#Interaction Satisfaction

[inventors-fair]

Interaction Satisfaction Winners!

Congratulations to our winners this week: @hanavesinauttija with Unified Resistence, @hypexion with Skemfar's Scorn, and @izzet-always-r-versus-u with Mistfire Trickery!

~

Unified Resilience

Well, you caught me, I had to check if that was an existing ability or not. First off, the first line is good. Three mana for the effect seems right (heroic intervention is an outlier IMO), but it still wants a bit more of a kick, and you have that here. Indestructible turns it into a more expensive heroic, but then the trample is really what puts it into overdrive. Playing this in response to a removal spell on attacks seems like it would feel incredible. It also feels like it feeds into what this type of deck wants to be doing. If you’re playing a bunch of different creature types in a green deck, they’re probably all going to be pretty big, so you really want some trample to push through. I appreciate the non-human clause to prevent it from counting changelings, and while that matches with the Ikoria non-human mutate text, it does feel like a strange exclusion otherwise. Are humans not allowed to form coalitions? Or maybe that’s the point. A specifically non-human deck might be what you were going for. Regardless, this is a solid piece of interaction as a slightly worse but sometimes better heroic intervention, which I think is exactly what we need.

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Skemfar's Scorn

This is just the type of card I wanted to see this contest. Two color sorcery speed removal is a big ask in commander, but the payoff here seems great. Golgari elves is a very popular archetype, but it’s support is just limited enough to feel like it still needs some help, and this card would do it. The idea of a build-your-own casualties of war is great, and the scalability of it means you can fire it off when you need it, which means it isn’t just a more restrictive version. Tapping elves both plays into and against elf decks, since they often tap for mana, so this means they can’t tap for mana to escalate and tap to escalate itself, but it also means elf decks might be prepared to tap elves anyway. And let's not ignore the simplicity of the base mode. It’s interaction in its purest form: destroy target something. A great entry and exactly what I was looking for.

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Mistfire Trickery

So it’s a break open or a cyber-conversion. I like it! While you could play this in any deck, and I think some people would, it’s clearly got a better home in a deck with a lot of face-down creatures. It’s even an instant, which allows you to do some sneaky morph effects like flipping something for cheap after blocks. I might have argued it was too easy before, but considering that we just got expose the culprit, a 3 mana version is probably fine, with that extra mana (and the higher power level of commander) warranting the removal-y mode. The templating and implied setting are also well-done. Altogether very impressive.

~

And there you go! Thank you everyone who entered. Runners-up will be out shortly, and commentary not too long after that. It's been a while since I've run one of these, but it seemed to go alright, so thank you everyone!

-Mod Mr. ShinyObject

[freddos616]

nothing crazier than assuming your wifi is shit to then realising ao3 is down. rip my friend, hope you make it through the surgery

[valtsv]

have you ever gotten into fear and hunger? it overlaps with a lot of pathologic fans :00

i want to but i'm so bad at being a gamer that i'm only aware of the general lore/themes and have no actual experience with the gameplay itself

[st-hedge]

The first sketch I made by slapping at the tablet screen vs the one I made after which is about 100 layers cuz I decided to put effort into composition (so everything is its own layer)

[dark-night-star-light]

Thinking about running a best character, best ship, or best quote bracket. Here's how each would hypothetically work (and vote in the poll at the bottom, please!):

The issue with characters would be that I’d have to go through all eighteen and a half books to find all the characters, or the other option is I only take characters that get submitted by the seven of us chilling here together in this hot tub (because like for Conor against Tepin, who the hell’s gonna vote for Tepin, right?). I would also allow you to submit propaganda to get your fav as far as possible and anti-paganda if you want a certain character to lose (as long as you keep it light-hearted and don't try to bash anyone that actually votes for that character etc. etc. etc.).

For ships, I will definitely only take submitted ships, because there are an infinite amount of ships that could happen otherwise. But I'll take anything no matter how crackship-y or rarepair-y it is (within limits, obviously no pedo/incest ships). Tentatively saying I will again allow propaganda and (light-hearted) anti-paganda, since I'm hoping we as a fandom are mature enough to let this be a chill experience and not devolve into ship bashing (I'm pretty sure we are, we're not the a/t/l/a fandom, so).

And for quotes, again, I'd only make a bracket out of quotes that get submitted. I'm not sure if I will allow propaganda for this one, because it seems kind of self-explanatory. But maybe, if people want it. If you submit a quote, you'd have to be able to tell me which book it was from, the page or chapter number, and who said it for it to be allowed into the bracket, although if you're not sure of one of those things, you could just tell me and I'd try to find it (I own all the books, so it wouldn't be a problem). I may or may not allow you to submit context or background for the quote (in some cases that can ruin the quote, or give it an unfair advantage). Quotes would be allowed to be as unserious or serious as you want, there will be no restrictions on it whatsoever (just don't make your quote, like, a single word or something).

In any case, you’d be allowed to submit as many characters/ships/quotes as you want. I would not reveal who submitted what character/ship/quote if that's something you choose to reveal to me, unless you want me to. I’m not sure how submissions will work, either through my ask box (don't worry, anon asks would be on) or through an anonymous Google form. Of course, my DMs are always open, too, if you want to submit something through there.

Your propaganda would be allowed to be anonymous or not (if you want the credit). It would also be allowed to be as short or as long as you want, and as unserious or serious as you want (you could literally submit, like, "Vote for Rollan, he's so funny and he needs a hug" as propaganda and I would accept it, or you can go deep and start talking about his parallels and arc and motifs and backstory and personality and hardcore analysis stuff, and that would also be fine). If multiple people submit propaganda for the same character/ship/quote, I’ll keep them all, and you are allowed to submit propaganda or anti-propaganda for as many characters/ships/quotes as you would like. When we're approaching the start of the bracket, I'll also say how many pieces of propaganda and anti-poganda were submitted for each character/ship/quote. That way, if a character/ship/quote has no propaganda or anti-paganda, it would be giving everyone a warning that that's the case and that it's the last chance to submit for them. Your propaganda also doesn't have to have any basis in canon. You could make up headcanons about a character and submit them as propaganda and that would be entirely fair game. You would not be allowed to submit links to analysis posts as propaganda, though, even if it's yours. Everything submitted needs to be something you wrote specifically for the bracket.

I would be the judge of whether the anti-propaganda crosses the line into bashing (no hard feelings, sometimes tone can be weird over text), and if it does I'd delete it but let whoever submitted it know that I did, so that they could try to submit something milder. Also, keep in mind that propaganda is subjective. Something you submit as anti-propaganda might actually resonate as propaganda with other people (like saying "Meilin was a racist and a classist" as anti-propaganda might just register as "Oh, she had such fantastic character development!" with some people, completely ruining what you were trying to do). Seems counterproductive, but if you have mixed feelings, I'd allow you to submit propaganda and anti-propaganda for the same character/ship/quote (I don't think anyone will actually do this, but it's an option).

If you have something else you want to add, put it in the tags. I’m also going to open up my ask box soon, so if you want to yell at me anonymously, that’ll be the place to go.

Hate to be that person, but reblog for sample size, please.

[lemongogo]

can i ask.how u guys practice ur creativity <3 how u practice ur imagination or like.. how u experiment with ur art, how u come to ideas and how u develop them.<3 pretty please <3

[cozmiccore]

Look at my rich kids! I love them a lot 😭💜 I actually have mcs for each ROs and with different courses because why not? New update was worth the wait! But I feel like strangling Zillah after seeing P >:(. Alright free ID template link's below if anyone wants it! As always pls credit me and support Golden and author @milaswriting 💜

PICREW | LEHSA U - ID

[northern-passage]

You don't have to respond to this if you don't want to, I know it will start unneeded drama but I just found it soooo interesting that, since the transphobic blog lets you see their likes, most of their likes are TWC related. And it's not like that fandom is notorious for being a toxic hellspace, no sir.

to be frank it's not just twc, the IF space as a whole is pretty notorious for being toxic at this point. whether you're on tumblr or reddit or the forums, you're going to find these kinds of people lurking around.

that was why i did post that person's username because i could see them interacting with various other authors, and it's best to just block them before they send you something stupid, too.

just like any large online community there are going to be a lot of trolls trying to get attention by sending inflammatory messages or leaving cruel comments wherever they can; i've been getting that kind of stuff sent to me or left in reviews or comments for years now. and currently losers online are having a fucking field day with everything that's going on right now - racism, islamophobia, antisemitism, transphobia, even gore, i've gotten it all in my inbox over the last few months and i've seen others get even worse. these people are pathetic and not worth your time. i've gotten better at not responding to stuff like that, but it is hard to resist that instinctive anger, and that's exactly why they do it & exactly why you see it in every single fandom/online space.

all of that to say, just ignore and block them and you'll have a far better time online than if you constantly try to argue or reason with them because they don't care, their only goal is to make you miserable. even if you think you have some epic clapback, it's not worth it, you're still giving them the attention they clearly desperately want and potentially exposing others to harmful rhetoric. just block 'em, babey!

[fitzrove]

Ooh btw when I went out with my friends the other night we were waiting for a bus at one point. An extremely pretty girl was waiting for it a few metres away from us... I noticed her existing as you do pretty girls when you are a Homosexual (🫣) but was mostly focused on talking to my friends and stuff. Well suddenly she came up to us and I noticed she was actually kinda crying (!! 🥺) and asked if any of us had a tissue. I am always prepared esp fresh off my sneezy Vienna trip, so I gave her a plastic-wrapped pack, unopened and all... she was very grateful (asking if she could really keep it all - I said it was fine and even got to use the tdv sarah "you can have it, i've got two" line because I did have two hehehe success everyone inside my brain clapped) but she struggled to open it because long acrylic nails! So I offered to help again and she gave it back to me and our fingers brushed a bit and I tore the plastic cover open with my long short-nailed sexy lesbian fingers 😌 and gave it back hehe.

Anyway I feel like this all would've been a queercoded metaphor if it was fictional but because it's real life we went our separate ways never to meet again 😌 but I was still kind of thinking about her at the club 🥹 and when we were taking the train home with my friend at 5:50 am I was kind of talking about her JSKFLDLFLFL omg kinda creepy tbh esp since I wasn't even drunk 💀 Well my friend was drunk so maybe she already forgot about it. I hope that girl is less sad now and believes in the good in humanity 😌❤️

[genuflectx]

I've been thinking a lot again about being an artist online since I've been taking a break from things, and about the eternal struggle between wanting art to be seen vs. wanting art to satisfy you without external validation. Mostly because negative thoughts remind me of when I stopped posting on my old SFW account, specifically the DeviantART.

A handful of years ago, not too long after leaving college, I got frustrated with the lack of results I was seeing on my SFW account despite the increased efforts placed towards my art. I felt bitter, and missed the old DA days of having a small but vocal community of artists who interacted with each other. I got so frustrated that I posted a journal asking if anybody would even notice if I just stopped, and when nobody replied (despite the 200+ watchers) I felt so discouraged I hid the large majority of my work and did just that. Stop. Of course, I was still active as Genuflect making NSFW art, but I had been on my SFW pseudonym for I'm guessing about 8-9 years at that point. So that stung.

Sometimes I think about if a similar thing might happen with "Genuflect." Art online is a game of who can post the most frequently, be the most personable, be the most relatable. When you stop, you fade out of the memory of people who have a world of other "content" to consume. It's just how things are. I've forgotten plenty of artists who disappeared off the face of the internet, only to remember them when I see I'm still following them years later. I always wonder what happened to them, if they're alive, if they moved accounts, if they just gave up.

Anyways. "Parasocial" goes both ways, I think, where artists can put too much stake into the opinions/attention of fans who they... don't really know. Does it hurt when familiar names disappear? Or when you take a break and they hop over to somebody else then just never come back? Yeah, but... it's not as if you really knew them, you never had a conversation, never did art exchanges, never roleplayed or hung out or mutually hype each other up. They're just... little numbers that give you a bit of validation for your hard work. Not friends. Isn't that what parasocial means?

But that is easier thought than practiced, it's still going to feel bad when you think nobody really cares if you stop or disappear online. I didn't know those 200 people watching me on my SFW DA in any personal capacity, but it still hurt like a bitch when not a one wanted me to stay. Because really... 8-9 years online and not one liked the art enough to leave a comment saying "wait, no, don't go?" Youch!!

I guess flipping the hurt feelings around into positives is the only way to go, if you want to find more satisfaction in creation without the opinions of strangers. That the opinions of friends/family is ultimately more valuable, that learning new things is fun and worthwhile on its own, that if nobody cares if you disappear then nobody really cares if your art ends up being "shit," either, so go wild. It removes a lot of pressure to try and think that way instead, while still acknowledging the hurt feelings are natural, especially in the modern online landscape.

One of the most treasured accounts I have is my VRC account, full of silly pictures with friends and little WIPs of 3D art and avatars. Know how many followers it has? 8. And it's the one that makes me smile the most. Being a nobody, or being forgettable, isn't so bad.

[inventors-fair]

Interaction Satisfaction

A while ago, I was listening to the EDHRec podcast, and they mentioned a very weird piece of data: for Silumgar, the Drifting Death, a blue-black dragon deck, the card silumgar's scorn was more commonly played (at the time) than the original Counterspell. The latter is a UU hard counterspell, and the former is UU but only counters the spell if they pay one mana or they control a dragon. So why are people playing a strictly worse card?

Because it says dragon on it.

People love playing cards that fit with their deck, even if strictly better versions exist. This can be a great way to encourage players to play cards that they might not play otherwise. The type of player who loves playing big, powerful dragons might not care about putting some random two mana counterspell in the deck, even if it might be strategically wise. But this one says dragon on it.

This week's challenge: Design a piece of interaction (removal, protection, etc.) that appeals to a certain kind of commander deck.

Interaction is a broad term, but usually means something that doesn't add to the board, but responds to actions of others. Basically, any card that would be useless if you had no opponents.

Fitting a certain deck means that the card is geared towards certain strategies. Any deck can play Swords to Plowshares, but only an artifact deck should play Dispatch.

This contest assumes the cards will be in some sort of commander deck.

The best kind of card for this contest would be one that specifically shores up weaknesses of the deck in question. A go-wide deck needs protection from things that kill multiple creatures at once, so Clever Concealment is perfect.

Make sure to be careful about going "all in" on the theme. Mutant's Prey may seem great in a counter-centric deck, but if you're deck is having trouble going off, then it's a dead card. Dire Tactics is rough if you don't have a human, but at least you can still cast it to get rid of an Elesh Norn so you can start playing humans again.

Good luck everyone!

-Mod Mr. ShinyObject

[glaseado-mountain-peak]

Does anybody want to join Team Eat Shit & Die.

The only requirement is I have to tolerate you

[stateofcharles]

therapy this, therapy that- real therapy is blocking those n*rris’ fans whenever they show up in my for you tl💆🏻

[outeremissary]

Having one of those weeks of "is this the monthly Malaise or am I about to have a real mental health rut"

[iwantofall]

the taiga is simultaneously my favorite and least favorite part of exodus

[losttwinbenji]

"I think it's fair to say that I'm pretty sexy.” - Slightly [ @slightlyconceited ]

“Meh,” With a shrug, the brunette turned to look at the blonde with a neutral look upon his face, eyes maneuvering up and down, before he continued with his words “I’ve seen sexier.” Is what Benji ended up saying. And it was true, while Slightly was arguably very attractive in the eyes of others and he had no shortage of finding people who were into him, in the eyes of Benji, it was a completely different story. Even among the Lost Boys, he wouldn’t classify his brother as one of the sexiest (and no, he wasn’t saying that to go off and call himself sexier, though if he did, he would find delight in pushing another one of Sly’s buttons). Which is why with that in mind, he then half-smirked at him. “You ain’t even the sexiest among the rest of us.”