#what planeswalker would accept her and what would hate her

[sananaryon]

Ixhel should become a planeswalker.

[tealeaf-87]

does anyone else remember xantcha? from old phyrexia? It's been a while so I might not remember everything perfectly, but Xantcha was a phyrexian sleeper agent sent to infiltrate Dominaria who, of her own free will, chose to fight Phyrexia and work with Urza to stop Yawgmoth. She was critical to guiding the dragon engine and helping Urza recover from fighting, and sacrificed herself to give Urza the chance to stop Gix. I think she deserved better, but she was a truly heroic character, who was a Phyrexian from birth: she was created "evil" and chose to fight against that same evil.

Of course, Old and New Phyrexia are very different places. But they share so many themes and aesthetics and goals, despite how much has changed over the years. Xantcha was able to fight back because she had free will, and because she was a sleeper agent and thus exposed to the outside world. Even if we accept that Elesh Norn was using the oil to remove the free will from every single rank and file phyrexian in her circle, what about the other 4? Were the residents of the Great Furnace also under her control, and if so why do they still follow Urabrask? We are shown that the Planeswalkers retain some shard of who they used to be, and we know that the Praetors are able to act independently of Elesh Norn. So how does it work for the rest of the phyrexians? Are they mind controlled and unable to resist, or are they prisoners of their environment and have never been exposed to anything that would make them question New Phyrexia?

I was excited during the lead up to ONE, because I was expecting Urabrask and the Great Furnace to join the resistance in fighting back against Elesh Norn. I wanted it to show that Phyrexians were people, despite the horrors of their existence, and I expected some nuance between the Circles. Out of all of the five colors, Red most embodies the traits that would embrace free will: Freedom, Passion, Emotion, Impulsivity, etc. So where is the Xantcha of New Phyrexia? Why are we only told that Urabrask and Sheoldred are causing a distraction during ONE, but never shown? It was personally disappointing to have the narrative of the story articles of ONE focus on the Planeswalker strike team rather than the resistance or any sort of Phyrexians Uprising.

The point I knew that the story of New Phyrexia would never be what I wanted was with the Filigree Sylex. A superweapon powerful enough to destroy an entire plane, able to wipe the blight of New Phyrexia from the Multiverse once and for all. The only problem that stops the detonation of the Sylex is that Realmbtelaer has already dug its roots into other planes: the destruction of New Phyrexia means the destruction of them all. This is the only reason why the Sylex isn't detonated. If the strike team was just a bit faster, got there just a little bit earlier, before Realmbreaker was fully grown, then they would have detonated the Sylex and killed every single Phyrexian and Mirran without hesitation. The first solution to the Phyrexians was to genocide them using a superweapon, and this fate was avoided purely because of the collateral damage to the rest of the multiverse, not because of any consideration of the Phyrexians as people. According to Jace, it is better to wipe the Multiverse clean rather than allow for the blight of Phyrexia to spread.

Now, with the end of March of the Machine, and the death of Elesh Norn, her control over the oil is cut and all the invading armies of Phyrexians have "fallen unconscious" and been deactivated. But what comes next? Given everything, I'm not optimistic. If we are lucky, we will get to see Phyrexians be people, victims of a cult now adrift in a multiverse that hates them. There could be some incredibly interesting stories that could come out of the recovery of not only the many Planes touched by Phyrexia, but also of the Phyrexians themselves, who are now truly free for the first time.

However, this would require Phyrexians to be treated as people, which WOTC doesn't seem to want to do. Furthermore, if they do start to treat Phyrexians as people now, it only makes the genocidal implications of ONE even worse in retrospect. It would take a very careful and delicate touch to navigate the paradox they have built around themselves, and I don't have high expectations. I expect Phyrexians to be swept under the rug for a few sets, to give people a break, and for them to reappear as recurring villains every now and then. The remnants of the invading armies popping up here and there to cause more problems for the Gatewatch to fix.

New Phyrexia disturbed me - and not how it should have

This is going to be a VERY opinion-heavy post. Before I say anything, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not condemning the entirety of the New Phyrexia arc, nor am I saying that the people who wrote these stories meant for them to be taken this way. This is just a post getting into why the New Phyrexia arc rubbed me the wrong way again and again, and why it's... kind of ruined my love for Magic, if I'm completely honest.

Also, yes, I understand that New Phyrexia was meant to horrify and unsettle people - but I feel like it unsettled me in ways that they kind of weren't going for. I expect horror to unsettle me and show me some fucked up shit, for lack of a better terminology - but I also was expecting, in the fantasy/scifi horror shit, I'd get some stuff that didn't feel like it hit so close to home.

More under the cut.

First of all, it has always felt as if Magic can never quite decide if Phyrexians are people or monsters. This is worsened in New Phyrexia, where time and time again, we are given reason to think that New Phyrexians are people that are simply heavily indoctrinated from birth. Yes, the glistening oil works in strange ways, and they have somewhat of shared knowledge amongst their entire network, but by and large, you see time and time again, that Phyrexians have individuality. This seems intentional - you are shown from the start that Elesh Norn is an egomaniac, a fool, and that her plans of grandeur are insane. But her insanity shapes this world.

In that way, everyone in this world are... mostly actually victims of her insanity. Ixhel and Urabrask on New Capenna stand out as examples of times where Phyrexians show that they are not the heartless monsters they are made out to be. In Urabrask's first cards, he claims that he wishes the Mirrans to be left alone.

Yet, in ONE, we see time and time again that red Phyrexians and Mirrans are fighting still, Urabrask doesn't seem to be paying that much attention to the Phyrexians, and... frankly, I don't know what the Halo subplot was supposed to be about (forgive me, if this was addressed in passing, I only skimmed the latter half of MOM to see what big things happened, because i was so upset with it at that point I didn't really WANT to read it anymore). Yes, I have read the creators saying time and time again that just because Urabrask doesn't say outright he wants the multiverse compleated, it doesn't mean it's not what he wants, deep down. However... this still harks back onto one idea.

Sapient creatures being born evil.

This is a trope that I LOATHE in fantasy/scifi to my core. I understand that Phyrexians, for all intents and purposes, are created in a monstrous fashion. They are not created in a similar way to people. However, in the end, they still ACT LIKE PEOPLE. They have individuality, free will (yes, even if it is limited by the strict theocratic control of Norn, they still have it - how did Ixhel create, otherwise? How did Sheoldred rebel? Why did Nahiri snap at Nissa to show the skyclaves? Why did Tamiyo freeze upon seeing children?), and whether you like it or not, this makes them people. They are extremely different people, and yes, their existence does present conflict - but they. are. still. people.

I understand how it may feel offensive to real people to call the (rightful) fear and concern towards Phyrexians to be racism, as I feel like that waters down the term. However... again, knowing that Phyrexians are largely a cult that has been severely indoctrinated by Elesh Norn... it becomes difficult not to feel bad for them, and as if they have all been written off simply because they have a terrible leader. It comes across, to me, as another case of fantasy racism; similar to orcs being portrayed as idiot, warmongering beasts in some settings, or goblins being portrayed as stupid people little better respected than animals (and full of antisemitic stereotypes), just with less baggage attached.

It comes across as them having wanted to create a sapient race of people that was okay to bash and throw under the bus, so to speak. And yes, they gave plenty of reasons for why these people needed to go... but ultimately, it still feels like people went out of their way to create a civilization of people and show us justification for exterminating them.

I'm not trying to water down the term racism, but like... maybe I don't know the right words, but you understand why that might be uncomfortable, right?

Furthermore, at the start, I thought the transformative nature of Phyrexians was cool. Hot, even, as plenty others here on Tumblr think. Yes, I always sort of knew it was meant to be horrifying, too... but I also thought that the creators also were making them semi-alluring on purpose. (Look at Elesh Norn in promotional art. Look at her in the ONE trailer!! Look at the email they sent out for Arena on Valentine's Day, for god's sake!) But as time goes on... I start to get this uncomfortable feeling that this borderline sensual, sexual tension the Phyrexians produce is supposed to be PART of the horror.

And that's where things start getting uncomfortable for me. I am a transgender man. I don't know if I like sexualized, different people that transform themselves... being treated as horrible monsters that can't be coexisted with. I know plenty of trans people felt otherwise about Phyrexians; I understand this likely wasn't even the intention. BUT it still felt that way to me, for someone living in a country where trans people are getting more and more hunted on the daily.

Suddenly, it wasn't so fun anymore, to look at Elesh Norn and see her as heehoo sexy dommy mommy everyone joked at her being. It felt, to me at least, like she was a caricature of what I was. Of what people like me are. Monstrous. Out to destroy the world. Egomaniacs who want to force others down our same "lifestyle."

This is not helped by how Strixhaven, despite being an obvious play on Hogwarts & Harry Potter, came back into importance in MOM. They made a new Planeswalker from that plane, even! I loathe Strixhaven, and I was not at all pleased to learn that they have made it more important. The stories from the original Strixhaven set make me uncomfortable, too; Lukka arrives at a tavern and is asking for food, as he is not doing so well, and people comment on how he dresses strange, and when he (not rudely!) tells them they wouldn't know where he's from even if he told them, they react by SHOOTING FIREBALLS AT HIM.

These people saw a stranger. And decided the appropriate reaction was to shoot fireballs. (More on Lukka later, as I'm not done with him yet) but you understand how that might have also been deeply uncomfortable, right? Like yes, it did seem very intentional, to show how unkind the general populace of Arcavios can be... but there never seemed to be any point to that?? So it just came across as people hating a guy for dressing unconventionally for ""flavor"" to the very-obviously-based-on-TERF-school set. Which. WHY?

I also was not blind to how most of the compleated Planeswalkers were the nonhuman ones. Barring Lukka and Jace, every compleated Planeswalker was nonhuman, which I think... was done purposefully, because nonhumans are viewed as inherently more "monstrous" to our primal little monkey brains. (I don't think it was coincidence; there are PLENTY of human planeswalkers, to the point the majority could have easily not been human.) But this makes me uncomfortable too, because it feels like it, again, not only implies that Phyrexians are not people and are monsters (even though they had been given traits again and again that very firmly confirmed them as people), but that these nonhuman planeswalkers are inherently more monstrous, too.

Ajani - leonin. Tamiyo - moonfolk. Tibalt - (half) devil. Nissa - elf. Vraska - gorgon. Nahiri - kor.

And of the human Planeswalkers compleated, they chose Lukka and Jace. Jace, who has had a steep history of being viewed as less than human and little more than a tool (even sometimes by himself, as much as he hates it), and Lukka, who was also viewed as less than human by the society he came from, and was essentially labeled a sick dog to be shot on sight by his home city. (But more on him and why I particularly hate what was done with him later.)

And like... I'm not saying that corruption arcs or that transformation horror can't be done in a tasteful way!! It just started to feel like, as time went on, that this stuff was... malicious. I already was uncomfortable with how Phyrexians were seemingly being set up to be offed or taken out the picture completely (for there being no feasible way for them to coexist in the multiverse), so maybe I was looking for flaws, even where most wouldn't see them. But, I mean.. it just... Idk man. That part, too, gets under my skin.

And Lukka. LUKKA. I loathe what has been done to his character like none other. It is frequent fan interpretation that Lukka is stupid, Lukka deserves everything that has happened to him, and that it's a good thing he is gone. However, having read everything he has ever appeared in, I am so infuriated that even the creators THEMSELVES seemed to have bought into this idea.

For those that don't know, Lukka first appeared in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths - Sundered Bond, a digital novella. He was born and raised in Drannith, a heavily militarized city, one of three so-called "sanctuaries" that have actually managed to stay around on Ikoria. Ikoria is a world of kaiju-esque mutated, crazy monster animals, and he was raised in propaganda by Drannith's military, the Coppercoats. He is 40+ years old when we meet him; he has served the Coppercoats for half of that, and then another 2 years or so as Captain of a Specials force team. You see, through him, that he's actually a very caring leader and a rather simple guy: he is betrothed to Jirina Kudro, the daughter of General Kudro, leader of the Coppercoats, and his concerns seem to only be getting his team back home in one piece and getting quality time with his wife. He's not perfect, he's rough around the edges, would probably be an asshole to hang out with in real life, but it FITS for the world he comes from.

And then, he accidentally bonds with a winged cat that slaughters 3/4 of his team in front of him, within minutes of each other. General Kudro has kept the bonding magic Lukka experienced a secret from Drannith populace. He believes it makes Lukka "sick." (Need I explain why a leader referring to a group of people as inherently 'sick' is bad??) Even Jirina, for as much as she apparently loves her father, so emphatically believes her father will kill Lukka for this that she helps him escape! the city!!!

To recap, Lukka has his entire world upended from beneath his feet in the course of like, a day. He becomes the public enemy of the city he has defended with his life for years. In his eyes, it is us (the humans of Ikoria) versus them (the monsters of the plane). This is how he has been raised and trained; he did not choose the bonding and is (rightfully!) upset and horrified at it (ONE was incorrect when it said he "always knew he was different;" lukka made no such acknowledgments in Sundered Bond, that was an invention of ONE). He later then meets Vivien, who tells him how her home plane was DESTROYED (um??? Vivien? Why would you tell a man whose life is going to shit about that??) which makes Lukka vow to himself that he will not lose his home.

Later in the story, Lukka learns of a presence in a particular crystal called the Ozolith, and he goes to it. There, for reasons that would take too long to explain, a three-way battle ensues, and an unknown Planeswalker reaches out to Lukka through the Ozolith. The Planeswalker shows Lukka one of the bonders he has met along the way getting killed by a skysail's bolt meant to kill monsters and it is only then that Lukka accepts the power of the Ozolith.

Anyway, saying all this to say... Lukka is a villain, yes. But contrary to popular belief, he is NOT stupid. He is just as smart as anyone would be in the situation he was put into, coming from the world he comes from. He wanted, again and again and again, nothing more than to just go home. He even tried to spin his bonding into a way that Drannith could defend itself, by telling Kudro they should use monsters instead of peoples' lives (but Kudro wasn't hearing it; and the kicker? Drannith would go on to use bonders & monsters to protect the city anyway, after Lukka had been run off the world).

Lukka had a SHIT deck of cards handed to him in Ikoria, and he - REASONABLY - lashed out. It was just that when he lashed out, he had the power of a Planeswalker manipulating him, whispering in his ear, and the power to actually make people listen. He believed his choices were come home and die like a good soldier, or force them to let him come home. Maybe other people fault him for that, but I don't fault him for choosing to live, even if doing so caused much violence and bloodshed.

But yes, he was still a villain, and in Strixhaven, he was relegated to villain again, when people once again presume him to be an Oriq - which he doesn't even know what that is - and finally, he simply decides that if everyone keeps calling him one, he might as well be one. This comes after nearly starving to death and having his new bond, Mila, save his life. Had someone from Strixhaven maybe, I don't know, taken pity on this very clearly struggling guy.... I don't know! I feel like his role in Strixhaven really never would have happened. THE GUY LITERALLY JUST WANTED FOOD AND WATER. I cannot emphasize that enough

Anyway, saying this all to say, Lukka's arc felt like it was headed toward a redemption of some kind. He had been given a raw deal, reacted very humanly but very poorly, and now, the only way he had to go was up.

Instead, we got Vivien shooting him dead. Calling him "lukka-thing." We got Vivien saying nothing as she faces down the man she called a friend and seemingly felt bad for by the end of Sundered Bond and killing him.

As someone from a country that is VERY obviously careening toward more VERY conservative bullshit... THAT PLOT DID NOT SIT WELL WITH ME. It felt VERY MUCH like I was being told "if you are born into shit circumstances or bad things are done to you, and you don't sit there and take it, you will be punished for not simply taking it. And that punishment may very well be death."

I especially did not care for how Jirina seemed to be veering into her father's mindset in the story in MOM. And yes, she was called out for this, but the story also seemed to be trying to lean into this "survival, no matter the cost" vibe, which seemed like it was subtly justifying what she did, since it DID technically work in the end. Vivien's emo ass "but survival is the only law out here now" or w/e it was she said to herself as she killed Lukka definitely didn't help that feeling, either.

It upset me very much to see a character born into a shitty society, given raw deal after raw deal, and then be told that he deserved to die instead of get help. Or worse, that dying WAS getting help. It was "putting him out of his misery." He was "irreversibly changed," and "didn't know better anymore," he "couldn't be helped." That, combined with how compleation started to feel like a very negative allegory for transgender people after a point to me (see near the beginning of this), made Lukka's death feel like rapidfire punch after rapidfire punch to the gut.

AND NOT IN THE WAY THAT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN! I would have loved to see Vivien upset that she can't get to apologize. I would have loved to see Vivien agonizing over the decision to kill him. I would have loved her maybe showing some more REMORSE over having to do it, even if she did feel it was the only way forward. We have seen that New Phyrexians, especially compleated Planeswalkers, are still themselves, even while compleated, so the fact Lukka had nothing to say to her either felt hollow, too. He thought she was his friend and she turned on him; why didn't he have anything to say about that?

Urabrask being pulled apart at the limbs, then, felt like the final message to me: New Phyrexians are not people, they are monsters, end of discussion. They are not making it out of this. Stop asking/talking about it.

Suffice to say, by the time I got to the story of Elspeth becoming an archangel, everything felt hollow and gross for me. I've seen the promo art of Aftermath showing Nahiri and Nissa at least recovered; I get the feeling most of them, bar Tamiyo, Tibalt, and Lukka, probably have recovered or will recover.

But, frankly, I don't think I'm very invested anymore. New Phyrexia felt like it crossed a lot of lines, and not in the way that I would have appreciated horror to do so. It hit on a lot of sensitive subjects that made it rather difficult to enjoy as mere entertainment. Maybe I am just oversensitive, due to the day and age I am living in, due to the fact I am deeply unhappy with the fact I am forced to live closeted irl and feel hypervigilant of all slights, but it felt very gross to me.

Lukka's death in particular just... sealed the deal for me. I know he wasn't a big deal. Maybe he was always intended to just be a villain that gets killed off. But it's not even necessarily about him, in particular, it was about what his death represented. It was about how he was a product of propaganda and hatred, and how he was never given a chance to be better. it's about how I was told that death was the only way forward for him.

Maybe when I was 12 I would have liked that, but I'm over my obsession with the 'death is the only salvation.' SO MUCH MEDIA uses this trope, and frankly, I'm fucking sick of it.

I want to see people, even some of the most depraved fucking people you can imagine, getting better. I want to see that people can change and recognize the error in their ways. I'm tired of being told to look and see "us vs. them."

I'm not saying that you can't have conflict. But I am saying that if you're going to have conflict of this scale, I would prefer it to be solved in ways that don't essentially boil down to "kill/put away the Them."

Because that fucking blows.

If you've made it this far, I am grateful, but again, please keep in mind that this is the ramblings of a deeply mentally unwell ADHD-addled 22 year old (who is not on and cannot get Adderall right now). Emotional dysregulation IS a big problem I deal with, and the world I live in right now fucking sucks. If you're reading this going "oh my godd, let people enjoy things, you crybaby" then please just... move on? Because I'm not trying to tell people not to enjoy it, quite the contrary I WISH these things didn't bother me so much because I JUST got into Magic, and I would love to keep enjoying it! And Im happy for you if you have tolerance/could enjoy it through these things!

I'm just... sad. I'm very, very disappointed in this story. It was pretty, it was flashy, people clearly put in effort, but it felt like a low blow, all things considered, and worse, it touches literally all aspects of canon and cannot be safely disregarded. Much like War of the Spark, it affects almost everything, and will for a while yet.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #397

“you’re my religion, you’re my reason to live  /  you are the heaven in my hell”

Do you think that you’ll always love who you love now? Even if we're never together again romantically, I will ALWAYS love her at least as a best friend. Have you ever made out with a random person? Yeah, no. If you could do your first kiss over, would you? No. I'm lucky that my first kiss was honestly cute as hell. Do you like your country’s president or prime minister? Well I voted for him, so I obviously can't hate him. He seems to be doing fine so far, though take that with a grain of salt seeing as I don't keep up with politics. Even before voting for him, I just did a small bit of researching on his values. What color is your house? Yellow with white accents. Do you listen to Christmas music during the holiday season? No, I don't enjoy it. Man, Jason's mom sure did, though... I loved how in the spirit she'd get and always played Christmas music in the car during that time of year. I miss that woman and I sure as hell hope she rests easy now. Do you like ginger ale? Solely if I have a stomach bug, and I can only ever sip it. What are you listening to? "Electric Sugar Pop" by Jeffree Star. What’s the last thing you watched on TV? The TMS office has the TV on, and the woman who overlooks it (I have zero idea what her position is called) tends to have it either on a cooking channel or a home improvement one. Today was a cooking one. Is your favorite author the author of your favorite book? I don't have a favorite author. Describe someone you find really attractive: M-Mark Fischbach. *___* If you HAD to look like someone else, but could choose who, who would you choose? Hm... maybe my friend Alon. I've mentioned I feel like a million times that she is like, ethereal with how gorgeous she is. Have you ever seen someone get a tattoo done? If so, what was it? Did they cry or were they in a lot of pain? Yeah; it was a watercolor feather with "ohana" written below it. She didn't cry at all, but she grit her teeth a few times. Do you have anything you couldn’t go a day without? Some form of technology. Have you ever gotten caught doing something illegal? No. What’s your favorite flavor of Vitamin Water? I don't even think I've ever tried it. Is there someone you wanna date right now? Yeah. What first attracted you to the last person you kissed? If we're talking the very first, our vast similar interests. How many brothers does your father have? None. Does your best friend have any tattoos? No. Do you like Ben + Jerry’s? Yep. Man, I want their Phish Food ice cream now. Would you ever wish to be the opposite sex? Nah. Do you think you’re attractive? Nope. What is your favorite card game to play? Magic: The Gathering. I really miss my PS3 where I had Duel of the Planeswalkers installed on it, it was really fun. Do you own a globe? I don't think we still do. What is your favorite wild cat? Perhaps clouded leopards. If your bedroom had three portals to anywhere, where would they lead? South Africa, Sara's place, and maybe a nice little cabin in the mountains for when I'm feeling a peaceful getaway. You can ask any author one question about their story. What do you ask? I have zero idea. What’s a place you have a strong emotional connection to? The pond behind the local community college. Jason and I took our first prom pictures there. Do you take yoga classes? No, but I'm actually considering it since they offer those at the YMCA Mom and I now go to. What is a decision you’ve made that changed your entire life? To let Jason go. It's pretty great, my PTSD has been less of a bother lately! Have you ever made any money from a side-hustle? Could you consider being paid to take pictures once in a blue moon a "side hustle" when I don't even have a main job? Do you ever wonder what kind of person you’d have turned out to be if a certain event never happened to you? Ugh... it's incredibly painful to wonder how life would be if Jason never left. If you could have anyone’s singing voice, whose would you choose? Adele's or Amy Lee's, probs. What are your top 3 favorite genres of music? Metal, hard rock, alternative. Do you think Mars will be colonized in your lifetime? No. Have you ever been homeless? If so, what led to your homelessness? Technically, yes, because Mom couldn't afford the rent. She, my little sister (who still lived with us at the time), and I each were accepted into the homes of willing, kind people, though. Have you ever been on a ship? No. Who was Van Halen’s better singer - David Lee Roth, or Sammy Hagar? David. Which fictional character has the most memorable quotes? Heath Ledger's Joker is quoted all the time, so probably him. What do you think of the "Healthy At Every Size" movement/philosophy? Before I answer this, I want you to keep in mind that this is coming from someone who is obese, so I would positively love to agree with that for my own self-confidence, but I don't. I believe it's a very dangerous mentality. I think you should cherish your body unconditionally, like it's an amazing machine, but I firmly believe you should have an active interest in becoming what is physically healthy. You couldn't pay me millions to convince me that, say, a 300 lb. person is healthy. What was the name of the first person you ever had a crush on? Why did you like them? I think my first *real* crush was this guy Sebastian my freshman year of high school. I thought he was very sweet, funny, caring, and attractiveness was a bonus. What food will you absolutely not, under any circumstances, eat? Sashimi, caviar, raw eggs... Which famous person would you like to be BFFs with? Bindi Irwin, for one. What kind of natural disaster is most common where you live? Hurricanes. Have you ever had an animal get into your attic? No. Have you ever been bitten so hard that there teeth marks were there after? I mean I've had hickeys before if that's what you're asking. Ever gave one? Oh, I guess you were. Yeah. Do you think its weird if guys wear make-up like eyeliner? Not at all. Would you ever date a disabled person? (Be honest) Yes. Would you rather adopt or have your own child? IF I wanted kids, I'd rather have one myself because I'm well aware I personally need that special connection. Stepkids count, too, because they'd be my partner's and therefore very important for me too. What is the most personal question you have ever been asked? Probably TMI, so here's your fair warning, but I've been asked before if I "touch" myself and I was absolutely repulsed that someone would ask me that. Were you abused by your parents? No. If you’re not straight, who was the first person you came out to? Sara. Were you one of the smartest in your class? Up to finishing high school, modestly, I was. Where did you meet your first crush? Art class my freshman year of high school. Do you ever go places with wet hair? Yeah, idc. Who is your favorite little girl? My niece Aubree. She's such a wonderful girl. Does your best friend have kids? No. If you were pregnant, would you want a boy or a girl? Hypothetically, a girl. What place outside of your own home do you spend the most time at? Um, maybe my older sister's house? Have you ever participated in a medical study? No. Do you have any family members who are cancer survivors? Yes, including my mother. Twice. Are you allergic to any medications? None that I've tried. Do you have any licenses other than your driver's license? I don't even have that. If you’re atheist, would you raise you kids believing in God or not? No; I wouldn't intervene with their own spiritual (or lack thereof) journey. They'd learn what they'd learn and decide themselves what they believe. Do you like reading self-help books? No, I just can't get invested in those. What is your opinion on sex change? If you're unhappy with your body, you're more than free to surgically change that with no judgment from me. Do you have any goals for this summer? If so, what are they? Yes, to lose weight. Can you get a strike at bowling? I have before. There was one occasion where my first go was a strike RIGHT after saying I sucked at bowling, hahaha. Do you ever take pictures of negative moments? Well, I photograph roadkill, and that's one hell of a sad moment. I actually wouldn't mind broadening my horizons of photographing negative moments (with permission of course), because I actually find these very impactful and even builds empathy. I will never, ever forget this one picture I saw sometime of an emaciated boy huddled in the dirt with a vulture close by watching him... like fuck, it made me want to sob. No one should ever have to live like that, especially a child. Would you ever post a picture of yourself crying on social media? No. I know that sounds contradictory to what I just said, I just wouldn't be able to do it myself. Have you ever held a newborn baby? Once, when my last niece was born. I'm terrified of holding them because they're just so fragile. Do you know anyone who has twins? My friend just had triplets. What is your favorite country in Europe? Germany. Are you thriving in your life right now? BOY HOWDY- Do you remember to water plants? I don't keep plants. Name three YouTubers you aspire to be like. 1.) Markiplier in a vast plethora of ways; 2.) Jeffree Star for his incredible work ethic; and 3.) Shane Dawson for his incredible compassion. Yes. I know the controversy, but regardless, he cares a lot about people. Who is your favorite character from Harry Potter? I wouldn't know, given I haven't read the books or seen the movies. Do you watch PewDiePie? Not anymore; his content doesn't interest me anymore. I watched him religiously back in the day when he was a serious let's player, though. Do you have a Steam account? Yes. Have you ever played Five Nights at Freddy’s? No, not personally. I like watching LPs of it and I find the story fascinating, but it's not the kind of game I'd enjoy playing. Have you ever tried Akinator? Yes. I don't think I ever beat it, except maybe once. Are you wearing socks right now? No; unless I'm wearing closed-toe shoes like sneakers, I never do. I hate the feeling of them. Can you twerk? Haven't tried, don't wanna. Do you like dabbing? No, it looks stupid. Do you like fishing? I honestly do think it's fun with all the anticipation and thrill of seeing how big the fish is, however I don't support it anymore unless, like hunting, you genuinely need it for food. The only case where I'd go again was if my dad asked me, because that's always been our bonding experience. Do you have a Spotify account? Yes. Have you heard of Blizzard Entertainment? Well, they're the company behind World of Warcraft, so obviously. Do you like bananas? Yes, but only for a VERY short window of time. I am beyond picky with the ripeness of bananas. Are you addicted to anything? Caffeine and technology. Do you know your phone number? I actually don't. Do you swear in front of children? No.

[magus-of-the-color-pizza]

Beyond the Summary

So here’s the thing. The Story Summary came out and everyone on Twitter is roasting it for not being a real story. However, aside from one or two plot points (which I will identify in a second), a lot of people seem to be missing just how... rushed and plothole dense the story is? So, in order to properly address this, I’ve compiled this little list of grievances regarding the story in and of itself, regardless of the way it’s been “told”.

 There were a few additional plot points that I personally felt didn’t make much sense, but which, ironically, could if they were developed well, which of course they will not be. I’m going to go in order with the Summary. Let’s get this over with, shall we?

-me after reading the Story Summary, 2019

Before the gods of Theros rose to power, the titans—horrific primal urges made flesh—roamed the mortal realm, sowing death and destruction in their wake.

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: yes, the titans make sense from a Plot perspective, but hey, did you know? Despite being represented on the cards, in the story they actually DO NOT BREAK FREE and are irrelevant! They are simply a plot device to introduce Klothys! The conflict of THB is unrelated to them! (Also, there are only 2 of them, which I find kind of weird but whatever)

Klothys, the god of fate, volunteered to act as jailer and sequestered herself in the Underworld for eternity.

Ok, clever way to introduce the new god, except for the fact that we’ve been told in the past that the Gods of Theros require constant devotion/followers or they will lose power/cease to exist. How did Klothys avoid this fate?

Ashiok's visions are more real than most, and in one of them, Elspeth seized Heliod's spear Khrusor. When the vision had passed, a twisted version of the spear remained, dripping with darkness and power.

For this to happen, it would have to be intentional on Ashiok’s part. It might be, but it’s weird to omit that. What were their intentions in granting Elspeth that spear? 

Secondly, Ashiok learned of the Phyrexians' existence and promptly planeswalked away to learn more of these true living nightmares.

Ashiok is the type of person that plans miles ahead. If they gave Elspeth the spear intentionally to wreak chaos, do they not care to see what happens next? And what happened to all their plans regarding Theros and the nature of the gods and belief? I can understand they’d be very interested in Phyrexia, but it seems weird to just drop everything and go.

And when gods clash, mortals suffer the consequences. One such consequence took the form of rifts to the Underworld from which countless monsters poured forth. Erebos, the god of the Underworld, was consumed by this conflict. He hated Heliod most of all, and in his rage, he neglected to keep a tight grip on the souls under his purview. News travels fast, even in the afterlife, and Elspeth heard talk of rifts to the mortal realm. Realizing her work in the Multiverse was not yet done, Elspeth gripped her shadow spear and headed toward a hidden exit in Erebos's palace—but she wasn't the only one seeking escape.

This whole paragraph is... oof. The rifts are a super convenient plot device, not to mention Erebos’s slight mischaracterization. The whole image of Elspeth just up-and-leaving the realm of death is pretty funny, I have to say.

Klothys was furious. When Xenagos attempted to take her place in the pantheon, she was understandably upset.

I’m sorry, her place in the pantheon? Yes they both fall under Gruul colors but not only does the pantheon not have a finite number of spots, Xenagos became the God of Revels, that has nothing to do with Destiny. Also, Klothys made the decision to remain to seal the Titans, remember? She had no followers.

As Elspeth headed toward freedom, she gathered allies. Along her journey, she faced many battles and powerful foes, and she fought them all off. After each victory, she raised her spear high and proclaimed: "Behold, the true Khrusor! Heliod wields a fake!"

Aside from being salty at the fact that we’re just going to leave Elspeth’s struggles at the generic “many battles and powerful foes” (Who? Why? Where? How? When?), keep in mind that we are still in the Underworld for this part of the story. So the faith she is supposedly gathering for herself/the weapon by proclaiming its true nature to, I guess, random people that were hanging around while she beat up her foes (unless you’re telling me she gathered an army, which raises way more questions) (which will be relevant in a second) comes from Returned, not living denizens. That raises so many questions I think I’m just going to move on to the next part.

She also clashed repeatedly with Calix, emerging victorious every time. After all, she was a seasoned warrior, and he was freshly made. But with each battle, Calix did a little better—he was learning his foe as he learned himself.

This part might be the one that irks me the most, to be honest. As previously stated, Elspeth has defeated many powerful foes. This Calix guy, who is a masterwork of sentient mana-construct created by Klothys, wants to return her to her place in the underworld. So first of all, he finds her, ok, that I can accept. And then...? They fight. So Elspeth beats him up and leaves him alive? Or does he make a daring escape? Because they “clash repeatedly”. Did they just agree to meet every day at the same hour? Why does Calix not play it smart and ambush her if he can track her so well? Why does Elspeth not kill this severe threat to her mission? Wh- you know what, let’s just move onward.

Heliod stood in Elspeth's way, refusing her passage out of the Underworld. She could not be allowed to escape. She would be the end of him. She was the cause of all this. Ranting under his breath, he charged Elspeth with his spear Khrusor . . . which promptly shattered in his hands. For each time Elspeth repeated that her shadowspear was the true Khrusor, the onlooker souls believed her. And it was the power of that belief, that devotion, that caused her lie to simply become truth. Staring down the point of a spear that was no longer his, Heliod yielded.

Heliod’s descent into paranoia is actually something I really regret not being able to see in full (must’ve been some powerful paranoia indeed since it made him wage a solo war against ALL the other gods). What I’m going to point out is that Elspeth’s plan... works. Really? You managed to gather so much faith (again, from dead Therosians) that you managed to surpass the unofficial Main God of this world and his very much official Khrushor to become fake? I mean I know Ajani and the leonin did their fair share of spreading doubts regarding Heliod (speaking of, where the hell is Ajani for the events of this set?), but I really have a hard time seeing how Heliod loses this battle even though he is the one that started the conflict, yes Therosians may begin to turn against him but to lose their faith completely... I’m not sold. Also, Heliod just gives up? Damn, this dude started an entire war based on the fear he might be replaced and then when a mortal challenges him, he yields. This is a god that has erased entire cities from existence!

Erebos simply took the defeated sun god and placed him beneath a giant boulder, where he would suffer for all eternity, or until he was forgotten by his worshippers above. As for Elspeth, Erebos gifted her his eternal gratitude—and safe passage back to the mortal realm.

Like a random boulder? A boulder big enough to be a nuisance to a god? And why can’t Heliod just move? It’s not like he has the responsibility to hold up the heaves/surface/underworld, it’s literally just a boulder. Also, reminder that Heliod is the most venerated/important god on Theros. The fact that he is so nonchalantly removed from his duties and placed under punishment is downright absurd! Especially since the whole Xenagos thing was a huge controversy among the gods, who are, in a wonderful metaphor of the capitalist status quo by the way, way more interested in preserving their collective status as deities than actually going after the other gods, despite being rivals (it is canon that they have technically agreed not only not to harm each other but also to not interfere directly with each other’s affairs on the surface). Also, he’s alive! Who will take his place as God of the sun/day/light/whatever? Sure generations would forget him eventually but for the meantime, Therosians will just live on with no deity of so many important things? What? WHAT

After a brief reunion with Daxos, Elspeth planeswalked away.

Oh ok. So Elspeth is finally free, meets up with her lover, who has been transformed into a demi-god (is it reversible? Is he sentient? What happens to him now that Heliod has been defeated?), chats, and then leaves. How was their reunion? What did they say? Can Daxos be saved? Is he gonna be a regular Therosian now? Do they care about each other anymore? Does Elspeth get the catharsis/absolution she craves for being manipulated into killing him? Guess we don’t care, huh.

Calix looked on, his very being in agony. It was his purpose to return Elspeth to where she belonged, and now he could no longer reach her. But in his darkest hour, a strange idea sparked within him—and he simply planeswalked after her.

And finally, the line most people have been nitpicking on (for good reason). Calix is a freaking “created being”, which according to MtG rules, should NOT be able to innately possess a spark! What’s going on, huh? We’ve been bending “spark rules” for a while now (Jiang Yanggu and Mowu, the Royal Scions, Kaya’s ABSURD ability to transport non-planeswalkers to other planes) but this is a straight-up break. Also I love the “Rip to your mana construct but I would simply planeswalk” memes people have made about this, but one more thing. Did Calix miss the part where Erebos says Elspeth is free to go? What would happen if he brought her back, huh? “Oh no man don’t worry, she’s good”. Even if Calix believes Klothys’s will is more important than Erebos’s (if Klothys even still wants Elspeth back in the underworld after Erebos pardones her), how does he think he’s going to get her to stay there if Erebos doesn’t want her? Just gonna straight-up kill her? And again I ask, WHY didn’t Elspeth kill this guy? ARGH

-a visual metaphor of being a Vorthos right now

That concludes... whatever the heck this was. Thank you for listening and if you have any comments or additions, please let me know. I will say one thing: it is terribly ironic that the world that first sparked my interest for both writing and the magic story by kicking off the “golden age of mtg story” is also the one where the story is reduced to random blurbs on cards and whatever this garbage fire was. Truly a sad day for all of us. 

[monorayjak]

My Custom - Planeswalker

I was hoping to get some feedback on him. This is my first, serious attempt at an original character, so don't expect anything good. Anyways, here is a conversation I wrote out between me asking questions and him responding. Keep in mind, please, it is 4 AM and i literally just wrote all this out...so...yeah...expect a few typos.

M(e): So, first off lets start with the basics, so, what is your full name?

D(urah): Durah Olren Voln.

M: Ok, so, how old are you?

D: I am 18.

M: So Durah, tell me, what do you want in life?

D: Oh, thats a quick jump...well, I guess what I really want is to find something to believe in, something that I can stand for. Plus, it wouldn't be bad if I found a group to call a family along the way.

M: Interesting. So tell me, out of the possessions you own, what is the most important one to you?

D: My most important possession is probably my mother's locket.

M: And why is the locket so important?

D: She gave me this locket when I was just a small kid, but it wasn't long after that one of the Gruul clans raided the area we lived in and destroyed everything, we found her body three days after they left, burnt to a crisp.

M: Oh...I'm sorry to hear that.

D: Its ok, I miss her all the time, but it has been ten years.

M: Of course, of course...so, what about your father?

D: My father...the Boros officer, he stood high and mighty for the people he protected, but when he came home everyday, he would drink as much as he could, and then he would yell at me for hours on end about how imperfect I was, because I wasn't him...and then he'd beat me until he had to go back to his patrols. I hate him. I left him behind at 15, and I haven't looked back since.

M: Hm, sounds like you have had a very rough upbringing, what about your friends? Who were you close to after your mother passed away?

D: I was closest to a young merfolk girl named Asimi and another human boy named Veran.

M: So, how have you three been doing the past decade?

D: Well, we started working together doing odd jobs for the guilds, but as time went on, they both joined a guild, and I kept working alone. Veran asked me to help him with a mission for the Orzhov not too long ago.

M: Hm, how did this mission go?

D: Poorly...

M: And why is that?

D: Veran betrayed me.

M: Oh...how...why did he betray you?

D: The council of Orzhova asked him to assassinate a Simic biomancer, and he needed a scape-goat. He told me it was a simple retrieval and delivery job, picking up some materials the Simic had sold to the Orzhov and delivering it.

M: And he left the blame on you after the mission?

D: Not exactly.

M: Really?

D: Yeah, the thing about this Simic biomancer, was that we both knew her.

M: Asimi?

D: Yeah.

M: Could Veran not bring himself to kill a childhood friend?

D: No...he was ready to kill us both if needed, what he didn't expect was for us to fight back. Asimi fought after he began to attack, but he did not plan on fighting fair, he knocked me into a wall and pulled a poison dagger on her. They fought while I struggled to stand back up.

M: What happened next?

D: I failed. He got a hit on her, and after that she was easy to finish off, he was using some kind of rare poison that basically sedated a person after only a few seconds in the bloodstream. Before I could get up to try and help, he had already finished it, and he used a powerful flame spell to char her body, before charging it at me. He knew I hated flames.

M: So, how did you escape?

D: To be honest, I don't really know. One minute I have a fading grasp on reality, I see the flames burn Asimi's body, and then start heading to me, the next minute, I only see a blinding light.

M: Your spark ignited?

D: I guess. I'm still new to this. But anyways, the next thing I know, I'm laying in a dense forest, with some mountains in the distance.

M: Well...seems you've had quite a rough week.

D: Yeah.

M: So, Durah, would you mind if we switch topics for a bit?

D: I'd be happy too.

M: Ok, well in that case, why don't we switch to a lighter one for now.

D: Sounds good.

M: Ok, so, why don't you explain your style.

D: My "style?"

M: Yes, like your clothes, how would you describe the way you dress?

D: Ah...well, to be honest, I don't have much of a "style," I was used to growing up with little money, I mean, my father did spend most of it on alcohol. But, I guess I would say, casual? I just wear some cheap coats and pants.

M: What about the trinkets you have on? Like that skull for example?

D: Well, most of these trinkets are signs of acceptance into guilds. Where I did so many odd jobs over the years, many of the factions began to see me as a, well, a "honorary member" I guess. They gave me some trinkets to prove it. I mean, this glove-gauntlet was a gift from an Izzet mage I helped move some cargo, and these goggles were a present from the Simic for helping me dive down on their missions. Now, the skull you pointed out, is actually from a Gruul clan.

M: The Gruul? But, weren't the Gruul the ones who took your mothers life?

D: Well, yes, but the Gruul are seperated into hundreds of different clans. This clan is known as "Burning Tree" and while they are still strong and respected, they don't really do the large-scale raids that took my mother. At least, they don't do it a lot.

M: Ah, well, what about tattoos? Do you have any?

D: A few. I have one that's modeled after the symbol the Living Guildpact uses on my shoulder, and I have a few Gruul markings along this arm.

M: Hmm, why do you have a tattoo of the Living Guildpact's symbol?

D: I respect him, he creates peace between the guilds, at least more than their was when I grew up.

M: Well. In theme with our previous topic, why don't we look at combat style. Do you use any weapons? Do you rely on magic?

D: I usually use cryomancy for combat, but I also have a staff that I can use in physical combat.

M: Any particular reason you use a staff?

D: Mostly just how I was trained. I took combat lessons from the Gruul and Izzet.

M: Combat lessons from the Izzet?

D: Yeah...believe it or not but some of them are excellent fighters. But anyway, the Gruul used staffs mainly as their weapon of choice, and the Izzet modified my original staff with some tech to channel my ice magic.

M: Handy.

D: Yep.

M: So, now feel free to deny it, but if you don't mind, what is your sexuality?

D: Oh...well.. that was unexpected.

M: Feel free to stay silent.

D: No, its fine. I guess I would have to say Bisexual. I mean, I've never really had any serious romances or really sat down and thought about it, but I don't really care about a persons sex.

M: Fair enough. Now, I want to ask you a question that, based on what you have told me, you may have strong feelings about, is it ok if I ask it?

D: Well, sure, I guess.

M: Ok, have you ever been intoxicated?

D: A few times, twice when I was little, and once when I was older.

M: Really? How did they come about?

D: The first time was a simple accident, my father left his out, and I got my hands on it. I puked for a week.

M: Hm, well, what about the second?

D: The second time was less...cute. My father found out I had taken a drink from his...

M: The first time?

D: Yes.

M: Well, how did he react?

D: He yelled. I remember one moment very clearly, he had me pinned to the floor and was yelling something along the lines of "You want my drink!? Here, have it ALL THEN!" After that, he poured a whole bottle into my mouth and beat me after I swallowed it, telling me "A real man would have spit it back out and hit him."

M: Oh...

D: Yeah...

M: Well...what about the third time?

D: The third time was to celebrate my freedom from my dad. Asimi, Veran, and I all celebrated my escape.

M: Well, sounds like that memory was a happier one!

D: I wish. After just a few drinks...I lost control.

M: What?

D: I slipped into those same actions...I almost really hurt my friends...I...I was a monster...just like him...I vowed to never take a drink again after that day. I didn't want to be like him, I wanted to be someone he would be sick of, someone he would hate as much as I hate him. But after just a few drinks...I became him.

M: NO! I'm sure you gained back control before you hurt your friends!

D: Luckily.

M: Well...with that I think it may be time to begin wrapping up, but just to end on a happier note, do you think you could tell us any quirks you have?

D: ...

M: Durah?

D: Sorry....quirks you said?

M: Yes, if you have any.

D: Well, a big one is my heterochromia, my eyes are different colors.

M: Well, any others?

D: One more...

M: What is it?

D: I count in song...

M: Huh...not what I was expecting to be honest.

D: Yeah...figured we should end lighter.

M: Fair. Well Durah...I think its about time I take my leave, thank you for meeting with me today.

D: Yeah, thanks for listening.

[leafdrake-haven]

For the OC ask meme, could I ask Breeze numbers 3, 26, 27, 43, and 49?

3. Orientation and Relationship status (single, taken (by who?), crush (on who?)

Breeze is a drake so she doesn’t completely understand the concept of romance. She’s an adult drake so I imagine she has probably paired with other drakes a couple times but I don’t think she’s raised any clutches or anything (though helped friends and family!) or has a mate, though I could see her doing so eventually. (I would not ship her with a humanoid or anything though)

26. Guilty Pleasure

Oh this is tricky, because she has like zero shame. I can’t think of any hobby or food she would feel guilty about enjoying, HOWEVER, I could see her secretly thinking baby dragons are cute but she would never EVER admit that out loud and she would deny it excessively if someone suggested it. 

27. What’s their family like? Who’s in it? What’s their relationship with them?

Breeze has a big family! Her core family is her flock back on Shandalar, and she will always go home to visit from time to time. Though they don’t understand where she goes and how she gets there, they always are glad to see he return and always accept her. She loves helping with hatchlings. Breeze also considers any new friends she makes her family and will try to visit them on their planes whenever she can. She particularly enjoys spending time with a dryad planeswalker she met who lives on Ravnica (Sylene who is @connoissuer-of-fine-vines character!)

43. What pokemon would your character be (if they’re already a pokemon/gijinka tell us what they are, and how that’s affected them)?

So this is tough because noivern would probably make the most surface sense BUT also Breeze would hate to be a dragon type. Personality-wise I could see an argument for purrloin. (anything highly mischievous or curious would work pretty well)

49. What are some themes tied to your character’s story?

I have ideas for a more thorough answer, but for now I’ll say: follow where your heart leads, when it’s quiet go where the wind takes you instead

Thank you for your questions! :D

[profanetools]

🖊 Revas, Andrana, and/or (if they're still around that great miasma of OCs we all have) your vampire planeswalker

i absolutely do not apologise for the length of this answer:

Revas: I think leaving being cured of lycanthrophy for Revas was less of a 'I am an uncontrollable heinous monster I can't do this' but more rather, a recognition that his way of life wasn't doing it any more for him and that he wanted to move on. Revas ran into the woods after a lot of bad childhood experiences just to be free of people for a while and spent a lot of time actively avoiding them - not hunting them, not killing them. The issue wasn't self-control or restraint as much as Revas realising that he could not really have a conventional life as a werewolf. Lycanthropy was escapism for Revas and as he realised that it was not making things better, he wanted to tentatively try to return to human society and live a different kind of life. Looking for a cure is a natural next step.

As a result, Revas and Hircine parted on more amicable terms than most ever realise or even suspect. Revas, while distrustful and wary of Hircine (he's a daedric prince), still respects him a great deal - for however cruel he could be, he understood some measure of fairness. There is also the fact that Hircine was more supportive than any other adult figure in Revas' childhood, simply through being fair, consistent, and honest about what lycanthrophy entailed.

----

Andrana: She grew up in wealth and largely hated the culture and the pressure that came with being a noveau riche family trying to be accepted into Summerset's aristocracy (a near impossible task), while also having the knowledge that such an acceptance would likely be impossible for her personally unless she renounced her Telvanni father. She left home to live among the Telvanni for a time, and after a falling out with her father, wandered about until she settled down into a witches coven. However she does like little luxuries - soft fabrics, rich foods, nice wines, etc. and misses those small comforts time to time. Later in life, after she left all of that behind, has been known to sneak into aldmeri parties with an alias to cause mischief and sample all the fancy cheeses and wines. She likes to ruin them by introducing scandalous gossip they pretend not to know.

------

Vampire planeswalker: dawn!!! dawn!!!!!! (could never find a better name for them asides from that highly ironic name so I stuck with it)

I actually think about them fairly often still since they were my only fanwalker and I am extremely attached to them. Love this weird ex-goathearder empath who tries their best to live with nature even though they're an undead bloodsucking fiend.

A couple of random headcanons:

Since Dawn is 250-500 years old, more or less, they have developed a reputation on certain planes. On one plane, Dawn often goes because it's full of very quiet, very still peaceful forest and they spend several months there sometimes just fo chill out when they get overstimulated and spend time cultivating the forest, looking after the wildlife, ensuring that the ecosystem stays in balance, etc. without dealing with the messy emotions of humans. Some locals believe that Dawn is actually a forest spirit and descriptions of them will appear in local literature. Dawn, who isn't a big reader, is oblivious to all of this.

Another headcanon is that Dawn is drawn to Ravnica like a moth to a flame because the Golgari have some of the best collections of obscure fungi in the multiverse.

[dukeofriven]

Controversial Opinion:

I don’t care what RPG you are playing, the title of the ‘referee’ or ‘storyteller’ should always be Dungeon Master.

Always. It doesn’t matter if you’re recreating Lord of the Rings, an Edwardian cocktail party, a space marine battle, or a deep-roleplay exploration of The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. It’s Dungeon Master. It is DM. Game Master makes you sound like a third rate Gandalf/Merlin ripoff in an Saturday morning cartoon. Far more than Dungeon Master, Game Master conjures visions of sitting in a musty basement wearing the saddest homemade robe possible, wilting under the withering gaze of your friends who find your performance of Darkbeard the Evil to be less than satisfactory and its only a matter of minutes before one of them suggests “let’s go play the Colecovision” right in the middle of combat and everyone will get up and leave without even looking at you. Calling yourself a Game Master is to set yourself up for sadness. It shares a set of initials with General Manager, for pity’s sake - can you all picture Paul? It’s 1985 and Paul is only 30 but you’d swear he’s 40 and he still has Greg Brady hair -  his childhood idol - and a moustache he thinks makes him look like Tom Selleck. He wears polo shirts that always look baggy on his spindly frame and slacks in the weirdest shade of brown that make his legs look twigs and he works at CompuHome Computers and Electronics on the I-335 just outside of Topeka and you know this because he’s already cornered you three times at this party to tell you this fact and you finally mutter something like ‘that must be interesting’ because its 1985 and talking to someone about computers in public makes you want to die and Paul (getting louder now as he drinks more of that awful punch) goes “Debbie said you know a thing or two about BASIC?” - of course she did you’ll have to kill her - “You know we’ve sold five Model Ds in the last three months - can’t keep ‘em on the shelves! You know, CompuHome is really going places: we’ve, uh, got an opening on our sales floor if you’re interested. It’s a real awesome place: I like to keep the workplace professional but also let our employees let there hair down, you know?” - if he says ‘you know’ one more time you’re going to drown him in the punchbowl - “I can make those kinds of decisions because I’m the general manager, and Mr. Larson - that’s my boss - gives me a lot of control over hiring. Hey, you ever play a role-playing game?” Torn between not letting down the sisterhood and public humiliation you make an ambiguous noise of exceeding vagueness that could mean anything. “Awesome. Heh, we get up to some crazy hijinks sometimes ha ha - every Friday I run a bit of Powers & Perils for the boys. I guess you can say I’m sort of the GM GM!” At that point your soul leaves your body, drifting through Debbie’s pressed fibreboard walls, across her front lawn and the ratty Reagan/Bush sign Mike refuses to take down no matter what the neighbourhood association says - drifting on and up into the heavens, taking refuge in the stars to cuddle with the soul of Laika and commune with the spirit of Ursula Le Guin, who isn’t dead but is undoubtedly planeswalking and might like the company. You can see him now, can’t you? You can see Paul. You don’t want to be Paul. Even Paul didn’t want to be Paul - he invested heavily in Leading Edge and thought P&P would be Avalon Hill’s silver bullet against TSR.

Paul thought Game Master made him sound important. Paul was wrong. Dungeon Master has gravitas. Dungeon Master brings a bit of Middle English grandeur to an otherwise humdrum existence. Dungeon Master knows exactly what it is, and makes no excuses for its existence for it needs none. A Dungeon Master drapes themselves in that sad robe and owns it. In the hands of a Dungeon Master Darkbeard the Evil isn’t a scabrous thirteen year old with a side-high tale and a starchy Victorian blouse that stinks of a chemical pond of Downey and dryer sheets draped in their big sister’s old bathrobe covered with multicoloured stars they cut out of last year’s Eaton’s catalogue: Darkbeard is a shabby, ratty husk of a human being, his flesh mere strips of gristle, his sunken eyes haunted by the triumphs of a thousand vile sins. His decrepitude owes nothing to a meagre costuming budget: it is his calling card, his indifference to the material meaning of a body. It is but the vessel through which the pulsating beat of his hateful heart is dragged through the world, an evil so black, so devoid of light and love and hope, that his very presence frays thread, dulls colour, and burns the throat with an acrid, caustic taint. Those unfortunate to gaze upon him quail at the foundations of their being: look upon yourselves, ye mighty - and despair! Dungeon Master has no time for Paul, with his wet hands, his wheedling tone, and his self-inflicted loneliness. Paul doesn’t have the stature to measure up. Paul never could. Don’t be Paul.

Titles define you. Titles can enthrone you in splendour, should you choose right, or else expose your innate mediocrity, should you choose wrong. Never accept anything less than Dungeon Master.

[adashofstarshine]

It’s Aderyn!

Pronouns - They/Them/Their Race: Elf  Age: 21 Plane of Origin: Shadowmoor Current Residence: Ravnica Mana Alignment - UW

Aderyn is a flying-matters themed planeswalker! Their magic centres around understanding, buffing, and if in doubt, taking control of flying creatures. Their speciality is birds. Personality wise, they are sweet and innocent, naive to a fault and exceptionally eager to please. They work as a messenger for the Azorius and a post-elf for planeswalkers across the multiverse.

Aderyn’s Backstory is under the cut!

Aderyn was born in the Wilt-Leaf Forest on Shadowmoor. Their parents were Safehold guards and died on patrol when Aderyn was five. From then on, Aderyn was constantly berated and pushed around by the members of their safehold. They found it incredibly difficult to concentrate on class, drills, or even keeping the same schedule as their peers. Once they lost concentration, Aderyn had one main desire - to climb as high as they could to the top of the woodland fortress and play with the bats and birds that lived there.

By the time they were fifteen, they were the best climber in the entire fortress. They often slipped out over the roof and explored the neighbouring treetops, despite the danger. The Immaculate of their safehold realised that this could be used to the safehold’s advantage. The purpose of elves on Shadowmoor was to preserve the little beauty the night-plane had left. Aderyn was given the new role of Skyscout - a position that would take them climbing through the canopies of the Wilt-Leaf to find new sources of beauty.

Aderyn loved this role, for they were able to spend nights at a time, exploring the canopies and sky above, without having to face the judgement of their peers. They swiftly became friends with all the birds, bats, and elementals that flew above the topmost branches and made their homes there. Aderyn regarded these airborne species as the most beautiful of all, as they were free to enjoy the star-strewn sky. They resolved to help these species flourish, to reintroduce beauty back to the forest.

Whilst protecting a family of birds, Aderyn made enemies of a clique of faeries, who wanted to steal the birds’ eggs to pelt boggarts with.  The faeries got fed up of the eggs being unavailable, so summoned a few more cliques and caught Aderyn by surprise, pushing them from the treetops. The fall should have been fatal. Yet as Aderyn plunged to their death, they suddenly emerged into a place full of light. They caught themselves from the fall and abruptly found themselves hovering above a tall spire. They were on Ravnica.

Frightened and overwhelmed, they struggled with their flight for a moment, before a trio of doves found them and introduced themselves. Aderyn had never actually fully spoken to a bird, with mutual understanding, and was thrilled by the discovery. The doves introduced the area to them, and offered to show them round. They eagerly accepted. What followed was a tour of Ravnica, where Aderyn was guided about by everything from Selesnyan doves, to Azorius griffins to Rakdos gore-crows. Halfway through the tour, Aderyn was approached by a Bird of Paradise, they would later name Milo.

Milo, who had lost their mate to poachers, begged Aderyn to help him find him again. Aderyn, and his giant entourage of birds, helped Milo, amassing more and more flying creature to their cause. Soon a huge army of birds, drakes, griffins, dragons, hybrids, pegasi, and imps, all accompanied Aderyn in pursuit of this lost BoP.  This drew the attention of the Azorius, many of whom had lost their griffin mounts, who charged the flying force on mass. Aderyn and Milo did manage to find Giles, Milo’s mate, but in the process, Aderyn was arrested for disturbing the peace.

They were brought before Lavinia, who recognised that the strange hooved elf was a planeswalker, like the Living Guildpact. Lavinia locked Aderyn away, saying that when the Guildpact returned, Jace would judge Aderyn for their crime, one planeswalker to another. Jace did not come back and Lavinia was forced to release Aderyn for the time being, as they hadn’t actually caused any harm. They were released with the punishment of community service - which was in fact service to the Azorius. Aderyn became a errand-elf for Lavinia, running messages, fetching her coffee and delivering her post.  

They never considered leaving Ravnica, due to being enamoured with the concept of day and night, loving to watch the sunrise and sunset. They also didn’t want to leave all their bird friends behind. Milo and Giles guided them to an abandoned floating tower, which Aderyn then made their home. After a little while, Aderyn began to draw the attention of other planeswalkers, who used them to deliver post throughout the multiverse. Aderyn’s first delivery was to Innistrad, which they hated. However they did get to help a lonely Banefire Dragon meet the love of his life.

Up to War of the Spark, Aderyn waited and waited for the Guildpact to come back, so they could face rightful legal judgement. Throughout this, Aderyn was given plenty of time to consider their own existence. As months passed, they suddenly realised there was something lacking from their life - Order. When Lavinia vanished off the radar, even to Aderyn, and everything started changing very fast, Aderyn didn’t know what to do with themself. Scared, confused, desperate to be told what to do but not knowing who to trust, they hid in the shadows, helping their bird friends take down the plague of thopters that were filling their skies.

They hid with many of their flying friends when the invasion happened. Their tower formed an ark of sorts, cramped with numerous flying species, trying to escape the carnage. Everything from Healers Hawks to Pteramanders, Senate Griffins to Milo and Giles the Birds of Paradise. Adeyrn turned their home into a sanctuary for fliers, even accommodating and caring for a few traumatised angels.

When the war ended, and the Guildpact changed hands, Lavinia released Aderyn from needing to stand trial, and her service. Now they travel Ravnica lost and confused, trying to work out what their point in their life is, besides delivering parcels.

Personality notes

Aderyn is bubbly and optimistic, however this is coupled with an innocence and naivety that could be a danger to themself. 

After living such a rigid and controlled life style in the safehold, then under the Azorius, they are now desperate for orders and someone to serve. They love nothing more than to please, and are unquestioningly obedient. This is dangerous amongst the less savoury sorts in Ravnica, and can be unhealthy when they try to form relationships.

Otherwise, they are extremely kind and generous. They love to help where they can, and are excellent at listening to those who need to get their woes off their chest. 

They are also adorable.

[just-tabletop-things]

Everyone I Don’t Like is a Demon

When cultures meet, ideas clash. Once-solid beliefs crack against new worldviews. Members of the merging cultures are frightened. People struggle, often against one another, to make sense of a world they can no longer explain. Rather than throw more fuel on the fire, a humble few bring their thoughts forward. Perhaps together, they can discover a better way.

This would make a brilliant premise for a roleplaying game. Imagine characters with conflicting perspectives forced to work together; how their beliefs will clash, change, mix, diverge. Imagine a game where all the action is in service of exploring the ideological tensions between the characters.

I thought this was the premise of a tabletop RPG called Sig. The cover describes it as a game of planar fantasy that “focuses on confronting beliefs, changing perspectives and relationships”. I was invigorated when I imagined beings from disparate planes of existence challenging one another’s cultural assumptions while still trying to work together. I was violently disappointed.

When I create a Sig character, the book tells me to create a list of three “subjective and philosophical” beliefs that she holds to. (59) This is immediately a problem because there are no subjective philosophical beliefs in Sig. The setting predetermines which of your character’s beliefs are true.

Sig’s setting is the now-standard Great Wheel planescape cosmology. Each plane is “composed of some pure substance, and it’s why those substances can exist elsewhere in the ‘verse”. (6) Not only are there planes composed of physical substances like water, but also of “ideological” and “conceptual” substances like freedom and death. (7) This means that freedom, etc. are not just ideas. They are real objects that can be visited, studied, and understood.

So, once I’ve made my character’s list of starting beliefs, anyone at the table can look at it, cross-reference it with setting information in the book, and immediately know which beliefs will hold true and which will prove false. Let’s see what that would look like, using the example beliefs from the book:

1. Family is a chain to be broken - This is not true. In Sig, family and heredity are fluid. Your body and mind are formed by social ties rather than biological ones. Family is not a chain to be broken because it is not a chain at all. Family is exactly those people with whom you have the closest social connections, and that can change at any time. Not only is this belief untrue; it’s meaningless. 2. Violence is the best teacher - This is not true. The Teachers Guild in Sig is run by the Plane of Justice, which is more like the plane of Mercy or Charity (I’ll drill into that later). Needless to say the guild is thoroughly nonviolent. So not only is Mercy the best teacher, it actually employs all teachers. I’m not twisting words here. Remember that ideas objectively exist in this setting. The plane of Justice defines the concept of teaching, so mercy will always be a more effective teaching technique here than violence. 3. Only sinners need masks - This is not true. We can look to the plane of Shadow for this answer, because it governs illusions and the like. The nice gnomes who live on the plane of Shadow use the shadowsubstance to make beautiful jewelry. This means that illusions or “masking” are not just for deceivers, but for anyone who wants to present themselves well.

Now, a character could argue that she doesn’t care about the damn gnomes or what they think. The plane of shadow represents falsehood. That jewelry is literally made from lies, which are evil.

The plane of Shadow might cement the properties falsehood, but it doesn’t actually tell us if lying is wrong. As long as the setting doesn’t enforce a moral compass, our characters can still make subjective value judgements. So, what does Sig say about morality? Well, hold on to your political alignment charts, because things are about to get authoritarian.

The multiverse of Sig contains a ring of five “Ideological” planes, each of which represents a different interpretation of the concept of law. The opposed planes of Order and Freedom roughly represent the principles of organization and disorganization. They are exactly the planes of Law and Chaos from D&D.

The remaining three ideological planes concern moral law, and are all opposed to one another. These are the planes of Justice, Tyranny, and Destruction. In describing these planes, the author tips his ideological hand so severely that it makes me cackle with rage.

Let’s start with the plane of Justice. “In this place, law shields the weak from the abuse of the strong. In this place, reconciliation is stronger than retribution.” The race native to Justice is diverse, “vary[ing] in appearance from midnight-hued... to russet”. The god venerated on this plane is Myn, a little girl who travels the multiverse persuading the “complacent or comfortable” to repent of their acts of injustice. She accomplishes this by asking “a single query” that cuts her quarry to the heart and exposes their hypocrisy. (82-85)

The plane of Justice is a utopian world of progressive ideals. I’m about to tear into this thing, so don’t get the wrong idea that I’m bashing social justice. I think it’s a great idea to include a plane that represents the progressive moral compass. I think it’s a terrible idea to make that plane the exclusive source of moral goodness in the entire setting, which is what Sig does.

"Justice” means a lot of things to a lot of people. In Sig, it can only mean one thing: exactly what the author wants it to mean. This is a problem for any player (including a liberal one) who wants to explore a character with a conservative perspective: their beliefs are canonically unjust; and not just unjust: tyrannical.

Consider the plane of Tyranny. This plane seeks to “bring order and harmony to the universe through force of arms and strength of will”, “chain the forces of chaos”, and “offer redemption to those who wish it”. (87) Sounds interesting! I’m imagining Inglorious Basterds: planeswalker edition; I’m imagining Chris Hansen with shape-shifting powers. I’m ready.

With dark certitude, the author dismisses all this as “lies and propaganda”. Those who accept the offer of redemption “would only be trading one set of shackles for another,” as they join a race of demons responsible for the “eternal torture” of “writhing, screaming masses chained for crimes real and imagined”. The pages of this section are splattered with words like “dominance”, “brutal”, and “hatred”. (86-89)

This is the only treatment of anything resembling a conservative sense of justice in the entire game. So, what if my character believes bad guys belong behind bars? What should she do when she discovers these demons punishing people without cause? She can’t throw them in prison, because they run the prison. She couldn’t even get them a fair trial, because they run the lawyers’ guild too. She also couldn’t even reliably get them arrested because, I kid you not, all cops come from the plane of Destruction and all they care about is power. She can’t even argue that it’s unjust for the demons to avoid punishment, because the plane of Justice doesn’t want bad guys to be punished at all. The game is rigged to ensure that conservative-leaning beliefs are impossible to defend.

I’m not saying Sig should be rewritten from a conservative perspective. It shouldn’t be. If your goal is to tell good stories about changing beliefs, your world must be inviting to people of diverse ideologies, including ones you hate. You have to present a world that, like ours, invites itself to be plausibly interpreted within many different worldviews. This grants the ability to understand another’s perspective, which is what makes stories about disagreement compelling.

Sig never encourages the reader to consider its multiverse from different angles, or to question the reliability of the one describing it. Characters’ beliefs are constantly challenged, but they can only change to agree more with those of the game designer. Despite its denunciation of domination in the Tyranny section, Sig creates its own relationship of domination between the author and the players.

It’s that hypocrisy that makes Sig unbearable to me. Consider the god of Tyranny, Kalzak the Absolute. In his description, the hypocrisy of this game is on shocking display:

“Kalzak earned his infernal title, Demon-god of Moral Absolutes [except for the moral absolute of justice presented in this game?], through toil and bloodshed in the infernal bureaucracy. He rules from a tower of skulls where his scribes engrave new laws on the bones of living victims. He infects the slumbering primes [earth-like worlds] with a single toxic idea, that anyone different [like people who have different worldviews than you] is dangerous. His servants fan the flames of racism [never mind the objectively evil race of demons on Tyranny], of prejudice [like the ruthlessly grotesque portrait of conservatism presented here], and of bigotry [such as the complete unwillingness to lend even a scrap of dignity to people who disagree with you] in the hope of triggering bloody wars [like the arguments and fights that a rigid ideology inevitably produces]. Once the smoke settles, Kalzak invites the most hateful and harmful souls to join his retinue.” (89)

Sig claims that Justice is a place where reconciliation is stronger than retribution. How can there be reconciliation if you demonize all perspectives but your own? Isn’t it basically the definition of retribution to portray your enemies as demons who engrave unjust laws on the bones of living victims?

Is it justice to dehumanize your ideological opposites instead of working to understand them?

If I’ve misunderstood something about the ideology behind this book, I want to understand. From my perspective this game just looks hateful, hypocritical, and domineering. From my perspective, this does not look like justice.

I think the central problem of our culture right now is not one ideology or another but that people hold to their ideologies without listening to others. I think instead of demonizing each other we need to humbly work together to better understand ourselves, each other, and our world. That doesn’t mean we have to give up our convictions. It means we have to learn to have productive conversations. This whole demon thing does not strike me as a productive conversation.

I strive to follow the convictions that Jesus lived by. I think they are convictions that everyone can learn from: if you want love to conquer hate, you have to start by loving the people who hate you; you have to start by loving the people that you hate.

[the-foxwolf]

The Liliana Discourse

Thanks for @shorewall for inspiring this piece with his own passion. So let’s get started. T

Nails In The Coffin

Let us make no mistake. Liliana is abusive and manipulative. She is cruel and selfish. The question I’ve been asked is... has the Magic Story Team harped on that point too much? My response is:

Not unnecessarily so. I do think they story team has kinda driven that nail firmly into the coffin. Almost dangerously so. Like, they can push people away from her. Which is bad for the character, the story, and even sales. 

HOWEVER... if Liliana gets her redemption arc on Dominaria, then all the recent harping will be worth it. Without following up on their chance, I do feel that they’ll have unnecessarily drilling that point into the ground. But I’m confident they’ll get around to it. Also make note, that the recent harping the team has done takes place in an era before Kaladesh- the place during which she finally came to care for the Gatewatch. She changed a lot after meeting the Gatewatch and even more after Kaladesh.

Tumblr Hate

Does the Tumblr community hate on her too much? Here is my response:

You’re asking the wrong guy. I love my Lili to pieces. I love Liliana. So if you ask me if the Tumblr community has hated on her too much- obviously my answer is yes. But I don't expect more from the masses. Liliana isn’t an easy woman to love. Her story is deep and complex. She’s a profound character who isn’t meant to be accepted at the surface level. And that’s fine with me. To love Liliana takes someone putting in some effort- be it in overlooking things or delving into things. In my opinion, women that require some effort to know tend to be the most interesting friends and/or romantic partners. Even those who know her can still make the decision to hate her. They’re equally allowed to feel so. So yes, to me, Tumblr hates on her too much. But I understand the haters and I don’t mind them. It doesn’t bother me.

The Amonkhet Debacle

Recent Magic story has brought up Liliana’s history, but hasn’t acknowledged how much Liliana has grown. Which, to me, seems to be the fundamental issue with us Liliana fans. I don’t fault them for it. As I said earlier, if they follow through correctly, it’ll be great build up.

But the Liliana at the end of Amonkhet is entirely a separate person than the Liliana during Innistrad. That is a fact. She refused to turn against the Gatewatch and join Bolas’ side. Instead, she retreated, like any intelligent person would do. Liliana only stayed to fight the losing battle against Bolas because she felt she owed them for helping her defeat Razaketh. There. I said it. The old Liliana would have bailed on them the moment after she killed Razaketh. Without the slightest hesitation. Think about Kaladesh. She could have raised an army of ghouls to storm Tezzeret’s stronghold and simply torn him to pieces. The ended in a draw, for the most part. But only because Liliana was holding back- as Jace and as Gideon would want her to. She recognized how stupid she was being for not storming the stronghold. Not only did she recognize it, she shrugged and rolled with it anyways. Remember the last time Liliana chose a target to destroy before that? She literally raised an actual army of ghouls to storm Thraben. Sure it’s not the same, but what I’m getting at is that Liliana can and is willing to go over the top for victory. Yet she held herself back on Amonkhet- to the dismay of the multi-verse, because now Bolas has the Planar Gate....

When Liliana killed Razaketh, I felt no pity for the creature. Razaketh was literally pure evil and- more importantly- one of the final barriers between Liliana and her freedom. That she took her pleasure in destroying him doesn’t remotely bother me. She has the right to exact her revenge on a literal demon in any way she pleases.

Jace, the Damsel in Distress?

No. Jace is NOT innocent in this entire thing. Yes, Liliana is a cruel person. But Jace played a role in enabling it. He was never some pathetic weak little thing hiding and helpless in a tower where Liliana kept him at bay. He could have planeswalked away from it all. He could have acted upon his doubts (because he suspected Liliana for a long time before he confirmed his fears). But he didn’t act. Why? Because he didn’t want to risk anything. I know that this segment will fan some flames, but I don't care. Liliana was a terrible person to him. But I refuse to believe the idea that Jace was 100% victim in that whole adventure. It’s simply not true. He didn’t have a problem brushing her aside when Gideon interrupted them on Ravnica. I don’t mind that Jace chose to help Gideon first. But I find his behavior in how he accepted to help entirely appalling. That was nothing more than a power-play spite-shot. Jace can make his own choices like an adult when he feels like it. That he didn’t act back during Agents of Artifice is not because he was helpless. Clearly, Jace can brush her off when the fancy strikes him, as we saw recently. So please, don’t try and convince yourself that Jace was nothing but a victim and that Liliana was nothing but a predator.

The Vrazka-Jace Ship

I don’t care that they got to enjoy some time together. In fact, I wish I could have seen their relationship develop just a little bit more. But regardless of how close they grew, I always knew that Jace and Vrazka would never become a “thing”. They’d enjoy it for a while, but they had no future together. And I still don’t believe they do. 

The only reason, I believe, they came to have feelings for each other is because of the value to served to one another in their journey to discover themselves. 

Why Do We Love Lili?

Let’s get it out of the way. Liliana is easily one of the most sexually attractive woman I’ve found in fantasy- if not the most attractive. But if that’s the only reason you like her- you have that right. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, the major reason I even came to like Nissa was because of her art. Literally. Just this ONE image made me like Nissa. So it’s true. That plays a big role.

(Nissa, Nature’s Artisan) (Art by Willian Murai)

But Liliana is SO MUCH MORE. People love Liliana because she walks that thin line between conventional good and conventional evil. She’s a perfect gray character, well executed. She’s tsundere. She’s spiteful. She’ s got sass and personality. She’s such a well developed character, there is SO much to love. You don’t have to like her, but if you deny the idea that people can like her for more than her body, then you are being tremendously shallow. Her body is but ONE facet of who she is. But she’s a developed character with so many other things to love. 

Who Will Lili Be?

I’m not expecting Liliana to become to goody-two shoes. No. Even after her inevitable redemption arc, I think she’ll still be the tsundere, spiteful, sassy character we all love. But I do want to see her apologize. I want to see her ball her fists up, take a deep breath, and apologize to the Gatewatch. For the first time in hundreds of years, I need to see her swallow a tall glass of humility and ask for forgiveness. Chandra might see it as a tiny insignificant action. But the amount of growth Liliana has to go through to say those words: “I’m sorry” is titanic. I want to see her grow as a person to the point when she can finally say it. Even if it’s the only time she’ll say it in the next decade, I don’t care. She’s not going to change per attitude. Her personality definitely will. But her air, her grace, her spite, can’t leave without destroying her character.

Response?

It’s about time I finally made a post directly talking about the

Liliana Discourse TM. So... here it is. Please, feel free to reblog with your comments!

[legendaryedhplays]

Oppressive Wills, Part II

Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting Shattered Perceptions. This week we are continuing on last week, with the history of Commander and the perceived problem children of different eras. If you happened to miss out on last week’s article, I would go back and read that when you have the chance.

I will reiterate that the intent of these articles is not to highlight or demonize players but to look back and educate people on the history of Commander through the lens of boogeymen. While some of my examples may focus on more personal metagames, I want to try to look over the entire format where I can. I don’t think the existence of a best deck is not bad or that a player should be unwelcome in the format, just that boogeymen have and do exist. My intention this week is to run through the generals that have either been printed in sets following Commander 2013 or got a second life through the discovery of a degenerate strategy coming to light. In fact, that’s exactly where I’d like to start.

Glissa, the Tyrant

I previously talked about how in some cases, the generals in question were not complete metagame defining problems—see Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. These generals were more issues that caused the metagame to shift for a brief period and possibly never went viral in the Commander Community. Glissa, the Traitor was one of these decks in one of my shops.

While I don’t know the exact point where Glissa had been identified as the go-to general to helm a Stax style deck, I know that she crashed into my metagame in early 2014. I might point to Braids, Cabal Minion still being legal as a piece of your other 99, or it might have been Vraska the Unseen being printed as a versatile removal spell that turned into a victory condition if left unchecked. Regardless, the deck was strong, especially against the unprepared. It used cards like Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, and Mana Web to awkwardly minimize the table’s choices and strip them of resources.

Since most of the hard/soft locks are through artifacts, Glissa was the ideal general since anything lost can be brought back again. The deck was a miserable to play against—an hour and half to two hours of being mana screwed and waiting for a win condition to manifest or just have Glissa commander damage out the table. I would usually drop as soon as another game opened up.

Glissa blew in and out of my metagame in a matter of weeks, since it was run by one player running a deck in the mold of this and over time players simply refused to game against him. And honestly, that’s probably the right tack. If a playgroup doesn’t want to play decks that become hyper dominant in lieu of more casual games, they should be able to do that. In the right metagame, I can see where this deck could be accepted when all players come to fight on the same awkward axes.

Narset, Oops… All Turns

Khans of Tarkir and the continued block were pretty great for Commander as a whole. We got a huge influx of wedge commanders and spells, a healthy amount of modal spells that felt powerful even if they disappeared off the grid in the coming years, and it all ended with Dragons! The one bookmarked card I saw become an issue throughout the Commander community, however, was Narset, Enlightened Master. The rise and fall of Narset was a slow burn, unlike Glissa who made for horribly long and boring games. Narset might take over and end the game within five minutes of hitting the board by stringing together spells like Time Warp and Beacon of Tomorrows, along with Seize the Day and Waves of Aggression to quickly win through combat.

The general consensus among players in the shops I had frequented was that the Narset deck could be stopped with the right tech—Kismet or Arcane Laboratory come to mind—and that lengthened the life of the deck’s community tolerance. The real issue became that with the right set-up—say Sneak Attack or Lightning Greaves—and counter back-up the deck could go off all the sudden. Once again, ending underdeveloped games. While Narset never went extinct, the deck ran its paces and the high volume of them settled down to the point where I don’t hear a lot of complaining about her existence anymore.

Must Have Experience

“Commander 2015,” he sighed as he started the next paragraph.

Almost a year later, Commander players received Commander 2015, a two-color themed series of preconstructed decks that introduced experience counters which players accrued—but never lost—by playing with the marquee generals for each deck. I wish I could say that only one of these was an issue; but as I see it, three of the marquee generals were turbulent to varying degrees.

The most benign of the three was Ezuri, Claw of Progress simply for how he warped the politics of games he entered. The gimmick being that to collect more experience counters you would play very small creatures didn’t read as especially problematic, as green loves big creatures and blue is creature-light. The problem was that Ezuri converted your experience counter into +1/+1 counters every turn. What resulted after a few turns was that the Ezuri player would ascend to the status of an impromptu Archenemy. By all accounts, the compleated elf’s popularity waned and he has become very forgettable.

Depending on your experience, runner-up status goes to Mizzix of the Izmagnus, though some may debate that it outclasses my number one. By utilizing your mana curve effectively after casting Mizzix, she generally enabled a very potent Storm archetype that felt like the return of Narset but with noticeably less attack steps. Thank god they didn’t have Paradox Engine yet. This had an abrupt big swing on the format as answers like Arcane Laboratory and Rule of Law became important staples for control decks to stem the bleeding. Mizzix’s reign eventually  ended and calm returned.

Finally, Meren of Clan Nel Toth. This deck still stays on my radar and might be the only deck spotlighted today that I keep in mind as I construct decks. Green/Black is pretty good about getting creatures into the graveyard if it will benefit them, so Meren plays right into that niche. For fear of endless reanimation cycles, the community had to start packing more graveyard hate—something we’d forgotten after years of not being abused by graveyards—and be prepared to protect against any silver bullets the Meren pilot might have slotted into fight the hate. This deck was and is still powerful.

One takeaway: notice that I wasn’t specific about what each of these decks ran. That’s because the variety of what worked for each deck was diverse. From a game theory perspective, these generals created an interesting new metagame at the height of their popularity, one where you had to choose which kinds of decks you wanted to be strong or weak to. I believe that experience counters were not bad, but what magnified the problems was the flexibility that each general allowed for.

Indomitable Popularity

Dear Atraxa players,

You’re not a problem, there are just so many of you.

The last stop on the timeline is extremely recent and frankly is a different kind of infamy, Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice. Coming out of Commander 2016 we got our four-color generals and while they were not especially oppressive, they are all wildly popular and still everywhere I look when I get into various shops and look around the tables. Atraxa is the most popular general on EDHrec by a very wide margin. Three decks exist in my main group, and countless exist on MTGO.

Any issues I have with Atraxa have very little to do with the deck being too powerful, but simply being too “solved” and ultimately amounting to being either Four Color Infect or Super Friends. I saw it too when she was previewed—if you think it’s clever, it’s not. This is probably my “get off my lawn” moment, but I am a little annoyed by the lack of innovation coming out of the deck and I never feel especially impressed with the small changes I see.

Is creativity and innovation the purpose of the format? No, having fun is. But I just wish this popular general was popular for versatility and not two gimmicks.

Future Sight

To me, Commander will always be a successful and popular format as long as people enjoy playing games with each other. To briefly look to the future, the potential problem generals I foresee are The Ur-Dragon, Mairsil, the Pretender, and Captain Sisay.

The Ur-Dragon is powerful general capable of winning the game in any number of ways once it hits play. This is not to discount it’s passive Eminence ability—removing one mana from the cost of all your dragons does more work than it lets on. If Game of Thrones has taught us anything, the person with dragons has power.

Mairsil, the Pretender is the kind of general that already has a powerful two- or three-card interactions just waiting to be uncovered, but may take some time to develop like Glissa, the Traitor. If Mairsil proves to be powerful, I think the decks could thrive in great variety, but enough consistency and they will be a force to reckon with.

Lastly, with the new changes to the Legendary Rule by way of Planeswalkers now being included in the pool of legendary permanents, I think the stock on Captain Sisay will rise. With the ability to now feed a Green/White Super Friends deck, I worry that she has the potential to overstay her welcome. This may fall more into the Atraxa level of commonality instead of the oppressiveness of a Glissa or Narset, but I forecast a few salty tears nonetheless.

If you’ve made it through both halves, I feel eternally blessed, but that’s my time for the week. As always, you can find my on Twitter to berate me on my inaccurate history of these generals. I love discussion and feedback is the lifeblood of content creation, so I hope this can stir another conversation up. Until next time, thank you.

[mindsculpt-blog1]

WHO IS JA.CE BELE.REN ?  a quick guide for probably all of my followers.

jace is a young human mage from a plane called vryn. he has the innate ability of telepathy, which is an extremely super duper rare occurrence according to mt.g lore. on top of that, he’s a magical prodigy, and he studied with a sphinx (who, in revised lore for jace, was using him to gather information so the sphinx could sell that information to warring factions in order to keep his job). 

after a pretty damn traumatic experience where jace engaged his former mentor in a dramatic as fuck telepathy battle, he completely destroyed the sphinx’s mind and fucked up his own memory. because of the stress of this event, he accidentally threw himself from his home plane to a place called ravn.ica.

“but ronnie, what the fuck are you talking about with all this ‘planes’ shit????” a major part of mt.g lore are plan.eswalkers --- people that have the ability to travel through the multiverse. most of the pivotal characters in mt.g are planeswalkers, and jace is one of them . 

back to the other shit though: in rav.nica, jace made a name for himself by using his telepathy to find out secrets from various rich people to blackmail them with and extort money from them. he had it pretty damn good, and it’s part of where he got his shitty sense of fashion, because he started to dress in a way that made him seem Rich and Mystical. 

eventually this shitty dude named tezz.eret sent some freaky creatures to attack jace as a weird ass way of inviting him to join his pseudo-mercenary group. even though it seemed kinda fucked up, jace accepted and then subsequently spent a couple years being pretty viciously abused and tortured every time he fucked up which was probably a lot. 

in the meantime, he sees an entire village get massacred (which he gets beaten for by tez.zeret even tho it wasn’t his fault), gets one of his friends killed and he met this necromancer named lilia.na whom he had a pretty brief relationship with because it turned out she was trying to manipulate him for her own gain, i.e, bringing him to this nasty ass dragon in exchange for getting a demon she sold her soul to or some shit killed. 

basically, poor kid can’t catch a break.

for the sake of keeping this as condensed as possible, i’m not gonna go into EVERYTHING that’s happened to him, but basically a lot of terrible shit happens, part of it is jace’s fault, he makes a lot of Bad Decisions and eventually becomes the living embodiment of a peace treaty, which he dislikes because it means he has to do a LOT of paperwork and listen to people complain all day. he does his best to avoid this job as much as possible.

currently in the storyline, his entire memory has been wiped by the evil ass dragon his ex gf tried to hand him over to. now he’s a pirate or some shit. he knows what an albatross is, but not his own name. 

as a person, he’s a pretty sad kid. he’s seen a lot of shit, been through a lot of shit, done a lot of shit. he has some minor issues grasping reality and would probably be the kind of person to put africa by toto on repeat and dissociate for 3 hours straight. he’s kind of a slacker because he’s never really had to work for anything, since his telepathy makes life pretty easy. he also has a difficult time getting close to people, because he travels a lot and often gives people a fake name because there’s no point in them trying to get to know him. also he hates broccoli, and also crocodiles because his ex gf summoned a bunch of zombie crocodiles once and it was terrifying. 

[pepperstrawberry]

Oh god...

So, took a break from drawing and worked a little on a fic I was playing with...

First thing: I actualy have a working Fan Theory on just how the head Sailor Pluto from Sailor Moon’s Gates of Time work, why they were made, and exactly how the timeline works in that whole series... and I came to a sort of horror realization about it all.

In order to understand what I thought up (and maybe I wasn’t the first one on this, but still), the first thing you have to understand is about the theoretical (hypothetical? how far deep is science in on this concept? my brain is mash and everything I’m about to type is crap I have been repeating for all sorts of story hooks, but also ruining a lot of my thoughts on stories with time travel bs) concept of dimentions of the universe.

(Before I go on, I have to go and watch @flavoracle‘s video post reacently. He tagged me on thoughts of exsistential horror, and this therory thing hits right in where I think he was going with his vid... which Is why I probably haven’t watched it yet... I should watch it just to make sure... probably after sleeping and after I finish the commission mini)

idea, plot bunny and then what I ended up spending several hours on because my freaking muse decided it was time for me to cry... like a fracking lot. Like a baby, are all under the cut

Okay, so the first thing we need to cover is: Do you know about sailor moon?

Well, if you don’t and google will be too much work (amusingly it can be when you don’t want to get distracted, so this isn’t judgement XD ): Sailor Moon is a magic girl anime. Hearts, magic, evil, romance, the works. I would be surprised if any of my followers hadn’t at least heard of it.

(sidenote: knowing of Ranma 1/2 is helpful, but the thing I wrote linked at the end of this has the character there, but nothing touching on what that character means to the story beyond what you can just read, so it’s extra, but unimportant... google it if you want. fun series, important to me as a person, moving on...)

NOW, each senshi (save moon) is named after a planet. So naturally there is a Sailor Pluto (the jokes where already done years ago, no time for pedantry right now, moving on). She is the Senshi of Time and Guardian of the ‘Gates of Time’

They are basically the series ‘time machine’. sorta. There is more, but bleh, so much to get through to get to my point.

Okay, so, during the second season/arc of Sailor Moon, a group called the Black Moon clan come back in time to wreck stuff (google for synopsis. they don’t matter to this post save for the detail i’m going to mention) They fully loose. And really, it makes sense. They are lack info, and more importantly, they are trying to change the past.

Paradox is a nono. So they auto fail. (i don’t know how much of that is canon explanation, but it’s basically what happened if you boil it down. They were doomed to fail cause they had already failed)

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Thing is, in reality, there is this concept in things like Quantum Physics known as the Multi-worlds theory. Short version: Not one time line, but infiitte of them, branching from every choice, every change, that has ever been and will ever be.

It goes further then that. There is figuring that the entire of existence (that is, even beyond our universe, like way beyond) is composed of about 9 dimensions, kinda 10 ish...

Okay, lets get the easy part of this out of the way, cause depending on your familiarity with the rest, things get bonkers fast.

You know the first 4 dimensions actually rather intimately. Height, Width, Depth, Time (duration).

So we have the base 3 dimensions we all know, and time (spacetime), which is how things move, change, the works. Now its easier to consider ‘Duration’ instead of time, because we aren’t just taking forward, but a line that goes start to finish. That is the 4 dimension.

Okay, so 5th dimension, what is it? Actually not too hard to explain: It’s all the branches that the Multi-worlds concept dips into.Did you chose to make eggs and coffee this morning? Or had some Rice Crispies instead?

Trick question: You did both. Not you you, but You (the one you are currently experiencing) AND the other you that is not you. They exist, but not in any real way that matters to the you that is YOU.

6th dimension? it’s kinda the past through of all the branches. Okay, so Back To the Future? You watched it? Especially the second one? Okay, Marty and Doc Go to the future. Old biff takes a thing, goes back, changes time. In order to fix it they had to go back to when biff was in high school in like the 50s (not caring about details, just follow the plot line here)... BUT before that, they went back to their normal time... but it wasn’t. It was a changed 198-whatever.

Thing is, as much as people laud the series for it’s solid take on time travel... this actually doesn’t work. They should have traveled back to their own time, since they were still in the fiture of -their- time line. What did they do?  They pasted through the sixth dimension, bridging the gap between time lines. Normally, like a stream, you would have to go back to where the change could have occured and then travel back up along that branch to get to the new future. But the freaking Delorian is more OP then folks realize.

What are dimensions 7-9. Weeeel to this thing I wrote, they don’t matter as much and are a bit harder to wrap your mind around.

I mean, the 7th is just ‘Our Universe’. Like the whole thing. Every time line, all the rules. Everything that has, can, and will make every iteration of us.

The 8th is like the 5ht, in that, they are different universes with different rules. Like, one might have less gravity or something.

The 9th is simply put as the ‘bridge’ between the multiverse. (wait, we are mtg fans mostly here? Planeswalking! XD ... sorta)

and the potiential 10th is just that. POTENTIAL.The ‘everything’ a drop of everything becomes a something that is anything. A blank slate that given definition is no longer a part of the blank slate.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK

Assuming that: 1) i didn’t ramble too incoherently and  2) you all wrapped your heads around Dimensions 4-6, then we are ready to tackle things

Okay, onward: THE GATES OF TIME

This is an artifact in the Sailor Moon universe that is Guarded by Sailor Pluto, Senshi of Time. (yes, senshi can mean guardian, so redundant, but screw you, i like the term ‘senshi’ XD )

The show, the manga, nothing that I know of really goes into what this thing is about. To be honest, I feel like this is one of those things like the Time turner (harry potter) that open more plot holes and issues then they fix any...

UNLESS!

Okay, here is where that dimensional guff comes into play.

Remember when I mentioned the Black Moon clan’s inevitable failure? It implies there is NO 5TH DIMENSION IN THE SAILOR MOON UNIVERSE.

How so? Well, what if someone could see the future. All those timelines, all those choices. Sure Sailor Moon defates Beryl in one timeline, but in another she looses. So what is the point?

Someone had that much existential dread and access to incredible magic and artificery that they slapped this baby together.

So what are the Gates of Time then, and why am I using plural instead of singular when there is clearly the one?

It’s a 6th dimensional device that locks all timelines instead of one. Being a multi dimensional object, we can’t see all sides with our 4 dimensional senses, but in reality, there are infinate gates, all but this one locked, sealed, and forever hidden from view.

What does this mean for the Sailor Moon timeline?

It means that every choice sticks. Thats it. You chose coffee and eggs today. Yep. That’s it. it’s locked in. there is no other timeline or possibility.

This means that the Black Moons Clan’s defeat was as inevitable as them going back in the first place. Because it happened, it will always happen.

And the gates are one of the only ways to potentially by pass that. Maybe (the other thing I can think of is a thing called the Galaxy Cauldron... but don worry ‘bout it)

---------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, so we got most of this together.. You read this far? Whoa. Okay, so This fic my muse gave me after I was just thinking on the concept of the Gate for another fic idea (because my fracking muse hates me right now and it’s hard to concentrate on my comic for the moment. will be working more on that during the weekend)

So, I love crosses. It’s me, Pepper, so base is Ranma, with the common cross of Sailor Moon (obviously), and I do love cannibalizing a third cross to make the adversary if I can’t think one up myself (most plot bunnies are Kamen Rider crosses for the Tertiary.). For this one, I used a sort of Hild (and the norms, but evil) from Ah My Goddess.

It’s not clear from the first few scenes of this (really the real meat of what I’m posting is a page an a half down from the start), so let me give you the quick breakdown of that this story is about:

Start: Norms and Hild are wrecking the Senshi’s day. Pluto is hiding at the gates to protect the artifact. With out a (literal) Special key, only she can usually enter it. Hild’s goal is to change something fundamental about the universe, but in her quest to do so, she has gotten pretty mad and taken a few minor goddess down with her. Hild finally gets tired, and figures, she just need to change history. She would perfer the Gates, but she is a freaking Deity (fallen of a fashion, I know how silly that sounds given the character, but I’m not going into all that right now, I’m just using it as short hand, k?). So HIld goes, ‘Girl’s, you keep doing good, me? I’m going to make the laws of physics my chew toy”

So she forces herself back in the past.

Chosen target? Sailor Pluto at the fall of their magic kingdom (again, don’t know, google, I’m hip deep right now). She intends to right the dying senshi’s power to the Gates back then (which would be a mess of things on so many levels) Accept, Pluto of the past returns the favor. Hild had forced herself through time, so she is already messed up and pretty near death. Could have recovered, but a magic girl blast through the chest kinda stops that from being an option.

STILL, Hild succeeded in the first part of her plan at least. Og Timeline, Pluto excaped and hung out at the Gates guarding them for a -very- long time.. This pluto?

She ded.

And she is reborn... as Ranma.

Thing is, there is a cascade that wreaks havoc on a timeline not meant to move or change. Three things stay anchored, one of which cases backwards ripples. 1) That key that was mentioned before. Sailor moon had it, inactivated for safety. Sailor moon is not anchored, but the key is... it ends up somehow in the hands of Ranma, cause destiny, single timeline, reborn Pluto, you get the idea)

2) Pharaoh 90 (third season/arc) was locked way by the Gates. That moment -can’t- change, but since it can’t, timeline figures easiest path is that dude didn’t even exsist (lots of effects from that that I would explore in story proper) 3) The norns (the goddess with hild) get ‘washed ashore’ at the point in time just when Chibi Usa (moons future dautgher, sent back as a part of that whole Black Moon clan thing) would have shown up (because of shift in time, future is currently being rewriten as Ranma lives it... Fixed point idea thing)

OOOOOkay, last thing you need to know before I actually drop this stupid thing on any one with the insanity to read it: OG Pluto still lives at the Gates (outside normal time so effectively untouched by cascade... but it means she can never leave to go to any point after her death, and she can’t chance going back before that moment)

Are you really still with me? Did you make any sense of that? All that so that you might understand what I wrote. Context is everything.

Oh yeah, I was listening to this on repeat while writing, and part of why i was crying (yes it’s kingdom heart. honest I give not two figs about the game, but the music is beautiful.)

I give you the end of a fic that my bonkers muse gave me the idea for that may or may not ever see a posting and thus, I want someone to take some joy in what I wrote rather then hiding it. (warning, I’m a hack of a writer. Better then most Fanfic writers. Would Put myself in the top 10%.... but then again, that is not saying anything good. XD or maybe I’m more garbage then I think. But hey, 1) rough draft writen low on energy and 2) if it gets the emotions right and is clear with what i’m going for, then victory, right?) 

(this post is long enough, so this is a dropbox link that I hope works) (and yes, the title has some plays on words that hopefully make more sense when you put all the themes and especially the ending together) (remember, actual stuff that matters the most is after the page and a half mark. the other stuff is rough chapter one stuff)

And now, without further adieu, “Once Upon a Time https://www.dropbox.com/s/bytc8x9xcw01w81/Once%20Upon%20a%20Time.docx?dl=0

[tibalt-the-fineblooded]

Land and Sky: Part 2

*this took me way to long to actually finish and hopefully I will get better in putting these out more. Most characters and concepts are not mine*

 Raz earned Ceral a reasonable amount of stares as they walked to the Aether Hub, baby dragons weren’t exactly common this far into the city. The whelp was happy to roam and stretch, it was more than the house had room for and she deserved it. Ceral was hoping the new Consul of Allocation would still be using Sram’s office and grid model; if they weren’t, he would have a lot of questions to ask that a local would already know. As the pair neared the Aether Hub’s entrance, Ceral whistled for Raz and leaned forward with his arms held out. She jumped onto his back and clung to him, snuggling against the side of his face as he carried her inside.

Absently scratching Raz’s chin, Ceral smirked at himself for managing to teach her this trick. While it wouldn’t be affective when she got larger, it was a good way to bond while needing to maneuver in crowded areas. Lost in thought and speculation about the events he had missed, Ceral wandered the familiar hallways towards his destination. Never having to deal with the standard registrations and requirements of an artificer, he wasn’t for or against the previous system. There were members that he had learned to avoid and did a good enough job of it, those with a history of public hate towards mages were number one on his list to stay away from.

So focused on his musings, Ceral had made it to his destination without realizing it. The door opened when he reached for it and a young human woman almost tripped over him exiting the room. She had shoulder length hair that was as red as any flames he had used, topped with welders goggles and freckles running from cheek to cheek. Despite being taller than the young woman, Ceral was fairly positive she would have flattened him on his ass if he didn’t have Raz’s extra weight resting on his back.

“OH, I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there!” The young woman apologized loudly. She looked to only be a few years younger than him, even with the armor she wore. Why was she wearing armor indoors, the building seemed far too warm to him.

“It’s fine, just slow down a bit.” Ceral waved a hand dismissively. “Is the Cons-Gah! Raz! No!” It was too late to catch the whelp, she leaped from his shoulders, throwing him back, and onto the young woman. There was a clatter and a grunt as Ceral sat up. Raz had knocked both of them down and proceeded to curl up in the redhead’s lap. “Here let me get her off of you.” Ceral offered, reaching over to grab his scaly charge.

The young woman laughed and shrugged. “Leave her, its normal for this to happen. Well not with, umm, is this a dragon?” She looked at Ceral as he started standing up, bright amber eyes that held a secret.

“Yes. She’s…” He almost said harmless as he massaged his shoulder. “…safe. If you’re alright with being a pillow then I guess it’s fine. Is the Consul of Allocation in currently?” Ceral gestured to the room behind them.

“The Consul?” She had a confused look on her face and a realization came to her. “Yes, the Consul. Right, I’m still getting used to calling her that when I’m here. Yes, she’s towards the back talking with a sour-looking dwarf.”

“That would be Sram, he’s good at his job.” Ceral walked past her and opened the door again. Looking back at Raz, he said, “You looked like you were in a hurry. When you really need to leave just toss her in here, she’ll come to me.”

She sighed at that and gave him a tired smile. He closed the door and looked around the room. Nothing had changed since his last visit, but Sram was still here and that would make his task harder. He spotted the dwarf near the back of the room, talking with a woman in a much more casual dress than he would have expected of the Consul. She had dark hair and wore red, almost as much as Raz’s current pillow. The new Consul seemed to be in her middle years, and neither she nor Sram had turned at his entering the room. He leaned against Sram’s city model near the center of the room, searching for his own home, there was a grid system but he never learned it and didn’t plan on learning it. It would be easier just to show them which house to turn off.

The conversation turned away from plans for the city and into a friendlier manner, but it still sounded strained to Ceral. He ignored it and, having found his own home, looked for the homes of people he knew. Jaahina’s apartment wasn’t as much an apartment as they called it. The structure housed maybe eight different living spaces; each was larger than his own and he knew he could never afford it. He still couldn’t fathom the way Aetherborn accumulated such wealth during their short lifespans, but he wasn’t one to pry into the personal affairs of others. They leave him alone, he’ll leave them alone.

A grunt near his elbow snagged his attention. Sram was peering up at him in annoyance, an admittedly common look between the two of them. “Ceral. I’m busy, what do you want.” It wasn’t a question, why ask when he already knew the answer.

“Sram.” Ceral replied casually. “I’m here because I wanted to speak with our new Consul of Allocation, and certainly not to bother you. Would you care to introduce me?” Grinning, Ceral gave Sram a sarcastic and over exaggerated bow.

Sram grunted. “Fine. Better to get this over with now rather than later.” He gestured towards the consul and she nodded, stepping forward. “Consul Nalaar, may I introduce to you one Ceral Redd. Ceral, the new Consul of Allocation, Pia Nalaar. Do mind your tongue.”

Ceral’s ears perked at her name. Nalaar. “Consul, would I be correct to guess that you have a daughter?” He hoped this to be coincidence, the last thing he needed was for the planeswalker he’s heard about to be on this plane. No, it must be coincidence. He’s seen the mural of the daughter, and husband, if his memory held out. Ceral hit himself mentally for his lack of caution, he’s supposed to be a native of this plane. He might have just brought on unneeded suspicion to himself.

Consul Nalaar tilted her head a bit to the side and gave Ceral a funny look. “Yes, Chandra just left. You might have run into her on your way in. Why do you ask, have you met her before?”

Chandra Nalaar. The pyromancer from Keral Keep. Ceral’s eyes got wide and he swiped his head around, looking towards the door he came in. Raz was sitting on the lap of another planeswalker. A loose cannon of one at that, from what he’d heard. Calm down, he told himself, don’t act up. Calm.

“You could say that.” Ceral looked her in the eyes, trying to ignore the look Sram was giving them. Sram knew more of the history of the family just by being an actual native of Kaladesh, he might get more untrusting of Ceral. “You could say we’re both travelers of the same sort. And yes, I guess I did run into her on my way in. My whelp adopted her for a short period of time.” He gave Sram an apologetic look at the mention of the dragon, almost missing the comprehension in the Consul’s eyes. So mother knows what her daughter is, that might actually help his case then. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“YOU BROUGHT A DRAGON WHELP INTO THE BUILDING!” Both humans recoiled as the dwarf roared in anger.

“I assure you, Sram. She is very well behaved and is completely house broken.” Ceral did his best to try and calm the dwarf down, with very little luck.

“Sram, if Mister Redd here is anything like my daughter or her companions, there is nothing to worry about with him having a dragon whelp with him.” The Consul stated. Facing Ceral, she said, “Now, you said you had something to talk to the Consul of Allocation about. What would that be?”

Ceral made of note of her words. Companions. There are more Planeswalkers here than he’d like to have to avoid. “Yes, there is a small matter that Sram has been unwilling to fulfill for me.” Pia looked at Sram in confusion. “I’d like you to take my home off the aether grid. It’s this building here.” He pointed to it as both the Consul and Sram stared at him. “I’m not home much and other people need what’s sent to my home more than I. Think of it has my contribution to the rebuilding of the city.”

A door opened and both individuals were so struck by what he said that neither reacted when the clicking claws stopped and a small dragon landed on his shoulders. Ceral scratched Raz’s chin as he waited for a response from either of them, Sram recovered first due to hearing the proposal before. “Ceral, you’re a citizen and as such, need at least the minimum levels of aether for your house to function properly. We’ve gone over this countless times by now and, while you’ve never been that direct before, you won’t accept less than nothing! And… and… an…” Sram stumbled over his tongue as he noticed Raz. “And you did bring a dragon whelp inside.” He finished, dumbstruck.

The Consul regained her composure and took note of Sram’s state. “Why don’t you go take a break Sram. I’ll finish this discussion and inform you of the outcome.” She ushered Sram towards a rear door and he didn’t fight it. He muttered to himself numbly as he walked away; Ceral couldn’t make out any of it and, assuming it was all about him being a nuisance, shrugged. When Sram slammed the door closed behind him the Consul turned back to the dragon bearer. Cautiously she asked, “Are you truly like my daughter? “

“I am a Planeswalker, if that’s what you’re asking.” Ceral replied quietly. “If you have questions, I’ll answer them, but that’s something between you and your daughter. I shouldn’t be a part of it. I simply want to take my home of the grid.”

Pia just looked at him. “You’re right. You’re a stranger from a different world.” She said world in confusion and awe. “Forgive a mother her questions. I can take you off the grid, if that’s truly what you want. May I ask why, though?”

“You just said it. I’m from a different world. I can use my own magic to light and warm my home. I don’t use the aether of this plane, I’m not an artificer. Aether holds no value to me, so I won’t take it from those who would use it.” Ceral sighed. Finally, he thought, this is coming to a close. “This is all I will ask of you, I’ll take my leave if you have nothing to ask of me in return.”

“I thank you for the offer, Ceral , but I shall decline.” The Consul reached over the grid table and started marking pipes and valves to be turned off. “I trust you can find your own way out then?”

Ceral nodded. “By your leave then, Consul.” He bowed and turned on his heel.

[rakabakatak-sgchampion]

Crimson Past

The wind whistled outside, carrying the normal cinders and scent of blood that always lingered in the streets of Rakdos territory. The butcher could be heard a few streets down, cutting something. Raka made a game out of trying to guess just what was being cut, but he was usually wrong. The wide variety of meats made guessing a hard game to win. There was pig meat, cow meat, human meat, fish meat... It all sounded the same to Raka. He was lying in his bed, freshly awakened from a night of terrors and visions of past days. His breaths were large and infrequent, and any other citizen might think he was dying. Far from dying, Raka sat up and maneuvered over to the table at the far side of the room. The building he was staying in had been burnt down long ago when Rakdos had awakened and left havoc in his wake. Now it was a sacred site, used as a hotel for the more famous members of the cult, such as Raka. His room was as black as charcoal, probably never being properly reconstructed after it's fiery deconstruction. There was a hole in the floor that let Raka look down into his neighbor's room, which was constantly the site of orgies and gruesome occurrences. "Zugo, want some water?" "Yeah, pour it down." Raka chucked a glass bottle filled with gasoline down the hole onto Zugo, smashing into the minotaur's face and sending several glass shards into his eyes. He roared out in pain at his neighbor's betrayal, although in the back of his mind he knew he should have expected no less. A match fell through the hole now, lightning the minotaur aflame and causing him to burst through his room's glass window before falling down several stories and landing on the ground outside. The loud cracking sound let Raka know it would be taking Zugo a good while to get revenge for this event. "So sorry neighbor! I was distressed and needed a bit of comedy in my life!" A roar was the only response to this statement excluding the other cultists who were cheering at the display of the violence from across the street. "A wonderful showing Raka! Truly marvelous! You do great work in the name of the Lord of Riots!" A strange feeling began to creep up the cultists spines before they began to cry out in agony. The entire street was awake now, watching as what appeared to be brain matter slowly oozed out from the ears of the now deceased cultists. Raka closed his window after pulling his hand back inside. He took a long drink of water before dropping through the hole into Zugo's room himself. The minotaur's room was ravaged from the night before. Every piece of furniture was broken or defiled. A few devils scampered down through the hole, eating all of the food that Zugo had stored in the various hiding spots around his room. A blast of pain jolted through Raka's head before he himself collapsed onto the floor. "Fall boy! Fall! Fall into the abyss where you belong!" The voice cried out from within Raka's head like a bell. The image of a holy man, dressed in white cloth and wearing a strange necklace, flashed into Raka's mind. This was quickly interrupted when a devil bit down onto Raka's leg. With a quick stomp, it's head was flattened into the ground and every other devil in the room retreated from Raka. "Fall boy!" Raka shook his head, relieving himself of his pain. The voice and image disappeared, but the thought remained. His father had been a cruel man, and Raka had made sure his walking days were over. His mother had abandoned him, leaving him on this plane. Raka took another drink of water before moving on. He tossed his glass out the window, giving the minotaur below what had been promised. "As promised!", Raka yelled out the window. He sat down, thinking of his past. One day, he would find a way to find his mother and take vengeance on her for leaving him to die on this plane. His father had loose lips, and his visit had cost him his life. When Raka learned his mother was a planeswalker like his father and that she was the cause of his circumstances, he vowed to get his revenge. "Life may be shit... but damn do I love this guild." The world shifted and twisted back into reality as Zugo struggled in his chair. Raka, now with the glass of water back in his hand, took a sip. The minotaur calmed down a bit as he realized he was no longer on the sidewalk outside, legs broken and bent. There were no burn scars on his chest or face from the fire, and the glass had never entered his eyes. "You still letting your past mess with you during your job?", spoke a figure hidden in the corner of the room. "You got what you wanted didn't ya? Look at the guy." Zugo's eyes were emotionless and his body was limp. He felt nothing. He slowly lifted his head before beginning to chuckle. "See!? I made an honest cultist out of him!" The minotaur's chuckle escalated into a hysterical laugh. Raka grinned devilishly behind his mask. "How ya doin' pal? You havin' a good time!?", spoke Raka. The minotaur nodded before replying, "Never felt better!" "Wonderful! Perhaps one day we'll meet again lucky one! In fact, you wanna head out for some meat? I've been hearing that butcher goin' wild out there! I bet he's got some good eats." The minotaur broke out from the chains restricting him to the chair and began to walk out, nodding to accept Raka's invitation. "I'm heading out for some grub with my new friend here! Send the next one in when I get back. Would like to get this through with so I can get back to my normal job! Those crazy Dimir victims don't entertain themselves!" Raka left the figure in Zugo's room, allowing them to do as they pleased. He walked down the hallway with his new fellow guild member and whistled a tune he had heard one day when he walking down the streets. A pack of devils flocked behind them, knowing the fresh meat that followed in Raka's wake. He grinned. "You know Zugo, I may hate my mother for leaving me here, but it's not all that bad. I get to meet people like you and have some good fun. I mean, who doesn't love a good little bit of insanity in their lives?" "Not anyone I know," replied Zugo. Raka's walk evolved into a jolly skip as he bursted out onto the chaotic streets of Rakdos. The street was filled with blood and the screams of the insane filled Raka's ears. It was going to be a good day!