Ancient History/Bad Memes

Ran out of fucks to give a long time ago. Header image by TauntyBird

[spids]

Saw this image going around and immediately thought of Moon so I very quickly put this together

And by very quickly I mean I spent an hour and a half looking for panels where they look like they're holding something

Original image under cut

[unfilterthepassion]

berdly is for the kids who cared too much about their friends and never got anything back. going all out on birthdays and christmases and getting something small in return, because they’ve never had a “best friend”. bragging about their friends and treating them like how they’d want to be treated, and getting little to nothing in return. knowing they’d go to war and die for someone, but not knowing if they’d do the same for them.

berdly is for the kids who scream sobbed when they were unprepared to fail a test. begging their parents to let them stay home through tears, saying they just need one more day, not wanting to drop their grade a letter. they can’t drop their grade a letter.

berdly is for the kids who cry late at night knowing they won’t be found. they won’t be saved. they look around at everyone, the “best friends” they know, the people who are inseparable, and yearn for it. thinking back to old best friends, knowing they can’t rekindle the spark overnight.

berdly is for the kids who were stereotyped due to one part of their personality, wanting desperately to break out of the mold and be a 3 dimensional person but knowing they’re already in too deep. their friends will know them only as that one trait. and that will never change.

because berdly is berdly. berdly is the smart kid. berdly is the flirty annoying kid. berdly is the one nobody actually wants to be around.

berdly is trying.

[pleasantspark]

[ghostryders]

your honor that man is an american

[gay-little-izzet]

Bloomburrow planeswalkers… but make it Root

I love this style a lot, and I think I did a decent job of emulating it ☺️

[evilwizard]

me: how about you stop “scrolling” your “dash” and start dashing to deliver me scrolls

my useless apprentice: why do you pay the homunculus more than me

[xantchaslegacy]

[xantchaslegacy]

weatherlight saga

[thefunphone]

[xantchaslegacy]

[evanreichel]

some wip of bigger scarlet work

[twyrine]

Those kids aren’t right. They’re like, killing people

[soranatus]

Dr. Tenma & Brau-1589 Pluto (2023) - Episode 8

[rurukatt]

hot things to say during sex

inventory is full

I’m out of range

I can’t carry any more

that spell isn’t ready yet

I need to target something first

it’s too far away

[doctor-roman]

You roll up to the Wizard Battle and your opponent takes out his spellbook but it’s just one of these

[ehentalix]

I'd leave. This is a sign that my opponent has the most fucked up unethical spells imaginable, and I am not about to be subject to Malchezar's Piercing Prostate Bomb or something

[sugiliteve]

Feat. Ebyssian

https://twitter.com/SugiliteVE

[wielderofmysteries]

A Vorthos Defense of Lukka

Sorry this response turned into a small essay (~1400 words) that doesn't really answer your question, but my Hot Take™ is that I don't think Lukka needs to be fixed.

I believe the problem doesn't lie in Lukka himself, but in the way both the narrative and the fandom treated him extremely unfairly. I'm not asking anyone to like Lukka. Personally, I don't even think anything about him is particularly likable. But I think as a character he deserves a lot more respect than he gets, and I'm tired of seeing other people hate on him without actually engaging with his story or understanding what his character is about.

Here's the thing: Lukka is basically the homeless veteran of planeswalkers.

He started his story in Sundered Bond (Ikoria ebook by Django Wexler) already successful in his military career, engaged to be married to Jirina, and having General Kudro's favor. He was a model citizen and his life was great. One day, a flying-hyper-murder-tiger killed Lukka's entire squad and people discovered Lukka was a monster Bonder because the tiger spared him. The rumors got to General Kudro, whose decision upon hearing Lukka might be a bonder was to have Lukka immediately executed.

Lukka didn't betray Drannith. Drannith betrayed Lukka.

Lukka escaped his execution and was rescued in the wilderness by Vivien, who traveled with him to the Ozolith, where a mysterious evil voice caused Lukka to unlock the full power of his monster bonding abilities. Through it all, Lukka still tried to hang onto his old life. His allegiance hadn't changed. At first, Lukka wanted to use the monsters he controlled to fight for Drannith, not against it. Lukka was convinced that the offer of a loyal monster army would be enough for the city to take him back, but he was no longer welcome in Drannith.

Lukka became increasingly unstable and spiraled into insanity because he had his life unexpectedly, completely ruined and wanted nothing more than to return home to his old life, but that wasn't possible because he now belonged to a class of people who were extremely stigmatized in Drannith's society. He had become an undesirable. Once the city's shining star, he was now the lowest of the low. He lost his loyalty and turned against the city when he realized Drannith didn't care about people, Drannith cared about keeping people in their places.

In Sundered Bond, Lukka loses literally everything. He loses his job. He loses all his friends. He loses his fiance. He loses his home. Everything. He even loses the cat. This all happens to him within like, a week.

Lukka experiences the same hostility in his second appearance, Strixhaven. At this point, he's still a new planeswalker, and he's been planeswalking blindly trying to find civilization again. He arrives on Arcavios thirsty and starving and tired and injured. When he finally finds a town, he visits an inn and asks only for food. But they don't give him any food! They won't allow him to wash up or to rest! This is a man who has nothing and has done nothing, and the townspeople are suspicious of Lukka and want to call the Dragonsguard –Strixhaven's magical cops– on him because he committed the crime of... existing near them while visibly having basic needs that are unmet.

=========

"Looking for something, stranger?" said the innkeeper, a round man with a head of robust curls.

"A hot meal," said Lukka. The innkeeper hesitated as though about to say something, then nodded and moved toward the kitchen.

"Haven't seen clothes like that before," came a voice behind Lukka. "You're not from around here, I imagine."

He turned. A tall man in the same rough clothing as the rest of the townsfolk had stood up from his table and was walking over.

[…]

He heard the man suck his teeth. The innkeeper still hadn't returned from the kitchen. Lukka was starting to doubt he ever would.

"Okay, Oriq, I think I've heard enough. We don't take kindly to meddlers in this town, or those who seek to disturb the peace. If we were a proper city, we'd get the closest, least busy Dragonsguard to sort you out. But we're just a small farming village—so we've learned to deal with strangers ourselves."

[Episode 2: Lessons - Adana Washington]

=========

Fans like to point at Lukka and make "ACAB" ("All Cops Are Bastards") jokes about him, but they don't understand that he's explicitly an anti-cop character. Lukka was formerly a cop, but he quit and fully turned his back on the entire concept of policing when he realized that the reason cops exist is not to protect people, but to rid society of undesirables like him.

=========

"These dragons," Lukka said, his voice a growl. "Those Dragonsguard. They've held power over these people for too long. They've made them fearful of every shadow, every unfamiliar face. What happens when it's not just the Oriq they're hunting down—when it's anyone who practices magic in a way they don't like?"

[Episode 3: Extracurriculars - Adana Washington]

=========

I know what many of you will say: "How can Lukka have such a based take when he's such a terrible person?" It's true– he is not a good person. He's an asshole and he's harmed / killed innocent people and animals. But he's been both a cop and a homeless man, and he knows that cops are far more dangerous. You don't need to be a "good" person to deserve food and shelter. It's cops who promote the idea that you can deny the basic rights of the people you think are "bad".

So on Arcavios, he's again forced out of civilization and back into the wilderness. His suffering seriously never ends. The way he was treated, it's no wonder he accepted when the Oriq kidnapped him and asked him to help attack Strixhaven. Why should he give a damn about society if they don't care about him? If their society is so fearful of others that they are unwilling to practice compassion, unwilling to provide for people's most basic needs even when they haven't done anything wrong, then doing wrong doesn't matter. They will share his pain. He will watch it all burn to the ground.

Lukka is an example of what happens when someone's basic humanity is repeatedly denied to the point that they can no longer feel anything but anger.

This line from the story Survival of the Fittest, by Roy Graham, expresses it perfectly:

=========

He had been a cruel man by the end, a villain in so many ways. But perhaps in his position, there was no way to become anything else."

=========

Lukka reaches out for stability and support and never truly finds it. He's a character who keeps getting punished over and over for having bad things happen *to* him, not because he *does* bad things. Most of the bad stuff he actually does is in response to others treating him like shit for no reason.

Despite everything, Vivien still cared for Lukka and wanted to help him get back on his feet. She thought Lukka's military expertise would be useful to the strike team against New Phyrexia, and she encouraged him to join. They both saw it as an opportunity for Lukka to regain some of his dignity and protect his home once more. How does the narrative reward him for his effort? By corrupting him, humiliating him, and having him be put down like an animal by the only person who showed him any compassion through all this.

What could Lukka have become if he survived to be rehabilitated? I guess we'll never know.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no hope for a character who mistreats animals. Most fans will never ever get past that, and there's a part of me that honestly believes Lukka just got phyrexianized and killed off because the Magic narrative team realized they couldn't salvage his reputation and didn't know what to do with him. The fandom's overwhelming negative response to Lukka had irreparably damaged him as a character.

As my bespoke friend @xantchaslegacy said, "The only meaningful difference about Lukka and Gideon's cop-to-planeswalker journey is that the narrative let Gideon live long enough for other people to make him a better person. And Lukka got shanked before it could happen."

The fandom reacted to Lukka the same way the strangers on Arcavios did: He'll never get a second chance because they wouldn't even give him a first chance.

[xantchaslegacy]

He's right and he should say it!