she doesn't want to go, is there anywhere we actually could meet? Ava: With the kids? Ava: I hear that new soft play does a good coffee James: okay Ava: It's one place adults are actually encouraged to chat to each other so it won't be weird to Jay James: as soon as I tell her she doesn't have to put her tutu on, that's all she'll care about Ava: Bless her James: not to mention the bun, that's a war I'm happy to call a ceasefire on Ava: I'll put my hair down Ava: not trigger her 😂 James: just me then 😍 Ava: it's still a date, like Ava: got to keep you on your toes James: can we draw the line at a pirouette though please? I'm very tired Ava: alright, another time 😏 James: tomorrow maybe Ava: you'll feel up to it then? Ava: planning on a 💤 night of sleep James: you said the coffee's good James: if I actually manage to drink it, who knows Ava: Don't you know you're too big for the ball pit? James: that's an outrageous thing to say! after the day I've had, I couldn't deserve a ball pit more James: you've really devastated me there Ava: Okay, okay, I'm sorry Ava: sneaky hold my hand under the balls? Ava: please James: regardless of your apology, I'm gonna have to throw you in James: so yes Ava: 😱 Ava: now that's actually outrageous James: 😏 Ava: 😈 Ava: how you play James: with you Ava: so inappropriate to make me 😳 in soft play James: oh, so you want best behaviour? James: I can do that too Ava: No Ava: never said that Ava: I might like inappropriate James: I also think you might, let's find out Ava: 🥰 Ava: Let's James: Ava James: I seriously don't know what I would do without you James: no, that's wrong actually, I do. I'd be in such a state right now, really drunk or worse James: because it's not talking about it that's the problem James: we have to keep talking about it, okay? James: I have to figure out what I'm going to do Ava: I love you, James Ava: of course we can keep talking, I'm not going to leave you Ava: whatever you need means just that Ava: you will figure it out Ava: You will not lose them, okay, whatever that takes James: but what you need is just as important & if that's ever taking a step back, not talking about it or whatever else, do it Ava: Of course Ava: I will, I'll try James: good, I've already dragged you into this & I refuse to also drag you down Ava: You'll see how hard it is to do that in the ball pit James: 😂 Ava: Not without a fight, ever James: if they don't use that as the film tagline, such a waste Ava: They might want you as lead for that Ava: negotiations are ongoing James: you're the face, it's non-negotiable Ava: 🥺 I wanna kiss your face James: I want to press my lips against every single bit of your skin, all the time Ava: Oh James: there's never enough hours for everything I want to do with you Ava: Making up for all that lost time should be very, very good James: we're going to need days, weeks, months James: I want to give you that Ava: You can promise James: can I? Ava: Yeah Ava: we'll find a way, right? James: I promise you Ava: 💙 Ava: I promise you it'll get better James: of course, there's no crying in the ballpit Ava: not even when I beat you James: hypothetically not even then, but you won't so it's no problem Ava: 😏 that's fighting talk James: yes, it very much is Ava: Don't try to swoon your way to victory Ava: I'm definitely not that easy, nope James: I'm not Mr Darcy James: we can both do better than that James: that said, I am wearing a white shirt Ava: Shame there's not a good lake around James: but we should still go swimming some time Ava: Only if you pick the bikini Ava: tradition now James: of course, I'd hate to break tradition Ava: take you off the alumnus James: & then how would I meet girls Ava: 😲 Ava: Cheek James: that's all it is, I assure you Ava: not a threat then? James: no James: I'm not planning to lose you in the ball pit Ava: Good luck Ava: take more than a subtle hint to get rid of me, babe James: it'd be very bad luck Ava: 🍀 James: how soon can you be there? Ava: it isn't far, is it Ava: 15-20 minutes James: okay Ava: You better show up first so I can tell 'em I'm meeting you Ava: convincing a not-bothered 6-year-old I have an imaginary child is one thing Ava: reception will just be getting 🚨 James: I'll let you know when we do Ava: 👍 Ava: I'm looking forward to it Ava: even if it'll be odd to leave it at a kiss on the cheek James: & very odd for you & Jay to finally be in the same place Ava: Yeah, you sure you're alright with it? Ava: No doubt she'll totally blank me, who wouldn't when faced with the joy of soft play James: obviously it's far from ideal for me or you but Ava: I just wanna see you Ava: I'm fine with it James: I know I should probably care more but I swear, if this day ends without seeing you James: I will actually lose my mind Ava: We're not doing anything wrong Ava: you can't help it if random women talk to you at soft play Ava: have to keep you literally locked up to avoid that so James: It does happen a lot & yet I've so far avoided being chained to the wall Ava: Exactly Ava: not even anything noteworthy Ava: and I'm not gonna like Ava: overstep or be too much with either of the girls, you don't need to worry Ava: I wouldn't do that, or anything you weren't comfortable with James: I'm not worried about that James: I'd never have brought Matty over to your house if I thought it was going to make either of us feel uncomfortable Ava: 'Course Ava: you're a good dad James: but if you do feel anything close to it, with Jay or with anything, just tell me Ava: I will Ava: You're doing this well, you know James: I'm trying to Ava: And if she ever says, you know Ava: she doesn't like me or whatever Ava: then you can tell me and we won't meet when you have to be with them Ava: take it slower Ava: I know it would make it harder but I know they come first and I'm totally cool with that James: you're doing this really well too Ava: I hope so Ava: it's new territory for both of us, all of us Ava: we'll work this out too James: I trust you, Ava Ava: Thank you Ava: you can Ava: I'm not gonna let you down James: but you can, like you said, we're all just trying to get better at being people, aren't we Ava: Yeah, okay Ava: Too cocky? Ava: I'll try really, really hard not to let you down, but no promises Ava: How's that? James: I don't want you to think that me thinking you're perfect means you have to be James: 😇 & 😈 remember, mistakes are what rewrites exist for & I already made mine in trying to let you go James: you're allowed to get it wrong too Ava: I just really don't want to hurt you James: I don't want to hurt you either Ava: as long as we know that, even if we do by accident or whatever Ava: that's better, isn't it Ava: than me leaving you alone James: anything would be better than that James: but yes, especially if we know what we want & don't want James: I'd let you hurt me over & over again if it meant you didn't leave but I know that isn't what you want Ava: Never ever Ava: even thinking about it is making me hurt James: so we're not going to let it happen even hypothetically Ava: only fun hypotheticals James: like the traffic not being horrendous so I get to soft play before the children start a riot James: because we're finally ready to go Ava: That's so hypothetical it borders on a pipe dream but maybe the universe will play fair after the day you've had 🙏🤞 James: so much so that I'm hypothetically considering walking Ava: how many hypothetical stops would you have to make 'cos she wants to look at something or pick something up she shouldn't Ava: Frank can make a ten minute walk take a good thirty, easy James: enough that I could hypothetically catch my breath after all the cigarette breaks I've had today & I might not hypothetically pass out Ava: Just thinking of your health, clearly James: I should quit, again Ava: How long did you manage? James: which time? Ava: 😏 most successful time then James: 6 months maybe Ava: Not to be sniffed at Ava: longer than I've gone and I'm a shameless 'social' smoker as if that's alright James: how long have you managed? Ava: However long between whenever I've been offered one Ava: I've not tried really James: do you want me to not offer you any? Ava: Sounds like you need to catch your breath Ava: take that as you will James: okay Ava: 😊 Ava: Tell me when I need to leave James: [a long enough pause] James: you can leave now, if you'd like Ava: On my way Ava: how strict is your sweet policy? James: arguably not as strict as it should be, but I don't share that hypothetical opinion Ava: I'll stop in the shop on the way Ava: now, do I guess and see how my choice rates or do I cheat and ask you what the faves are Ava: 🤔 James: you heard me say I trust you, right? Ava: Okay, I got this James: I believe it & in you, darling Ava: 😍 you could say that again Ava: if you liked James: I've got no end of faith in you, Ava Ava: Ugh, bye Ava: I've melted James: what I'm hearing is that I'm going to have to pour you into the ball pit? Ava: If you can pick me up off the floor, yes Ava: also what I'm hearing is you want a treat too, noted James: of course I'll pick you up Ava: Actually trying to kill me Ava: I'm trying to walk, like James: if I could carry you over the threshold of this soft play centre, I would Ava: Babe 😩 James: not the time nor the place, understood Ava: Sadly not James: when the filmmaker takes certain liberties with the source material, we'll attempt it then Ava: Directors cut, yeah James: yes Ava: right, 'scuse me whilst I focus Ava: 🍭🍫🍬 important decisions to be made James: you're sweeter than any of it Ava: James James: sorry, you need to concentrate 😶 Ava: 😈 you Ava: but 😇 at the same time Ava: how do you do it? James: how do you? Ava: Touche Ava: maybe we're a good match James: I think we are Ava: What a coincidence Ava: Me too James: 🍀 Ava: [do we wanna end it here and just work out how it goes?] James: [yeah we can do] Ava: [I'm saying she went animal-themed and got her like percy pigs and an animal bar and the animal biscuits etc and got Matty some rusks or something soz baby snacks aren't as fun and then got him some candy cigarettes] James: [we all know that'd go down amazingly well done babe & I'm saying the baby made the loudest sound when she saw her again like oh hey girl] Ava: [that would be so cute] James: [we all know they already like each other] Ava: [lbr you haven't got any competition in Chloe, all you need to do is not be a massive bitch] James: [mhhmmm I'm also saying he let Jay decide what she wanted to wear because she deserves that thank you] Ava: [when you're busy living your best life so I assume you'll be alright even if you're like hello stranger?] James: [she'd be in such a good mood thankfully] Ava: [we all deserve this to be a moment, lads] James: [even if it can't be as much of a moment as you'd both like, keep it sneaky lads] Ava: [🐍[ James: [the self control required after the day they've had and how highkey their emotions are rn] Ava: [truly, at least no adults are there to pick up on what is way more than the vibe] James: [the receptionist been knew but who's she telling] Ava: [lmao imagine the amount of people conducting sneaky affairs she stay in her lane] James: [I bet they would cos their kids could not be more distracted] Ava: [its perfect tbh] James: [100% am throwing her in the ballpit excuse us children] Ava: [must be done] James: [let him be young goddamn it, he was robbed] Ava: [be young and have fun] James: [Jau just talking about soft play constantly for the foreseeable but Chloe none the wiser lol] Ava: [gonna steal your kids and your man 'cos you don't want 'em James: [they gotta come back because not only is it a great cover it'd be a really swag soft play like better than the one Louise always goes to even because posh people] Ava: [remember on scummymummies they said that one did booze lol they've got so fancy] James: [you're missing out Chlo, soz not soz] Ava: [literally no one is soz, not even your baby] James: [the baby should have her tort with her because feels] Ava: [awh yas] James: [no other kids steal it thank you] Ava: [baby fight lmao] James: [I hope not because the mum would be so judgey cos he's young & Ava's even younger] James: [not sorry we all serving looks & living our best lives at this soft play] Ava: [no one shall bring them down rn or I'll brawl] James: [but I do hope Jay's hair is the messiest it's ever been because fuck you chloe] Ava: [i always wonder what chloe is actually doing 'cos like, nothing ever is the tea] James: [truly how much shopping can you do girl] Ava: [waiting for your fairytale in your sham of a life, like] James: [ooh Ava should do something with Jay's hair that she actually likes cos maybe she's getting annoyed at it while she's trying to play & live her best life and James is like pikachu meme what is this witchcraft but she thinks he's like 😧 how dare you for the hottest of secs] Ava: [a mood just like lowkey how dare you but also how teach me lmao] James: [just falling more in love with the bae by the second over here] Ava: [queen of understated and simple shoutout to your mother for that one] James: [yas I've always loved that about Bea] Ava: [the levels of fuss Chloe is is not a mood for anyone] James: [one of many reasons Jay hates you babe] Ava: [those poor kids she ends up having like rip] James: [I hope she only dresses James now when they are going out because lord] Ava: [poor boy not a mood] James: [especially now you got the hottest bae ever] Ava: [nothing you can do to cockblock this honey] James: [she should obvs find the fake profile like immediately though] Ava: [we can do that next] James: [& if she messages it Ava will be able to see what she's like] Ava: [the delight that is, okay letgo]

[drkungfus-customs]

Mtg Custom Card Competition Round 2: Phyrexians on Ixalan

Hello everyone and welcome back to the second week of I and Alyssa's custom card challenge. Just a quick foreword to thank everyone for the warm response we have had to the last round of judging, it is always nice to see people throw feedback back at us for running it. This weeks prompt was provided by Alyssa where participants were asked to present a theoretical Phyrexian corruption of Ixalan. As always submissions were gathered through discord and were judged by myself and Alyssa.

Michael says: So our first submission of the prompt, this card is a powerful reanimation and board control effect stapled onto a phyrexian corrupted dinosaur. However the power level, especially for a rare, is what has me most concerned. The colour pie is fine and the card feels very black, there are no problems in that regard. The part that has me worried is that the reanimation is instant, comes at a low cost, and is a replacement effect. Once Corruptosaurus is on the battlefield, and if itself gets a -1/-1 counter, it becomes almost impossible to deal with as traditional measures such as rest in piece or leyline will do nothing to prevent this effect. Additionally because the return is instantly rather than at the end of turn as with Marchesa, the Black Rose it opens the card up to some silly loops with persist cards or anything that has -1/-1 counters built in.  While the card is slow to distribute -1/-1 counters, their existence on this card implies they exist elsewhere in the set which will make this card much stronger. Especially in limited this card would be a nightmare as -1/-1 effects your opponent controls will be useless against your creatures and your own also feature as a steal effect. In order to make this card feel a little less broken and more fair I would restrict the resurrection to either only your own creatures or only your opponents. The potential value engine of this card seems a little above the curve as-is, especially when considering older formats with access to things like black sun’s zenith. There isn’t a single factor that pushes this card over, its just a confluence of factors that would make this card just not fun to play with and too warping in the limited environment.

Alyssa says: Formatting is mostly fine. The third ability shouldn’t be a replacement effect, because as written it inappropriately uses “return”. (Because the word return requires a card to be in the graveyard, and this replacement effect means that you gain control of the creature instead of it dying, it never enters a zone it can “return” from.) As written now, it resurrects friendly things with -1/-1 counter on them, meaning anything that has a -1/-1 counter either endemic to it (Bloodied Ghost, Grief Tyrant) or has permanent persist can be infinitely looped by it. You’ve accidentally prevented some abuse like Disciple of the Vault and Blood Artist by replacing the death trigger, but you can still benefit immensely from the infinite sacrifice. Furthermore, it just makes immortal creatures.

Balance-wise, it’s doing a bit much. The endemic wither is fine, giving it a way to damage stuff and get it back, and it would tie well in with the third ability like a souped up Necroskitter. The second ability is completely unnecessary, though perhaps more novel. You really only need one of these for the card to be useful for Limited and narrow Constructed applications (which is where this thing feels like it belongs.) It would be so much better if you went with only one of these abilities: I prefer the second one, as the incremental infection-based effect, perhaps through infected bites or claw injuries, seems much more “dinosaur” than a resurrection effect.

Flavor-wise, it’s okay, but it’s a bit bland. It’s a zombie dinosaur that does vague infection stuff. There’s not much of a story to the card, and a bit of flavor text with the space freed up from the above changes would be just dandy. I want to see how it fits in with the set around it, how Ixalan responds to its new apex predators. You have no art credit. We wouldn’t have noticed that “Mr. J” wasn’t an art credit if someone else didn’t use that art and credit it correctly.

Possible improvements:

-          Focus on one of the two passives and cut the other. If you wanted to focus on the incremental blight aspect, then perhaps make it asymmetric and only affect your opponent’s creatures.

-          Fix that malfunctioning third ability if you decide to stick with it.

-          Flavor text never hurts.

-          Drop a reminder text bubble on Wither for easier reading comprehension.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 3/5

Flavor – 2/5

Michael says: This card appears to have a serious flavour issue which really hurts the mechanical execution of the card. The flavour text indicates a phyrexian merger of Ghalta and Etali, something I would expect to have a similar importance as Brisela from Eldritch Moon, however the rest of the card appears to instead by an Ixalani call-back to Phyrexian Obliterator. This card feels like two excellent ideas combined to a less effective whole.

Judging by the perspective of an Obliterator call-back this card feels like a very good way to make a dinosaur version of the card, using enrage as an in theme way of simulating the desired effect. However in this case the card doesn't feel very green at all, outside of the dinosaur tribe and enrage there is nothing mechanical to make this card green. Given the enrage effect is symmetrical and only sacrifices a single land, if you had to keep the green in the mana cost rather than making it BBBB you could probably improve its power and toughness. Additionally if we assume this card is representative of the rest of the set, it is important to note that Wither and Enrage really do not play well in the same environment as wither -1/-1 counters will not trigger any enrage abilities on blocking. I personally would look to replacing wither with another ability, preferably one that is more green to help reinforce the colour requirements.

Again the card isn't particularly bad by any means, but the foremost improvement I would make is replacing the flavour text. The combination of Ghalta and Etali shouldn't be as small as a 5/5, should certainly be a legendary, and should at least cost red. The dissonance of these two ideas harms the card severely.

Alyssa says: Wither shouldn’t be capitalized. In a list of keywords, only the first one is capitalized. When you’re writing quotes in flavor text, make sure you put a shift line break in between the end of the quote and the beginning of the speaker’s name. The card feels barely green at all: in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this as red/black. The only bit that really strikes me as possibly green is the trample, which is secondary in black anyway. Enrage is also really hard to trigger intentionally in black, making abuse of the ability in its two intended colors very difficult.

The enrage ability is beyond busted. I understand you want to reference Phyrexian Obliterator and its extremely powerful on-damage ability, but remember that ability can only be as strong as it is because there’s very few ways for you to abuse it, since the controller of the source sacrifices the permanents. There’s tons of enrage enablers that would allow you to use this to repeatedly Armageddon the board. You may think its symmetry compensates for it, making it a “risk vs reward” play, but if you’re building around it the play will never be symmetrical. If you have one of the many ways to reliably damage this each turn you can just pop every land your opponents play consistently, and you’ll have a giant 5/5 that can wear down literally anything over time provided it doesn’t die. There’s a reason people play Armageddon despite the “this includes your lands” line, and making a repeatable version on top of a strong creature isn’t a good combo.

But it’s the flavor which really grinds my gears. The implication is that the Obliterator is some kind of Brisela-like chimera of Etali and Ghalta… which completely doesn’t gel with the card itself. It’s not legendary, it’s less than half the size of Ghalta, it has none of Etali’s lightning stuff or draw power going on. It looks like a generic compleated dinosaur, which would honestly be completely fine if it weren’t for that flavor text implying this was an amalgam of two of Ixalan’s Elder Dinosaurs. It would be similar to Brisela being, like, a 3/3 Eldrazi with a card draw ability.

Possible improvements:

-          You need to find a way to make it green. Perhaps play on the legendary Phyrexian resilience and have it punish by getting bigger when it takes damage. Or perhaps have it dredge its way out of the graveyard at end of turn if it would die from combat damage. Who knows?

-          Figure out a new enrage ability. This one is ridiculously easy to turn into Armageddons For Ever.

-          Use some new flavor text. If you’re dropping story characters, then you need to reflect their abilities, roles, and legendary status.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 2/5

Flavor – 1/5

Michael says: A compleated Azor is a very interesting concept from a lore perspective, and his card would surely excite players to see printed. This card however I am not sure would accomplish this feat. His mana cost is highly colour intensive meaning he is very difficult to cast in any normal game, therefore I would expect to see a reward equivalent to the effort I put in to cast him. In addition to possessing no built in way to protect himself, his effect feels incredibly weak. While seeing your opponents hand is noteworthy, in the vast majority of games when you cast Azor you are likely to be in the later stages of the game. At this point your opponent has likely already cast most of their hand and if not you are playing against control in which case Azor is never resolving let alone actually attacking. And even if the effect does trigger you are only likely to draw a single card at most given the opponent will play around the effect as much as possible. In order to make this card playable its effect needs to be tuned into a specific niche; given Azor's previous identity as a control piece I would want to see an effect that works well against control to help tie the flavour into the mechanics. I and Alyssa came up with giving him "this card cannot be countered" to help give him an anti-control niche along with changing his effect to be an enter the battlefield trigger. Allowing you to look at an opponents hand, pick a card type, and producing a static draw effect whenever your opponent casts one similar to how Archon of Dawn's Reach is worded we believe would be the best way to give him a specific use worth the extreme mana investment to cast him as well as being more relevant in multiplayer.

Alyssa says: Some small formatting changes. It’s “…look at defending player’s…” rather than “the defending player’s”. You need to add a “Then” before “Choose a nonland card type” to help sequence the effect (basically, so you know you look, then declare.) Make sure you install the M15 Mainframe layout for MSE, so you get the M15 card style, holofoil stamp, legendary crown, flavor bar and text chopping.

Woah, that’s a restrictive mana cost! This gent would be underpowered at 3WUB, so making him six mana of specific colors is a bit too much. I get that it’s acknowledging Azor’s original 2WWUU, but he had two strong abilities, one with instant payoff, that necessitated four color pips. This card doesn’t, and should be priced accordingly. I doubt you’ll ever get value off of his ability. He needs to survive a turn to use it, and by that time you not only have to attack an opponent with a brimming hand, but choose a card type they’ll play loads of. It also only triggers from that player casting that card type, so if Jimmy jams all the enchantments that you just disincentivized Bimmy from playing you dont get any cards. Even so, he doesn’t stop your opponents from comboing off, and the fact it isn’t a “may” means in fringe cases he might mill you out. You might get, like, one card off this guy every two turns, and that’s far too weak. Just play Cloudblazer. This ability isn’t black at all. Becoming Phyrexian doesn’t just jack black onto your mana cost, as New Phyrexia demonstrated, and his vague lockdown/card advantage ability doesn’t do much.

Flavor-wise, I’m not sure what Azor is doing here. He’s evidently compleated, and is doing vague law things, but I just don’t see what the ability is meant to indicate. Does he demand tribute from those who would transgress his twisted law? It just doesn’t have an immediate, strong flavor resonance for me. There is also an Incorrect art credit, which also is already in use. This is the art for Sphinx of the Steel Wind, by Kev Walker, from Alara Reborn. (It’s also one of the five first Mythic Rares! The more you know.)

Possible improvements:

-          Make him 3WUB. Or just make him 4WU. He isn’t strong enough to need all of that color.

-          He needs protection, or a stronger ability to justify the risk. Perhaps make his ability also trigger off entering the battlefield, a la Arashin Foremost. You could also retool it into an effect that names a card type that can’t be played, a la Archon of Valor’s Reach. If you make it stronger, tick up the mana accordingly.

-          Make him scale to multiplayer scenarios.

Grades:

Formatting – 3/5

Function – 2/5

Flavor – 2/5

Michael says: Ok so I really enjoy this card. Its a silly win the game condition with a really crazy activator. These sorts of cards are almost always popular and incentivize weird brews in both the standard environment and in eternal formats. Also I do appreciate the effort you put in to photoshop this yourself, good job on that front. While there is nothing wrong this card in its present incarnation, I think it needs to be improved from where it is now. Phyrexia in general often has an identity of using -1/-1 counters, and so if those exist in the environment it will stop a significant +1/+1 counters theme from being present which would be a key tool making this card workable. In addition while the precedent for win the game effects has been established for the upkeep step this particular card would struggle significantly with such a timing window, as many cards that buff or double power last until end step. If we assume this set cannot use +1/+1 counters the main pathway for this card would be effects that double in power, and therefore I think you can change this effect to an end of turn trigger without much concern over power. If you have a creature with power 40 or greater you are probably winning anyway. In order to avoid confusion with the cleanup step and to improve flavour I would suggest an end of turn trigger where if you attacked with a creature with 40 or more power you win the game.

Alyssa says: You need a comma between “more power” and “you win the game” as they’re two separate clauses. You spelt “versus” wrong, and you want to add a shift line break after the quote finishes before the speaker’s name. Make sure to get the M15 Mainframe card style to add a flavor bar.

Funky, fresh, and Green! The problem is that it’s way too hard to pull off. Placing the win trigger at the beginning of the turn means you need a creature with static power 40 or more, plus instant boosts/abilities, which is really hard because it and the creature both need to survive a full turn to trigger outside of some abstruse circumstances. This just feels like it’s been made too safe out of power level concerns.

I appreciate the need for some counterplay in win conditions, but I feel it’s pretty telegraphed anyway, and if you’re getting the beefy boy that you need to win with this there’s some other enchantments for similar cost that will make your beater so ferocious it’ll probably just win you the game anyway. I feel that it’s perfectly fine to make it an end of turn effect. One variant that we like is for you to attack with a creature with 40 or more power to win the game on the end step, really playing up the flavor of the card.

That flavor is really nice, and I appreciate the photoshop. It’s really cute! I would really prefer to have the artists who made the art you’ve edited credited too (the people who painted Ghalta and Vorinclex.)

Possible improvements:

-          Make it an end of turn effect to better synergise with creature buffs.

-          If you want to keep it at upkeep, add an activated ability that boosts power or whatever. It’s hard to use counters in a Phyrexian set (which is going to be a -1/-1 counter set nearly all the time) but temporary boosts still work.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 4/5

Flavor – 4/5

Michael says: This card I find somewhat disappointing in all honesty. To give credit where it is due the templating is correct, I love the flavour text, and the card works. But it is far too safe, and that safety really hurt the card. This is obviously a call-back to the original Mavren effect, but creating 2/2 horrors with deathtouch instead. This really does impact the card in a few ways. Firstly the tokens you make are not vampires, one of the benefits of the original Mavren is that he did not need to attack, and the tokens he made would fuel his ability further so you could always swing in with a single vampire every turn and remain even on tokens. This Mavren requires a significant amount of other vampires in the deck, or to swing with himself which opens up a lot more vulnerability to the card getting blocked and killed. And this plays into my other concern as well as the creatures have deathtouch instead of lifelink. While a more powerful mechanic it promotes a slower and more defensive playstyle, which conflicts with the precedent of the vampires being the white weenie deck, in addition to meaning that if Mavren does swing it is more likely there will be creatures available to block him. Finally and this is the most important concern, he is a white card that creates deathtouch tokens. Yes he is tied to vampires, a tribe mostly in black, but he needs to have black in the mana cost or otherwise this card is a colour pie break.  

Alyssa says: The formatting is just dandy. The full art is nice, but it does reveal the Legend of the Cryptids watermark and copyright information below, which really takes you out of the card. You also spelled Mavren Fein wrong! It’s a small quibble but it really, really hurts the card’s aesthetics and is something that could be easily fixed with some proofreading. Unless compleation made him shuffle his name around a bit.

This card puzzles me. For one, it’s not remotely white: Mavren Fein does produce tokens but they’re white tokens with lifelink rather than black ones with deathtouch. I don’t like the fact that mono-W can break the color pie and make deathtouch creatures relatively easily with him. For another, unlike Mavren Fein’s initial form which produces aggressive tokens with a keyword that incentivizes combat and attacking each turn, Mavren Fien’s ability produces defensive tokens instead. I’m therefore confused as to what exactly his game plan is: attack in every turn, or hunker down? There’s also balance considerations in that he does make 2/2’s, which is fine perhaps on a multicolored card but a bit much for a monocolored one, especially when it’s a color bend like this.

I also don’t like that it lets token vampires make tokens. Small thing, but the Torrezon vampires traditionally make lots of tokens so I worry that might kick it over. The flavor is fun, if a little lazy. It’s literally just Mavren Fein again, but with a slight change in some knobs. I want to see something a little more exciting.

Possible improvements:

-          Proofread! So close to being perfect.

-          He’d be perfect if he just cost WB. No color breaks there, and a neat compensation for being two colors.

-          Is deathtouch really the best keyword for his token? Possibly look to making the tokens more directly incentivize aggression

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 3/5

Flavor – 3/5

Michael says: Another odd infect card, this time a compleated siren with the ability to steal creatures. Firstly I really, really love that flavour text. Definitely one of the best I've seen in a while from a personal perspective, it resonates just right. My opinion on the mechanics however is that this card is pulling in two directions. Its raid effect wants it to sit back and block attacking creatures to distribute -1/-1 counters, and this would inevitably be very powerful in limited. However on Ixalan I expect to see bigger creatures than normal thanks to all the dinosaurs, which means it can be very difficult at times to block with this creature. The card really wants to both attack to activate the raid safely as well as remain untapped to block incoming attacks. While this dissonance helps to balance what can be a very potent steal effect, it would also make the card very unfun to play as you cant play in the way this card wants to. Yes a board presence and other infect creatures help to mitigate this, but by itself it will not have a good gameplay loop. Additionally this card uses art that already exists on a magic card. I'm not particularly bothered by that but it can lead to a bit of confusion so if you can avoid that it helps.

 Alyssa says: You forgot the “on it” part of “with a -1/-1 counter on it.” You don’t capitalize the “The” in “the Stormwreck Sea”. Otherwise, formatting is good!

I feel mixed things about this card. On the one hand, it’s mechanically sound, on the other I’m not entirely sure how well it will play. It’s a seemingly very powerful trigger, but I worry that its implementation is internally competitive. You want to steal big stuff here, which is good, but as a 1/5 infect on its own you can only steal things that have 4 or less power that attack into Ichorfleet Despoiler. You aren’t going to be taking any Colossal Dreadmaws with this thing. Similarly, anything it can safely block will probably be worthless when you get it: it’ll be out of the way, sure, but I want more for 5 mana. If the surrounding environment supports putting -1/-1 counters onto creatures, then this could have applications, but it’s really, really bad at triggering its own ability and I think that should be taken into account.

I’m always awkward about putting infect onto things. Once again, this exposes another internal competition within the card. Its 1 infect damage means it’s going to kill people at the speed of a Coral Eel, but I don’t like that you’re incentivized to steal your opponent’s stuff, which probably won’t have infect. You want to win in infect by dealing 10 damage as quickly as possible, but because “not having poison counters” isn’t a resource, you don’t really gain much through incremental, slow upticking. If you’re stealing creatures without infect it’s like the damage this deals doesn’t even matter. In effect, it’s kind of like giving this infect has reduced its power to 0. Just give it wither, like several other entrants have twigged.

It’s a good card, but it just doesn’t sit right to me. The potential line of “attack with my dinky infect rat, get blocked by a gigantic dinosaur, play Despoiler main 2 and steal it” is really fun but once you’ve seen it once you’ve seen it all. This is a card that’s so hard to evaluate outside of set context.

The flavor is lovely, but this art is in use! It’s the art for Siren of the Silent Song from Born of the Gods. Reverse image search your images before you use them just to make sure.

Possible improvements:

-          Give it wither, so it can actually attack well.

-          Swap out the art for something that hasn’t been used.

-          Consider making the card better at activating its own abilities, so it doesn’t rely on the context of a set that doesn’t exist.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 3/5

Flavor – 4/5

Michael says: So because of the nature of this card as a goblin piker I am less reviewing the card as I am the mechanic, and to be totally honest I am not super keen. The mechanic is clearly a riff on explore, providing a poison counter instead of a +1/+1 counter. My concern with this kind of mechanic is that it would struggle to exist in an environment with infect already present as they compete with similar design space and infect is often easier to get to 10 counters thanks to how it scales and is repeatable. With this mechanic you would need to trigger it and hit a non-land 10 times to win and that is almost impossible in limited if we assume the mechanic is seeded like explore was in Ixalan. Another issue here is that these poison counters are functionally useless until you hit 10 meaning that there is no real benefit for the first 9, whereas with explore the +1/+1 counters can be supremely relevant to the board. Encroach would need to be significantly pushed in how often you can activate it in order to see any amount of constructed play and in doing so could produce a harmful standard environment as these counters would be more difficult to interact with than creature damage through infect. In addition seeing this effect on a BB goblin piker at uncommon is very below rate, while this effect existed in Ixalan the explore trigger was significant in that it existed on both a 1/2 and a 2/1 while also costing one coloured and one generic mana. This card is seriously underpowered in almost every circumstance except when the opponent is on 9 poison counters and I am unsure as to how the mechanic could be tweaked and still keep the flavour of phyrexia while also working similar to explore.

 Alyssa says: Formatting wise, this is completely fine. It wants to be a Soldier, though. Or perhaps a Horror, with appropriate art?

Mechanically, I don’t really have that much to say. Encroach is a very weak ability because it really doesn’t do anything to alter the game state aside from when your opponent has nine poison, which, if that is only being spread through encroach, means the first nine activations that don’t hit a land basically do nothing. With explore, both times you’re getting something, whether that’s a land card or a counter plus a surveil, but with the Conquistador you just give a worthless poison counter. It also feels very lackluster as a concept. It’s literally just explore, but with a tinge of Phyrexian spice that ironically makes it weaker. I can’t think of a set that would want this as one of its 3.5 mechanics. The card wants to be 1B rather than BB. For BB you’re getting a 2/2, or perhaps a 3/2, with that basic effect, especially at uncommon.

A big problem I have is that it’s ripped wholesale from Vraska’s Conquistador, which is also a black uncommon 2 mana 2/1 Vampire with the same art (which you didn’t credit, by the by.) There’s nothing spooky or Phyrexian about the art that tells me that this thing is encroaching on Ixalan, and there’s no flavor either. It just feels like it was slapped together in a couple minutes from Vraska’s Conquistador, even down to the name, with a mechanic that’s just Explore covered in Phyrexian graffiti.

Possible improvements:

-          It needs to be overhauled from the top.

-          Encroach needs some genuine thought to turn it into an incremental poison/value generation mechanic, with a benefit on top of just giving them a single poison counter.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 2/5

Flavor – 1/5

And finally we have our winner for this week:

Michael says: This is a safe design, but I think it checks a lot of boxes for a good call back design while still having its own unique effect. Here the original value engine of kumena is replaced with an infect strategy which supports itself through a token creation ability that also possess infect. I also enjoy how in order to fuel his unblockability, it requires a sacrifice instead of just tapping merfolk, an elegant way of powering down the card in a very flavourful way thanks to the addition of black to his mana cost. While infect can be scary I think the limiters on dealing combat damage to players to trigger the token making definitely helps to mitigate the potential of the card. In order to break this card you would need a lot of tribal investment and synergies, which means he would probably make a strong commander but his standard impact can be well measured. In addition to this the formatting has no problems and the art was well picked for this card. Honestly it makes me sad I cant say much more about this card, its just a really good example of linking old and new flavour. The power level may be a bit suspect but I think it is correct to err on the side of caution for infect cards, especially with built in evasion.

Alyssa says: The formatting is superb. You even got the rules for multiple instances of a legendary creature’s name in a text box right! I also appreciate that you provided the token it produces.

I always get leery of infect, but I can honestly see it working here. The stats are about right (considering it attacks players as a 4/4) especially for a 3-color legendary creature. It’s not Boltable, but it has no inbuilt protection, which I feel compensates. The combat damage trigger is a little uninspired, and perhaps a little weak. I’d like to see something sexier, maybe a card draw? I can’t help but look at Phyrexian Swarmlord as a point of comparison. But I suppose incremental infect production is a decent enough compensation. Either way, I feel it’s a good implementation of infect on a creature that is its own game plan.

You could probably dink the sacrifice condition for his unblockability down to two merfolk. Going in on a -3 to then get, I dunno, Divine Arrowed or whatever is really sad. I like it being free on mana but high on card disadvantage to really sneak infect hits through.

Flavorwise, he’s a real treat. Lovely to see a Phyrexian card with a bit of personality, especially with him being all shouty up in the card art. Flavor text is actually unnecessary on this, in my opinion. His charisma and influence is demonstrated by the Merfolk he summons, his cruelty by how quickly he disposes of them for his own benefit. It’s a shame he’s not a Zombie too but the typeline is packed to the gills (ha) already.

Possible improvements:

-          I want to see either the combat damage trigger a bit sexier or the unblockability trigger a little cheaper.

Grades:

Formatting – 5/5

Function – 4/5

Flavor – 5/5

So thank you to everyone who submitted a card and to Hyperviper for his winning design of Kumena, the Tainted Tyrant. As always feedback on this would be greatly appreciated and hopefully the next prompt should be provided shortly.

 As a bonus please see our take on the prompt with Azor the Mad, unable to intervene in the conflict thanks to his oath limiting simply to providing a passive sanctuary on Useless Island.

[robwilsonimages]

Critical Reading in Practice

Robert Wilson

Blog Post 4

13th November 2019

Critical reading and analysis is a key feature of any programme of study. This post features my analysis of part one of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida.

An Analysis of Roland Barthes – Camera Lucida, part one

Camera Lucida: the studium and the punctum

Camera Lucida (Barthes, 1980) is a seminal text within photography; it permeates theory at every level and across disciplines. Brian Dillan writing in The Guardian (2011) describes it as, ‘… a distinctly odd volume to have attained, in the 30 years since its publication, such a canonical place in the study of photography.’ For the photography student, it is unavoidable. A search on Google Scholar reveals over 14,000 results. It is for this importance and ubiquity that this text has been selected for analysis.

The analysis here will concern itself most with part one of Camera Lucida. The section deals primarily with two ideas still seen as critical to photography analysis today; these are the concepts of studium and punctum. Barthes notes that there are elements in photographs that catch his attention (pp. 23-24). It is these elements which cause him to formulate the studium as an

‘…application to a thing, taste for someone, a kind of general, enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without special acuity.’ (p. 26)

and the punctum as

‘… this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me.’ (p. 26).

These elements provide the tools to analyse an image. For Barthes, it is the punctum which separates the image from the mundane. Fried (2005, p. 545) and La Grange (2005, pp. 84-85) emphasises the ‘involuntary’ or ‘accidental’ nature of the punctum. La Grange goes on to describe Barthes rejection of a Bruce Gilden image where nuns are deliberately juxtaposed alongside transgender individuals as unsophisticated. 

Current views

We have entered what can be described as a post-photography age, a passing marked by the transition from traditional analogy images to digital. Despite this, Shurkus (2014) notes that the punctum is still important in photography today. It is an enduring concept even in a changed photographic world.

However, whilst Camera Lucida, studium and punctum are ubiquitous in photography academia, not every commentator concurs with regards to its continued value as a tool of analysis. Tolonen states that it

‘… describes an experience of photography that is wedded to the past; it describes little about contemporary, commonplace experiences of photography, which are largely incorporated around practices of identity and consumption where death, mourning and loss are anathema, and discounts the multiple platforms that allow the image plague to continue unabated.’ (2012, p. 329)

Sentilles (2010) makes a curious analysis of Barthes’s use of ‘theological language’ in the book. She notes that,

‘The meditative stance expressed by Barthes is not an adequate response to photographs, in particular, to photographs of suffering…’ (p. 528).

She goes on to argue that this apparent inadequacy offers an opportunity for theology, specifically Christian, to contribute to photography culture and theory (p. 529)

These criticisms raise the critical question with regards to Camera Lucida: does it still have value in today’s environment where we are overwhelmed by images on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other such social media?

 Is Barthes still valid?

Barthes produced his theory after studying and analysing photography as a spectator (Barthes, p. 9) of pre-digital images, rather than as a photographer, well before the arrivals of Tolonen’s ‘image plague’. Does this mean the end of the validity of punctum and studium as useful analytical devices? A cursory examination of Instagram, the most popular image sharing website, does reveal this ‘image plague’ where overwhelmingly the images are derivative, repetitious, and meaningless; they are also generally digitally manipulated and edited.

It is important to note that modern digital manipulation does not preclude the spectator from applying Barthes’s tools. As Manovich (2003, p. 245) states,

‘Digital technology does not subvert “normal” photography because “normal” photography never existed.’

Photographers have been manipulating their images throughout history: one only needs to compare early and later prints of Ansel Adams’s Moon and Half-Dome. Equally, a stray hand that was present in the negative of Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother has been removed from most prints of this mythologised image. There seems no good reason for manipulation as a reason to reject Barthes.

Dorothea Lange – Migrant Mother, 1936 (Note the hand in the lower right of this version.)

More importantly, it can even be argued that the ‘image plague’ supports and strengthens the validity of punctum and studium. A vast number of these image are superficially attractive and have a ‘general, enthusiastic commitment’, but there is nothing to ‘pierce’ the spectator (Barthes, p. 26); they satisfy Barthes’s very definitions. Applying his terms demonstrates the disposable nature of these photographs. It allows us to reject the overwhelming majority of these images as only containing studium. (It is perhaps questionable whether most Instagram images even feature studium.)

An issue with the ‘involuntary’ nature of the punctum does arise when analysing the tableau photography of artists such as Gregory Crewdson and Yinka Shonibare. For example, Shonibare’s satirical series Diary of a Victorian, which Cotton (2014, p. 56) describes as an ‘obvious reference’ to The Rake’s Progress, is full of elements that should ‘pierce’ the spectator and meet the definition of punctum. Yet, everything in the image is intentional.

Yinke Shonibare – The Diary of a Victorian Dandy 1900hrs, 1998

Therefore, we must recognise that the unintentionality required by Barthes’s punctum is a weakness when viewing and analysing tableau photography. However, this does not render the paradigm worthless. The overwhelming majority of photography that we see is not of this nature and Barthes’s framework can still be applied. It does suggest that perhaps the definition of punctum could be broadened to include the appearance of unintentionality.

Still useful after all these years

That Barthes’s concepts are still discussed, written about, and used almost forty years after the publication of Camera Lucida suggests that the book and its ideas are still valid for photography theory. It may be, as suggested above, that the definition of punctum needs to be expanded in the light of modern art photography, but as Geoffrey Batchen (2008, p. 88) states in his discussion of Camera Lucida as a history of photograph, it ‘remains a good place from which to begin’.

   References

Barthes, R. (1980). Camera Lucida. 2010 ed. New York: Hill and Wang.

Batchen, G. (2008). Camera Lucida: Another Little History of Photography. In: R. Kelsey & B. Stimson, eds. The Meaning of Photography. Williamstown: Sterling and Francine Clerk Art Institute, pp. 76-91.

Cotton, C. (2014). The Photograph as Contemporary Art. 3rd ed. London: Thomas and Hudson.

Dillan, B. (2011). The Guardian. [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/mar/26/roland-barthes-camera-lucida-rereading [Accessed 13 11 2019].

Fried, M. (2005). Barthes's Punctum. Critical Inquiry, 31(3), pp. 539-574.

La Grange, A. (2005). Basic Critical Theory for Photographers. 1st ed. Jordan Hill: Routledge.

Manovich, L. (2003). The Paradoxes of Digital Photography. In: L. Wells, ed. The Photography Reader. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 240-249.

Sentilles, S. (2010). The Photograph as Mystery: Theological Language and Ethical Looking in Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida. The Journal of Religion, 90(4), pp. 507-529.

Shurkus, M. (2014). Camera Lucida and Affect: Beyond representation. Photographies, 7(1), pp. 67-83.

Tolonen, J. (2012). Photography degree zero: reflections on Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida. Continuum, 26(2), pp. 327-330.

[monstrousthingsrp]

Time Period Quick Reference:

Courtesy the lovely Erin (@incre-et-painture) we now have a handy-dandy little reference to help us all “flow with the times” without having to struggle between either spending precious time researching or winging it and hoping for the best! She actually lived in England during the period in which our game is set, so if you have additional questions about the setting she’ll be happy to help you out--

Although keep in mind that this is an alternate universe. As such, specific individual facts and historical events may be different. So don’t worry about getting bogged-down in the details; after all, this is a world in which The Cold War was replaced by The Worldwide Witchunt Wars. There probably was no Cuban Missile Crisis; there may not have even been a Space Race! We’ve left particular historical details vague enough that we can tailor them to suit whatever plot-points we all decide to develop.

So just as with the timeline, view the following as a reference guideline, not a checklist to obey!

Technology:

This is probably the most important one for us, as unlike most Potterverse games we’re actually playing in a world where your character very well might have access to the sort of technology that we take for granted in our current lives -- albeit several generations older than what we’ve got on hand now!

Most computers operate using ethernet cords to connect to the internet, laptops weigh an extremely portable 52 pounds, basically, and camera phones are cutting edge technology. The pictures taken with them are notoriously grainy at this stage and definitely not the crystal clear video we’re used to.

Most mobile phones operate on a “top up” method where you pay for minutes. They’re called track phones in the U.K. Also, most people are paying per text message sent, but it’s still a popular method of communication. You can top up your minutes in most convenience stores and by calling into your provider’s number. There aren’t any smartphones, apps, and other things like that. Public payphones still exist, although they are fading out by this point.

Travel is done by taxi, bus, and tube. Lyft and Uber do not exist. Londoners love the Tube and definitely travel that way frequently. For frequent travelers, Oyster cards are refillable cards that are similar to the Metro cards we use in the US. In fact, 2004 was the first year that Oyster cards existed. They can also be used on the bus and train, but not on taxis.

Please also remember that trains are a popular method of travel for Europeans. They’re also very reliable and a great way to get around. (As for whether people would be comfortable sharing a carriage with someone who’s got stars by their eyes, well...)

Pop Culture: Sport

As much as it breaks my heart, Manchester United won the FA cup in 2004. (Mod Note: her Erin, maybe in this messed-up world West Ham isn’t a total lost cause? I mean, sport doesn’t have to have happened the same as it did in reality, and we’ve got so many crazy things going on here already -- wealthy Weasleys, werewolf-friendly Blacks, a living Regulus...stranger things could happen, right?)

For those of you interested in talking football, here are the league tables for that season. Please keep in mind that different teams are in different leagues so, if your character follows a team, make sure you know who they play. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004%E2%80%9305_Football_League

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004%E2%80%9305_FA_Premier_League

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004%E2%80%9305_Football_League_Championship

Pop Culture: Telly

The Television lineup in Britain in real 2004-2005 contained the shows:

Little Britain

Spooks

Eastenders

Still Game

Dr. Who (the new series had just started, but the reruns were still extremely popular and well-loved by a majority of British people)

Casualty

The Doctors

Holby City

River City

Blue Peter

Strictly Come Dancing

And news is broadcast on the BBC News

For a comprehensive list, please see this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_programmes_broadcast_by_the_BBC

Please pay attention to the years listed for each program to make sure that it’s applicable...and feel free to make up shows of your own that might exist in this reality! Just keep in mind that TV in England was a much smaller, lower-budget, more contained entity than the overwhelming glut of channels going on in America.

Pop Culture: Music

This will be a painful trip for some of us. After all, I think we’d probably all rather forget that Kelis ever proclaimed that her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. However, it’s a sad fact that she did, and this is the time when it happened!

Now again, we are living in an alternate reality here, so feel free to make up other songs and singers and groups -- both mundane and magical; maybe the Weird Sisters and Celestina Warbeck don’t exist here (and maybe they do) but there are surely still some magical musicians (maybe some taking advantage of the “dangerous” aura their magic grants them, while others might try and downplay it) so please, let your imaginations run wild! Maybe this Brittany Spears never sang Toxic but rather Cursed...maybe this Goldie Lookin Chain wrote Wands Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do. Who knows, have fun! The following list is for reference so that you know what kind of music and what kind of bands (probably) exist in this world and this time. And, maybe, to give you all a trip -- pleasant or otherwise -- down nostalgia lane. Enjoy!

Here are the Top 100 Songs of 2004 in the UK:

01 Eamon ~ F**k It (I Don't Want You Back)

02 Eric Prydz ~ Call On Me

03 Anastacia ~ Left Outside Alone

04 DJ Casper ~ Cha Cha Slide

05 Usher featuring Lil' Jon & Ludacris ~ Yeah!

06 Frankee ~ FURB (F U Right Back)

07 Kelis ~ Milkshake

08 Mario Winans featuring Enya & P Diddy ~ I Don't Wanna Know

09 3 Of A Kind ~ Baby Cakes

10 Michelle McManus ~ All This Time

11 Britney Spears ~ Everytime

12 Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules ~ Mad World

13 Destiny's Child ~ Lose My Breath

14 The Shapeshifters ~ Lola's Theme

15 Outkast ~ Hey Ya!

16 LMC vs U2 ~ Take Me To The Clouds Above

17 O-Zone ~ Dragostea Din Tei

18 The Streets ~ Dry Your Eyes

19 Busted ~ Thunderbirds / 3AM

20 Usher ~ Burn

21 Britney Spears ~ Toxic

22 Natasha Bedingfield ~ These Words

23 Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne ~ Changes

24 Boogie Pimps ~ Somebody To Love

25 Kelis ~ Trick Me

26 The Rasmus ~ In The Shadows

27 Band Aid 20 ~ Do They Know It's Christmas?

28 Nelly ~ My Place / Flap Your Wings

29 D12 ~ My Band

30 McFly ~ 5 Colours In Her Hair

31 Girls Aloud ~ I'll Stand By You

32 Cassidy featuring R Kelly ~ Hotel

33 Jamelia ~ Thank You

34 Peter Andre ~ Mysterious Girl

35 Maroon 5 ~ This Love

36 Eminem ~ Just Lose It

37 Rachel Stevens ~ Some Girls

38 Khia ~ My Neck My Back (Lick It)

39 Christina Milian ~ Dip It Low

40 McFly ~ Obviously

41 JoJo ~ Leave (Get Out)

42 Deep Dish ~ Flashdance

43 Lemar ~ If There's Any Justice

44 J-Kwon ~ Tipsy

45 Will Young ~ Leave Right Now

46 Sean Paul featuring Sasha ~ I'm Still In Love With You

47 Brian McFadden ~ Real To Me

48 Girls Aloud ~ Love Machine

49 Katie Melua ~ The Closest Thing To Crazy

50 2Play featuring Raghav & Jucxi ~ So Confused

51 Twista ~ Sunshine

52 Sam & Mark ~ With A Little Help From My Friends / Measure Of A Man

53 Robbie Williams ~ Radio

54 Blue ~ Breathe Easy

55 The Black Eyed Peas ~ Shut Up

56 Twista ~ Slow Jamz

57 Busted ~ Who's David

58 Ice Cube featuring Mack 10 & Ms Toi ~ You Can Do It

59 U2 ~ Vertigo

60 Girls Aloud ~ The Show

61 N*E*R*D ~ She Wants To Move

62 Christina Aguilera featuring Missy Elliott ~ Car Wash

63 Nina Sky ~ Move Ya Body

64 Anastacia ~ Sick And Tired

65 Maroon 5 ~ She Will Be Loved

66 Ja Rule featuring R Kelly & Ashanti ~ Wonderful

67 Goldie Lookin Chain ~ Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do

68 The 411 ~ Dumb

69 Usher ~ Confessions Part II / My Boo

70 Special D ~ Come With Me

71 Kelis featuring Andre 3000 ~ Millionaire

72 Keane ~ Somewhere Only We Know

73 Duncan James & Keedie ~ I Believe My Heart

74 Jamelia ~ See It In A Boy's Eyes

75 Natasha Bedingfield ~ Single

76 The 411 featuring Ghostface Killah ~ On My Knees

77 Franz Ferdinand ~ Take Me Out

78 Gwen Stefani ~ What You Waiting For?

79 Basement Jaxx featuring Lisa Kekaula ~ Good Luck

80 George Michael ~ Amazing

81 D12 ~ How Come

82 Kylie Minogue ~ I Believe In You

83 4-4-2 ~ Come On England

84 Jay Sean featuring The Rishi Rich Project ~ Eyes On You

85 Avril Lavigne ~ My Happy Ending

86 Rachel Stevens ~ More More More

87 Enrique featuring Kelis ~ Not In Love

88 Ultrabeat ~ Feelin' Fine

89 Jennifer Lopez ~ Baby I Love U

90 Green Day ~ American Idiot

91 The Streets ~ Fit But You Know It

92 Sugababes ~ Too Lost In You

93 Victoria Beckham ~ This Groove / Let Your Head Go

94 Ronan Keating ~ She Believes (In Me)

95 Shaznay Lewis ~ Never Felt Like This Before

96 Britney Spears ~ My Prerogative

97 Ashlee Simpson ~ Pieces Of Me

98 Busted ~ Air Hostess

99 Outkast featuring Sleepy Brown ~ The Way You Move

100 The Black Eyed Peas ~ Hey Mama

For the rest of 2004 in music in the real world, please go to this wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_in_British_music_charts

Random Stuff:

Since the standard closing time for a pub is 11 PM, that’s when “Needles” closes. There are after-hours nightclubs, and people probably go to them, but Needles does its last call at 10:45.

Prostitution is not illegal in Britain, but running a brothel is. Basically, a person can sell themselves, but you can’t sell other people. (I just feel like this is useful information.)

Gun Control Laws had banned both automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Rifles were still allowed for those with hunting permits.

Courtesy Millie @theinvisibleboi: 2004 is also the year Facebook launched (although at that point it would have still been restricted to school e-mail accounts) and the Olympics were held in Athens, in case anyone wanted to feel old! (Probably wix would not be allowed to compete...but if anyone wants to create some kind of controversial Olympics history or event for this world, or otherwise alter history to conform to to AU, please feel free!)

Again, please use this wonderful collection of data that Erin has so helpfully provided us with for as general reference, not uncompromising and stone-set facts that you must know, utilize, and memorize! None of us are expert historians and unless you do something really obvious like reference an iPhone or One Direction, we aren’t going to call you out on it -- especially when an “error” might just be a difference between this world and our own. This is just to help you get in the “vibe” of the time period, not information that you’ll be tested on later. So don’t panic, stay loose, and feel free to get creative!

Thanks once more to Erin for putting this together for all of us, and remember that if you have questions about anything else regarding England in 2005, please feel free to message her and she’ll help out as best she can!

[themachineinspace]

What are your thoughts on the trans/non-binary community? Do you accept their place in the LGBT community? I’m not trying to start anything I’m just a curious lesbian.

Yo, don’t worry- I never assume anyone is trying to start anything haha. :D

So first off, sorry for the late response anon!! I have loads of schoolwork as a college student, and since I also work part-time to pay for college and help out at home, that doesnt leave a lot of time for social media stuff.

Yo, don’t worry- I never assume anyone is trying to start anything haha. :D

The T in the LGBT acronym does stand for Trans, yeah. I’m guessing non-binary people are considered trans as well?

If you’re asking for my personal opinion:

In the last few years, I’ve started to experience a different “trans community” than I’m used to, and I can’t say I’m fond of it. D: As a kid, the few trans people I knew transitioned because of dysphoria related to their sexed bodies, and were just living their lives. That was my entire understanding of the T in the LGBT acronym- people who had pressing dysphoria related to their bodies and were going to harm themselves if they couldn’t get rid of their body’s sexed characteristics. For this reason, they were put on hormone treatment in anticipation of surgical intervention, and giving therapeutic treatment if possible, so they could get back to their lives afterwards.

Lately, the people I’ve met online, at the LGBT center where I used to volunteer, and even at regular meet-up groups, have been completely different. (Yes, I know trans people aren’t all the same, but keep reading and I’ll clarify what I mean. I’m not the best with words tbh.)

It used to be about “dysphoria”, and now it’s about “gender euphoria” and what someone has always wanted to be, and thinks they’d fit into the best. And that’s iffy. Because a lot of these people who don’t have dysphoria, are transitioning to fit in better, and to be able to do the things they didn’t think they could do before (why couldn’t they do them before? Because gender roles exist in our society, and sexism hasn’t been eradicted yet. :/ We’re working on it!) This would be all fine and dandy, if it didn’t negatively affect both women’s rights movements ánd homosexuality. :(

The transgender movement used to be made up out of good people who wanted to get better rights for their own- no more housing discrimination, removal of the trans panic defense, a law that stops people from firing those who are gender non-conforming (this is where women’s rights and the transgender movement found a common goal), etc. Right now, the forefront of the transgender movement isn’t represented by any of these people anymore- they’ve been shoved to the back in favour of people like Eli Erlick, Julia Serano, and Riley J Dennis. These people aren’t good people.

Suddenly, it’s not about trying to make sure that trans people are safe, and getting to live their lives and just y know getting some normalcy?? but all about changing medical terminology, calling feminists ’TERFs’ for not centering people who literally have never suffered from sex-based oppression, and pretending that homosexuality doesn’t exist and we’re all attracted to ’gender identity’ instead. It makes zero sense, and is just making life harder for regular trans people who have dysphoria and just want to live normal lives and stuff.

(I also don’t agree with the conservative stance of ’male brains’ and ’female brains’- it’s sexist, and scientifically incorrect. Whatever the cause of dysphoria might be, it is not the fact that someone has the wrong sex brain. Y know who came up with the male / female brains thing? Conservatives. They also think that gay men are just pedophiles, and lesbians are creepy predators.)

It’s also really, really tiring to have to listen to people talking over me on women’s issues, and calling me ’privileged’ for having a body that think they should’ve had. It isn’t my fault that someone wasn’t born with the body they want. If you have to transition to alleviate your dysphoria, and you want to, do so! You’re legally allowed to, and if you’re an adult, people are going to assume you know what you’re doing. But transitioning doesn’t give someone a free-pass to talk about issues that they have no knowledge of. It also doesn’t give someone a free-pass to re-define womanhood or homosexuality because they don’t fit into it. That’s called going out of your lane..

As for the non-binary community- I get along with most nb invididuals, but I find the overarching “community” kind of confusing?? I’m told it isn’t about gender roles, but the signs of being non-binary are all related to gender roles and I’ve yet to meet a non-binary person who could explain their gender to me without falling back onto them. I’m fine with that. It doesn’t bother me to have nb friends, or to not understand why they consider themselves a different gender than me, despite us having the exact same traits. People are different, whatever!

What does bother me is being misgendered at the place I used to volunteer (LGBT center) because I came in wearing a hoodie, and never wear make-up. What bothers me is being told that I would make a “good trans man” or being constantly questioned on my gender by AMAB people who think I’m not “feminine and submissive” enough to be a woman. I don’t dislike the non-binary community, but I dislike the notion that gender roles define someone’s sex, and that the discription of being non-binary is basically equal to that of being gender non-conforming. It used to be a good thing to fight gender roles so you could be yourself and just do you- but right now, in the LGBT community, it isn’t.

So do I think there’s a space of transgender and non-binary people in the LGBT community? Yeah, of course. Do I think the gay right’s movement and the transgender right’s movement are still fighting for the same things? No. I think the trans community needs to outright reject their current spokespeople, and elect better ones. I think that apologies need to be made, and that everything needs to be clarified. I also think they need to apologize to the black community for constantly likening being trans to being black in america, and other poc since all these so-called “proofs of non-binary genders in the middle east” are not actually genders, but just ways to discriminate against feminine gay men in muslim countries. White people need to stop naming other cultures as proof of their “non-binary” stuff. 

I’d never disrespect someone just because they’re trans, or gay, or bi, but I expect the same respect in return basically.