iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Opal is an antagonist, in part because that's what the story requires. She is Liliana's jailer in Jace's Echoverse, keeping the necromancer contained (in part by feeding her only fruit, which Lili can't raise to fight for her--a nice touch). Opal is also... just *awful*.

Screenshot from Magic Story that reads: The healer, the calm and radiant noble, the insufferable snob smiles at Liliana now with venom on her lips. "Do you wonder what it will be like? Me overwriting you?"

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Liliana *was* a healer, or healer in training, long ago in Benalia. Alison's story takes this to its logical conclusion, making it explicit that Professor Opal is not just Liliana with a palette swap and an ironic, opposite-day power set. She is a Liliana who made different choices.

Art of Liliana, Heretical Healer from MTG's Magic Origins set. Liliana is depicted here as a young woman clad in white, outside a traditional Benalish estate. Art by Karla Ortiz

Screenshot of Magic Story that reads: Opal smiles politely. "I think your life of suffering is what gave you your humor." She leans closer to the bars, and Liliana can make out pleading earnestness in her face. "In my Multiverse, our brother lived a full and healthy life. I chose a different path, and I saved him. Do you want me to save you, too?"

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

She does it here with the concept of the "evil duplicate," and while there is a LOT that can be said about the psychological depths of this story, I want to zoom in on Liliana and her sickly-sweet, white-aligned duplicate, "Professor Opal."

Art of Liliana, the Faultless from MTG's Reality Fracture set. Liliana wears her usual headdress, but now wears a white dress inlaid with Benalish stained glass motifs. Art by Aleksi Briclot.

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Now, there are a lot of nice touches in this story for longtime fans of the story, from trivia like Jace having nine toes to lampshading the fact that Chandra and Ajani don't even know who Garruk IS (despite appearing in Lorwyn with him almost 20 years ago (sorry))...

Screenshot from Magic Story that reads: Chandra nods in seeming comprehension. "Garruk." She glances at Ajani and whispers, "Are we supposed to know who that is?"

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

Played this where my cat could hear it and blew his tiny mind

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

One of my flavor text writers put the cherry on top with submissions that worked for the cards at face value while also nodding to my game. Couldn’t say no to that.

Image of a Riftbound card called Monch. Its art is a strange magical creature with a very large mouth, and its flavor text reads “Just because it doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you.”

Image of a Riftbound card called Voracious Gromp. Its art depicts a large frog monster, and its flavor text reads “Oh no! It’s real! The Gromp is real!”

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Yeah, I saw this going around and had a “none of these words are in the Bible” moment. Like I know what claude is, I looked up what cashtags are, still had no idea what was going on

tweet from a bluesky dev reading: I had claude do cashtags in the background while I was on a zoom call, it took about 15 minutes. I don’t think he could do the same for private accounts

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Winters found artist Jehan Choo, and we were struck by his ability to create creatures that were so expressive despite barely even having faces. We knew he would deliver "crab, but person." (After acing this first piece, Jehan went on to create the art for Yargle, whose whole job was maximum charm.)

The Magic card Homarid Explorer from the 2018 Dominaria set. It's a blue card with art of a human-sized sentient crab with a staff dragging a bundle of flotsam and looking curiously at the viewer. Its face is very expressive, for a crab.

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Saw this bumper sticker in traffic the other day and laughed so hard I nearly crashed (Available here, from a person who seems at a cursory glance to be the originator: www.etsy.com/listing/6119... )

A yellow bumper sticker with “DRIVE CAREFULLY” written in large letters and “there is no heaven” in small letters underneath

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

“Comparative Calm or ‘Hellscape’? In Portland, Depends on the Narrator” No, it fucking doesn’t! It literally does not! You can look and see which of those narratives more closely approaches the truth. You can collect facts and build a narrative of your own that reflects reality!

Photo of the Mew York Times national edition for October 11, 2025. Headline: “Comparative Calm or ‘Hellscape’? In Portland, Depends on the Narrator.” Subhead: “Trump and Allies Amplify Influencers Eager to Conform Their Views on City.” Accompanied by a tight-angle photo looking up at Kristi Noem and ICE agents on a roof that shows nothing of the city around them.

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Emmie is the calico, her brother Mozzie is the tabby. Both bellies are soft, but only one is safe to pet…

A calico cat with a white tummy laying on her back on the floor

A tabby cat with a white tummy laying on his back on a couch with his paws sticking up above his head

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Day 4 of my experiment with different kinds of days off was the most experimental: solo beach day! Drove an hour and a half out to the coast by myself, got lunch, spent a while walking along the beach and taking in some scenic vistas. Been ages since I did something like that by myself.

A selfie of me, a mop-headed white guy in sunglasses, on a beach

Several large sea stars, a mix of orange ones and purple ones, on a rock above a tide pool.

Gorgeous vista on the Oregon coast with mountains, beaches, and a number of large rocks jutting out of the water

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Realized my profile was missing an important accomplishment

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Absolute peak worldbuilding from recent Magic story. I have a soft spot for alternative etymologies, and this is so, so much better than just not using the term "Hawking radiation" or giving it some totally made-up fantasy name.

Text from a Magic: The Gathering story that takes place in a space fantasy setting. The text refers to "hawking radiation" with a lower-case R, with a foot-note describing a fantastical alternative etymology.

The text: The cherazad's boundary glows: light is coming out of the fast-time inside, creating a violet haze like hawking radiation.¹ Haliya's armor warns her of xenotic particle decay, which isn't much of a warning, because it has no idea what the consequences might be.

The footnote: Like a squadron hawk, which is never found alone, the space around the black hole produces pairs of entangled particles. One hawk may, as if beckoned away from danger, escape the black hole, while the other is drawn in and consumed. Though the black hole has paid to create both particles, it recovers only one-thus effectively losing the mass-energy of the other. Because this allegory is so often used to explain this process, the emitted particles are often known as hawking radiation or beckon-hawk radiation.

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

You can see all the cards we've previewed in the Riftbound: Origins card gallery! riftbound.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/tcg-ca...

Image of the Riftbound card Eager Apprentice. It is a 3-cost 3-Might unit in the blue Mind domain.

Its rules text reads "While I'm at a battlefield, the Energy costs for spells you play is reduced by 1 Energy, to a minimum of 1."

Its flavor text reads, "As long as these thirty-seven things go right, it'll work every time!"

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

My second and final Riftbound preview card is Eager Apprentice! This card's flavor text is a perfect encapsulation of me trying to pilot my Kai'Sa spells deck. Also, this card is quite good in a Kai'Sa spells deck! (Maybe it's a coincidence... maybe it's narrative design)

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

That means we get to make cards like Block, which give Shield mid-combat. As soon as the unit gains Shield, its Might bumps up, and stays up until the end of combat. (Damage is removed at end of combat too, so the unit will heal any combat damage before its Might goes down.)

A new card, Block, for the Riftbound TCG. It is a green Calm spell that costs 2 and reads:
Hidden (Hide now for any Power to react with later for 0 Energy.)
Action (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
Give a unit Shield 3 and Tank this turn. (+3 Might while it's a defender. It must be assigned combat damage first.)

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

For my first Riftbound Origins preview card, a little rules talk! Although my main job on the team is narrative, I have TCG editing experience as well, so I've been moonlighting as an editor. There's no blocking in our game, but we do have Block, a combat trick.

Banner image with the new card Block for the Riftbound TCG. It is a green Calm spell that costs 2 and reads:
Hidden (Hide now for any Power to react with later for 0 Energy.)
Action (Play on your turn or in showdowns.)
Give a unit Shield 3 and Tank this turn. (+3 Might while it's a defender. It must be assigned combat damage first.)

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

Without downloading new pictures where are you mentally

Screenshot of the Pokémon anime: The Pokémon Togepi, an adorable creature still wearing its eggshell, eats a banana with a seething look of anger on its face

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Kelly Digges @kellydigges.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Crowdsourcing from my Magic folks… I’m looking for pairs of creatures with the same set, frame/color, power/toughness, and (ideally) rarity that have very distinct creative treatments. The goal is something I can contrast with these 2 from OGW, who did get confused because they’re both Eldrazi.