#con(versation)

Except that I kinda fuck with that idea a lot. I don’t think I personally headcanon it, but it’s something I’d like to see more earnest interpretations of, rather than binarising Kris. Honestly, if you ask me, Mario is the kind of character who you can put nearly any headcanon onto and I’d completely understand it. He’s kinda like the Anti-Kris in that way.

So I’m guessing it’s been soft confirmed that there are no set “canon” designs for any of the Murdle characters? Because Oracle Deck!Irratino looks pretty different to Puzzle!Irratino. I think I prefer the Puzzle design, that’s what I based my headcanoned design on, but the Oracle Deck look isn’t bad! I like the extra accessories.

But if this isn’t a soft confirmation, it does mean I have to update my Logico design quite a bit. Especially with the facial hair. I did not think he’d pull it off as well as he does ngl, I do like it. Also the pencils on the hat is something I am incorporating into my HC design, no matter what. That’s genius. Also I do like Logico being darker skinned in this, I think that’s nice.

The only thing I don’t like is that if this not a soft confirmation that there is no “canon” design then this comes with unfortunate implications for my fanfic (for context: it features child abuse and abandonment, and I (a white person) don’t feel very confortable writing that subject matter about a PoC character because of racist stereotypes). It’s not cancelled, but if this isn’t soft confirmation that it’s cool to just carry on with my own designs and go forth with it, then it might take longer to write.

It’s a bit more difficult than the previous book. There were some clues that really stumped me. I thought there being a leftover word would be more of a struggle, and while it very much has the chance to soon, it’s not too bad for now.

There are more pun names! There’s Sir Vivor (survivor) and Sir Mount (surmount, but also serves as a mount for Render) in the main plot and Sir Prize at the start. I wonder if Prize will get a main story cameo, but considering his “killed by a bear” status, I’m guessing lot.

There’s new terms! The territories are now parcels, the shadow states are shadow lands, and a disputed territory is now a pivotal parcel. And given the plot so far, it doesn’t look like we’re conquering anything so we’re not forcing apart or together lands, just organising things to find our way through.

I like the journal entries interspersed in the main story itself, and the lead to finding the solutions having their own little twists. I think that adds to the charm of the book.

- set the note with the rolling r to Spanish. The rolling r phoneme is labelled as “rr”

- the note before the r roll, you’re gonna want to insert an extra “r” phoneme. I’ve only tried this with Japanese, but it works really well.