Randomness!

>look inside

The solution to the problem wasn’t some new dangled printing technology, but rather using a tool that Magic has had access to for decades.

Magic boosters can have slots, that is a card that shows up in every booster usually with some theme, most often rarity. We can assign slots in a booster as long as every card in that slot comes from the same printed sheet. It’s how boosters can get a land card or a specific theme (such as every booster of Dominaria getting a legendary creature).

Printed card sheets are made up of many cards. The printer then cuts the sheet so each card is separate. When doing so, the cards in the sheet will always end up in the same order.

So, here was the clever idea I had. What if we made a sheet where the mirrored cards sat next to each other in the sheet? The first card is Card 1, version A (1A), and next card was Card 1, version B (1B), then Card 2, version A (2A), card 2, version B (2B) and so on.

The problem is while we control the order, we don’t control what two cards you get. You could get Card 1 version A (1A) and card 1 version B (1B) or you could get Card 1, version B (1B) and card 2, version A (2A). How could we guarantee you get a matching pair?

The answer was we give you three cards from the sheet. Since they are in order, two of the three have to match. So, if you get 1A, 1B, and 2A, you get a mirrored pair of Card 1. If you get 1B, 2A, and 2B, you get a mirrored pair of Card 2.

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'JK Rowling posted upskirt photos of a woman on Twitter' to Cas 'I love you'. /End ID]

No one doing this should be allowed to call themselves a feminist.

Also I recall in the foreward of one of his big Calvin and Hobbes collection volumes, he wrote a bit about how his knowledge and portrayal of dinosaurs shifted over time as he wrote the comic. Watterson's early dinosaurs were very stereotypical reptilian monsters inspired by the dinosaurs he loved in his childhood:

bestie boo, let me fill you in on something: if you're going to take any part of 'good grammar' and randomly assign it to She's A Witch! AI, you might as well give up. It's over. You're cooked. Anyone who has spent the last decade or more learning to type properly, anyone who has spent any time writing articles/papers/essays that require you to use 'good grammar' is going to fall into that 'oh no it might be AI' trap.

It's very good, and was prescient for a lot of the early days of the covid pandemic. I found myself returning to it often in the first couple of years because of how steadfast it was in its hopefulness.

Last year she wrote a novelette, "The Year Without Sunshine," which attacks a similar problem in a similar way; instead of pandemic, this one is about the aftereffects of a distant nuke or a massive volcano explosion (it doesn't say), which has churned a great deal of dust into the air, causing massive damage to society and agriculture. The story covers one neighborhood, pulling together to keep each other alive--not through violence, but through lawn potatoes and message pinboards and bicycle-powered oxygen concentrators.

With capitalist health insurance, you pay for other people's healthcare AND rich people's profits.

Prior to this point, when Odysseus tries to exercise Xenia (ancient Greek guest rites/hospitality code), he did what he was supposed to do. (Well, we think so anyway — notably, the most famous books of the Odyssey are told by Odysseus, who isn’t exactly a reliable narrator.)

But when Polyphemus kills and eats some of the men, the game changes. The Cyclops makes it clear he has no intention of abiding by Zeus’s laws, and will cannibalize the lot of the men. So, Odysseus responds in kind — he breaks Xenia and lies. He introduces himself under a false name as part of a trick. Polyphemus then breaks Xenia again — he tells Nobody he’ll be eaten last, and that is the Cyclops’ guest gift to him.

Odysseus’ transgression is clearly the lesser one. The Nobody trick works. It gets Odysseus and most of his crew out of the cave alive.

But, crucially, before leaving Odysseus sheds his disguise. He admits his true identity, in detail, so he can boast of his achievements and add vanquishing a Cyclops to the list. And it bites him in the ass spectacularly.

The only reason why Polyphemus can curse Odysseus, can bid his father Poseidon to curse the man who blinded him, is because he now knows who did it. If Odysseus had kept his mouth shut, he might have safely made it home from there. But while a big part of why the Nobody disguise vs. real name reveal is showing Odysseus’s hubris, it’s not just about that. It’s also about the start of a pattern that hurts him more than it helps him.

From this point in the Odyssey on, Odysseus lies about his identity constantly. And sometimes it protects him, but more often it’s a detriment or at least unnecessary. He’s lying about his identity primarily to people who are on his side — a kindly loyal swineherd, his son, his faithful wife, his ailing father.

The last one is especially damning, because happens when Odysseus has already killed the suitors and returned home and reunited with the rest of his family sans disguises. He knows from everyone else that Laertes never betrayed him or his legacy, but was mourning his son and heartbroken for almost a decade. Odysseus has publicly declared his return to everyone else — his father doesn’t know because he’s living in squalor remotely. But Odysseus doesn’t tell his father who he is. He makes up a fake identity and tells a story implying Laertes’ son is dead. And when Laertes bursts out crying, then Odysseus drops the charade and finally admits who he really was.

There was no utility to that lie. No loyalty to test. No hidden threats to worry about. But Odysseus still instinctively lies to his beloved father about who he is, only dropping the charade when he sees the damage it’s doing to his relationships.

Because at this point, lying is pathological for Odysseus. He can’t seem to stop doing it. Because with Polyphemus, a lie protected him and the truth hurt him. That is the point of the “ Nobody” disguise.