#just mostly squee vomit here

[papabearbobbynash]

I'm so glad that you posted that screenshot because I've been dying to speculate with someone since I saw it!!

Flabbergasted is deliberately neutral. The definition just means 'greatly surprised or astonished.' The part about needing 3 days to recover could be construed as devastating (I can't get out of bed, sob) or amazing (I can't get out of bed, squee).

So we have to think: what would be TRULY astonishing? I feel like there are two real options.

One, a MCD. Which makes me want to vomit. And frankly, it's just SO hard for me to believe that there's a MCD. Others have hinted that characters will be in danger but "save each other" and spoken about the finale positively. I also kind of feel like the news might have gotten out if main cast was leaving. So to ME, a MCD seems unlikely, no??

Two, a relationship development that would be truly unexpected, like a break-up or getting together. And I don't see a break-up - Bathena and Henren are solid, and Madney just got engaged. As for getting together, the only thing that would be astonishing and unexpected would be a Buddie development 🤣 I know that he used to be a huge Buddie shipper (and might still be) but doesn't tweet much about them anymore. But when he did, it was often vague like this.

Of course I could be way off-base and it's about LS, buuuut I.just.don't.know. For my self-preservation, I'm going to refuse to believe that it's a 911 MCD.

Hi anon.

So, I was thinking too, English isn't my native language, so usually I do see that word thrown around mostly for shock (majority of the times in fandom, not always in good way). So I was wondering what that could imply and relate it with what we know about the events in the finale.

I really don't think It's a MCD, even if there were hints and foreshadows (for Madney and Bathena), if I'm not wrong I do remember of Oliver pointing out everyone would be on a good place at the end of the season, so I doubt death is on board here, plus killing a main in the season finale would mean unfinished business to solve in the next season (because if they ever had the audacity to skip over the grief process and pretend it didn't happen I would be on national news), something we know the writers of this show don't like of dealing with. Also if they killed off one of the mains and cancelled the series (like they did, and then ABC saved it) I would be really pissed off with the lack of consideration.

Maybe, there is some real quality angst or consequences incoming? Usually 9-1-1 works with that since the viewers got very comfortable enough to not believe in MCDs for the show.

I don't think it's a break up either. As you said Bathena and Henren are in very solid places. They had their relationships reaffirmed this season (the whole Florida arc + Wendel's death investigation just solidify Bathena's trust and support for each other, and Karen's near death was a way of writers showing how long Henren came through). Madney just had an entire arc for their engagement which was a huge step for Maddie, so it would be a slap in the face of the fans to back off this and create some stupid complication.

I wish I could believe it's Buddie getting together, but I don't really trust Buck's character direction (specially) to pay off all the build up they did for him this season. Eddie is in a good place mentally, but Buck? He is currently a mess, with his still unprocessed death experience that smh got transformed into an attept to get himself some relationship, not to count the other 3 plots he had this season. I know the interviews keep selling him as having matured at this point but the problem is I don't see it. His coma dream realization got reversed a few episodes later as he was once again fixating on the idea of how people see him. Honestly, I wouldn't want Eddie dating Buck in that unsolved mentality. So even if the writers smh managed to make Buddie through that, I don't think it would be in a satisfying way.

Honestly I think if we're talking about flabbergasted (in the sense of a negative shock) I would put my bet on LS, since I remember of reading an interview where Tim Minear said some fans might be upset over the events in the LS finale.

[theribthatgrewback]

9, 11 and 13 :3

(ask game)

I assume you mostly want JtHM takes so I'll focus on those but since you didn't specify fandom I'll chuck in a couple others I feel strongly about if that's ok!

9. Worst part of canon

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: This is tough, because I really like how everything was handled in the main story. I guess I personally found the doughboys slightly annoying, but at the same time, they served a crucial narrative purpose, so I really can't complain. Every (subjectively) """bad""" part of canon had a reason for being there, so I like every part for what it is. HOWEVER, if we're counting the spinoffs and the little "meanwhile" inserts, I really hated the like... vomit-porn aside thing in Squee. Though I guess hating it was the whole point, so like. mission accomplished? Also I don't really get Noodle Boy.

Adventure Time: Jake should have stayed blue. Explained here. I wrote the submission, hi.

Futurama: Multiple episodes. Neutopia weirdly ramped up everybody's misogyny beyond what's in-character in order to serve the "sexism is bad but gender is still part of the human experience and there will always be conflict" plot (which also is a weird gender-essentialism plotline anyway because like. The Fact That Gender Exists should not equal Conflict). Unnecessarily mean. Like I can see Bender doing that shit but there's no way that Farnsworth thinks that way. Unrelated to that one, Attack of the Killer App (origin of the "shut up and take my money" meme) leaned needlessly hard into gross-out humor. It just didn't fit the tone of the rest of the show.

Actually I'll be here all day if I list all my grievances so I'll cut this segment here.

11. Number of fandom-related words you've filtered

There's a lot of duplicates for The Same Thing Written Different Ways but if I count those as the same thing, 4. Across all fandoms. Though this blog hasn't been around long so this will probably expand in the future.

13. Worst blorbofication

(interpreting this as "wildly out of character to serve the 'comfort' of the person writing about them") Oh baby. I come from roleplay communities. I've seen shit that would make you sick. I've seen somebody play Fern (Adventure Time) Prismo (Adventure Time) and Kevin (Ben 10) all with the exact same personality. I've seen somebody Else who takes LITERALLY over 200 characters (in "no doubles" type places so now nobody else can use those characters), and also makes them all exactly the same... except for the added detail that This person talks like if a wiki page could make fart jokes. (Side note: I think that person also pretended to be three different people. Like there were three separate accounts with different names who all talked to each other, but they all wrote exactly the same way. And with exactly the same fart jokes. And they usually showed up at exactly the same time.) THE ONE SAVING GRACE of all this is that JtHM is obscure enough that I never saw Other People RP it in multifandom spaces, so it was spared this treatment. I have seen glimpses of how the fandom acts on tumblr though so:

JtHM: Nny. I really think Nny gets the worst of it. In canon, he's a very unlikeable person. That's part of why he's so interesting! He tries really hard to be nice to certain people, like to Squee, but he fails every time. He traumatizes that kid. He abuses animals. He's fatphobic. He blames addicts for their addictions. He trivializes the fight against racism (in a brief aside line at the cafe). He's all kinds of messy, awful things, and it's fascinating. It makes you want to pry his brain open and study him. Yet so much of the fanstuff you see of him files down his bad edges and just makes him "funny murder guy" at the cost of the nuances of his personality (this happened to Patrick Bateman too, as an aside). People are scared to confront that he's kind of a piece of shit, just because he's the Cool Protagonist.

[incandescentflower]

Ok, ok, I just watched the 17th episode of Word of Honor and OMG, I am INTO THIS. I am currently held hostage by Youku and their release schedule and I woke up this morning to see episode 18 is released with English subs but I gotta ADULT, whhhyy?

I am impressed by anyone who figured out how to make the Youku app thing work to get all the episodes. I’ve looked into this and it seems to me to be a confusing mess and the Youku app isn’t even available on any of my devices. 😭

I want so much to dive into content but I don’t want to be spoiled. This is a really difficult choice to have to make. I will try to continue to be patient. But at this rate it is gonna be another few weeks before this whole thing is released. *sigh

[annerbhp]

What’s your writing process like?

A hot mess.

No, seriously. It’s a complete mess, but it’s my mess, tailored to me perfectly, and I think that’s the big battle with writing–coming up with a system that works for you, and being able to deal with it and modify when it stops working for you.

Here are my current eleven painful steps to writing a fic:

1. Conception - I daydream a lot. Like, while I’m falling asleep at night, while I’m doing the dishes, taking a shower, commuting to work, running an errand, sitting through boring meetings, I’m constantly running scenes and imagining snippets in my head. This is usually when a new story idea hits me. So I daydream about it for a long time. I start collecting emotions and visualizing moments. A lot of ideas die at this point, getting lost in the chaos of life or just not capturing my attention long term. The ones that do though, eventually crystallize enough that I feel compelled to start actually writing it down.

2. The Mad Scramble - At this point, I open a document and word vomit. It’s a scramble, to try to purge all those various imaginings and scenes and snippets of dialog and feelings and just get them down as fast as possible before they fade or I forget them. Totally out of order, totally unconnected, just vomit, vomit, vomit. Interspersed with brainstorming, since most of my stories are AU, I’ll just write long narratives of where are we, what has changed, why, and often the ideas change and evolve as I am writing them down. That doesn’t make sense, what about this instead? What would happen if that happened? In this phase I try very hard not to edit myself. I always know I can come back later and massage and edit. Again, a lot of stories die in this phase. Or fizzle out and get chucked back in the writing file as another idea starts taking over my daydreaming.

3. Rough Skeleton - After a lot of word vomiting, I usually pull back a bit to try to wrest some sort of logical order. Usually this just means shifting things around so there is a Point A: where the story starts, a Point B: what is the big dramatic beat where conflict erupts?, and a Point C: where are we when it ends? Often these specific three scenes are the first to get written, even if never in their final form. This starts to crystallize the overall journey of the fic. What is the plot change? What is the emotional change? What is the character change? And since I write mostly ship fic: how has the relationship evolved by the end? This is usually the point I can start imagining titles, which lets me know that I kind of know what the point of the fic is.

4. Useless Puttering - Now I descend back into my favorite past time: daydreaming. I imagine scenes, once again totally out of order, but that fill in between Point A and Point B, and Point B and Point C. Other important beats get established. I just dream up dialog and scenes and imagine emotions, and things just happen. Some of them get down on paper again. Not necessarily in their final place, but I get the most important dramatic beats in between the main points. The story is now full of unhelpful notes like: Have Hermione show up here and say something that makes Harry think about blah blah. Or, don’t forget that Ron is still mad at Ginny here. Was blah blah ever explained? And my least favorite placeholder: kissage. Stuff I will go back later and deal with but don’t want to now. I pretty much let myself write whatever the hell I want at this phase (the ‘good’ bits), knowing I can come back to things later. Momentum is too important here.

5. Rereading - Now comes the phase I get stuck in endlessly. At this point, I start obsessively rereading what I’ve already written. On a good day, that means I will start editing and filling out and toning some things down (my first word vomit versions are usually over-the-top DRAMATIC), pulling threads through the fic as I go along, making sure the emotional beats are going in a believable and satisfying way. Chapters start to form if there are going to be chapters. But more often than not I just re-read and re-read with very little changes. This is another big stall out point for me.

6. Walk Away - With almost every story at this point I feel the need to walk away from the story. I get bored with it after re-reading it so many times. I get frustrated. I run out of ideas and I generally stop caring about it. I have to admit, quite a few stories die at this point. And sometimes for good reason. (This is also where I start whining to people who are kind enough to listen, as I am sure @bethanyactually and @weatheredskies and @runawaymarbles can attest.) This is a really good point to put it away and just ignore it. My daydreams go somewhere else (and inevitably this is where my next story is born). When I was writing The Changeling and hit this point, this is where the majority of the Armistice Series was born. When I was stalled out on pick it up, this is where my coffeehouse AU was born. It’s good palette cleanser. Sometimes this lasts a few days, a week, a month. For The Changeling that one time, it lasted A YEAR. (Though there were other Real Life considerations influencing that as well.) I fill out a lot of memes at this point. Get caught up with asks and comments. I read other people’s fic.

7. Hello, Old Friend - If I’ve been away long enough, coming back to the story for a fresh re-read is like coming home to an old friend. Hey, this isn’t as bad as I thought! I really like this bit here. And this new wave of energy comes up. I start daydreaming again, I re-read and modify as I go, and the story starts to fill in more and more. I start getting antsy to share it with people. I might give small snippets to my long-suffering friends who listened to all my complaining.

8. Pen and Ink - At some point the second honeymoon ends, and I start getting frustrated with the document, feel overwhelmed trying to wrap my brain around things. Depending on the size of the story, this might be post-it notes and outlining time, where I use color coded paper and/or pens to make sure there is balance between narrative POVs and plots and themes and whatever threads are being dragged through the fic. I will also hit a point when I can’t edit on the computer anymore and I print out a chapter. I will take that chapter with me to a coffee shop, pull out obnoxiously garish pens, and write all over it. This is how I know I am very nearly there. I will scribble that print out to death. I take a break again here, and then come back and input the edits on my computer. Sometimes the process has to be repeated, but more often than not, the chapter is now in rough draft format.

9. Betas Are a Writer’s Best Friend - At this point I upload the chapter/story to a google doc to share with a beta. For Armistice, I am spoiled enough to have four (!!) people looking at chapters for me right now. One is a literal Squee Beta. She reads it and squees at me and helps me believe that it is not complete garbage. Another is a beta who is very willing to completely disagree with all my life choices, which I find hugely helpful because I have to justify my choices and admit when I’m being lazy–this often leads to disgruntled rewrites that make the story better. My two original betas are great at not just grammar (which boy do I need) and catching mistakes here and there, but discussing character beats and plot points, and asking me questions, and being endlessly willing to just talk about the story with me. (How are there people this awesome that exist?)

10. Final Edits - Sometimes the final edits are painless, but often there is some melodramatic whinging on my part at this point and some rewrites, as I battle the need to just be done with it and getting it done right. Though I am also known for sitting on a final draft far too long. Like, maybe not making a single change for a week, but still not just POSTING it. Again replying to asks and getting caught up on comment replies is my best stall tactic. (hmmmm…)

11. Posting - I usually do this when I am completely sick of the chapter/story. That lets me know I am done. I am no longer daydreaming about that part of the story. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It becomes this immutable canon-like thing in my head that can’t be changed anymore. So, I post it. And then spend the next day a total and complete wreck as I wait for validation of some sort. If I’m lucky, I get some, ride a high for a few days, and then back to Step 5 for the next chapter, because, boy, if they liked that, I can’t wait to share this next bit with them.

The End

[housebeleren]

Dominaria New Commanders

Yeah, I know I’m way behind. I’m gonna try to blaze through the Dominaria posts super fast at this point, skip M19 pretty much altogether, so I can jump back into what’s current. 

But first Dominaria. Which means let’s look at new Commanders! Obviously there are a metric shit-ton in Dominaria, given that Legendary is a thing, so let’s just get right into it! Obviously, I’ll be looking at these from a 75% perspective, as always.

It makes sense to start with these two, since they’re the Buy-a-Box promo for the set. First of all, I’m just going to say that I hate that the Buy-a-Box promos are unique cards. This card is sitting at around $15, and that’s only because they’re... honestly not that great. Can you imagine if the card were something that were playable in Standard or Modern? They’d be over $50 easily! 

Anyway, as far as being a general is concerned, I do like them. They’re fully 75% playable, and they bring a different aspect to Boros, which is a very underutilized color combo in EDH. Them costing 6 mana to play is unfortunate, because making them a bit smaller body as a 4-drop would make them a great general. But for casual tables, they’re brilliant.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this card was made for Commander. It has nothing to do with the set or mechanics, but is just a sweet design for EDH. Enough has already been written about Muldrotha that I don’t need to get into it. I think the design is clever for Sultai, and there will be plenty of ways to break it. Nuff said.

Darigaaz has the other problem, which is that he really plays like a Limited bomb rather than an EDH general. The trouble is in these colors you have Prossh and Karthus, both of which are better Jund dragons. Even original Darigaaz is kinda a better commander. Waiting 3 turns to get him back is just not how EDH works.

Broken. Combotastic. I’ve already seen Jhoira decks that made me want to vomit. The fact of the matter is that it’s so easy to go infinite off an ability like this, given the prevalence of cheap artifacts in Magic’s history. She also slots perfectly into Breya decks, as if they needed any more reasons to be bullshit.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Verix was designed for Standard, which is unfortunate, since Lyra is currently making Verix look cute and pathetic. Verix is a Limited bomb, but honestly not Commander material.

New Multani is interesting. My first impression is that he belongs as one of the 99 in a Lands deck, like Gitrog. But there’s actually some weird Voltron potential here. Stick him in a crazy ramp build and just run over your opponents. I could see it in casual circles.

Lyra is the real shit. She’s dominating Standard, and on top of that, she’s arguably playable if you’re looking to make mono-White Angels a thing. Avacyn is still the best EDH angel, but she is an 8-drop. Lyra comes down way earlier and makes your deck threatening until you get to your bombs. So there may be something here.

If she hadn’t been restricted to spells you control, I’d have been sold on Blue Dualcaster. As it is, she seems like mediocre filler for an Inalla deck, and mediocre-er filler for a spellslinger deck. I’d even run the Uncommon Adeliz as a general over Naru Meha, and that’s saying something. Cute in Draft tho.

Aside from having a ridiculous name (seriously, say “Belzenlok” five times fast), this guy has some potential. I’m not seeing him as a general, but as an inclusion in the 99 of decks like Rakdos, Lord of Riots, or other Demon tribal, he’s pretty solid.

Jodah is another one that was built for EDH, no question. I would’ve liked to see him at 4/4 and out of Bolt range, but whatever. I’m putting him at the head of my Superfriends deck, for sure, no questions asked. Besides that, there are some really cool builds for him to cast massive threats like Eldrazi titans and such for cheap. Seems good, but not actually broken, which is where I like my buildaround generals to live.

Aryel is slow and not super impactful, but Knights tribal is jank anyway, and she’s probably the best general they’ve got at this point. I’d make a 50% version of this deck.

Radha seems pretty sweet. I could definitely see her heading up an interesting tokens build, with the ultimate goal to burn out opponents with massive mana spells. That said, I don’t think she’ll see competitive play anytime soon.

Oh, you forgot about Niambi, didn’t you? It’s the first time they’ve printed a new Legend in a Planeswalker deck, so I’m not surprised. Honestly, Niambi is a huge miss, mechanically, as many have already commented. Having her only job be to go find a dude to take care of things is pretty inexcusable. They could have at least given her an ability like: “Tap: Prevent 1 damage to any target,” as a way to protect the Planeswalker she went and found. But whatever. If Teferi, Timebender were a better card, I could actually see running this as a weird jank deck where you just keep ultimating him then bringing him back with Niambi. But he’s basically garbage without being able to abuse his ultimate, and that’s hard to do in these colors without Doubling Season. I think there’s an infinite combo here with Niambi, Teferi, Deepglow Skate, and Deadeye Navigator. That sounds definitely like a reasonable plan, right?

Shalai is the real deal. At first glance, she reminds me of Sigarda, though the fact that she doesn’t have Hexproof herself makes me think of a different build. Instead of Voltron, I’d try to create some sort of Hatebear control deck with accidental infinite mana combos. Either way, angels are always popular, and Selesnya hasn’t gotten a ton of great generals recently, so I expect some people to be excited for Shalai.

Oof. 7 mana? Really? At 6, this would still be basically unplayable. Stick with Olivia if R/B Vampires is your schtick. I mean... fine. I guess there’s some sort of weird Pestilence Voltron build here somewhere, but that seems... not great.

Evra is really an interesting design, but I would have liked it a lot more at 4 or 5 mana, since 6 is just so punishing for a general with no protection. Even so, it’s a long shot for this to see any play outside of limited. If it does, it would be some sort of odd win condition in a lifegain deck.

Josu is amazing in the 99 of a Zombies build. As a general, he’s a little underwhelming, but I suppose if you’re looking for mono black go-wide you could do worse.

Marwyn is interesting. She leans towards a go-wide Voltron direction, which is a little strange, but works for Elfball. I don’t think she’s going to supplant Freyalise or Ezuri anytime soon, but she’ll also work well in the 99 of those builds too.

Well, Inalla got a new best friend. There’s basically no reason to run him as a general, but he’s going to be great in the 99.

We all love Squee, and this version of Squee actually has some potential. I can absolutely imagine putting Squee into some builds of Purphoros, and he’ll do work in Food Chain variants of Prossh. As a general himself, he’s a little weak and seems like a poor version of Norin.

I dunno... this card intrigues me. There’s potentially some sort of strange reanimator build here, but unfortunately a lot of the targets you’d really want are larger than 3 CMC. I could definitely see this seeing use in a Captain Sisay build, getting back all the cheap legendaries you’re looking for.

Okay, hear me out, but I think Torgaar is potentially a totally viable Big Black general. With a few cheap, recurrable creatures, you can land Torgaar pretty early. But more importantly, with a Wound Reflection out, you can one-shot somebody. It’s a little jank, to be sure, but anytime there’s “one card” combos like this, it’s worth taking seriously.

This card is for limited & maybe Standard. No way is a vanillia flier seeing EDH play.

I know I just said a vanilla creature isn’t going to see EDH play, but a 7/7 artifact creature for only 4 mana is pretty intriguing. Even just as a beater in Jhoira decks, this could see something.

Alright, now that we’re in the Uncommons, I’m not going to go through all of them, since they’re mostly just limited fodder. Adeliz is one of the 10 archetype signpost cards, and she’s the real deal. And as far as a R/U Wizards general, there’s actually some potential here. I mean, Wizards will always live in Inalla’s shadow, but if you’re in the market for a more aggressive tempo version, Adeliz is your girl.

Garna is really interesting. There’s a reanimator build in here somewhere, but it does seem a little pricy to be super viable.

Hallar is also super interesting. There’s not quite enough good Green or Red Kicker cards to really turn this on, but with a few more printed, there could be a real ramp build in here.

There’s a really interesting design here. Given the dearth of Sagas, I think this is really likely to be an Artifact build. Giving all your Artifacts Flash is a good way to keep the opposition guessing, and the potential to win out of nowhere. I could definitely see this doing something.

Another super interesting design. There’s some similarity to Mairsil here, though obviously a lot more restrictive. But if I were feeling ambitious, I could try to build something around her.

Slimefoot is the real deal. This little guy is a super strong contender for best Saproling commander printed. He’s a self-fueling machine, and a great general.

Tatyova seems like a great addition to just about any Simic deck. Playing Lands and drawing cards is exactly what the colors want to do. She’s probably best in the 99, but could head up a deck herself if you’re so inclined.

Don’t get me wrong, Tiana isn’t...great. That said, I’m really excited for them to be exploring this space for R/W, since so many Boros generals are purely focused on combat. I’d love for them to keep designing cards in this vein.

Whisper is sorta a variant on Hell’s Caretaker, but with more flexible timing coming at the expense of requiring multiple creatures. That said, I don’t think Whisper is going to be great at the helm of his own deck, but definitely could be a role player in the 99 of reanimator builds.

Aaaand then there’s Yargle. Somehow, this bizarre little guy became one of the most iconic cards of the set, spawning memes left and right. And you bet your ass I went right ahead and built myself a Yargle deck. Is it good? Not a chance. Did I put in Hatred and Tainted Strike for quick one-shot dickpunch wins? Fuck yeah.

So that’s basically it. There are a few more, but not that will have any impact on the format. With that, I’m wrapping up, and I’ll wrap up Dominaria shortly here as well.