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Blades in the Dark advanced life hack: the score isn’t over until it’s over! If you ever feel like you’ve failed, you just need to pivot.

What started out as a heist turns out to be an insurance scheme, which is a cover for an assassination, which is a side benefit of an exorcism! When one of these finally turns out right, just claim that was the plan all along.

This is a bit sarcastic, but in moderation it can be a good trick to escape from a score that’s going terribly wrong. Just make sure it meshes with the world (you can’t frame Bazso Baz for murdering the Chief Inspector if the Chief Inspector is alive and well) and give your GM enough material and time to work out the rest of the adventure.

skjam

Robin Hood thoughts

So, having recently rewatched the Disney Robin Hood movie (the one where everyone is anthropomorphic animals) I am thinking about Robin Hood as a crossover character. He's had a lot of changes over the centuries; tying him specifically to the reign of Prince John didn't happen until about four hundred years after that event, for example. So, what are some of the core aspects of the character that make him Robin Hood?

He's English. While Robin's exact nationality is perhaps flexible, he exists within the conversation of what rights and duties Englishmen have. The further we get from England, the more you will need to adjust the political settings of the background and story.

He's a criminal. Robin Hood works outside the law, and often against it. He might reluctantly work with a law enforcement officer against a worse criminal, but he's suspicious at best of the system, and often considers it outright corrupt.

Despite being a criminal, Robin has a very strong set of ethical principles. He does not steal from people who can't afford it, does not accumulate wealth for himself but distributes it to those who need it, avoids needless killing (but won't hesitate to kill if he has to) and is courteous to women even beyond what is normal for his society.

Robin Hood is a trickster with a sense of humor. He enjoys playing pranks, but also laughs when the joke's on him. Some of his best friends are people who bested him once.

Robin's on the side of the little people. Even when the story for some reason makes him not a yeoman but a fallen noble, Robin Hood always stands for the poor and oppressed.

He's a good leader. Robin is charismatic, and quickly gathers a group of loyal and competent followers. While he's capable of doing missions on his own, he is also excellent at group tactics, logistics and strategy.

Robin Hood is a champion archer at a time when use of the bow was especially tied to the yeoman class. He can use sword and knife, but archery is where he truly shines, which is often a weakness as well, since he cannot resist an archery competition.

Robin is a skilled woodsman, living in the forest, poaching the King's deer, knowing all the paths and how to move without them. Once he's back in Sherwood Forest, you can't catch him.

Any other core traits you can think of? Other thoughts?

@krinsbez @nitpickrider

iconuk01

That's a good comprehensive list. The only other things that come to mind, and some are merely expansions of things you've already mentioned:

Robin is a good sport. When he clashes with Little John and loses in a fair fight, he is annoyed with himself, but not resentful towards Little John, and immediately acknowledges him as victor and the better with the quarterstaff, before inviting him to join him. (Apparently earlier versions of the story had Little John being much cannier, and a good leader in his own right, rather than the "not a deep thinker, but incredibly brave and super-loyal" archetype he'd later fill)

Robin Hood is not a womaniser. He is courteous to all women, but romantically, he remains loyal to his one true love, Marian.

In some versions Robin has the private endorsement of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard and John's mother. She shares his opinion of John's stewardship, but cannot act directly, so she aids Robin discreetly.

He respects religion, if not many aspects of the Church. He is devout in his own Christian beliefs, and some legends have him being a devotee of the Virgin Mary. However he despises the hypocrisy from religious powers as much as for the gentry, and will rob a corrupt bishop as easily as a Lord. Friar Tuck is a mendicant monk, who lives simply and humbly, which Robin respects, even if he teases Tuck about his constant appetite. (Being a mendicant monk does not tie into the usual Crusades era setting, as they weren't a thing at that point, but hermitic monks were, and the "jovial monk" archetype was already part of folklore so...)

In some versions Robin is a former soldier, returning from the Crusades, so learned many of the skills he'd use in his mission against Prince John there.

piglii

hey real quick can anybody help me find this image that I’ve seen before here on tumblr. it looks like this

the button doesn’t necessarily say “Elucidate the Rapture” but it does say something that’s kind of lengthy and has religious connotations. the woman pushing the button has an expression of indescribable smugness. there might be other buttons on the machine (?) she is pressing.

piglii

FOUND IT

andmaybegayer

Oh this is only the first image in the Eschatron 9000 Series

andmaybegayer

and the finale, because of the Tumblr image limit

piglii

thanks this is part of an even grander incomprehensibleness than I could have expected

a-third-attempt

I cannot believe that this is a website where you can ask “hey i think i saw a weird image once” and put a bad stick figure drawing of it and someone will be like “oh yeah that’s the first installment of a 12-part post-ironic apocalypse fever dream photoshop series” and just hand you a dozen of the most unhinged images you’ve ever seen in your life, that still have a better three act structure than most modern cinema

flurgerbla

I dont think thats the whole photoset…. I found one more

But from what i can gather thats Crystal Thierry, also known as page73girl. Who seems to have been a model for the now defunct biggestletdown.com…

But i have no idea when the eschatron 9000 pictures were made or for that matter the original photos that were used to make it

mckitterick

this is far more than “random person in 2005ish creates surreal visual narrative” - let’s go deeper down the rabbit hole, shall we?

to Immanentize the Eschaton means to bring about utopian conditions and create heaven on Earth

the phrase is first cited in the Discordian religious text, Principia Discordia (1963), for whom Discord (aka Eris) is goddess:

the first line of Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s 1975 The Illuminatus! trilogy: “It was the year when they finally immanentized the Eschaton.”

in Frederik Pohl’s The Eschaton Sequence (1997 - 1999), the human race is caught up in a galactic war between two alien races attempting to immanentize the eschaton

in Ken Macleod's The Stone Canal (1997), one of the chapters is “Another crack at Immanentising the Eschaton”

Crystal Thierry’s (aka the modern Discordia / Eris) narrative lives in esteemed company

dectech

here’s what the warning in the image says btw because i wanted to read it but it was too blurry so i had to spend several minutes hunting for a version with better resolution, so I’m posting it here so nobody else has to make that same journey

“DO NOT OPERATE THE ESCHATRON 9000 UNLESS YOU’RE REALLY, REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT DESTROYING THE WORLD”

mckitterick

also just noticed the labels on the dials on the left side of the device’s control panel:

“MAYHEM” and “DESTRUCTION” are both turned all the way up

funny-tik-toks

entertheaardvark

George Tiller was murdered 13 years ago today (May 31 2022)

entertheaardvark

People noting this anniversary reminding me again that it is such an insane failure of the pro-choice movement that we do not as a nation think of George Tiller as a civil rights hero and additionally a martyr at the level of MLK Jr. or a Kennedy. So, you know, do your part, etc.

krill-joy

“It is my fundamental philosophy that patients are emotionally, mentally, morally, spiritually and physically competent to struggle with complex health issues and come to decisions that are appropriate for them.” – George Tiller, MD

“It is my fundamental philosophy that patients are emotionally, mentally, morally, spiritually and physically competent to struggle with com

hopetorun

wayback machine version of the linked piece above, since the PRH website one seems to no longer work

dailynarnia

is jake gyllenhaal gay??

why would you ask us, a narnia blog, this

helloitsbees

happy pride month to this post specifically

moociao-after-dark

Rest in peace, John Blanche

The father of Warhammer 40k art direction and the man that has inspired me as an artist, down to inspiring my current artstyle (and I am sure will continue to inspire me, even in death). 40k just wouldn't be 40k had it not been for the foundation of grimdark sci-fi that he laid.

Farewell, you absolute legend.

retroscifiart

Art by John Blanche for Warhammer 40K

oldschoolfrp

Legendary fantasy artist John Blanche has died. He is known mostly for his long association with Games Workshop, where he served as art director and created many of the iconic images that shaped the Warhammer and 40K worlds. He was capable of working in diverse styles, but much of his art and his own creative miniature conversions made his name synonymous with the "grimdark" aesthetic, mixing elements of moody gothic architecture and body horror with a limited color palette.

He also contributed to GW's UK edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery! books, and other books and album covers. Wombat Games recently published an authorised biography, Blanche: The Rise of Grimdark. A skirmish game, John Blanche's En Garde, is in development with a setting and visual style based on his art.

lucy-clik

I watched the Cybersix series

babyjanedough

Already know I wanna send this to people on June 1

isuckattechnology

Audio:

Erika, referencing ebenezer scrooge: You, boy! What day is it?!

Brennan, as a young boy: It's Pride, bitch!

only-tiktoks

alexaloraetheris

Humans are good sometimes actually

queerical

The practice has been described by kings, mentioned in Shakespeare, and is regularly performed at rehabilitation clinics everywhere.

uss-edsall

Does anyone have this picture

But it’s a parody of Master and Commander’s opening title

I swear I have seen this before and I cannot for the life of me find it

kesslersymbolic

This image?

uss-edsall

YES

eddardsharpe

bacony-cakes

PNG'D! (i didn't know the font so this is taken directly from the image)

+ bonus italian navy vessel

catgirl-kaiju

ororium-z

Happy Pride!

rootbeergoddess

Every pride, you must reblog this. No exceptions

thesaltofcarthage

I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.

dragon-in-a-fez

something you don't learn until you get really far into the making and tinkering life is that there's no such thing as "glue" really. there are so many kinds of substances that stick other substances together and they are all very different and if you just go look at the adhesives aisle in the hardware store the packaging never actually tells you anything useful. it's like "this is SUPER T-REX POWER GLUE" and the fine print says "good for use on wood metal and plastic". okay. but WHICH PLASTICS MY GOOD BITCH,

because SURPRISE, there's no such thing as "plastic" either. every kind of wood is basically the same on a chemical level, but the only thing every plastic has in common is "some of its molecules are long" and that is NOT a quality that determines how things stick together.

I just ordered some stuff I hope will permanently stick a circuit board to a steel sheet and withstand temperatures up to 150 degrees. by the way circuit boards are made of epoxy-bound woven glass cloth which is cool as hell but what the fuck do you glue that with? can any of the 12 kinds of adhesives I currently own do that? no of course not. if I want to stick two pieces of acrylic together so hard they become watertight to a depth of 3000 metres I have some shit that does that, but it does literally nothing else.

anyway. once you start learning how many kinds of sticking things together there are, the people at 3M start to seem like witches and I don't know if they're the kind we can trust with that level of arcane knowledge

once-a-polecat

Can I introduce you to one of the most useful sites from the early web? It’s thistothat.com and it tells you what kind of adhesives work to stick different types of substances together. It looks like it was designed in 1999 with some ads slapped over the top, because it was designed in 1999…. But like most things from the early web, it does what’s on the label: tells you how to stick this to that.

Arcane knowledge my ass, the internet used to be useful about shit.

fangirlsovertoomanythings

The way that most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ most horrible villains are rich dudes that are abusive to women, in a time such as the 1880’s, compels me.

gardnerhill

There’s a whole subset of Sherlock Holmes stories that could be labeled Asshole Guys Try to Control Women’s Money.

three--rings

Yup, there’s a huge number of times where Sherlock Holmes is the ONLY person to take a young woman’s complaint or worry seriously and finds out someone is up to some serious evil. Holmes also shows a lot of compassion and empathy with the victims over and over again. (This is why I find “Secretly a woman” or “Trans” Holmes headcanons much more convincing than “sociopath” Holmes.)

waterhobbit

I am never going to shut up about how much I specifically love The Adventure of The Copper Beeches because it is literally Sherlock Holmes listening to a young lady he does not know except as a potential client, agreeing with her that a potential job she has interviewed for that she thinks is SUPER SKETCHY is, indeed, sketchy as fuck and when she says she’s probably gonna take the job anyways because the money is good and she needs it going “OKAY I GUESS but for the love of god please write to us so we know you’re okay we will literally drop everything and jump on a train if you want us to”.

The job turns out to indeed be sketchy as fuck, she writes to them, Holmes and Watson drop everything and jump on a train when she asks them to. I read this story for the first time when I was twelve and it made a HUGE impression.

three--rings

This is also the basis for a lot of speculation about Holmes’ family life. The idea that he has been a victim of abuse, or his mother was abused (or even murdered by his father.) There’s definitely SOMETHING that makes him very aware of how dangerous isolated families can be, and the dark things that can happen behind closed doors. Plus, of course, the motivation to devote himself to stopping crime. And yes, so much of it is of the personal type.

volkswagonblues

dude see this is one aspect of the original books i NEVER understand why modern remakes (cough cough) don’t go all in on. Like, in the 21th c we HAVE all the dumb forensic shit that made Victorian Holmes stand out, but we STILL DON’T HAVE uh….you know, compassion for women and minorities, or the willingness to believe them, adequate community support for domestic violence or hate crimes, etc. etc. which you’d think is exactly where a renegade consulting detective would come in handy. A good modern day Sherlock Holmes remake, instead of trying to convince us that Holmes is some super genius for being better than fingerprint analysis or whatever, could have him just be…a good person who helps out people the police can’t and won’t help. There you go. That’s how to write a relevant modern Holmes.

fahbee

One thing that annoys me is how much the BBC version of Sherlock (and the fandom around it) focus on police cases or cold cases. In the stories, Holmes’ bread and butter cases had fuck-all to do with the police and in a few stories, he actively works around/against them, or outright lies to them. Of the many, many things I wish that show had done differently, this is one is particularly obnoxious since it’s such a gimme.

tiger-in-the-flightdeck

There were very few actual murder cases in the Canon, and Holmes handled them either one of two ways:

Option one: The murder victim was innocent while the killer was an abusive bastard, see Speckled Band. Conclusion, arrest and have the killer charged (Or in the case of Speckled Band, indirectly murder him yourself then shrug and go home)

Option two: The victim was murdered to protect someone that the victim was abusing, or for vengeance, see Boscombe Valley, Devil’s Foot, Abbey Grange. Conclusion, Oops, I don’t know who the killer is, I am suddenly incompetent, oh look a pheasant.

faejilly

#my favorite murder in holmes canon#is when they straight up witness a lady murder her blackmailer#do nothing except destroy his other blackmail material#and then straight up lie to lestrade about it#sherlock holmes#more of this in modern adaptations pls (via @cactusspatz )

muffinworry

Let’s not forget the time Holmes helps a young woman who’s being catfished by her own stepfather to steal her inheritance, and when the villain sneers that the law can’t touch him, Holmes grabs a horsewhip out of sheerest chivalry.

smokingtigerhiddengun

So, the most canon-accurate iteration of Sherlock Holmes in the last few decades is actually Benoit Blanc….

marzipanandminutiae

I think it’s also important to note, and complicates our ideas about what the highly patriarchal/misogynistic society of 19th century England looked like, that these stories SOLD

they were POPULAR

the Victorians LIKED reading about women who won out over shitty men in their lives, even when that plotline reaffirmed a woman’s power and agency or put an active sexist in his place (ie Irene Adler besting Holmes)

which is fascinating in light of. you know. [gestures broadly at all of Victorian gender dynamics, laws, etc.]

sailor-hobbiton

So yes, Benoit Blanc is the best modern Sherlock.

softieskywalker

i think the key difference between george lucas’s star wars and disney’s star wars is that lucas is a man with an ideology. someone with a point of view, and all that entails. which comes with ideas of revolution, anti-imperialism, challenging the status quo, cultural appropriation and racist stereotypes. complex and contradictory ideas because that’s how artists are: complex and complicated people. disney is not. disney is a corporation. a corporation can’t have ideology, because ideology defeats the purpose of profit. and when the only thing you do is to turn on the movie manufacturing machine before you sit down and plan what ideas are you trying to convey to the audience, then your results are going to be washed out corporate garbage. and because when you’re a giant corporation who only cares about selling to the widest audience possible, you can’t take sides. you can’t decide on an idea. because you want to sell your product to people who are on the entire political spectrum. which results in movies without ideology, without purpose, without soul.

david-talks-sw

I have been looking for this post for years after I came across it and it’s finally here and I need to reblog this because it is absolutely and entirely accurate.

comebackali

#as I always say: lucas was making a samurai film and a ww2 flying ace film and a western film and adding laser swords#because he fundamentally LIKED samurai films and dambusters films and westerns and 40’s adventure serials#but disney are making a ‘star wars film’ and adding nothing because it already had laser swords and they have nothing else to say#xerox of a xerox baybeeeee (via harrietvane)

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