#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
#comics #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
I love when I’m on the wikipedia page for a species and it says “least concern”. one less thing to worry about 👍
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#today in Apocalypse Memes #sort of #it’s not technically a meme but I think it has the Vibe #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
#cats #adorable #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
A duel between magicians makes a fascinating tale. Such tales are common—and rarely true. The winner of such a duel is not likely to give up trade secrets. The loser is dead, at the very least.
Novices in sorcery are constantly amazed at how much preparation goes into a duel, and how little action. The duel with the Hill Magician started with a dream, the night after the Warlock’s speech made that duel inevitable. It ended thirty years later.
….
And in his sleep he concentrated, memorizing details. A narrow path curled up the hillside. Facts twisted, dreamlike. There was a companion with him; or there wasn’t. The Warlock lived until he passed through the gate; or he died at the gate, in agony, with great ivory teeth grinding together through his rib cage.
He woke himself up trying to sort it out.
The shadowy companion was necessary, at least as far as the gate. Beyond the enemy’s gate he could see nothing. A Warlock’s Wheel must have been used there, to block his magic so thoroughly.
Poetic justice?
He spent three full days working spells to block the Hill Magician’s prescient sense. During that time his own sleep was dreamless. The other’s magic was as effective as his own.
Larry Niven’s novelette “What Good is a Glass Dagger” isn’t generally super well remembered; to the extent people think of it, it’s in relation to the much more famous sequel, “The Magic Goes Away”, which used magic as a metaphor for the oil and energy crisis.
(It’s also one of the first stories to use the word “mana” to refer to magic power; it’s still exotic enough that Niven italicizes it in the text. It’s not the first ever, but I believe it’s the actual source that RPGs drew on when they used that word.)
But this passage has always stuck with me. Wizard duels aren’t flashy explosions of power. They’re very careful maneuvering, with decades of prescience, and the winner is the one who best manages that careful maneuvering around their opponent’s blind spots while creating blind spots for their opponent.
(There’s a truism in D&D3.x that a level 13 wizard, with time to prepare, can kill anything that isn’t preparing in return. And I feel like this story represents that concept really well, though the details are all different.)
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#storytime #recs #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
if tumblr explodes you can address a letter to my url and place it in any hollow log. to be clear i will not receive it. but it is an action you can take
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#The Great Tumblr Apocalypse #I didn’t actually laugh aloud but it still amused me enough to reblog #overly literal interpretations #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
The most impressive flair of completely worthless coding on this website is how if you click the like button there’s an animation of a heart rising from it, and if you manage to click THAT heart it unlikes the post. No one would ever attempt this maneuver on purpose. I have done it by mistake 5000 times because the rising heart floats directly above the button to expand the tags on a post when I’m on my phone. …Actually, I have yet to catch the broken heart animation that falls down when you slaughter the rising heart. Would… Would that re-like the post…?
Many brave scientists in the notes have now confirmed it DOES re-like the post! Most of them have also politely apologized for spamming me with notifications by testing it, which is how I learned that if you like and unlike the same post twenty times op still only gets one notification tops on the current activity page. :( I want to see the same name fifty times in a row and know they’re doing science. :( (For the record this seems to be the same whether you have notes bundled or not.)
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#Tumblr: a User’s Guide #the more you know #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
#language #Tumblr: a User’s Guide #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #mythology #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
Brinens and Things - Tumblr Mirror 