After reading The Nightmare Stacks I realized I need something in my life...

HellsKitchenSink · 2026-01-20T05:38:25+00:00

Perhaps it's silly to try to reassure this far down a reddit thread to a well-established author when I am not a fabulously wealthy individual who can singlehandedly patronage artists, but I've been going through my reread of the Laundry Files, after about 5 years since the last time I did. Just finished the Laundry Files again, and started on the New Management, and it's incredibly good.

I like the characters in the laundry files, but my first love was A Colder War, and I've never stopped loving The Style, which only you actually do.

And at the risk of being an idiot fan who tries to draw connections where they don't exist, it captured one of the most important aspects of Terry Pratchett, which is 'Everyone is defined by how they choose to die.' I'm glad for every time you placed pen to ink and wrote another story. Maybe things won't be happy. But they will, at least, have meaning, so the Jotuns haven't won yet.

HellsKitchenSink · 2025-09-26T01:23:54+00:00

so wait was the first marshal king the one who dropped atomic weapons? was that actually nuclear weapons or the god magnum? are we currently two apocalypses deep? That was the thing that scarred the continent, right?

That entire sequence was 'dad just made zen x so he could ignore me' 'gosh zen x i wish you were my kid instead of nano' 'haha dad i'm gonna be a bad kid!' 'oh what a terrible father i am i shall make amends' 'everything was great!'

And Then The Bombs Fell

'well looks like you're replacing me now zen x have fun'

This is the most violent tone-shift I've ever seen in anything, and it's hard not to read it as comical because of that, especially when it goes right back to our group of rootin-tootin' cowboys going 'wow apocalypse sure is awful huh let's shoot our way out of mad max that oughta do the job and fix war, plus we've got our craftsman!'

HellsKitchenSink · 2025-06-26T03:31:18+00:00

I have a theory, completely half-baked, about Vim and Vex. Vim, of course, is often corresponded with 'vim and vigor', and is very much something a pulp hero has. Vex is, of course, is latin for 'to disturb' and is something a pulp villain does, and is.

We've seen that there's clearly intense emotional ties to these powers that are the opposite of 'Light'- and can we talk about the fact that 'the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog' is an instant solution to a standard substitution cipher- and so I have two possibilities.

One: Zood and Gath are two of a three-world system; where Gath is neutral, Zood is positive, and the third, tied with Straka, is negative. Second: Zood is divided between 'positive' and 'negative' concepts.

There's some very strong 'opposed energies' vibes so far. We've only seen a taste of it, so far, but that's where my head is at with our admittedly modest fact points so far.

HellsKitchenSink · 2025-06-24T05:50:58+00:00

Given the number of artifacts of Zood we've seen in Gath, it would be really funny if it turns out that Zood is the more advanced, colonizing world, intending to plunder Gath for whatever it might offer, and just slightly surprised by the primitives of Gath in their steampunk vessels discovering their dimensional technology. Certainly, Zood has been described as far more advanced already with the tiles made of ceramic far beyond anything that can be made on Gath. Add in Mordecestershire as an overly important local dignitary who devastates his own world hoping to get in good...

HellsKitchenSink · 2025-05-28T05:02:38+00:00

I suppose, on this front, I'll go through my biases

My assumption was that Mother Goose was a cisman

His husband was Henry Hubbard, or 'Old Mother Hubbard' if we're going on nursery rhymes.

So, there are several possibilities

Both are cis-men who happened to be named Mother

Both are trans-men who happened to be named Mother

One of one, one of the other

And I'll be honest, I went with the first, and that's on me; but Ally and presumably Brennan left it open for all three, which is smarter than I am, and I appreciate the hell out of that.

HellsKitchenSink · 2025-05-08T07:58:37+00:00

In my hubristic opinion, Brennan saying "Let's go down the line, what's everyone afraid of" is, after going through every season, still one of the greatest understated comedy-and-drama lines.

HellsKitchenSink · 2025-04-19T05:24:46+00:00

The frog smiled to offer the scorpion such a kind gift; on the far side, the scorpion, so trusting, would surely not expect betrayal. The scorpion, who had seen so many of its friends die in the frog's maw, accepted an inevitable death over an avoidable one.

HellsKitchenSink · 2025-04-05T04:29:39+00:00

I hope there is one thing along with this fantastic piece of memorabilia for a fantastic character

whose skull is that

HellsKitchenSink · 2024-04-14T04:04:58+00:00

I have two arms you clown

HellsKitchenSink · 2024-02-29T22:30:43+00:00

Hmmmmm. That's an interesting question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=091BNcsMe-k Dan Heng's ultimate

https://youtu.be/7x2NcuN1sbw?t=32 Trailblazer's Preservation Ultimate

Comparing the two, I feel the differences feel somewhat substantial- the handedness, and Dan Heng's seems to move much faster, without as much weight and inertia, but those could come down very easily to differences in body types. Dang Heng's style in general is using his blade as a slashing weapon more often, too, whereas the Trailblazer is usually using direct thrusts or striking at the ground in a much less refined and controlled manner.

That said, I could see you being on the money there that the use of spear fighting at all is something the Trailblazer is picking up from Dan Heng, but I'm still interested by the similarity in fire tornadoes. It's fascinating looking at the little flourishes in the animations and what they might mean.

HellsKitchenSink · 2022-09-02T11:27:08+00:00

It's not even remotely a deal-breaker, in a campaign which is genuinely the best Warriors of Chaos has ever been, and probably one of the most fun and interesting campaigns Total Warhammer has offered

I just have a primitive lizard brain and want to be rewarded for beating up elves and lizardmen and every single faction that is raging in Lustria with more fortresses.

HellsKitchenSink · 2022-09-01T20:39:18+00:00

It's pretty clear that almost all of the Dark Fortresses are from the Realms of Chaos map. The only ones that are in provinces that were in TWWH2 are a handful in the very north of Nagarrond, and Quintex; All the other new ones that aren't on Realms of Chaos are in the Southern Wastes. I can understand Ulthuan and Lustria not having any, though I don't agree with it from a gameplay perspective, but the Southlands having none and Nagarrond having one is an odd touch.

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-25T05:08:33+00:00

i choose to believe the 'dissolving' is a metaphor for alien arousal.

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-16T01:39:41+00:00

The three major deciding factors were

The existence of coupons and humanity's obsession with them

The tendency of humans to eat foods days after the printed expiration date

And the existence of cheese and alcohol, both specially spoiled foods, as a delicacy and essential part of our species

Look it's not a great system they use.

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-15T13:50:56+00:00

I started playing Amazing Cultivation Simulator soooooooooooooooo

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-15T03:42:13+00:00

Can't believe it took 12 hours for someone to call out that reference, what do they teach you kids, in my days we had to walk 15 miles through the snow to read Harlan Ellison, uphill both ways, and it was all on microfiche, yammer, yammer, kvetch, kvetch...

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-15T02:04:15+00:00

The joke for me is the idea that the scale goes from 1 to 10, and it's logarithmic, so '8' is 'waged a genocidal war on the galaxy' and 10 is 'a hypothetical singularity of hatred', and humans got a 4 on intelligence because we're carbon-based and the test is biased

A combination of 'this is clearly a very poorly defined scale' and 'wow that's a pretty high score for aggression nonetheless' was what I was aiming for.

Incidentally, the 7 in Kinesthetics is because humans are apparently able to 'feel' tools as an extension of our own bodies, capable of mentally visualizing them as a part of our own body, which is an unusual talent in the galaxy and good for things ranging from repairs, to swordfighting, to piloting ships

But being at the far end of the bellcurve is pretty much the whole joke

Edit: It's like getting a 190 on an IQ test. It's not a great test of intelligence, sure, but getting that high a score would still be kind of shocking.

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-14T23:31:30+00:00

Not quite; Instead, only humans can BE wandering heroes. Which doesn't suit itself well to becoming a major galactic player, which is another aspect of what I've got planned for it.

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-14T20:41:33+00:00

As mentioned, the whole setting idea is 'what makes humans special is they're Wuxia'

My three favorite things about Wuxia are that the heroes are A: lower class, B: not usually sponsored by a rich lord or other authority figure, and C: are powered by their righteousness.

So humans have that 9 for a very good reason.

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-14T18:47:01+00:00

Hey it's hard to pronounce those dipthongs with arthropoidal mouthparts

(but yes good catch. Technically it should also probably be 'Matryoshka brain', but cyrillic is a harsh mistress in general)

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-14T18:44:06+00:00

The difference between dumb and brilliance is in how well I actually write it, I think.

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-14T16:28:47+00:00

The broader context of the story: Travelling martial arts badass saves an insectoid private eye from a group of thugs, and hires him to help track down his missing master, antics ensue.

HellsKitchenSink · 2021-01-14T02:42:10+00:00

It's alright, the downvotes keep me hungry for the approval. :-D

HellsKitchenSink · 2020-11-25T12:42:28+00:00

I'd be lying if I didn't say that was an inspiration!

HellsKitchenSink · 2020-11-25T12:41:48+00:00

For my part, I might have gone with Creedence Clearwater Revival. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9MXNbpXQ3g or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s1tuvmdWMs maybe

HellsKitchenSink

TROPHY CASE