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toothanddraw · 2 years

Text

A Song for Saprotrophs

@inklings-challenge

I did it. I dusted off the old short story format and wrote it. I hope you like it (a little.) It’s rushed too, so I want to go back and refine it sometime. I enjoyed learning about Chesterton during the challenge.

Team Chesterton

Category: Intrusive Fantasy

Imagery: Tree, Bread

Word Count: 2,040

“Stop! Don’t eat that.”

My instructor told me that as I washed the bite of sandwich down.

Apparently, the bread was found to be moldy. I couldn’t taste it. The team of trainers apologized profusely, and the kitchen staff rolled out some pre-dinner stuffed shells. Their embarrassment charged the air and what could I say? That’s something I didn’t want to learn. It’s not as if I could tell the difference myself.

Fisher didn’t know this, he didn’t care.

The dog sat up, then returned to the ground, thumping his tail when the trainers passed again. I turned to him and could tell through the blurry bubble of vision I had left that he was a black lab, not a yellow.

I had known him for 10 days. He was the best thing that happened to me post-forty. Every night, still angry about what was taken away: “Thank you for the dog. Thank you for the dog!”

I set my napkin down and took hold of the harness handle and heard him shift to look up at me expectantly. That’s magic.

Enough to forget about some moldy bread that I couldn’t even taste. At least they told us. This class was legally blind, we probably wouldn’t have known.

I think I was the only one to eat it. I think. I didn’t hear anyone complain about their stomach issues later. And I kept quiet about mine. I’ll spare you. Still, a little bit of mold shouldn’t have done that.

Fisher rested his head on my back as I sprawled on the bed in the student’s quarters.

He technically wasn’t allowed on the bed. But I figured off-duty is off-duty.

I would have told someone, I really would have, if the full effects of what I ate had shown up in the last two weeks I stayed at the school.

But Fisher and I were trained, bonded, and gone months before the side-effects kicked in.

Mold is a type of fungus. I’m sorry if you already knew that. I’m not a mycologist, I’m a credit analyst. Some molds are good. Penicillin is a type of mold. Some molds will kill you. I wasn’t dead yet, months later, so that was good news. I hadn’t even thought of the bread until I took a hike with Fisher.

It was a warm late September afternoon and the wide fire roads through the forest made a windpipe for trees, still full of leaves. I loved these woods. I would have been here sooner but there’s a lot of pressure around going back to where you used to go with someone you loved.

It wasn’t half a mile in when I began to smell a lot of rich food. Someone must have been having a banquet of a picnic. The savory smells hit first, like tender protein, fall-apart bird meat. Buttery smells mixed in: roasted walnuts, oliveoil dripping off of bread. I honed in on it. It was curiously strong, it must have been right off the trail.

But when I got up to it, from what I could tell, it was a tree. Fisher stood at the ready while I knelt down and felt around the base. The smell was so intense I had an absurd picture of an offering upon silver platter on the ground.

A mushroom met my hand. One of those blurry yellow-brown ones. My stomach growled.

Fisher sniffed the cap out of polite curiosity but didn’t go to eat it. No. I was the one salivating. Like a crazy person.

Fisher licked my arm.

I took the mushrooms home with me, walking back past other delicious smells.

I had mangled them so it was hard to get an ID on them. Especially with text-to-audio descriptions of pictures. And the feeling of hunger I had towards them did not abate.

I had to know what they tasted like. Like a dumb kid on the playground. I didn’t stop at a taste. Or a bite. They were so tender and delicate.

I wondered after they were gone if I was having some kind of grief-induced psychosis by taking and eating something from the forest park. I panicked the rest of the night, waiting for symptoms of mushroom poisoning to manifest. All the while wondering. Apologizing for being so stupid.

A week later I still felt fine. A week after that, the singing started.

A hum. A pleasing hum in my head as I walked into the bank where Fisher’s celebrity status had not lost any shine. I annoyed everyone else, asking if someone was singing. After work, it kept up, on and off. It was never too loud and I could ignore it. I scheduled a physical.

And then it made contact.

Just impressions. Like “I’m here.” “Do you know I’m here?” “Hello.” And repeatedly: “We need to find the trees. We need to find the trees.” All melodic. No words as people would define it, though they translated easily enough.

I know what you’re thinking. I ate some mold and some mushrooms and now I was hearing things. But if I was tripping out, it was rather disappointing. I used to have vision. If all of this was a side-effect of a hallucinogen, shouldn’t my brain be treating me to colors and details?

Distinctly, I remember wrapping my arms around Fisher in my apartment and trying to will away my anxiety about it. I reminded myself that I was going to see the doctor next week. I could make it until them, no matter what music my head was playing.

Fisher licked my arm.

And the voices surged in wonderment. A curiosity that was distinctly not mine rang through my head. As if it realized all of a sudden, what a joy it was to hold a dog. “We need to tell the trees!” Undercutting that was a sudden jealousy that was mine. A love outside my own for my companion. My eyes. Fisher.

You need to understand, there was little to no confusion about which thoughts were mine and which ones were the intrusive others. They were very happy to be in my head.

I was a nervous wreck. I called out sick.

…

I didn’t want to return to the forest park. The voices did. They wanted trees.

“What are you going to DO to me?” I shouted, out loud, in my empty apartment. I slid down the wall to the floor and sobbed, fully aware that I needed serious help, terrified of the implications.

An impression came. No words. Of pressure. Just below the surface of the skin across my shoulders and chest. There was a confusion. A profound befuddlement, even an embarrassment that was not mine. The voices quieted to a thoughtful stirring. It shocked me out of my terror.

In the middle of the night, I woke. No fear stained my thoughts yet. In the split second of calm came a deliberate question to me: “Are you earth?”

In my AC, in the dark, on the polyester sheets, I answered: “No.”

A different strain of music. Another question: “Are you bread?”

“No!”

Fisher sneezed incredulously.

The voices puzzled and burbled in my brain.

The good thing about being very tired was that sometimes, it beats the feeling of fear. “Please shut up. Let me sleep.”

For some reason that worked.

...

“We need to tell the trees.” The voices told me.

“You have a system of mycelium beneath the surface of your skin.” The doctor told me.

She was a blurry, kind-sounding woman. She seemed way too eager about this. “There’s a powdery mildew coming off of your inside-elbows. We’ll see what the lab has to say about the samples. I’ve never seen this before in my life or studies… But you’re otherwise healthy!”

And then she prescribed me some antifungal cream and pills. She went on to explain that fungal infections happen. They just didn’t happen quite like this.

She didn’t know about the voices.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I would pick up my medication from the pharmacy and stop this strangeness.

Tomorrow was the day, too. The bad one on the calendar. Maybe it meant something that all of this was happening now. I knew what I had to do.

“Fisher,” I told him, “If you see me reach for anything I’m not supposed to eat tomorrow, bite my hand off.”

His tail thumped against the ground.

He never barked, that one.

The voices in my head, the music of the mold and mycelia, seemed less a conversation to themselves and more of a performance that night.

I itched the inside my arm as I listened. The singing changed, different voices harmonizing. Rounds, layers of lovely thoughts and ideas spun out, intending that I should listen. Intending that I should find their music beautiful.

“It is.” I told them finally. “It’s really good. Good singing.”

…

I was back at the forest park. Once again, delicious food-like smells were everywhere. But now I knew better. I wasn’t taking on anymore voices. I had picked up my prescription earlier that morning and would work to set things right after my hike.

Fisher led me down the fire road.

“I feel like I’m still wandering alone in the dark sometimes,” I told Fisher. “Even with you. Even if I could see.”

The singing was less complicated at the moment, more direct now. Almost like concrete words. Just happy to be here, in contrast to me. It was tempting just to float on whatever the fungi were feeling, without my baggage.

I found a spot I felt was about right and sat down, my back against an ample, blurry hickory. “Alright. You’re at the trees. What do you want?”

To my surprise, I felt a jolt through my hand as I settled myself on the ground. A transmission. A call.

And immediately, a response back through the base of the trunk.

I caught recognition. I placed both palms flat against the ground and then I listened.

So many voices. Distinct and mature. It was like I had stepped inside a marble hall with a thousand giants conferring.

It was them. The forest. Tall complex singing and ideas in the trees and the fungus (which had their own voices and acted as translators and networkers between the trees.)

I listened in as I was announced and appraised with curiosity and a tiny sense of shame. I spoke. And as I responded, it felt like a tribunal, I just wasn’t sure who for.

“Animal, animal. This is an animal,” the forest decided. Many voices nodding along.

And from me: “They are bread. They are ground,” they insisted. “Where else would we be?”

“What is this? Who are you?”

And they explained. I listened through the lives of the great and simple. The trees, the co-operation. The competition of plants and fungus. All the while, they spoke. They traded information. And I got the impression: I was an ambassador. Not just a devourer of plants and other animals. I had a voice to present to them and a translator that I took in with that cursed moldy sandwich bite.

“You came after! Yours is a different line. A kingdom of creation we have not heard from. A mover. A killer and a die-er. Welcome! How strange and wonderful your voice.”

“It has to stop,” I pleaded. “I regret it. I need to make it right.”

The fungus that I had growing in me felt fear for the first time.

I removed my hands from the ground, like shutting the door on the council chamber. I took out my medication.

The voices within me sang. “They said we had no earth. They said we had no bread. (We told them about the dog.) They said we grew on the body of higher voice. Have we done wrong?”

I had never heard them so distinctly before. They had grown.

“I’m sorry. You can’t stay here.”

“Please! We need to break bread. We need to break ground. We need something to eat or we’ll die!”

“Even if I die?”

At this, Fisher sought my face to kiss.

The voices held their silence. I held my breath. I understood.

#inklingschallenge #team chesterton #genre: intrusive fantasy #imagery: bread #imagery: tree #story: complete #Short Story

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aobindia2 · 4 years

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Sales Outsourcing Company in India believes in mixing Digital sales with On-field sales – Part 1

There is no doubt that these are unprecedented times, and while my grandmother might have remembered the ‘Spanish Flu’, living through a pandemic like this is a new and scary experience. However, if we look at the impact of SARS on consumer behaviour in China and AP (Asia Pacific Region), then we can get an inkling of what might happen post-COVID.

eCommerce has been growing quickly and steadily for the last 10 to 15 years as the data from Statistics shows. Still, I believe one of the significant impacts of COVID-19 will be to accelerate that acceptance and growth. The sales outsourcing company in India, AOB India, looks at the advancing opportunities in the e-Commerce section. This sales outsourcing agency had kept the businesses alive and running even at the time of lockdown. The team of optimistic and highly motivated experts in the field of sales and marketing believes in turning the crisis into an opportunity. As we see new groups of people being introduced to doing new things online that they may not have considered everything previously, from working from home to online gym sessions to grocery click and collect – and finding that they like the experience, we believe that innovative strategies can help any industry grow in the post-COVID era.

Sales is important to keep any business running. But every business has to step into digital sales along with the outbound propaganda in order to succeed. So how should a business owner approach the transition online?

To me, the questions fall into three areas needed for success:

1. Business Strategy – Why am I doing this?

2. The Technology – What platforms and technology are needed?

3. Driving the Business – How do I get the customers I need to be successful?

For now, let us look at the strategy question.

The Business Strategy – How Will You Compete?

As Jack Welch famously said, ‘If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.'

Just because you built a website, customers will not just come and buy from it – if only things were that simple and if you are thinking about pivoting towards eCommerce as a short term fix, my best advice is don’t do it.

eCommerce is a strategic shift of behaviour. So think about it that way. The old school sales strategies can guarantee sales. AOB India has the largest sales force in India. The sales outsourcing company has delivered successful retail sales to 100s of companies. A touch of Traditional retail sales will help your business recover post lockdown. But your customers will have different expectations, and what gave you a competitive advantage in the past may no longer be appropriate. Conventional benefits like geographic location or pricing are much harder to sustain online than in the real world.

Pricing is very transparent (and expected to be) online. So if your business model is all about hidden discounts or rebates, you might be in trouble. Being the cheapest is not always desirable or necessary, but you do need to be competitive. You need to think differently about what you bring to the table that will encourage people to buy from you. If you are an expert in sourcing niche products, that is good. If you can use your expertise to help people make the right choices, that is great because often the problem online is too much choice and knowing whom to trust. If you provide a niche or specialized product, then even better. This is the channel for you.

Local can still be a good reason to differentiate, but that does limit the audience you are addressing. Your store must talk about who you are as a brand or retailer, what your mission is, what you believe in, and why people should buy from you. If you can’t articulate this, then you will be at a disadvantage. Your thinking needs to change; not to where am I located in terms of footfall but who is my audience, what are the problems I can solve for them, and how do I connect to them digitally.

To compete, you must also harness the two-way nature of sales. Online gives you a different (and sometimes deeper) connection to your customers – A means to connect with them digitally and to understand what they are looking for and what solutions you can provide for them. The best online merchants know that this is a two-way street and use their connected customers to guide their direction and decisions in a way that is much more difficult to do in the bricks and mortar world. Your customer list and the consent you have collected to engage that audience is a real measure of the value of your business into the future. Itis important to focus on this in your strategy because it is the only way to counter the reduced loyalty people generally feel online and the fact that there is a world of competition only a click away.

The world is not going to be completely online – an active offline presence can support your Bricks and Mortar store or your sales team in the field. The sales outsourcing company, AOB India, has been implementing innovative strategies for every business to connect the customers and grow. The sales outsourcing company is making sure everyone is on a standard set of incentives, and pricing is transparent in all channels and goes a long way to solving any concerns. Multi-channel works well today.

How Can I Help, Sir?

No successful salesperson ever started a conversation in a shop with – What can I sell you? People want help, and they will return to the brands, owners, and retailers that help them the most. The difference in eCommerce is that your digital assets and content are what will help your customers now, along with your sales assistants. You have to focus on the problems you solve and the needs you satisfy for your customers and how to do that digitally.

If you are selling products, you need great product descriptions, features, but also benefits. Marketing communications needs to be revised and prepared again. If you have content showing the product in use, that’s great. If you don’t, consider creating it for your top 20 products.

There are no ifs, buts, or maybes with this. Nothing will sabotage your online eCommerce business quicker than poor product images and descriptions. You, as the business owner, must think about how your team will provide this content and, by the way, increasingly that should be in video format. This in turn shall also help your field sales force, to interact with the customers and showcase your brand while presenting their pitch.

Business Strategy – The Team

First and foremost, online is still a business. So all of the fundamental business skills around operations, finance, customer service, etc. remain the same, but there are some new ones you need.

It certainly helps to have access to someone who has broad experience in the line of both online and offline sales. Who can help you put all the pieces together? A highly focused, trained, seasoned sales outsourcing agency will be able to help you with planning, drafting marketing communication w.r.t. the sales point of view. Also, their expertise can help you develop an online presence that provides an impressive customer experience. Most importantly, by outsourcing the scope of work to a trusted partner can not only save your precious time but also save you from unnecessary heavy expenses.

As you grow, you can undoubtedly bring specific skills to your outsourced sales team. In the beginning, you probably should engage some consulting help to build the broader roadmap and plan in how you are going to grow and sustain the business.

Business Strategy – The Economics of Your New Business

Analytics brings me neatly to the final leg of your business strategy. You have to understand the new economics of what you are doing. It used to be the case that people believed that you got a lower price on the internet because businesses did not have all the traditional costs of real estate, staff assistants, or multiple partner margins. While that is partly true, there are a whole set of other expenses you need to consider - Logistics/delivery, returns, payments and charge-backs, digital infrastructure costs, and, most importantly, demand generation and marketing costs. Outsourcing the entire sales process protects you from the high expenses.

AOB India has partnered with 100s of companies and has a target-oriented sales outsourcing process. The sales outsourcing company builds out a proper financial plan that accounts for these elements before you start. They make sure that you understand the margins behind each product and how that allows you to scale your marketing correctly.

I believe that almost every business needs to plan for at least 15-20% of its revenue to come from Online sources and the rest from the field sales. The amalgamation of digital sales coupled with on-field sales can help you grow successfully.

Start small and slow and grow from there – just make sure you have considered the road ahead.

#sales outsourcing #Sales Outsourcing Company #sales outsourcing companies in India #Sales Outsourcing Agency

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wsiebizsolutions · 4 years

Text

A Guide to Getting Online: Part One – Business Strategy

Summary: If you are considering getting started with eCommerce during COVID-19, this first part of our three-part blog series will help you get started.

There is no doubt that these are unprecedented times, and while my grandmother might have remembered the ‘Spanish Flu’ living through a pandemic like this is a new and scary experience. However, if we look at the impact of SARS on consumer behavior in China and AP, then we can get an inkling of what might happen post-COVID 19 – SARS catapulted China forward to be the leading online economy.

eCommerce has been growing quickly and steadily for the last 10 to 15 years as the data from Statistica shows. Still, I believe one of the significant impacts of COVID-19 will be to accelerate that acceptance and growth. We see new groups of people being introduced to doing new things online that they may not have considered everything previously from working from home to online gym sessions to grocery click and collect – and finding that they like the experience.

So how should a business owner approach the transition online?

To me, the questions fall into three areas needed for success:

Business Strategy – Why am I doing this?

The Technology – What platforms and technology are needed?

Driving the Business – How do I get the traffic (customers) I need to be successful?

I’ll return to the 2nd and 3rd areas in later posts, but for now, let us look at the strategy question.

The Business Strategy – How Will You Compete?

As Jack Welch famously said, ‘If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.’

Just because you build a website, customers will not just come and buy from it – if only things were that simple and if you are thinking about pivoting towards eCommerce as a short term fix, my best advice is don’t do it.

eCommerce is a strategic shift of behavior, so think about it that way. Traditional retail will recover, but your customers will have different expectations, and what gave you a competitive advantage in the past may no longer be accurate. Conventional benefits like geographic location or pricing are much harder to sustain online than in the real world.

Pricing is very transparent (and expected to be) online, so if your business model is all about hidden discounts or rebates, you might be in trouble. Being the cheapest is not always desirable or necessary, but you do need to be competitive. You need to think differently about what you bring to the table that will encourage people to buy from you if you are an expert in sourcing niche products that is good. If you can use your expertise to help people make the right choices, that is great because often the problem online is too much choice and knowing who to trust. If you provide a niche or specialized product, then even better-this is the channel for you.

Local can still be a good reason to differentiate, but that does limit the audience you are addressing. Your store must talk about who you are as a brand or retailer, what your mission is, what you believe in, and why people should buy from you. If you can’t articulate this, then you will be at a disadvantage. Your thinking needs to change not to where am I located in terms of footfall but who is my audience, what are the problems I can solve for them, and how do I connect to them digitally.

To compete, you must also harness the two-way nature of the Web. Online gives you a different (and sometimes deeper) connection to your customers. A means to connect with them digitally and to understand what they are looking for and what solutions you can provide for them. The best online merchants know that this is a two-way street and use their connected customers to guide their direction and decisions in a way that is much more difficult to do in the bricks and mortar world. Your customer list and the consent you have collected to engage that audience is a real measure of the value of your business into the future. This is important to focus on this in your strategy because it is the only way to counter the reduced loyalty people generally feel online and the fact that there is a world of competition only a click away.

The world is not going to be completely online – so how does your online presence support your Bricks and Mortar store or your sales team in the field? This can be a real concern for businesses and brands. My experience is making sure everyone is in on a standard set of incentives, and pricing is transparent in all channels goes a long way to solving any concerns. Multi-channel works well today.

How Can I Help, Sir?

No successful salesperson ever started a conversation in a shop with – What can I sell you? People want help, and they will return to the brands, owners, and retailers that help them the most. The difference in eCommerce is that your digital assets and content are what will help your customers now, not your sales assistants. You have to focus on the problems you solve and the needs you satisfy for your customers and how to do that digitally.

So whether you like it or not, you are now in the content business – for many, this is a new skill set that needs to learned or acquired.

If you are selling products, you need great product descriptions, features, but also benefits. If you have content showing the product in use, that’s great. If you don’t, consider creating it for your top 20 products. There are no ifs, buts, or maybes with this. Nothing will sabotage your online eCommerce business quicker than poor product images and descriptions. You, as the business owner, must think about how your team will provide this content and, by the way, increasingly that should be in video format. Some stores report that conversion rate (the ratio of people who purchase a product) can increase by 174% if they watch a product video. I guess maybe those late-night TV shopping channels did sell some stuff!

Business Strategy – The Team

First and foremost, online is still a business, so all of the fundamental business skills around operations, finance, customer service, etc. remain the same, but there are some new ones you need.

It certainly helps to have access to someone who has broad digital experience. Who can help you put all the pieces together? Just like you don’t expect your shopfitter to be an expert in marketing, your web developer may not be the right person to help you drive the business forward. (Don’t get me wrong your web developer is a crucial member of the team – just don’t ask them to do things that are outside their skill range) A highly focused SEO agency will not be able to help with customer proposition or email communications, for example. As you grow, you can undoubtedly bring specific skills to your team. In the beginning, you probably should engage some consulting help to build the broader roadmap and plan in how you are going to grow and sustain the business. You do need as a core skill a Marketeer or merchandiser who understands your business but don’t expect them to be able to put together and execute the broad range of tactics needed to make this a success.

Analytics and understanding your data will be crucial to success. You can outsource in the beginning to have it set up correctly, but you can not be successful without understanding your data and what it is telling you. So start learning on the job or working with someone that can help you find your feet quickly.

Business Strategy – The Economics of Your New Business

Analytics brings me neatly to the final leg of your business strategy. You have to understand the new economics of what you are doing. It used to be the case that people believed that you got a lower price on the internet because businesses did not have all the traditional costs of real estate, staff assistants, or multiple partner margins. While that is partly true, there are a whole set of other expenses you need to consider, logistics/delivery, returns, payments and charge-backs, digital infrastructure costs, and, most importantly, demand generation and marketing costs.

While you may not be paying high street rents and rates for your online store, you are going to have to re-invest a significant proportion of your online revenue into generating quality and converting traffic. So make sure you build out a proper financial plan and P&L that accounts for these elements before you start. Make sure you understand the margins behind each product and how that allows you to scale your marketing correctly. Nothing worse than a nasty financial surprise.

Conclusion

I believe that almost every business needs to plan for at least 15-20% of its revenue to come from Online sources as you simply cannot concede that space to your competition anymore. COVID simply increases the imperative to do this.

But there is no magic here. Start by articulating your overall business strategy, how you will compete, how you will build the right team around you for success, and how to finance this correctly. You can start small and slow and grow from there – just make sure you have considered the road ahead.

WSI was founded in 1995 and is an innovative digital marketing agency with offices in over 80 countries. We’ve spent over 20 years helping more than 100,000 companies and large global brands unlock the full potential of their business by leveraging the Internet and its many unrecognized opportunities. We’d be happy to help do the same for you and consult on your digital marketing strategy. Simply give me a call or email me at [email protected] to learn more.

The post A Guide to Getting Online: Part One – Business Strategy appeared first on WSI eBiz Solutions.

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mtg-weekly-recap · 7 years

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MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap: April 17th

202: There’s Something About Nissa (04.13.17) | Durdling Around

Welcome to this week’s subtly blue-mana infused edition! So many things to look at this week, including a look at the spoilers for Amonkhet, more of the Gods and the Planeswalkers that love them, this week’s Magic Story, “The Writing on the Wall,” as well as a minor revision that echoed loudly. And as always there has been some great fan-art from many wonderful artists. Join us under in the desert paradise that is this issue of the Magic: the Gathering Weekly Tumblr Recap.

1. Spoilers for Choice

Forsake the Worldly | Original MTG art by @steveargyle

Wow! The second and final week of Amonkhet spoilers came upon us like a sandstorm. The Amonkhetu pantheon of deities has been filled out with cards for Oketra, Rhonas and Bontu showing us that not all god’s combat restrictions were created equal. Oketra and Rhonas, who have an interest in creatures being present, or simply being big seem to promote a very safe and straightforward playstyle, as opposed to having to have creatures around to kill, or sandbagging 7 cards in your hand, or simply going all out with no cards in hand to respond to your opponent. It remains to be seen if the unusual play styles encouraged by the Grixis gods.

Speaking of Gods, and the Planeswalkers who love them, Nissa, Steward of Elements was also unveiled and was full of surprises. Firstly, a new Nissa planeswalker so soon after her Kaladesh and Planeswalker deck iterations. Secondly she had been shifted to a Green-Blue casting cost, something that had been slowly and subtly infusing her appearances in the story. Finally, Nissa, Steward of Elements marks the first planeswalker card with X in its cost ever! This has the minds of constructed brewers from Standard to Commander percolating with ways to take advantage of this ability.

Gods of Amonkhet | Original MTG art by Chase Stone

With the full spoiler unveiled on Friday, we have an inkling of understanding of the limited archetypes that Amonkhet draft and sealed will offer. From the overwhelmingly grinding value of White and Blue’s embalm themes, to Red and White’s aggressive, go-wide with team pumping effects, it remains to be seen how the speed of the format will play, although signs point in the general direction of a slower format.

As with every time new toys are given to the brew-masters and jank-junkies, new combos and archetypes float around Tumblr, either for magical-christmas-land value that kills on turn 3, or the flavor absurdity of a Heart-Piercer Manticore flinging an Aradara Express to the face of an opponent that it also is driving. (thanks to @transreliquat for that amazing visual)

— Liam W, @coincidencetheories

2. Standard Shakeup?

Gideon of the Trials | Original MtG art by Izzy

Amonkhet is in a fantastic position to shake up Standard, providing competent answers to the two menaces of Standard: Mardu Vehicles, and Saheeli combo.

Gideon may have shouldered a ballista into rubble, but Red has the real automotive issues in Amonkhet! Harsh Mentor is a callback to red’s punisher effects of olde, and punishes your opponent for turning their cars on. By force is a fantastic way to eliminate their vehicles, and scales magnificently.

Saheeli cat didn’t get as many options, but the one answer we got for it is absolute. Trespasser’s curse forbids the combo from even going off for just 2 mana. Alternatively, Haze of Pollen can stop it for a turn, and give you an extra turn to take the combo apart.

– Nick D, @nick-dowdle-jeskai-judicator

2. This Week’s Magic Story Review

The Writing on the Wall by Alison Luhrs

Foul Orchard | Original MTG art by Mark Poole

As the Second Sun inches its way closer to the horns of Bolas on the horizon, the Gatewatch try to make sense of the plane. When we begin the third installment of the Amonkhet story, Nissa has a dream in which she communicates with the soul on the plane. It’s sick, corrupted and crying out for help.

Nissa wakes Chandra up and the two take a walk outside to try and make sense of the city of Naktamun. Everyone seems very young and always training. They encounter Hapatra, who appears to be in her mid 30’s and is the oldest person they’ve seen so far.

Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons | Original MTG art by Tyler Jacobson

One of the most interesting things they discover are pictoglyphs on an older building. These pictoglyphs tell of the gods of Amonkhet, but instead of the five we know, there are eight gods. Above the glyphs of the eight gods is a more recently made carving of Bolas’s horns. When Nissa confronts Oketra about this, the god’s reaction is possibly one of the scariest things from this storyline so far: “the cat’s ears twitch back in a moment of fleeting, subconscious fear.” When a god is afraid, things are very wrong.

There’s much more in this story. In a bit there’s a whole section about Nissa/Chandra and the post-publication edit one of their interactions received. But there’s also more to be learned about Amonkhetu sarcophagi. For the world building fans among us, this was a super interesting story, where we are left with more questions than we started. Keep your eyes open for hints in artwork and flavour texts. By next wednesday I hope we get some more revelations about Amonkhet’s history.

— Alma V, @hopelessly-vorthosian

3. Gruul-Gate (Chandra x Nissa Discourse)

Trash | Art by @inudono

Shortly after the release of the Magic Story on Wednesday, some Tumblr users noticed that the there was some changes to story. The changes were only a few sentences, but it was a conversation between Nissa and Chandra. Originally, the context in the story appeared to hint that Chandra had romantic feelings towards Nissa, but after the second version went up those implied feelings were hard to detect.

The Community responded with confusion at first. @voiceofallmtg was one of the first blogs to make a post about the change, even showing screenshots of the edit. Others, like @suddenlycomics did not want to express panic until there was an official statement from Wizards. All in all, there was a lot of discussion throughout the Community about the edit in the Magic Story. Others, like @bace-jeleren did express mild frustration, but, like the rest of the Community, wanted to hear what Wizards would say.

Comparison of the two versions, Original on the left, final/updated version on the right | Picture by @bachelor-biomancer

Other discussions that occurred within the Community were about why the Community was even upset about a change in the story. Some had confusion, thinking that the Tumblr users who ship Nissa and Chandra together were disappointed that their pairing wasn’t canon. In reality, it was about representation and some of the Commuity felt cheated that their possible representation was ripped from them with the edits in the Story. Some Tumblr users, like @the-foxwolf, said that the edit is not as big a deal as the Community was expressing becuase the edit changes nothing about the context of the story.

Later in the day there was an official response from @wizardsmagic that helped to alleviate the confusion and frustration about the edit. Wizards stated that there are multiple versions of Magic Stories during the editing process, and that an earlier version was uploaded by mistake and there was no intent to change the context of the conversation. There was relief from the Community that that it was simply a mistake and it remained true to authorial intent. @flavoracle even expressed that is was a “perfectly reasonable explanation.”

Others however, were still upset about the edit in the story, because it still showed that the hints at LGBT+ representation in the Gatewatch is harder to detect in the new version then it was in the older one. Tumblr user @commandtower-solring-go, who asked the question that got the official response from Wizard, made a post , expressing their disappoint at the cuts, because it leaves out details and that “ the original really does a good job to normalise the idea of non-straight relationships in the multiverse.” All in all, there were a lot of mixed emotions from the Community in regard to the Magic Story change.

What do you, the Community, think? Do you like the original version or the new version better? Do you think there is a change in context, or is the intent of the conversation still there?

— Chelsea W, @chelsea-beleren-vess

4. When It Hits the Fan-Art

Gideon Seeking | Original art by @oddsbod

It’s painting cats and dogs this week! With all the danger and menace and thrilling action on Amonkhet and the Trials of the Gods, @jakaltimes took on a more sedate subject, the Sacred Cat and the Flameblade Adept. On a similar theme, @sticksandsharks gives an interpretation of Hazoret and Oketra. and from this week’s Magic Story, The Writing on the Wall, @hirafel gives us a short animation of the unexpected breakfast visitor,

The Gatewatch feature heavily this week, with offerings such as @erybiadraws‘s Happy Gideon, @sketchydoodles‘s Amonkhet Nissa, Jace by @0x00fj and a cheeky Liliana, by @circlesmadeofglass

Finally for the retro crowd, we have a series of pixel-art masterpieces from @the-panther4444, looking either like an authentic early 90s dungeon crawler, or possibly MTGO’s latest graphics update.

— Liam W, @coincidencetheories

5. Quoth the RavenMan

(Source) | @dragons-suck

Late Sunday evening found the Community engaged in a long discussion about the identity of the Raven Man. Naturally, this led to some top-quality memeage. Here is a collection of some of the memes that were created:

Reblog if you think the guy on the left is also the guy on the right

@chelsea-beleren-vess

Is the Raven Man secretly a 1/1 trampler for G?

@kideon

My Raven Man theory, by Chanda-Nalaar

@chandra-nalaar

If anyone here is *not* the Raven Man, please raise your hand.

@phyrexian-without-a-cause

— Compiled by Chelsea W, @chelsea-beleren-vess

5. Manic Scribes

Manic Scribe | Original MTG Art by Matt Stewart

This week, for those looking to hide from all the spoiler seasons mania, here are some articles from around the web that you don’t have to frantically be refreshing pages to see if they’re superseded by the latest new reveal! Top 10 Limited Formats by Mike Sigrist, (ChannelFireball.com) Graveborn Muse: Mind-Altering Substances by Daryl Bockett @gathering-magic examines cards that subtly (or sometimes not so subtly) mess with how the game is played

Why Aren’t There More Women Playing Magic by @not-another-mtg-fanblog

Kolaghan’s Commander by Ryan Sainio @hipstersofthecoast offers some reasons why you might actually play Dragonlord Kolaghan in Commander The Trials of Amonkhet Prerelease by Inkwell Looter, (Magic.wizards.com)

— Compiled by Liam W, @coincidencetheories

…and finally: An Historic Absence?

@askkrenko makes the point that with the absence of Goblins in Innistrad, Kaladesh and Amonkhet, the last Standard legal goblins were released in Oath of the Gatewatch. While there have been absences of varying length before, the regularity of goblins in the core set means that Goblins have always been in standard even before standard was a format (looking retroactively). However, if the currently unknown plane that follows the Hour of Devastation, it is entirely possible that we will have the first Goblin-less standard in Magic history. Perhaps we will find out when announcement day comes in June, perhaps we will remain in suspense…

Thank you again for reading this week’s issue of the MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap. Hope to see you next week!

Interested in contributing to the Recap? Want to keep track of notable posts and trends throughout the MTG community on a given week? Or write a short blurb on a specific topic? Do you just want to make us aware of one specific topic or post? Please PM our main editor @the-burnished-hart or any of our staff writers!

#mtg #mtgwtr #mtg weekly tumblr recap #weekly tumblr recap #amonkhet #amonkhetu gods #oketra #kefnet #bontu #hazoret #rhonas #gideon #liliana #chandra #nissa #gatewatch #mtgfanart #mtg fanart #gruul-gate

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