The bureaucratic state, with its clueless heavy-handed anti-metic interference, represents the second-greatest threat to the proper upbringing of children.
the last OOCQ was from a comment (not body) in this series, reviewing all the magic sets up to RTR, and while the entire thing is pro-read, the time spiral block review is probably my favorite
Thanks so much for linking this – I stayed up last night reading this series, finished it this morning (modulo some skipping/skimming), and it’s basically the kind of M:TG writing I’ve always wanted but never found.
I was heavily into the game as a kid, and I still play cubes/drafts with friends every once in a while, but I haven’t “followed the game” since I lost interest as a kid (ca. Invasion). This means I have heavy nostalgia for the early sets, almost no knowledge of the non-early sets, and a strong interest in the mechanics of the game combined with an inability to understand most insider talk because I’m ignorant of so many individual cards. These posts interacted perfectly with all of that: they started off with a pleasant trip down memory lane, and then gave me a primer on each unfamiliar set, emphasizing its impact and significance back when it was still new.
More importantly, the author approaches the game like an art critic in perhaps the best possible sense of that phrase (and with M:TG, there are a lot of bad senses). He treats card design as an art form unto itself (which it clearly is!), and talks about it like a poetic form, with various approaches to creativity within constraints, a historical trajectory with several periods, later work exhibiting a self-consciousness about that history (in Time Spiral, and very differently in Magic 2010), etc.
That is, he’s taking a relatively formal, “internal,” New Criticism-like approach, rather than a historicist approach (relate the work to contemporary extra-artistic phenomena) or an esoteric/Freudian/high-Theory-like approach (take a few elements of the work, link them to some complex of big ideas, uncover an iceberg of ostensibly hidden structure). I don’t think the former approach is strictly better than the latter, but it’s always refreshing because so much existing games criticism takes the latter two approaches.
To me, this often looks like embarrassment over the low cultural status of games – the critics are attempting to “elevate” the form by saying it’s really about big and important things. But if games are an art form worth writing about as such, then no excuses should be necessary, so this approach concedes crucial ground to the very attitudes it’s trying to fight. This situation is especially bad in video/computer game criticism, where the perceived fight is not between serious critics and skeptical non-gamers, but between serious critics and unserious gamers, so that “taking game mechanics seriously” is bizarrely associated with the “games aren’t art” side. This horribly confuses everything.
But then, I’m not that excited by “taking game mechanics seriously” either when it comes to video/computer games, because often there just isn’t much there. M:TG is a case where there is a huge amount there.
Reading these posts made me think about just how unique M:TG is, how it really is this exciting new art form that most of the world doesn’t know about. It is, by orders of magnitude, the most complex game I’m personally aware of. I don’t mean it has the most depth of strategy, or the most intricate rules. I mean there are just so many cards, along with a sufficiently rich ruleset that the cards constantly reveal new possibilities as they cross paths with other cards.
(The way I usually explain it to non-players is that it’s like a version of chess where there are tens of thousands of different pieces, each with its own rules, and each player chooses 16 out of that multitude for their starting pieces. This makes an already cerebral game vastly more complicated, yet it actually makes it easier to play casually and less punishingly hard for new players, since the space of possibilities is so vast that even the well-trained pros are constantly having to adapt to unforeseen situations.)
This kind of rich, interaction-driven complexity is a special thing, rare both in games and outside of them. The closest thing that comes to mind is small-scale biology, pathogens interacting with the immune system and intestinal bacteria, genes coding for proteins that alter gene expression or edit RNA. Or perhaps with language, where the denotation, connotations, history, etymology, spelling and sound of each word all play roles in how that word interacts with its neighbors in a text.
If people are making art in a totally new system of this kind, that’s an interesting event in the history of art, full stop.
Oh, and one last thing I liked about those posts – he doesn’t just focus on mechanics, and not just in the “Vorthos” way where you care about the official storyline. There’s a lot more to the aesthetics of the game than that storyline – card art, visual design, mechanical flavor, card and mechanic names, and the sense of a fantasy world conveyed by the cards themselves without supplementation from other sources (which most players will never read). He even shares my affection for the way the early cards, in particular, looked and felt like artifacts from another world.
Or, what happens if you train a neural network on the titles and plot summaries of over 100,000 works of Harry Potter fan fiction.
In the decades since the Harry Potter books were published, fans have written literally hundreds of thousands of Harry Potter stories of their own, and shared them online. Can a neural network join in on the fun?
In a way, everything a recurrent neural network writes is fan fiction. A recurrent neural network looks at an example dataset (such as the complete Sherlock Holmes stories) and teaches itself the patterns and conventions that it sees. So, if it’s given Sherlock Holmes stories, it will become obsessed with Holmes and Watson, and if it’s given knock-knock jokes, it will spend all day telling awful knock-knock jokes of its own.
The Perfect Party by iamisaac Draco has been left alone, and Ginny confused must learn and who has his best friend. They were breathed by a love that didn’t become his grounds and the flowers begin.
This is a typical example of the neural network’s fan fiction - romantic pairings of two or more Harry Potter characters (called “ships” in fan fiction-speak). In this case, it even has chosen a plausible author: iamisaac is a real and fairly prolific fan fiction author whose works do tend to be of the “romantic” variety.
The Garden by perverse_idyll for lexigilite Ron and Hermione move after a man party. What did her best things go and has to deal with people she loves? How many imperfect love really belonges them and needs to be a person? Or will they learn and more than the war?
Mirror Thing by Queen_Elexhan “Are you there for a relationship? I was a sad future for your love.” Harry and Ginny find out the meaning is.
Shatters by Kis [archived by TheHexFiles_archivist ] Based on the Spot Are It Falls Into A Heir by NextrangeOnTheThree Draco and Hermione share a whole indescribbening.
Again, “perverse_idyll” and “TheHexFiles_archivist” are fairly active authors. (Hi, if you’re reading! The neural network seems to like your writing, and is writing fan fiction of your fan fiction!) Those familiar with Harry Potter fan fiction will not be surprised to learn that the neural network really likes to generate ships; pretty much every combination of characters is represented (some of the more unusual combinations being “The Snow/Voldemort”, “The Ministry/Draco Malfoy”, and “Voldemort/Random Quidditch Child”).
By turning down the neural network’s creativity setting to near-zero, we arrive at its vision of what the quintessential Harry Potter fan fiction would be like - and we also learn its favorite ship:
Persuading by theladyblack Harry and Draco are still a second chance at the end of the war. Will they be able to do with the fairy tale of the first time they were a strange stranger to the street of the war and the war is over?
It turns out the neural network is obsessed with Harry/Draco, although in a pinch, Sirius/Remus will also do.
The neural network also seems to really like stories about Professor Snape trying to do rather ordinary things:
New Moon Boys by Dungoonke for Loki_Kukaka Severus Snape comes back to a night’s politics.
In the Reason Is Blinders by LittleRoma Severus has been through his lost remote.
In The Alteri Silence by Forest_of_Holly for roscreens41 Snape receives life after plants to do by work over whether they get into. Just Hell.
A Second Chance by DarkCorgi Snape had a second thing, and that is better than anything for for the rest of his life.
Mirror by orphan_account Severus Snape tries to get a lot of dragons and that was to be more than he didn’t expect to continue. He has always been a bit of an old and a baby to stay the way he’d been the brother at Hogwarts and he keeps the chance of meeting…
Deception by FlyingEyes Snape is a British Robes of interesting things and worrys like a little fun and sees the pretty battle for a while.
Another thing that happened, which is pretty much my favorite thing ever, is that the neural network apparently encountered some fan fiction stories that were not in English. As a result, it learned to do this from time to time:
The Secretary Of the World Challenge inspired by GoF and la mating resigns de la mill colors per mereple beruit carteur la pelete el wert rardo completing and herillo intus den una a des rush sentines kelta an transoles…
Between by Cheyangel13 A series of fivers are unexpectedly depressed and controlled by the bed, with least more from una perfemale erpensa de the maesse akai suidadium dela vida call de la los se terriuus do form en sou dies de fasurard il resisted de for dogs la sementu sein prong colors itu dee adte se sige natard…
The neural network has also learned to employ capital letters:
Les finds love by violet_quill for starstruck1986 Severus Snape wanted him to be more and she likes Draco. The person he wants an energy to him. WHALIDE NO GEATIRE SOURR INSPE AHARMANABLISH ALL SOME TO VERY THE RERIDE!!!!!!!
secret Quidditch by snapsleert Collapse and find the second worst and very different. See Gain and Descent motivate surprising death. Unbusing one of the months: should make more bumo.choooshots. HUGULATED
And the neural network occasionally uses content warnings, although it seems to have a rather fuzzy idea about what to warn its readers about:
Better With The Broom Complicate by Margyn_Black Tonks gets more than the best girl of creation. (Rated Maturisle, mark, a violence, contract) (slash] part of themes) ferret.
Art for the Sun a Scary by disillusionist9 A collection of warnings: characters and situations of silence.
Some of the neural network’s stories, though, are just plain weird.
Harry Potter and the Painful Eyes by dark_pook A Birthday drabble about the problems and a woman who shows up a lot less than she checks at Hogwarts in the destiny to the infamous adventure of control of the Art of The Good Boy Kings With Hermione.
Harry and the Blue Special Delicious by apolavia_scg An unexpected potions messaged in the world their lives are to find friendship following the day of different pagers. James and Lily come to the summer before the war.
The Perfect Cow by alafaye Severus and Hermione start a horcruxes
Art: Let Draco roll the light of the moon, and means. by Dangelanne What happens after the war. Not drawn to Draco Malfoy jumpers. Originally written in 2008.
Birds of a Saturday by SasuNarufan13 Harry Potter is drunk and discovers he is an alternate universe.
Holly theody by yesIpxdishoftlyGrinli What would be dangerous! Side Voldemort Jones does all lord off the sunshine show.
Lily Evans and the Ravenclaw of a Christmas Surprise by ci Severus angst the truth of a frighten situation for the wink.
Persuasion by Samanthian The Sorting Hat is fighting in one of the houses.
lily’s family by sharkle Harry woke up in searching after a werewolf Sherlock’s picnic. He is furious.
As a bonus, I leave you with some fairly-plausible screennames the neural network invented, which appear not to be taken (yet):
