Kid In The Library Just Said "a VILLAIN Who Lives In The MOON Is After Us" So Keep An Eye Out For That

Reenactor throws a spear at a drone

There is no better vampire than the nightmare of London, terror of the British isles, king vampire cocksman of all Europe, and technically not a vampire, Varney

Flavor Text Highlights Honorable Mentions

Dragons: *exist*

The M20 flavor texts: Anyways let's hear from someone who died

Opinions on fullmetal alchemist?

Brotherhood is the best anime ever made.

It's the most tightly-plotted slowburn mystery I've ever seen. Everything ties together. It makes more and more sense the more times I rewatch it, which in a mystery story is goddamn rare. In the very first episode, the filler villain at one point says "You don't understand the shape this country is in!" and that's a completely innocuous thing for this character to say except no it isn't

The magic system is a beautifully hard arrangement that never breaks its own rules, and it effortlessly explains everything you need to know to follow every alchemy-based twist just through the explanation of equivalent exchange and the question "what could equal the value of a human soul?" Alchemy follows equivalent exchange at all points and functions basically like Advanced Chemistry, and whenever it looks like the rules are being broken, it's just because somebody is burning human souls to do it.

The cast is massive, but never crowded. Everybody has a part to play. Even the seemingly-interchangeable minion characters all end up being unique contributers to the plot; there is truly no separation between Main Characters and Minor Characters because at any point anyone can turn out to be suddenly deeply important.

Contains a profound philosophical meditation on how even the most powerful person is not omnipotent, and the purposelessness of a power that can't be used to save the people they love, and this theme culminates in the only instance of the "extremely cool powerful badass sacrifices all their powers" trope that I actually 100% like.

Somehow this slowburn hard-magic mystery builds up to a massive anime confrontation about teenagers using the power of friendship to kill god and it never makes any buckwild leaps to get there. The resolution is emotionally satisfying and ridiculously kickass.

There are stories that I come back to more often, or hit me harder in the moment, or contain higher highs, or had more impact on their genres, but FMA:B is, pound for pound, the best anime ever made. 10s across the board.

I could look at the flavor text and art of random magic cards for hours on end

Flavor Text Highlights - Magic 2020

<- Previous Set | Next Set ->

Cool - Show of Valor

“As the knight struggled to stand, his squire took up his blade. The foe advanced not a single step.” —Krinnea, Siege of the Bone Spire

Funny - Pattern Matcher

“Good! Now put it with the other widdle bunnies.” —Sargis Haz, artificer

Worldbuilding - The Lament for Bala Ged Cycle

“Yarok grieves within the waste Of Bala Ged’s corrupted land.”

“Yarok’s waters rush and rage Where armies bled into the sand.”

“Yarok’s nightmares lurk and wait Where dark despair is near at hand.”

“Grief and rage and nightmares fade Where hope and comfort make their stand.” —Lament for Bala Ged

Emotional - Tale's End

“When you are gone, will anyone remember your story?” —Unknown

<- Previous Set | Next Set ->

I apologise if you've already answered this, but I tried searching your blog and I'm unsure if you haven't or if it's another example of Tumblr's amazing search system.

I was talking with a friend recently about how much of a culture clash the Monk Class is compared to the rest of Dungeons & Dragons and was wondering if there is a coherent reason for their original inclusion. I'm aware that they're largely influenced by Shaolin monks as depicted in Hong Kong cinema in the 70's/80's as compared to the Sword and Sorcery stuff most of the rest of D&D takes influence from.

Basically, my question ultimately boils down to, "Is the Monk Class there purely because of an original player wanting to rule of cool their way into playing something wildly out of genre, or is there a stronger link between Sword and Sorcery and Hong Kong cinema that could have organically resulted in the Monk Class joining the rest of the classes?"

A lot of the link between the two was simply a matter of time and place. The kung fu craze hit North America at just about exactly the same time as the sword and sorcery revival that gave us films like Clash of the Titans and Beastmaster and The Sword and the Sorcerer and Dragonslayer and Krull – not to mention the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan adaptation, which revived popular interest in first-wave sword and sorcery literature – so there was a lot of it going around. Analysis of early Dungeons & Dragons as a product of its media influences often overlooks that it was largely drawing on what was trendy in American popular media in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Even the tonally incongruous Lord of the Rings references weren't a deep cut; while the books were originally published in the 1950s, they'd experienced a strong resurgence in the 1970s, putting them firmly in the popular consciousness at the time that D&D was being developed. All this being the case, it's not surprising that early D&D was also substantially influenced by Hong Kong action cinema.

That said, the reason the monk character class in particular (i.e., as opposed to kung fu media influences more generally) is there is allegedly because one specific guy in one of the game's early playtest groups really, really wanted to play as Remo Williams from Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir's The Destroyer; several of the class's signature abilities are direct references to powers Williams exhibits in the course of the novels. Remarks from folks who worked at TSR at the time have pointed the finger at Brian Blume as the Remo Williams fan in question, though accounts are conflicted whether Blume was actually an uncredited contributor to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor (1975), in which the class makes its first proper appearance, or whether Blume's interest merely prompted its inclusion.

This is the case for the character archetypes in a lot tabletop RPGs of that era; instead of trying to work out what classes "ought" be be present, authors would simply start with the types of characters their playtesters actually wanted to play, often based on specific popular media characters, then work backwards to derive an IC rationale for why those were the setting's standard adventuring professions. Other examples from D&D in particular most obviously include the Ranger (based on Tolkien's Aragon, naturally), but also the Paladin (principally inspired by Holger Carlsen from Poul Anderson's 1961 isekai novel Three Hearts and Three Lions, also the source of D&D's goofy regenerating trolls), the Assassin, back when it was still a separate character class (probably mainly based on the Assassin Caste from John Norman's Gor), and even the Wizard to a large extent (less Gandalf than you'd think: a large portion of D&D's iconic wizard spell list is lifted directly from the 1963 Vincent Price film The Raven).

(I often think that modern indie RPGs could benefit from reviving this approach. Like, fuck textual consistency – just pick half a dozen of your favourite popular media characters without regard for the compatibility of the source material and work backwards to explain why these six random assholes are your game's playable archetypes!)

When I return a library book, I make sure to walk there holding it in my hands instead of in my bag. This is enrichment before it gets returned to the cold limbo of the stacks

genuinely one of the saddest parts of this new era of the internet is how hard it is to rick roll someone now. with people's attention spans shortening so much, they wouldn't even get through the first few bait seconds before clicking off the video. like i saw a comment that ended with "btw i made all of this up" and the replies kept treating it so seriously because none of them finished the entire 4 sentence comment. and We're no strangers to love You know the rules and so do I (do I) A full commitment's what I'm thinking of You wouldn't get this from any other guy I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand Never gonna give you up Never gonna let you down Never gonna run around and desert you Never gonna make you cry Never gonna say goodbye Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you