wshaffer

This is a song called "Death Throes of the Terrorsquid". It is simultaneously hilarious and fucking epic. (Sample lyric, "We've defeated Vikings, and ninjas we have slain!")

I seem to remember a period when heavy metal bands felt required to take themselves seriously. I am so glad that proved to be a historical blip.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Wanna know why people really join the Stormcloaks?

----
Galmar Stone-Fist eyes me with the thinly-veiled contempt that I've come to expect as the default Nord attitude towards a non-native of Skyrim. "Why does a Breton want to join the Stormcloaks?"

To be perfectly honest, I'm wondering a bit myself. The average Stormcloak stinks of ale and poorly-tanned bear hide, and half of them are so racist they make my teeth hurt. I've learned three new ethnic slurs that apparently describe me, and I've only been here an hour.

"When I was captured with Ulfric and his men near Helgen, it was an accident. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the Imperials knew this, and were ready to execute me anyway, just because to do anything else would be inconvenient. Any Empire that has so little regard for the basic rights of its citizens is clearly a corrupt institution that must be brought down."

Galmar's eyes narrow. I can't tell if he distrusts my ideological fervor, or if I've just confused him by using three-syllable words. He shakes his head. "Not good enough, Breton."

"Well..." I look around to make sure the Jarl isn't within earshot. "If you must know, it's also that Ulfric's voice is really, um, sexy."

Galmar goes starry-eyed. "Isn't it, though?" he sighs.

One of the Stormcloaks guarding the door nods. "He can Shout at me any time, for sure."

"I would happily sit and listen to him read all 56 volumes of Songs of the Return," his partner adds.

Galmar claps me on the shoulder. "You're one of us, sister. I'll get you a bear hide."

So, if you've played Skyrim or read some of the reviews, you'll be well aware that the game's approach to dialogue and character development can be a bit...impressionistic? Haphazard? While initially this marred the game's immersiveness for me, as time goes on, I've found it's just encouraged my brain to fill in the gaps.

----

It's a Loredas night like every other Loredas night since I've come to Skyrim, which means that I'm standing back-to-back with my shield-brother, Farkas, down in the depths of some long-dead hero's tomb where we've come looking for some mythical artifact, facing down a ridiculous horde of undead. Like everything else that's happened since I was nearly beheaded thanks to a bureaucratic error on the part of the Imperium, I haven't questioned it much. But as I yank my sword out of the guts of what must be the hundredth draugr of the night and kick its dessicated body down the stairs, I wonder how this became my life.

"Farkas?"

"Yes?"

"How come every weekend, we end up grave-robbing and brawling with undead?" Another draugr comes lurching at me out of the darkness, beating its sword against its shield and slobbering. Of course, my bound sword chooses this moment to wink out of existence, leaving me cursing and brandishing a fistful of nothing. Farkas swings round and knocks the thing back with a blow from his two-handed sword, and I resummon my conjured blade just in time to parry the return stroke from its war axe.

When that foe is safely despatched, Farkas answers. "In case you hadn't noticed there's not a lot of nightlife around Whiterun."

From the other end of the room, I hear the sounds of stone sarcophagi sliding open and the barking grunts of draugr as they scent prey. There's plenty of night life around here.

"Couldn't we just go down to The Bannered Mare and start a brawl or something?" I smack the next draugr I see with a flame spell, and he lights up like a torch, clearly illuminating three more behind him. Joy.

Farkas laughs. "No one there will fight with me anymore. And if they have any sense, they won't fight with you either."

The draugr charge, and we brace ourselves to meet them. There are worse ways to spend a Loredas night, I guess.

link for who_daily: a href="">You're a Mean One, Mr. Dalek by lj user=wshaffer> (Daleks|G)

Title: You're a Mean One, Mr. Dalek
Rating: G
Characters: Daleks
Spoilers: None

A spoof of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch", inspired by swan_tower's request for Doctor Who/Dr. Seuss crossover fic. (A longer fic is in the works. This is just a bit of fun. As opposed to said longer fic, which is, of course, deadly serious.) It arrives a bit late for this year's holiday season, I'm afraid.

( You're a Mean One, Mr. Dalek )

Spotted this at Fort Clinch on Amelia Island, FL. It was posted on a wall with a bunch of facsimile Civil War era documents. For a brief moment, I thought I'd slipped sideways into an alternate time line in which the Union Army recruited female engineers, until I actually read the whole thing.

Much as I'd like this to be an example of Civil War era humor, I think it must be a modern parody. I don't think that the sans-serif font used for "YOUNG LADIES WANTED" is period, not to mention that the use of at least 4 different typefaces at various sizes and weights smacks of something created using a computer, not hand-set type.

Still, it's nice to know that the folks in our national park service are having a bit of fun.

( The text of the poster: )

Today's best find from the great empty-the-boxes-in-the-garage project: nestled next to my copy of Tacitus, a much photocopied handout labeled "Fragment of a Greek Tragedy" by A. E. Housman. I was delighted to find it again.

This was given to me by a classical Greek prof in college, when we were reading Euripides's Ion. I think we had been complaining too much about Euripides's rather strained metaphors. Of course, now in the 21st century, it is available online.

Go and read it - it's really quite funny. (If you're not well-acquainted with classical Greek drama, let me assure you that it really is an awful lot like that.) Here's a sample to whet your appetite:

CHORUS: O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots
Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom
Whence by what way how purposed art thou come
To this well-nightingaled vicinity?
My object in inquiring is to know.
But if you happen to be deaf and dumb
And do not understand a word I say,
Then wave your hand, to signify as much.

ALCMAEON: I journeyed hither a Boetian road.
CHORUS: Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
ALCMAEON: Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
CHORUS: Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
ALCMAEON: Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
CHORUS: To learn your name would not displease me much.
ALCMAEON: Not all that men desire do they obtain.
CHORUS: Might I then hear at what thy presence shoots.
ALCMAEON: A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that--
CHORUS: What? for I know not yet what you will say.
ALCMAEON: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
CHORUS: Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
ALCMAEON: This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's.
CHORUS: Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies.
ALCMAEON: May I then enter, passing through the door?
CHORUS: Go chase into the house a lucky foot.
And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good,
And do not, on the other hand, be bad;
For that is very much the safest plan.
ALCMAEON: I go into the house with heels and speed.

I've just spent way too much of my evening chortling over Go Make Me a Sandwich, a blog devoted to humorous critique of sexism in gaming (both computer/console games as well as tabletop RPGs and the like.) I particularly love the posts where the author takes some particularly ludicrous piece of art that violates both the laws of anatomy and physics, analyzes what's wrong with it, and redraws it to be more plausible. Not only are they funny, they're like mini-workshops for artists on how to do the female figure right.

So, I'd seen this linked on Geek Feminism, but didn't actually get to watch it until obadiah cued it up on his iPhone for me when we got together to do some writing yesterday. It is a thing of beauty, and if you've ever even dabbled in tabletop RPGs, you need to see it.

I keep trying to rewrite the lyrics to be more applicable to the game I'm currently in, but there's just no way to get, "Roll an enormous double handful of D10 and add your auto-successes," to fit either the meter or the rhyme scheme.

Roll a D6 from Connor Anderson on Vimeo.

And yes, you can buy the song from iTunes.

Hey, radio comedy lovers, there's a new series of Fags, Mags and Bags airing. Quite possibly the funniest radio comedy ever set in a corner shop in Scotland.

Or, if that's not your thing, have a look at Bangable Dudes in History (via the fabulous Geek Feminism). My world was incomplete until I discovered the existence of pie charts detailing why Shah Jahan and Nikola Tesla are hawt. (I remain unconvinced about George VI, but it was a valiant attempt.)

For anyone thinking of submitting a short story for the Big Finish Short Trips thing, here's some advice from Simon Guerrier, based on the stuff he saw when he read submissions for a previous Short Trips anthology. (Point #11 is kind of interesting in light of "The Waters of Mars", but in general I the advice holds up well.)

Meanwhile, the blog Sociological Images offers this hilarious video on cliches in news reporting taken from the British TV show Newswipe. Newswipe is one of the reasons why I wish Americans could watch BBC TV on iPlayer. I'll have to go see if there's more of it floating around on YouTube.