#The nature of shuffle is that it makes some weird combos I suppose
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ermmm guitar emoji (=^-ω-^=)
I like your little cat
Hybrid Moments by Misfits
Welcome To The Meat Show by MKULTRA and BRUHMANEGOD
Shisheido by Fennesz
Blow His Head Off by Noisekick
French Kiss The Elderly by Jack Off Jill
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Writober 22 - 17 (Rats)
Summary: It’s time for Sadako to breech enemy territory and enter into the domain of idols. Far from the sparkling world it portrays, she gets the feeling she walked into a den of rats, led by the queen herself. Hopefully, she’ll make it out alive. It’s going to be a very long month...
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Maru: Don’t forget to meet me after school at the front gate!
Well… one of them certainly had forgotten about the meeting, and it wasn’t her.
Sadako felt her eyebrow twitch as she stared from her position at the front gate of her friend’s school. She had been there for ten minutes, waiting and watching as the students streamed out, heading to wherever they went after school. Most of them paid her no mind, but a few whispered as they passed.
Almost all of them she knew from seeing them on TV, or in magazines, or from hearing their songs blasted from shops on their way home. It made sense – Maru went to a school for idols. It wasn’t Star Harmony, but it was still pretty highly ranked among the institutions that existed to train idols for a hopefully successful future. It was only natural that her classmates were popular singers, actors, or some combo of entertainer.
She just wished they weren’t looking at her like she had two heads.
” Do you think she’s here for an autograph?”
A voice drew her attention. She spotted a girl with a different colored ribbon speaking to her friend. They were looking in her direction with a less than friendly gaze, indicating just what they thought of her. That only made Sadako’s eye twitch harder, and the urge to tell them off was strong.
“Who are you guys talking about?”
That voice she knew. It belonged to Maru, who was walking away from the building with her overly decorated bag slung over one shoulder. Both girls blanched, and they were definitely sweating a little.
“M-Maru-senpai!” Ah, they were first years. She should have known. “We, uh… we found a girl waiting and thought she might be lost!”
For a performer, she was a bad liar. The industry was going to eat her alive.
Maru made a thoughtful noise as she glanced over in Sadako’s direction. “Nope, she’s waiting here for me. Sadako’s my new partner!”
Temporary partner – Maru only had her for a month. Still, Sadako wasn’t about to argue for the moment as she approached the small group of idols. The first years couldn’t look her in the eye, and she could read the embarrassment all over them as they shuffled away.
Well, at least they’d learned a lesson out of this: if you want to be rude, do it where your senpai can’t hear you.
“Sorry for making you wait, Sa-chan.” Maru missed the eyebrow twitch as she turned to direct her temporary partner into the school. “I had to finish up something in my design class. Our producer can’t wait to meet you!”
Stepping over the line felt like Sadako was breeching the border between two worlds. On the other side, everything felt a little more… sparkly, she supposed. There were people in tracksuits running in the distance, she could hear various songs coming from open windows, and glancing showed plenty of people hard a work perfecting their routines for their next performance.
At a normal school, this would be club time… did idol schools even have those?
Maru read the silence at the least as they walked. “I guess this is a little different from what you’re used to, huh?”
“Weird seeing people I see on TV just walking around getting snacks from the vending machine.” At least idol schools had those, but she had no doubt they weren’t exactly full of candy and energy drinks like her favorites. “Your producer knows this is just a temporary thing, right? I don’t want them to get their hopes up about a permanent new member.”
The idol nodded her head as she kept walking. “Yeah, she knows. Sakamoto-san is still willing to work with you, though, so don’t worry about that!”
She grinned, turning back. “She’s a weird one, so I guess that works out for you.”
Couldn’t have been any weirder than Maru… but Sadako kept that off her lips as she followed behind.
After a few more minutes of walking, they entered a building that looked like any other middle school entrance area. They had lockers and places to put their shoes and umbrellas, nothing out of the ordinary there. The only thing that reminded her things were different were the names – she knew them.
“Maru-chan, is that your new partner?”
A high-pitched voice made Sadako’s head ache, but she resisted the urge to wince. A girl sprinted over, pigtails flying in the self-made breeze. She skidded to a stop a few inches away, the teddy bear attached to her back coming along for the ride.
She knew this girl – she was popular among her homeroom classmates. What was her name again…
“Ema-chan, good to see you!” Maru beamed as she all but dragged Sadako over. “Yep, this is her!”
Her partner turned to face her. “This is my classmate, Ema-chan. We’re in the same design and dance classes.”
She then turned to her classmate. “And this is Sadako-chan. She’s working with me this month!”
Ema gave her a bright smile, but it never met her sparkly eyes. Instead, Sadako got the sense she was being x-rayed by the cheery girl for structural weaknesses. She may have looked cute, but there was steel in that gaze.
Maybe it was a good thing she was an idol – turn that focus to something else and she’d be downright dangerous.
“You look kinda familiar, Sadako-chan.” She tapped a lacquered fingertip to her cheek, then smacked her hand gently into her palm. “Oh, are you related to Star Harmony’s Haruka-san? You have the same eyes!”
Sadako resisted the urge to let it show on her face. She shouldn’t have been surprised idols could pick out the similarities between herself and her sister. After all, everyone knew Haruka – Cherry Blossom was the top idol unit and had been for quite some time. Her face was all over town and plastered on every area of the internet. Anyone with sense could’ve figured it out.
But damn if she had hoped she wouldn’t have to admit it immediately.
“Yeah, she’s my sister.”
Ema nodded her head so hard that Sadako was worried it might come off. “I knew it! You both look a lot alike. I’m not surprised you want to be an idol too, it must run in the family!”
She then turned on her heel, glancing over her shoulder. “Nice meeting you, Sadako-chan. I can’t wait to see you on stage with Maru-chan!”
Then she was gone, sprinting off to who knows where. Just the short interaction had worn Sadako out, and her shoulders sagged as she sighed in relief. She wasn’t the only one – next to her, Maru relaxed as well as they kept walking.
“You handled that well.”
Sadako cocked her eyebrow as they climbed a flight of stairs. “Handled what well?”
Maru gave her a weird smile that didn’t quite reach her entire face as they stopped at the landing. “Ema’s a giant gossip. No doubt she’s texting the whole school about you now. And, since she’s a giant liar, none of it will be very nice. Consider it your first brush with the paparazzi.”
Though she was smiling, there was nothing kind in her tone. As a matter of fact, Sadako got the feeling she couldn’t exactly stand the other girl. Given what she had seen before… she had a feeling Ema felt the same.
Was everyone at this school a two-faced rat, or was it just the pop idols?
“I’ll keep that in mind if I run into her again.” Sadako shook her head as they kept walking. “Hope you’re not expecting me to pull that nice girl routine like you did. It’s not exactly my style.”
Maru chuckled, but it wasn’t a friendly one as they made it to the next floor. “Oh, you’ll learn in time. That, or the internet will eat you alive. Your choice, honestly.”
Something about that brought a shiver down Sadako’s spine, but she chose to remain mute on the matter. They were walking down another hallway now, this one quieter than the floor below. There were signs and numbers above the door, and she counted as they walked.
Eventually, they stopped at Production Room 7. Maru motioned for Sadako to stop, and then slid the door open. A few moments later, her head popped out and she gave her temporary partner a big grin that was definitely fake.
“Sakamoto-san says come on in!”
Sadako was soon on the inside of the room, which was a bit more open than she had expected. There was a board on the side of the room with event details scribbled down and color-coded by each idol’s image shade. Maru, if she could read it right, was pretty busy that month. In fact, she was probably the busiest one there. No wonder her picture was up on the windowsill, next to the other idols.
“So, you’re the one Maru found? I wasn’t expecting for her to pick a non-idol. You must be special.”
A voice drew her attention. A woman was seated at the desk at the heart of the room, suit neatly pressed and eyes focused and sharp. Here was a producer – she knew that look from seeing her parents wear it for years when it came to the idols they managed. She had a presence unlike anyone else she had read – control, confidence. It was different from idols, but still just as strong.
Sadako bowed her head briefly as she tried to find her words. “We kind of… smacked into each other I guess.”
“That sounds like Maru.” Sakamoto smiled as she moved forward. As it turns out, she was in a wheelchair. No wonder the room was so open – she wouldn’t be able to get around it otherwise. Things fell into place as she approached. “Nice to meet you, Sadako.”
She paused, giving her newest temporary idol a once-over. “Strange you’re not asking your parents to manage you, though. Your mother is Enjoji Tamaki, yes?”
Here was the sticking point that had driven her nuts in elementary school. There was no way to deny it: her mother was the famed manager of Cherry Blossom, Pure Palette, and Honey Cat. It was exactly why Sadako didn’t want to ever work with her, besides her previous position of hating idols.
Well, after seeing Ema… she still didn’t like them. Did that make her self-hating? Nah… this was temporary.
She rubbed the back of her neck before she spoke. “I don’t go to Star Harmony, so I don’t think I can work with her…”
“Even if you wanted to?” Sakamoto smiled as her idol gaped. “You’re not very good at hiding your feelings, Sadako. I saw it all over your face when I brought your mother up. People are going to pick up on that when you’re on stage, so I advise you either be honest with yourself or learn to conceal things better.”
Maru chuckled at Sadako’s shocked expression before she added, “Sakamoto-san is great at reading people, it’s why she’s such a good producer.”
Well, that would have been great to know before she walked face first into a freaking ambush…
Still, Sadako nodded as she took the info in. “I guess I’ll work on that.”
“Good to see you take critique well, that’ll get you far in the industry.” Sakamoto rolled towards her board and grabbed a box of markers. “I color-code by image color. Since you haven’t picked one yet, I’m just going to use black for you.”
And so she wrote Sadako’s name on the board, right under Maru’s and linked them with a dark line to indicate their temporary alliance. For the moment, it was official: Sadako was part of production room 7.
It was weird, seeing her name among famous people. Didn’t exactly feel right…
“Now, if you could come over here I can give you your gear and Maru can show you around.”
Sakamoto motioned her to the desk, so Sadako found her way over. Once she was there, the producer dug into her desk and pulled out a few idols. She recognized all of them from her sister and her parents – the sparkly pass that would allow her to access Aikatsu, the shiny cards that made up the outfit she had worn with Maru, and the binder she could keep her cards in after scanning them into the app.
Oh no… the app.
Seeing her face, Maru cut in. “Don’t worry, we have a code so you can download the Aikatsu app.”
“I was about to tell her about that, but it looks like you both got ahead of me.” Sakamoto held out her hand. “Mind if I see your phone for a second?”
Sadako at least remembered to unlock it as she slid it over. Her temporary producer gave it a once over, especially to the bright orange cover she kept on it, before flipping it over to download the app. Soon, the beeping noise of installation filled the room.
Maru stood by her side to watch. “Is orange your favorite color, Sa-chan?”
“Oh, yeah…”
The idol giggled. “Maybe that can be your image color. We don’t have an orange in production room 7.”
“I can’t say I’ve ever seen a cool type with orange, but I could see it working.” Sakamoto handed back her phone – there was a new icon on the home screen. “Unless you don’t want to keep down the cool path? Honestly, I can’t see you as a pop or elegant type… and no offense, but you’re definitely not a cute type.”
Right… type. She remembered that from her parents. Idols were grouped by type – cute, cool, the renamed elegant, and pop. Maru was a pop type, her sister was a cute type… and apparently she was hitting the markers for cool type.
Well… she doubted she could be energetic enough for a pop type, and their cords were way too busy for her. Elegant was a hell no, and she would rather stab herself than share a type with her sister…
“Cool’s fine by me.” She checked the app, booting it up. Within seconds, the app’s mascot Coco was on screen, waving to her. “Coco’s working, so I think the download went ok.”
When she had been younger, she had talked to her sister’s Coco when Haruka had gotten home from work. Now she had her own, at least for the month. It set oddly in her stomach, like none of this was real. But she had a pass with her name on it, cards of her own, and a binder just waiting to be decorated.
So… yeah. She was an idol. At least for the moment. She should probably just accept that.
“Well, that’s all I had for you both.” Sakamoto smiled at her. “Tomorrow I’ll show you your training schedule and give you a keycard to get into the building. I would have had it ready today but getting access for a non-student is proving difficult.”
Maru grabbed Sadako by the arm as she waved. “That means I’ll take her to see the school! Thanks again, Sakamoto-san! You’ve been a great help!”
Then they were out the door, and over her shoulder Sadako watched as Sakamoto approached the board, wiping off her name in black. Just before she disappeared from view, she saw an orange marker appearing from the box.
Then it was back down the steps, towards where the sounds were coming from. Maru was in high spirits – meanwhile, Sadako’s head was spinning. It was still a lot to take in, even as she go dragged along.
She was eventually going to need to tell her kendo team… it be bad if they saw her perform without a warning.
“I think she likes you, Sa-chan.” Maru’s voice was surprisingly straightforward as they stopped in the hallway. “When we talked about you after the Fresh Live, she said she had a good feeling about you. She doesn’t say that a lot.”
She smiled. “I think you’re going to make a great idol. You already have the cool vibe down pat!”
Sadako doubted they had spoken about her – she was learning fast that Maru said what she thought people wanted to hear. There was no reason for the producer to have any sort of feeling about her yet, even secondhand. She knew enough about producers thanks to her parents to understand that much.
That was the thing she needed to remember: Maru lied. It was wise to not take anything she said at face value.
“Well, I’ll do my best for the month.” She stowed her phone in her pocket and put the binder and her cards in her bag. Her pass went into pocket at the front of her bag, zipped tightly so it didn’t fall out. “So, you have to show me some places?”
And so she was being pulled again, towards what she didn’t know. What she did know was that this was not a place she could let her guard down. Idols might look nice and pretend to be friendly, but this was a den of rats. If she kept that in mind, she’d make it through the month with her sanity intact.
She just had to make sure the head rat herself didn’t realize she was on to her… now that was going to be tough. Oh well, she’d consider it training for controlling her opponent for kendo. After all, anything could be a training opportunity.
Damn, it was going to be a long month, though…
#writober22#ramblinganthropologist's writing#Sadako the reluctant idol#Passion Rush (Aikatsu Friends)#or they will be#I haven't picked Maru's image color but it might be red or pink
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Ashes of Outland: Gallium Reveals
The melting point of Gallium is so low, it will literally melt in your hands. Unlike most other metals, which… don’t. It’s weird. Hopefully, Hearthstone will not introduce Gallium cards into the game.
Sightless Watcher is delayed card selection for Demon Hunter. As a Basic card! Given how few effects actually shuffle your deck, this is probably good. While there’s some delay on getting the card, any amount of selection is very helpful, especially for two mana. And Demon Hunter also gets card draw as part of it’s toolset, so there will be times where you pick a card and grab off the top of your deck immediately.
Inner Demon is a big attack boost for Demon Hunter, because sometimes, you just need smash something for eight damage. Obviously, this works very well with the various Demon Hunter weapons, but beyond that, it’s a little awkward. Eight mana is a lot, even if you’re converting it directly into face damage. But given how much damage output this can get you, maybe it’ll end up as a curve topper for an aggressive Demon Hunter deck.
Guardian Augmerchant is some weird Paladin/Warrior hybrid card. Kill a minion with one health left. Or spend one point of a minion’s health to allow to survive something it wouldn’t. There’s a bit of flex here, which means it’s probably not the worst card to have show up at random. Just be careful how you use it with Battlecry doublers. It won’t be able to kill a two health minion that way.
Supreme Abyssal is a big dumb 12/12 Demon for just eight mana. Such value! Except it can’t attack heroes, which makes a lot less threataning than it could be. Honestly, I don’t think this will be much good outside of random deck Tavern Brawls, because all it has going for it are raw stats.
Fel Summoner is Voidcaller, but for Demon Hunter. However, they clearly skipped leg day, leaving a rather unbalanced 8/3 statline. This makes Fel Summoner very easy to kill. Of course, when it dies, it gets replaced with a (hopefully) more powerful Demon. For the moment, Demon Hunter doesn’t seem to have enough big scary Demons to justify running this, but if the class keeps getting more cards along the lines of Pit Commander, Fel Summoner could easily become a very good pick.
Scrapyard Colossus is this set’s big ten mana minion. As far as ten mana minions go, it’s probably not even that bad. I still wouldn’t put it in a Constructed deck, but getting it off of a random effect won’t leave you unhappy. Mainly because it has the potenial to absorb a lot of damage. Seriously, it’s surprising how much better a minion gets just by having Taunt added on.
Priestess of Fury is a repeating Cinderstorm on legs. I’m not quite as jazzed by this as some, since ultimately, random damage is random, rather than reliable. Sure, it’s a free Fireball to the face against a clear board, but a lot of cards a good against a clear board. What’s more likely is that will sometimes knock out a few minions and push a small amount of face damage. Which isn’t bad, per se, just not super amazing.
Coilfang Warlord is a big Rush minion, that also spits out a big Taunt minion when it dies. Honestly, this seems pretty pushed, even for an eight mana minion. Nine attack is going to erase a lot of minions, and the follow up Taunt is able to absorb a nice amount of damage. Plus, a nine attack minion isn’t something your opponent will want to leave alive. Providing a deck isn’t planning to win before turn eight, this looks like a generally strong card to put in your deck.
Ironbark is a generic buff spell that just happens to have a weird discount. I suppose it’s an interesting idea, and small buffs do tend to be less effective during the lategame. Although the more likely use for Ironbark is as a zero mana spell for combo shenanigans. You can never have too many of those. (Disclaimer: you can, in fact, have too many zero mana spells.)
Imprisoned Sungill is an imprisoned Murloc, for Paladin, because Paladin cannot into a single archetype. Does an aggressive deck want to skip turn one for stats they can’t use until turn four? Signs point to “of course not“. Honestly not quite sure what the design intent was here.
Glowfly Swarm is new and exciting support for Spell Druid. Okay, call in exciting is a bit much. Especially since you need at least four other spells in hand for it to be better than Forces of Nature. Of course, if you are running a spell heavy token deck, Glowfly Swarm has the potenial to fill up your board with average tokens, ready for buffing. Presumably with all the spells you’re holding.
Greyheart Sage is Stealth synergy for Rogue, because sometimes that happens. I don’t really see this fitting in many decks, because Rogue currently has access to fairly decent resource generation and draw. At least having a Stealthed minion isn’t too hard of a condition to meet, since they tend to be good at dodging removal.
Altrius the Outcast gives an Outcast effect to all your cards. One you’d want, as well. That doesn’t make him good, however. I’m still not sold on Outcast as a mechanic, and tying mass damage to playing specific cards in your hand sounds like a recipe for disappointment. I just think there will be too many situations where you end up with cards you can’t play, or don’t want to play blocking your Outcast effects. Also his statline is kind of sad and not good for long-term survival.
Nethrandamus is a big random minion summoner. If he’s in your hand when minions die, he’ll summon more expensive minions when played. Pretty much the only version of this effect that worked was Corridor Creeper, which triggered off any minion dying. While Demon Hunter does have ways to summon a bunch of disposables, this big Dragon still seems like it’ll be a little to unreliable to see serious play.
Murgur Murgurgle is a really, really dumb name for a card. And not in a good way. That aside, Murgur doesn’t look that bad, as far as Primes go. The starting body is a little understatted, but since it has Divine Shield, you often won’t need to worry about that. The full Prime form isn’t super splashy or insane, but it still gets you a some resilient board for eight mana, that might include a few bits of synergy. Honestly, this looks like something you could slot into a lot of Paladin decks, since the effect isn’t really tied to Murlocs. It just happens to summon a bunch of them and makes them hard to kill.
Kali’dan the Breaker is weird. Not sure why removal is being tied to something as volitile as when you draw the card. Seems like this will lead to many moments where you draw this at the wrong time, making it unusable for when you need either of his effects. A card that will probably always make one player unhappy.
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War of the Spark Commander Set Review
The Commanders of War of the Spark
In white, there’s not too many ways to build around her. Once you exhaust the suite of self-bouncing creatures you commonly see in Karametra lists (e.g., Kor Skyfisher, Whitemane Lion), the next best cards to run are cheap utility creatures like Stoneforge, Weathered Wayfarer, etc.-- essentially goodstuff.
It’s notable that this card could be very good as part of the 99 in Karametra and Ephara lists. Also, it’s a double striker with a big butt for Doran lists.
I’m not a big fan of commanders that solely care about what your opponents are doing because they don’t give your own deck a lot of direction. If you’ve got a Lord Windgrace deck in your meta, then this might be useful in the 99 of hatebear decks that are good at finding their silver bullets.
The best piece of tech for Fblthp is Proteus Staff. If you run a creatureless Fblthp list, you get to stack your entire deck and then immediately draw two cards, which is great for assembling combos, such as Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal. If you have mana rocks that produce three or more mana, Scepter + Reversal will give you infinite mana and then infinite activations of Proteus Staff so you can draw your deck and find a win condition.
Nexus of Fate is another solid combo piece to stack on top of your deck with Fblthp, as you can keep stacking it to the top with Proteus Staff and Fblthp, provided you have the 10 mana required to do so every turn.
I’m a little skeptical that this strategy is going to be significantly stronger than what was already possible in any Commander deck with access to Proteus Staff. Like, if you’re already in Blue, you’re not going to be starved for card draw, and you could be running a different commander that provides additional benefits (or additional colors) instead of an effect that your color identity could easily do anyway.
Seems like a very strong commander for extra turn effects. As long as you can keep Scroll Racking your Time Warps to the top of your library, you get infinite turns; even if you have to rely on one-shot effects like Brainstorm or whatever, you’ll still be taking a lot of extra turns, which will hopefully be enough for your 4-power evasive commander to eliminate some threats.
This deck naturally runs a ton of sac fodder; Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, and Bloodsoaked Champion are all good here. You may also want to run some efficient token generation, as well. I also think it’s a good idea to run some of Black’s strong sac outlets like Attrition and Mind Slash so that you have the option to control your opponents with your sac fodder instead of just exchanging them for random cards via Bontu’s ETB. These sac outlets can also help you more easily reuse Bontu’s ETB trigger, especially if you sacrifice her in response to the trigger so you’ll immediately redraw her.
The most unique thing about this commander is the ability to sacrifice noncreature permanents. This opens up cards like Ugin’s Nexus and Spine of Ish Sah, which get you value when they die.
One interesting idea I’ve heard was to run Endless Whispers with her so that you get all your opponents’ creatures that die to her ETB trigger. Blink effects seem good here and I’d think about running stuff like Undying Evil, Kaya’s Ghostform, Abnormal Endurance, and Supernatural Stamina to both protect her from removal and reuse her trigger.
It may also be a good idea to run random sac fodder to ensure the ball gets rolling; it’d be a shame if the massacre never got started because the board was full of 2+ toughness creatures.
Sample Decklist
Similar to a regular Krenko, Mob Boss deck, but with power-pumping effects in place of the activated ability synergies and some of the token generation.
With Krenko, it was important to be able to get a ton of dudes onto the battlefield early to maximize his gobbo-doubling power. Krenko 2.0 doesn’t need random gobbo bodies unless they do something useful.
Sample Decklist
Neheb is kind of a sidegrade from his previous incarnation. The card filtering makes it so that you’re not quite as likely to run out of gas, but the fact that his mana generation is limited by the number of cards you discard to his trigger prevents some of the truly absurd plays that Neheb 2.0 was known for-- you’re not going to be hardcasting Eldrazi and Blighsteels nearly as often in this deck.
Extra combat step effects are very good here, as they can potentially net you mana and they give you another chance to rummage for good cards. I like that this deck can run situational cards like Ruination and Blood Moon because there’s no such thing as a dead draw in this list-- Neheb hungers for bad cards to discard.
Mass land destruction is great in this deck because, like the first Neheb, the Champion can provide the mana you need to cast your stuff.
The single best card in this deck is Aggravated Assault, which goes infinite with your commander, provided you have five or more cards in hand that you can discard-- just make sure you’ve got one of the original three legendary Eldrazi so you can shuffle your graveyard back in and prevent yourself from milling out.
I wish there were more good madness cards in Red, or in Commander in general. Neheb 3.0 is the perfect commander for madness since he provides both an outlet and mana to cast stuff, but the only madness cards worth running are like Fiery Temper and maaaaybe Avacyn’s Judgment.
Sample Decklist
This seems like an awesome reward for running fat donks like Blightsteel and Malignus.
Although he doesn’t play nicely with attack triggers, you’re on color for some sweet combat damage triggers like Balefire Dragon, Hellkite Tyrant, Dream Pillager, Rapacious One, Neheb 2.0, Steel Hellkite, and Mordant Dragon. Neheb, the Eternal, while not a combat damage trigger, also works pretty well with Ilharg.
Ilharg has some synergy with echo, since you’ll never have to pay the upkeep cost, so cards like Volcano Hellion and Crater Hellion are much better in this list than they normally are.
Having six toughness and an ability that lets you cheat mana costs means that Wildfire and Destructive Force are very good here, as is mass land destruction in general. Keldon Firebombers seems like a great way to repeatedly limit your opponents’ mana.
In addition to the usual suite of mana accelerants and haste granters, Generator Servant is quite good here, and I’d consider running Seething Song, as well.
Sample Decklist
The creatures that benefit most from Rhonas’s ETB trigger are win conditions in their own right; you don’t need to rely on your commander to make canned armies like Rampaging Baloths, Titania, and Avenger of Zendikar into threats.
Maybe this wants to be an infect deck, since doubling the power of cards like Phyrexian Juggernaut and Phyrexian Hydra makes them one-hit KOs.
Muscle Mutt is just a voltron deck, albeit one that uses an unusual subset of cards. I wouldn’t run most cards that solely put counters on Mowu, but I like cards that put counters on him while generating cards, like Ordeal of Nylea, Ancient Animus, or Implement of Ferocity. I also like some of the repeatable counter-generating effects; Retreat to Kazandu, Armory of Iroas, and Invigorating Boon (cards with cycling) seem good. There are also some lands that can get counters on your commander, such as Oran-Rief, the Vastwood; Forge of Heroes; and Opal Palace. Also, don’t forget your Hardened Scales!
There’s been a little bit of controversy about Yanggu and Mowu lately because Yanggu is able to bring Mowu with his when he planeswalks (which is supposed to be impossible, as Huatli’s tamales illustrate; normally, creatures are summoned to a plane). It would be weird if Yanggu could only do this with Mowu, but my headcanon is that Mowu is able to do it with anyone but has so far only attempted it with his dog (or that if he had previously done it, he forgot about it when he came down with amnesia).
I don’t think it’s worth running random wolves as sorcery-speed kill spells, but I might run wolves that get me value in addition to fighting (e.g., Rot Wolf, Skalla Wolf, Pack Guardian). Wolfir Silverheart is too monstrously large to leave out of this deck.
I’d also run repeatable wolf token generators like Sword of Body and Mind, Wolfcaller’s Howl, Master of the Wild Hunt, Kessig Cagebreakers, and Feed the Pack. You can also run some of the wolf token generators that create a bunch at once (such as Howl of the Night Pack, Predator’s Howl, and Wolfbriar Elemental) to build your own Ezuri’s Predation.
I gotta say that it’s very cute that they gave Voja a title so that he wouldn’t legend rule the tokens made by the old Tolsimir.
We all know that BG has a lot of good creatures that are worth recurring (putting your opponents under the Abyss with Fleshbag variants sounds like a barrel of laughs), but it also has a ton of good planeswalkers, especially when you don’t have to care too much about protecting them. Firing off a Sorin Markov or a Vraska 1.0, letting your opponents dogpile on it, and then getting it back again next turn seems like a great way to control the board and divert aggro away from your face.
I would try to fit in some ways to give your commander haste (Greaves, Hall of the Bandit Lord) and protect him (Yavimaya Hollow) since he’s the engine your deck revolves around.
This guy checks some boxes to make use of mana dorks that are too narrow for most decks: he costs four, he’s got 4+ power for Whisperer of the Wilds, and he’s an Elf for Priest of Titania.
This card does not appear to be designed with Commander in mind. Death triggers don’t work very well in this format, especially when you don’t have access to black and white reanimation engines. If you discount the proliferate (as you should), all that’s left is a pile of stats, which has never been particularly strong in Commander.
If this guy was just ETB double proliferate, he would have been waaay more interesting.
I’ve heard about lists that use clones to farm his death and ETB triggers, but I tried it and it was not… great… Proliferating before you add the new counters is pretty lame, and one-shot proliferation without cards attached to it is not worth a card slot, IMO.
The best Boros commander ever, and it’s not close. This deck draws tons of cards thanks to white and red’s many cheap cantrips, it can protect its commander pretty easily thanks to the million 1CMC instants that give things protection or indestructible, and it has some great combo pieces like Aurelia’s Fury and Blinding Beam to allow you to soft lock your opponents.
Plus, if you’d prefer to eschew the controlling playstyle for something more aggressive, you can run a bunch of Fists of the Anvil and Double Cleave variants to beat the hell out of your opponents.
Sample Decklist
This card just encourages you to run the most powerful multicolored cards, which tend to be hyper-efficient removal spells like Assassin’s Trophy and Anguished Unmaking. The only non-goodstuff cards in the list are a handful of blink spells so you can dodge removal and refill your hand. As far as win conditions go, turning Niv sideways seems to be the best one; Civic Saber, Conqueror’s Flail, and Duelist’s Heritage will cut your clock in half.
Sample Decklist
Card Ratings
In this set review, I’ll be using two five-point rating scales to evaluate the nonlegendary cards, one that measures how many decks a card is playable in (we’ll call that “spread”), and one that measures how powerful it is in those decks (”power”). Here’s a brief rundown of what each rank on the two scales means:
Spread
1: This card is effective in one or two decks, but no more (ex: The Gitrog Monster).
2: This card is effective in one deck archetype (ex: self-mill decks).
3: A lot of decks will be able to use this card effectively (ex: decks with graveyard interactions).
4: This card is effective in most decks in this color.
5: Every deck in this color is able to use this card effectively.
Power
1: This card is always going to be on the chopping block.
2: This card is unlikely to consistently perform well.
3: This card provides good utility but is not a powerhouse.
4: This card is good enough to push you ahead of your opponents.
5: This card has a huge impact on the game.
The Planeswalkers of War of the Spark
Spread: 1
Power: 2
I could imagine running this in Odric, Lunarch Marshal, since it’s a cheap way to give all your guys indestructible and lifelink or vigilance. Otherwise, it’s not worth your time.
Spread: 1
Power: 2
Might see a little play in Arcades as a way to produce a pair of beaters and draw a couple cards. It’s nice that you can curve Teyo into Arcades to frontload the mana cost but wait to produce your tokens and get your cards until after your commander comes down. The rate is not insane, though, and I could see this getting cut for a better stats-to-cost ratio in the future.
Spread: 1
Power: 4
This is solely for self-mill decks. It’s less vulnerable to removal than Laboratory Maniac but you can’t get it back with Dread Return or something similar if you mill yourself out. Either way, both Jace and Lab Man are worse than Nexus of Fate.
Spread: 1
Power: 4
I could see running this in a deck with a lot of wheel effects (Nekusar and The Locust God being the obvious ones) to act as a Leovold, making your opponents discard their hands and only drawing one card to replace it.
Spread: 3
Power: 3
Liliana is a bit expensive, but she might have potential in the few decks that can make use of more than one of her abilities. For example, sacrifice-oriented decks are interested in black token generation and getting value when your creatures die, so both her static effect and +1 will be useful there. Also, it’s worth noting that although planeswalkers are generally pretty fragile in Commander, Liliana makes a chump blocker and she’s going to have 7 loyalty when you pass the turn, which can be difficult for your opponents to beat though, especially if you’ve got Savra, Queen of the Golgari or Teysa, Orzhov Scion to control their boards.
Spread: 4
Power: 1
This card is really similar to Chandra, Pyromaster, and that card sees almost no play.
Spread: 1
Power: 2
For the purposes of the Ur-Dragon, it’s two dragons for the price of one and it can potentially deter attacks. I don’t think there’s anyone else that’s really interested in this, though.
Spread: 2
Power: 2
He’s a second copy of Rishkar for green +1/+1 counter decks.
Spread: 3
Power: 3
Omnath, Locus of Mana seems like a natural home for this card. It’s kind of cool that it’s effectively three mana since you can untap a Forest with the +1, but this card is still worse than Vernal Bloom in most ways. Vernal Bloom gets you to the game-winning threshold for mana a lot quicker; you don’t need more than 8 or 9 mana to win a game of Commander so what really matters is hitting that game-winning threshold as early as possible. Casting a turn four Bloom into a turn 5 Tooth and Nail is much stronger than casting a turn 5 Nissa into a turn 6 T&N, especially when you consider the fact that your Vernal Bloom can’t be attacked or Bolted in the intervening turn.
That being said, this is still a powerful card for monogreen ramp.
Spread: 3
Power: 2
I like the surprise factor of the -2; it’s cool that they’re finding ways to improve on abilities we’ve seen a thousand times already. Anyway, this card is not good. If you want two random cards out of your deck, you can get it at a better rate than this.
Spread: 2
Power: 2
Overall, this card feels very intro pack-y. The plus ability doesn’t affect the board, the -3 is a pretty bad rate, and the ultimate is not very impactful. This doesn’t seem like a great reason to buy a box (unless the price ends up being super high).
Spread: 4
Power: 2
Every element of this card can be done much better somewhere else in these colors. There is something to be said for the power of choices, but I really don’t think this card is good enough to see play.
Spread: 2
Power: 2
This card looks a lot like Ajani Goldmane, although it’s much better in superfriends decks than Goldmane ever was. It’s also worth noting that Ajani will probably draw less aggro than whatever busted planeswalker you’re bumping up, so he’s less fragile than he looks. However, I still think this effect is not worth a card. There are some solid repeatable proliferators in WAR, and I’d much rather use them than rely on a card type that can get attacked to death.
Spread: 3
Power: 1
I really like CMC-based reanimation and I’d really like to see it on a WB commander one day. Anyway, since you’re on color for both white and black reanimation you can do way better than this. If your deck is trying to recur a lot of weenies you can run Return to the Ranks or Dusk/Dawn, and if you want to get back one big thing, you can run Animate Dead or Reanimate or Necromancy or whatever.
Spread: 1
Power: 2
With a little tweaking, this could be an interesting commander, as it rewards you for playing with a subset of cards that normally doesn’t get played in Commander. In the main deck, however, this card seems pretty underwhelming. Even in lists that naturally have a ton of deathtouchers such as Hapatra, this is a pretty slow, small, and fragile anthem. If she had some way to gain loyalty, the -2 could help the card find its way into decks looking for sac fodder, but two tokens over two turns for four mana is not going to turn a lot of heads.
Spread: 1
Power: 3
There’s currently no UG commander that really rewards lots of large dudes, but I’m hopeful we might see something in the future (maybe a Simic or Temur Divine Visitation effect on a commander?).
Between Kiora, Temur Ascendancy, Garruk's Packleader, Kavu Lair, and Elemental Bond, we are getting very close to a critical mass of this type of card.
Spread: 1
Power: 4
Maybe if you’re running a deck with a ton of Twincast variants, this could serve as a potential win condition/storm enabler. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the combo, you cast a Fork variant copying any spell, then cast another Fork variant copying the original Fork variant. The second Fork resolves, putting a new copy of Fork #1 on the stack, which can then target the original Fork #1. Keep going through this loop and netting Ral triggers until your opponents are dead.
Spread: 2
Power: 3
Young Pyromancer sees play in 6400 decks on EDHREC, many of them in Izzet color identities. I think Saheeli slots into those same lists pretty easily, especially given the potential power offered by her -2 when copying mana rocks or utility creatures.
Spread: 2
Power: 3
What a brutal mana cost. I’d run this in superfriends since it’s almost a planeswalker clone and killing creatures/drawing cards is not terrible in that deck. I think that mana cost and the general meh-ness of PWs in Commander keep him out of most other decks.
Spread: 5
Power: 0 (no sideboards) / 4 (sideboards)
The playability of this guy hinges on whether your playgroup allows you to get cards from outside of the game. The Rules Committee’s stance is that sideboards are not officially supported and have to be house ruled into the format. If your playgroup follows that bit of dogma and Karn can only search your exile zone, then he’s not really worth playing; Null Rod only sees play in the most cutthroat cEDH lists, and while Karn only affects your opponents, I think that’s more than offset by the fact that he costs 4 and can get attacked to death.
Now, if your playgroup DOES let you have a sideboard or just dig through your binder or whatever, Mycosynth Lattice is one of the best things it can do, as it shuts off your opponents’ lands and all of their activated abilities in combination with Karn. Paradox Engine and Bolas’s Citadel are strong cards that don’t require much set up, but if you’re trying to combo off with those cards, you’d probably rather have them in your maindeck, rather than only accessible via a planeswalker. There are some neat artifact combos that you can search for both halves of if you can ensure that Karn lives long enough to activate twice: Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth gets you infinite mana (although again, these cards may be better in your maindeck), and if Painter’s Servant ever gets unbanned, you can use Karn to grab it and Grindstone to mill your opponents out one by one.
Spread: 3
Power: 3
Now, this guy is a Commander-playable planeswalker. I’d run this in any deck currently running Scour from Existence (barring Mizzix), which mostly means colorless, monoblack, and monored decks. The +1 is also solid, offering sacrifice fodder that is likely to be pretty useful in many of the monoblack decks that run it, and colorless cost reduction makes it even more powerful in the colorless decks that run it. I’m a big fan of this card, and I like that it disproportionately helps color identities that were on the weaker side.
It’s great that he’s rare, since I plan on picking up a bunch of these.
Maindeck Cards from War of the Spark
Spread: 3
Power: 3
At low numbers, the ratio of bodies to cost is not great. There are so many good white token generators that I doubt this makes the cut, even though the tokens are better than the ones produced by most of its competitors. Also, you should treat the “10 or more” text on this card like a planeswalker’s ultimate and ignore it.
Spread: 2
Power: 2
Seems very good in a Mikaeus, the Lunarch deck and in planeswalker decks that don’t invest heavily in mass removal. It stinks that White got the worst experience counter commanders and never got a poison commander because this card has so much potential, but the support isn’t there.
Spread: 2
Power: 2
This is a lot of mana for a narrow tutor. When you consider the fact that most Superfriends lists are already running Black and have access to cheap unconditional tutors, the Beacon becomes much less appealing.
Spread: 1
Power: 1
It does make a lot of Angels for your Lyra Dawnbringer deck. It’s not worth 8 mana, though.
Spread: 4
Power: 2
Hating on multicolor permanents is not that great. Although most commanders are multicolor, most main deck permanents are one or fewer colors. To put this card in perspective, Radiant Purge sees almost no play in Commander.
Spread: 3
Power: 2
I think Diving Reckoning is a fair point of comparison for this card. Divine Reckoning sees a fair amount of play; it’s in almost 6000 decks on EDHREC, most of them Voltron. While Single Combat has a few knobs that distinguish it from Reckoning, it’s probably a safe bet that it’ll see similar amounts of play in similar lists.
That being said, I’m not a huge fan of this card. It guarantees that the biggest threats survive and most of the time I’d rather take out the scariest things on my opponents’ side of the field than protect my own things.
Spread: 1
Power: 2
Varina is very interested in making multiple Zombie bodies for less than three mana. I’m gonna save a little space in a very long set review and suggest you apply the previous sentence and ratings to every Amass creature and most Amass spells that cost less than four mana.
Spread: 3
Power: 2
I like this card a lot. I think it’s much stronger than Steady Progress, and about on the power level of Tezzeret’s Gambit, which sees play in 8500 decks on EDHREC.
Spread: 2
Power: 3
Kruphix is very interested in outlets for the absurd amounts of mana he produces, and unlike almost any other commander, he can realistically hit the “10 or more” mode.
Mizzix likes X spells that generate value, so she might also be in the market for this card.
Spread: 2
Power: 3
This card could see play in planeswalker decks as another Inexorable Tide. This could also potentially see play in Mizzix decks as an additional way to bump up your experience count or in Noyan Dar as a way to grow your manlands.
Spread: 2
Power: 2
The additional mana relative to Thrummingbird hurts, and this also misses on some of the bird tribal lists (Kangee) that were interested in that card. Still, I could imagine running this in Atraxa, Ezuri 2.0, and Vorel.
Spread: 1
Power: 3
It’s a cheap Sphinx for Unesh, and it can bounce another Sphinx to your hand so you can get another trigger.
Spread: 2
Power: 3
Unfortunate that it can only target your own creatures and planeswalkers, but it seems strong in superfriends decks and simic +1/+1 counter lists. It’s also quite good in Estrid, Teferi, Temporal Archmage, and Saheeli, the Gifted, since all of those commanders have mana-generating abilities that make the Double free or cheap to cast.
There are also a ton of commanders that this can break wide open. Double Reaper King, double Atraxa, double Zndrsplt… if you’re in Blue and you’re running Helm of the Host, this card seems like a big upgrade.
Spread: 3
Power: 5
This is the new Paradox Engine. If your deck has a lot of card selection and tutors then this ought to be able to win the game all by itself. Some of the better interactions:
Circu, Dimir Lobotomist: This guy was kind of a joke before Citadel got spoiled. His mill effect is really weak and he’s in the bottom half of all Dimir commanders when it comes to popularity. However, he works pretty well with the Citadel because he can mill off excess lands from the top of your library so that you’re less likely to fizzle when comboing off.
Sensei’s Divining Top: Turns the Citadel into a Yawgmoth’s Bargain (thanks to @snarwin for pointing this out).
Mana Severance: Gets rid of all the lands so you won’t fizzle.
Aetherflux Reservoir: Subsidizes the Citadel’s life payments and eventually serves as your win condition.
Spread: 3
Power: 4
It’s interesting that this and Bolas’s Citadel showed up in the same set, since they’re both six mana black rares that offer insane card advantage and mana savings at the cost of a ton of life.
Anyway, I’ve heard people talking about using this in Oloro and other decks that gain life very easily. It could also be good in decks with very low curves so that you’re getting more cards for the life you’re paying.
Interestingly, it deals damage to you rather than makes you lose life, which means that you can prevent the damage, give yourself protection, or give the spell lifelink in order to cheat the life cost.
Spread: 3
Power: 3
The ability to get back noncreature cards is pretty rare in black, and if your deck has a lot of redundancy built into it you can sometimes remove your opponents’ ability to screw you. Plus, there’s a lot to be said for making deals with the opponent in the weakest position to get back the cards that will knock someone else down a peg.
Spread: 2
Power: 2
It provides a steady stream of Skullclamp-compliant sac fodder for decks that need it, as well as a self-recurring threat for Varina Zombie tribal lists.
Spread: 4
Power: 3
This card seems like great value for mopping up small utility creatures. 4 mana to kill some combination of Oracle of Mul Daya, Fauna Shaman, Tymna, Edric, Mentor of the Meek, etc. seems pretty strong. I think the easiest point of comparison is probably Black Sun’s Zenith. Black Sun’s sees play in over 15,000 decks, and it’ll cost you the same amount of mana to kill the same creatures. This one is asymmetrical but won’t get the random collateral damage against your opponents’ other creatures. I think they’re about on the same power level, although it’s worth noting that you could conceivably hit the 12 mana in a monoblack deck with Coffers and a bunch of ways to find it.
Spread: 1
Power: 1
This guy requires you to jump through a ton of hoops. In order for him to do his thing, you have to have:
A way to give him haste and/or a way to protect him until your next turn.
A high density of instants and sorceries
Either an extremely low curve on those instants and sorceries or a way to buff the Arcanist’s power.
I can think of commanders that fulfill some of those requirements, but not all of them.
Spread: 2
Power: 3
X spells are great in Mizzix and she has a ton of great targets to choose from. Seems like an easy inclusion in that list. It could also be good in Zada as a way to re-use your token-generating spells and cantrips.
Neheb, the Eternal is one of the few commanders who can reliably get X to 10 or higher, since that deck is desperate for good mana sinks and it runs a fair number of strong instants and sorceries.
Spread: 2
Power: 3
This card is awesome. Great in Hapatra decks as a way to get a bunch of Hapatra triggers at once and accelerate the death of your opponents’ dudes. Also seems solid in Thelon of Havenwood for spreading spores, nabbing experience with Meren and Ezuri 2.0, pumping the team in Mazirek, and of course, building loyalty among your planeswalkers.
Spread: 4
Power: 4
I don’t think we needed more cards like this, but whatever. The rich get richer. Other cards in Green that accomplish the same thing:
Tooth and Nail
Green Sun’s Zenith
Survival of the Fittest
Finale of Devastation
Chord of Calling
Worldly Tutor
Natural Order
Fauna Shaman
Note that all of the above are Commander staples.
Spread: 1
Power: 2
Useful in Sasaya as a way to get more Forests in hand. Also a solid upgrade over Sylvan Scrying in a Nissa, Vastwood Seer deck.
Spread: 2
Power: 2
Unfortunately, none of the Green planeswalkers that you can run as your commander have insane ultimates, so I don’t think it’s worth running in those decks as a means to pop em off really quickly.
It is, however, a slightly more expensive Deepglow Skate for Atraxa, Ezuri 2.0, Vorel, Pir & Toothy, and all those other blue/green counter-based decks.
Spread: 4
Power: 2
Over 7500 decks on EDHREC run Naturalize, and this is strictly better, even if it’s not a huge upgrade.
Spread: 2
Power: 1
This card suffers from the Immortal Sun effect, where it does several things, but none of them particularly well. +2/+2 isn’t a huge boost for a one-shot effect, and the lack of trample is frustrating. Also, I don’t like that this card is really bad at punishing pillowfort, since their artifacts and enchantments are what’s preventing you from getting it.
If you’re in need of artifact destruction, you’re probably better off running a tutor to find your Bane of Progress. If you’re in need of an Overrun effect, you’re better off running a tutor to find your Craterhoof Behemoth. Might I suggest Finale of Devastation?
Spread: 1
Power: 2
I really don’t like the idea of pumping mana into this in the hopes of getting something relevant. However, I do like running it in decks that can manipulate their top card (Hua Tuo, Honored Physician comes to mind) and in decks that just like its type line and don’t actually care what it does (such as Reki, the History of Kamigawa, who only cares about running the cheapest legendary cards possible).
Spread: 4
Power: 3
I really like Negate and Countersquall, so I’m happy to run this effect as a 5th or 6th counterspell in all my decks with a blue/white color identity.
Spread: 3
Power: 3
I love asymmetrical board wipes. Note that it doesn’t target the creature it bounces so you can still cast it when you have no targets and it can’t be fizzled by removal. This seems like a pretty easy inclusion in most blue/white lists in the market for sweepers.
Spread: 1
Power: 2
This could be really sweet in any GR deck that runs a lot of mass land destruction-- maybe something like Grand Warlord Radha that isn’t totally reliant on its lands to cast its spells and can generate enough mana early in the game to bounce its lands and still cast a Thoughts of Ruin.
It also might be good in Borborygmos Enraged, as it’s a way to get lands back to your hand that is much less painful than Storm Cauldron.
Spread: 3
Power: 2
While the average CMC of Commander decks has crept down over the years, this is probably still very good. It kills all but 4 of the top 21 commanders of all time and while it’s pretty bad at taking care of mana accelerators and cheap draw engines, it’s great at killing the most terrifying threats in the format (such as Paradox Engine, Gods, Praetors, Titans, etc.). Don’t run it over Anguished Unmaking but consider it in a high-CMC metagame.
Spread: 3
Power: 3
I have not played a lot of Decimates, so I can’t fully judge how strong this card is. I thiiink it’s worse than Windgrace’s Judgment because of the rough mana cost, 6>5, sorcery speed.
Spread: 3
Power: 2
Eldritch Evolution sees a surprising amount of play (almost 9000 decks on EDHREC), but Neoform is worse in three ways, so it’s hard to be bullish about this card. I think I like it in Tishana, since she naturally wants a bunch of creatures on the field and morphs into Craterhoof, but I’m not sure there are many other commanders that would be stoked to run this. Maybe in Ezuri 2.0 as a way to trade mana dorks for Sage of Hours?
Spread: 4
Power: 3
This is the cheapest we’ve ever seen this effect and it can be really devastating to an opponent to have their commander permanently stolen. That being said, there are other cards with similar effects that cost only a little more, such as Legerdemain and Switcheroo, see hardly any play in Commander.
Spread: 1
Power: 2
Very unfortunate that the red mana in its cost disqualifies it from being used in the two decks that want it most: Doran and Arcades. There are a bunch of Kynaios and Tiro decks running Wave of Reckoning, so there’s potential for it to be run there (although it’s worth mentioning that Wave of Reckoning was included in their precon, so it may not actually be that great in the deck; maybe people were just too lazy to take it out).
Spread: 4
Power: 3
This seems very good in Lord Windgrace since that deck has a ton of mana to pump into it, a slow clock, and many ways to recur it.
Other slow control decks with lots of mana available will probably be happy to run this card, since it’s a difficult-to-answer counter that doesn’t require a deck slot.
Spread: 5
Power: 1
Even with the restriction to creatures, Winding Canyons is much better than this and doesn’t see a whole lot of play, so I’m skeptical that this will accomplish much. Losing a land is a huge downside.
Spread: 3
Power: 2
This is great! Coming into this set I was hoping to see a lot of proliferate attached to staple effects, and there’s nothing more universally useful than lands. It’ll be tricky to run this in Atraxa and five-color superfriends lists because of the heavy color requirements in those decks, but I’m sure planeswalker decks with fewer colors (the nicer Narset builds, for example) and infect aggro, +1/+1 counter decks, -1/-1 counter decks, and experience counter commanders are all going to find room to run this card.
Wrapping Up
Were there any cards I missed? Do you disagree with any of my ratings? Let me know!
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Workout
Mark x Reader
Genre: Fluff / smut, idk it always starts with fluff and then smut knocks on your door and you just have to let it in idk idk idk
Word Count: 3k what the heck
Summary: Well, you have a hard time moving and Mark tries to be helpful?
Author’s Note: Damn Mark was my first bias when they debuted and they were like babies back then, and now he’s just being rude
Thank god it was Friday.
You don’t think you’d be able to go to work tomorrow after what happened today.
The muscles in your arms were practically screaming for you to stop making so much movements. If your body had a mind of its own, it would have just dropped dead at your front door before you could even think about heading for your bed. It’s a good thing it doesn’t though because you’re not spending the Friday night on a cold floor.
You kicked your heels off and dumped your bag on the kitchen table along with your earphones, wristwatch, and glasses. Your put on your Spotify playlist on your phone’s loudspeaker, (shakily) tied up your hair in a messy bun and quickly stripped your clothes off before going in the toilet.
You planned on taking a hot bath instead, but with basically your entire body aching, you wouldn’t want to risk the chance of drowning in your own tub and make an embarrassment of yourself after you’ve died.
You took a quick hot shower and though the muscle above your chest made a real fuss when you tried to wrap your towel around yourself, you exited to your room and just lied down under the fan with your back on your bed, untying your hair which was a bit sweaty.
It was only a bit after 5PM and you just wanted to sleep off the pain. As you were about to doze off, your phone went off. You would’ve ignored it but there was only person you set that ringtone to and you weren’t going to miss it for the world.
You picked it up and put it on speaker. You groaned instead of saying ‘hello’.
“Babe? You there?”
“Yeah” you croaked.
“You okay, princess?” Mark asked softly. Not soft enough apparently because you hear Jackson, Bambam and Yugyeom going off on ‘princess��� at the background, teasing Mark to death. You also hear Jaebum telling them to shut it, but even that wasn’t enough.
You laughed in response. GOT7’s currently having their comeback so it’s that time again where you’d be spending less time with your boyfriend but it’s not something you’re not used to. You do miss the boys though.
“I’m okay, just tired. What’s up?” you asked.
“You sure? I mean I’m planning on coming over anyway so I’ll see how you’re doing” he went on.
“Wait what?” you mumbled.
“Ah yeah, Music Bank is cancelled and the manager-hyung gave us the day off until tomorrow morning before Music Core. We’re just about to leave the dressing room. I’m coming over okay. Need anything?”
“Just you” you groaned, because you moved, well, tried to move, your hand to reach for your phone.
As if the people in the background knew what you were talking about, you heard Jackson screaming at the top of his lungs and Bambam and Yugyeom going “why why why” and you just knew Jackson was eavesdropping on the conversation, placing his ear at the other side of Mark’s phone.
You could also just imagine the scene unfolding in front of Mark because of that misunderstanding: Jackson being the gossip king that he is and spilling everything he heard and the maknae line just going “woo ooo ohh” and “gET IT MARK” all over the room and completely reading the context wrong.
You heard Mark grumble at the other end of the line and you tried to hold your laughter because laughing actually hurts your abdomen so you just smiled really wide instead.
“I’ll tell you all about it when you come over, okay?” you assured him. “Is everyone else coming over too?”
“Oh hell no. I’m not bringing these guys,” he said out loud, just to sass the other boys in the room.
“WHAT WHYYY” you heard Bambam whining.
“We want to see the sister-in-law too,” Jackson said. “You alwAYS HOG HER TO YOURSEL-”
“She’s my girlfriend,” you heard Mark yelled back
“Mark-hyuuuuuung” Yugyeom continued.
“Y’all little shits keep going like this and I’ll block all of you on her phone.”
Jackson dramatically gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
Mark just stuck out his tongue.
You heard some shuffling from the other line and Jackson screaming “Don’t worry, sis! We’ll see you soon – Mark can’t keep you away from us long!!”
It got less noisy so you assumed Mark went out of the room to keep his sanity intact. He can only take the teasing (and Jackson) for so long. You heard him sigh.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“It’s alright. Tell them I miss them, okay” you caved in, and laugh. “Ow,”
“Now I really want to know what happened. Not a casual day at work?” he mused.
“Ugh it was casual, alright. A little too casual. Get here quick,” you whined.
Mark just laughed. “Okay, okay, just give me 15 minutes or so. Are you sure you don’t need anything else besides me?” he teased.
Almost on cue, your stomach grumbled. You groaned, eating is the last thing you wanted to do. Imagining all the energy you need to use just to feed yourself. But you’re not going to starve yourself no matter how tired you are.
“Can you uh, bring food? But like nothing too heavy. Imagine feeding a sick person,” you replied.
“Are you sick?” he started to worry.
“Nooo, but just imagine. I want something light” you said.
“Okay…” he said sceptically. “See you later.”
“Don’t worry about it too much. See you.”
***
About 20 minutes later you heard your front door open and Mark calling your name. “Room,” you managed to shout back.
“Baby, what happened?” he quickly sat down next to you.
Before you could answer, he leaned in and kissed you. Mark’s kisses are always soft and you can always feel how needy it is when he misses you. And you haven’t seen him in weeks, which made the kiss feel even more breath-taking. One of his hands went up to hold your face and almost automatically, your hand raised to touch his hand… until your triceps ache because it was stretched and you squeaked in shock.
Mark opened his eyes and slowly pull back, looking at you squeezing your eyes shut.
You shook you head and just groaned in response and told him to get your underwear and his black hoodie from your closet.
“Oh... so this was where it went,” you heard him mutter, not sure if you were supposed to hear that.
You managed to smile cheekily when he turned to you. All girlfriends steal their boyfriends’ hoodies. It’s almost nature.
“Okay just sit down for a bit. I’m stiff,” you said. “But I need you to help put them on for me later.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Not off?” he pouted.
“If I wasn’t in this condition I wouldn’t have asked you to take clothes for me, babe”
He sat down next to you, chuckling. “Tell me,” he started.
“Okay, last week was hell since it was the end of the month and you know banks go crazy at the end of the month trying to close off and balance the accounts and checking everything.”
“So, this week a little bit more relaxed, not to mention that today was Friday and more than half of the office was already playing around after lunch. The boss said to take today easy and we weren’t about to make him change his mind. You remember Minho? The gym enthusiast? I had a project with him earlier this year. I think I told you about it,” you said and he nodded, concentrating on your story.
You continued. “He came over to my table and I was with my other colleagues and he was like “Hey, you guys want to try this 7-minute full body workout?” and since I had no better things to do, I just went on with it – everyone at the table too since Minho was basically coaxing everyone and saying it was ‘just 7 minutes’. And so there we were, doing jumping jacks and squats and planking! Can you believe planking?! Halfway I thought I was going to pass out but I wasn’t about to lose to not holding on for 7 minutes, you know?” he laughed, taking a hint at where this was going already.
“It was like 30 seconds for every exercise and a 10-second break but what the fuck, I was just about ready to throw up after 3 minutes. What really did it was the triceps dip, push-up, and lunges combo. Everyone was basically dry heaving at this point and cursing and Minho was just laughing his ass off. So here I am, regretting my life decisions sometimes.”
You closed your eyes, trying to forget the pain when it happened. Mark looked like he was holding his laugh big time. “It’s okay. You can laugh. My lazy ass deserves this,” you said, defeated. And he went off. This boy had a really contagious laugh too so you found yourself somewhat laughing along with him.
His hand went to hold yours after he was done, tears in his eyes from laughing too much. “I really thought you got sick or something, but I didn’t expect this. Where does it hurt?” he asked, lightly squeezing up your arms.
“Everywhere. It was a full body exercise, Mark. It’s basically as bad as the first time we had sex. I’m aching everywhere. Well, except down there but you get the idea.”
You thought you saw the look in his eyes slightly darkened but he laughed and gave you an empathetic smile. “That bad?”
You whimpered.
“There, there,” he said, patting your head. “Let’s put some clothes on you.”
You slowly sat up. Mark held out the hoodie over your head and helped pull your arms into the sleeves. You pulled the hoodie down to your thighs since it was oversize on you and fell back down on the bed.
Mark was nice enough to pull the towel off you and let it spread on the bed. He went back to putting on your underwear.
His hand touched your calf to lift it up and you moaned, not sure if it was reflex or because you felt a muscle pull at your thigh. Maybe both. Mark looked at you and you knew he was confused on how to react, but he went on to the other leg and did the same. It’s halfway up your legs now and you tried really hard not to make any weird sound.
Until his hand touched your inner thigh and even you were confused on how to react when you let out a breathy moan. It felt good but it also hurt.
“I didn’t know this was going to be hotter than taking them off, baby girl,” he said, voice sounding a bit strangled. He was kneeling in between your legs now. His brows strained and his eyes dark.
And then his hands were at your hips and he had no idea what he was doing anymore. He let out a breathy “Can I?” and you found yourself nodding.
His thumb was on your clit and you exhaled, as if you’ve been holding in your breath the entire time. He was slowly going in circular motions when you mewled. You could feel his finger was trembling, trying to hold back. He let himself palm you and you almost jerked.
“So wet for me, princess. Even when you’re in pain,” he smiled apologetically at you. “Sorry,” he whispered. You moaned his name, hoping he’d get that it’s okay.
You did miss him. What’s one more place to ache, anyway? You laughed at yourself. Sadist.
Mark slid one finger in to you, going at a slow pace. When he felt you loosening up, he inserted another finger and pumped in and out of you, going a bit faster.
You were a panting mess by then, cursing and moaning. You know he doesn’t want to hurt you, considering the condition you were in but going at this pace was torture so you bucked your hips, knowing your sorry ass is in pain.
“Even in this state, you have the energy to be needy,” he chuckled.
“Yeah, well, my energy’s running out and I’m spending it on this,” you growled, impatient.
He curled his fingers inside you and your breath hitched. He continued thrusting in and out of you, looking a bit of a mess too. He went faster and you felt his fingers hit that spot and your walls automatically clenched down on his fingers.
He groaned, knowing what that means. “Shit. Tell me, baby. How does it feel?” His hand went your stomach and slowly snaked it way up to your breast, kneading on your nipple.
“Good, s-so good” you whispered. Trying to hold it out a bit longer, you started breathing in and out, and focusing on something else, anything else. But with Mark slowly becoming undone right in front of you and the small wet patch on his sweatpants, it didn’t do much to help. Sweat was slowly appearing on his forehead, his hair was still styled nicely from the performance, and he’s biting his lower lip to get a grip of himself but it’s doing things to your imagination.
You tightened on his fingers again when he kept hitting that spot and a knot was forming in your stomach. “Close. Really close,” you managed to choke out along with some profanities and his name and you heard Mark mumbled “fuck” and sped his fingers.
When you can’t hold it in anymore and you’re talking but you don’t know what came out your mouth, you heard him say, “Be a good girl and cum for me. Show me how I made you feel.”
“A-h shit, shit… holy fuck” you screamed as you felt him thumb pressing on your clit again and felt the ache in your lower abdomen and thighs clenching and found yourself releasing on his fingers which were still pumping you. Your vision blurred and he kept going until you went down from your high, breathing returning to a normal pattern and you realised you’ve balled up your fist the entire time because it hurts to lift them but as you slowly loosen your grip, your hands were shaking.
Your eyes slowly coming to focus with what just happened. Mark licked his fingers and you whimpered, clearly seeing it.
He quickly pulled your underwear up your waist before he loses himself again. He slowly dragged away the towel beneath you and quickly ran off to put it in the laundry and also took the extra boxers he left to use whenever he’s sleeping over and pulled it over your underwear.
He came up to your face and kissed you, smiling.
“Okay, just to be clear, I didn’t come here planning to do that. I thought we were just going to cuddle and fall asleep a-and it’s just- you were just-“ he sputtered.
You laughed and pushed him up (wincing in the process) so you were both sitting. You leaned forward, lightly pecked his lips. “It’s okay, I got lost in it too. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” he said, holding your hands in his and looking into your eyes.
“What are we going to do about you, though?” you chuckled, and pressed your palm on the persistent tent in his sweatpants.
“Huh? What –“ and his eyes widen when you did that and he struggled to breathe out. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll go away later –“
“But you didn’t –“
“It’s okay,” he pressed. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m going to take a shower now and then change before you make a fuss out of this. We’re going to eat and I’m going to cuddle you to sleep.”
It doesn’t make you feel any better but you stopped prodding him. He got up to the bathroom and cheekily winked at you before closing the door. You just shook your head and slowly got off your bed, trying to learn to walk again.
Again, you felt every part of you telling you to get back to bed but not moving would probably make it worse tomorrow morning. You tried stretching a bit and it’s already got you sweating again. You decided just to go see what Mark brought for dinner.
Bibimbap and black bean noodles in one plastic bag… hmm that’s probably his since you don’t eat that much and… fishball soup with noodles! Truly the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach.
You didn’t realise you used this much muscle to pull a chair. When you sat down, you felt Mark kissed the top of your head and sat down next to you. “Is that enough?” he asked.
“Yeah I don’t plan on eating much. I was already so tired and then thanks to someone I’m even more tired. Now I can definitely say it hurts everywhere.” You pouted.
He happily kissed away your pout. Mmm… you took in his scent and sighed in content. Mark always smells comforting.
Later, both of you spent the night on the couch, huddled together with you leaning onto his body, fingers lazily playing together, and catching up.
As it reached midnight, you were definitely getting sleepy. You were already sleepy before but Mark was going on about the funny things that happened preparing for the comeback and you couldn’t just fall asleep on him. He doesn’t talk a lot so you’re not going to ruin it when he does.
When you noticed he yawned, you yawned too and hugged into him, closing your eyes. He lifted you and carried you to your room. He laid down next to you and you turned to hug him. He kissed your head again and draped his free hand over your shoulder, softly rubbing his thumb to get you to fall asleep.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
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Just another extra - A Richard x ambiguous fem.character oneshot
OK, I blame @deepestfirefun for this one by throwing the following prompt at me:
I only slightly changed the wording but followed the prompt to the letter.
It turned out as absolute fluff with a little internal fangirling (how relatable)
Pairing: Richard Armitage x ambiguous female character
Word Count: 2.000+
@xxbyimm, @fizzy-custard @patanghill17 @tinkertailor1212 @hannibatchsmuse @tinkertailor1212 @lady-jessica-9 @inkededucatednnerdy
Enjoy!
4.30am – what a heathen time!
It probably has not been one of his brightest ideas ever to be on set this early. The catering has nothing more to offer than coffee and he can't decide whether it's freshly brewed or the heated leftover from yesterday. The make up department will not open for another hour so he is stuck in a windy hall with nothing else to do but work on the upcoming scene.
Richard flips through his script, finding his notes. Considerations of measurements since he'll oppose Thranduil. He'll have to look up for this one. Also: Anger. Frustration. Receiving an offer which a lesser man than Thorin would probably take. Or a smarter one? How often has he thought about this. Has gauged different ways to act out this scene. He tries this and that. Uses his vivid imagination to create the room around him. The intimidatingly beautiful Elvhen hall surrounding Thranduil's throne.
Stubborn dwarf king.
Angry dwarf king.
Greedy dwarf king.
He tries them all, but none of them feels right enough. Maybe a combo of them all will do the trick. He finally stops, going back into his notes again, brooding. Taking more notes. Thoughts tend to be way too volatile so he writes them down.
Rustling noises and shuffling footsteps almost make him jump.
Way too deep inside your head once more, Rich. He scolds himself. And way too early too handle.. people, he silently decides.
A girl in ugg boots and an overlarge quilted coat has entered the hall. A beanie pulled down so barely her eyes are visible and an overlarge woolen scarf covers the lower half of her face. She's carrying a big black rucksack and it seems to be quite heavy. A big thermos stuffed under one arm is she pulling on a pair of mittens to free her hands.
He's actually chuckling on the view and he only realizes that he laughed out loud when he hears the noise echoing from the empty green walls and she visibly jumps because she clearly has not considered another soul being around at this time of day.
He does a soothing gesture, arms open, empty palms. Showing he's no danger.
“I apologize. I did not mean to startle you.”
She stares for a split second. Recognizes him, petrifies a bit but plays it down. She'll have to get used to meet other actors who – unlike her – were well known stars with an impressive portfolio of work. And disturbingly handsome but this is an entirely different story.
“It's early.” She mumbles some kind of apology which actually is not even supposed to be one. “I think I'm still half asleep.” But she keeps coming closer, getting rid of her beanie and the scarf and finally a human being appears underneath all that warming layers.
He chuckles once more.
“I guess I can relate. Horrible idea being on set at this unholy time.”
“You're not shooting for the next 5 hours and even make-up won't be open for the next hour, why are you here anyway?” Internal gasp as she realizes that she just invaded Richard Armitage's personal space by asking questions which are not her concern. But he keeps up the friendly smile and shrugs, not offended in the least.
“I'm some kind of an insomniac once in a while, I suppose? And then I thought it was a smart idea being on set early would help me catch the spirit for the upcoming scene. I mean we had a rehearsal yesterday and I don't think it went too bad but...” He shrugs, frowning at her, trying to put her somewhere. Has he even seen her on set yet? Maybe one of the many assistants to whatever? “What are you doing here at this ungodly time, then yourself?” He feels his ear tips warming and knows his cheeks will follow with a rosy blush. “I have to apologize, I'm afraid. I think we never met. There are just so many folks around all day...”
Her face is definitely burning in the cold windy air on this set, when she hears him... ramble. Why is he getting nervous because he can't put her anywhere?
“I'm just another extra.” She replies. “Assigned to whatever is needed. Been a Hobbit already, some Human town girl at some point and they even tucked me in a Dwarven armor for a sequence. Today I'm going to be some random Elvhen archer. But hey...” Sporting a proud grin, she squares her shoulders. “At least I can brag one day, by saying, I've been in the Hobbit, right?”
“That's the spirit!” Returning her smile is easy as it's rather contagious and he claps his hands in some kind of overbubbling agreement. “So you're a fellow actor then?” He asks while he's watching her unzip the puffy coat leaving her with an oversized black turtle neck jumper.
The answer is some weird kind of gigglesnort which makes him grin. “Actually I've just... stumbled into this adventure along with my work and travel experience to New Zealand. I'm no actor at all, but don't you tell anybody.” Along her answer she's fumbling with her thermos and the coffee finally running into the big steel mug is still steaming hot and emits some heavenly scent. She holds it out to him to share.
“My lips are sealed.” Curling his fingers at the corner of his still smiling mouth to lock it down, demonstrating how he can keep a secret, then taking the hot mug from her hands with a thankful nod. Warming his fingers by wrapping them around it before he takes a careful sip. “So you're on some kind of adventure quest yourself.” Not even a question but showing he actually listens to what she's telling him, pointing out parallels to the journey he has to portray along with the company, to the whole journey, the Hobbit represents.
She still can't believe it. It's 4.30 in the morning and she shares a coffee with Richard Armitage in a deserted set of the Hobbit. “Yeah... it's kind of... wild.” She agrees to his final statement and then there is a moment of peaceful morning silence one only achieves through the power of a mutually shared coffee with a friendly soul.
“I was wondering...” He finally asks after a moment of quiet consideration. “Would you be willing to help me with some rehearsal stuff? I could use a sparring partner with this one. Just stand opposite to me and throw me the lines?” He holds out his script to her.
“I... ummm... well...” Now definitely entering beet root status, but she automatically takes the crumbled papers from him. “I don't know... if you think I can do it?”
“Sure!” He nods towards the construction with the gap in front of Thranduil's throne where he could stand on a lower level to keep the measurements and she follows him like a puppy. Who actually wouldn't? Still, she's not sure whether to freak out on an anxiety attack or just get off bouncing from excitement. The blushing rather dumbfounded grin never leaves her face.
She's way shorter than Lee, even when standing on the pedestal but he'll manage to act around this obstacle.They both take a few minutes to get into the scene before they begin.
Actually she's terrified but there is no way of showing him. Her personal utterly stubborn pride forbids it.
He asks her to throw him the lines? He shall receive! Maybe she's not a trained actor but a little stage experience done back home at school and university she still has on her account.
She'll have to start this scene and eventually she closes her eyes for a moment to make herself phase out and just be what she's supposed to play. And right in the beginning she already has to deliver a fucking wall of words... dammit, she deeply hopes she's not fucking this up!
“Some may imagine that a noble quest is at hand. A quest to reclaim a homeland and slay a dragon. I myself suspect a more prosaic motive: attempted burglary, or something of that ilk.
You have found a way in. You seek that which would bestow upon you the right to rule: the King´s Jewel, the Arkenstone. It is precious to you beyond measure. I understand that. There are gems in the mountain that I too desire. White gems of pure starlight. I offer you my help.”
Breathe girl! Breathe! You are holding up just fine. He should be able to work with that, she keeps on running self affirmation through her head in order to not freak out.
He's surprised, but he doesn't show or says anything. Focuses on his own part but the way she turns herself into some kind of divine majesty on a fingersnap is remarkable.
“I am listening.”
Daring. Annoyed. Playing cool. He feels here somewhere lies the right approach to do this part.
“I will let you go if you but return what is mine.”
OK, this seems to run smoothly, she decides. He catches up and takes up on the dialogue. She can do this.
“A favor for a favor”
Should he phrase it as a question? No, he's the king under the fucking mountain. Kings do not ask questions. They make statements.
“You have my word. One king to another.”
She actually has no idea how she's doing but she can sense him picking up what she's offering to play with. She has no idea how an Elvhen king would be like but she's seen and read enough of Tolkien's and Jackson's work to have an idea how the Elves are supposed to be portrayed here. She may not be the epitome of ethereal Elvhen glory but she certainly can offer some arrogance.
Now it's his turn to rule the scene. Two majestic stubborn characters. Each hurting and suffering in their own ways. And she stands facing him with a resting bitch face as if she owns the place. Which Thranduil actually does. Probably eighty percent of made up self defense from being terrified, he assumes but who cares when the delivery is so spot on. Either she'd been running an extremely low profile on what she actually has done acting-wise so far or she's just a natural.
He takes a deep breath and just channels all the feelings of anger, frustration and distrust he knows his Thorin nurses deep inside for far too long. And the way she's just challenging him makes it possible to act it all out on her, well on Thranduil that is, but borders had become fluid already so who can say,
“I would not trust Thranduil, the great king, to honor his word should the end of all days be upon us!
You lack all honor! I´ve seen how you treat your friends. We came to you once, starving, homeless, seeking your help, but you turned your back. You turned away from the suffering of my people and the inferno that destroyed us!
Imrid amrad ursul!”
He's not sure whether he is entirely happy with what he does here. Maybe a second run will clear up things for him. More anger? More hatred? Or better stone cold, playing some callousness Thorin definitely does not experiences here at all? He'll have to explore this.
Hot damn, he's good! And drop dead handsomely gorgeous. She needs to focus! To stay in character but it's a challenge. A bigger one than pulling off to impersonate an arrogant and scared Elvhen dude king in the first place. Almost there, now her favorite part comes up. The part Thranduil reveals himself, the dragon burns. She loves when creatures let go off their glamour and show their vulnerability. The source of all of his fears, this is such a divine moment. And since she has no glamour to drop herself she'll just pretend she does. But in order to do this she'll have to ignore this stunning blue eyes. Oh, holy crap! And she has to get way too close to face him in this one.
“Do not talk to me of dragon fire. I know its wrath and ruin. I have faced the great serpents of the North.
I warned your grandfather of what his greed would summon, but he would not listen.You are just like him.
Stay here if you will and rot. A hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an elf. I am patient. I can wait.”
She walks up the stairs while she strides upstairs. Wobbly knees, well more of wobbly everything. Happy to escape this closeness which actually means nothing and she should better stop being a childish fangirl over this. They are colleagues here. Staying professional is essential and beside that she'd rather not humiliate herself over making puppy eyes on him.
The physical distance and actually standing so far above him now should help.
“Whoah, girl! That was marvelous!” He actually pays her a round of applause as she slowly steps back from the throne. “You can't tell me you've never been on a stage before. Because if you do, I'll run and hide under a rock forever.”
“Sweet talker!” Waving it off dismissively. “Been in a few plays at school and university. Nothing big or wild. Not even a lead.”
“Well, it should have.” He reiterates. “This was quite good. Shall we try once more for when Thorin gets agitated over that Elvhen asshole?” Waggling his eyebrow at her, bringing in a lighter note because he actually starts having fun with this.
She shrugs, stepping closer again. “Fine with me. As long as it helps.”
“It surely does.” Giving her an encouraging smile and an encouraging pat on the arm he watches how she cracks the joints of her neck and rolls her shoulders and then phases out once more to deliver him Thranduil's lines.
He wonders how she can be so spot on without any kind of training. Wonders how he could challenge her, whether he's able to throw her out of focus. Not to be mean. Far from it, he's not the kind of person who draws fun from giving people a hard time. So when she now stands on her measurements pedestal, literally towering him despite the fact that she's about a whole foot shorter than he is, he can't help but getting silly. Overacting so much she just has to recognize. And he finds himself wanting to draw some laughter from her.
There's not moving a single muscle in her face. There might be a slight curl in one corner of her lips but he's not sure. He keeps reciting and at some point he starts making funny faces while keeping a straight voice just to see what happens. Nothing with her face or her posture obviously because she manages to keep a straight face the whole time. But when she eventually starts speaking what are supposed to be Thranduil's words he bursts out in laughter.
This girl is a genius!
“Listen, bro! Stop shitting on me with that dragon fire crap! It's fucked up and we both know it! See my face? Dude, that's what you get from snuggling in with a dragon, man! I did for once and I tell you: Don't even try! Because no fun, man! Your grampa was an asshole about listening to me and so are you! So, what about just shutting your face and chill. I have no rush, I'm a fucking immortal! And now what about you go and fuck yourself very much! You're welcome.”
#Richard Armitage#The Hobbit#this happens when you throw prompts at me#imagine#pixie writes#no way this is a self insert#because I'd rather die than being of any help
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The Voice in The Snow
|| @invoision || Continuation from here || Pre-Game ||
He had been trying to walk without sound. It was late, by Underground standards; nearby windows were dark or else lit with dim lamps, and the already quiet town hushed to a sleepy silence. There were many types of silence, one might find, but in this, there was comfort, as though a large thick blanket had settled itself over every home.
Due to this, Sans could hear each variation in the way he stepped across the snow with perfect clarity, untampered by nearby mumblings or doors or shuffling feet. He stepped hard, then soft. He tried to crunch the ice beneath him as loud as possible, to leave a deep imprint of his hastily tied shoe, and found that it was harder than it looked. To really get a decent sound-to-print combo, he'd had to more or less jump from spot to spot, though he wasn't entirely sure if that counted as cheating or not.
Stepping softly, however, took a much more delicate approach. That made sense, he supposed. For these, Sans moved slowly, careful to place his heel down first and then ease into the base of his foot. He began to make a game of it all. Just how quietly could he walk in the snow, he wondered, just how light of a print could he leave—and, was it possible that he could leave behind nothing?
He grimaced at the insistent crunch of each step, despite how lightly he tried to tread. There had to be a way to be completely, or at least nearly, silent. It just needed a bit of figuring out. With nothing else to entertain himself for the evening, Sans made it a goal to discover the secret of it all and had been making well enough progress when he was pulled from his concentration by the clear sound of someone calling his name.
Naturally, his first reaction had been to turn in the direction of the voice, almost without thinking. It had sounded so close, with the calm ease of someone in town stopping by to ask him a question, but when Sans scanned the area with his bright, white eyelights, he found no one.
"Sans." It said again, and he realized it was coming from the direction of the forest, though something about that felt off. There was a pause. The trees that lined the forest edge stayed still and unruffled, showing no signs of anyone hiding within them or making an effort to walk towards him. Sans began to suspect it was a trick, or that he'd somehow imagined the sound.
But then, he had heard it twice—
"Sans?"
The voice rolled out his name once more, and he realized why it was that the direction it came from didn't make sense. It was too quiet. The way it spoke, all calm and sweet and just a tiny bit questioning, was entirely too even a tone for him to hear so far away. The sound should have been muffled. It should have been lost along its way among leafs and branches, should have been almost a whisper by the time it reached Sans himself, but instead, it remained clear and easy as though they were standing in front of him.
He considered it a moment, staring into the dark patches of forest, trying to catch even a tiny glimpse of whoever was trying to speak to him. Sans opened his mouth to call back, and began to take a step forward when a much more familiar voice approached him from behind.
“I thought I told you not to stay out in the snow for so long, hm?”
Sans was much too old to be carried, if you asked him, but he didn't say as much when Gaster picked him up and made his way back into the warm confines of their house. Before the door was closed, Sans narrowed his gaze towards the forest and thought—was almost certain—that he saw one of the small branches flicker in movement.
He was quiet, then, lost in his own thoughts as Gaster set him down in his bed with star-covered sheets. They looked more like a frozen picture of Waterfall's twinkling stones, but maybe that was simply what stars looked like, too. Sans only partially listened to Gasters chiding about staying out in the cold too long, his gaze drawing with an irresistible pull towards the window, though some part of his mind took note. Stiffened joints. Bone Chill. It was the worst when his joints got stiff—only ever happened when he got sick, but that was more than plenty for him.
Stiffened joints and Bone Chill.
That branch had moved, Sans knew it did, and he hadn't misheard that voice, not three times. It had sounded so kind. There was an ease to way it had called out, like it knew him, like there was a sweet secret it had been about to whisper if he'd only taken those few steps closer, and what had it wanted to say, he had to know, he had to—
There was a gentle, light scratching on his skull that soothed the thoughts Sans hadn't realized had been racing. He tore his gaze away from the window with considerable effort and saw Gaster holding up a large, white mug with steam rising above its lip. His small hands took it carefully, trying not to spill, the ceramic warmth filling his palm and trickling into his marrow. It occurred to him right then just how cold he'd gotten, how every bit of him seemed to prickle and ease into the surrounding heat. Somehow, he hadn't noticed it before. Weird.
Sans took a sip of the hot chocolate, its taste slightly bitter with hints of cream and natural sweetness, then remembered his manners and looked back up to Gaster. "Thank you... "
There was a pause. He glanced back to the window, and then to his caretaker, taking another slow, careful sip of his drink.
"Hey, Gaster? Are y'gonna be at work tonight?"
#invoision#ʷᵃʸ ᵇᵃᶜᵏ ʷʰᵉᶰ⋅⋅⋅(Kid!AU)#ᵂʰᵉʳᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵒᶜᵏˢ ᵃʳᵉ ˢᵗᵃʳˢ (Underground Verse)#ᵀʰᵉ ⱽᵒᶦᶜᵉ ᶦᶰ ᵀʰᵉ ˢᶰᵒʷ (Kid!Sans and Gaster)#((This spiraled a bit out of my control...))#((I hope it's alright my friend!))#Long post CW
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[DIY] Painting A Patterned Floor
Jumping over to a new room, we're kick-starting the conservatory renovation back up! You might remember last year we started doing some work in this room before the kitchen reno really took off - well a whole year later and one kitchen reno out of the way, we're back to it! And this time, we're tackling the floor.
So in-case you're a new reader, here's a little look into how the room looked originally, when we first moved in. {VERY WHITE}
Since that photo, we've replaced the old leaky plastic roof with a nice thick modern insulating equivalent and we've also insulated the external brick wall and plastered it. Other than that, we've altered some pipework in here and that's really about it. We're on a mega budget right now with renovating, so some of the plans I talked about in this post are going to have to wait. BUT, if we're ever going to make this house truly enjoyable to live in, we're going to have to do a bit of a mend and make do in some areas. And the conservatory is the perfect place to start.
So with that in mind, instead of buying nice new flooring for this room we're going to do something a whole lot cheaper - we're going to paint it. Say whaaat?
Not in a flat black garage kinda fashion - nope, in a glorious tile-worthy pattern. We already have some floor paint leftover from a previous project and after a few sketches and ideas for designs, I was 110% convinced on the idea. It's quick, fairly easy, quirky and I think would really really suit this little unique room.
First things first, here's a quick look at the current floor we've had going on in this room. It's a kind of sheet vinyl/lino material (I never know the difference between those two!) and it's been there since we moved in and since the old roof leaked - so it's certainly seen better days.
Underneath the lino wasn't too much better either, the whole thing smelt a bit dank and I also uncovered some "unique" little features. An old gutter hole and an access panel into the floor where the kitchen plumbing enters (although I suspected this one would be here).
So rolling with the little quirks, I gave the floor a good scrub with warm soapy water and then went over with our mega-suction Karcher renovation hoover. (I've done a review on the vacuum which you can read here - but I 100% recommend if you're renovating!) This floor is obviously concrete, but luckily it's been pretty well laid - and by that I mean, it's level and flat with no horrible lumpy patches, which you quite often find with concrete floors. Having it flat and level really helps to make it a suitable base for painting!
Which Paint?
For this project, the paint I'm using is Rustoleum's Chalky Finish Floor Paint. It sadly only comes in three colours (please make more!!) but I love the finish of them - Matt but natural. They can be used on both concrete and wooden floors, although I've only ever used it on concrete personally (you can see how I used it before here).
The colours I'm using are Anthracite and Winter Grey. One is a dark modern grey, the other appears more 'white' in colour and only really looks grey when it's actually used against white.
Things You Will Need:
Pencil and Sharpener
Tape Measure
Long Ruler (I'm using a spirit level)
Smaller Ruler
Floor Paint in 2 Colours
Large Paint Brush
Very Small Tipped Paint Brush
Step 1 - Clean, Clean, Clean!
For a good durable finish on the floor, you really need to make sure the area is completely clean and free of debris. This floor is quite 'gravelly' in a way - by that I mean, there's lots of little gravel-type flecks which have dislodged from the floor. These would eventually scuff-up from the paint when walked over if they're not removed prior to painting. So for a really good finish and one that will hopefully last - it's super important the floor is completely clean and clear. Again, this is why I love the Karcher vac and it's super suction! I did also scrub it by hand prior to this as well, which helped to dislodge any further gravelly flecks that might end up moving later.
Step 2 - Base Coat
To make my life easier when it comes to doing the pattern, I decided to give the whole floor one flat coat of paint in the darker colour, Anthracite. This means I can just go back over the with the lighter colour to complete the pattern. Painting a floor does use a lot more paint than you think it will, but one coat gave a really really good coverage, so I didn't even have to go over with a second. I just used a large paint brush to apply and made sure to really work it into the floor, not applying too much. You could probably use a roller as well, but it may not get into all the crevices, if you have any.
You also need to make sure you let the floor completely dry before you start painting - I was a little impatient with one corner that was taking 'too long' to dry - and the paint didn't take too well in that spot. By that I mean, it flaked a little. I went over the next day and it was fine - so make sure you're not impatient like me ;)
Step 3 - Picking a Pattern
I'd googled painted pattered floors for inspiration and I also drew up some mock-ideas before coming up with an end design. I wanted something geometric, but easy. Too complicated and marking it out on the floor could end in one big fail. I also needed something that would be easy to repeat and I could create consistently across the room. There's lots of inspiration online for checkerboard floors, but I wanted to do something a little more quirky than that - So this was my mock-up sketch I decided to go with, which you may have seen over on my Instagram Stories.
Step 4 - Marking the Pattern Out
To make the floor look as "tile-like" as possible, I decided to grid up the floor into 33x33cm squares as this is a pretty standard size for most square tiles. I marked it out using just a tape measure, long spirit level (to be used a ruler) and a pencil - which by the way will need sharpening approximately every 2 minutes. I had intended to use a laser level as a guide to grid up the floor, but this room was far too bright for the laser to show up on the floor. So I just did it the old fashioned way with a good old tape measure. This room is pretty square so I was able to use the walls as starting point, with the lines running parallel against both walls.
After I'd gridded it up into 33x33 squares, I then went over with diagonal lines across those squares, alternating them in a zig-zag across each row. Kinda hard to explain, but it ended up looking like this..
Things to note - shuffling your bum across the pencil lines will kinda rub them out, so shuffle lightly 😉 You'll also need a smaller ruler (as opposed to the long spirit level) to get right into the corners of the room. This whole process didn't take too long, but it's definitely worth taking your time over to get it right.
Step 5 - Painting the Pattern
Once it had all been drawn out, I could then begin going on with the second colour, Winter Grey. Initially I thought I could masking tape the edges to make painting the triangles easier, but due to the contours and crevices in the floor, the masking tape didn't have 100% contact to the floor, which meant the paint bled through. So unless you have a perfectly smooth floor, I wouldn't recommend masking. Instead I decided to freehand it. I bought some new purchased paint brushes, including some super small tipped ones (actually meant for art painting) so I could get right into the corners and basically just took my time. I quite enjoy painting anyway and I'm reasonably good at it, so this wasn't too much of a chore. I also think free handing it will actually help it to look a little more natural - A bit like hand-finished tiles I suppose. Imperfect but perfect.
It did take a while, I'll admit - and you do need quite a steady hand. I broke it up into short spans over several days so that it didn't get too tedious, or my steady hand would start to get lazy. I also had to do two coats to cover over the darker grey properly, so overall it did take a few hours to achieve. I think I was averaging around 2-3minutes per each triangle to give you some idea to how long it took. However, I think SO worth it! I love the freehand look - it's obviously not 100% perfect along every line, but I think this actually adds charm and shows the floor for what it is - a little piece of hand drawn art!
And if you're wondering about I dealt with the weird gutter hole and access panel - those are now discreetly hidden as part of the pattern! I should also mention after the lighter paint, I did go back over with the darker colour to touch up any areas that didn't quite make the cut (i.e. areas my hand slipped - oops!).
And just like that - we now have one beautifully patterned almost tile-looking floor. Obviously painting a concrete floor isn't the most practical in high traffic areas, but this is a conservatory so I think it really works well here. Yes, it can be a little cold underfoot when this room is cold, but generally this room will be used for sitting down and chilling out in - not so much standing around, like you might in a kitchen. You could of course use this idea on wooden floorboards as well and the paint I've used would also be suitable for them too!
I love the floor and lighting combo and I actually get a lot of questions about these festoons - which are the Warm White Festoons from Lights4Fun (found here). I bought them AGES ago for this room, but they've pretty much been sat around waiting for less dusty-times to be used ;) I will say, I don't recommend using the little plastic hooks on the lights - they actually pop in and out of the light, so when it's warm in this room the plastic expands and the lights pop off, meaning they fall to the floor! Sadly this did lead the breakage of one bulb but the customer service at Lights4Fun was so fab that they offered a replacement and since then I've used the wire to secure the lights rather than the hooks. I still love them though, I think they work really well in here and they're also connectable, so you can add many sets together!
So that's all the updates on the conservatory for now. I've done a little video montage of the DIY which you can watch below if you'd like. I quite enjoyed this DIY and for the price it cost (all shown below!) I think it's definitely been worth it. The next job for this room will be adding some seating - so watch this space for that ;)
I'd love to know what you think to the floor - have you/would you paint a patterned floor in your home?
Costs
(rounded to the nearest pound)
New Tools Purchased:
Tiny Paint Brushes £2
Materials Used:
Paint £30
Total: £32
youtube
from Tips For Basements http://www.kezzabeth.co.uk/2017/09/diy-painting-patterned-floor.html
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Raw 4-17-17
Braun Strowman came out and again said that he wants more competition “or else”. i really hope that they have a plan to meet that demand. if not then they are wasting Braun. they have had other especially large superstars (andre, big show, etc) and they have found ways to make them very intimidating but yet not unbeatable. ideally they should have someone be able to beat him with a particular type of offense- best bet would be something new we haven't seen before. if they just have roman beat him with a series of spears and superman punches at Payback then they are stalling two careers- roman’s and Braun’s.
the first match was samoa joe vs jerico. this is actually an interesting match-up. i am not as familiar with samoa joe but wwe has done a good job building him up prior to his debut on raw by taking up his exploits on nxt. jericho has been in the wwe for a long time. he is still a great athlete and performer- even better than some of the younger/newer stars. they did a great job playing off one another. just too bad that they cut if short to have joe and seth run promos on each other. that said, both joe and seth do excellent promos. they are entertaining, compelling and believable.
anderson and gallows were supposed to go against r truth and gold dust (golden truth) but golden truth got attacked by braun. so instead they faced enzo and big cass. [side note: anderson and gallows were pretty entertaining on the WWE network original show, Road trip. ] anderson and gallows fit well as tag team heels. as for enzo and cass- they are pretty entertaining, but i cant help but think that enzo might be holding cass back. cass seems like he could make a run as a singles competitor. he is big but still very athletic. the problem is that i don't think enzo could work as a singles competitor unless they were going to use him to shake up the cruiserweight division. it just seems like cass is always having to save enzo and that enzo doesn't really match up to many of the other tag team competitors. i would hate for enzo to get lost in the shuffle as he is a very entertaining character. maybe there is a way to make enzo more effective and hold up his end a little more. as a fan i realize that enzo isn't just getting beat up- he is using skill to sells those moves.
i recognized fit finlay as one of the people that went to check on golden truth after the Braun attack. so i decided to try to find out what other wrestlers still work for WWE in other capacities. it was interesting to see that there are quite a few retired wrestlers still with wwe. most are producers or road agents, while some are trainers etc.
Miz and Maryse were up next with Miz TV. The Miz is by far my favorite heel in quite a while. he is so polished with the way he sells his promos. His new rivalry with Dean Ambrose is fantastic. not only are they both entertaining but creative came up with a great storyline- issues over a class of styles. Miz being the modern prestige hungry wrestler and Dean being the gritty fighter.
Braun attacks another wrestler (looked like Kalysto) and now we have a match set for Braun vs the Big show (who didnt like the attacks on his fellow wrestlers).
crusierweight match: TJ Perkins v Gentleman Jack Gallagher, with neville and austin aries ringside. Both TJ and gentleman jack have interesting personas and great in-ring styles. a lot of what they do is unique. things like when tj catches himself between the top and middle ropes or his head spin maneuver. it was actually pretty interesting the reaction that TJ got when he dropped gentleman jacks umbrella, shows that people are buying into gentleman jack’s character, to which the umbrella is important. i get why neville makes sense as the cruiserweight champion because he has established himself so well before they brought the cruiserweight to a more prominent position. however i am a little lost why they pushed austin aries so fast so quickly. he is pretty good with promos but i am no overly impressed with his in-ring work. he isn't bad but compared to the other cruiserweight, he just doesn't seem to stand out. yet somehow he very quickly became the number one contender and had a match at wrestle mania.
after the cruiserweight match, they showed a promo for an upcoming singles match between jeff hardy and cesaro. the promo included pictures of each competitors tag partner and i have to say that i HATE matt hardy’s new style, especially the goofy bug eyed look he has in that promo photo. Jeff came back with his same intense rocker style and next to that matt just looks ridiculous. they need to give him a make-over. my only guess on what he is doing is that he is keeping some of his style from the previous wrestling promotion what he was working for.
promo: apollo crews and titus oneil. apollo and Titus both need the same thing- a better persona. they are both very athletic and great in-ring performers. titus needs to find something that is a more natural fit so he can sell it better. the whole titus brand concept is terrible because he cant sell it and it is just goofy. as for apollo- he isn't memorable because he doesn't seem to have any persona at all.
promo- hardy and cesaro/sheamus. the hardyz are definitely best in action vs on the mic. in particular matt doesn't even seem to be able to say certain words-- its LADDERS. I'm not being hard on mat because i don't like him. in fact i am tough on him because i think that he can be so much better. they just need to polish him up a bit. regarding cesaro and sheamus- i have to admit that i didnt get them as a tag team when they first got together but now i think they are a great team. i love that they came out with matching outfits at wrestlemania and continue to use that gear. they also play off each other well- cesaro the gentleman who helps soften some of sheamus’s rough edges.
number 1 contenders fatal 4-way match mickie james, alexa bliss, sasha banks & via jax-- this is an interesting match-up. fatal 4ways are great because they opportunities to more superstars and also provide more action & storyline options. for instance, alexa bliss wins by pinning sasha but only because sasha had been taken out just prior to that by nia jax. so even though alexa wins it still leaves it open that sasha could be able to beat her 1:1. they didnt really do it this match, but one things i like about the larger women’s matches is that they typically will add moves that include more than two competitors, like a power bomb- suplex combo. that is very impressive.
kurt hawkins-- i don't get his persona, his get-up...really anything about him. then they have him face finn balor who is a top superstar- why?! my best guess is that they are trying to get finn back on tv but want to warm him up to things after his injury. cory refers to finn as “james deam cool, john wayne tough”. they really do come up with some cool creative concepts on wwe.
they showed actor dule hill in the audience then showed a clip of his new movie. i wish that i could attend a wwe event for work, lol.
promo: jerico. jerico is so great on the mic because he commits fully and also does a great job infusing comedy into his promos. i love when he calls the interviewer by the wrong name. haha and then when he uses alliteration just to be goofy- “weird wandering wayfarer”.
promo: bray wyatt. im not a fan of bray wyatt. i get what they are going for with the “eater of worlds” idea. i just don't think he portrays that effectively. for all his talk, he doesn't come across as intimidating and he isn't that spectacular in the ring. his finisher, sister abigail, is pretty lame looking to me. that is one of those moves that i would like to have done to me, just to see what it is really like. maybe its more effective than it looks. all that said- the house of horrors match sounds interesting. I'm looking forward to see what they come up with for that.
promo: alicia fox, dana brooks & emma. alicia fox is just annoying. dana and emma though should make an interesting rivalry. I'm looking forward to seeing a match between the two of them.
the next match was jeff hardy v cesaro. i love that they put this match together. not only do they have different styles (jeff the high flyer, and cesaro an athetlic strong man) but they are also two faces. this is a rivalry to show off skill vs a rivalry of face v heel. i think they missed an opportunity. although i typically think that cesura’s swing isn't a great move, it would have been cool to have jeff swing out of it or up into another move. also it wasn't great that you could clearly see cesaro move into position for jeff’s moves. that just goes to show that since you don't pick up on that often, how well superstars do to setup moves so well typically. what was really great about the match was that they didn't mess it up with tag partner interference. they even ended the match with handshakes. you don't see that often and it was a great way to keep the face v face theme.
while getting ready for the braun v big show match, michael cole mentioned that david ortungo was out making a movie. i didn't even notice he was missing and honestly hope he doesn't come back. he really just got in the way with his commentary.
the braun v big show match was really great. they did a lot of moves that you wouldn't see when they are against other superstars. they took a body slam, suplex, choke slam & power slam. they even broke the ring with a superplex and sent the ref flying. it was a really good main event.
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