#crypt-a-long

[perplexingly]

The cemetery in Barcelona is the most claustrophobic place I've seen in my life, but it has some beautiful sculptures

[reallyhardydraws]

annie & ronnie but make it kinda bridgerton 🧜‍♀️🩸🍷

[commissions open!] 📬

[dragon-subway]

For the color thingy:

2016 ERA MEME AND KANAN <33

I had to reread this so many times to make sure this didn’t say Ezra too

[tiny-librarian]

Margaret Theresa of Spain, Holy Roman Empress, died on March 12th, 1673. She was only 21 years old at the time of her death, and was four months into her 7th pregnancy.

Her husband wrote of her death to one of his old friends saying:

"Leopold told him that now he knew the sorrows of Job, for his "most loved but sadly no-longer wife" had died, after eight days of fever; and after she died it was discovered she was carrying a healthy son. In his diary, he wrote "My heart breaks...but always may Your Will be done". The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire - Andrew Wheatcroft

[martyrbat]

batman: black and white (2020) #4

[ID: a black and white pin-up of Cassandra Cain as they somberly stare at the viewer. They're sitting with their knees bent to one side and is shown from the thighs up. They're wearing dark pants, their utility belt, and a black hoodie that has the bat symbol on the chest in a thin white outline. The hood is up, casting a light shadow on their upper face. There's blood splattered on their jaw and on the blade of a sword that they're sheathing. END ID]

[whataduck]

various doodles as a part 2 of sorts to this

[gaydexvocaloid]

just found out it’s possible to draw with lasso tool

[cultmoodymovies]

Cult Moody’s 31 Films for Halloween 2024: - Group 1

My yearly Halloween film selections to celebrate the holiday! These include horror, sci-fi, cult, B-Movie or Exploitation films I have never seen.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

Invisible Ghost (1941)

The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)

Phantom of the Opera (1943)

Captive Wild Woman (1943)

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

The Brain Eaters (1958)

Crypt of the Vampire (1964)

The Long Hair of Death (1964)

The Panther Women (1967)

[dragon-subway]

so i'm making another guy. might see him more later

[niuttuc]

What are your opinions on the Commander bans?

(Putting this out of the blue, this will be about the fast mana. Nadu also got banned, but Nadu doesn't really matter here. It's good that he's gone, though it doesn't make a ton of difference considering people already identified him as a broken card and pushed it away. Also this post became long but there's a TL;DR at the end if you want.

And for context if someone somehow missed the announcement this week: Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus and Dockside Extortionist were just banned in Commander. A bunch of controversy has ensued.)

Alright, tackling this can of worms. It will be a long one. Well, I have very positive thoughts about the bannings themselves, they can only be positive for the gameplay end, my only slight bad feeling personally is that I've traded my mana crypt (I wasn't playing with it) to someone I know three or four months back and I feel bad for them, but they found a home for it in a cube, so it stays being played.

I have generally believed fast mana makes for worse games, and I have for years removed my Sol Rings from my decks, didn't play my mana crypt even after I opened it, and never tried to even obtain a dockside even when I knew it could be a great card in several of my decks. I am plenty surprised at the announcement that seemed to come out of the blue after so long of no changes, especially since these cards have been issues in the way the ban announcement describes for years at this point. But at some point the band-aid needs to be ripped off. I also understand why Sol Ring isn't banned, even if I believe the format's gameplay would be better if it didn't exist in it. There are more factors at play here, and most people, particularly casual people, would want to keep it in their decks than have it banned, and that's more important. I'll just keep not putting it in mine.

I've seen some people claim that it would negatively impact cEDH metagame. Now, I do not play cEDH so feel free to disregard my opinion on this if you do and think I'm completely off-base. But my understanding of cEDH is NOT that it's a healthy metagame or an actually good competitive environment. The rules of the format are designed to make commander awful to compete in. And the banlist has, from its inception, explicitly not been aimed at regulating a balanced competitive format. This is also why, in my mind, the idea of splitting cEDH and Commander into separate banlists and formats is a nonstarter. As I'll get to later, there are already separations like that, the only thing that'd change is that there would be a new niche format, and actual competitive commander using Commander's rules would keep on, because using Commander's rules is the point of it.

cEDH comes from the will to take the rules as they are, NOT meant for this, and see what happens when you push them to the extreme. cEDH's meta as far as I can tell is basically just a bunch of flavors of combo decks pitted against each other, with a handful of hyper-targeted combo-killers in the meta too. This is reminiscent of combo winter, widely regarded as one of the least healthy metagames of all time, but stretched to years and years.

There are certainly people that will appeal to, since it's not actually about a healthy metagame and more about tiny optimizations and ultra-tight piloting and navigating a pod. But this also means a banning doesn't change the fundamental nature of all this, nor should it take it into account. If someone wanted an actual singleton competitive experience designed for a more healthy and balanced metagame, they could look at Duel Commander, now officially supported on MTGO and that walks back many of the uncompetitive rules changes of Commander to allow it, or even Highlander formats of all kinds, designed for the ground up for a diverse and balanced but powerful competitive experience.

Now, with that aside, the main complaints I've seen about the bannings have overwhelmingly been along the lines of "I lost money so this decision sucks", either outright or behind a thin veil. While it does suck that people lost money, the monetary value of a card cannot shield it from banning if it's egregious. The next argument, then is that there should have been more of a warning that the RC was looking at those cards and considering banning them. But for how long? And for what purpose? Relatively few actually read what the RC writes, particularly when there are no changes, and thus far it hadn't resulted in actual changes in years. And if the warning was stronger, what would be the result? People in the know selling their cards in advance to people who aren't so they aren't the ones left holding the bag? That just pushes the problem away to different people. If the price goes down by half, it doesn't matter if it's over the course of three months or two days, someone is "losing" that money somewhere.

And yes, a banning cut the price of those cards in a bunch, but so do reprintings. If the cards were reprinted regularly, and not at mythic in masters sets, they'd not climb this high to have so much to lose. If they were a positive on the format, reprints would even be welcome by all, allowing more people into the format. WotC is the one handling that end of things, and they see more profit in starving players than in overflooding a market.

I've also occasionally seen the argument that "they shouldn't have banned Jeweled Lotus because Jeweled Lotus was made for Commander and only works in Commander and now there's nothing to do with it (meme Legacy deck aside.)" It is true that Jeweled Lotus is now essentially a blank piece of cardboard. But if it is such an issue in the ONE FORMAT IT WAS MADE FOR, then that isn't a reason to just ignore it and carry on. That's a reason that WotC shouldn't have made the card in the first place, yes, since the result is the same except a lot of players got burned. It's not like Jeweled Lotus being an issue was a surprise, there was plenty of commentary on that end when it was revealed, and the most optimistic ones on the impact on the format were along the lines of "I don't know how this could make the format better, but maybe it doesn't make it worse."

With all of that, I must add and condemn people who used this as a pretext to attack individuals, most prominently members of the Rules Committee and Commander Advisory Group (the latter of which had no idea this was coming), or more generally people trying to support the ban, and probably some directed at people protesting it too, though I've seen less in the way of very public examples of the latter. Emotions runs hot, the knee-jerk reaction to change is already negative and it's even worse if you feel like you've lost money, but that's no excuse for the kinds of insults, threats and other name-calling that has occurred in startling amounts over the past week. Only a tiny percentage got there, but any amount is too much.

I believe that the negative reactions (the regular ones, not the actively harmful ones), as loud as they are, only represent a small portion of the overall community. The people discussing Magic: The Gathering on the internet are, overall, a small fraction of the playerbase, and tend to be way more into the game than the average player. As such, they're also way more likely to have obtained some of these expensive cards that were banned, and therefore to feel affected by these bans, both monetarily and by needing to remove the cards from their decks. To further that, negative comments are much more likely to get posted (and to linger days later, and keep being posted), than positive ones, or people that don't care enough to post their thoughts to begin with. So even if you see a lot of negativity on this ban in places, I believe it to be the product of a loud minority.

I've also seen people arguing that since Commander is a casual format, it doesn't need a banlist at all and they'll just ignore this one. That's true! If it works for you, that's great, that's the format working as intended! But many people don't have the luxury to curate a personal experience with a specific group, or don't have the time and knowledge to do so. For those, the official banlist provides a good base, and now that base states that stuff that makes a ton of mana early is usually makes for worse games.

TL;DR:

I like the bans on a gameplay perspective, the announcement was out of the blue but the band-aid needed to be ripped off, cEDH will be fine because that's what it was made for, sorry if you lost money on this, but it shouldn't be more important than the health of the entire format, the people shouting loudly are likely a minority, and the people attacking others over it a small minority within that one, but don't be a part of that select group. A banlist is good and one that actually tries to fix things instead of claiming the issues are smaller than they are is also something positive.

[epitheterasedgen]

I have spent the last 3 hours for the past 2 days surfing, and I’m kinda sorta really hyper fixated on EE and I adore your EAM AU, so what its the EAM family’s view on surfing?

Zora - Tried to learn but wasn't immediately good at it and got so mad she broke her surfboard. The others were NOT happy about this

Percy - Dutifully following every instruction perfectly, but doesn't have an intuitive sense of balance in the water, so she just keeps wiping out. She'll never stop trying so long as the kids want her to go with them, though

Ramsey - Probably a surprise pro at surfing. He used to do it a lot back in his younger days, but now he's an old man and prefers sitting by the shore and relaxing. ("Ramsey, you are only 34—")

Howie - Surfing is a waste of time. You should be working instead.

Giovanni - LOOOOOVES surfing, thinks it's so cool and every cool guy oughta know how to surf—he's not very good at it yet but by golly he WILL BE!!!! JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE!!!

Sylvie - Refuses to get on the board until Giovanni mocks him and says he's scared of the water. Now he is wobbling terribly and Molly help Molly how do you do this no I'm not scared AAAH—

Molly - Picks it up faster than Giovanni when they start learning together, probably just because she's young and has that malleable brain advantage. She still MUCH prefers boogie-boarding, because it feels a lot safer, but Gio really wants to learn how to surf so she's doing it for him :)

[young-aleyska]

I've come to the conclusion that every Taylor Swift song can be declared EvaJacks coded if you try hard enough.

[shivunin]

Lenore things!!! Please!!!!

hi zen!!! thank you for asking! <3

This one's my catchall doc for all my various Lenore thoughts, so right now it's all primordial story bits and little plot. Here's a little piece that'll eventually be a fic about Lenore and the Necropolis:

Who can say what might have happened then, if not for the spirits? Perhaps she would've been found when she began to cry. Perhaps the Necropolis would have tucked her away in its caverns, cradling her softly in the crypt until she was but one more corpse among millions. Perhaps the gloved hands that’d left her behind would have returned to snatch the infant from the cold marble that held her.

The child would never know this, but the first hands that actually touched her were bone. She’d been born into a swaddling cloth, had been cleaned and bundled away always with a layer between her skin and someone else’s. It was actually there in the tomb, wisps leading the way, that a skeletal hand reached out and traced the curve of her small cheek.  “This body was a midwife in life,” the spirit told her. Its voice was quiet, sad, and little else. Little Lenore opened her eyes slowly, blinking against the sudden light that shone from the crypt door. For a long, long time, the two of them looked at each other, birth-blue eyes against the brilliant light of the spirit. “Someone needs you,” the spirit said at last, and tucked the cloth more securely around the tiny body. “Someone will need you. I will take you now.”  The wisps followed them from the tomb, leaving the door to creak to and fro behind them. The spirit’s voice was so quiet that it could hardly be heard over the metal.  “Perhaps you will return,” it said. “If you remember. So few remember.” Slowly, surely, a tiny hand shook free from the blanket and wrapped its living warmth around cold, undead bone.  There: the first hand she ever held, miniature fist curling around smooth bone. Lenore would not remember this. Her parents, wherever they were, would never know that it had happened at all. They would never even know that their child yet lived. But the spirit—the spirit never, ever forgot.

[martyrbat]

batman #428 / batman: legends of the dark knight #100

It's over. It's begun. The end of the training and the worry that he wouldn't pass the tests and make the grade, the beginning of a life with meaning. Jason smiles. A bright smile. The kind of smile Robin, The Boy Wonder should have. And he is Robin after all. For now and ever more.

‘Part of me recalls him putting on his costume that first time... the look on his face... his smile... as if it were yesterday. That first time, I must keep it alive... the memory of it. Alive in my heart so that the memory of this... here now... doesn't destroy me. We're together at least. One last time together... as it should be.’

[tiny-librarian]

The heart urn of Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, the sixth child and fourth daughter of Leopold I and Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg. She died of smallpox at the age of 12 and, as was a customary, her heart was removed and placed in this small urn and set inside this small chapel. (In the bottom photo, her urn in on the top row, ninth from the left)

[a-lonely-dunedain]

tfw you're just trying to enjoy a drink and brood in silence at a local inn but this vampire girl who insisted on tagging along won't stop staring at you. she does not know how to blink.