#...but having difficulty putting it to words

[carriesthewind]

We're back! When we last left off, we had just finished reviewing the exhibit containing emails from DeMaster to Clownshoes containing various drafts of the motion on February 24.

Next, DeMaster tells us that they continued to review and make changes on the 25 and eventually Clownshoes said he would try to file the final version. The only reason she filed it instead was because he was having difficulty accessing the court's e-file system.

Interestingly, this means Clownshoes must have received a copy of the "correct version"/"final version" that he says he "closely reviewed." (for reference, this would allegedly be Version B: “2025.02.24 Coomer Defs Opp to MIL2 (jd) – copy”) However, despite attaching several emails and screenshots of metadata, he did not attach either an email containing a copy of that file that he received, nor any metadata showing that it was ever saved to his system.

Anyway, then Clownshoes spends another two and a half pages whining about how unfairly the judge treated him at the hearing.

"Your honor, the reason I didn't prepare for the things you wanted to talk about was because your order was confusing :(" Angry judges love to be told that their orders weren't clear enough.*

(*No joke, I once saw a judge pause mid-hearing to have her clerk pull up a copy of her order and read it out loud, "just to make sure it wasn't written in Klingon or some other language that was incomprehensible to the Defendant")

(Put another pin in his claim that he "review[ed] the Opposition that I thought had been filed".)

*cringe* Dear god.

Look - I don't want to be completely unfair to Clownshoes here. The Show Cause Order makes it very clear that the judge is *pissed* about his conduct at the hearing. He has to address it to some extent. But instead of providing a brief explanation* and apologizing, he's sitting here and lecturing the judge about how mean she is. If you are a sports person, I would analogize this to a player getting a yellow card and proceeding to argue themselves into a red card by telling the referee that they are applying the rules wrong.

*Compare, for example, the above with: "At the hearing, I stated that I was unprepared and did not clearly explain how I had used AI to assist me in an initial draft, and how Ms. DeMaster and I had proceeded to check the citations and remove any that did not seem reliable. I did not explain myself properly because I was expecting an informal discussion, based on my experience in Virginia courts, and was flustered by what appeared to me to be a formal oral argument."

Jaw-dropping. You were "obviously prepared" to discuss the substance of a motion that you didn't have a copy of?

And - this is where we come back to all those pins about how he had reviewed the final draft of the motion and "meticulously labored" over revisions, going through "every page."

The idea that he had done that work, both to prepare for the hearing and in drafting the motion, and somehow didn't immediately realize, 'oh shoot your honor, you're reading from an earlier draft of the motion, I remember going through and removing a bunch of the citations you are reading to me'?!

Bullshit. This looks so much worse than just apologizing and letting it be. You were unprepared! You fucked up at the hearing! It happens! You aren't facing sanctions for messing up the hearing, you're facing sanctions for your bogus citations - but it sure feels like you are talking yourself into sanctions for lying to the court.

Anyway. He spends another third of a page continuing to lecture the judge about her word choice and how she failed to provide sufficient notice that he, a humble trial attorney, would have to argue a motion in a pretrial conference.

I mean, you didn't have a copy of any versions of the document (and if you had, it might have cleared things up! You could have show her the proper, corrected version you thought had been filed! How unfortunate that it just happened that you didn't think to bring a copy of a filing that you swear that you reviewed before the hearing and were prepared to discuss. (And that for some reason, despite spending a page detailing the differences in pretrial conference formalities between Virginia and Colorado, you have failed to mention why you didn't think to bring a printed copy.)

Also, again - what? The Court provided you with a copy of what was filed, and you didn't immediately go, "oh shit, this contains huge chunks (a quarter of the page count!) of stuff we deleted! Yes, I am surprised to see this citation in our document, because I remember checking and removing it!"

Again, if the "wrong draft" story is true, it would be so much better to just say, "I panicked in the courtroom and didn't give you a straight answer then - I'm sorry." This just makes him sound like a petulant liar.

Speaking of which...

Compare this quote from DeMaster that we reviewed above:

And there we have it. At least one of you is lying.

And Clownshoes filed both these declarations! Did he not read DeMaster's declaration before he filed it?!?

But just for fun, let's continue with some more incredible sentences from Clownshoes's declaration:

"The Court can't sanction me because I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life."

"I wanted so much to answer the Court but it was just impossible! And you're being so mean to me about it!"

"Yes I didn't say that I had used "AI" until the Court asked, but the way you phrased it makes me sound bad. :( I just didn't mention it because "AI," much like me, is perfect and couldn't have possibly done something wrong."

"You know how women are - they just talk and talk and talk and get angry about the silliest little things. At some point you just have to start nodding along while ignoring them so you can go back to doing the real work they just don't understand."

...so you're admitting you are the one who is lying?

"The fact that I look like a lying clown is the Court's fault, for not telling me in very small and specific words in advance that I am expected to know what is filed with my name on it :("

Cutting out several more paragraphs of the above whining about mean the court is, we finally get to:

Yeah...I'm not buying that "sincerely," my good clown.

In our next installment, we'll get back to actually trying to track the various motion drafts!

Oh you idiots.

[stereopticons]

On This Day in Schitt's Creek: May 1

2019

follow your heartbeat to freedom [david/patrick, G, 4,271] by withkissesfour

He’s always prided himself on making decisions, making them well, making them wisely, but it’s rare that they’re not clouded, directed, guided by the overwhelming need to be liked, an eagerness to please, a desire to be nice, to always be as nice as he can be; and he can’t figure out whether he’s made the right choice once he’s made it. Patrick makes choices, in four parts.

Like Coming Home [david/patrick, G, 6,641] by @erandri

Patrick knows that he likes guys, he's just never put it in so many words. Or, the five times Patrick almost comes out and the one time he does.

steel and oak [david/patrick, E, 4,580] by @helvetica-upstart

“Would you have picked me up in a bar, if I'd been there back when you were looking for randoms?” Patrick asks, pupils blown wide. “I’ve never done that before, I don’t even know what it would be like, but. I can imagine. I'd want it.” or, David has some idle talents; Patrick has some fantasies that would put them to use.

2020

May all your wishes come true [david/patrick, NR, 6,394] by For_pucks_sake

David and Patrick make birthday wishes over the years.

Not Quite Ready [david/patrick, E, 801] by @reginahalliwell

David and Patrick try something new, and David realizes he isn't quite ready.

Solid [david/patrick, T, 959] by @impressionism

After the wedding, after the goodbyes, Patrick steps up to take care of David. That's pretty much it.

The Beautiful Game [david/patrick, G, 1,671] by @popfly

David and Patrick meet at a baseball game.

This Room Will Keep You Warm [david/patrick, T, 3,159] by odofidi

Patrick wakes up one January morning with a terrible head cold. David (with a small assist from Stevie) finds his way through the day.

Unbelievable [david/patrick, G, 488] by @thegrayness

Patrick comes back with lunch for David in The Olive Branch: A Ficlet.

2021

As They Rolled Away [gen, G, 330] by shuisfan79

Stevie watches Johnny and Moira through the car window as their car rolls away.

come home to my heart [ted/alexis, G, 1,822] by @roseapothecary

“Oh, my god — Ted?” Her own voice echoes in her ears and she’s suddenly standing, dumbfounded, outside Cafe Tropical almost seven years ago. Watching Ted step into the bistro felt eerily similar to watching him step off that motorcycle for the first time. It’s the kind of shock that makes the sparkling restaurant tile quake under her Louboutins. Except, this time, the feelings bubbling to her chest are now far more nuanced than she knows how to process — no amount of personal growth or number of self-care retreats with Oprah could’ve prepared her to suddenly come face-to-face with the first person she ever loved more than herself. OR: Alexis has a blind date. It's not what she EX-pected.

Double-Booked [david/patrick, E, 13,171] by @themelancholyvegetable

David books an Airbnb. Patrick books a VRBO. It's the same house. Tropes: There's only one bed; snowed in/forced proximity

Fate Is Kind When You Wish [david/patrick, M, 8,685] by @januarium

There it is, an actual real life shooting star. He’d had a brief period of obsession with Disney’s Pinocchio as a child and had thrown a spectacular tantrum when his parents refused to make shooting stars appear for him on command. Adelina had explained that that was why they were so special. You don’t get all the wishes you want, you only get them if you’re really lucky and you take the time to look. David is pretty sure he's seen a couple before, and those wishes certainly didn’t come true, but he can’t help himself. He stares at the star flying across the sky and thinks as loudly as he can. I wish I knew what’s going on in Patrick’s head.

Gonna Watch You Shine [johnny & stevie, G, 1,127] by @kiwiana-writes

Found Family Feelings: The Johnny & Stevie edition.

In the long reeds of difficulty and pain (that’s where you find the treasure) [david/patrick, E, 3,363] by @redwineandqueer

When the knock comes, Patrick has been pacing his apartment for over an hour. The TV blares, forgotten, in the background and a pile of books are scattered over the coffee table, remnants of his unsuccessful attempts to distract himself from the echoing silence. Because David still hasn’t called.

Rollin' With the Homies [alexis/twyla, T, 9,917] by @sarahlevys

So I know it seems like I live in this, like, super privileged world. Or maybe, like, a rip-off of The O.C. – or even worse, Laguna Beach, ugh! But I swear, I have a totally normal life! Alexis Rose is just your totally average 16 year old with two annoying older siblings, David and Stevie, and a totally normal crush on her best friend, Twyla Sands. It's completely chill. She isn't, like, totally buggin'. AKA: the Clueless AU.

2022

not before 10 a.m. [david/patrick, T, 200] by @dinnfameron

David's not really a morning person? But for Patrick, he might make an exception. Written for the prompt: Someone says “I can’t believe you talked me into this…”

the lie between your teeth [david/patrick, M, 48,126] by @stereopticons

The man–David, 30, 79 miles away–is giving the camera an imperious stare, thick eyebrows knitted together, dark stubble perfectly highlighting his face, lips parted just slightly. The only word Patrick can think of to describe him is beautiful and even that feels inadequate. He stares at the picture for so long, waiting for his brain to come back online, that his phone screen dims and shuts off. AU in which David and Patrick meet via a dating app, or the answer to the question, "what if David's 79-mile-away match from 2x07 was actually Patrick?"

We blend into my favorite color [david/patrick, E, 2,333] by anonymous

After Cabaret ends, Patrick is interested in the idea of wearing makeup again. Him and David explore this in the bedroom.

2023

Drabble Life 2023 [david/patrick, NR, 1,909] by @jesuisici33

new year, new drabbles!drabbles based on weekly prompts from schittscreekdrabbleblog on tumblr

Forever [david/patrick, G, 100] by @legalgal421

David reflects during his wedding.

Spin [david/patrick, G, 100] by @ramonaflow

100 words based on the Tumblr prompt: Spin

2024

“Where words fail, music speaks.” [david/patrick, M, 22,272] by @characterassassination-at-9am

What would happen if we mashed up Noah's lyrics with Patrick's thoughts and words? Title is a quote by Hans Christian Andersen

Ouch! [david/patrick, T, 735] by @a-noble-dragon

One second David’s crouching down to get a box of Rose Apothecary totes from the lower shelf, then the next he’s overbalanced and is falling ass backwards onto the floor right in the middle of the store.

The Beltane Blessing [david/patrick, E, 1,725] by @a-noble-dragon

The Fae realm at Schitt’s Creek is on a different plain to that of the human world. Only at Samhain or Beltane does the veil between the two world’s thin. At those times, the fae peek through the transparent veil to laugh at the humans and their antics. They’re drawn to the joy, abundance, and fertility of the festival which marks the beginning of summer, and is held midway between spring equinox and summer solstice. And sometimes, when the mischief mood is as high as the moon, the fae leave their realm to join in with the fun.

Stats:

No fanworks for 2017 or 2018 2019: 3 fics/15,492 words 2020: 7 fics/14,059 words 2021: 7 fics/38,415 words 2022: 3 fics/50,659 words 2023: 3 fics/2,109 words 2024: 3 fics/24,372 words Total: 26 fics/145,466 words

[secret-sector-antag]

🦇⚔ Dhampir Hunter V ⚔🦇

Intros/Profiles Part 3/?: Veni, vidi, dictavi [Potential CW for mentions of death and the following grief, as well as brief (albeit fictional) political stuff. Nothing overly detailed/gory, but just in case]

"Ingannamorte" Surname of Italian origin. Translates to "deciever of death" ("inganna"= "to decieve"/"decieves", and "morte"="death".) A rather fitting name for a creature of the night...

The Ingannamortes of Schprekenheim, at least loooooong ago, were the absolute rulers of the land. Being a subtype of vampire known in the area as StrigOwie, they lived up to their name: bring about immense suffering and misery, feeding off of it, and continuing the family name for generations to come.

However, despite the threats of torture, exile, and/or annihilation for any sort of political dissidence, the peasants of the land began to band together and fight back. After several attempts at a coup, the family have since fallen to a more underground, "figure-head"-like status. 

The then-current heads, Havaska and Polaris Ingannamorte, had a full plate on their hands: keeping the power of the family flowing throughout the land (but with a less...heavy-handed approach), other standard royal duties...and now, bringing up the next heir: Syberia (pronounced "Sĭh-Bĕ-reeyah").

For a while, things were actually...relatively okay. Syberia was growing into her role of one day becoming the head of the family...but as she began to learn about her family and the absolute power that they used to hold. She wanted a piece of that pie; none of this "figureheads-who-stand-in-the-background" business. And she was vocal about it. As she grew and had more of a hand in things, she became louder and louder- despite her parents doing what they could to try and quell that fervor.

Then disaster struck.

Havaska, mother to the latest heir of the Ingannamortes, had been murdered. While the "heat" between the royal vampire family and the peasants had disspated quite a bit over the years, a small extremist group wanted to make their mark...by doing what the several coup attempts back then couldn't: getting rid of the vampirs for good. While the group was quashed incredibly quickly (c'mon, you're fighting against vampires; and it wasn't like these guys were professional hunters), the toll it took on the remaining two Ingannamortes. While they grieved, Syberia saw this as an opportunity for them to bring that "iron-fistedness" back into play...but Polaris, her poor old Papa, was heartbroken. No matter how much she tried to convince him, he would not go all scorched earth and bring the entirety of Schprekenheim to heel. This, of course, led to increased tension in the already emotionally-bedraggled household.

...Then a little bit of light entered back into their lives...or, at the very least, Polaris's. A peseant woman known as Cerealia, who had brought it upon herself to continue to plant flowers on the deceased queen's grave, as well as keep the area surrounding area looking nice, was spotted by Polaris. Initially, he was a bit testy (how dare some...some commoner intrude on his land!), but seeing what she was doing, the ice that had come to surround his heart began to slowly melt. For the first time since he lost his wife, he had begun to feel...happy. Syberia, being Syberia, was suspicious. Who was this plebian, and what did her Dad see in her?! She was trying to usurp the throne, she just knew it!!

This, of course, wasn't true. Cerealia had no hidden intentions and genuinely cared about the forlorn king. Though one could argue that this took place very quickly, Polaris and Cerealia were soon married. And eventually, they welcomed another child into the kingdom.

Syberia was furious. Okay, yes, she was still the next in line to rule, but who the hell was this...this half-blood to come in and usurp what was supposed to be her time with her dad?! She wasn't acknowledging that peseant woman as family- even if she now bore the royal last name. But of course, under the treat of being sent away to the lower part of Schprekenheim to live out her life (or at least until she calmed the eff down and worked out her rage and resentment) in, potentially, a tall tower all by herself (almost like a "grounded for life" kind of scenario), Syberia let that hatred simmer. And simmer. And simmer. With her sister, that hatred did occasionally manifest as the standard acts of sibling rivalry, but her..."stepmother", eugh... was understanding, having been one of several siblings herself. However, even with the assurance that both kids were loved equally, it didn't mean she went unpunished for acting the way she did sometimes.

Things were going okay, it looked like.

Until they weren't.

Polaris and Cerealia had mysteriously perished on a trip to another village, as a show of goodwill. Some say that Syberia had a hand in it, but no one can be 100% certain...especially now since she's taken on the role as the head of the Ingannamorte family and will silence anyone who questions her. Playing to the public, she uses the death of her parents as her "reasoning" for bringing back the harshness that the family was once known for long, long ago.

Schprekenheim has been under her dark rule for who knows how long, and S.C.A.R.E. seeks to bring her and her army of monsterous creatures of the night down- to restore some semblence of peace to the region.

Can they do it?

Will she bring the band of freedom fighters to heel and recruit them to her undead army?

And more importantly...where's this sister of hers? She wasn't with the then-king and queen on their trip...she seems to have mysteriously vanished...

----------------------------------------- Syberia Ingannamorte Voice Claim: Eden Riegel

Codenamed "Nightside" by the organization, she is a fierce vampire that has plunged the region into darkness and misery. She is a manipulative creature that will stop at nothing to keep the iron grip she has on the area from loosening. With the passing of her parents and now as the official head of the Ingannamortes, there's nothing getting in her way to stop her....or so she thinks.

But of course, what is a queen without a bit of help?

"Faust" Voice Claim: Steve Valentine

Codenamed "Phantomblade" by the organization, Not a lot is known about this kid. It was shortly after Syberia's parents' passing and the disapperance of her sister that he came into the picture.

Acting as the confidant to the new ruler, 'Faust' does what he can to maintain order and acts as a "one man band"- directing creature hordes to deter any do-gooders, directing who keeps watch over the Ingannamorte hold, acting as Syberia's bodyguard and informant, among other roles. In short, Faust would give his life to save Syberia. ...He...doesn't exactly have the choice to not. At least, not anymore. That half-face burn (covered by the half-face mask) had to come from somewhere after all...

[moe-broey]

Reposting this one on its own bc. It means So Much To Me. It means EVERYTHING TO ME.

[dxxtruction]

I still think the photos were either an absent minded accident to where no one can be really sure who made it (several people have had access to the archives and have sorted through it over presumable many years) or deliberately planted by Rashid for Daniel’s benefits to go through the files uninterrupted. Because I think it’s a better display of how Armand is operating here simply out of a complete disinterest to be supportive, accountable to anything, or understanding of what the aim of all this is, and his care for Louis only goes about as far as himself, especially where the threat of exposure or abandonment is concerned. In short he has a disdain for this entire interview, let alone Louis history and inner struggles with it, and for selfish reason, so the photos, regardless of how they got in there, expose him of this. It clues us in about how his love is conditional on meeting his expectations of it not ending or being threatening in some way, especially where his sense of security is concerned, but he’s extremely possessive of who he loves so manipulates as much as he can to prevent this, to a point, and in such ways, it is just emotionally abusive. Though we also do see a result of when he’s offered something else that his love can shift easily to someone else if they are simply offering him all this sense of security, so his possessiveness is conditioned on the fact he has no other better options of getting his strong desires for this kind of love met.

Anyway, if it’s an accident like that, and let’s say it’s one Armand happened to have made, it falls right in line with this even more, though I think the point is we actually can’t know if this is the case of it as even he doesn’t know who did it. Though if there were any care he’d probably not point fingers at Louis who is the one who’d be least likely to have made such a mistake, but he doesn’t care and is just mad about being blamed by Louis, so does carelessly throw it out there.

And if they served a purpose of allowing Daniel to access the files for an extended period, which he couldn’t do much earlier when Raglan initially sent them over without raising suspicions, one can make the assumption that Rashid, who we find out is working for the Talamasca, did it for Daniel’s benefit so he could do so undercover.

Just my two thoughts.

[risingchaos]

Vulcan is just an ideal autistic society.

[dkettchen]

[vivispec]

.

[dsudis]

Stop referring to characters as dumb and idiots and stupid for having difficulty deciphering their own or others' emotions/attractions challenge 2k23!

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[re-code1713]

interminable

[crosspost of a shuuenpro "fanfic" / "love letter" I published back in January, half-written in like. an emotional frenzy. relevant again because I'm feeling a lot of the same things]

At first, it was simply a curiosity.

It appeared to be an ordinary book at first, when you had found it splayed open on the floor face-up. You surmised that it must have been there for a long, long time, as its leaves were caked in dust - to the point it seemed to dye the very first page an ashen gray.

It was a thick book. You wondered of its contents. Cryptic white symbols were etched onto the front cover, indecipherable in meaning.

You brushed the dust off the front page, sat down, and began to read.

This book, just as many books tend to, contained a story.

It wasn't a particularly impressively written story, but you would find yourself drawn to it time and time again.

It was a common story featuring common elements. A mystery, a school setting, and a cursed book. A traitor, a tragedy, and an endless loop. The characters were left unnamed, but they were unique. Eccentric in their own ways.

The cursed book became an accessory in their tragedies, but the real antagonist could hardly be known. Was it the living book whose legends came to haunt them? Was it the traitor they were told to find?

Was it the children themselves, whose suspicions of one another deceived them into a one-way trap to doom?

The tragedy repeated. Then, a narrative sleight of hand. A confrontation.

Perhaps, the words on the page read, the real "fox" was you.

The end of an act, and the beginning of a dream.

You flipped to the next act.

A mystery was unraveled about the book's origins.

The innocent children who led this tragedy crafted it themselves, willingly played their parts as they filmed and presented it in front of a festival. These children, who would be reduced to mere legends to the generation that followed them, saw the ones that would follow their trail a decade later as mere fiction.

They had loved and trusted in each other, and yet they, too, met their own tragedy, its culprit just out of their sight. A grieving child experienced an endless dream, and with that, the curtains fell before any knots could be tied.

Before you had realized it, your eyes were dancing over blank pages.

No.

You wouldn't let it end here.

You kept turning the pages. There were many of them, after all. Yet they were all unwritten. Wasted paper. Wasted space.

You flipped to the beginning, and read again.

And thus began your own endless cycle, your own endlessly repeating tragedy.

Time and time again, you would walk away from the book. And yet time and time again, you would always return. You read, and you read again, as though the crumbs you picked up fallen into the book's gutter would solve a whole story.

(And when you weren't reading, you'd see whispers of the story everywhere you go. Within common words and mundane sentences, and even the words "common" and "mundane" became anything but;

The ghosts you'd see

decorated hide-and-seek and impostors and phone calls and stolen ribbons,

echoed through conclusions and prayers and tragedies and dreams,

and gave life to numbers and colors.

Things that most would find flavorless or common—to you, when you drank them, they always would mean something else.)

You read the book a hundred times. A hundred and twenty times. By the thousand two hundredth attempt, and your brain would fill in the last digit.

One thousand, seven hundred and thirteen times.

You shone a light upon its pages as though you could uncover some final hidden message, something that could satisfy the gaping hole in your heart carved by a story that wouldn't end.

What solace was there to be found in a book whose last pages remained blank?

You tried to let it go. You really did.

But it seemed as though you had fallen under a curse, from the book about a cursed book, and led into a tragedy by a book containing endless tragedies. A book about unsolvable mysteries and unwritten endings. How ironic.

Before you lay a ghost. But try as you might, ghosts couldn't answer questions, regardless of how many times you pleaded to them.

You could only follow the ghost's trails, collect them,

burn them into your memory and into your heart,

drink up its dredges and spit them back out,

clutch it tight to your chest, and pray to higher beings, or to someone, or to no one at all—please don't take this away from me. There's already so little of it left.

How could a story so permanently engraved into your being be so fragile, so small, so fleeting?

(When you're gone, when the author's gone, and when everyone who loves and remembers has gone, who will be there to keep the memory of the rumor urban legend story that no one knows, that altered the course of your own?)

This ridiculously mundane story, of an incredibly worn-out world. You don't understand how it had touched you so.

Had the author known this would be its fate?

You would never, ever know.

Still, you love, and so you write a love letter that won't receive a response.

[miupow]

slowly teaching myself that writing is supposed to be fun and to not take it so seriously, that my writing is good and enjoyable even if it isn’t my best, and that people enjoy my work even if i don’t feel confident in it

[itzphynix]

Thank you Astral Spiff for combating the narrative that Post Shift 2 is a hard game o7

[atsushis-fangs]

Andrew: are you alright? North: oh, you know, haven't slept in 6 days, but otherwise I'm doing good. Angus: *promptly knocks him out with North's book about Scottish plants*

@winterwrites23 I am. so so so in love with the new chapter :D

[13skeletons]

You know, I used to be smart.

[dravidious]

You're really awesome

PROBLEM: I want to make magic decks with my cards irl, but I have no one to play them against.

SOLUTION: Make an entire custom deck that can play itself to more or less replicate an opponent.

I decided to put the rules in card form as conspiracy cards, but it turns out that rules should be written as rules, not cards, so I had to make extensive notes about each of them (except Industrial Expansion, that one is actually effects instead of rules). I also just enjoy talking about my design choices.

Notes: Creating waste tokens instead of playing lands is basically free card advantage, as well as preventing mana screw/flood. The bot is supposed to have more raw strength than the player, so this isn’t a huge problem, but the starting hand size reduction and 5 land limit are still needed balance it.

Also, I know wastes isn’t actually a basic land type, but it makes the card so much cleaner so "Wastes token" is a predefined token here just like Treasure and Food.

Notes: There’s probably some awkward edge cases here too. I fixed the only one I could find (involving Recycle Bin), but there might be more. The main guiding rule in playing the bot is "don’t make it do obviously dumb stuff." The cards are balanced around the rigid rules, so bad decisions are okay, but sometimes there are plays that are so worthless or actively counterproductive that you really ought to step in. Edge cases should be resolved in whatever way makes the bot play best. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to think too hard about what the bot does; it’s supposed to be automatic, after all. The other guiding rule is "make this similar to a normal game of Magic."

Notes: Much, much simpler than Defense Protocol. Still some vagueness, but good enough to prevent swinging into the opponent’s 4/4 with a 3/3. It applies on a creature-by-creature basis; if you have a 3/3 with flying and a 2/1, and your opponent has a 4/4, the 2/1 won’t attack, but the 3/3 will. If you have a 2/1 and a 5/4, only the 5/4 will attack since the 2/1 can be fully blocked by the 4/4.Non-lethal battles are tricky; if you have a 2/1 and the opponent has a 0/3, you shouldn’t attack because then you’re just tapping down your 2/1. But if you have a pair of 2/1s, you should attack for the free damage. You could reinterpret the "such that they lose no life" bit, but that would result in the rules telling you to swing your creatures into into a 4/4. Basically, use your best judgement; this stuff is too complicated to write out. You’re smart enough.

Notes:

This card would be a fucking nightmare to properly template. Good thing it’s a rule and not actually a card. The vague wording can probably result in lots of edge cases, but this card is basically meant to say "The bot makes the best blocks possible" so use your best judgement in those cases. Activated abilities that boost a creature should be taken into account if mana is open for them. A version of the blocking rules not in card form is given below.

Priority 1: If you can block in such a way that your life total remains above 0, you must do so.

Priority 2: If a blocker can deal lethal damage to an attacker and survive, it must block that creature.

Priority 3: If a blocker can deal lethal damage to an attacker, or if it can survive, it must block that creature.

Priority 4: Don’t block.

Misc 1: If multiple attackers are tied for the highest block priority, the blocker must block the creature with the highest power. If tied, highest toughness, then highest mana value, then choose randomly.

Misc 2: Multi-block an attacker only if it has menace or a similar ability, only with the minimum number of blockers, and only if it falls under a blocking priority (ex. it’s threatening to win the game, or it can be destroyed, or both your blockers survive). Anything else could be a nightmare to calculate.

And that's all the rules/conspiracies, which should allow for playing against the bot while making as few decisions as possible. Here's the cards. The bot's deck consists of 4 copies of each card for a clean 60 deck, compatible for testing against mill.