#plowshare

[irreplaceable-spark]

Grant Wood Fall Plowing, 1931 Oil on canvas

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Swords to Plowshares

The smallest seed of regret can bloom into redemption.

Artist: Terese Nielsen TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[googlyeyesonmagiccards]

Save humanity they said

[memento--moray]

For everyone who doesn't know, I have a Youtube channel where I post speedpaints and animatics.

Since I have some new MtG followers who might appreciate these particular videos, I'm going to share them here!

The best comment I've ever received.

[visenyaism]

so….the robert e lee statue, thoughts ?

i ask because i recall you mentioning being both southern and a historian — so if anyone is qualified to give a nuanced analysis on the matter i figured you’d be the best candidate. i am broadly against iconoclasm of all kinds but i (a European) am not well versed in the particular history of this period or the statue itself.

mayhaps you can help.

many thanks

sure. so for people who don’t know, today, the Robert E. Lee statue formerly installed in Charlottesville, Virginia, was melted down so that a local Black public history organization can use the material to create new community art.

Luckily for you, Confederate statue removal isn’t actually a nuanced issue at all. This is unequivocally a good thing!!! it’s what the community, a substantial portion of which is Black, wanted! This was the same Robert E Lee statue whose potential removal sparked the unite the right rally in 2017, where white nationalists and nazis holding tiki torches attempted to intimidate the community into keeping the statue up. Eventually, we finally got it removed in 2021, and there was like live music and extremely loud cheering as they took that thing down.

To describe confederate memorials in the south as just iconoclasm is to me a little reductive. They are unambiguously racist. Putting up a statue of someone who fought and sometimes died to continue the mass enslavement of african-americans is racist. The history of these statues is clear: they weren’t installed during or shortly after the Civil War, when the Confederacy was still in living memory. Most of them were put up in the 1890s, during the origin of the jim crow apartheid governments, the 1920s, which saw a huge national revival of white supremacy and KKK racist terrorism, and the 1960s, with the racist backlash to the civil rights movement.

Most statues, including the Charlottesville Lee statue, were put up specifically in front of courthouses and in town squares: the goal was not to celebrate any kind of southern history, but to intimidate Black defendants going to Jim Crow court or Black residents trying to live their lives in white spaces. The message that Confederate statues were intended to send is that the community is not for African-Americans, and to remind them of the legacy of white supremacist violence inflicted against them. They are hateful and all of them need to be taken down.

Today is a great day for Charlottesville and the realization of 7 years of community activism. There are thousands of statues still left across the country to work on next.

[dailymtgflavortext]

"The arc of my blade has carved a path of light for the peace that will follow."

-Swords to Plowshares

[vifetoile]

Swords into Plowshares, Bloomburrow. (c) 2024 Wizards of the Coast

[racefortheironthrone]

In Egypt, there is a 190 mi depression called the Qattara Depression. For decades, there has been talk of filling the depression with water to create an inland sea. Because the depression is in the desert, the constant evaporation would mean water would continually flow in (meaning hydroelectric turbines would continually move). Also, the constant evaporation could result in greater rainfall to the area which in turn would support vegetation. There has been talk about creating a channel linking the depression to the Mediterranean to allow saltwater to flow in, but there are those who think the constant evaporation would make the lake saline. So, I wondered if they could use freshwater from the Nile instead? What if they diverted water from the Nile right before it flowed into the Mediterranean and redirected it towards the depression (I think you mentioned redirecting Dorne's rivers in you economic development post)? Would they just need a canal/channel to do this, or would they need to dam the end of the river?

I think this project is the definition of "cool but impractical."

Look on the map below at the proposed routes to the Mediterranean, which have all been rejected for being too expensive (hence why the U.S proposed it as a showcase for the truly insane "Project Plowshare" (see above) as a means of reducing construction costs) and how much longer a canal linking the Qattara Depression to the Nile would be in comparison.

Next, look at the legend of the map that shows that the most logical paths for a canal to take would go through active oilfields and minefields left over from the Battle of El Alamein. I don't want to think about the engineering difficulties inherent in safely digging a canal through that terrain.

This is why, at the end of the day, the Egyptians went with the Aswan Dam project instead - which was itself an incredibly difficult public works effort in terms of the complexities of engineering and the competing tensions between economic development, environmental impact, social dislocation, cultural preservation, etc.

[itsallwearecalledtodo]

farm arc thorfinn is something that can actually be so personal

[rexmatical]

just realised i forgot to post these anywhere. i'm really proud of how some of them turned out, and i haven't shown off much of my work lately, so enjoy some more mtg proxies!

vandalblast and blasphemous act; two cards that aren't too expensive, but owning 5 copies of each for 5 different commander decks seems redundant. really proud of how these two look

swords to plowshares and counterspell; the former much the same as the red spells, while the latter i had a neat idea for a drawing for it so i figured why not :P

ignore the spelling error

branching evolution and crucible of worlds; both are a bit expensive for me to buy more than 1 copy of. not as satisfied with these two, but at least i have them now

tokens for mono-green elves. i just like making my own tokens when i can :)

[kawaoneechan]

Easily four to seven years ago I was introduced to this one website where you could upload some line art and add little bits of color as a guide and it'd try to color your line art with watercolors.

One of my results was something like this.

Importantly, all the line art was drawn by me, uploaded by me, and certainly not changed in any meaningful way by the colorizing process.

And that made me think a few minutes ago.

What if we take the advances made since then and have the program merely assist with the process? Give it some line art and guidance, have the program do a near-perfect flat-filling job? That wouldn't be much different from animation software applying fills to an entire clip, or intelligent background removal. Or give it flats and some information on materials and have it do the shading, if we're feeling adventurous?

It's pretty hard to steal someone's entire style outright when you, the artist, did the actual lines. That's your style.

So yeah. I'm all for outlawing what we have right now, considering the amount of highly illegal (and/or highly should-absolutely-be-illegal) bullshit it gets away with and lets its users get away with.

But there's a flip side to everything, and the tech could be reworked into something more assistive than generative.

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Swords to Plowshares

The smallest seed of regret can bloom into redemption.

Artist: Terese Nielsen TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[heronbrew]

I just got my copy of this. I love him so much he's perfect

[ernmark]

One of my favorite dynamics is that one flavor of enemies-to-lovers where a villain/antagonist has finally come around to the realization that their sworn opponent is fundamentally good-- and then turns all that obsessive energy into protecting them. Single-minded pursuit transforms into pure devotion. They use all those overwrought skills developed in their animosity and turn them toward taking care of the other person, keeping them safe, keeping them happy.

And as it turns out, the subject of their newfound devotion is only really safe if their other loved ones are safe. They're only really happy when their loved ones are happy. So the villain finds themself taking care of them, too, and slowly finding friends in their number. And before they realize it the world looks a little bit different and they're more content than they've ever been.

[eretzyisrael]

By Aaron Kliegman

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., whose anti-Israel rhetoric and activism have become staples of her tenure in Congress, recently attended an art show with work on display calling for Israel's destruction and promoting known and suspected terrorists.

The Handala Coalition, a group of Palestinian and allied organizations in Michigan, organized the controversial art show, which was held at the Swords Into Plowshares Peace Center and Gallery in Detroit from May 26 to June 17.

Tlaib visited the art gallery May 30 and posed for photos with several attendees and organizers, according to press reports and social media posts. 

In one picture posted to Facebook, Tlaib is smiling in front of what the Handala Coalition described as an "apartheid wall" with the words "We Will Return."

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., at an art show organized by the Handala Coalition at the Swords Into Plowshares Peace Center and Gallery in Detroit May 30. (Handala Coalition Facebook page)

The words appeared to reference a call that pro-Palestinian activists often make for the so-called right of return of all Palestinian refugees to Israel.

[mtg-smash-or-pass]