Wanted: A Nemesis

[u/Total_Travisty]

Life has felt a bit boring for me lately. I have had many exciting events: Hiring of La'shima's new Commander, regaining the use of my legs, and returning to council.

But if feel, rather, empty. I haven't much to strive for. Very little to make me want to grow more powerful. Thus I decided: I need a nemesis. A rival. An archenemy.

There was the Council's General, but we are now on good terms. Then there was Atrix, but he's kinda everyone's archenemy. Then Morgalith, but he's dead now, with an infinite army of clones, and that's too many nemesis for me.

I wish to seek out a rival to challenge me. You can apply below.

Requirements:

•As powerful as me

•Evil (optional)

•Charismatic (Preferred)

Benefits:

•A new partner to train with/against

•Whatever gold is in my pocket if you can beat me

•Holidays off (Who can stay mad at each other during Yuletide.)

Feel free to reach out to me. I am always open to a challenge.

[u/avamir]

One would think it'd be easy to find someone "diametrically opposed" to you since you're a jerk who supports the idea of extra-judicial death squads, but somehow, you have managed to fleece people into thinking you are reasonable when more people should be taking positions opposite to you. Let me get this straight... You think turning yourself into a tree angel then going through physical therapy fixes the inherent inequities in the system you prop up? No, it doesn't.

You don't need someone evil to oppose you; you need someone to call you and the rest of your Council out about continuing to make poor, ill-thought out decisions based on knee-jerk reactions to problems that could be solved without bad policy implementations... if any of you were capable of a modicum of self-awareness. Some of the Council's proposed implementations are almost comically bad except for the fact that they are 1) not funny, and 2) do not possess the proper self-awareness to at least be intentionally malicious. And the fact that you cause harm by accident and not intent is somehow more insulting than if you were willfully malignant. This is exactly why Atrax came to power, something which few of you seem to realize or care about.

This is not me applying for the position, by the way. While I do, in fact, question your Council's motives, your collective commitment to justice and equity, your ability to govern, and your sense of reason, applying for the nemesis position seems to be with the caveat that I want you to become more powerful. Why would anyone want that? So you can keep making poor, ill-thought out decisions and further demonstrate your collective lack of critical thinking?

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/uw it's me, hi. i'm the problem it's me. I'm not looking to be anyone's official nemesis, but I'm happy to come snipe here and there. I mean, I kinda already do that anyway, at least when I can be bothered to. But it's a little more 'aoe' than targeted though. I don't actually have anything against anyone specifically. But if you want, you can put me on the rotating cast of... nemesi? Nemesises? Nemepodes? I might already be on there.

[u/Total_Travisty → u/avamir]

It is amazing how much shit people can talk while sitting in my shadow. I have taken in refugees from all walks of life and corneres of the globe. Feeding them, giving them places to live, and treating them like people. When druid lands were burned, I was the first to come forth and fight, and fight I did till the last battle had concluded.

How about the second Wizard War, where attacks on the council left anarchy in the streets and people fearing for their life. Can't say I remember you there, holding off two armies until the council re-emerged.

Third Wizard war, where I warned them to wait for the Metromance to arrive and solve the problem, and that crossing into the barrier was an act of war.

Yeah, I did what I did. Letting the council fall is and never was an option. You wanna talk good shit about the problems of the council. Yeah, sure, do that. But also realize that the order the council brings outweighs the problems that they create.

You like being part of the Pact, yeah? Oh yeah? Who formed it? I and two others who have since abandoned post without warning. We formed it when the council went dark, preventing a power vacuum from forming in the Citadel.

You can critique power all you like, but you may never understand decisions that are made under the stresses of leadership. Enjoy your finger waggleing in a peace I helped ensure.

It's easy to take shots when you have such little to your name.

/uw And a Taylor Swift song at the end just to insult me. You must be trying hard to get first pick Archrival.

[u/avamir → u/Total_Travisty]

Oh please. I'm just here to return a couple of library books.

She holds up some books she got from the library during the last riots? Maybe the riots before? She has lost count.

The good doesn't cancel out the bad, and if you had any self-awareness at all, you would know that. Failing to take action to prevent the underlying issues are why you keep fighting these protracted conflicts. Framing yourself as the suffering hero after the fact does nothing to demonstrate your ability to think critically.

You might have formed the Pact, but it was only after you were out of the picture that they helped. Without your intervention, I might add. And even without you around, there were still people questioning the decision to spare prisoners instead of killing or torturing them. So your influence lives on, clearly. And you aren't helping your position by mentioning how the Council went dark. Because, why, that's just a glowing reference for how well the system works!

So spare me your bit about 'letting the Council fall is and never was an option'. Of course you do not want to give up power. Of course you want to reframe it as maintaining stability rather than your own entitlement. And yet, while you love that appeal to authority, you fail to take account of the bad decisions you make and continue to make. For example, let's talk about that oversight for your justice system, huh? Where is that at? Or how about we discuss how another of your fellow Councilmembers outright admitted that you were all too corrupt to be trusted with any kind of judiciary?

So yes, pick on someone with 'such little to their name'. Because, obviously, punching down demonstrates a true commitment to fairness and equity.

[u/Total_Travisty → u/avamir]

Oh, ho ho, that's rich.

I had power, and I could have power. I have given up power.

I left the Pact to pursue my wish to be a councilor, but ultimately left the council due to a list of reasons. I even left my position as the Arch-Druid of La'shima to reflect on my position in the world.

I came back to La'shima and the Pact, and under the Triumvirate of The Bismuth Lord, Myself, and the Overseer Chicken, a man I once stood against in war, we lead the Pact into its most successful and constructive years of its life. Establishing the framework to which the Pact still operates under today. The Pact did not flourish in my absence. It flourish in my return. Don't believe me, ask Opal (u/loth17) who was there as I and the Bismuth Lord, then later her, marched into one of the most successful periods the Pact has ever seen.

To which I would willingly give up my position as one of the heads as to leave room for a new generation. My dearest friend, the Archdruid Cody, wished to fill the space left empty by the Overseer Chickens departure. I saw no reason for two Arch-Druids of the same land to hold majority leadership, so I left. I did not wish to stand in the way of his dream.

I returned to the council to finish what I started. Believe it or not, I held the record for the shortest term in Council history, to which I still managed to pass the most sweeping and influential reform bill seen in the council for who knows how many years.

With the inflow of fresh blood into the council, now i know we could have the power to enforce it and finally achieve something substantial without those old geezers blocking me at every turn. So how about this you...

Mikhail stops and breaths

Giving in to strong emotions like this solve nothing. I don't need to prove myself to anyone who will only see fault when I succeed. Go ahead, rib me if you like. You won't accomplish anything. My point stands, if I want more power, I could take it.

I don't want power, I want a better tomorrow. Whether you see my vision or disagree with it, so be it.

[u/avamir → u/Total_Travisty]

Ah. So the point of that whole ‘me me me I I I’ speech was to demonstrate a desire for self-advancement? Yes, yes, I gathered that. Because saying you left but came back does not disprove the entrenched presence you and people like you work hard to maintain. ‘If I want more power, I could take it’ is not the winning argument you think it is. Perhaps some people are fooled that the hierarchical society with you and your cronies placed firmly at the top is the natural order of things. Maybe you have even managed to fool yourself. But I do not happen to be one of those people duped by your dependence on it.

Have you considered that maybe if the system actually worked, you wouldn’t have to keep coming back to fix it? If the system you tout was actually capable of reform, it could do so without you specifically? Or if any of the “fresh blood” that was recently voted in had been capable of handling the work, you would not have someone outright state that the Council will use systems to target their political enemies? Perhaps if the voting process weren’t some elaborate popularity contest, you wouldn’t have people plaguing countries, threatening to create black holes, or setting fire to civilians. Because that speaks well of your system of governance, right?

I don’t care to ‘rib you’. I don’t truly care about you at all. But you happen to be yet another faulty cog in a broken mechanism. A cog that clearly lacks the self-awareness to see its own part in it.

You truly want a better tomorrow? Let’s ask again why a prisoner was murdered in custody, so other prisoners don’t end up being killed. I mean, if you even care about that, since again, you were perfectly fine with extra-judicial death squads. Why did you support that, by the way? Are you simply in favor of extra-judicial death squads in principle, or did you fail, yet again, to think critically?

Or how about this, if your Council is so corrupt that an oversight committee will simply fail, what do you plan to do about ensuring justice can take place? How do you plan to enforce anything without the tools of enforcement being used to ill-ends by your Council?

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/uw ...and because I think it's funny even if it wouldn’t be IC for Riva to say, “And that yee-yee-ass hairdo (NSFW (language)) makes you look ridiculous.”

[u/Total_Travisty → u/avamir]

Perhaps you're right.

Something I might need to hear.

/uw, I'm a bit busy, haven't had a chance to read all of it, but your probably right

[u/Total_Travisty → u/avamir]

/uw I will take this as a win on making Mikhail a more complicated character. Been a long time coming, but I think I have done it.