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Lead them to paradise.

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Plains

Artist: Rob Alexander

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Rest in peace, Jellie. I’m glad she’ll live on in every minecraft world ❤️

2006-2024

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Art by John Gagne

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dw posting

watched jodie whitaker's last three doctor who specials the other day and found them surprisingly good. i mean, the sea devils one was more of the usual incoherent nonsense but the scenes between the doctor and yaz made it worth it. i'm not giving chibs full credit here as her only interesting characterization across three whole seasons is her yearning for the doctor in the final stretch, but it's emotionally affecting and good for what it is. mandip finally got to do some Acting in these episodes. the regeneration episode was a lot stronger than i was expecting. i've never been that interested in dhawan's master but the character seems more fully realized here, and the idea of wanting to take the doctor's place is a genuinely interesting thread that hasn't been done before, and it's pulled off well. i'm not usually interested in indulging in fanon that i know the show will never embrace, but i'm finding myself more and more willing to hop on the "sacha dhawan's master existed in between jon simm and michelle gomez" train. i still think chibs is completely deranged for bringing the character back less then two dozen episodes after the doctor falls with zero regard for the events of that story, and this interpretation just helps it so much that i have to go with it. thirteen's death/regeneration was also great, imo. i have a hot take that eleven and twelve's regeneration scenes both suffer from being too drawn out and saccharine, and this one was a nice break from that. i don't need you to read me a whole personal essay before you go, you know? even the "tag, you're it" line wasn't bad in context.

honestly i liked these enough that i can see myself starting to come around more to thirteen's era in general. i've always liked most of series 11, and flux, as barely coherent as it is, is still a version of doctor who i've always wanted to see; the epic long-form time-travel-chaos space-opera. it's as close as i think we could ever get to portraying the height of the time war on-screen. a lot of thirteen's stuff reminds me of mid-eighties doctor who in good way. i'm specifically thinking of like, seasons 23 and 24. i know they're not generally well-regarded but i'm very fond of them, and flux and the power of the doctor feel more like a continuation of the show that did trial of a time lord than anything else in the modern era. it has that very specific flavor of weird that i love even when the plot is impossible to follow.

anyway, no conclusion here. just having fun being back on my doctor who shit for the first time in years! happy new year folks!

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new doctor who episode was great! i really wasn't a fan of the fourteenth doctor specials and as a result wasn't feeling very optimistic about the new era, but this totally reignited my excitement. i think ncuti's going to settle into the role really nicely. also, as someone who really disliked the flux and timeless child story arcs, i'm actually surprised and happy that RTD is choosing not to simply ignore them because they weren't popular, and is instead carrying them forward and trying to reckon with what those things actually mean for the doctor. of course i have my own ideas about how those storylines should be handled that i'm sure will differ from whatever RTD ends up doing, and i know it's dangerous to get overly invested in how this show handles its lore, but i'm excited nonetheless! i think the season's gonna be really fun!

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what a moment

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March of Souls

Artist: Marc Fishman TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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huge epiphany: commander is bad, actually.

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Ashes of the Fallen

The ashes of the dead mingle with the soil, and both become as one.

Artist: Dan Frazier TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

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alright yeah I’m done buying anything from wotc for the foreseeable future. they’re only ever gonna keep getting worse and i need to save my money anyway. fuck em.

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Battles definitely have a lot of mechanical potential but I’ve gotta say I don’t understand them from a flavor perspective. I mean, generally speaking, all the cards you play in a game of Magic are working together to tell a story, right? The story will almost always be insane and nonsensical but there’s a base level of internal logic to how lands, creatures, artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, and spells interact on the battlefield in a flavor sense. I don’t really understand what battle cards are doing in there. I don’t understand what it means to attack and defeat a battle, or what it means to summon one in the first place. Like I can come up with ideas, but I don’t know, it’s not intuitive. 

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Enjoyed parts of the March of the Machine story a lot but ended up pretty disappointed. Very much feels like Maro was fed the line about the story having massive consequences for the multiverse. Maybe we’ll actually see some of that in the Aftermath story but at this point I doubt it. I promise I’m not just yearning for all my favorite characters to die and I don’t think that in fantasy everyone dead should stay dead forever, but the torrent of ambiguous maybe-deaths and fakeouts just feels insulting after all the insistence that this would be a story with major consequences. Also, as much as the last several years of Magic story have been criticized for heavily resembling the MCU, you’d think there’d be at least a little effort to not make the final battle hilariously similar to Endgame. The image of the army of Zhalfirins emerging from a portal to turn the tide of the fight at the last minute was so Wakanda-to-the-rescue I was laughing out loud. Wrenn’s sacrifice was one of the best parts of the story, but no amount of flowery prose will make Teferi replanting her from an acorn feel any less like Baby Groot 2.0. Anyway I had fun reading it but now that I’m sitting back and taking the whole thing in, I feel kind of gullible for expecting more.

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Illus by Jason Rainville.

Its rare you see Magic art that straight up looks like a renaissance work

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Really good stuff as always from Sam

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I think I’ll probably sit out on Phyrexia other than a draft or two at home. There are some super cool mythics but I’m not that excited by it overall and I want to get back to deckbuilding. I have so many cool cards from the last few standard sets that are still sitting in boxes. Plus I spent a lot on Dominaria Remastered and could stand to hold off for a few months. I built a Zur Commander deck recently that reminded me why people love that format so much so I think I’ll probably put my focus there for now.

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I love Dominaria Remastered. I’ve spent more money on sealed product (2 draft boxes) than I’ve gotten back in card value but I’m pretty unbothered by it. The draft is so fun. The mythics and tutors are great but the commons and uncommons alone are enough to comb through my decks and make lots of little upgrades. The check lands are so cheap right now. The retro frame foils are so nice. I pulled a Force of Will last night. I’m feeling inspired to build and edit decks for the first time in forever. I’m havin fun :)