#but making a card to counter one specific mechanic is both weak and kinda mean

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than committing violent crimes

Another fun coincidence, I just made a pair of kill spells for a weekly card design contest!

[radramblog]

Midnight Hunt Commanders (and Midnight Hunt Commander)

Another month, another new set release. This time: Innistrad 3 Part 1, Midsommar edition. I’m sure you’ve read all the jokes at this point.

Still, though, I like running through cards like this. I’ve heard some podcasters and other content creators lament the accelerating release pace because it means you only get to do so much “normal” content between set review stuff. But I like set review stuff! One of the handful of upsides of the hypercapitalist nightmare that is WoTC under Hasbro.

Anyway here’s some spooky things you can put in charge of a scary deck.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

While being strictly inferior to Adeline from Kirby, this card is a surprisingly aggressive beater. She’s going to be attacking for 4 commander damage on turn 4, and that’s assuming no ramp or other creatures on the board. Sure, those tokens are probably going to bite it, but that’s something you can take advantage of! Also, curving her into Cathar’s Crusade is both flavourful and also terrifying. White Token Aggro is far from a new concept, but Adeline is quite the efficient example of the trope.

 Lier, Disciple of the Drowned

I cannot imagine that many people playing this as the commander. The number one thing you’re going to want to flashback in mono-blue is counterspells, which this card turns off. Sure, there’s some funky things you can do with slow blink effects, but that’s a lot of work for an extra Cancel. With that said, this is going to be in the 99 of so many decks, so I wouldn’t feel bad for Lier.

 Gisa, Glorious Ressurector

I guess we’re seeing Geralf in the next set? Gisa is super cool- I’m not huge on just having a hate piece in the command zone, but Gisa justifies it by giving you a bunch of value. I’m not sure how I feel about Decayed as a mechanic, but flavour-wise it works really well, and considering how much you can get out of an ETB or just one attack in this format, she’s probably not complaining. I think you really need a haste effect to get the most out of her, though. But she’s cool as heck, another sick card for everybody’s favourite small zombie goth GF.

 Gorex, the Tombshell

Gorex is interesting, as a pseudo-delve threat that slowly regains the value you put into it, and it is also a giant zombie turtle. On the other hand, it’s not especially interesting. I feel like a lot of these “lieutenant” creatures are really hit or miss, and I’m afraid to say I think this one’s the latter. You can’t even play it with Meandering Towershell!

 Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia

This just kinda feels like a waste of a legendary slot. It’s somewhere between Ophiomancer and Dreadhorde Invasion, but significantly worse than both, and you want to put this in the zone? It’s kind of disappointing, especially considering this dude has been on flavour text since the original Innistrad block. Which was 10 years ago.

 Jerren, Corrupted Bishop / Ormendahl, the Corrupter

As much as I love Westvale Abbey, the condition to flip Jerren is so utterly specific that I’m not going to bother considering it, so we kind of just have to ignore Ormendahl, powerful as he is. And Jerren isn’t much to write home about either. He wants to be in charge of a Humans deck, clearly, but there’s not really much to support that at all. Like, Xathrid Necromancer and Village Cannibals I guess? Probably taking the pass on this one.

Man there were 4 whole Mono-Black commanders in this one and like one of them is interesting. Gisa’s carrying the colour on her back this time around.

 Kurbis, Harvest Celebrant

Kurbis is…eh. The thing with your big +1/+1 counter threats is that damage isn’t usually the thing taking them out, so they’d work better in a deck that tries to distribute the counters more evenly. But then, in order to get much from Kurbis, you’re going to need to shrink them a lot…I honestly can’t see playing this in either maindeck or command zone. It just doesn’t do enough. I do like the “counters equal to mana spent” text on cards like this, at least.

 Saryth, the Viper’s Fang

Another 99er. Lot of those this time. Saryth is a great if somewhat awkward way to both abuse and protect things like Circle of Dreams Druid or Faeburrow Elder, or just as another Thousand-Year Elixir for commanders that like tap abilities. But I cannot imagine building this as a commander.

By the way, we’re done with all of the monocoloured commanders. And only 1/3rd of the way through all the cards. I know multicolour is more popular, but this set is kind of dire for those types of decks.

 Dennick, Pious Apprentice / Dennick, Pious Apparition

This feels a lot like a fixed Temmet (since the back half gets to deal commander damage) but with a different flavour. He is a card you can get a lot of value from for fairly cheap, seeing as you only pay the tax half the times you’re casting him, and the abilities on both sides are solid enough. I’m not inspired by this commander in basically any way, but he’s pretty much decent on either side and with how cheap he is you could kinda just build the deck however. Sure?

 Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth

Finally, a commander for the 6 Surveil Matters cards that were in GRN, which admittedly is more than I was expecting. Eloise is both a solid value engine for sacrifice-y decks that only really have had one Dimir commander in the past (that being Kels), and the trigger on the second ability is surprisingly flexible- it’s clearly meant to work with the Clue tokens she makes and the Decayed tokens from the precon, but it works great with Eldrazi Spawn, Treasures, and any other token creatures you’re deciding to churn through for value. The consistency and efficiency this adds to these kinds of decks is super sweet, and I’ve just checked EDHREC and literally nobody has built her. That is shocking to me, frankly, but I’m sure that’ll change.

 Ludevic, Necrogenius / Olag, Ludevic’s Hubris

I heard y’all wanted a new Ludevic since the old one’s terrible? Fuck you he’s dead now. Ludevic’s front face is extremely uninspired, but the real commander is on the back side- he does at least enable the strategy. Olag is, unfortunately, kind of just a worse Mimeoplasm, something I have a lot of experience with seeing as I have a Mimeoplasm deck. It’s actually not cheaper, seeing as Ludevic is minimum 2+5 versus Mimeo’s 5, and you don’t get to play Green so that’s also worse for you. It does start as a 4/4 base, but you’re not getting smaller than that very often with Mimeoplasm, and unlike that card Olag can’t be used as graveyard hate. Exiling cards from your own graveyard in a graveyard deck feels terrible. The long and short of this is just…play Mimeoplasm. They’re underrated these days.

 Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver

The first line of text on this dude is super flavourful, I really like the idea of this legion that just keeps getting back up. The second line of text is also really good, seeing as it works with either part of the first half and it generates value in what will be a board-based deck. And while it’s not exactly wrath protection, it does at least give you a pile of bodies for when you do get wrathed, ready to dogpile the guy that dared wipe your board. I’m always hesitant about precon face commanders, because they’re always a little too pushed for my liking, but I really don’t think Wilhelt is fuckbusted- just a very solid commander to helm a solid archetype.

 Florian, Voldaren Scion

Excuse me, what the fuck is this Vampire doing in my Werewolf set? Get this shit out of here. Florian is an aberration, and also a frustratingly boring one. He takes significant deckbuilding effort to be good, and even then best case scenario it’s an exile-draw impulse once per turn cycle. Rakdos was doing real well for a while, and probably will keep doing well in future considering the next set coming up, so this is a bit of a disappointment.

 Tovolar, Dire Overlord / Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge

I’ve already spent a bunch of time discussing Werewolves in EDH, so I’ll try to keep this brief. Tovolar is the epitome of “fine, here you go”. He’s a powerful Werewolf commander that compensates for the tribe’s weaknesses, gives you card advantage, and echoes an iconic card from the past. He is unquestionably the best Werewolf to helm your deck of the three total real options. I still kinda think you want Naya for this tribe, but if you don’t want to compromise on synergy or lose this effect (and to be fair it’s a lot) then here he is. It’s hard not to be cynical, seeing as I was one of the people fucking pissed at how nothing Ulrich was, but at least he exists now.

Maybe give us another one in Crimson Vow, WoTC?

 Katilda, Dawnhart Prime

This is kind of interesting, a proper Human tribal commander for GW. Now, unlike previous, where your options were Sigarda 2 in GW (which isn’t very good) and some other stuff like the Kudros for other colour combinations, Midnight Hunt has a couple new options for this exact deck, but at the very least they all do it a little differently. Katilda is effectively a second Cryptolith Rite, but one that gives you something to do with all that excess mana, which is pretty cool and good- decks that need to commit to the board often run out of cards (on account of having things get broken) and this makes sure you always have something to do with that mana. So sure! If you have a haste outlet it makes Increasing Devotion insanely free and that’s super spicy.

 Kyler, Sigardian Emissary

I find this substantially less interesting. Kyler is Thalia’s Lieutenant, but it works a bit better, but also its way more expensive. Anthem commanders are always underwhelming, because the effect is usually mediocre and also you can just…play anthems. But also, it doesn’t take much for this guy to make your team quite big. My biggest issue here is that I just think 5 mana is a lot for an aggressive commander like this, and in order to make him work you need to still be playing things afterwards- so the curve is going to be have to be super wonky.

 Leinore, Autumn Sovereign

Our other face commander for this set, Leinore is here to support the Coven mechanic, both making it easier to get three creatures with different powers (especially since she has 0 power herself, which is fairly uncommon) and rewarding you for doing so. She’s another card on this list that basically says “meet condition, draw a card every turn”, but at the very least she’s pumping the squad a little at the same time and she’s not super expensive. I think she’s a lot less interesting than the other face commander, Wilhelt, but she’s inoffensive.

 Sigarda, Champion of Light

Aside from immediately slamming into my cube, Sigarda part 3 looks a lot like Leinore in just drawing a card if you have Coven once per turn. The upside, Sigarda does a bunch of damage while doing it, and could feasibly finish someone off if necessary. The downside, she needs to get Humans, and she sure as -hell isn’t a Human herself. This off-tribe-ness is supremely awkward for what is effectively a tribal commander, and as a result I would be surprised if she saw much play in the zone. But seriously she’s so much better than the last one holy crap that card was mid.

 Liesa, Forgotten Archangel

I still don’t know why Liesa is…alive… but here she is again. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first card, and unfortunately the second one doesn’t change that. She takes a classic Orzhov commander in Athreos, removes the fun politics and play angle from it, gets more expensive, gets graveyard hate, and loses indestructible. I imagine some Athreos players will switch over since she guarantees a return, but she’s surprisingly boring for such a potentially interesting character. Liesa was one of the defenders of Innistrad along with her sisters, but one that was willing to actually interact with the darker creatures of her world and try to understand them rather than murdering them on sight. When Avacyn got created, she killed the fuck out of Liesa since that shit’s heresy, apparently, and had her name effectively wiped from the records- that she’s apparently been alive secretly the whole time begs a lot of questions and has a lot of potential flavour that this card does not represent. The card certainly can’t bring itself back from the dead.

 Vadrik, Astral Archmage

I wasn’t sure about this one, but LoadingReadyRun’s recent deck tech video on it did sell me on it a bit. Vadrik obviously invites comparisons to Mizzix, which is a well-known, kill-on-sight Commander at this point- while I don’t think he’s nearly as powerful as she is, he’s a different flavour of interesting and he is a whole mana cheaper. As well, I do like a lot that he grows himself in the process, giving the deck a board presence that Mizzix’s 2/2 stats don’t really contribute to. I’m still not sure how well day/night will play in the format, but with a deck full of instants you can probably get 2 counters per turn cycle without sacrificing your own tempo, which is decent enough.

 Old Stickfingers

I’m not sure where to be on Stickfingers. I love the flavour of this card, just being a scary forest monster that’s just a new but established in-universe part of the world, much like The Gitrog Monster. The card is kind of medium, though, and its text does really confuse me.

Okay, no, turns out I just misread it completely. You know when your brain just fills in the gaps with what it thinks is right? That’s what I did. I thought Stickfingers looked at the top X and just milled the creatures, but it reveals cards until it hits X creatures, which is muuuuuch better. The X cost effectively does act like it does on many a Hydra, but with added value for the graveyard decks it’s sure to lead. That and it can serve as an effective combo commander- just grab Necrotic Ooze and its combo pieces and some Regrowths and you’re good to go. I don’t think the card is going to be particularly interesting for more casual play, but I can at least admit that it’s much better than I’d assumed.

 Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer

He doesn’t explicitly say as much, but Rem is secretly a spellslinger commander, and one that gives other red decks a lot of trouble with you. Dealing one point of extra damage is rarely going to be game-changing, but it makes many a spell that little bit more efficient, and that prevention ability is the real deal. It’s never that hard to protect a single creature from damage, and if you find a way to do that with Rem, you’re basically immune to damage-based boardwipes, and in a great position to abuse the fuck out of them yourself. The card doesn’t really solve any of Boros’s shortcomings, but it is at least Doing A Thing, which is more than I can say for a lot of the combination’s commanders.

 Slogurk, the Overslime

Because Simic didn’t have enough of a lion’s share of the colour pie, here’s Simic doing what is really more of a Golgari or Gruul thing. I don’t hate getting to play with land stuff in blue (beyond Tatyova/Aesi style landfall), but this does feel like an overstepping. Besides the meta angle, the card…I dunno. It’s got a lot going on, but maybe I’m just burned out on playing around lands decks at this point. Slogurk bores me. I do kind of like the idea of hitting yourself with a Traumatize and just killing someone with this, though.

 Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor

Our closing act is one that is undeniably extremely cool. Not only is Lynde mechanically interesting, she’s also a new character that is tied to the surprisingly popular “unluckiest planeswalker” guy- I guess it might not have been luck this whole time. Curses are a really interesting build-around idea, and considering there are 29 (30 if you include Accursed Witch) of them in Grixis for Lynde to play with at this point, you do actually get to pick and choose a bit. She does somewhat suffer from being in the colours that basically don’t get to really play around with Enchantment synergy, but between her 3 colours I reckon there’s enough to keep her going- you can run some of Theros’s Constellation things. And she’s just….really cool. Putting the curse on you before you get to move it off to someone else feel so playful, the two cards a cackling compensation from this cruel master of cursecraft.

 And that’s the lot of them. Unfortunately, much of the Legendary offerings from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt are seriously mediocre. Many of the cards feel more fit for the deck itself than the commanding seat, and a fair few of them don’t even have much going on for that. There are a few real highlights- perhaps me being so into Lynde, Eloise and Gisa says something but I’m refusing to analyse that- but there’s just so many misses that I can’t help but feel underwhelmed. I think it’s somewhat telling of modern Magic design that there are more commanders in this release than were in the previous two Innistrad blocks combined, and yet despite predating the era when legendary creatures were designed for Commander, most of those cards will be better remembered for the format than this new batch.

[thegeneralsnotebook]

June Feature: New Block, New Ideas

Somewhere, out on the horizon, Set 11 is taking shape, principles of design being formed in some document, or perhaps in a set of prototype cards already making the rounds, or maybe even most of the way to the finished product by now. I don’t really know what the design and testing process actually looks like. But anyway, it’s coming, and that fact means that people like me can predict and recommend all that we like over what we’d like to see in it.

Most importantly, due to the recent changes in the game’s Block structure, it now seems entirely likely that Set 11 will be the start of a new Block. At the start of a new Block, the door is open to radical rethinks of the way that the game is played. We could potentially turn over new leaves for anything: for the feels and preferred archetypes of any of the colours, for the pace and structure of a typical match, or even for the broad idea of what each particular class of card even is. It’s a perfect time to open up our minds and rethink what a Mane Character should look like or be able to do. Because fundamental changes like that are exciting, and maybe open the door to new experiences none of us could have even dreamed of yet.

Now, all of that said, I’m not a professional game designer. So while I am going to be going over some new ideas for what I think we could see in Set 11, none of these should be taken with any authority. You don’t even have to like them. But I hope you at least think about them, and maybe come up with some of your own ideas of what you’d like to see from this game in the future.

Purple

I think that going through this process colour by colour is probably the easiest way to go, since so much of this game’s design is built around each colour’s identity and what it’s capable of doing. So, for no particular reason, let’s start with Purple. As mentioned in the most recent Meticulous Talks stream, about the turning of the set rotation in Core, when Odysseys Block rotates out Purple is going to lose a lot of its powerful Events and a good number of its good Friends too. Purple has been synonymous with control for pretty much all of this most recent Block, and at least right now it’s difficult to imagine how that might continue.

So I say, why should it? Let some other colour pick up the mantle of playing slow, and let’s instead dedicate some time to turning Purple into a fast colour. Defenders Block has already offered us some pieces of what that might look like, whether it be an aggro based on forcing single faceoffs with Immediate Events and forced movement, or one built on comboing cheap Events with a few discounts. Both mechanics are already well-within the colour’s established identity, so all that would really be required is to elaborate on them a bit. Give us a set with more cheap Events, probably a little more card advantage, and more worthwhile Friends like DoE Sunset Shimmer. It might take a couple of sets to develop things properly, true, but I also think that Purple could do with some time away from centre stage. Even just one set where it’s a bit of a B-tier colour, before it comes into its own later, kind of like how Yellow was in Defenders Block.

White

Again, following no particular order, the next colour in line is White. Historically, White has gone great in control because it has all of the recursion, and control decks love that. Historically, White has gone great in aggro because it has point acceleration, and it also has a fair few cards with efficient costs out of the hand. Far less often has White headlined either of those concepts, except for the rare successes piloted by madmen like Bugle. The colour has got a lot of great cards in it, and indeed some of them have been amazing explorations of design, and indeed have been among the most interesting cards in their sets. It almost feels wrong to say that we should have less of that moving forward, but that’s what I think I’d like to see.

What White really needs is a strong core, a sturdy foundation upon which to build real decks. As I’ve said above and will say below, other colours can do the heavy lifting of design experimentation in this Block. White already has a lot of cool and interesting cards, like Mistmane, or Song Spike, or even the strange Events like Cornered and Reliving History. It needs some bread and butter to start with though, and that begins with a good Mane. This is at the heart of what everyone always says about this colour, but it’s a big thing. You know what might be nice: something so dead simple that it’s interesting just for how vanilla it is. A Mane that’s confront-to-flip, and its Boosted side is 4 Power, no text. I’d be interested to know how that compares to everything else.

Or, if you really want to start something, take a cue from Mistmane and turn White into the mill colour. That would be nice too.

Yellow

Yellow is the success story of Defenders Block. Over the course of three sets, a colour that had spent years in a state of total irrelevance was resurrected to now sit poised to enjoy a dynasty of aggro dominance. It is indeed fair to say that the colour is losing basically nothing from the set rotation, and in the new metagame it’s going to keep on doing what it’s been doing.

Which means that I think now is a perfect opportunity to throw out the old playbook and try something new. Yellow aggro needs minimal attention to keep on keeping on. Instead, we have a few sets to experiment, and maybe lay the long-term groundwork for a Yellow control archetype. What is that going to look like? Personally, I think that Yellow should further explore minus-Power as a strategy. Now may finally be the time to implement -1 Power counters, and give them to Yellow as a way to augment its relatively weak form of removal. Or, we could take a cue from Distracted Lead Actress, and implement a suite of Yellow cards that care about the relative Power levels of things on the opponent’s side of the board.

Finally, with Appropriate Business Attire bringing in Persistent as a keyword that Yellow has an affinity for, we might see it get used more often across the colour. It’s a really powerful keyword, so it would obviously have to be used sparingly. But applied correctly it can be exactly the thing to take a card from good to great.

Blue

I should always preface any discussion of Blue with the disclaimer that it really isn’t my colour. I play around with it every so often in Limited and in the “wacky” constructed events, but in terms of serious play I’ve basically always avoided it. So surely anything I say about its future direction should be taken cautiously.

Blue, I think, is a colour that could use something new to hang its hat on. It spent Odysseys Block working hard on winning faceoffs, and in Defenders Block it was committed to movement-based synergy. Both wells are, I think, starting to run dry. (Although I was surely wrong about how much design space was in the movement area in the first place, so maybe there’s more there which I haven’t foreseen.) But personally, I would like to see the colour move in a different direction with the start of this new Block. I have no real preference whether that should be toward aggro or control, I just want to see something new.

One idea is to borrow Mentor from Magic, only instead to implement it as something like, “When you confront this card’s Problem, another character here gets …” something. On-confront triggers are very versatile and can work in all kinds of decks, so it wouldn’t push the colour in any particular direction. Plus the concept sounds generally within Blue’s wheelhouse, so I think it should work.

Another possibility is to bring back Teamwork, but done slightly differently. To wit, rather than a continuous modifier, make it an activated ability. Or, reduce it from affecting everyone to a specific target, chosen when the ability is activated. Both of these make it a bit harder to use the ability, which hopefully would allow more powerful text to get used on the cards.

Orange

Similar to White above, the elephant in the room that needs to be mentioned first is that Orange needs to have a nice foundation to work with, starting with a generically good Mane. As colour identities go, Orange might actually be the better choice to have the vanilla four Power Mane, come and think of it.

Yet I think that this colour has a lot of potential to move forward within the strategies that it’s currently exploring. So Orange for one probably doesn’t need a complete rethink as a colour. The discard synergy has run its course, I think, but instead we can keep focusing on the +1 Power counter aggro that started in Seaquestria. One possibility I’d like to see is a ‘Transcend’-type mechanic, where putting a certain amount of +1 Power counters on a card grants it access to more powerful text. This is somewhat similar to Bulk Biceps, Get Swole, but I’m thinking of something more dramatic. Again, if we’re willing to borrow from Magic, I’d prefer to physically swap out the card for a more advanced form. That probably can’t happen, though.

On the other side of the coin, now that Fumes is a thing, maybe Orange can go back to exhausting things as a form of control, only now it might actually work! And we can all just kinda’ whistle and pretend that Odysseys Block didn’t happen.

Pink

Similar to Purple at the start of this article, I think that the time might be nigh for Pink to spend some time skulking in the shadows and thinking about everything that it’s done. Similar to Blue, I also think that what Pink really needs is something new to focus itself around. Eccentric has finally been built into something worth using, and its removal suite has gotten into a pretty good spot. What the colour really needs is something new to make its own. And again, it’s okay if it takes a set or two to build itself up into that spot.

What I think could be great for the colour are effects like Snips and Snails up there. Effects that require retiring Friends as an additional cost. Party Hard from Equestrian Odysseys is another great example. Pink is the best colour right now for token generation, but it suffers from the fact that its tokens are literally just one-Power bodies with nothing else on them. Indeed, that makes Pink the perfect colour to have cards that require retiring Friends to achieve their fullest effects. And, at least from my perspective, I’d prefer effects like Party Hard to those like Snips and Snails. More Events or text like “As an additional cost to play this card you may retire any number of Friends. If you do, X happens for each one you retired.” Or something similar. 

Now, obviously, doing something like this would be a really bad idea if Mane Six were still legal (or at least, that card’s existence would seriously constrict this design space). So I’d also just say that if we do go down this direction, we have to ban Mane Six as we start. I apologize if you’re sorry to see that card go, but it’s probably better that way.

Conclusion

All told, what I want to see with a new Block is some radical change. That could come from completely new mechanics in a few colours. It could come from rethinking fundamental concepts of what a Mane Character can be or do. It could come from experimenting with new ways to play cards and build decks. But now is a time for rebirth and renewal. I can hardly wait.

[icharchivist]

Ramble about the Hisoka&Chikage dynamic (w/ spoilers for the two Winter Play Events and chapter 5) and more personal stuff under the cut

Either way the thing i found really cruel with the Chikage arc is that, Hisoka was already on top of my fav list, but since he was amnesic he wasn’t defined by much aside from “his amnesia most likely come from his trauma”, and learning that he has a guilt complex/is responsible for someone’s death and it’s likely that this death is what triggered the amnesia, and that’s it. 

and i thought i was safe with that bc What Could Go Wrong meanwhile i could relate on being a Sleepy Bitch like Hisoka (hell i used to be able to sleep ANYWHERE before and often fell asleep in class or in a corner on trip, before anxiety indulced Insomnia started to kick my ass.) and i have memories issue, trauma babey, so like, My Kin Now:tm: (i have more reasons but that’s the funny short version)

but then the Winter Chapter ended with the April’s cliffhanger and the thing is that i was aware of Chikage’s cards and i knew of that one card from the “past self” set which was matching with Hisoka, so it was obvious that Chikage=April and that Chikage and Hisoka both were spies

and it fucked me up and from all the rookies’s build ups from the events it’s Chikage’s that fucked me up the most bc he specifically appears in Winter chapter, makes it clear he’s lurking on Hisoka LIKE THIS IS CHIKAGE’S FIRST APPEARANCE

IS WHEN TASUKU PICKS UP HISOKA AFTER HE COLLAPSES.. AND NOW WE KNOW IT WAS CHIKAGE’S ROLE..... HE LITTERALLY SLIDES ON SCREEN TO DECIDE TO TAKE ACTION ON HISOKA WHILE SEEING SOMEONE FILLING HIS ROLE OF CARETAKER OF HISOKA.....

And then Chikage leaves Hisoka flowers saying it “means a lot to him” to send those flowers and considering the whole Flower Language in the game it had to be on purpose so i checked up the flowers he sent Hisoka and i’m a crying mess

Second Winter Play:

(red pre chap 5, green post chap 5)

Third Winter Play:

and i’m a messssss because while the first one can have resentment in it it also showcase the specific grief Chikage denied himself to feel??? even the grief he felt FOR Hisoka. But the second one is so positive and hopeful like Chikage doesn’t WANT to turn on Hisoka like he planned and i’m a fucking disaster.

COUGHS anyway i got lost but, the thing is that, the fact the direction they took with the complex relationship between the three siblings is. The sort of sibling relationship i connect with because this is closer to what i can relate. 

it is a similar reason why i’m fascinated with the Wales brothers in gbf, with the fact the youngest brother had to bear the burden of his older brother disappearing and his other brother going off rails and taking it out on him, before being torn by guilt and realizing he ought to make it up to his brother. 

And if you boil down the Hisoka/Chikage/August storyline it’s the same thing happening, except Chikage specifically BLAMED Hisoka for August’s death, and Hisoka felt guilty and responsible and beared that burden.

And honestly i already connect much more with sibling dynamics when the youngest of the bunch is bearing the burden of their dynamic bc, mood.

But, as someone who had my eldest sister ran away from home when i was a kid and my other sister turning on me and pushing me away because, as she told me ways later, she badly lived the abandon and she knew i was closer to my eldest sister so she pushed me away in a form of jealousy AND the fact we were not allowed to talk about my runaway sister, we had to act like she never existed, and it was extremely frustrating so my sister shifted the blame on me

bc Chikage was always a bit jealous of how close Hisoka and August were and then when August died, with the inability to process his grief, he had to blame Hisoka.

And like, if the Wales Brothers’ dynamic punched me in the face, this was a suckerpunch because bro that hit, ways too close from home??? on a character i already kinda can project on?? (even though my behavior and coping mechanisms are closer to Azuma bc of the shared Abandon Issues and all but man it’s not like i had nothing on Hisoka yaknow?)

And, meanwhile, Hisoka and Chikage fixed their relationship. They opened up about their trauma, they cleared it up, they decided to heal together and getting better, and this is something that’s fucking me up a LOT because... it’s not something i can have? My sister and I shared our trauma but we’re still so distant and so caught in our parents’s bullshit that my sister KEEPS shifting the blame on me for anything going wrong with our family, especially lately with our dad. 

It was something that made me irrationally emotional with the Wales bro already but here destroys me, the fantasy of /fixing/ it. The fantasy of, after this hardship, managing to realize they can rely on one another and be there through their trauma. And, for Hisoka and Chikage, this desire to rebuild their family, in a less toxic environment. It’s something i can’t have, and don’t even really /want/ because the relationship with my sister is too damaged and we’re too different as people, but the fantasy of it being a possibility somewhere makes me weak on my knees.

(+ tbh a3 is HEALING bc with the Wales bro, the youngest is still the most responsible one, he still has to carry this burden, he has so much on his shoulders, and it’s... heavy when you get to project a bit on his story. While Hisoka is, on the contrary, encouraged to rest in order to recover. He’s encouraged to keep sleeping, to do stuff he likes, to nurse himself back to health, and this is so HEALING to have to see the characters who’s trauma you relate to being told that they don’t have to just “carry on” but, that they can be safe to rest now. (likewise with Azuma who’s also encouraged to rest and take care and rely on others without being punished about pushing people away. Instead it’s his friends picking up how to read him to counter Azuma’s first instict that is to isolate himself, without lecturing him about how he shouldn’t do that.), a3′s way to tackle trauma and recovery is seriously getting to me SO BAD like, it’s really healing to me)

Adding to that that, independantly to it all, I genuinely adore Chikage, he’s fun, he’s sneaky, he’s an ass, but he cares so much, and everything is because he cares ways too much, he’s so damaged and was never allowed to have room to get better and now he does, and he built so much walls around himself, his lies are just that (i’ve seen someone call it gas//l//ighting and DEAR LORD learn the meaning of words he doesn’t do that AT ALL) he just lies to throw off people, he tells people right away that he lies, even when it would protect him to keep on the charade (see his lie to Sakyo to cover up when he kidnapped Izumi), they’re walls in order to keep people away, to keep them from asking about him, and like he says to Tsuzuru because there’s weakness to be exploited in the truth, which is a paranoia that is completely legit to have when he’s litterally an informant/hacker spy?? 

he’s completely different from my sister, which is ironic, but therefore i do not even manage to project this thing fully on him. Hell, i crush on Chikage. I have terrible taste but good lord he’s been appearing in my dreams every day lately what the fuck Chikage. (litterally my top 3 chara is just “1) Kin in regard to the lore, 2) Kin in the coping mechanism, 3) Crushing ways too hard on him, am a total simp”)

Also meanwhile the fact the whole ending is “we’re leaving the organization (which was their family), we have a found family now, but together” is peak fantasy for someone like me and i’m always crying over the Mankai Found Family, but just, going “screw the previous family”? but..... the two of them together? I’m a mess. Especially adding to the fact Hisoka got SO close to the Winter Troupe and with the course of the events it really shows how precious they became to one another, this found family remains so precious to Hisoka (hell he bothers Homare and Tasuku as much as he bothers Chikage dLKFJD) he just, wants Chikage to experience this happiness too instead of letting himself collapse under his trauma and i’m!!! aaaah!!

So yeah what i’m getting at is, that, I thought i would be safe from Hisoka’s arc, that i wouldn’t be this emotionally invested in it, i was already too emotionally invested in Azuma’s bc Azuma has my coping mechanisms, but instead the plot took me by the throat with the direct sibling dynamic i REALLY feel for, it hit WAYS too close from home, with a storyline i can HEAVILY empathize with, and feel pain for both Hisoka and Chikage because i get both sides so hard, and i HAD to fall for one of those morons.

I’ve been playing a3 for over a year, started playing when the EN server lautched, and i had been emotionally involved in all of it, a LOT, i’ve played it every day in over a year, i’m up to date with everything, i feel so much for it, but despite that i felt like i was keeping it mostly lowkey, like i wasnt /obsessed/

but this storyline ruined me. This storyline brought this lowkey obsession to highkey at full speed. 

And all of that bc i genuinely loved Hisoka before those truthbombs, that those made me love him even more, that Chikage became SO loveable and has been living in my mind rentfree ever since, and that the dynamic they touch is both too close from home while also being unrealistic (as in how they fixed their dynamic), but in a “fantasy i love to indulge in” kind of unrealistic and it is destroying me.

so yeah, A3 good, i can’t get over how GOOD the writing is, but also that fucking wrecked me.