#In this context‚ the fact that set of relics works so well on him gains layers too‚ enhancing the similarity and identification

[fragmentedblade]

I can't believe they made Blade ask with a broken voice why is it only abominations that come back over and over again. Blade, who can't die, who comes back to life again and again

[itachi-uchiha-deserved-better]

Fun Meta asks: 3. 4. 5. 11. 17. 20. 23. 25. -Sorry for asking so many. Curiosities of one writer to another. Feel free to omit any of these.

3) What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

I have this scene in my head between Itachi and my OC. She’s chasing him down against orders after his massacre of the Uchiha clan because she refuses to believe that things are what they look like. And when she manages to catch him, she’s able to use her mind prison jutsu to stop him from leaving and tells him about how no matter what anyone says, She refuses to believe that he is the monster the village wants to paint him as. As she’s trying to convince him to come back to the village with her, her body is weakening more and more from the chakra poisoning caused by using her jutsu. Eventually he gives her something, a sort of vague acknowledgment that she might not be wrong. He tells her that he may need her help if Sasuke wavers from the path Itachi has set for him but he can’t risk her remembering anything, so he uses Tsukyomi on her, leaving her near death in the forest for her Anbu teammates to find.

4) Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

We know the details of the war. We are unfailingly familiar with the facts. Michael led the nine choirs against Lucifer and his followers. We know that Lucifer’s assault on heaven was swift and viscous, striking for every advantage, exploiting the weakness to be found in soldiers hesitant to lash out against those who once were called brother. We know that in the heat of the battle, Michael called the seven remaining arch angels together. Among the cacophony of blades and bloodshed the seven marched and behind them a solemn silence followed. Together they marched and they struck at the dragon. “Beloved,” they cried, “Why, beloved Lucifer? Why have you done this? You were the first in God’s eyes.” We know that the seven cried as they pierced the dragon’s hide and brought to bear on him the full force of the power of heaven.             We know that our father lost the war, but we know in the way a student knows the facts of history. They may sit and memorize the hows and the whys of history, but they are at their core, disconnected from it. So it is for us. We know what happened during our father’s rebellion. We understand the nature of our father’s sin, the sin which we share by our shared blood. We lack the intimacy of memory. We know, but these events are no more than words on the pages of our minds. 

I wrote this as an intro to a WIP called Children of the Damned, a story that was supposed to be about a group of angels who hadn’t fallen from grace but were cast out of heaven because they were the children of lucifer. They were supposed to be a neutral force, something between demons and angels who’s job was to protect all of humanity- the good and the bad. The project never really went anywhere but I still have the intro draft sitting in my WIP folder. 

5) What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

I have a character called Zero (she was originally from a DnD campaign that ended up falling apart.) and her whole shtick is that she is a researcher for the Arcanum- basically an orphan who managed to get into the big magic school of the setting and is now a glorified grad student researching for her thesis and has to bounty hunt to fund her research. She is socially awkward, painfully shy, very disenchanted with the world but fascinated with her chosen field of study and constantly stressed out by budgets and deadlines. And since I’m an eternally stressed out grad student I relate to her pretty hard. 

11) What do you envy in other writers?

The ability to see and work towards an overarching plot. I can do drabbles pretty well because my brain works in scenes, but I have a really hard time stringing those individual scenes together into something coherent with an ultimate end goal. 

17) Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?

Absolutely I think that people perceive my writing differently than I do. I mean, all of my writing is ultimately informed by my own life experiences and ultimately no one else has experienced my life, so I’m sure that readers are viewing my work through the lenses of their own experience. As for me? Probably? Idk I am pretty vague with my online presence so I really have no idea what people perceive about me. As for surprising people about my motivation....Honestly I really don’t know. My motivation to write is usually because I have a scene in my head that wont leave me be until I put it on paper and sometimes that leads to a larger idea and sometimes I just leave it at that. 

20) Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

So Idk that it’s something most people pick up on, but I am a percussionist at heart and so Cadence in writing is a big thing for me. One of the things they teach you when you learn, say, snare drum for instance, is to use words to identify certain rhythmic patterns. Well my brain took that and sort of applied it to all language. There are things, feelings that you can evoke just by substituting a short word for a longer word. For example- Pain, Hiss, Break: these are all short, sharp words. And using them in a sentence will provoke a different sort of sensation or feeling than words like agony, mournful, shattered, breath which are longer more lyrical words. Idk if it makes any sense to other people, but that kind of cadence drives the imagery in a lot of my writing. I have an essay about it (or did at one point). 

23) What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

The Ichor Blade. Three characters- Matthias, an older man, a healer who’s formed a deal with some kind of dark entity and uses the power of the dark magic he has gained to heal people at the expense of his own life. Zero- an arcane acolyte from the arcana consortum, she is a very adept mage, but clinical in her approach to magic and tasked with hunting down rogue magic users as part of the agreement that funds her research. And Illomenn (I-LL-OMENN), a creature of supernatural origin known as a Hex which are essentially manifestations off all things that trouble the world. Illomenn is a minor hex, the manifestation of bad luck. They are brought together by chance after Matthias and Zero encounter several Major Hex’s- plague, malice, and war. Zero is affected by plague and cannot use most of her magic without it destroying her body. Matthias is trying to help her undo the curse and in the process they find Illomenn and recruit his help in using a relic called the Ichor Blade to destroy the curse and to seal away the hexes from the world. 

25) What part of writing is the most fun?

Honestly? Watching people read what I wrote and listening to their thoughts afterwards. Its kind of like cooking for me. The actual process of making something is fun, but the most satisfying part is knowing that other people enjoyed it. 

[hvforks]

Demystification: Occultism, Contemporary Art & the Market

Art: no other relic or text from the past can offer such a direct testimony about the world which surrounded other people at other times. In this respect images are more precise and richer than literature. To say this is not to deny the expressive or imaginative quality of art, treating it as mere documentary evidence; the more imaginative the work, the more profoundly it allows us to share the artist’s experience of the visible and invisible.  

Yet when an image is presented as a work of art, the way people look at it is affected by a whole series of learnt rules about art. These rules can be beauty, truth, genius, civilsation, form, status and taste. Many of these assumptions no longer accord with the world as it is. The world is more than fact, it includes consciousness. Out of true with the present, these rules obscure the past. They mystify rather than clarify. The past is never there waiting to be discovered, to be recognised for exactly what it is. History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past. The past is not for living in; it is a well of conclusions from which we draw in order to act. Cultural mystification of the past entails a double loss. Works of art are made unnecessarily remote. And the past offers us fewer conclusions to complete in action.

For example, when we ‘see’ a landscape, we situate ourselves in it. If we ‘saw’ the art of the past, we would situate ourselves in history. When we are prevented from seeing it, we are being deprived of the history which belongs to us. Who benefits from this deprivation? In the end, the art of the past is being mystified because a privileged minority is striving to invent history which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling classes, and such a justification can no longer make sense in modern terms. And so, inevitably, it mystifies.  

Discovering works of art which have undergone a degree of mystification is what I love about art and art history. Uncovering these ‘truths’ is what gives a voice to the underprivileged or the hidden, and also shines a light on an unwanted underbelly of history, which in turn informs our present conditions. 

Through my time studying and working in the arts, I knew there were artists who were explicitly interested in occult themes; artists like William Blake (1757-1827) who’s iconoclastic positions on equality of the sexes and classes, the existence of magic and mysticism, and the right to unfettered sexual expression not only separated him from his peers but also marked him as controversial for his time; artists like Salvador Dali (1904-1989) who produced a tarot deck called the Universal Tarot in 1984, as well as writing a book titled ‘50 secrets of Magic Craftsmanship’ published in 1948, which is an unexplicit top tips of how Dali created his surrealist style of paintings using magical techniques; and another artist like Madge Gill (1882-1961) who believed she was possessed by a spirit called ‘Myrninerest’ and who was openly a member of the Theosophical Society. But the more I started to engross myself in my own esoteric practices, the more I started to notice occult and spiritual themes in art at my place of work; archiving 20th and 21st century art acquisitions. I saw it in Cecil Collins (1908-1989), Eileen Agar (1889-1991), as well as artist Greyson Perry (born 1960) and many more. However, unlike Blake, Dali and Gill, these artists weren’t explicitly documented as mingling with the occult. So what was going on here?

My first thought was to research these artists, to try to confirm their affiliations with occultism - but it became clear to me that it wasn’t about affirmation; it was already visible that occult symbolism kept recurring in art history regardless of whether the artist was ‘into’ the occult or not. To me, what was important was seeing that these themes had been repeated throughout art history for centuries - and there’s lots of great writing about that, for example: Carl Jung’s ‘Man and his Symbols’ published in 1964, or Carl Abrahamsson’s ‘Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward’, published in 2018. It became apparent that there were two sides to this: one side being that occult references in art history have been ignored and hidden; they have undergone a degree of mystification. A recent example of this is William Blake’s retrospective at Tate Britain (2019-2020). William Blake had an intense dislike and mistrust of the prevailing orthodoxes of his time: organised religion, divisions by class and gender, and the stultification of social conventions. He and his wife Catherine joined the New Church of Emanuel Swedenborg in 1789 where they practiced a more gentler, mystical form of Christianity in which truth came from personal revelation, not priestly academics and arguments. Blake had a desire for free love and the right for adults to engage in sex unfettered by ideas of sin or social ostracism, and subscribed to the kabbalistic belief that sex was a sacred communion with the Divine. To my disappointment, the exhibition did not explore Blake’s imagery and symbolism, but instead considered the reception of his art with his peers and the monetary value of how much he was paid for certain works; a somewhat capitalist perspective. At no point did the exhibition consider Blake’s radical thoughts, practices or politics; and so this truth remains somewhat hidden in the present; it has undergone a degree of mystification. 

During the last decade (2010-2019), I began to see a huge resurgence of occult popularity, especially in contemporary art and thus the art market. Which brings me to the second side: that occult themes are now gaining popularity in contemporary art practices, that occult or spiritually inspired works are being sold on the art market through commercial galleries and huge art fairs like Frieze - they have become marketable, valuable, and curatable… and most importantly, this means that they are now being viewed through the lenses of the learnt rules: beauty, truth, genius, civilisation, form, status and most importantly ‘good taste’.

Let’s briefly explore this idea of ‘good taste’. As sentimental as I personally am about art for art’s sake, from a strictly sociological perspective, I have to admit that taste is pretty intimately related to power. When you go to a museum you look at various objects on pedestals under special lighting which makes them look magical, which is not too different to when you go to a shopping centre and you walk past all the shop-front displays; but what sets museums apart from any shopping experience is that you can’t buy any of the art on display, and that’s important. In the retail context of commodity fetishism, you correlate your aesthetic taste with material desire, whereas in the museum, because you can’t buy anything, you feel like your aesthetic pleasure is pure, that you’re simply enjoying out of context objects - but of course, that’s an illusion. The museum is the context, and the context is telling you that the things you’re looking at are art. So, whoever decides what’s in the museum decides what ‘good taste’ is, what’s beautiful and what’s valuable, and that goes the same with the art market.

It’s no secret that occultism has been viewed as ‘bad taste’. The resurgence of occultism in contemporary art and culture is not without precedent: the occult has faded in and out of the cultural arena for centuries, from the Witch Trials of 1580-1630 during the Counter-Reformation and the European wars of religion, as well as the 19th century - the setting of the first widespread occult revival since the Christianisation of Europe; the early-modern witch hunts and the so-called age of reason, to the development of Wicca after World War II, the esoteric counterculture of the 1960’s, to the rise of the ‘Satanic Panic’ that troubled the US throughout the 1980’s and early 1990’s. It’s no lie that occultism has had a roller coaster of a time throughout history, but we can recognise this desire in our current moment - steeped in advanced capitalism, swift gentrification and right-wing political gains - the occult and spirituality now holds the promise of connection and empowerment to those who feel powerless. So, of course during this time of uncertainty, a new wave of artists have once again been inspired by occult and spiritual ideologies and themes. Currently in the art market, occultism is on trend and as the art market sees it; political and social turmoil surrounds us, so it’s no surprise new age spiritualism is booming. For example: Damien Hirst’s (born 1965) ‘Mandalas' exhibition from 2019 at the White Cube had people queuing around the block on the opening day, the esoteric was on the ascendent at Frieze Art Fair 2019 with many works exploring the spiritual and supernatural, including high profile commercial galleries like Maureen Paley, Gagosian and the White Cube. A take by Marc Glimcher, the president and chief executive of Pace gallery says: “For many, organised religion’s rejection of universality has left a gap.” for context; he made this statement after opening his new gallery in New York with a blessing from a shaman (2019). It was, Glimsher says, “a moment for the family that is Pace to reflect and appreciate one another and the journey. [...] a growth in the search for an expansion of consciousness today; artists are often the first to recognise and articulate this”.

But many of these ideas have their roots in the counterculture of an earlier time. What Damien Hirst is doing at the White Cube exhibition isn’t particularly new; he’s just doing it in a more acceptable time. But with this, such ideas have entered the mainstream and have become a saleable commodity. The new Pace gallery in New York has crystals embedded in its walls and the London gallery Sadie Coles HQ was selling ‘healing’ gems and minerals in its pop-up shop with the US artist Andrea Zittel (born 1965) (exhibition 2019). Occultism and spiritualism has arguably been co-opted by capitalism and spiritualist art is a booming business. But with any subculture that is embraced by the mainstream and commodified, has the concept of the occult or spiritual lost its purpose?

Let’s take a step back to Marc Glimcher’s statement; what caught my eye here was “artists are often the first to recognise and articulate this”, and well, he’s right. So, let’s examine who the spiritual artist is: if we strip back major western figures, also known as blue-chip artists who created occult inspired or spiritual art in the 20th and 21st century; for example: Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Salvador Dali and Bill Viola (born 1951), then we’re left with predominantly outsider-artists, artists who are considered to be from a minority group, or middle-class artists who weren’t credited for their work during their lifetime. You see, a lot of mainstream visual art inspiration, especially in the fine arts, works in what we might call a trickle-up model of aesthetics, especially with religious and spiritual imagery in 20th and 21st century art. This kind of imagery and philosophy is created by the most marginalised groups and communities, then they trickle up to the middle classes, and then finally to big named artists and commercial galleries. A great example of this is Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and his African Period which is also known as Primitivism. Primitivism ultimately led to the invention of Cubism and produced one of Picasso’s most famous paintings, the ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ (1907). During Picasso’s Primitive Period, he painted in a style which was strongly influenced by African sculpture, particularly ceremonial African masks. In the early 20th century, African artworks with spiritual significance were being brought back to Paris museums in consequence of the expansion of the French empire into Sub-Saharan Africa, which brings up a lot of questions about colinialisation, the theft of important spiritual works, and the cultural appropriation of Picasso’s work. We could say that this is happening now, with the popularisation of occultism in contemporary art. That small communities of marginalised groups have been creating and forming a specific aesthetic and philosophy for decades, sometimes centuries, which have then been accessed and popularised by the middle classes with things like yoga becoming more mainstream, mindful meditation apps, healing crystals and Harry Potter, which has then trickled up to the very top and is now being commodified at the art market. The occult has once again gone from ‘bad taste’ to being viewed through the lens of ‘good taste’. 

It’s no secret that the art market has taken a turn in the past two decades, works by women and people of colour are more popular than ever; maybe this is the elite taking advantage of people’s cultural shift towards inclusion and diversity in a way to capitalise on it, or maybe the elite are like, totally ‘woke’ now? To understand the market better, let’s take a look at an institution like MoMA; one of the world’s most important artistic institutions, it came into being in 1929 after a small group of rich New York benefactors made an initial gift of eight prints and drawings. That initial donation grew into the new MoMA which reopened in 2019 after a $450 million renovation which shows more of the museum’s permanent collection of 200,000 artworks. Before the renovation the museum could only present 1,500 artworks on average, now it can show nearly 2,500 works permanently. To put that in perspective, if MoMA stopped collecting new works today, but continued turning over the entirety of its permanent collections gallery every 18 months, it would still need more than 80 years to put everything it owns on view to the public just one time. MoMA decided to take new liberties with the chronological presentation of its collection, and introduced a more theme-based approach which will promote a healthy diversification of genres - putting a Pablo Picasso next to a Faith Ringgold (born 1930) for example. But why is that important? MoMA’s acquisitions and choice of display radically affects the market, and their choice of contemporary art always stimulates the market. It is no surprise then, that MoMA opened one of it’s new gallery spaces with printmaking artist and mystic Betye Saar’s work in October 2019 with the exhibition ‘The Legends of Black Girl’s Window’; this exhibition had an immediate impact on the artist’s prices. Celebrating the acquisition of 42 rare, early works on paper, this was MoMA’s first dedicated examination of Saar’s work as a printmaker and those acquisitions had an inflationary effect on the prices and popularity. Spotlights by major museums almost always have a virtuous impact on demand, and growth in demand means higher prices. And so in October 2019, thanks to institutions like MoMA, we saw a huge resurgence in art exploring occult themes hit the market; right in time for Halloween. 

Even though MoMA’s new expansion did more to reinforce the established canon than to atomize it, the museum’s expansion did more to reinforce the art market status quo than to disrupt it. In a museum system still largely subject to the preferences of its super-rich private patrons, it’s important to recognise that the new MoMA was largely made possible by checks bearing the same old signatures (David Geffen, David Rockefeller, Debra & Leon Black, Ken Griffin and Steven A. Cohen being the largest MoMA donors since 2015). However, with the inclusion of spiritually influenced works like Betye Saar at MoMA as well as the other countless exhibitions of occult or spiritual themed work over the past ten years: like ‘A History of Magic’ at the British Library (2017-2018); ‘Spellbound’ at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (2018-2019); ‘The Medium’s Medium’ (2019) and ‘Art + Revolution in Haiti’ (2018) at The Gallery of Everything, London; as well as Damien Hirst's ‘Mandalas’ at the Whita Cube, London (2019); Lenore Tawney at Frieze as part of Alison Jacques Gallery (2019); Melanie Matranga’s wall hangings at Frieze as part of High Art (2019) and Shana Moulton at the Zabludowicz Collection (2019) to name some of the more recent exhibitions; I believe I can safely say that the occult is now going through a state of demystification (from the upper class patrons of MoMA, through to the working classes). The mystification of occult themes appears to be lifting and with this, a whole new occult perspective on not only current artistic practices, but also historic works of art are being discovered today; a good example of this is the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s (MAMCS) exhibition ‘The Europe of Spirit or the Fascination of the Occult, 1750-1950’ (2011-2012) which explored a vast range of works from over 200 years which showed how the visual and literary arts were informed and inspired by appropriated occultism.  

With this demystification of history, we begin to see occult symbolism in the present: we gaze into pools of data, in a terminal trance running on light, power, numbers. We raise histories long dead on Wikipedia, we cast chat communiques to fellow citizens via vibrations. We summon demons, turn our base metal devices to the task of making gold, astral project into virtual worlds, program the very landscape we live in; and this resonates most strongly with working class and unrepresented artists across the UK (the trickle up model of aesthetics; the unrepresented artists are usually the first to notice). Artists like Chloe Langlois (born 1980), Arianne Churchman (born 1988), Joseph Winsborrow (born 1994), Craig David Parr (born 1990), and artist collectives like Chaos Magic, Dohm Ceramics and KÜHLE WAMPE are all exploring occult themes using digital ritualism. This could suggest that the current mining of the esoteric underground and the upsurge of mainstream interest in the occult mysteries serves a more practical function for young, unrepresented and working-class artists. It’s not about the return of Gods and the re-enactment of a technologically dischanted reality. Instead, it’s about the rediscovery of tools and strategies that are, paradoxically again, pragmatic and instrumental. These artists recognise that magic may help us map, manipulate, and navigate the weird political, social and technological landscape that yawns before us. 

Since the eighteenth century, the West has seen a profound transformation in the relationship between art and religion. The Reformation, the rise of capitalism, the ideals of the Enlightenment, the worship of Reason and the growth of the town all led to what Max Weber (1864-1920) called “the disenchantment of the world”. At the same time, the sense of the withdrawal of the divine that found expression in the Romantics, followed later by Nietzche’s announcement of the death of God, the advance of science, the emergence of psychoanalysis and the growing influence of Marxism, led to a reconsideration of Man’s place in creation and thus of his relationship to religion. It was in this landscape of belief violently unsettled that Modern Art came to birth. In the course of this long process the secularisation of society delivered artists from their subordination to occultism and spirituality; the crisis of religion did not at all mean the disappearance of metaphysical questioning. There remains a survival of such questioning today which continues to fuel the invention of contemporary artistic forms, and as such represents an essential key to the understanding of art history and contemporary art. 

Images: 1.  Shana Moulton, The Pink Tower and The Waterfall of Grief, 2019, exhibition view Zabludowicz Collection, London. Courtesy the artist and Zabludowicz Collection. Photo: Tim Bowditch

2. Madge Gill, Untitled, Undated, Courtesy Newham Archives and Local Studies Library

3. Damien Hirst, Mandalas, 2019, exhibition view The White Cube, London. Courtesy the artist and The White Cube.

4.  Left, Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907 with Faith Ringgold’s American People Series #20: Die, 1967. Exhibition view Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2019.

5. KÜHLE WAMPE, Under Different Stars, 2019. Vivid Projects: Black Hole Club. Photo: Marcin Sz

[dgcatanisiri]

So... Let’s see how this works. We’ll adjust the format as needed if this doesn’t work, but hey, here we go.

Welcome to DG’s Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, I’d like to see them anyway. 

Because I have ideas, I can’t get them made as mods, I don’t have time to make them into fic, and they’re never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, they’re tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so it’s not like I’ll ever make money off of them anyway.

Our first installment takes a look at Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic. Obviously, as this game predates the modern DLC model (there was the Yavin market, but that was maybe a grand total of ten minutes tops of content, if we’re generous), so there are some awkwardnesses involved in making DLC for this - if nothing else, when the game ends, it ends, to keep playing, you have to start a new character. On another, there’s the level cap, stopping our leveling up after hitting Level 20. As the game presently exists, that should happen after being locked into the endgame combo of the Unknown World/Star Forge, but adding more content means that cap gets hit sooner. 

So understand that we’re assuming that there is the ability to play post-game and a higher level cap, as well as other quality of life style additions (in this case, probably among them are various additions from KOTOR 2, but that’s a subject for another day). I’m also willing to assume that there is content for characters (even if the respective voice actors have passed, retired, or just wouldn’t return), in the same style as modern games. The assumption here is that these DLC ideas would have been written, produced, and published during the active production cycle of the respective games.

As this is the inaugural edition, let me explain the format. There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable (unless it’s part of a hardwired point, like the above mentioned point of no return of travelling to the Unknown World, as an example), and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because I’ve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of ‘this idea seems pretty cool,’ and then gave them more context later on.

And a further note - I reserve the right to come up with more ideas for any given game that I have already written up, naturally. I haven’t decided how I’ll handle that yet, but it’s entirely possible there will later be more ideas.

Okay, housekeeping matters out of the way, let’s get down to business!

The Yavin Excursion

Yavin 4 was the site of Sith Lord Exar Kun’s power base. In understanding more about him and his fall, the Jedi Council believe it may be able to shed light on the fall of Revan and Malak. But the secrets of the Massassi temples hold more than just the ghosts of the past, but a threat for the present...

(Available after Dantooine)

Tack this on to the existing content of the market in orbit of Yavin, I suppose. But the connection to the Tales of the Jedi comic seems like a good starting point here – investigate one Sith Lord to examine the motivations of another, find out why the first guy fell to the dark side, which will hopefully explain why the other guys did.

I see this as both a lore exercise – to offer the players more exploration of this era, considering that the Tales of the Jedi comics have been harder to come by as time as gone on, so allowing some more in depth portrayals of the time – and a chance to kind of approach the question of what drives someone to the dark side. Exar Kun fell by an overwhelming curiosity, Ulic Qel-Droma, his apprentice, fell by a desire for revenge, and later lost his connection to the Force (put a pin in that fact – we’ll be back to that come the DLC for KOTOR 2). Millennia later, Anakin Skywalker falls because of his fear of the loss of those he loves. Two of these people were redeemed, one refused to give up his power.

If anything, this would be a good chance for some foreshadowing of Bastila’s eventual fall (so perhaps this would be locked to before the Leviathan catches the Ebon Hawk), on top of asking the question that later drives KOTOR 2 – what were Revan’s motivations in turning to the dark side? Obviously, this is up in the air from a character perspective (and, honestly, so far as I care, from the player’s too, because I despise the whole “the Sith Emperor warped their minds” BS, and I’m ready and willing to disregard it, even in acknowledging The Old Republic). The first KOTOR never really focuses on the why of Revan’s fall, since Malak is the game’s big bad, and the Revan reveal is a plot twist – since this is DLC, the player would probably be expected to know it going in, so why not explore that, right?

As for what this threat is... I’m a little shakier on this. I’m thinking a Massassi warrior/beast of some kind, the same kind of Sith alchemical abomination we see in the terantatek or hssiss, only a much more powerful end boss kind of thing, a living relic of Exar Kun’s evil (given that, canonically, Exar Kun’s spirit survived to the Jedi Academy novel trilogy, he certainly can’t be the final boss), perhaps fed and kept alive by the powers of the remaining Massassi who worshipped Exar Kun as a god – in this case, looking to take advantage of the Ebon Hawk’s arrival to spread their master’s will across the galaxy and speed his return. Sith alchemy played a part in a lot of the Sith portrayals from this timeframe, and it’s kind of disappointing that KOTOR never really utilized these mutants, just had them as mindless high level bosses.

Vector

The rakghoul plague infested the lower levels of the planet of Taris. When the planet was bombed by the Sith, it managed to escape among the many refugees as well. With their experiences on Taris, facing the rakghouls, the Jedi Council sends the crew of the Ebon Hawk to investigate its spread to the planet Ralltiir – and stop the Sith from obtaining it as a weapon!

(Available after Dantooine)

The rakghouls were just kind of dropped into KOTOR with no explanation – they were a threat as a creature and as a plague in the Undercity of Taris, but no one ever spoke about what the plague’s origins were or where the rakghouls came from. And then along came the Vector mini-series of comics (hence the name for this) that put the creation of the rakghouls down to a Sith Lord, Karness Murr. Sith alchemy, the gift that keeps on giving.

But either way, considering that the rakghoul plague is something that even the Upper City of Taris was concerned about, that clearly says that it could easily have gotten off planet, especially in the panic of the evacuation. And really, with the added knowledge that this was originally Sith alchemy, it’s almost certain that some aspiring Sith would discover this and try to twist it to their advantage.

I pretty much pulled Ralltiir’s name out of a hat, primarily because it’s a fairly common named planet, but with little actually associated with it. It also makes a great place where the Republic would demand an immediate concern, because it’s a Core World and an economic hub. It’s a great place to have a plague that Republic heads would say would draw in the Ebon Hawk, whose crew had familiarity with the rakghoul plague, despite the threat of Malak and the search for the Star Maps.

I also see this as a way to give Mission and Juhani more content – Mission is a hard character for me to really justify remaining with the crew after Taris, given that she’s a teenager, I feel VERY uncomfortable taking her around on what is effectively a commando mission, while Juhani was very nearly hacked out of the game. Both of them grew up on Taris, in the lower levels of the planetary city, where the rakghouls aren’t just a distant threat. So give them this additional portrayal and focus because they’re familiar with the plague, maybe even knew some people who were infected and transformed by it.

The villain would be a Jedi-turned-Sith, someone who had turned to the Sith at some point after being a Jedi historian. A part of me wants to draw on one of the Jedi who would later show up in the Exile’s vision on Korriban, mostly because those were the Jedi we see recruited by Malak, and so less aware of Revan’s face, though that seems a touch much. Regardless, they’d previously acted as a historian, and is driven by the potential power of the rakghoul plague – Muur’s talisman is lost by this point (again, see the comics), but the rakghouls themselves remain, and, while I’m ignoring the whole “the Sith Emperor did it” thing with Revan, I also like the concept of the rakghouls evolving into the nekghouls, gaining sentience.

This is also a way to add a little bit more of a question to the results – do these evolved rakghouls deserve the consideration of being considered more than mindless beasts? Are they at all a continuation of the person they once were? Or are they just violent creatures that need to be put down? Is the guy trying to control them being corrupted by the dark side, or was he always evil?

So the central question here would be asking “what makes a monster?” Is it the mindless savagery of beasts, or the knowing cruelty of intelligent beings, and where is that line?

Sleheyron

The volcanic world of Sleheyron holds a Star Map. The Ebon Hawk and her crew set out to discover the secrets hidden there, but must be cautious, for the planet also holds a group of Darth Malak’s most powerful apprentices, who have, in their isolation from their leader, created their own plan for the fall of the Republic...

(Available after Dantooine)

Sleheyron was planned to be part of the hunt for the Star Maps – six environments are described in the Rakatan ruin on Dantooine, the life-giving worlds (oceanic – Manaan, grassland – Dantooine, arboreal – Kashyyyk) and death-giving worlds (desert – Tatooine, volcanic, barren – Korriban). Sleheyron was the volcanic world, but got cut for time, early enough that there really wasn’t a lot of material that made it out, with the planet just becoming part of Yuthura Ban’s back story. So, hey, free reign to develop something here.

Honestly, one of my big questions is, if Malak was with Revan as they travelled the worlds to find the Star Maps, why doesn’t he do something about the fact that these locations led to the big secret weapon that gives the Sith Empire its power and forces? Wouldn’t he have thought that maybe some form of guard or another would be a good idea? Sure, the Korriban one was guarded by virtue of being in the tomb of Naga Sadow, but the others? Here, we get a chance to have a group of Sith having taken control of this planet where there is a Star Map that can add to what our heroes have assembled (but, being DLC, this isn’t required to take on). They’re specifically there to guard the Map.

This becomes a bit of a game of cat and mouse – how to act before the Sith apprentices (probably former Jedi themselves) can find them, capture or kill them, hand them off to Malak. (Probably also means that this should be a later stage planet to visit, but hey, player choice of direction, right?) How do these Jedi move around a planet while the people in charge are out to get them? Draw on the mechanic from KOTOR 2, where the people on Dantooine recognize if the Exile goes there while a lightsaber is equipped, maybe.

Actually, I’d like to see some mechanic that tracks how much the player uses the Force while wandering around – the more they use the Force, or the more powerful the Force effects they use, the more likely they are to summon Sith execution squads or something. Sort of like KOTOR 2 and Nar Shaddaa, where the Exile’s actions drew the attention of the Exchange and Visquis, only in reverse – the player and company need to avoid catching the attention of the Sith until they’ve raised a rebellion against the Sith overlords, or at least gained enough public goodwill that the Sith can’t just openly take them away and execute them, something like that.

I like this idea because it allows an opportunity to play more with non-violent approaches, alternatives that aren’t “murder everyone because combat gives more experience!” Here, the idea is that you WANT to fly under the radar, avoid combat. And, if combat happens, you also have incentive to not use the lightsaber for a stretch – gives players a reason to put points into blasters or non-lightsaber melee combat, because I don’t know about anyone else, but the second I get a lightsaber in these games, I don’t ever use a different weapon. Here, the player is in the position of HAVING to switch up their play style, or, if they don’t, have to be that much more cautious in their actions here. This is a story piece that hinges on what you do with your words.

The ultimate confrontation with the Sith and the Star Map, in my mind, takes place in a cavern of an active volcano (or maybe one that has been dormant, but, because what’s the Sith without random acts of evilly evil, they’re managing to coax back to life). Here’s where there’s a pretty big question in the construction of this DLC – are we working in the confines of the game engine of the time or with newer, more modern systems? Cuz I’d kinda like something that took place within the volcanic areas of the planet, given that’s what the planet is described as. But I don’t think that KOTOR’s original engine would really be able to explore that to its fullest, given the limitations on it. My big idea would be to have the climax of the planet’s arc have the threat of a volcanic eruption, potentially with the base of operations for these Sith being flooded by lava.

If that is an engine limit... I really have no idea what the alternative would be, but, hey, since this is pie in the sky as it is, why not call for the engine advancement that lets it be a thing, where we have to outrun a lava flow or something.

Echoes of the Past

The strike team that fought Revan is being targeted by Malak’s assassins. The crew of the Ebon Hawk take a journey to the graveyard of the attack on Revan’s ship, the battle that led to the defeat of the dark lord. But the dead don’t rest easy, especially amongst the ruins of the Sith Lord’s vessel...

(Available after the Leviathan)

The strike team that captured Revan is kinda the forgotten element of the game as is. This is a team, and yet we only hear about Bastila’s involvement. Which, sure, she is the member on our squad, she does have the Force Bond with Revan, but... Who were the others? Where have they been during the war?

And it seems like Malak would think of them as a threat period – they were the Jedi who were there to face off against Revan, the Jedi thought they’d have a chance against this great Sith Lord, the leader of the Sith forces of the time. But Bastila is the only one the game ever concerns itself with, and doesn’t even mention if the others lived, who they were, why they were chosen... None of that.

So here we get to explore them. The added bonus is that I see this as a post-Leviathan mission, one that we play with full awareness of our player character’s identity. How much of that awareness we pass on is one thing, and it really allows us to explore the idea “who was Revan before, who is Revan now?” Because that’s going to come into play when dealing with the people who were at one point sent in to kill Revan – sent to kill us, the player character.

I also like the set piece idea of a graveyard of ships, where the characters are walking through the husks of dead vessels – the Harbinger sequence in KOTOR 2 is still a favorite of mine. Granted, this would probably be a bit of a conceptual retread of that part of that game, but hey, why not get some variation of the same old gameplay, right? Plus, it’s different here for the fact that this will have some personal connection to Revan – this was their ship. Did they consider it a home? Just a place?

That leads to the bigger plot element, though. These Jedi know Revan as a threat. They’re going to be suspicious of Revan the whole way through – “are you the Jedi the Council thought you to have become, or are you the Sith we were once sent to kill?” Like I’m sorta thinking this is a case where we’d get these teammates as companions proper now that I’m considering this in detail, and this all builds to the main confrontation. Like we wouldn’t take our Ebon Hawk buddies on this one, but two of these guys.

That confrontation would involve the assassins being revealed to be loyalists to Darth Revan, with their mission having begun with attempting to avenge their fallen Lord, but now, with Revan returned to them, having tested their skill over the course of their luring Revan back to them, they are willing to take up their banner once more, leading to the choice – be Revan, the Sith Lord, or Revan, the Prodigal Knight.

And yes, I know, this is the same thing we see with Bastila later. In some ways, that’s the point. Choosing the light or the dark is not one you make once and are one that path forever. It is a constant, repeated choice, one that must be made, again and again. It’s something that has to been affirmed and reaffirmed, because it will always come up again. Here, it’s just “we offer you power and loyal servants,” while Bastila has the offer of their Force bond – hell, if this were real DLC, I’d say patch in some element to the endgame of Bastila trying to use their bond to lure Revan over to her side on top of things.

What Remains

Darth Malak’s assault on Dantooine was meant to destroy the Jedi. The Ebon Hawk is the one ship that might be able to break the Sith blockade and rescue the people trapped behind their lines, as well as recover irreplaceable Jedi artifacts hidden away at the enclave. And Revan has a need to confront the Jedi Council...

(Available after Leviathan)

This one has always been in my mind as something that, in many ways, we needed to see happen. I look at this as being the necessary confrontation with the Jedi Masters that we need, because they’re using Revan. Revan was reprogrammed to be their weapon against the Sith, and what exactly were they going to do if and when the war was over and they’d no longer had need of Revan?

A mission to Dantooine, done by the ship that could escape the blockade of Taris, to attempt to rescue and recover the Jedi, break the people there out of the iron grip of the Sith, at first does seem somewhat at odds with the portrayal of Dantooine in KOTOR 2, but it still makes sense if you think of the first priority being to evacuate the Jedi and the relics they were saving – the Jedi become the reason that any rescue comes, not the people stuck there. The Jedi and their artifacts are prioritized over the people now under the thumb of the Sith.

Especially if the only real encounter we have is with the Jedi themselves, seeing them in the midst of their exodus, dealing with the Sith occupiers and executioners, all of whom would have once had friends here – I see this also including a Republic military outpost to Dantooine prior to the attack there, because there honestly should have been one anyway (this I chalk up as much to the more limited engine of the game as anything else), and that providing some extra characters to events, which makes it all the more devastating having their former comrades in arms now there to kill them.

As much as this is about confronting the Jedi for the way that they intended to use Revan, this is also an exploration of the divide of Republic and Sith, that those now calling themselves Sith were once the best and brightest of the Republic. Yes, the Jedi failed to come to the aid of the Republic in the midst of the war, but that doesn’t explain the violence these former soldiers engage in against their own people. What made the rank and file Sith soldier agree to this?

That examination of motivation would, I feel, be a part of why the resulting confrontation with the Jedi would matter so much – what drove Revan? What drove the Sith? What drove the Jedi? Because they mindwiped Revan and implanted them with a personality to use them as a weapon. They didn’t “turn an enemy to their cause.” They violated Revan in an effort to use them. When the war was over, what did they really think would happen?

Specifically, we need to confront Zhar, who, given Kreia’s utter disdain for him in KOTOR 2, I get the impression that he was the major proponent of this idea. His actions may have been justified as “for the greater good,” but it always seems like the greatest of morally questionable actions are justified with those words. Do we confront him with rage, forgiveness, or... something else? Because this is a case where I can see both condemning him to death and condemning him to live as a punishment. I could even see this being a case of him bowing to Revan’s judgment, and no option having a light side/dark side shift, because this isn’t about the Force. This is about justice.

Whether or not the Jedi admit it, a life was taken the day they implanted a personality into Revan’s body. The Jedi need to be called out and recognize that they do not have clean hands after what they’ve done.

Revan’s Shadow

Although Revan’s legacy, the Star Forge and the Sith army, have been defeated, there are still questions of Revan’s journey. There was more to it than Star Maps. The crew of the Ebon Hawk reunite on the planet Belkadan to find out more of the Rakatan Empire, and its ties to the dark side of the Force. And along the way, Revan will find more of their lost past...

(Post-Game)

The fact is, we get very little of Revan in the game proper, little about who they were as a person before the fall. This is conceptually to hide the fact that the player IS Revan, of course, but... It creates a lot of little issues for me – I mean, like half of these prospective DLCs are about expanding something of Revan’s motives and past. Obviously, this is a blank slate for the player, because they wanted to leave this open for us to decide, but they DID make a few definitions of who Revan was with the existing content, with the case of the Star Map on Kashyyyk.

And for me, personal identity is a big lingering question for this character – again, I’m choosing to ignore the handling of Revan as a character in The Old Republic, and I’m gonna include the tie-in novel in that, so no one is allowed to say “the novel said [x]!”

This is someone whose entire concept of who they are is in question once they learn that they are a constructed self, created by the Jedi Council as a weapon. Who ARE they? Who have they chosen to be, and, if they could reclaim the parts of themselves that they lost with the Jedi’s mind wipe, would they? Obviously, there’s no time in the main plot to focus on these questions, but I feel like this would eat at them afterwards, leading them to having to find answers. And what kind of friends would the others be if they let Revan do this alone?

I picked Belkadan pretty much because it’s an out of the way planet that has been identified as part of the Rakata’s Infinite Empire, so it made as much sense as any planet to be the site of this. I mean, the involvement of the Infinite Empire is certainly a good option for a place that questions who Revan is.

This would be a place where Revan had gone, after the Mandalorian Wars, a place where they were trying to connect to the Force, to understand the questions – why did the Jedi Council believe they shouldn’t be involved in an existential threat? Why is Revan drawn to these Star Maps and the destination they point to? What awaits them if they go, and what will change about them? What answers are to be found in asking an energy field that can offer no direct response?

Obviously, I’m thinking in terms of finding recordings of Revan, so requiring a voice for Revan – Rino Romano did the little soundbites when male Revan interacts with things, while I don’t know who did the voice bites for female Revan, so they’d be options, or new VA’s altogether. While part of me does want to go forward and make Revan a fully voiced protagonist (because I’m just used to that nowadays), I could accept this as being something only for old!Revan, not present!Revan.

The idea is simply to explore the driving motivations of Revan and decide plainly who Revan wants to be now. I kinda see the ending reach a point of ‘hey, you can reclaim your old memories, you can decide what personality is dominant, what do you want?’ and Revan being able to choose who they will be from here on out.

This is also a good place to require at least Bastila and Carth. Obviously I’m kinda leaning more into the light side ending for this, but... Well, the dark side endings tend to be untenable for future content anyway – Revan as the reclaimed Sith Lord, leading the army against the Republic was never really a viable future, because the Republic had to survive. So yeah, we’re gonna take the easy route and assume light side here. So Bastila and Carth, as Revan romances, would also have a contribution to make, building on the questions of “I’m in love with the person who was Darth Revan, can I accept this?” Like I said, a lot of questions that the game sidestepped, and this one matters for the sake of the relationship being able to continue after the ending of the game.

The Rakatan Prize

The Unknown World – Rakata Prime, Lehon – has become a subject of a great many conversations. Now that the Star Forge is gone, the planet is accessible, and many are eager to investigate its mysteries and forgotten technology. Having had firsthand experience, the Republic has asked the crew of the Ebon Hawk to return...

(Post-Game)

And then, there’s the Rakata. Not that Star Wars isn’t full of ancient empires that rose and fell millennia ago, but this was KOTOR’s contribution. And really, they’re almost superfluous – hell, if the Unknown World were rewritten so that the Rakata had gone extinct, the only thing that really would be necessary would be finding a way into the temple. I kinda think that would even tighten things up a little, especially given how often I’ve hit the level cap before meeting the Council of Elders.

The Rakata are a mystery, and the idea here is to investigate that. Build up the whole element of the Rakata having lost their connection to the Force, and the fact that they’re trying to explore this (because we’re assuming light side against here and that the Elders survived, including the scientists investigating this).

Because this is one of those things that stands out in Star Wars lore, when beings are stripped of their Force connections. Ulic Qel-Droma, the Exile, this is something that is traditionally a case of an individual, not a species.

We also have the remains of a galactic empire to examine here. If a species once ruled the galaxy, it’s inevitable that there are those who would see that empire be reborn. The threat of this DLC becomes this group who aspire to reconquer the galaxy using the mind transfer technology that puts the Rakatan prisoner in that white space box that would allow them to trap the minds of Jedi and other Force users to take their bodies and use them to go forth and conquer the galaxy.

Ultimately, the question’s going to be whether or not to restore their connection to the Force – do the Rakata, a race of dominators of the galaxy, whose humbling by the forces of nature has not managed to truly change them, deserve a second chance, or should they have their attempt to restore their own connections to the Force wiped out, leaving them vulnerable to an inevitable extinction?

Because this is one of the big things with Revan, the idea of redemption, change, second chances. Does Revan extend this chance to these people, people who clearly have more than a few members who have no interest in peaceful coexistence? But if not, do they deserve to be condemned to extinction?

And, as a bonus...

Romance Content – Bisexual Carth, Bisexual Bastila, Gay Canderous, extended Juhani romance

Because Carth and Bastila should be bisexual, and Juhani’s romance deserves to be more proper. Meanwhile, Canderous should totally be an option as well, and yeah, I’m gonna be selfish here and say that he should be gay, rather than bi (because, again, I’m ignoring the novel, there is no wife). Because this means that there’s a favoring for same-sex romances, and that never happens. My list, my way. Star Wars is gay culture.

[mtgsharzad]

the cool thing about doomsday is it’s a very efficient tutor for multiple cards

so you can set up your clunky combo onetwothreefourfive justlikethat

(and how do you like your blue-eyed boy mister death)

I. DOOMSDAY CONTEXT AND HISTORY

Doomsday in Constructed is originally a Vintage combo deck that uses Black Lotus to pull off some really quick combo kills. There's a Legacy port of it, which is where most of my knowledge comes from, but it's a different beast without Lotus and Yawgwill. The OG OG OG kill is Lotus, Recall, Mana Vault, Mind's Desire, Beacon of Destruction - so elegant! - but Doomsday decks have killed in a number of ways. Vintage Doomsday is brutal and uncompromising while legacy doomsday is a lot more work than every other combo deck for no discernible edge, so of course I have a soft spot for the card and not the anger it deserves. 

Some early piles used Ill-Gotten Gains, a Storm engine card from a beautiful deck from a bygone age. It was called IGGy Pop, and it abused Ill-Gotten Gains to generate mana and storm and featured Intuition both as part of the combo and a tutor for its initiator (intuition for IGGx3, loop 2 IGGs, Lion's Eye Diamond and cabal ritual for mana and storm, eventually IGG for Intuition for three Tendrils of Agony for lethal). Sometimes you could just use fast mana to slam IGG as a Mind Twist that sets up your combo a turn or two later, also.

Obviously IGG says "each player", so it could only really work in a meta without Force of Will control decks (which indeed is when it lived up until like original rav block) and so it died out. Traditionally you'd get recursion, protection and a kill, cast your Duress first to strip their Force, and then go off. As if Force of Will weren't cruel enough, New Phyrexia dealt the death blow. Now IGG had a real enemy - Misstep on Duress, Force exiling the other blue card. [c=Counterbalance]Counter[/c][c=Sensei's Divining Top]top[/c] control's rise to prominence was also less than kind. Good luck setting up your clunky kill! Doomsday used Top itself (it filters for the combo before you go off and then taps to draw you into it) but didn't really gain an edge until it started to kill with the uncounterable combo of Shelldock Isle casting Emrakul.

Contemporary Doomsday builds usually kill with Lab Maniac in Vintage and Tendrils in Legacy, (siding in to Shelldock/Emrakul against counterspell decks) but they're flexible enough that they can play (and play around) all sorts of things, which is what Doomsday in particular enables. It's not that hard to go through the motions, the challenge is in working out which kill gets around what sideboard hate and how many turns you should do it in.

II. HOW TO PLAY DOOMSDAY

Here's how you build piles: card draw and mana on top, combo and protection in the middle, recursion on the bottom. That's Doomsday, now you know how to pilot Doomsday. You're welcome!

III. DOOMSDAY IN CUBE

Now this is where this post stops being pointless b/c even though Doomsday is allegedly REALLY COMPLEX or whatever it's honestly not that hard to play if you have an idea of what's up and don't care about mastering the deck. Obviously some people have exhaustive tables of potential weirdo combinations (kill around two swords to plowshares and Leyline of Sanctity is one i remember being impressed by) but you're essentially going to look at the resources you have, the kills you have available, and build a pile that takes you from A to B. With fast mana, Brainstorm and recursion, the Eternal formats get a really sweet package out of it.

In the Lab Man case, you need lab man, mana to cast him, a way to draw five cards, and protection for Villain's meddling. Thought Scour is cool because it's not just 3 cards off your pile for 1 mana, it's valid protection against removal (thought scour in response, can't draw the card, win), so where you put it in the stack can depend on what you need it to do. Flexible cards like these are probably key to making Doomsday/Lab Man work in Cube.

The key to porting it to Cube is you probably need to give up on the idea of winning the turn you cast Doomsday. That's fine, I think! It lets us really focus on its strengths and show them off. First off, it's a combo-agnostic tutor; it doesn't care what you wanna do, as long as you don't need more than 5 (12) cards to do it. This excites me because conceivably I (one of my drafters?) could use it to support whatever janky corner-case interaction I think is interesting that draft. It's "for" DDLM combo though, that's just a bonus.

I'll go through a couple of Cubable DDLM piles at the end of the post, so don't worry if this doesn't make sense yet. Doomsday's interesting as a combo enabler in that you're not doing anything to your hand when you cast it. Any spells already in your hand are part of your combo resources, but remember that Doomsday also looks through your graveyard so if your fair spells are part of the combo you get to cast them as fair spells first! This is really key to making it work over other combo archetypes IMO - you can cantrip away in the early game and then have those cantrips all over again post-resolution. 

IV. PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

You do some stuff, maybe draw some cards, make some mana sources, and then you cast Doomsday. We're doing Soft Doomsday here so let's assume we pass the turn and kill next turn or the turn after that. This lets us draw 1 or 2 cards off our pile naturally, which is huge, because then we can build looser piles. Instead of 'draw six cards and you win', we just need to draw 4. It also means we're probably putting protection at the top of our pile so we draw it first. If we don't have any protection, that's okay, we can recur Doomsday somehow, draw into it, and make a new pile (remember, we can tutor from the graveyard).

We drafted Brainstorm, Snapcaster and Unearth, so we'll untap, cast a cantrip from our hand (activate a planeswalker?) to go to 3 cards in deck, and then we'll cast Lab Man. Maybe we fight over it on the stack - maybe we drew into Thoughtseize and that isn't a problem - or maybe Hero (at this point I concede I am in fact the villain here) tries to bolt it immediately. We could either cycle Unearth and then brainstorm in response (winning the game) or wait for Lab Man to die, Unearth it, and hold brainstorm in case there's a second piece of removal. Or just make a pile of Lab Man, recursion, brainstorm, and two flex slots for draw or protection.

Remember for these examples that we're passing the turn and drawing into the first card naturally unless otherwise noted. If you've got a Ponder still in your hand when you cast Doomsday, that resilience should count for something, no? You get to go off a turn faster, and the tightest builds get to go off really early (esp. with Dark Ritual).

Left card is the top of the deck.

'just the brainstorms, thanks' pile: (negate on the bottom brainstorms out a turn faster but doesn't protect your first brainstorm)

'he's already in the lab' pile

'high school boyfriend' pile (eternal witness gets back doomsday but he forgot to bring protection)

'johnny five aces' pile (he gets all the goods)

Conveniently there's actually all sorts of marginal stuff (at a few power levels!) we might already be running to support DDLM combo and probably wouldn't suck that much to include (although I think Brainstorm and Unearth will be key to making it work):

Sensei's Divining Top

Unearth

Thoughtseize

Darkblast

Lotus Petal

Chromatic Sphere

Conjurer's Bauble

Duress

Eternal Witness

Thought Scour

Painful Truths

Tezzeret's Gambit

Breakthrough

Meditate

Dark Ritual

Cabal Therapy

Gitaxian Probe

Brainstorm

Snapcaster Mage

Mnemonic Wall

Ancestral Vision

Relic of Progenitus

Faithless Looting

Red Sun's Zenith

Emerge Unscathed

Chain of Vapor

Ill-Gotten Gains

Unearth is awesome because, like Thought Scour from earlier, it pulls double duty: recurring Lab Man or drawing the last card you need (since if lab man dies in response to the cycle, you'd lose and be unable to unearth regardless). Brainstorm's resolution involves drawing three cards before you put back two; if there's two cards in your library it'll win the game as well. These are the heavy hitters in Cube, but obviously the looseness of the tutor leaves our panicked drafter open to alternatives.

Next time, I’ll talk about the Tendrils of Agony kill, but this has already gone on for long enough. 

ALLEZ CUISINE

[beansnobeef]

Pintos and Cheese Review

This shit is literally a bean burrito in a bowl sans tortilla. Great for dipping yer extra chips in. Kinda weird to eat with a spoon spork but probably good for folks who have difficulty chewing. Mix in some fire sauce and stir well. It’s savory, it’s cheesy, its quality is largely dependent on how well the dehydrated bean flakes have been reconstituted. Way back in the day before they adjusted their chip to sauce ratios and introduced potatoes to the regular menu with stuff like the spicy potato soft taco, I would get one of these alongside an order of nachos so I’d have something else to dip the chips in. It’s not bad.

So I’m an anthropologist right (Sure sure you can find all sorts of gatekeepy reasons that I barely qualify as an anthropologist, such as the fact that I barely write anth stuff anymore and I’m not actually involved in academia, but my stance on it is that I could find 1,000,000 reasons to disqualify myself from being an anthropologist even if I were literally in the field sleeping under the stars and typing up blood relation charts and linguistic diagrams so I think it’s better to just roll with a positive assertion of identity based on training, interest and point of view. Kinda like how I think of myself as a writer even though the vast majority of my output is being mean to strangers on facebook for no reason)  

Anyway, anthropology has a lot of baggage as a science and as a discipline, and lately the NPR is passing around this short lil feature on Renato Ronaldo’s poetry, some stuff he wrote after his wife and fellow anthropologist died in the field with him. The, uh, digestible narrative of his experiences is he learned something about a certain kind of rage+grief that the tribe (the Ilongots) had an untranslatable word for when she died. As a result he wrote some seminal works in the study of violence, rage, and grief as a portion of human cultures (his wife was notable for writing about the simultaneous nature of prestige power and overt political power in stateless societies). Anyway NPR decided to do a write-up and it’s, like all anthropological writing (and in turn all science writing) written for a general audience, sensationalized a bit. Some leftish folks read it and were internet outraged abt it b/c of the primitivism in the article and the fact that a white anthropologist stole an emotion from this tribe (which is some heavy discourse that could go some interesting places, but I’m not sure it was expressed from a place invested in deeper ideas abt what stealing an emotion would entail), all whites out of the Philippines and that sort of thing. Which is great cuz the dude isn’t white, understanding the culture is the whole point he was there and boy heckin’ howdy anthropology is dead set against primitivism.

This kind of hot take is also a fundamental misunderstanding of what anthropology is or does. This impression is not helped by the pop cultural expression of anthropology: mostly pith helmet nonsense or Indiana Jones stealing sacred relics or bombastic documentaries run by folks with a great eye for glamorization and a goal of creating a narrative instead of boring everyone with six straight hours of interpersonal interviews abt banal hygiene shit. In a way sensationalizing anthropology as the ultimate colonial informants (which again, there’s been a period of time where folks were doing that, though it was firmly rejected from the discipline in the 30s) is just another kind of glamour, portraying anthropology as way more effective, dangerous and directly useful than it actually is. In truth a lot of colonial authorities didn’t need someone trained to study and record a culture to figure out how to do what they wanted to nearby tribes. Instead they just relied on the same source of information Freud, Nietzsche and Marx did: reporting from local traders or colonists who gained some marginal grasp on their local language. Human beings are generally gregarious. It’s never been that hard to find out stuff about them.

Anyway I’ve lost track of where I was going with this, but the gist is that anthropology as a discipline was and is key to dismantling scientific racism, challenging imperialism, deconstructing sexism, comprehending and challenging globalism, challenging linear narratives of history, challenging primitivist notions of non-western tribes etc etc. Anthropological research is present every true statement about the wide variety of lifeways that exist in the world and is the strongest evidence against universalizing or biodeterminist ideas that human beings are any one way for any reason. It’s hella open to hella criticism but you better believe yer criticism has already been made and discussed at length.

I guess I’m just grouchy that anthropology is so narrowly and poorly understood. It sucks too cuz like even cool stuff that anthropology developed like cultural relativism keeps getting redeveloped in other sorts of political/philosophical contexts b/c for some reason the popular idea that cultural relativism means you can’t condemn anything a culture does took precedence over the actual methodology in anthropology which is just “you can only understand actions by a culture within the context of that culture.” That seems like a super obvious axiom but back before anthropology was a thing folks were desperately trying to figure out why any group of people would live so differently than god intended and other peoples only seemed ignorant and backwards for doing so.  

[alanafsmith]

Fake news is nothing new — here’s how it killed my ancestor over 300 years ago

Fake news isn't a new phenomenon.

In 1678, rumors of a fabricated plot against the king gripped England.

Public sentiments became more heated in the wake of a mysterious murder.

Many innocent people were hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Fake news seems to be everywhere nowadays.

It spreads like crazy across the web and is blind to ideology. It's allegedly a tactic used in Russia's campaign to influence democratic elections. It's a favorite term of President Donald Trump, too — especially when it comes to unflattering media coverage.

It's also easier than ever for conspiracy theories to gain steam and spread fast.

Google accidentally promoted a fake story accusing former President Barack Obama of planning a coup, some conservative media figures have embraced the fringe theory that the CIA hacked the Democratic National Committee and framed Russia, and a recent lawsuit against Fox News alleges that the network worked with the White House to promote a conspiracy theory about the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, a claim the Trump administration has denied.

There's no end in sight to all this misinformation.

But while the term "fake news" might be having a moment, the idea is really nothing new. Fake news is in many ways older than its more legitimate counterpart, as historian Jacob Soll wrote for Politico.

In fact, 339 years ago, fake news whipped up such a fury across the Atlantic that the English Crown hanged and disemboweled about 15 people, including an ancestor of mine — St. Oliver Plunkett.

Today, his severed head is displayed as a relic at St. Peter's Church in Drogheda. It's kind of creepy, with stretched skin, hollow eye sockets, and frozen grimace. My family stops by to see it every time we visit Ireland. We are said to be related to him through my great-grandmother, Mary Plunkett. Several of my grand aunts and grand uncles even attended his 1975 canonization, traveling to Rome from as far away as Uganda.

So how did Plunkett's head get separated from his body? It all boils down to a bad bout of seventeenth century fake news, spread by the machinations of a band of conspiracy merchants, a brutal, still-unsolved murder, and a city teetering on the edge of hysteria.

Here's how it all went down:

SEE ALSO: 6 of the most spectacular business failures in history

The setting

This panic — now dubbed the Popish Plot, or Oates' Plot — was sparked in London in 1678. Ever since Henry VIII's break with Pope Clement VII in 1533, England had been in the throes of a religious upheaval, pitting Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Protestant nonconformists against one another.

The subsequent century saw more strife, including recurring religious persecutions, a failed Catholic conspiracy to blow up the House of Lords, a civil war between the Anglican Crown and a Puritan Parliament, the beheading of King Charles I, and the rise of Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell.

After the death of Cromwell in 1658, the previously deposed King Charles II returned to an England suspicious of any perceived foreign or Catholic influence.

Historian and "The Popish Plot" author John Kenyon estimates that Catholics made up only 4.7% of England's population by the reign of Charles II, but they were still popularly perceived as getting away with flouting the rules at best, and a dangerous fifth column at worst.

This was an issue for a monarch who had spent his exile mingling in Catholic France, married the Catholic Catherine of Braganza, and was still close with his openly Catholic brother and eventual successor, the future King James II.

What's more, political engagement and media output in England was at a high point by the latter half of the 1600s, especially in urban centers like London.

"These media included new forms like newspapers, but also older ones, like gossip and rumor, both of which doled out what might look like conspiracy theories as part of their news," College of William and Mary history professor Nicholas Popper tells Business Insider. "In many ways, the context was perfect for an opportunist alarmist to gain political purchase."

The king

Doubt about King Charles' spiritual affiliation continued to simmer once he abolished laws punishing people who didn't attend Church of England services in 1672. Parliament later forced him to cancel that declaration, but the damage was done.

During the reign of Charles II, London was also struck with a series of tragedies, including a plague in 1665 and a devastating fire in 1666. Conspiracy theories swirled that the disasters were somehow the result of Catholic subterfuge. The inscription on the monument to the victims of the Great Fire of London even included a shot at the "treachery and malice of the popish faction," according to Kenyon.

Meanwhile, Jesuits, members of the Catholic Society of Jesus, often functioned as a sort of popular bogeyman during this time. Upheaval on the continent sparked fears of a potential French invasion.

About a year before rumors of the Popish Plot began to spread, an anonymous pamphlet accusing Pope Innocent XI of plotting the overthrow of the English monarchy — which some historians believe was penned by the poet Andrew Marvell — was circulated about London.

For English people, anti-Catholic and xenophobic fervor colored everyday life, seeping into print, Anglican religious sermons, and ordinary conversation.

"This polemic told them that foreign Catholics — since the Catholic who lived down the street was usually considered fine — were depraved, Machiavellian creatures bent on conquering England and reviving its subordination to tyrannical, absolutist Rome — though plenty of people, of course, viewed this with at least a degree of skepticism," Popper says.

He says that this atmosphere, combined with Charles' tolerant policies, caused many Protestants to fear for the future of England.

"This group, for that matter, was particularly well-represented in Parliament," he says.

By 1678, the city had become a cradle of anxiety and religious resentment. The powder had been scattered. All that was needed was a spark.

The perjurer

Enter Titus Oates, a Cambridge dropout with a sing-song voice and at least one outstanding perjury charge to his name.

After a series of career mishaps, he sailed to France in 1677 to attend the Jesuit-run College of St. Omers. The following summer, Jesuit Superior Thomas Whitbread expelled him from the school, likely due to his off-putting presence and inability to speak Latin, writes Kenyon.

Adrift back in England, Oates rekindled an old acquaintance with Israel Tonge, a paranoid Puritan minister who blamed Catholics for the loss of his church during the Great Fire of London.

Oates won his friend's admiration by spinning an insane story about working as a double agent at St. Omers and being assigned the devious mission of killing Tonge, who had penned an unpublished manuscript excoriating the Society of Jesus.

"A suitably flattered Tonge subsequently demanded that Oates write down all he knew of the plot," writes Alan Marshall for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

From there, a conspiracy was hatched.

Oates cranked out a large manuscript, detailing an insidious but fictional Jesuit plot to spur rebellions in England, Scotland, and Ireland and murder Tonge, King Charles II and his brother James, with poison and silver bullets. Oates then slipped the document under the wainscot of Tonge's home.

Tonge pretended to be surprised to find the manuscript, which he shared with acquaintance and chemist Christopher Kirkby. Kirkby, who had once conducted scientific experiments with the king, brought the news to the monarch's attention in August 1678 and arranged a meeting between Tonge and the king. Charles was skeptical about the plot, but any threat against the king's life was always to be thoroughly investigated.

Parliament's House of Commons summoned Oates before them, who heightened the drama by demanding an armed escort. He testified that, during his time with the Society of Jesus, he learned that a number of well-connected lords had also been ordered by the Pope to assassinate the king and take over the government.

Parliament bought it. The accused lords were seized and jailed, according to Kenyon.

Oates quickly honed in on Edward Colman as his first major target. Colman was a Catholic who had served as James' secretary, and now worked as James' wife's secretary. He was widely viewed as a dangerous religious influence and had, in fact, secretly gone rogue in his attempts to secure French investments to free the Crown up from relying on Parliament.

By sheer dumb luck, Oates had "hit upon one of the more likely figures for a serious Catholic plot," according to Marshall.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider from All About Law http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-fake-news-2017-5

[nancy-astorga]

Fake news is nothing new — here’s how it killed my ancestor over 300 years ago

Fake news isn’t a new phenomenon.

In 1678, rumors of a fabricated plot against the king gripped England.

Public sentiments became more heated in the wake of a mysterious murder.

Many innocent people were hanged, drawn, and quartered.

Fake news seems to be everywhere nowadays.

It spreads like crazy across the web and is blind to ideology. It’s allegedly a tactic used in Russia’s campaign to influence democratic elections. It’s a favorite term of President Donald Trump, too — especially when it comes to unflattering media coverage.

It’s also easier than ever for conspiracy theories to gain steam and spread fast.

Google accidentally promoted a fake story accusing former President Barack Obama of planning a coup, some conservative media figures have embraced the fringe theory that the CIA hacked the Democratic National Committee and framed Russia, and a recent lawsuit against Fox News alleges that the network worked with the White House to promote a conspiracy theory about the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, a claim the Trump administration has denied.

There’s no end in sight to all this misinformation.

But while the term “fake news” might be having a moment, the idea is really nothing new. Fake news is in many ways older than its more legitimate counterpart, as historian Jacob Soll wrote for Politico.

In fact, 339 years ago, fake news whipped up such a fury across the Atlantic that the English Crown hanged and disemboweled about 15 people, including an ancestor of mine — St. Oliver Plunkett.

Today, his severed head is displayed as a relic at St. Peter’s Church in Drogheda. It’s kind of creepy, with stretched skin, hollow eye sockets, and frozen grimace. My family stops by to see it every time we visit Ireland. We are said to be related to him through my great-grandmother, Mary Plunkett. Several of my grand aunts and grand uncles even attended his 1975 canonization, traveling to Rome from as far away as Uganda.

So how did Plunkett’s head get separated from his body? It all boils down to a bad bout of seventeenth century fake news, spread by the machinations of a band of conspiracy merchants, a brutal, still-unsolved murder, and a city teetering on the edge of hysteria.

Here’s how it all went down:

SEE ALSO: 6 of the most spectacular business failures in history

The setting

This panic — now dubbed the Popish Plot, or Oates’ Plot — was sparked in London in 1678. Ever since Henry VIII’s break with Pope Clement VII in 1533, England had been in the throes of a religious upheaval, pitting Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Protestant nonconformists against one another.

The subsequent century saw more strife, including recurring religious persecutions, a failed Catholic conspiracy to blow up the House of Lords, a civil war between the Anglican Crown and a Puritan Parliament, the beheading of King Charles I, and the rise of Puritan dictator Oliver Cromwell.

After the death of Cromwell in 1658, the previously deposed King Charles II returned to an England suspicious of any perceived foreign or Catholic influence.

Historian and “The Popish Plot” author John Kenyon estimates that Catholics made up only 4.7% of England’s population by the reign of Charles II, but they were still popularly perceived as getting away with flouting the rules at best, and a dangerous fifth column at worst.

This was an issue for a monarch who had spent his exile mingling in Catholic France, married the Catholic Catherine of Braganza, and was still close with his openly Catholic brother and eventual successor, the future King James II.

What’s more, political engagement and media output in England was at a high point by the latter half of the 1600s, especially in urban centers like London.

“These media included new forms like newspapers, but also older ones, like gossip and rumor, both of which doled out what might look like conspiracy theories as part of their news,” College of William and Mary history professor Nicholas Popper tells Business Insider. “In many ways, the context was perfect for an opportunist alarmist to gain political purchase.”

The king

Doubt about King Charles’ spiritual affiliation continued to simmer once he abolished laws punishing people who didn’t attend Church of England services in 1672. Parliament later forced him to cancel that declaration, but the damage was done.

During the reign of Charles II, London was also struck with a series of tragedies, including a plague in 1665 and a devastating fire in 1666. Conspiracy theories swirled that the disasters were somehow the result of Catholic subterfuge. The inscription on the monument to the victims of the Great Fire of London even included a shot at the “treachery and malice of the popish faction,” according to Kenyon.

Meanwhile, Jesuits, members of the Catholic Society of Jesus, often functioned as a sort of popular bogeyman during this time. Upheaval on the continent sparked fears of a potential French invasion.

About a year before rumors of the Popish Plot began to spread, an anonymous pamphlet accusing Pope Innocent XI of plotting the overthrow of the English monarchy — which some historians believe was penned by the poet Andrew Marvell — was circulated about London.

For English people, anti-Catholic and xenophobic fervor colored everyday life, seeping into print, Anglican religious sermons, and ordinary conversation.

“This polemic told them that foreign Catholics — since the Catholic who lived down the street was usually considered fine — were depraved, Machiavellian creatures bent on conquering England and reviving its subordination to tyrannical, absolutist Rome — though plenty of people, of course, viewed this with at least a degree of skepticism,” Popper says.

He says that this atmosphere, combined with Charles’ tolerant policies, caused many Protestants to fear for the future of England.

“This group, for that matter, was particularly well-represented in Parliament,” he says.

By 1678, the city had become a cradle of anxiety and religious resentment. The powder had been scattered. All that was needed was a spark.

The perjurer

Enter Titus Oates, a Cambridge dropout with a sing-song voice and at least one outstanding perjury charge to his name.

After a series of career mishaps, he sailed to France in 1677 to attend the Jesuit-run College of St. Omers. The following summer, Jesuit Superior Thomas Whitbread expelled him from the school, likely due to his off-putting presence and inability to speak Latin, writes Kenyon.

Adrift back in England, Oates rekindled an old acquaintance with Israel Tonge, a paranoid Puritan minister who blamed Catholics for the loss of his church during the Great Fire of London.

Oates won his friend’s admiration by spinning an insane story about working as a double agent at St. Omers and being assigned the devious mission of killing Tonge, who had penned an unpublished manuscript excoriating the Society of Jesus.

“A suitably flattered Tonge subsequently demanded that Oates write down all he knew of the plot,” writes Alan Marshall for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

From there, a conspiracy was hatched.

Oates cranked out a large manuscript, detailing an insidious but fictional Jesuit plot to spur rebellions in England, Scotland, and Ireland and murder Tonge, King Charles II and his brother James, with poison and silver bullets. Oates then slipped the document under the wainscot of Tonge’s home.

Tonge pretended to be surprised to find the manuscript, which he shared with acquaintance and chemist Christopher Kirkby. Kirkby, who had once conducted scientific experiments with the king, brought the news to the monarch’s attention in August 1678 and arranged a meeting between Tonge and the king. Charles was skeptical about the plot, but any threat against the king’s life was always to be thoroughly investigated.

Parliament’s House of Commons summoned Oates before them, who heightened the drama by demanding an armed escort. He testified that, during his time with the Society of Jesus, he learned that a number of well-connected lords had also been ordered by the Pope to assassinate the king and take over the government.

Parliament bought it. The accused lords were seized and jailed, according to Kenyon.

Oates quickly honed in on Edward Colman as his first major target. Colman was a Catholic who had served as James’ secretary, and now worked as James’ wife’s secretary. He was widely viewed as a dangerous religious influence and had, in fact, secretly gone rogue in his attempts to secure French investments to free the Crown up from relying on Parliament.

By sheer dumb luck, Oates had “hit upon one of the more likely figures for a serious Catholic plot,” according to Marshall.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider