Here, in the middle of nowhere

[picklenickels]

Blue Prince is cool because you get to watch yourself develop a psychosis and turn into a real life version of this meme

[myebi]

the hunt 🩸 my contribution for @storyindungeon, a zine about dungeon meshi & fairytales!

[rowanclair]

In an ancient forest, shallow pools reflect not the trees above, but a luminous city of elsewhere.

[leonkennedysprostate]

"don't assign human morality to non human things" is so true except when it comes to printers. they know what they are, they understand dilemmas and ethics and morality. they choose to be how they are, they choose to be evil, at their very core they are rotten

[foodffs]

4-Ingredient Sichuan Crispy Beef The crispy beef is chewy on the edges and tender and juicy inside, tossed in rich chili crisp with scallions for an addictive taste.

Recipe: https://omnivorescookbook.com/sichuan-crispy-beef/

[stellaluna33]

When somebody shares a quote by a famous author like it's something the author personally said and believed, but you know it was actually spoken by a character you're not supposed to like... 😐

[green-great-dragon]

one time I saw on Pinterest a cutesy little pink flowery image with the quote “‘as soon as I entered the house, I had singled you out as the companion of my future life’ -Pride and Prejudice” and like

ladies that is a mr collins quote 😭

[adventuresofwaverly]

My favorite example of this (not quite a character but a commonly misinterpreted quote) is Mary Oliver’s quote:

“He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.”

Often quoted as if it’s romantic. But here’s the thing

It was written by a lesbian. About a heron. She was writing about a large wading bird.

[starlightomatic]

[deadbranch]

[gottaseesomeart]

Peacocks & Pinecones - Hand stitched original embroidery from East Yorkshire.

[mushyooms]

buying him time

[murderbot-moodboard]

Breaking News: Murderbot drops on Apple TV+ on May 16!!!!!

[i-bez-togo-toshno]

mayday mayday mayday all ships at sea

[goosebarnacle]

I'm just like an hour into the Bell's Hells finale and I can't help but focus on the pure delight in the expression of each of the players, at different times, at Matt's description of the Matron's family gathering.

You can tell that they are going to remember that scene for years to come, almost as a real life memory. It's been ten years and 3 different campaigns and these people still look like small children on Christmas morning because the power of imagination and friendship are real.

And that's the very special beauty of roleplaying games: you laugh with your group, you suffer with them, and you are frustrated and happy and angry and *insert emotion here*, and you slowly fall in love with all the characters and their world.

As a player and as a GM, all you can ask for is that the stories you create together are beautiful and meaningful to you.

[goosebarnacle]

Happy CR3 campaign to those who observe!!

It seems it will be the last (long) campaign in Exandria so if that's the case, thank you for these 10 years and all the love and success for any future projects ♥️

It's been a wild ride. Thank you sincerely for sharing these amazing characters and this beautiful story. We will keep them in our hearts.

[failbettergames]

Fallen London Quickstart

Magpie Games

The quickstart guide for Fallen London: The Roleplaying Game is out now!

You can pick up the free quickstart from Magpie’s website. It contains all the rules, characters and story you need to get your game going.

The Kickstarter for the book itself will go live on the 11th of February at 10am Eastern time. 

 If you are mega keen (or if you are planning on backing and want to help us out with visibility), we advise you to back early; backers who pledge for any physical tier in the first forty-eight hours receive a free devilbone die.

The tag for spoiling stuff in the quickstart is #fltrpg-quickstart-spoilers.

Have fun!

[two-bees-poetry]

twenty years across the sea

[kiragecko]

[Image shows a poem with a space down the middle. The poem can be read in full, or either side can be read separately. The left side is titled, "penelope", and the right side is titled, "odysseus".

The penelope side reads,

dearest, time rolls on and our son grows taller, and i realize that we were just children when we married. i'm a woman, now- i want to know, what do you look like with gray in your hair? i imagine you still smell like fresh earth. i imagine you're still out there.

The odysseus side reads,

i remember you and your voice is in the sea, and this has been twenty years; playing with love, with fire, going off to war still holding your flowers. a man, a promise. you must be so beautiful; do you have laugh lines? now i hope you still pick flowers- hyacinths, bluebells. you're still waiting. i'm still waiting.

Together they read,

dearest, i remember you and time rolls on and your voice is in the sea, and our son grows taller, and this has been twenty years; i realize that we were playing with love, with fire, just children going off to war when we married. i'm still holding your flowers. a woman, a man, a promise. now- you must be so beautiful; i want to know, do you have laugh lines? what do you look like now with gray in your hair? i hope you still pick flowers- i imagine you still smell like hyacinths, bluebells. fresh earth. i imagine you're still waiting. you're still out there. i'm still waiting.

It's signed two.bees.poetry

End ID.]

[antigonick]

The best thing for being sad… is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake in the middle of the night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.

—T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone, in The Once and Future King

[ajaxgb]

Okay no I need to talk about the book version of Howl's Moving Castle. I love the movie but the book has such a different vibe and you, yes you, should read it.

Movie Howl is a soulful and quiet. Book Howl is a drama queen and Causing Problems and has a long string of jilted exes and couldn't shut up if you paid him.

Sophie and Howl drive each other up the wall at the beginning and it's really funny. Sophie and Howl are (despite themselves) very much in love by the end and they still drive each other up the wall and it's even funnier.

In the movie, Howl has been ordered by the king to participate in The War, and Howl is avoiding it because he is a brave conscientious objector. In the book, Howl has been ordered by the king to rescue his lost brother from the Witch of the Wastes, and Howl is avoiding it by any means necessary because he is a cowardly weasel who wants to stay as far from the Witch as possible.

In the movie, the Witch cursed Sophie because she was jealous about Howl speaking to Sophie for five minutes. In the book, the Witch cursed Sophie because Sophie had been doing surprisingly powerful magic for years without knowing it and it was actually starting to cut into the Witch's plans. (Sophie does not discover any of this until nearly the end of the book, but the reader can start to pick it up much earlier and the way Sophie's magic works is pretty darn cool.)

In the movie, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens, but this is implied to be nothing but nasty fearmongering. In the book, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens because Howl started the rumor so people would stop asking him to do wizard junk all the time.

The book lightly parodies a couple of tropes from Western fairy tales. In particular Sophie has internalized that, as the eldest of three sisters, her "destiny" is to fail so that her younger sisters will look cooler when they succeed, which is why she's so resigned to the hat shop at the beginning. (Sidebar: Sophie's sisters come up much more in the book and they're great.) There's also a really funny bit where Sophie attempts to operate a pair of seven-league boots.

In the movie, the fourth and final location that the magic door connects to is some sort of black void / mindscape / time portal dealy. In the book the fourth location is Wales, in the UK, on Earth, so that Howl can visit his family, because from Howl's perspective this is an isekai story.

[elodieunderglass]

Reveal of Welsh postdoc and rugby lad Dr Howell Jenkins (27) perennially one of the funniest things tumblr users can discover in fiction.

It’s unclear whether he finished his PhD or is still a grad student in the process of slithering out of his actual viva.

Here is Calcifer’s “silly saucepan song” that he sings to himself, which Howl sings when drunk (and Sophie doesn’t understand.) It’s a Welsh rugby song.

[spaghettinatural]

SOSBAN FACH?????!?

[elodieunderglass]

@spaghetti-trek I love that this jumped out and BIT you!!’

[sarahreesbrennan]

Oh my GOD the saucepan song!

but also… yes… I love the outsider to the story, being perceived by the story insiders. And that is why Long Live Evil needed multiple POVs. Because, as so often when it comes to inspiration, Diana Wynne Jones.

[prokopetz]

#in the movie it is never stated why the castle is the way it is except that it is a wizard's magic castle #in the book it is. and i swear to god i'm not making this up. #to facilitate tax evasion. (via @downtroddendeity)

[goosebarnacle]

I remember watching the movie, loving it and turning to the book for more. I remember beginning to read, loving it and then... 'Rivendell' blowing my mind. Like actually turning the page again and again like what the fuck is going on here, what am I reading.

[goosebarnacle]

Me: Tonight I'm going early to bed, I really need it.

An Aurora borealis: *appears*

Me: I WON'T MOVE FROM THE WINDOWSILL ALL NIGHT, NO EYE SHUT FOR ME TODAY, YAY!!! ♥️♥️♥️