So I look at my most active thread stat in my profile last night. Turns out it was a Commander inspired world Barninellos started and a bunch of us chipped in on but never finished. Any interest in furthering that idea?

Which one was that? Links or it didn't happen.

Here you go.

I reread that thread, and looking at it now I honestly think it misses something of actually capturing Commander. It get's the legendary stuff and some of the wackiness but misses the feel of commanders on a battlefield. So I think I'd be more inclined to just start from scratch, but it's a big project.

Other random ideas I've had pop up: A story that start with someone on Amonkhet getting stabbed by Hazoret after finishing the trials, and then ascending to be a planeswalker. They think it's the paradise they were promised until they notice their crop mates aren't their.

A dwarven pilot planeswalker driving cars and such on planes he shouldn't. But considering how walker heavy Khaladesh already is, this might take more work to be appropriate.

I'd like to point out while touching canon isn't forbidden, it is standing on shaky ground around here because since its inception the M:EM was concerned with maintaining a respectable distance from canon, ostensibly to avoid stretching believability (vis-à-vis your mention of Kaladesh already being 'walker-heavy) and having our own material retconned by canon's numerous and inevitable retcons, although I believe it was secondarily to separate our work on a perception and quality basis from the massive quantity of poor-to-mediocre fanfiction works that teenagers and first time writers tend to engage in. You know the kind.

Full disclosure, I really resent EDH, so any failures to capture it were likely intentional.


Well... I'm not saying it couldn't work, but we do tend to try to make sure our walkers aren't from canon worlds. Visits aren't off the table, but it might get complicated if their origins are tied there.

As an aside, for both the auramancer you're thinking up, and the similar 'but didn't I die?', I have a character for you to check out!


Wouldn't he first have to build the cars?
... of course this just makes me want to see a mash up between the weatherlight and the delorean.

As an aside, there's nothing stating you HAVE to tie the character to Kaladesh. The concepts aren't uniquely tied to the setting. And it seems a very unique, if goofy, character. I'd say take the basic idea and strip it to the core to see what add ons you can make.

The not from cannon worlds is a new rule? I know some of our older characters are from cannon planes. I mean it's no big loss there isn't really much to the character after that. I don't why I'm on this "has a reason not to try to return home" kick recently.

Yeah I mean it's easy enough to make the dwarf form somewhere else. And he is meant to be a goofy character. A little levity never hurt anyone. Also it can be fun to break them.....Wow that sounds a little messed up doesn't it?

It's not a new rule, more of a convention that we've shied away from Canon planes since Canon started being... well, a little less than reliable. Also rather chock full of its own entries. Personally, I'm not opposed to having characters with better ties to Canon -- but I would wait until things are probably more set in stone than they ought to be. Like if you want to make that Amonkhet 'walker, do it but probably keep it on the back burner or on the main forums until we know Hour of Devastation, so that we don't get some asinine line about how "Samut is the first native PW in Bolas' reign" that nukes your whole character from orbit.

In all honesty I'm not even interested in the walker, just the one story. But yeah waiting is fine. I'm notoriously bad at actually writing things.

technically from before that.
Luna wasn't lying that one of the reasons we put some distance between ourselves and canon was the reputation fanfic has in general. There's a webcomic that I... well, enjoy is a strong word, but the main characters are from Ravnica and Zendikar, and it makes me roll my eyes.

But origins are distinct from presence, which we've never really objected to. A character can visit basically anywhere, it's just the homeplane that we draw a line in the sand for.

LITERALLY FROM THE MOMENT THE M:EM WAS CREATED


I'm glad I have someone on my side here, because while I don't want to discourage anyone from writing, and I do enjoy a lot of poniponiponi words, fanfiction has garnered a general reputation for being... well, what it exactly is. There's a lot of things on the level of My Immortal. Well, maybe not A LOT of things -- that one is a particularly bejeweled turd -- but a frankly large majority of fanfiction is guilty of just taking characters willy-nilly to make them fit some role even when it doesn't fit the character's personality to do so, or otherwise miss half the point of the characters or setting that it uses.

One thing I remember Keeper saying positively about the Magic setting is it is literally a setting of every setting. The multiverse is so large as to be nearly infinite, so why settle on telling stories with planes and characters we already see from canon? With the only real unifying feature of Magic being the five-color system, we've been able to tell stories with such range as down-to-earth Westerns with guns and railroads and monopolies, Japanese-inspired tales of rogue samurai taking on apprentices and meeting fantastical and whimsical spirits, a worlds-spanning evil empire falling, detective stories both film-noir and thriller, love blooming in the darkness of a dying world as well as in the cold grip of an enchanted winter, we even just saw an entire shounen tournament arc that was done for fun.

Ok we have at least two walkers in the archives that have planes of origin from cannon worlds. I know, because I made one of them. But can we drop this, cause the stupid story isn't worth this. Geez. I'm starting to remember why I got annoyed here at times.

Hey!
The reference was to canon being shaky. Which bloody predates the blasted MEM!

Speaking as someone who, in his own M:EM writing, stays as far from canon as he can, I will say that I honestly don't see much of a problem with 'walkers being from a canon plane. The biggest problem would be crossing with canon events or characters, which is fairly easily avoided, and of course the problem Jedi mentioned with planes being too busy.

But, of course, I think it should be a plane-by-plane, character-by-character basis. Any 'walker from Tarkir is obviously a very serious problem. A 'walker from Innistrad, less so, in my opinion. If their stories are too focused on the canon events of those planes, we run into problems with canon continuity, but I don't see actual origin as being too big of a problem, in most cases.

Guys, Jedi has expressed wishes we stop. Let the matter rest.

Yeah sorry for the outburst, I'm a little irritable tonight. But this isn't really the place for furthuring discussion. And I'm not looking to upset the status quo after just coming back.

Yeah I probably wasn't in the right condition to post, either. I had just come off of a long and very busy Monday of work, and I'd spent all day trying not to keep thinking about this major disagreement I'd had with a friend in the meat over something (it was all very respectable, but we basically stood on opposite sides of debating a thing and I wanted to drop it before it devolved into shouting and hurt feelings). I've wanted to just kind of throw myself back into the M:EM now, because of how long I've been neglecting it, but I really should have seen this coming because every time I engage a rapid back-and-forth like that I end up regretting it.

For what it's worth, I apologize for the second of my posts last night, the one that's more ranty and rambly. I should have left it with only the first, for which I am not apologizing for.


Yeah, that was definitely my mistake. I thought you were saying that our distance from canon went back a little further than Szat was implying, and I am absolutely certain it was within Keeper's initial pitch for the M:EM that we maintain our distance from canon. Still, it was stepping over the line, and as I said I want to apologize for that second post.

Inspired by an afternoon at the beach with friends.

Oath of Friendship and/or Love (excerpt)

Let me be the blossom thriving beside you in the joyous spring
Let me be the cool pond for you to bathe in the radiant summer
Let me be the refuge from the rains that haunt you in the mellow autumn
Let me be the fire that thaws your snows in the silent winter.

I love the sentiment, and the parallelism. It reminds me of the recitation I've used for a Greeting of the Sun:

Something like the Sun Kingdom of Ixalan, except the dinosaurs are the real power behind the faction. The humans are their intermediaries (akin to saprolings or similarly hive-minded creatures) used in all matters political and economical. Allowing the dinosaurs to accomplish what they believe needs accomplishing without subjecting them, directly, to the consequences.