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Posted
15 hours ago, Deities and Demagogues said:

What may be notable about Dickens' situation is that the amount he had to write was agreed upon in advance.  He might not have been chasing a carrot by extending his prose, but he was certainly chasing an inflexible target.

This was also true of, for example, Asimov (at least in later years).

Posted
2 hours ago, Deities and Demagogues said:

Huh.  Asimov wrote serials?

Yes — a lot of his earlier books were serials — but that's not what I meant. For his later books, the publisher basically went to him and said, "We want you to write another Foundation book. It needs to be [x] words. We'll pay you a bajillion dollars. Will you do it?"

 

And yes, that's a little different from a serial where you're paid for every 32-page installment, but it's the same basic incentive: you have to hit a word count.

Posted

I love that the third Lije Baley book is twice the length of the first two, and noticeably worse, and ends with a garbage deus ex machina, and has an uncomfortable sex scene and discussion of how incest is okay on this planet, and sets the stage for Robots and Empire, which is maybe the worst book Asimov ever wrote.

Posted

Were his earlier books actually written as serials, or rather as short stories?  While those two origins have plenty in common, they don't as far as the characteristics of serialization that are relevant here -- that is, an inflexible length requirement and an inflexible deadline.  Short stories published independently of one another on an as-written basis have neither.

 

I think it's the combination of those two requirements that create potential for a problem.  Few writers have an unflaggingly consistent stream of output, and it's not hard to imagine the bind the author is in when a satisfying continuation simply isn't manifesting itself and they have 32 pages or whatever due anyway.

Posted (edited)

There were likely enough variations in printing with font, spacing, etc. that Dickens' length wasn't completely inflexible though. The Barnes and Noble edition of Hard Times averages 17.6 modern pages per installment; Bleak House 45.6 (ignoring illustrations and ancillary material like endnotes, which would only change this slightly).

 

Reading a bit more, Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations (both later novels) were serialized in a literary periodical owned by Dickens.

Edited by Jawaj
Posted

A lot of the Golden Age Sci-Fi novels were first serialized in magazines and then published as novels.  I am not sure if the author's intent (Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, etc) was to write a novel and then sell a version to Astounding/Galaxy/etc or not

Posted

Isaac Asimov started off as a short story writer. Some stories like the Foundation Series were originally published in magazines as novellas that were collected in novels as reprints.

 

I don't think the intent was to originally write a novel, but to get published to make money and only later reprint it as a novel when he became more successful. Later on Asimov decided to fill in gaps between his earlier works and merge series into a large coherent universe that led to really bad novels.

Posted (edited)

Centaurs

Hydras

Medusa/Gorgons

Minotaurs

Pegasuses/Pegasi

Cyclops

Chimeras

The Trojan Horse

Odysseus/Ulysses

Achilles

Agaememnon

Helen of Troy

Hercules

Zeus

Poseidon

Hades

Athena

Edited by Jawaj
Posted

Black Panther (party): An organization created by a forcefully oppressed group to whom other avenues of change had proved ineffective, and which was self-reliant and began with necessary community programs; and which was savagely and racistly attacked by the intelligence community as well as the press.  It can't claim total nobility, but it's hard not to be sympathetic.
Black Panther (character): A relatively good superhero, mostly free from cliches, and often with good storylines.  Not the most personally resonant for me.
Black Panther (film): I'm conflicted and not quite sure where to put this.


Muppet Babies: Pretty good for what it was.
2001: A Space Odyssey: Fine.  Good bits to the story, but a little slow at times, and I think overrated.
Paulicianism/Bogomilism/Waldensianism: I don't understand why these are combined?  Also, it's hard for me to *rank* all these old movements or sects within Christianity.. I could discuss them but I don't really see much to judge one way or the other.


Centaurs: Not the most interesting human-animal hybrid, nor the most pleasant, and that's ignoring the infelicitousness of their appearances in modern internet days.
Hydra: A widely applicable motif.
Medusa/Gorgons: Now here's a truly powerful image and story, even before we hear Medusa's backstory.  Poorly handled and genericized in most modern appearances.
Minotaurs: Not quite as powerful a setup as Medusa, but a good one, with another great backstory -- and again, poorly handled and genericized in most modern appearances.  O Greeks, you gave us such misogyny, and such compensatory mythological figures!  O Medusa, O Pasiphae!
Pegasuses/Pegasi: Eh.  Also, quit pluralizing singular figures unless you want me to rank modern appearances instead.
Cyclops: Or Cyclopes?  Eh.
Chimeras: More interesting than most such combinations, and it gave us a great word.
The Trojan Horse: Implausible and overdone.
Odysseus/Ulysses: A cunning and powerful man of privilege.
Achilles: A true tragic hero, the carrier of grief and rage; interesting and more than a little monstrous.
Agaememnon: It's hard to be sympathetic to this one.
Helen of Troy: The feminine object _par excellance_, with a variety of depictions.  As is pretty much always the case, I prefer Euripides, and accordingly rate Helen higher than her general reputation might suggest.
Hercules: A fascinating figure.  Despite his hypermasculinity, Heracles somehow ends up bieng one of the least obnoxious Greek heroes; and despite his persecution from Hera, one of the least problematic in his behavior towards women.  Low bars, but still, have to give him some credit.
Zeus: It's sometimes difficult to tell if Zeus is _actually_ an asshole, or if he's just that way because the world sucks and he's the nous and etc. etc.
Poseidon: Sort of a Zeus minor with no nous to hide behind.
Hades: A favourite underworld god, as True Neutral as they come, reasonable and even helpful, with the best bucket of euphemistic epithets any Cronide could hope for.
Athena: Leaning In to Olympus, and raking in so much appreciation these days, but an enemy I name her: taking cleverness, wisdom, and might, and using them at the employ of the powerful, punishing the weak, and perpetuating misogyny everywhere.

 

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Subtle, tasteful symbolism

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Waving Hands

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Cait Sith

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

 

Kierkegaard

Slartibartfast

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

Hades

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

 

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

Mice

Upton Sinclair

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Sailor Moon (first anime)

Marie Curie

 

Medusa

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Russian literature

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Samuel Clemens

 

Ninjas

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Ziggurats

Reality TV

AD&D 2nd Edition

Maggie Simpson

Tiki drinks

Snakebird

Ice cream

 

70's cars

Georg Cantor

Shanti

AD&D 1st Edition w/ UA

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

 

Black Panther Party

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Catharism

Minotaur (Knossos)

Zombies (necromantic)

The Northern Lights

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Saunas

Vinyl records

Linux

Sans serif fonts

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

The Queen is Dead

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

 

Lady Gaga

Video games

Lawsuits

Wine

Robert Heinlein

Heracles

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

Hydra (Lernaean)

Isaac Asimov

The Evil Overlord List

Arthur C. Clarke

Exile III: Ruined World

The Cranberries (band)

Bartenders

 

Black Panther (character)

Sock puppets

Flamingos

Cluny the Scourge

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Muppet Babies

Penguins

TLC

Rhinos

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Mexican food

 

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Chimera (Lycian)

Science museums

Achilles

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind
Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Rats

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

Heavy-handed symbolism

Princess Peach

 

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Helen of Troy

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

 

History museums

Pegasus

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Beatles

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

Art museums

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Zeus

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

 

Bark spider

Spiders

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Norman Rockwell

The electoral college

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

 

Google

Odysseus

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Running

Puggsy

Checkers

Facebook

Runtz

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

George Clooney

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

 

Blazing Saddles

Louis Armstrong

The Trojan Horse

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

 

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

GIFTs (Spiderweb)

Godwin's Law

Poseidon

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

 

Pyramids with eyes on them

Centaurs

Moderate rain all day

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Elvis Presley

Minecraft

Galactic Core

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

 

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

John Wayne

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Virtue ethics

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

 

KISS (principle)

Agamemnon

Salty liquorice

Westerns
Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

ELIZA

 

Zombies (infectious)

80's fashion

KISS

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

My Little Pony

Whaling

Rudyard Kipling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

 

Bertrand Russell

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Elfpunk

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."
Fedoras

Johnny Cash

 

Deconstructivism

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Steampunk

Kitten/rat box

Athena

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Ethical intuitionism

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

Birthdays

 

The Barber Paradox

Turnips

Anchovy pizza

U2

Wings (band)
Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Deconstructionism

 

Final Fantasy VIII

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

 

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches (i.e., thin and spindly ends)

Posted

I mean, they're still quite distinct things.  This picture is a serious oversimplification, given that at least 500 years passed between the origin of the Paulicians and the Waldensians appearing.

 

It strikes me that this would be sort of like saying "The Federalists/Whigs/Republicans" -- there are some clear lines of descent there but cmon, lol.

Posted (edited)

Well, we can't quite know the exact line of descent of these heresies cuz obviously almost anything the heretics wrote was destroyed. IIRC tho a Bogomilist priest visited northern Italy and southern France to support the Cathars there and, probably, establish a consistent line of ordinations between the two communities. So, the link to Paulicianism per se is somewhat dubious and unknowable (but the Bogomils almost certainly had to have gotten their dualist Gnosticism from SOMEWHERE), but the link Bogomilism -> Catharism is known, and Waldensianism was founded in Occitania at the height of the Cathar heresy, so influence and cross-pollination is likely. Modern "Waldensians" are just Calvinists, tho.

Edited by googoogjoob
Posted (edited)

Gilgamesh

Enkidu

Utnapishtim

Inanna/Ishtar

Humbaba/Huwawa

Gugalanna

 

EDIT: Let's have more fun with razor thin differences of theology!

 

Transubstantiation

Transignification

Consubstantiation

Impanation

Edited by Dintiradan
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
22 hours ago, Deities and Demagogues said:

Sorry I've sat on this.  Am meaning to get back to it; things have been crazy.  May have some time coming up.  Feel free to pile on more things to rank if you like.

I was starting to get worried as I hadn't seen you on the forums

Posted (edited)

Slarty, I'm blown away by the immense amount of time you've put into this.  Not surprised, mind you, just blown away!  

When you recover from whatever life is throwing at you, please add to the list the missing spiderweb games, or at least: exile, A:EftP, A3:RW, avernum 5, avernum 6.
Also, you can't do Enkidu without Shamhat.  ;)

 

 

Edited by jlsgaladriel
clarify avernum remakes
Posted

PHEW, this was a big update.  Lots of good items to add here.  Keep 'em coming.

 

Gilgamesh: A favourite mythic figure.  I am mostly convinced that his titular epic, besides being the first such epic, was also the first gay love story.  The bevy of subtle (and rarely translated) homoerotic puns are only the tip of the iceberg.  At the start of the epic, Gilgamesh is unhappy and is raping women left and right; it doesn't fulfill him, but wrestling with Enkidu does, and that's when his problematic behavior stops.  Consider that the primary antagonist is the goddess of love; that she's the antagonist because Gilgamesh rejects her advances; and that she is the one who kills Gilgamesh's "companion" after they overpower and kill the Giant Fertility Symbol of Heaven.  Ultimately, Gilgamesh is a great symbol of how negative things can be reclamated when you respond to them constructively, something I give the Sumerian gods great credit for.
Enkidu: Doesn't really have much independent agency.  As such, not quite sure how to rate him.
Utnapishtim: More interesting than Noah, in part because he gives advice, and in part because he is the agent of a rogue benevolent god, rather than part of a detailed and totally unspontaneous plan from a single entity.
Inanna: An utterly fascinating goddess due to her ubiquity and to the contradictions presented by her different aspects.
Humbaba: Monster (?) that we don't really have enough information about.
Gugalanna: It isn't 100% clear that Gugalanna = the Bull of Heaven.  Either way, as with Humbaba, there's a pretty limited corpus to go off of.
Shamhat: An ironic character, in that she civilizes Enkidu using sex, whereas Enki (Enkidu's creator) is the prototypical culture hero, from whom Inanna (whose temple employs Shamhat) steals powers of civilization, in another myth.

 

Lord of the Rings: Not a series; Tolkien intended it to be a single volume, even though it has often been published as three; and his other work is different enough to rate differently.  Anyway, this is a real treasure to me, one of those books that I reread frequently, yet always find new insights in.  It isn't flawless but its heights are very high.
Xanth Series: That brings me back.  I mostly haven't touched this in decades and I'm afraid it won't have aged well.  There are bits that I remember fondly, and bits that are creative, and then there's all copious sexualizing -- copious really does seem like the right adverb, there, for Anthony -- and the clearly unintentional, but no less extant, sexism.  And that's not even touching all the hamfisted puns.  Altogether, hoom, hmm, this is a tough one, but the whole unique-magic-talent premise is a good one, and ultimately I want to give it credit for its better parts, like Imbri and Metria.
Wheel of Time Series: I read the first book a long time ago.  It seemed extremely generic.  Given what I've heard about later books, I'm willing to judge it on that basis.
Shannara Series: Haven't read.

The Compleat Enchanter: Haven't read.

 

Hamlet: Not for nothing do some people consider this the high water mark of basically everything.  There's so much packed into every word of this play.
Macbeth: I don't like it as much as many people seem to, but it certainly has a lot to it -- there aren't too many Shakespeare tragedies I'm willing to dump on.
Romeo and Juliet: The modern versions are generally very unfortunate, but the play itself is a truly evocative take on a powerful situation.
Midsummer Night's Dream: Overdone, and not a play I am generally excited to see, but then again, there is "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
Twelfth Night: One of my least favourite.  I think I've seen it performed too many times, and too many of them have fallen flat.  It just feels like it relies lazily and boringly on cross-dressing.

 

I *could* rank every Shakespeare play, but that would be silly, so I'm going to stick to those I have unusually strong feelings about.  I'll even throw in my favourite, just inching out Hamlet:

Titus Andronicus: In the dictionary by "underrated."  (And whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds, / Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns, / As if a double hunt were heard at once...)

 

Circular saw: Maybe my favourite saw?  It doesn't seem versatile but I find that its ease and efficiency end up making it more versatile in the end.
Table saw: Ah, the memories I have of wood flying across the shop...
Chain saw: Clearly one of the best power-ups in ZAMN.

 

Paul Simon: Clearly talented, though I don't quite understand the people who treat _Graceland_ as if it were _Hamlet_.
Art Garfunkel: Sorry for his sanity loss.
Simon & Garfunkel: Deserving of their pre-eminent reputation.

 

Hugs: I am much more positive about hugs than I imagine most of you would expect.

 

Games: per my previous statement, I'm not sure I care to eventually include every single SW game here (especially as a lot of them will clump closely together).  Sorry Gal!

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Subtle, tasteful symbolism

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Waving Hands

Titus Andronicus

Hamlet

Lord of the Rings

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Cait Sith

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

 

Kierkegaard

Gilgamesh

Slartibartfast

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

Hades

Hugs

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

 

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

Mice

Upton Sinclair

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Sailor Moon (first anime)

Marie Curie

 

Medusa

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Russian literature

Simon & Garfunkel

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Samuel Clemens

 

Ninjas

Circular saws

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Inanna

Ziggurats

Reality TV

AD&D 2nd Edition

Maggie Simpson

Shamhat

Tiki drinks

Snakebird

Ice cream

 

Utnapishtim

70's cars

Georg Cantor

Shanti

AD&D 1st Edition w/ UA

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Macbeth

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

 

Black Panther Party

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Catharism

Minotaur (Knossos)

Zombies (necromantic)

Romeo and Juliet

The Northern Lights

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Saunas

Vinyl records

Chainsaws

Linux

Sans serif fonts

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

The Queen is Dead

Schuyler Colfax

Roguelikes

Chess

 

Lady Gaga

Video games

Lawsuits

Wine

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Robert Heinlein

Heracles

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

Hydra (Lernaean)

Xanth series

Isaac Asimov

The Evil Overlord List

Arthur C. Clarke

Exile III: Ruined World

The Cranberries (band)

Bartenders

 

Black Panther (character)

Sock puppets

Flamingos

Cluny the Scourge

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Muppet Babies

Paul Simon

Penguins

TLC

Rhinos

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Mexican food

 

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Chimera (Lycian)

Science museums

Achilles

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind
Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Rats

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

Heavy-handed symbolism

Princess Peach

 

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Helen of Troy

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

 

History museums

Pegasus

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Beatles

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

Art museums

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Zeus

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

 

Bark spider

Spiders

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Norman Rockwell

The electoral college

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

Table saws

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

 

Google

Odysseus

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Running

Puggsy

Checkers

Facebook

Runtz

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

Wheel of Time series

George Clooney

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

 

Twelfth Night

Blazing Saddles

Louis Armstrong

Art Garfunkel

The Trojan Horse

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

 

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

GIFTs (Spiderweb)

Godwin's Law

Poseidon

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

 

Pyramids with eyes on them

Centaurs

Moderate rain all day

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Elvis Presley

Minecraft

Galactic Core

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

 

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

John Wayne

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Virtue ethics

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

 

KISS (principle)

Agamemnon

Salty liquorice

Westerns
Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

ELIZA

 

Zombies (infectious)

80's fashion

KISS

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

My Little Pony

Whaling

Rudyard Kipling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

 

Bertrand Russell

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Elfpunk

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."
Fedoras

Johnny Cash

 

Deconstructivism

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Steampunk

Kitten/rat box

Athena

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Ethical intuitionism

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

Birthdays

 

The Barber Paradox

Turnips

Anchovy pizza

U2

Wings (band)
Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Deconstructionism

 

Final Fantasy VIII

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

 

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches (i.e., thin and spindly ends)

Posted (edited)

Werewolves

Vampires

Ghosts

Zombies

Mummies

Frankenstein (either his monster or the story in general - you choose)

Your favorite muppet

Geneforge series (collectively or your single fave - you choose)

Super Mario (series, don't count spinoffs)

Curling (sport)

Gargoyles

Choosing between lightbulb types at the store

 

Edited by Jawaj
Posted

In an attempt to get more strong reactions and fewer "eh"s, I propose including more items of the style of "your favourite ___" and "your least favourite ___".  But I'll still accept whatever.

 

-----

 

Did you rank the 7 dwarves yet?  No, and I'm not going to, although it probably wouldn't be hard to guess which one I like best :p

 

Arsène Lupin: No knowledge.
A. J. Raffles: No knowledge.
Zorro: Mixed feelings.  He provides a sturdy archetype.  Ultimately I prefer Cyrano.
Sherlock Holmes: Full of wonderful details, but thin, for my taste, on personal involvement and motivation.
Hercule Poirot: I agree with Agatha Christie that Poirot is a "detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep".  I also dislike the number of ridiculous leaps of reasoning that he tends to employ in his work.
Batman: Not my favourite hero.  I appreciate the depth of the atmosphere that surrounds him.  I don't love the hyper-masculine I-don't-have-any-special-powers wish-fulfillment element it's taken on.  But I suppose you can take Batman in a lot of different directions.

 

"The night is dark and cold. In the dark, the lights of Gotham try to provide some comfort. Some hope in the darkness. The lights of the theater were burning brightly, Zorro’s theme playing through my head. My heart wouldn’t slow down. It couldn’t. I didn’t want it to. I entered the night more than just a boy. I was the masked man people feared, I was their nightmare. I was legend. My parents flanked me on either side. The noise and light of the theater faded into the empty Gotham night. My eyes were still wide eyed. I should have been paying closer attention. Should have seen the clues. A cough. A quite footstep. A stillness to the air. But I didn’t. All I saw was another man’s legend as my own.

 

And then I saw something else. A different man. He was mysterious, dark, as he emerged from the steam filled alley. I couldn’t help but notice his hands, strong, masculine. Yet they revealed so much more about him. A longing, a tenderness, an understanding. They were hands that knew and had seen the world.

 

I locked eyes with him. They were deep. Never ending. A man of a different age. The eyes of an old soul.

 

Then he shot my parents.

 

I was so embarrassed."

 

Werewolves: Not the most interesting generic undead, but not the least interesting either.
Vampires: I suppose it depends what variety we're talking about, but... eh.
Ghosts: Finally an undead creature that relies on backstory rather than fangs.  I also appreciate their usability as a psychological metaphor.
Zombies: Already on the list, in like ten different versions (#thanksdintiradan)
Mummies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmlwNrA7RfY

Liches: Sure, why not.
Frankenstein (either his monster or the story in general - you choose): It's a good read with a lot to say.
Your favorite muppet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwHsKYJhST8

 

Geneforge series (collectively or your single fave - you choose): I'll be kind here and pick G1, which was, in most ways, Geneforge at its best: a great setting with some interesting ideas and very rough mechanics.
Super Mario (series, don't count spinoffs): There are some highs and some lows, but overall, I have to give this franchise credit for its (1) emphasis on exploration, (2) creativity, (3) high bar for play controls, and (4) being perhaps the most widespread platform that showered children with images of psychedelic drug.  Seriously, the original power-ups were 70's style mushrooms and flowers and none of the kids-can't-know-drugs-exist crowd gave them a second thought even in America in 1985.  Crazy.
Gargoyles: FIREBRAND LIVES
Choosing between lightbulb types at the store: I, uh... what?

 

Horatian satire: I'm going off Wikipedia for these.  Here the description sounds great, but then I hit the list of examples and it's like, oh, when they say "gentle humour" they mean, like, fabric softener level gentle.
Juvenalian satire: The reverse was true here.
Menippean satire: ...and here it becomes clear that the categories fall apart, because the list of examples includes items from BOTH previous varieties of satire.  Commit it then to the flames!

 

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Subtle, tasteful symbolism

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Waving Hands

Titus Andronicus

Hamlet

Lord of the Rings

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Cait Sith

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

 

Kierkegaard

Gilgamesh

Slartibartfast

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

Hades

Hugs

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Croissants

 

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

Mice

Upton Sinclair

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Sailor Moon (first anime)

Marie Curie

 

Medusa

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Russian literature

Simon & Garfunkel

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Samuel Clemens

 

Ninjas

Circular saws

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Inanna

Ziggurats

Reality TV

AD&D 2nd Edition

Maggie Simpson

Shamhat

Ghosts

Frankenstein (novel)

Tiki drinks

Snakebird

Ice cream

 

Utnapishtim

Juvenalian satire

70's cars

Georg Cantor

Shanti

AD&D 1st Edition w/ UA

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Macbeth

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

 

Black Panther Party

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Catharism

Cookie Monster

Minotaur (Knossos)

Zombies (necromantic)

Romeo and Juliet

The Northern Lights

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Saunas

Vinyl records

Chainsaws

Linux

Sans serif fonts

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

The Queen is Dead

Schuyler Colfax

Gargoyles

Roguelikes

Chess

 

Geneforge 1

Lady Gaga

Video games

Super Mario series

Lawsuits

Wine

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Robert Heinlein

Heracles

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

Hydra (Lernaean)

Xanth series

Isaac Asimov

The Evil Overlord List

Arthur C. Clarke

Liches

Exile III: Ruined World

The Cranberries (band)

Bartenders

 

Black Panther (character)

Sock puppets

Flamingos

Cluny the Scourge

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Muppet Babies

Paul Simon

Penguins

TLC

Rhinos

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Mexican food

 

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Chimera (Lycian)

Science museums

Achilles

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind
Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Rats

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

Heavy-handed symbolism

Princess Peach

 

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Helen of Troy

Zorro

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Batman

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

 

History museums

Pegasus

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Beatles

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Sherlock Holmes

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

Werewolves

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

Art museums

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Zeus

Windows 3.1

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

 

Bark spider

Spiders

Mummies

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Norman Rockwell

The electoral college

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

Table saws

Horatian satire

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

 

Google

Odysseus

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Running

Puggsy

Checkers

Facebook

Runtz

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

Wheel of Time series

George Clooney

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

 

Twelfth Night

Blazing Saddles

Louis Armstrong

Art Garfunkel

The Trojan Horse

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

 

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

GIFTs (Spiderweb)

Godwin's Law

Poseidon

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

 

Pyramids with eyes on them

Centaurs

Moderate rain all day

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Elvis Presley

Minecraft

Galactic Core

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

 

Apple

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

John Wayne

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Virtue ethics

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

 

KISS (principle)

Agamemnon

Salty liquorice

Westerns
Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

ELIZA

 

Zombies (infectious)

80's fashion

KISS

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

My Little Pony

Whaling

Rudyard Kipling

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

 

Bertrand Russell

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Elfpunk

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Hercule Poirot

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."
Fedoras

Johnny Cash

 

Deconstructivism

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Steampunk

Kitten/rat box

Athena

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Ethical intuitionism

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

Birthdays

 

The Barber Paradox

Turnips

Anchovy pizza

U2

Wings (band)
Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Deconstructionism

 

Final Fantasy VIII

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

 

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches (i.e., thin and spindly ends)

Posted

To be fair, Horatian and Juvenalian are Roman satirical modes, while Menippean is Greek and predates the others by centuries. So some overlap is forgivable, I think.

 

Also:

Your favorite superhero

Your least favorite superhero

C Auguste Dupin

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

Kim Stanley Robinson

Ferrets

Otters

Stoats

Match Game

Posted

Your favorite motivational quote
Your favorite subject in school
Your least favorite subject in school
Your favorite season (of the year)
Your least favorite season
Your favorite cuisine
Your least favorite cuisine

Posted

Discarded chewing gum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVI712f93RQ
Your favorite brass instrument: Trumpet, when used mildly and tricksily, as in https://youtu.be/MnpP8sdPVHM?t=1m19s
Dick van Dyke's accent in Mary Poppins: Oh dear.
Ferris wheels: Pointless on multiple levels, literally.
Heathers: So bad.  So good.

 

Your favorite superhero: I'll limit these to relatively well-known characters, to save myself a tricky task.  That means I'm going here with Storm; and while I admit that some of the reason for this comes from Iona Morris' voice acting on the animated series, I find plenty to appreciate in the nature of her powers, her weaknesses, and her ethics.
Your least favorite superhero: Appriopriately -- and I did not realize this would be the case till I'd chosen it -- I'll go here with the one leader of the X-Men who predates Storm: Cyclops.  An arrogant, inflexible dudebro-in-denial.
C Auguste Dupin: Haven't read.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Huh, this sounds like, really, not the best rebel nation ever.
Kim Stanley Robinson: Haven't read.
Ferrets: Oof, I have some bad memories here.
Match Game: Funnier that it probably deserves to be, and has led to some great parodies.

 

Forum Lurkers: I think I support lurkers.
Your favorite subject in school: Let's say history.
Your favorite season (of the year): Fall
Your least favorite season: This is a harder call.
Your favorite cuisine: Thai food.
Your least favorite cuisine: The ubiquity of kimchi beats out borscht and pushes me to say Korean, here.

 

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

Subtle, tasteful symbolism

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Waving Hands

Titus Andronicus

Hamlet

Lord of the Rings

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Cait Sith

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

 

Kierkegaard

Gilgamesh

Slartibartfast

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

Hades

Storm (X-Men)

Hugs

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Thai food

Croissants

 

Les Misérables (novel)

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

Mice

Upton Sinclair

History

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Sailor Moon (first anime)

Marie Curie

 

Medusa

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Russian literature

Simon & Garfunkel

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Samuel Clemens

 

Ninjas

Circular saws

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Inanna

Ziggurats

Reality TV

AD&D 2nd Edition

Maggie Simpson

Shamhat

Ghosts

Frankenstein (novel)

Tiki drinks

Snakebird

Ice cream

 

Utnapishtim

Juvenalian satire

70's cars

Georg Cantor

Shanti

AD&D 1st Edition w/ UA

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Macbeth

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

Fall

 

Black Panther Party

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Catharism

Cookie Monster

Minotaur (Knossos)

Zombies (necromantic)

Romeo and Juliet

The Northern Lights

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Saunas

Vinyl records

Trumpets

Chainsaws

Linux

Sans serif fonts

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

The Queen is Dead

Schuyler Colfax

Gargoyles

Roguelikes

Chess

 

Geneforge 1

Lady Gaga

Video games

Super Mario series

Lawsuits

Wine

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Robert Heinlein

Heracles

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

Hydra (Lernaean)

Heathers

Xanth series

Isaac Asimov

The Evil Overlord List

Arthur C. Clarke

Match Game

Liches

Exile III: Ruined World

The Cranberries (band)

Bartenders

Forum lurkers

 

Black Panther (character)

Sock puppets

Flamingos

Cluny the Scourge

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Muppet Babies

Paul Simon

Penguins

TLC

Rhinos

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Mexican food

 

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Chimera (Lycian)

Science museums

Achilles

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind
Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Rats

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

Heavy-handed symbolism

Princess Peach

 

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Helen of Troy

Zorro

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Batman

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

 

History museums

Pegasus

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Beatles

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Sherlock Holmes

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

Werewolves

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

Art museums

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Zeus

Windows 3.1

Summer

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

 

Bark spider

Spiders

Mummies

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

Standard playing cards

Norman Rockwell

The electoral college

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

Table saws

Horatian satire

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

 

Google

Odysseus

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Running

Puggsy

Checkers

Facebook

Runtz

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

Wheel of Time series

George Clooney

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

 

Twelfth Night

Blazing Saddles

Louis Armstrong

Discarded chewing gum

Art Garfunkel

The Trojan Horse

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

 

Dick van Dyke's accent as Bert

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

GIFTs (Spiderweb)

Godwin's Law

Poseidon

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

 

Pyramids with eyes on them

Centaurs

Moderate rain all day

Korean food

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Elvis Presley

Minecraft

Galactic Core

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

 

Apple

Ferris wheels

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

John Wayne

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Virtue ethics

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

 

KISS (principle)

Agamemnon

Salty liquorice

Westerns
Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

ELIZA

 

Zombies (infectious)

80's fashion

KISS

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

My Little Pony

Whaling

Rudyard Kipling

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

 

Bertrand Russell

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Elfpunk

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Hercule Poirot

Ferrets

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."
Fedoras

Johnny Cash

 

Deconstructivism

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Steampunk

Cyclops (X-Men)

Kitten/rat box

Athena

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Ethical intuitionism

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

Birthdays

 

The Barber Paradox

Turnips

Anchovy pizza

U2

Wings (band)
Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Deconstructionism

 

Final Fantasy VIII

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

 

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches (i.e., thin and spindly ends)

Posted
5 hours ago, Car Je est un autre said:


The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Huh, this sounds like, really, not the best rebel nation ever.

Approximately 20 million dead, the population of China wouldn't regain its pre-war population level until well into the 20th century, and you still rate it above Wings, pirates, and Clippy.

 

Rating it above Dickens and Queen is acceptable, however.

Posted
6 hours ago, googoogjoob said:

Approximately 20 million dead, the population of China wouldn't regain its pre-war population level until well into the 20th century, and you still rate it above Wings, pirates, and Clippy.

Hey, I have to deal with the fact that the thing growing on my face is Canonically The Worst Thing Ever.

Posted (edited)

What a fascinating thread.  Slarty, you have clearly outdone yourself.  At first I thought that I would have pun with this, but the meticulous manner with which you consider each word is more compelling that I remain sane.  I am particularly impressed by your dissertatio1`n regarding the McDonalds Coffee Caper. Much of that information was not disclosed at the the time.  Too many people jumping up and down try to attract attention to their particular cause` de jour. 

And now for your rating pleasure I submit my list of words:

The White Rabbit,
The March Hare,

The Jackalope,

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog,

Harvey (the Pouka),

Harry (as in the Jerry Lewis movie The Geisha),
The Easter Bunny,

Did a rabbit really attack Jimmy Carter?

The Harehunter

 

If you put me at the very  bottom of your list, I will consider that fair in light of my long absence.

Edited by Harehunter
Posted

Text search functions: I think my feelings on these are well-known.

Dead trees: Uh.  Uhm.  Well, I mean, you can do some pretty great things with their corpses, but I'm not sure that improves my opinion of trees being dead per se.

 

Stairs with uneven steps: I've been trying to think of any time I've encountered this, and I can't think of any.  This doesn't seem like it should be that hard to find, and yet... am I crazy?
Vancian magic: It's hard to get more arcane than this.  I support it on that account.
Public libraries: A wonderful thing on so many levels.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show: As mainstream sitcoms go, there aren't many that are so good on the details.  Also, I mean, Ed Asner, come on.
Your favorite nonfiction book: I'll rank this one, but it's remaining unidentified, because it's esoteric enough to be potentially personally identifying.
Your least favorite bug: Wasps.  They're so big!  It's just creepy how big they are.

 

The White Rabbit: Gets more appealing with each new adaptation, but in the original, it's hard to feel great about this guy.
The March Hare: Equally crazy each time -- in a pretty generic way.
The Jackalope: How in the world did we go from coming up with chimeras and hippogriffs to jackalopes and ligers?  Yeesh.
The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog: Vorpal bunny FTW.
The Easter Bunny: Yet another patronizing, paternal, panoptical icon stuck on a holiday.
The Harehunter: Per earlier statement, I am not including any members on the list.

 

 

Dogs

Square One Television

Alphabets

A nonfiction book (identity redacted)

Subtle, tasteful symbolism

Chrono Trigger

Cyberpunk

Bilbo Baggins

Waving Hands

Titus Andronicus

Hamlet

Lord of the Rings

"Zombie" (Cranberries song)

Pet Sounds

"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote"

Spirited Away

Cait Sith

Exile II: Crystal Souls

Nethergate

Billie Holiday

"Nephil's Gambit"

 

Kierkegaard

Gilgamesh

Slartibartfast

The Tarot Deck

Madeline Kahn

Hades

Storm (X-Men)

Hugs

The deck of many things

Seinfeld

Egizia

Coffee

Public libraries

Thai food

Croissants

 

Les Misérables (novel)

Text search functions

Bossa nova

Disco

Jiji (character)

Mice

Upton Sinclair

History

File compression

Sliced bread

Bagels

Subways (transit)

Sailor Moon (first anime)

Marie Curie

 

Medusa

P-zombies

Ducks

Deontology

Willow Rosenberg

Prossis-Bok

Working out

Russian literature

Simon & Garfunkel

Nina Simone

Sea slugs

Samuel Clemens

 

Ninjas

Circular saws

Jiji (in Nikki's lap)

Inanna

Ziggurats

Reality TV

AD&D 2nd Edition

Maggie Simpson

Shamhat

Ghosts

Frankenstein (novel)

Tiki drinks

Snakebird

Ice cream

Vancian magic

 

Utnapishtim

Juvenalian satire

70's cars

Georg Cantor

Shanti

AD&D 1st Edition w/ UA

—Alorael

C++

Good grammar

Macbeth

Cor Blok's Tolkien art

Bacon

Falafel

Fall

 

Black Panther Party

Henry Wallace

OK Computer

Catharism

Cookie Monster

Minotaur (Knossos)

Zombies (necromantic)

Romeo and Juliet

The Northern Lights

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Speedy Gonzales screenshot

Saunas

Vinyl records

Trumpets

Chainsaws

Linux

Sans serif fonts

The aesthetic qualities of the Greek alphabet

The Queen is Dead

Schuyler Colfax

Gargoyles

Roguelikes

Chess

 

Geneforge 1

Lady Gaga

Video games

Super Mario series

Lawsuits

Wine

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Robert Heinlein

Heracles

Jeff Vogel

Ravens

Smartphones

Whiskey

Hydra (Lernaean)

Heathers

Xanth series

Isaac Asimov

The Evil Overlord List

Arthur C. Clarke

Match Game

Liches

Exile III: Ruined World

The Cranberries (band)

Bartenders

Forum lurkers

 

Black Panther (character)

Sock puppets

The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog

Flamingos

Cluny the Scourge

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Mr. Green Genes"

Muppet Babies

Paul Simon

Penguins

TLC

Rhinos

Civilization (human phenomenon)

Beer

Frodo Baggins

Mexican food

 

Bob Dylan

Richard Garfield

Ontology

Chimera (Lycian)

Science museums

Achilles

Ella Fitzgerald

Pelicans

BitTorrent

Nevermind
Tom Waits

70's prog

Sliths

Rats

Avernum II: Crystal Souls

Slarty Ranks Everything

Ranking lists

"...Gottfried Reads Fifty Shades..."

Heavy-handed symbolism

Princess Peach

 

Elephants

Donuts

Cats

Trombones

The Muppets

The Eiffel Tower

Solidarność screenshot

Civ II

Helen of Troy

Zorro

Revolutions

Casablanca

Avadon series

Goldfish (snack)

Gilbert Gottfried

Football (American)

Nephils

Star Wars original trilogy

James Garfield

Jury nullification

Avernum 4

Batman

Cinnamon rolls

Hubble space telescope

 

History museums

Pegasus

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Beatles

Aretha Franklin

Homestar Runner

They Might Be Giants

Sherlock Holmes

Tennis

Posting games

Inspector Peanut

Subinfeudation

Solitaire

Werewolves

The Big Lebowski

Nelson Rockefeller

Goldfish (fish)

Art museums

King Arthur

The aesthetic qualities of the Hebrew alphabet

Zeus

Windows 3.1

Summer

Carmen McRae

Richard Cheese

 

Bark spider

Spiders

Mummies

Dolphins

Metahumor

Nixon's foreign policy

Sparkling water

Grant Wood

Paprika

Spam (meat)

Cabaret (film)

Harry Potter series

Peanuts

The White Rabbit

Standard playing cards

Norman Rockwell

The electoral college

Nick Cave

MMORPGs

Table saws

Horatian satire

"This is a Trent Reznor Song"

 

Google

Odysseus

Xian Skull (item)

Spam (e-mails)

Running

Dead trees

Puggsy

Checkers

Facebook

Runtz

Pineapple pizza

The LP rendition of Slarty's voice

Gilmore Girls

Hockey

Wheel of Time series

George Clooney

Film noir

Abugidas

Vitamin C supplements

 

Twelfth Night

Blazing Saddles

Louis Armstrong

Discarded chewing gum

Art Garfunkel

The Trojan Horse

70's movies

New York City

Abjads

"Lackadaisical"

The March Hare

 

Dick van Dyke's accent as Bert

"Mr. Tambourine Man"

The Matrix

GIFTs (Spiderweb)

Godwin's Law

Poseidon

The aesthetic qualities of hierogylphics

Russian

Bimetallism

Beowulf (character)

Angry Birds

Alf screenshot

Jackalopes

 

Pyramids with eyes on them

Centaurs

Moderate rain all day

Korean food

Microsoft

Phantom stair step (bottom)

Word Rescue

Elvis Presley

Minecraft

Galactic Core

Bumper stickers

Novelty mugs

 

Apple

Ferris wheels

Mechanical pencils

Vultures

John Wayne

Amazon

The post that asks me to rank itself

Virtue ethics

Roller skates

Greek yogurt

 

KISS (principle)

Agamemnon

Salty liquorice

Westerns
Friends

Getting a triple word score in Scrabble

Phantom stair step (top)

Turkey/cat video

Dieselpunk

Life of Brian

AOL

ELIZA

 

Zombies (infectious)

80's fashion

KISS

Hipgnosis

Expensive wristwatches

Salt lamps

Cologne

My Little Pony

Whaling

Rudyard Kipling

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

The War on Drugs (band)

Queen (band)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Jane Austen books

The Byzantine Empire

The Let's Play series

Stubbing your big toe

Basketball

Baseball

"Acceptable in the 80's" (song)

Halloween

 

Bertrand Russell

Cats (musical)

Stubbing your little toe

Pirates

Elfpunk

Ennui

Charles Dickens

"Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" (song)

Hercule Poirot

The Easter Bunny

Ferrets

Soccer

Robin Hood (character)

Star Wars prequel trilogy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas the Tank Engine

Freefall (webcomic)

"2500 things Mr. Welch..."
Fedoras

Johnny Cash

 

Deconstructivism

The Microsoft Office Assistant

Steampunk

Cyclops (X-Men)

Kitten/rat box

Athena

John Calhoun (politician)

Mr. Toad of Toad Hall

The Xavier Files

BGG Top 10

Ethical intuitionism

Sock puppets (fake accounts)

Birthdays

 

The Barber Paradox

Turnips

Anchovy pizza

Wasps

U2

Wings (band)
Fictional names that use a lot of apostrophes

Twilight Saga

Deconstructionism

 

Final Fantasy VIII

"Stuff from the 90's!" (song)

The Olympics

The Big Bang Theory (TV show)

 

Consequentialism

The Crusades

King Leopold

Handlebar mustaches (i.e., thin and spindly ends)

Posted
3 hours ago, Equivocational School said:

The Jackalope: How in the world did we go from coming up with chimeras and hippogriffs to jackalopes and ligers?  Yeesh.

But ligers are real though...

 

3 hours ago, Equivocational School said:

Text search functions: I think my feelings on these are well-known.

Maybe I should give you something more difficult then, like say... Rate the first six StarWars movies.

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