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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Sure, I’m aware of idiots on the internet, but if we tried to avoid idiots on the site we wouldn’t federate with anyone. Lemmy.world is specifically billed as a “generic Lemmy server for everyone to use,” I want the gates to be open fairly wide, that’s why I’m here. Not for everyone, like I’m glad we defederated with exploding heads, but we still gave them a shot first and there was at least some more community discussion on it before that decision was made. That’s what would make me feel a lot better about this.







  • I’m gonna come out and say, even with the statement, I’m not in favor of preemptive defederation like this.

    I know the admins of an instance are hosting us basically out of the goodness of their own hearts, and I appreciate that. And I understand they can do whatever they want, and we can move to a different instance if we want. I get it.

    But I joined .world because I wanted a neutral instance that would connect with pretty much everyone unless they were particularly problematic. Could hexbear be particularly problematic? Sure, maybe. But I think there’s a big difference between defederating in response to a problem and defederating in anticipation of a potential problem, especially since the users aren’t given a chance to discuss it. Like, I know we’re not technically entitled to give our input if we’re not admins, but I think it would be nice, y’know?

    If it was just some small instance of trolls that’s one thing, but hexbear is actually quite a big instance, so this is a very impactful decision. I don’t like it being made preemptively behind the scenes like this.



  • It’s an interesting read to see what they think people thought of the sets, and it’s good to see that some of the issues I had with sets and opinions I shared are getting to them. But there’s not a ton here that we don’t already know, especially if you’re active in MTG communities already. Like when he says

    The game has plenty of legendary creatures, so why did we turn what was the most unique group of characters into something more mundane?

    I dunno, why did you? Seems like that’s a question that could have been discussed, but it wasn’t really.






  • L’oreal Sændars is a 16th level Wood Elf with levels in Eldritch Knight Fighter and Bladesinger Wizard. He specializes in the Archery Fighting Style and his primary weapon of choice is his magical hand crossbow, in addition to his array of Wizard spells.

    L’oreal’s primary Magic color is Red. In personality, L’oreal is a quick-thinking and passionate person who fights against monsters and multiversal threats with no second thoughts. He does also suffer from slight insanity due to a curse. He is also a strong and fast physical combatant with a theme of spells and abilities that boost his speed.

    He is next in Blue: he is studious and dedicated to his training in Wizardry, which is primarily self-taught. He desires to learn everything he can about magic to keep up in a world full of more powerful casters and monsters.

    Finally, as a Wood Elf, he is also in Green. He grew up spending much of his time in the woods, and his Mask of the Wild feature lets him use his innate magic to blend into nature.

    The reach keyword represents his Archery skills. Haste represents his enhanced speed abilities and his tendency to be the first to jump into battle.

    L’oreal constantly uses spells to enhance his defenses and damage output, which can make him very strong while his spell slots last. The prowess keyword is a simple way to represent his ability to boost himself with a variety of spells. (Existing cards keep prowess with Jeskai color identity, but appear in Blue and Red on their own, so this shouldn’t be a color pie break.)

    The key ability of L’oreal’s card represents his aggressively magical playstyle and is inspired by the War Magic feature of Eldritch Knights, which allows L’oreal to both attack and use magic on the same turn. The free-equip benefit encourages using equipment, which is too flavorful to not use with him but would otherwise not work smoothly with in-combat casting; it also flavorfully relates to his Weapon Bond ability, which lets him summon his weapon to his hand. The whole ability requires L’oreal to be modified as a way to balance out the equip benefit, and as a nod to how L’oreal’s spellcasting focus is his weapon that he never fights without.

    L’oreal’s 3/3 base stats are nothing special for his cost, just as his Strength score and hit points are middling for his level, given his multiclass. He depends a lot on his magic to keep him safe in combat, and the same is true in Magic, where you’ll need to keep a spell available or else he’ll die to Bolt. But his abilities allow for a number of strategies to keep him buffed in some way and make him into a threat.

    The card is inspired by similar cards like [[Narset, Enlightened Exile]], [[Narset, Enlightened Master]], and [[Tetsuo, Imperial Champion]]. I think L’oreal is in a fair spot as he’s not a strict upgrade or downgrade to these cards (and I’m sure he isn’t as good as the OG Narset). Haste is generally very good paired with an attack trigger, but since he needs to be modified, it’s harder to immediately get the attack trigger when casting him on curve (it’s not impossible of course, but I think that adds to the strategy and fun). The free-equip ability has lots of potential, but I think it’s limited enough by only being usable at that specific time and only being able to attach to L’oreal himself, compared to other free-equip cards like [[Bruenor Battlehammer]]. Five mana feels more reasonable than four given that he has haste, and six is seems too high given the requirements on his abilities, and since he dies to Bolt if not boosted.




  • To be honest I still find their whole romantic situation a bit weird. Not just that they’re variants of each other and so are probably genetically related, but also that I didn’t think Loki really needed to get into a relationship in the first place.

    It’s almost hard to remember why I actually liked the show at this point. I do think Tom Hiddleston is a good actor who does a good job putting himself into the role, which is one of the most important things about a show for me; some of these shows you can tell the actors are phoning it in and it kills the vibe. But the more I think about the writing choices the more I find them… questionable.

    I’m hoping that they’ll learn from the reactions to the more recent shows and movies, and put less effort into setting up a Kang war or whatever and just have Loki do more Loki stuff.


  • Yes, exactly. I’m perfectly happy to watch fun characters semi-competently flounder through time and space (I enjoyed Legends of Tomorrow), but I feel like there are other characters that would be more suited to that kind of thing. Sylvie especially should be in her element, she’s supposed to be a major thorn in the TVA’s side since she was a child, which should be a significant feat. But she doesn’t really seem to know what she’s doing any more than our Loki does, and that’s already less than you’d think he should.

    I’d almost forgotten about the building thing; when I first watched it I thought it might be a hint that the whole situation was an illusion — Loki was tricking Sylvie, or Sylvie was tricking Loki, or someone else was tricking them both, and that would explain all the oddness — but that wasn’t at all the case in the end. I had all these theories about what at least one of the Lokis might be planning and they never paid off. It’s almost as bad as when Evan Peters’ Quicksilver turned out to just be a guy named Ralph Bohner.