Armageddon General Discussion Board

Let's collect Zalanthas-related aphorisms that we can't quite use in game here. Bring 'em if you got 'em!

"Sociopaths don't live in society. They live on it."

"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight

"I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams..."
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

"Violence is a personal necessity for the oppressed...It is not a strategy consciously devised. It is the deep, instinctive expression of a human being denied individuality."
— Richard Wright (Native Son)

"Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work."
— Frederick Douglass

"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves."
— Henry David Thoreau

"But there's no such thing as free. There are only different and more horrible ways to be enslaved."
— Lauren DeStefano (Fever (The Chemical Garden, #2))

Everyone thinks they have common sense, until they do something uncommonly stupid. - Me

"I have come here to smoke krentakh and kick ass.  And I'm all outta krentakh."

Crush your enemies, see the driven before you, hear the lamentation of their women mates. - Conan the Barbarian

Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. - Durzo Blint

It smells like old whore in here. - Durzo Blint

Quote from: Riev on April 16, 2013, 02:45:44 PM
Everyone thinks they have common sense, until they do something uncommonly stupid. - Me

I think you misunderstand the intent of the thread.

"I think you misunderstand the intent of the thread." - Is Friday.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

- Amos the Ranger

          - Malken

Basically the entire script of Kill Bill (blame IsFriday for reminding me), but there's a few in particular I love:

"It's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality." - The Bride

"That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die... but then again, so does she. So I guess we'll see." Bud

"I'm a killer! I'm a murdering bastard, you know that. And there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard." - Bill

"No, you're not a bad person. You're a terrific person. You're my favorite person. But every once in a while, you can be a real cunt." - Bill

For all those political schemers out there:

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please." - Mark Twain

"Well hello Mr. Fancy Pants. You ain't leadin' but two things right now, Jack and Shit, and Jack left town." - Ash, Army of Darkness

Quote from: Delirium on April 18, 2013, 05:51:20 AM
Basically the entire script of Kill Bill (blame IsFriday for reminding me), but there's a few in particular I love:

"It's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality." - The Bride

"That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die... but then again, so does she. So I guess we'll see." Bud

"I'm a killer! I'm a murdering bastard, you know that. And there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard." - Bill

"No, you're not a bad person. You're a terrific person. You're my favorite person. But every once in a while, you can be a real cunt." - Bill

"Revenge is never a straight line. It's a forest, And like a forest it's easy to lose your way... To get lost... To forget where you came in."
- Hanzo, Kill Bill

Quote from: Delirium on April 18, 2013, 05:51:20 AM
"That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die... but then again, so does she. So I guess we'll see." Bud

I have used this quote in character.

The same character quoted more parts of this speech than I care to admit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRDtw8vG2gA

"I've ... seen things you people wouldn't believe. Mm heh.  Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched ... c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gates. All those ... moments will be lost in time, like ...  tears in the rain. Time to die."

-- death soliloquy, Roy Batty, Bladerunner

Someone in this game has had this very experience through the eyes of their character.

"All these moments will be lost in time, like grains of sand in the desert. Time to die."

"Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight...or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid...mostly only when I'm gettin' paid."  -- Byn Trooper Cobb

Quote from: Nyr on April 18, 2013, 10:44:13 AM
"Hell, I'll kill a man in a fair fight...or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if he bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm gettin' paid...mostly only when I'm gettin' paid."  -- Byn Trooper Cobb

Used this/different variations of this in game more times than I care to shamefully admit.

Actually, Byn Trooper Cobb really should be part of the T'zai Byn docs.  Definite mercenary mentality.  More quotes from him:

(after being told that you can't get paid if you're dead):  "Can't get paid if you crawl away like a bitty little bug neither. I got a share of this job. Ten percent of nothin' is, let me do the math here... nothin' and a nothin', carry the nothin'... "

"You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here. Now we're finishing this deal, and then maybe, *maybe* we'll come back for those morons who got themselves caught."

"Don't much see the benefit in gettin' involved in stranger's troubles without a up-front price negotiated."

"I tried to kill him? That's kankshit. I've either killed a man or I didn't, I ain't ever tried to kill nobody."

Quote from: Nyr on April 18, 2013, 10:59:30 AM
Actually, Byn Trooper Cobb really should be part of the T'zai Byn docs.  Definite mercenary mentality.  More quotes from him:

7% seems kinda low, Sarge.

Quote from: Ender on April 18, 2013, 11:14:05 AM

Quote from: Nyr on April 18, 2013, 10:59:30 AM
Actually, Byn Trooper Cobb really should be part of the T'zai Byn docs.  Definite mercenary mentality.  More quotes from him:

7% seems kinda low, Sarge.

Seven percent's standard!

Quote from: Nyr on April 18, 2013, 10:59:30 AM
"Don't much see the benefit in gettin' involved in stranger's troubles without a up-front price negotiated."

"They're whores."

"How about dying with a little dignity?"  - 47, Hitman

"Because I'm smaller. When I run, I have to travel further. When I get hurt, the hole is bigger." Yang, Expendables

"Remember, rinth-rat, when I promised I would kill you last? ... I lied." Ahhhhnold, Commando

Quote from: Desertman on April 18, 2013, 11:49:44 AM

Quote from: Ender on April 18, 2013, 11:14:05 AM

Quote from: Nyr on April 18, 2013, 10:59:30 AM
Actually, Byn Trooper Cobb really should be part of the T'zai Byn docs.  Definite mercenary mentality.  More quotes from him:

7% seems kinda low, Sarge.

Seven percent's standard!

I'm sure you're treated very well.   You get the perks, got your own room.

Quote from: Morrolan on April 18, 2013, 12:05:29 PM

Quote from: Nyr on April 18, 2013, 10:59:30 AM
"Don't much see the benefit in gettin' involved in stranger's troubles without a up-front price negotiated."

"They're whores."

I've used this quote IRL, where actual whores were involved, where a friend of mine did not realize they were whores.

"Yeah well what you plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar." -- Byn Trooper Cobb spoken to his Sergeant.

"Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert." -- Arrakeen Tribal

"No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy." - Helmuth von Moltke

"The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you." -Ender Wiggin

"...to save the world. Save it...why? I like the death. I like the misery. I like THIS WORLD!" Vender, Cyborg

Quote from: Delirium on April 18, 2013, 10:43:47 AM
"All these moments will be lost in time, like grains of sand in the desert. Time to die."

I thought about that, and "like tears in the sand". Maybe a bit too soft for the harsh world, but still ...

(http://s9.postimg.org/bj8mmkvnj/Sandman_page_1.jpg)

"The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting." - Curtis LeMay

"All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don't break them for anybody" - Scarface

"Oh, no! You have found my weakness. Small knives!" - Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield)

"You betray the law, you betray the city, judgement is death." - Judge Dredd (Karl Urban)

(http://www.fast-rewind.com/pix/predator2.jpg)

Holding out his leather spice pouch Kuraci Outrider Blaine says, in northern accented sirihish: "This shit will make you a drov-damned sexual anakore, just like me!"
After snorting a pinch of colorful spice Kuraci Outrider Blaine says, in northern accented sirihish: "I ain't got time to bleed."

(http://www.8daysageek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/billy-predator-knife-cut_12034694471.jpg)(http://starsmedia.ign.com/stars/image/object/142/14222779/poncho_predator_pictureboxart_160w.jpg)

While gazing cautiously over the horizon the buff, rugged Benjari says, in tribal-accented sirihish: "I'm scared Poncho."
White-knuckled as he grips his crossbow tightly the skinny, short-haired human says, in rinthi-accented sirihish: "Kank-shit. You ain't afraid of no man."
As he cuts on himself with an obsidian hawkblade the buff, rugged Benjari says, in tribal-accented sirihish: "There's something out there waiting for us, and it ain't no man. We're all gonna die."

(http://predator.absoluteavp.com/anna.jpg)

As she stares wide-eyed the lithe, dark-haired lass says, in tribal-accented sirihish: "When I was little, we found a man. He looked like - like, butchered. The old woman around the tents crossed themselves... and whispered crazy things, strange things."
Scrunching up her face as she grimaces the lithe, dark-haired lass says, in tribal-accented benjari: "El Diablo cazador de hombres."
Staring into the tall, muscular man's face the lithe, dark-haired lass says, in tribal-accented sirihish: "Only in the hottest years this happens. And this year, it grows hot. We begin finding our men. We found them sometimes without their skins... and sometimes much, much worse."
Speaking plainly the lithe, dark-haired lass says, in tribal-accented benjari: "El cazador trofeo de los hombres"
Continuing to explain to the tall, muscular man the lithe, dark haired lass says, in tribal-accented sirihish: "Means the demon who makes trophies of men."


--
The whole movie is like all of the best Byn/Salarr/Kurac plots I've ever been involved in where something terrible is happening in a far corner of the Known, an RPT is held where a group goes out to investigate and then most of us die horribly to some terrible evil thing(s) only the twisted minds of Armageddon staff could dream up!

"How about I draw you a diagram once you realize who's in charge?" -Initial D

Quote from: Lieutenant Kon'nHighlord, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, Highlord... so grant me one request. Grant me revenge!

"You'd be surprised at what you'd do to stay alive."

"Life is empty. Life is worthless. When we take a life, we aren't taking anything of value."

Durzo Blint.

Quote from: HavokBlue on April 23, 2013, 06:17:43 PM
"You'd be surprised at what you'd do to stay alive."

"Life is empty. Life is worthless. When we take a life, we aren't taking anything of value."

Durzo Blint.

Fuck yes! I loved the shit out of the Night Angel Trilogy! :D

the dark-haired person says, in sirihish: "They have been...gnawed upon."

the blonde-haired person says, in tribal-accented sirihish: "It is said they eat their dead."

the dark-haired person says, in sirihish, shocked: "What kind of a man...would do that?"

the blonde-haired person says, in tribal-accented sirihish, all dramatic: "It was not man...it was the Gith."

"I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens."
-Bynner

"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."
-Joe Lyksae

"I meant," said the aide bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"
The templar thought about it.
"Songbirds," he said eventually. "Songbirds are nice."

"I may be making a dishonest living, but at least I'm doing it honestly"

-Daddy Dynamite- (Black dynamites father)

"Father is just another word for mother fucker"

-Black Dynamite-

"Shiny. Let's be bad guys." --Jayne Cobb (of the cunning hat)

Sergeant Mall - Well, looks at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?

Trooper Zowe: Big damn heroes, sir!

Sergeant Mall - Ain't we just?

Trooper Zoe to Runner Idjit:
    "First rule of battle, little one ... don't ever let them know where you are."

Sergeant Mal comes in, launching arrows from the way he came, shouting:
    "WHOO-HOO! I'M RIGHT HERE! I'M RIGHT HERE! YOU WANT SOME O' ME?! YEAH YOU DO! COME ON! COME ON! AAAAAH! Whoo-hoo!"

Trooper Zoe to Runner Idjit:
    "'Course, there're other schools of thought."

Quote from: Desertman on April 29, 2013, 10:48:46 AM
Sergeant Mall - Well, looks at this! Appears we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us?

Trooper Zowe: Big damn heroes, sir!

Sergeant Mall - Ain't we just?

I've seen this happen IG.

Quote from: Is Friday on April 29, 2013, 11:06:13 AM
I've seen this happen IG.

Yeah, except they were probably coming to help bun the mindworm/witch. :)

Quote from: Morrolan on April 29, 2013, 11:12:02 AM

Quote from: Is Friday on April 29, 2013, 11:06:13 AM
I've seen this happen IG.

Yeah, except they were probably coming to help bun the mindworm/witch. :)

Gith IIRC.

On gith:

Quote from: Trooper ZoeIf they take the wagon, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh and sew our skins into their clothing.

The muscular, dark-skinned woman pauses for emphasis.

Quote from: Trooper ZoeAnd if we're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

Heh, Firefly lends itself to Armageddon so well.

High above a dusty city [East, West, North, South, Down]
   There is a city below you and the people look like ants. The desert air is dusty and all around you.
>
>You say, in sirihish, closing your eyes gently, "I am a leaf on the wind."

Tulukis: "EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY"

From the sign above the ant colony in T.H. White's The Once and Future King.

"They look like big, good, strong hands. Don't they? I always thought that's what they were. My little friends. The little man with his racing inix, the girl, even the stupid erldu. I couldn't hold on to them. Thehole pulled them right out of my hands. I failed."

Bynner half-giant talking about everyone falling down a hole

Taken from the Rock Biter from Neverending story

"I against my brother. I and my brother against our cousin. I, my brother, and our cousin against the neighbours. All of us against the foreigner." - Bedouin proverb.

From 2004:-

The lightly burdened will be saved.

When you sleep inside, your thoughts are as high as the ceiling, when you sleep outdoors, your thoughts are as high as the stars.

He who shares my bread and salt is not my enemy.

At the narrow passage, there is no brother and no friend.

Men say "War is trickery." Elves say "A trick is worth more than a tribe."

"Magic guys. That sucks."

~Brock Samson.

"The waiting is the hardest part..."

-- Tom Petty

"Death is light as a feather, duty heavier than a mountain."

Found a Firefly quote that happens to apply particularly well.


"How come you didn't turn on me, Amos?"
"Money wasn't good enough."
"What happens when it is?"
"Well, that'll be an interesting day."

Quote from: musashi on May 05, 2013, 02:37:43 AM
"Death is light as a feather, duty heavier than a mountain."

*bow* You've won this thread, sirrah.

Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on May 05, 2013, 08:11:00 AM

Quote from: musashi on May 05, 2013, 02:37:43 AM
"Death is light as a feather, duty heavier than a mountain."

*bow* You've won this thread, sirrah.

"Death is light as a feather, duty heavier than furniture." --Little Tommy Sunday

from Gust Front by John Ringo

Quote from: Morrolan on May 05, 2013, 01:53:25 PM

Quote from: AmandaGreathouse on May 05, 2013, 08:11:00 AM

Quote from: musashi on May 05, 2013, 02:37:43 AM
"Death is light as a feather, duty heavier than a mountain."

*bow* You've won this thread, sirrah.

"Death is light as a feather, duty heavier than furniture." --Little Tommy Sunday

from Gust Front by John Ringo

Great book. I love when half way in people just start dying left and right and you're all WTF?

Tough old man to dangerous killer:  "I figure I got one more fight left in me.  You want it?"

---------

"If you're going to shoot at something, kill it.  Otherwise take up knitting."

Some dude talking to a Byn sarge...

Some dude: "Well, damnit, I'm going to get to the bottom of this!"

Byn Sarge: "Death's at the bottom of everything. Leave death to the professionals."

--The Third Man, 1948

"Man, woman, gith. I don't care. As long as it rears my inix."
--------------------------------
You say to the burly, face-inked man, in sirihish:
     " Now this is all the 'sid Malik gave us in advance. You give it back to him, tell him the job didn't work out. We're not thieves... well, we are thieves, but the point is we're not taking what's his. We'll stay out of his way as best we can from here on in. You'll explain that's best for everyone, okay?"

The burly, face-inked man stands up.

The burly, face-inked man says, in sirihish:
     "Keep the 'sid. Use it to buy a funeral. It doesn't matter where you go, or how far you ride, I will hunt you down, and the last thing you see will be my blade."

You subdue the burly, face-inked man, despite his attempts to wrestle away.

You say, in sirihish:
     "Darn."

You release the burly, face-inked man and roughly shove him north.

You look north.
To the north is Over the Edge:
[nothing]

You hear someone cry out in the distance.

The gritty, rough man walks in from the east, dragging the tall, muscular man with him.

The gritty, rough man releases the tall, muscular man and he immediately moves away.

You say to the tall, muscular man, in sirihish:
     "Now this is all the money that Malik gave us in advance--"

Speaking hurriedly, the tall, muscular man says, in sirihish:
     "Oh, I get it! I'm good. Best thing for everybody!"

Grinning desperately, the tall muscular man says, in sirihish:
    "I'm right there with you."

Squatting over your bludgeoned, bleeding form and gesturing through the gate, Lord Templar Nolte says,
"See, that's the wilderness. This isn't. This is Allanak. This is my town. Out here you're a trespasser. Out here I can pick you up, burn your house, fuck your wife, and kill your dog. And the only thing that'll protect you is if I can't find you. And I already found you."

"Life sucks, and then you die."

"There are almost no supplies left... Provide for your (troops). You are expecting a supply caravan just before (the sands) entomb you. But it is (clear) now, enough time to delve secure lodgings, ere the (gortok) get hungry. A new chapter of (Byn) history begins here, at this place... Strike the earth!"

>.> Totally something I haven't been doing far too much of lately.

(http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRevgKk0Ko49_GwJlo53KXaZMXgr_sQc5LxILJsUHJ3E2qNg-GfDQ)

and

"God rest the souls of that poor family... and pussy's half price for the next 15 minutes." Al Swearengen Kurac

"The night is dark, and full of terrors." Jihean to his underlings.

"It is one thing to lead by example with half a dozen soldiers at your back. It is wholly another with ten thousand."
- One astute Blue robe to another.

"Allanak was an ancient civilization, steeped in the power of antiquity, where gods once walked on every trader track, every footpath, every lost road between forgotten places. It was said the sands hoarded power within their sussurating currents, that every stone had soaked up sorcery like blood, and that beneath every city lay the ruins of countless other cities, older cities, cities that went back to the First Empire itself. It was said each city rose on the backs of ghosts, the substance of spirits thick like layers of crushed bone; that each city forever wept beneath the streets, forever laughed, shouted, hawked wares and bartered and prayed and drew first breaths that brought life and the last breaths that announced death. Beneath the streets there were dreams, wisdom, foolishness, fears, rage, grief, lust and love and bitter hatred."

- Both quotes from Steven Erikson, Deadhouse Gates

"See! That's what I need to learn. Learn how to be all dead inside, with muscles on top! Not all emotional and flabby..."

-New Byn Recruit to Grizzled old Sarge

"Welcome to fucking Boatmurdered Red Storm!"

Life's hard.  It's even harder when you're stupid.

- John Wayne

Agent: "I don't pay you to put evil notions in my head, and the ones already there don't need company."
Mercenary: "You pay me to kill people who bother you. Evil notions come free."

Quote from: bcw81 on May 12, 2013, 11:18:42 PM
"Welcome to fucking Boatmurdered Red Storm!"

The Allanak volcano was Tek trying to flood the map to kill those fucking elephants beetles. He'll kill all those fucking beetles.

This isn't a choice, like my diet, this is a necessity like my drinking

I guess I can kiss heaven goodbye, because it must be a sin to look this good

-will smith in the fresh prince of bel-air-

If there was some zalanthian version of this, I could totally see a Kadian saying it at some point. LOL.

Quote from: [s]Tank[/s] [b]Kank[/b] GirlListen up, cause I'm only telling you this once. I'm not bedtime story lady, so pay attention. It's 2033 the 22nd Age. The world is *screwed* now. You see, a while ago this humongous comet came crashing into the earth dragon sucked the life out of the land. Bam, total devastation. End of the world as we know it. No celebrities airy-fairy elves, no cable TV dwarven beards, no water. It hasn't It's rained once in 11 years Ages. Now 20 people gotta squeeze inside the same bathtub - so it ain't all bad.

"You just gotta say what you did when you lost your virginity. You gotta say 'Daddy, are you sure this is right?'"

Quote from: KessleeThe pipe. You're gonna really love this one. It goes down 40 meters. It gets smaller and smaller the deeper you go.

Quote from: Tank GirlSounds wicked. Can I go first?

"Don't take no shit off fools. Judge a person by what's in 'em, not how they look. An' you do the right thing. Be one of the good guys. 'Cause there's way too many of the bad."

"Tell me, Bronn. If I told you to kill a babe... an infant girl, say, still at her mother's breast... would you do it? Without question?"

"Without question? No." The sellsword rubbed thumb and forefingers together. "I'd ask how much."

"Trust no one! As soon as God crapped out the third caveman, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them!"

placing a dagger at the base of a hooded figure he found in his apartments skull, the wiry, dark-haired man says
"I don't know what's going through your mind, but I know what's about to"

"My mother told me not to throw stones at cripples. My father told my to aim for the head"

Curled up against the hulking, gap-toothed barbarian, speaking in a soft manner, the lithe, blonde-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "All my life I've been alone. Many times I've faced death with no one to know. I would look into the huts and the tents of others in the coldest dark and I would see figures holding each other in the night. But I always passed by. You and I, we have warmth, that's so hard to find in this world. Please, let someone else pass by in the night."
<Prompt stuff here
The next day, the hulking, gap-toothed barbarian rides off into the wastes, never to be seen again; damn permadeath!

(The following ones all come from the Mel Gibson film, "Payback". The grit of the film always makes me think of a modern-day Arm XD)

"Crooked Arm. Do they come in any other way? If I'd been just a little dumber, I could have joined the Militia myself."

Well-to-do Commoner: "You know what, Lord Hardnose, this one's on me. OK?"
Lord Hardnose: "Do you see me reaching for my fucking coin pouch?"

"Not many people know what their life's worth is. I do. Seventy small. That's what they took from me. And that's what I was going to get back."

Amos Assassin: "We went for breakfast... in Red Storm. We made a deal; if she'd stop hookin', I'd stop knifing people."
Amos Assassin: "Maybe we were aiming high."

Random Militia: "The problem with kicking a Sharp's ass is an hour later you wanna do it again."

Agent-da Kurac: "Do you understand your value to the organization, Resnick? You're a sadist. You lack compunction. That comes in handy."

After shooting the bulky, blonde man in the leg with his agafari crossbow, and stuffing a rolled tube of spice between his lips the gruff, grey-eyed man asks, in sirihish; "You gotta light?"
Wincing in pain, the bulky, blonde man says to the gruff, grey-eyed man in sirihish: "What?"
Appearing agitated, the gruff grey-eyed man asks the bulky, blonde man, in sirihish: "You got a light?"
Confusion crossing his features, the bulky, blonde man exclaims, in sirihish: "No!"
Shrugging, the gruff, grey-eyed man says to the bulky, blonde man, in sirihish: "Then what good are you?"
The gruff, grey-eyed man shoots the bulky, blonde man in the face with his agafari crossbow, doing horrendous damage.

Guild Lead: "I don't want Mr. Big hearing about this... he'll think I'm getting soft. One of his principles has always been: if you don't understand it, get rid of it... a stitch in time, so to speak, so... stitch this 'tok up, Amos."

Random Blonde PC:  "Beauty of the Gyppos is that they won't go to the Arm. They keep everything in house... and, they don't feel pain the way we do."
Random Gruff PC: "Notice anything about those guys, Amos?"
Random Blonde PC: "They look nasty, probably all poison-using mother fuckers."
Random Gruff PC: "They weren't wearing their harnesses."

"You'd think after five months of lying on my back, I would have given up any idea of getting even, just be a nice guy and call it a day. Nice guys are fine: you have to have somebody to take advantage of... but they always finish last."

"Nobody likes a tregil on his back: I had three, and they were cramping my style. I was gonna' have to lighten the load."

Lord Hardnose's Aide, over the way: "There's a young lady to see you, sir... her name is Pearl."
Lord Hardnose: "She's got two very bad habits; right now I'm only interested in one of 'em. Send her up."

Rosie: [calming her gortok] "He's the meanest damn 'tok that ever lived."
Porter: "What's his name?"
Rosie: "Porter."

"Circumstanced necessitated a change," Rosanna replied.

I shrugged one shoulder - the one bearing Fidelacchius. "Same here."

"What circumstances are those?" Rosanna demanded.

"The ones where I'm dealing with a pack of two-faced, backstabbing, treacherous, murderous lunatics whom I trust no farther than I can kick."

She regarded me with level, lovely eyes. "And what is the Knights' intended role?"

"They're here to build trust."

"Trust?" She asked.

"Absolutely. I can kick you a lot farther when they're around."

"Here is a riddle to guess if you can:
What makes a monster and what makes a man?"
- Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame

(Not a very good movie, but surprisingly dark and has some great one-liners)

Watching the two soldiers scramble away, then glancing over with a thoughtful expression, the hulking, dark-haired man asks, in sirihish:
    "How many men does it take to deliver a message?"

Smirking and aiming his bow at one of the fleeing soldiers, the slender, hook-nosed man says, in sirihish:
    "One."

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so...very...pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

and also:

Zoe:  "You sanguine about the kind of reception we're apt to receive on an Alliance ship, Cap'n?"

Mal: "Absolutely." (beat) "What's 'sanguine' mean?"

Zoe:  " 'Sanguine'. Hopeful. Plus -- point of interest -- it also means 'bloody'."

Mal:  "Well, that pretty much covers all the options, don't it?"

"Put your trust in the Highlord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Allanak." - any Nakki Templar

"Sometimes, when someone lives in danger for too long, the only time they feel alive is when death's breathing on their shoulder."
- The Last Argument of Kings, Joe Abercrombie

"So passed the seasons then, so they pass now, and so they will pass in time to come, while we come and go like leaves of the tree that fall and are soon forgotten."
- The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Salvidienus' death is a reminder of an alienation deep inside Antony's personality. It was easy to be misled by his celebrated bonhomie, his fondness for fun and games, for binge drinking and easy women; but below the affability lay a casual brutality and an inability to imagine the feelings of others."
- The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire, Anthony Everitt

"You're awful."
"I'm honest. It's the world that's awful."
- Sansa & The Hound, George R. R. Martin

"The tembo doesn't concern itself with the opinions of the tandu."

"What is a weekend?" - the Dowager Countess, Downton Abbey, aka every Zalanthan noble ever.

Quote from: Delirium on July 01, 2013, 11:39:36 PM
"You're awful."
"I'm honest. It's the world that's awful."
- Sansa & The Hound, George R. R. Martin

Fucking +1  ;D

And of course ...

"I always think everything could be a trap ... which is why I'm still alive."
-Humperdinck

"There's not a lot of money in revenge."
-Inigo

"My way's not very sportsman-like."
-Fezzik

"I just want you to feel you're doing well. I hate for people to die embarrassed."
-Fezzik

"You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen."
-Vizzini

Aide Buttercup: "Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned by acid a kryl or something?"

The Dread Raider Amos: "Oh no. It's just they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future."


and, of course:

Lord Fale to dwarf assassin: "You've been chasing me your entire life, only to fail now. I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard; how marvelous."

Can't get enough Princess Bride in there!

Byn warrior: Are you the Miracle Max who worked for the King all those years?

Miracle Max: The King's stinking son, Quintis, fired me, and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour citron juice on it? We're closed!!

OMG how could I forget about the masks!?! So awesome!

Nothing is more common than for great thieves to ride in triumph when small ones are punished. -- Seneca (3 BC-  65 AD)

The genius of you Americans Tulukis is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing.

Gamel Abdel Nasser

The brawny, cleft-chinned man says, in sirihish:
     "Lefou, I'm afraid I've been thinking--"

Interrupting, the short, pudgy man says, in sirihish:
     "A dangerous pastime."

Nodding, the brawny, cleft-chinned man says, in sirihish:
     "I know."

Waxing philosophical, the beak-nosed, scrawny young man says, in sirihish:
     "It's a very rare person who is taken for what he truly is."

and

Fingers drumming on the arm of his chair, the haggard, grey-bearded templar says, in sirihish:
     "You are losing my interest, and that is very dangerous."

Quote from: Delirium on August 05, 2013, 01:11:41 PM
Fingers drumming on the arm of his chair, the haggard, grey-bearded templar says, in sirihish:
     "You are losing my interest, and that is very dangerous."

A templar based on King Haggard would be amazing.

That's all the freedom we can hope for - the freedom to choose our prison.

- L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

You say to the the tall figure in a dark, hooded cloak in Sirishish with a hint of sarcasm:
     "When's the next Volcano shift scheduled for?"

Zalanthas - where men are men and volcanoes can fly!

The portly Fale nobleman tells the well-dressed Oashi noblewoman in Sirihish laughing throatily:
     "I bet the Tuluki's never considered the issue of global warming in such depth before now!"

Someone actually wished up because someone else actually mentioned global warming--in game--during the HRPT.  While it was wished up at an inopportune time (a bit too busy to deal with someone being grossly OOC while we were linking in new areas and killing PCs), we do know who did it and it is noted on that PC.  It's not really a Zalanthan-esque quote.  It's an example of poor self-control (like emoting about doing the "monster mash" during an RPT involving dancing).   Funny, sure...Zalanthan, no.

Thanks for reminding me to e-mail that player!

Quote from: Delirium on July 20, 2013, 10:44:17 PM
The brawny, cleft-chinned man says, in sirihish:
     "Lefou, I'm afraid I've been thinking--"

Interrupting, the short, pudgy man says, in sirihish:
     "A dangerous pastime."

Nodding, the brawny, cleft-chinned man says, in sirihish:
     "I know."

I am so watching Beauty and the Beast tonight.

Repetition teaches (even) a gurth.

At the time of test, an elf rises or falls.

Trusting an elf is like storing water in a sieve.

Have him for lunch before he makes dinner out of you.

The sands rarely blow as the caravan master wishes.

The funeral shroud has no pockets. (You take nothing with you when you die.)

In the desert, any water will do.

The male wearing a theatrical black and white mask exclaims to the slender young brunette, in sirihish:
     "What was done to me was monstrous!"

The slender young brunette says to the male wearing a theatrical black and white mask, in sirihish:
     "And they created a monster."

Speaking of Dune...

"My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be."

The door to the north flies open.

The blue-robed templar arrives from the north.
The half-giant soldier has arrived from the north.
The half-giant soldier has arrived from the north.

The blue-robed templar asks, in sirihish:
     "Which one of you is Edmond Deuring?"

You say in sirihish:
     "I am."

The blue-robed templar says in sirihish:
     "You are under arrest."

The blue-robed templar points at you, gesturing for nearby soldiers.
You are now wanted!

In horror, you ask in sirihish:
     "On what charges?!"

The half-giant soldier subdues you, despite your attempts to struggle away.

The blue-robed templar says in sirihish:
     "That information is privileged."

You struggle in vain against the half-giant soldier.

You exclaim in sirihish:
     "I demand an explanation! I demand an explanation!"

"That's their game, their rules. I'm not going to fight them: I'm going to fuck them. That's what I know, that's what I am, and only by admitting what we are can we get what we want. "
--Some tricksy noble (Petyr Baelish)

"Your boss is looking a little green around his gullet."
"He just ain't used to seeing a man ripped apart by ropes, is all."
"But you ARE used to it?"
"I'm just a little more used to Allanak than he is."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZS6_vv43Ac

Best death scene of all time,

Quote from: Jingo on August 12, 2013, 02:28:01 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZS6_vv43Ac

Best death scene of all time,

But he didn't let him finish emoting!  :D

(http://media.oglaf.com/comic/feralchic.jpg)

The burly, bearded man says, in sirihish:
     "Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died."

The thin, pale nobleman says, in sirihish:
     "I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood."

The angular, cold-eyed templar says, in sirihish:
     "No man is free. Only children and fools think elsewise."

The scarred, dwarfish young man says, in sirihish:
     "Give me sweet lies, and keep your bitter truths."

"You're exactly as big as I let you be and no bigger, and don't forget it, ever."

"You could not even guess at the things that I have done. Awful, evil, obscene. The telling of them alone could make you puke...they nag at me from time to time, but I tell myself I had good reasons. The years pass, the unimaginable becomes everyday, the hideous becomes tedious, the unbearable becomes routine. I push it all into the dark corners of my mind. And it's incredible; the room back there. Amazing. What one can live with."
- Inquisitor Glokta, Before They Are Hanged

At your table the strong, brawny man says in sirihish:

"Life's a bitch"

At the scarred bar of agafari wood you say in sirihish:

"Life isn't a bitch, she's a beautiful woman. You just call her a bitch because she doesn't let you get any pussy"

Somewhere in Tuluk...

After an experimental bite of his small orange fruit, the dark, hook-nosed man says, in sirihish:
     "Tart."

The slender, silver-haired young woman asks the dark, hook-nosed man, in sirihish:
     "Would my lord prefer something sweeter?"

Shaking his head, the dark, hook-nosed man says to the slender, silver-haired young woman, in sirihish:
     "Sweetness cloys. Tart fruit and tart women give life its savor."

The dark, hook-nosed man pauses to take another bite of his small orange fruit.

Smoothly, the dark, hook-nosed man says to the slender, silver-haired young woman, in sirihish:
     "Daenerys, my sweet queen, I cannot tell you what pleasure it gives me to bask once more in your presence."

And in Allanak:

Looking over a midden heap, the dolorous, grey-haired man says, in sirihish:
     "I grew up in a place like this. Then we fell on hard times."

"Aw, the bahamet got away."
"Like fucking Drov it did. WE are going to follow it and kill it."
"What if it goes really far?"
"WE ARE GOING TO FOLLOW IT AND KILL IT!"
~Cavemen circa 2.6m years ago

The story of how Allanak rose to power through sheer stubbornness alone.

Affecting a humble look, the angular, blond-haired man says, in sirihish:
     "I don't like to brag..."

Suddenly, the angular, blond-haired man laughs.

The angular, blond-haired man exclaims, in sirihish:
     "Who am I kidding, I -love- to brag!"

and

Lifting his eyebrows, the angular, blond-haired man says, in sirihish:
     "And I'm just supposed to help you out of the evilness of my heart?"

Quote from: Delirium on September 05, 2013, 06:43:17 PM
Affecting a humble look, the angular, blond-haired man says, in sirihish:
     "I don't like to brag..."

Suddenly, the angular, blond-haired man laughs.

The angular, blond-haired man exclaims, in sirihish:
     "Who am I kidding, I -love- to brag!"

and

Lifting his eyebrows, the angular, blond-haired man says, in sirihish:
     "And I'm just supposed to help you out of the evilness of my heart?"

So many good ones from him.

I light of recent events:

The angular, blond-haired man says, in sirihish:
"You won. All right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That's what conquering nations do. It's what Tektolnes did, and he's not going around saying, 'I came, I conquered, I felt really bad about it.' The history of the world isn't people making friends. You had better weapons, and you massacred them. End of story."

For all you sneakies:

The angular, blond-haired man says, in sirihish:
"I wasn't lurking. I was standing about. It's a whole different vibe."

Who says Allanakis can't be poets?:

The angular, blond-haired man says, in sirihish:
"Why don't you rip her lungs out? It might make an impression."

The square-jawed, brown-haired man says, in sirihish:
"Lacks... poetry."

The angular, blond-haired man says, in sirihish:
"It doesn't have to, what rhymes with lungs?"

Much like Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a goldmine of Zalanthas quotes.

Hell, anything Joss Whedon writes is.

The athletic, dark-haired young woman exclaims, in sirihish:
     "He's missing. Presumed dead!"

Blinking, the slender, middle-aged man asks, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "Presumed by whom?"

Crossing her arms, suddenly defensive, the athletic, dark-haired young woman says, in sirihish:
     "Well, me."

Deadpan, the gangly, middle-aged man says, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "I think we should give him a few hours before we give up on him."

Peering about the shadowy, skull-filled tunnel, lifting his burning large wooden torch, the muscular, golden-haired man says, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "Speaking of trouble, shouldn't we have run into some by now?"

Also peering about, wading through the ankle-deep muck, the hunchbacked, disfigured man asks, in northern-accented sirihish,
     "What do you mean?"

The shadows shifting from the flickering light of his burning large wooden torch, the muscular, golden-haired man says, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "You know, a guard, a booby trap..."

Suddenly, a burning large wooden torch is blown out by the wind.
The area is enveloped in darkness.

A male voice says, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "Or an ambush."

Someone subdues someone, despite their attempts to struggle away.
Someone subdues someone, despite their attempts to struggle away.

Smiling in a sinister manner, the swarthy, dark-goateed man lights a leather-wrapped bone torch.
The area is filled with a golden light.

Waving his torch in the faces of the muscular, golden-haired man and the hunchbacked, disfigured man, the swarthy, dark-goateed man asks, in tribal-accented sirihish:
     "Well, well, well...what have we here?"

The large, skeleton-painted man exclaims, in tribal-accented sirihish:
     "Trespassers!"

The skinny, skeleton-painted man exclaims, in tribal-accented sirihish:
     "Spies!"

The muscular, golden-haired man says, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "We are NOT spies - -"

The hunchbacked, disfigured man says, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "Can't you listen - - "

Strolling through the muck, waving his leather-wrapped bone torch, the swarthy, dark-goateed man says, in tribal-accented sirihish:
     "Don't interrupt me!  You're very clever to have found our hideaway.  Unfortunately, you won't live to tell the tale."

The grizzled, war-weary physician says, in sirihish:
    "Evil is relative... you can't hang a sign on it. You can't touch it or taste it or cut it with a sword. Evil depends on where you are standing, pointing your indicting finger."

and

The grizzled, war-weary physician says, in sirihish:
    "I can laugh at peasants and townies chained all their lives to a tiny corner of the earth while I roam its face and see its wonders, but when I go down, there will be no child to carry my name, no family to mourn me save my comrades, no one to remember, no one to raise a marker over my cold bit of ground."

and

The grizzled, war-weary physician says, in sirihish:
    "Fate is a fickle bitch who dotes on irony.

and

The sleek, dark-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "I do not want to die, Croaker. All that I am shrieks against the unrighteousness of death. All that I am, was, and probably will be, is shaped by my passion to evade the end of me."

I could go on. Glen Cook reads like a neverending stream of Zalanthas-appropriate quotes.

Stalking hastily down the street toward the chaos, the gangly, middle-aged templar says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Unbelievable."

In a mocking falsetto, the gangly, middle-aged templar exclaims, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead!"

Disgusted, not breaking his rapid pace, the gangly, middle-aged templar says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Witches."

Lifting one hand to gesture at the tall, muscular man, her eyes a flat irisless black and voice just as flat, though oddly childlike, the petite, nerdy teen abomination says, in sunnydale-accented sirihish:
    "Bored now."

The petite, nerdy teen abomination casts a spell.
The tall, muscular man's skin flies off his body in all directions, leaving only a meat-puppet standing there.

Quote from: Morrolan on September 20, 2013, 04:51:58 PM
Lifting one hand to gesture at the tall, muscular man, her eyes a flat irisless black and voice just as flat, though oddly childlike, the petite, nerdy teen abomination says, in sunnydale-accented sirihish:
    "Bored now."

The petite, nerdy teen abomination casts a spell.
The tall, muscular man's skin flies off his body in all directions, leaving only a meat-puppet standing there.

What was that taken from? DBZA?

Quote from: Fredd on September 21, 2013, 04:36:33 PM

Quote from: Morrolan on September 20, 2013, 04:51:58 PM
Lifting one hand to gesture at the tall, muscular man, her eyes a flat irisless black and voice just as flat, though oddly childlike, the petite, nerdy teen abomination says, in sunnydale-accented sirihish:
    "Bored now."

The petite, nerdy teen abomination casts a spell.
The tall, muscular man's skin flies off his body in all directions, leaving only a meat-puppet standing there.

What was that taken from? DBZA?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Willow became super bad ass witch because her girlfriend got shot and killed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX-K5Dj0ByM

Frieza is Tek, Super Kami Guru is Muk. Nail is Muk's templar.

2:45 is what I picture happened when the Sun King sent his templars to war.

Leveling a slender steel sword at her, the square-jawed, brown-haired man asks the blonde, athletic young woman, in sirihish:
     "No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?"

The blonde, athletic young woman knocks a slender steel sword from the square-jawed, brown-haired man's hand!

Lunging forward to grab the sword's hilt, the blonde, athletic young woman says to the square-jawed, brown-haired man, in sirihish:
     "Me."

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face."

"Dear Frederick, thank you for your nice letter. But I'm actually a U.S. Marine who was born to kill, where you have clearly mistaken me for some sort of wine-sipping communist dick suck. And although peace probably appeals to tree-loving bisexuals like you and your parents, I happen to be a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior who wakes up everyday just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilizations. Peace sucks a hairy asshole, Freddie. War is the motherfucking answer."— Cpl. Josh Ray Person

Replace words as needed and it totally fits.

"What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output. "

Wearing a faintly threatening smile, the goateed, middle-aged man says to the willowy, blonde-haired woman, in sirihish:
     "Knowledge... is power."

The willowy, blonde-haired woman looks the goateed, middle-aged man over without much change in expression, then tilts her head, as if coming to a sudden decision.

Looking to a unit of hulking, black-armored guardsmen, the willowy, blonde-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "Seize him."

A unit of hulking, black-amored guardsmen subdues the goateed, middle-aged man, despite his attempts to struggle away!

You notice: Suddenly, the goateed, middle-aged man looks very worried.

Blithely, the willowy, blonde-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "Cut his throat."

You notice: The goateed, middle-aged man's eyes widen in fear.

The hulking, black-amored guardsman draws a slender steel dagger.

Abruptly, commandingly, the willowy, blonde-haired woman says, in sirihsh:
     "Stop."

The hulking, black-armored man pauses, the edge of his blade at the goateed, middle-aged man's throat.

Laughing carelessly and waving her hands, the willowy, blonde-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "Oh, wait... I've changed my mind. Let him go."

The hulking, black-armored guardsman sheathes a slender steel dagger.

A unit of hulking, black-armored guardsmen releases the goateed, middle-aged man, and he immediately moves away.

Breathing hard, the goateed, middle-aged man stares at the willowy, blonde-haired woman.

Sauntering up to the goateed, middle-aged man to stare him fearlessly in the face, the willowy, blonde-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "Power... is power."

"Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair. Or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back."

Basically anything Al Swearengen.

Growling out the words, the stout, scruffy black-haired man says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Don't I yearn for the days when a draw across the throat made fucking resolution."

The slimy, comb-overed man says in Sirihish:

"As to your dead guy, occupational hazard. Spice dealer getting shanked? I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it's been known to happen."

And of course:

The bald, goateed man says in Sirihish:

"You clearly don't know who you're talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Talia. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets stabbed, and you think that of me? No! I am the one who knocks!"

and for added fun:

Many brown packages are here

>arrange package is here stacked on a pile of similar packages

OK.

You hear a man shout from above in Sirihish:
"Talia, is that my minerals!"

>shout (annoyedly) Yes, Amos!
You shout annoyedy in Sirihish:
"Yes, Amos!"

You hear a man shout from above in Sirihish:
"How many boxes!"

>emote sighs exasperatedly
the purple-clad brown-haired woman sighs exasperatedly.

>shout (impatiently)  I don't know, three, four hundred, a million?
You shout impatiently in Sirihish:
"I don't know, three, four hundred, a million!"

You hear a man shout from above in Sirihish:
"Can you check them for damage!"

>look in package

in a brown paper package:
many blocky pieces of grey stone

>pemote facial features twitch as she seems to have reached her limit.
the purple-clad, brown-haired woman's facial features twitch as she seems to have reached her limit.

>shout They're rocks, Amos!
You shout in Sirihish:
"They're rocks, Amos!"

You hear a man shout from above in Sirihish:
"No, they're minerals! Krath Talia!"

Joe Abercrombie, First Law Trilogy:

"People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes."

"Rules are for children. This is war, and in war the only crime is to lose."

"People Allanakis love to see death. It reminds them that however mean, however low, however horrible their lives become... at least they have one."

(http://www.nextmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/HEY-GIRL-DRIVE.jpg)

The sleepy-eyed, wild-haired man asks, in sirihish:
     "Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it?"

With defeat and sadness in his voice, the portly black-haired man says in sirihish:

"The worst isn't done.  The worst is just beginning, and there are no happy endings."

"Plans are for merchants and nobles. I've got moxie. And swords."

"Party needed a healer they said. Hah! Fighters with all the brains of a doorknob attacked something twenty times their size ... and they expect me to pull heads out of their ribcages!"

"I remember when a noble and his son visited my pen when I was only eight years old. The boy looked at me with such disdain and hate that I knew that day I was different. I looked at that noble boy through the bars; he was sickly, pale and a head shorter than I but the same age. That is the day I really knew I was different. That is the day I knew I was going to die in here."
-mul gladiator

Answering a knock, the smarmy, blonde-haired mayor opens the door.

Standing in the doorway, the attitudinal, dark-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "You sent your boy to kill me."

The smarmy, blonde-haired mayor says, in sirihish:
     "Yes, I did."

The attitudinal, dark-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "He's dust."

The smarmy, blonde-haired mayor says, in sirihish:
     "I figured he might be, what with you standing here and all."

The attitudinal, dark-haired woman says, in sirihish:
     "That means you have a job opening."

The smarmy, blond-haired mayor blinks in consideration, then opens the door wider, allowing the attitudinal, dark-haired woman into the room.

Sniffling, obviously upset, the curvy, fair-skinned abomination exclaims, in sunnydale-ish:
     "You dumped me, and staked me, and hurt me, and left me --!"

Holding his arms out soothingly, the angular, blond-haired man says, in sunnydale-ish:
     "I know, sugar, but you're forgetting the other thing I did. I missed you."

"'She would have been a good woman...' said the figure in a dark, hooded cloak, 'if it had been somebody there to backstab her every minute of her life.''


"I found out the crime don't matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or steal his kank, because sooner or later you're going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it."


Flannery O'Conner

"Even tough guys get duct-taped and hogtied," says Bushman, grinning widely.

Eldor of Kadius is here, unconscious and wearing a frilly silk dress

also, Lil Wayne

Sharply snapping at the teenage, skinny Runner, the gruff, muscular Sergeant says, in sirihish:
     "Tighten up your fucking swings, Runner! The gith ain't gonna lay down outta pity like the first whore you took to your apartment."

"In [ArmageddonMUD you have to be a deviant or die of boredom."

William Burroughs

If you meet [the Highlord's] men, dressed in black and jade,
You be careful what you say, and mindful of remarks made.
If they call you " pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been

Kipling from "Smuggler's Song"... Alternatively, lullaby for Rebellion children.

Rinthers and would-be politikers, take heed:

"It was the root of street cool, too, the knowing posture that implied connection, invisible lines up to the hidden levels of influence."


Gibson, 'Neuromancer'

Praise from one's enemy is the most annoying, but also the most credible, of compliments. - The Rise of Rome, Anthony Everitt

Allanaki politics reallllllly remind me of Rome.

"It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience." - Julius Caesar

"You don't take your cat with you to go bird shopping. Not because the cat isn't polite, but because he's a cat."

"Susan smiled at me, giving Molly the Female Once-Over - a process by which one woman creates a detailed profile of another woman based upon about a million subtle details of clothing, jewelry, makeup, and body type, and then decides how much of a social threat she might be. Men have a parallel process, but it's binary: Does he have beer? If yes, will he share with me?"

Just started Reading the Dresden Files over again. I love this guy.

Snarling out as he turns his back and walks away, the angular, blond-haired man exclaims, in sunnydale-ish:
     "That's the thing about magic - it always has consequences. ALWAYS!"

The face-changing otherworldly being says, in sunnydale-ish:
     "It's not about right. It's not about wrong. It's about power."

Sighing wistfully, the athletic blonde woman asks, in sunnydale-ish:
    "Remember when things used to be all nice and... boring?"

Blinking and shaking her head, the freckle-faced redhead says, in sunnydale-ish:
     "....No."

"Hey, man. You need a knife?"

Quote from: Chettaman on December 29, 2013, 10:19:21 AM
"Hey, man. You need a knife?"

Prince John: A knife! He's got a knife!
Eleanor: Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians! How clear we make it. Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war: not history's forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars.

"The bodies of the Celtic dead were left where they were. They fertilized the ground, and the people of Massilia used their bones to fence fields. For some years, it was said that the grape harvests were unusually rich." - Anthony Everitt

"If there are gods to listen, they are monstrous gods who torment us for their sport. Who else would make a world like this, so full of bondage, and blood, and pain? Who else would shape us as they have?" -GRR Martin

"Good men will only go so far along dark paths. Others must walk the rest of the way." -Joe Abercrombie

The bodies of the Tuluki dead were left where they were. They fertilized the ground, and the people of Allanak used their bones to fence fields. For some years, it was said that the kalan harvests were unusually rich." - The Evil Cabbagegod.

The naive young brunette says, in staccato-accented sirihish:
     "I want to die beautiful, you know."

With a knowing, sad smile, the androgynous, dark-haired man says, in staccato-accented sirihish:
     "Death leaves no beautiful corpses."

"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
― Bruce Lee - Allanaki Vivaduan

Quote from: ShaLeah on January 28, 2014, 01:43:13 PM
"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."
― Bruce Lee - Allanaki Vivaduan

..Water can also cause some pretty sick burns when heated... Or frozen.

The chinny, buff Legion Sergeant asks, in northern-accented sirihish, with a gravelly voice:
"You have the rookie?"

The sliced-up drug queen says, in northern-accented sirihish, calmly:
"Yes."

The chinny, buff Legion Sergeant asks, in northern-accented sirihish, gruffly:
"Alive or dead?"

The sliced-up drug queens says, in northern-accented sirihish, hesitating briefly to weigh her response, then with some attitude:
"Alive ... "

The chinny, buff Legion Sergeant says, in northern-accented sirihish, in a low growl:
"Make her dead."

"It's like my boob-sweat is cousins with my back-sweat and they're having a party downstairs!"

Quote from: Bushranger on February 09, 2014, 12:03:36 AM
"It's like my boob-sweat is cousins with my back-sweat and they're having a party downstairs!"

OH god that line had me laughing so hard. I like Enlisted it's really charming.

Kenpachi to Yachiru after she told everyone why they were late.
She's small enough to sit on his shoulder

"You'll have to get down now. I've got to rampage."

"What are you doing firing Quirri? You can't fire Quirri. First of all, you don't have hiring and firing power."

"I do and I had to. She's crazy."

"Well, that's why you don't fire her. You don't fire crazy. You never fire crazy."

"I care deeply about Tan Muark culture."

"You're wearing gwoshi-skin boots."

"Well, I don't care about gwoshi!"

"We're a drinking unit with a Byn problem."

The muscular, darkly-tanned raider says, in tribal-accented sirihish:
    "I got a... treatment... for those who try to run away. Cut a little hole in their stomach, pull out a gut and wrap it around a branch, and drag them thirty or forty cords. Then tie them down."

The muscular, darkly-tanned raider sniffs in a lazy breath and grins to himself.

The muscular, darkly-tanned raider says, in tribal-accented sirihish:
    "That way... I can watch what the gortok are having for supper."

Looking satisfied, the muscular, darkly-tanned raider picks at his teeth with a twig.

"Got boots?"

A shitty, beat-up old blue wagon rumbles in from the north.

The afro-haired, thin mustachioed blue robed templar emerges from a shitty, beat-up old blue wagon.

As he gestures to a shitty, beat-up old blue wagon, the afro-haired, thin mustachioed blue robed templar tells the Allanaki wagon-yard parking servant, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Can you put this in a good spot? Because all this shit happened last time I parked here."

A Room in a Cheap Brothel [S, Quit, Save]

The weathered, sun-darkened man eases down onto the hard bed with a quiet groan.

The weathered, sun-darkened man stops using his wide-brimmed leather hat.

Dubiously, the aging, fine-boned whore says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "You're not the man I knew ten years ago."

As he lets out a raspy sigh, the weathered, sun-darkened man says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "It's not the years, honey...it's the leagues."

The weathered, sun-darkened man stops using his pair of two-striped studded sleeves.

The cold-eyed, grey-haired noble says, in southern-accented sirihish,
     "Every Detal and Ocandra I sit down with the Lord Templar and the Lady Overseer to discuss the week's agenda.  Well, 'discuss' is probably the wrong word... they talk while I imagine their lightly salted faces frying in a skillet."

The cold-eyed, grey-haired noble says, in southern-accented sirihish,
     "Friends make the worst enemies."

Wrong thread! I'll think of a Zalanthan quote to put here later.

Quote from: Large Hero on March 17, 2014, 05:13:39 AM
A Room in a Cheap Brothel [S, Quit, Save]

The weathered, sun-darkened man eases down onto the hard bed with a quiet groan.

The weathered, sun-darkened man stops using his wide-brimmed leather hat.

Dubiously, the aging, fine-boned whore says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "You're not the man I knew ten years ago."

As he lets out a raspy sigh, the weathered, sun-darkened man says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "It's not the years, honey...it's the leagues."

The weathered, sun-darkened man stops using his pair of two-striped studded sleeves.

This one of the best ones I've seen in this thread.

Totally.  One of the best movies of all time.  Someone please stop them from making another.  :(

An Abandoned Building [Leave]

A male voice shouts, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "Come on, Deckard...show me what you're made of!"

The figure in a wyvern mask slowly stalks alongside a flimsy wooden wall, hand-crossbow at the ready.

The blue-eyed, statuesque mul slams his fist through a flimsy wooden wall! He seizes the figure in a wyvern mask's wrist and pulls it through the hole.

The figure in a wyvern mask struggles in vain.

Derisively, the blue-eyed, statuesque mul says in southern-accented sirihish,
     "Proud of yourself, little man?"

The blue-eyed, statuesque mul knocks an agafari hand-crossbow from the figure in a wyvern mask's hands!

The blue-eyed, statuesque mul gets an agafari hand-crossbow.

The blue-eyed, statuesque mul says, in southern-accented sirihish,
     "This is for Zhora!"

With a sickening crunch, the blue-eyed, statuesque mul shifts his grip to the figure in a wyvern mask's fingers, and breaks several.

The figure in a wyvern mask yelps.

More quietly, the blue-eyed, statuesque mul says, in southern-accented sirihish,
     "This is for Pris."

Snap! The blue-eyed statuesque mul shatters another of the figure in a wyvern mask's digits.

The figure in a wyvern mask cries out in pain.

Through the hole in the wall, the blue-eyed, statuesque mul gives an agafari hand-crossbow to the figure in a wyvern mask.

Taunting, the blue-eyed, statuesque mul says, in southern-accented sirihish,
     "Come on, Deckard. I'm right here. But you've got to shoot straight."

Shaking, the figure in a wyvern mask wields his agafari hand-crossbow.

The figure in a wyvern mask takes aim.

The figure in a wyvern mask fires a bolt through the hole!
It strikes the blue-eyed, statuesque mul in the arm.

Unfazed, the bolt sticking in a bleeding wound, the blue-eyed, statuesque mul says, in southern-accented sirihish,
     "Straight doesn't seem to be good enough! Now it's my turn! I'm going to give you a few moments before I come."

I was talking to some friends about BladeRunner last night.  Apprehensive about the coming sequel ...  Please do more classic films in Zalanthas.  :)

The lanky, goateed militiaman says, in sirihish, with smugness,
   "So you want more food, kid?"

The dark-haired, hard-eyed orphan boy says, in sirihish, excitedly,
   "Yeah!"

The lanky, goateed militiaman exclaims, in sirihish, giving the dark-haired, hard-eyed orphan boy a cocksure toss of his chin,
   "Then you should join the military! You get all the food you want, and get to do stuff like this!"

The lanky, goateed militiaman strikes the dark-haired, hard-eyed orphan boy in the face, then sends him to the ground with a gut-kick.

Looking up at the lanky, goateed militiaman from the ground, fist clutched in determination, the dark-haired, hard-eyed orphan boy exclaims, in sirihish,
   "That sounds AWESOME!"

The dirty, bearded slaver subdues the lanky, grungy man.

As he struggles to get free the lanky, grungy man says, in southern accented sirihish:
   "I'm going to kill all of you!"

Dragging the lanky, grungy man towards a large cage made of bone the dirty, bearded slaver says, in southern accented sirihish:
   "This is not personal. Well, for you, maybe a little."

A Busy Road [E,W,S]

The emaciated, elderly cripple lifts a shaking hand, palm up, to the thin, black-haired man.

The sunken-eyed youth pauses in the road to look on the emaciated, elderly cripple.

The thin, black-haired man tugs the sunken-eyed youth along.

Protesting weakly, the sunken-eyed youth says in southern-accented sirihish,
     "He was just hungry, Papa. He's going to die."

Callous, the thin, black-haired man says in southern-accented sirihish,
     "He's going to die anyway."

The sunken-eyed youth says in southern-accented sirihish,
     "He's so scared, Papa."

The thin, black-haired man halts and squats before the sunken-eyed youth, finding his eyes.

Urgently, his own face sunken, the thin, black-haired man says in southern-accented sirihish,
     "I'm scared. Do you understand? -I'm- scared."

The sunken-eyed youth doesn't answer. He falls into sobbing.

Bitter, the thin, black-haired man says in southern-accented sirihish,
     "You're not the one who has to worry about everything."

The sunken-eyed youth mumbles something in sirihish.

An irritated prompting, the thin, black-haired man says in southern-accented sirihish,
     "What?"

The sunken-eyed youth stares at the emaciated, elderly cripple's pained writhing.

The sunken-eyed youth looks, defiantly, his face wet and grimy, at the thin, black-haired man.

Firmly, the sunken-eyed youth exclaims in southern-accented sirihish,
      "Yes, I am! I am the one!"

(The thin, black-haired man's eyes slide doubtfully from the sunken-eyed youth's challenge.)

The pudgy, worried-looking sorcerer asks, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Have you noticed that ever since we started defiling, everything's got skulls on it?"

Befuddled, looking up at a floating light, the world-weary, pale sorcerer says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "I don't... er..."

Interrupting, the pudgy, worried-looking sorcerer says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Hans... are we the baddies (http://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU)?"

But damn them tits was fine
--Anonymous rinther (part of the main chorous of a song)

Quote from: BadSkeelz on March 28, 2014, 01:43:23 PM
The lanky, goateed militiaman says, in sirihish, with smugness,
    "So you want more food, kid?"

The dark-haired, hard-eyed orphan boy says, in sirihish, excitedly,
    "Yeah!"

The lanky, goateed militiaman exclaims, in sirihish, giving the dark-haired, hard-eyed orphan boy a cocksure toss of his chin,
    "Then you should join the military! You get all the food you want, and get to do stuff like this!"

The lanky, goateed militiaman strikes the dark-haired, hard-eyed orphan boy in the face, then sends him to the ground with a gut-kick.

Looking up at the lanky, goateed militiaman from the ground, fist clutched in determination, the dark-haired, hard-eyed orphan boy exclaims, in sirihish,
    "That sounds AWESOME!"

So excited, episode 2 is coming sooonnnn~~

Aha! You know who you are!

QuoteScene: Asking this petite woman who she fancies.

The suave, handsome giant asks in sirihish, peering down at the petite, little woman:
"Oh, is it me?"

The petite, little woman says in sirihish, shaking her head at the suave, handsome giant:
"It is not."

The suave, handsome giant says in sirihish, nodding to the petite, little woman:
"Oh. Okay."

The suave, handsome giant asks in sirihish:
"It's probably because my backpack is too small."

So adorable!

I've been watching Deadwood again.  Love it.


In a contrived tone, attempting theatrical, the hefty, mustached man says to the dusky, dark-haired man, in sirihish:
     "And thus the uncharted journey continues ..!"

Beginning to walk away, then pausing and turning back, the dusky, dark-haired man says to the hefty, mustached man, in sirihish:
     "Malik, please--  As we'll be more often in each other's company, when given to utterance of that type?"

Answering briskly, remaining lost in his thoughts, the hefty, mustached man says to the dusky, dark-haired man, in sirihish:
     "Mmhm?"

Handing him a bottle of liquor, the dusky, dark-haired man says to the hefty, mustached man, in sirihish:
     "Consider drinking."

Crossposting from the dates thread in non-arm mainly because I just posted that to get a rise out of Shelah.

"When the injustice is great enough, justice will lend me the strength needed to correct it. None may stand against it. It will shatter every barrier, sunder any shield, tear through any enchantment, and lend its servant the power to pass sentence. Know this: There is nothing on all the Planes that can stay the hand of justice when it is brought against them. It may unmake armies. It may sunder the thrones of gods. Know that for all who betray justice, I am their fate. And fate carries an executioner's axe."
~Planescape: Torment

"The villains were always ugly in books and movies. Necessarily so, it seemed. Because if they were attractive—if their looks matched their charm and their cunning—they wouldn't only be dangerous.

They would be irresistible."

Nenia Campbell, Horrorscape

"What a wonder it is to see such stalwart bravado in one such as yourself.
It is heartwarming, truly, to see that there are yet humans willing to
risk a slow and torturous death in pursuit of our most sacred treasures."
~Dragons Age Wallpaper

"Tell me, if I'd stabbed him in the belly instead of the back, would you admire me more?"

- Zalanthan Jaime Lannister

"Highnose? You think the honorable Highnose Borsail wanted to hear my side? He judged me guilty the moment he set eyes on me. By what right does the tok judge the rantarri? By what right?"

- Zalanthan Jaime Lannister

"If your Sun King is real, if he's so just, why is the world so full of injustice?"

- Zalanthan Jaime Lannister

"There are no men like me, only me."

- Zalanthan Jaime Lannister

"Has anyone ever told you that you are as boring as you are ugly?"

- Zalanthan Jaime Lannister

"Careful, I'm the last friend you've got."

- Zalanthan Jaime Lannister

"You're a hateful woman. Why has the Highlord made me love a hateful woman?"

- Zalanthan Jaime Lannister


(Boring day at work so far.)

Sheathing his sword, standing over a body, the broad-bodied Kuraci agent says,
"He was madness, you don't talk to madness. If you're lucky, you trap it in the backroom of your argosy and kill it."

The blue-painted, blond-haired man says, in tribal-accented sirihish:
"How is your faith now, templar?"

Twirling his sword in one hand and beckoning with the other, he scarred, blue-eyed templar says, in sirihish:
"Why don't you come a little closer and I'll show you?"

Sagging in dismay, the ruddy, grey-haired man asks:
     "Have you no pity?"

Hunching up a shrug, the twisted, crippled man says:
     "I did have. As a boy, I was soft-hearted to the point of foolishness. I would cry at a fly caught in a spider's web."

As a spasm runs through his bad leg, the twisted, crippled man grimaces and leans on his cane.

The twisted, crippled man says:
     "Constant pain has cured me of that."

Barging in through the door, his jewel-encrusted sword held at the ready, the square-jawed, lightly-tanned templar exclaims:
   "First thing's first! To the death!"

Lying in his bed, steely gaze lifting, the blonde, mustachioed man says:
   "No. To the pain."

Confused, his bewildered glance cast to the side of the room, the square-jawed, lightly-tanned templar says:
   "I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase."

Deadpan, the blonde, mustachioed man says:
   "I'll explain, and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you erdlu-faced buffoon."

Brow wrinkling, the square-jawed, lightly-tanned templar says:
   "That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me."

The blonde, mustachioed man says:
   "It won't be the last. 'To the pain' means the first thing you will lose will be your feet, below the ankles, then your hands at the wrists. Next, your nose."

Interjecting, his patience beginning to wane, several steps taken forward, the square-jawed, lightly-tanned templar says:
   "And then my tongue, I suppose. I killed you too quickly last time - a mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight."

Expressionless, the blonde, mustachioed man exclaims:
   "I wasn't finished! The next thing you will lose will be your left eye, followed by your right--"

Exasperated, the square-jawed, lightly-tanned templar says:
   "And then my ears! I understand. Let's get on with it--"

With emphasis upon the first of his words, the blonde, mustachioed man exclaims:
   "WRONG! Your ears you'll keep, and I'll tell you why: So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, 'Highlord, what is that thing?' will echo in your perfect ears. That is what 'to the pain' means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever."

With a dubious turn of his head, a dash of caution flickering to life in his features, the square-jawed, lightly-tanned templar says: "I think you're bluffing."

Impassively, the blonde, mustachioed man says:
   "It's possible, pig. I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable vomitous mass, I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand."

After a moment's passage, the blonde, mustachioed man says:
   "Then again... perhaps I have the strength after all."

His emerald-eyed gaze never leaving the square-jawed, lightly-tanned templar's form, the blonde, mustachioed man stands up from an elegantly made bed.

Lifting his blade, the blonde, mustachioed man says:
   "Drop. Your. Sword."

The square-jawed, lightly-tanned templar's jewel-encrusted sword clatters against the ground.

I thought this sounded very zalanthan:

From 47 Ronin

A troop of Ronin samurai are here.
The half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man is here, crouched down surveying a set of beastly tracks.

Rising with a bloodied tuft of flesh and hair between his fingers, the half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man says to the lightly armored Ronin samurai lieutenant, in surfer-dude accented English:
"It's just above the rise, hunting. We should turn back."

Turning abruptly from the breed with a look of disgust in his eyes as he tromps back to the grey-haired commander, the lightly armored samurai lieutenant says in Japanese:
"It's just over the rise. We're going to go kill it."

The troop of Ronin samurai march north toward a grassy rise.
The half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man follows the troop of samurai north toward a grassy rise reluctantly.

A few Ronin samurai draw their sturdy recurve bows and nock arrows as they begin to move slowly.
The half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man stands back in the cover of trees watching on.

A hulked-out, mutated rantarri has arrived from the north.

A hulked-out, mutated rantarri roars and goes on a rampage attempting to decimate the troop of Ronin samurai.

Leaping into action, the half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man darts forward grabbing the sword from ground that the lightly armored Ronin samurai lieutenant dropped when he was stunned by a hulked-out, mutated rantarri.

The half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man crouches down as the hulked-out, mutated rantarri attempts to charge him, swiftly rolling over as he sinks the sword deep into the beast's heart.

The hulked-out, mutated rantarri drags the breed along underneath him as he attempts to charge at another samurai.

As the hulked-out, mutated rantarri begins to stumble, dying from the wound, the half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man lets go of the hilt, tumbling backward away from the beast.

Skidding through the grass the hulked-out, mutated rantarri's body comes to a rest as it finally succumbs.

The half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man rises slowly and walks over to the corpse, withdrawing the sword from its heart.

Hands covered in the vile, black blood of the dead beast, the half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man kneels on one knee, laying the hilt of the sword against his turned up palm while he rests the flat of the blade across his forearm in offering to the lightly armored Ronin samurai lieutenant.

Sneering down his nose at the half-Japanese, half-Caucasian man as he jerks his sword away from him, the lightly armored Ronin samurai lieutenant says as he spits the words out with great disdain in Japanese-accented English:
"I would rather die to that beast than be saved by a breed!"



(I think that even as bad as the movie is, it is great for study in how to play someone acts toward breeds and how a breed would act toward full-bloods.)

Exasperated and upset, the tawny, violet-eyed woman says, in highborn-accented sirihish:
    "If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep."

""The battle joy was in me. That joy. That madness. The Gods must feel this way every moment of every day. It is as if the world slows. You see the attacker, you see him shouting, though you hear nothing, and you know what he will do and all his movements are so slow and yours are so quick and in that moment you can do no wrong and you will live forever and your name will be blazoned across the heavens in a glory of white fire because you are now a god of battle."

ROAR.

"To have a good enemy, choose a friend; they know where to strike."

Could be inspiration for a poem for a battle that might happen someday. Especially if there were say, clouds of poisonous vapor, or if the battle took place at <redacted>:


Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knocked-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys-An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the mist panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gurgling form the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as cud
Of vile, incurable sores on the innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."
― Wilfred Owen, on world war I

Holding up a sapphire-set bracelet, voice hoarse, the bloodied, dying Allanaki soldier says to you, in sirihish:
 "Give this to my son."

Accepting the bracelet and tucking it in a pocket, you say to the bloodied, dying Allanaki soldier, in sirihish:
 "You got it!"

As you turn to leave, crying out desperately, the bloodied, dying Allanaki soldier says to you, in sirihish:
 "Wait!  I didn't tell you where he lives."

Turning back, with interest, you say to the bloodied, dying Allanaki soldier, in sirihish:
 "Hey, I think your son might also like those boots."

tell sarge (scratching beneath ~aba) What about the fuck-tent?

The square-jawed, brown-haired man is here, rifling through a weapons cabinet.

The tall, awkward-looking man has arrived from the west.

The square-jawed, brown-haired man straps a leather knife-sheath onto his right ankle.

Clearing his throat, the tall, awkward-looking man says, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "What happened to calmly, deliberately, cautiously investigating?"

The square-jawed, brown-haired man says, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "That was plan A. This is plan B."

The tall, awkward looking man asks, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "And what is plan B?"

The square-jawed, brown-haired man brandishes a wicked-edged, long-hafted axe.

Glaring over, the square-jawed, brown-haired man asks, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "What's it look like?"

The leathery-faced, bald man lets out a long, considering sigh, almost smiling at the pasty, blond youth.

The pasty, blond youth starts to smile, a little nervousness easing from his demeanor.

Expression abruptly hardening, voice flat, the leathery-faced, bald man says, in southern-accented sirihish:
    "Don't bullshit a bullshitter."

The pasty, blond youth gulps.

"Where are the people?" resumed the little prince at last. "It's a little lonely in the desert..." "It is lonely when you're among people, too," said the snake."
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

The dapper, goateed templar says, in southern-accented sirihish: "Amos Hemingway!"

The good-looking, auburn-whiskered man says, in 'rinthi-accented sirihish: "Lord Templar Fontaine!"

The dapper, goateed  templar says, in southern-accented sirihish: "Do you hunt Amos?"

The good-looking, auburn-whiskered man says, in 'rinthi-accented sirihish: "I only use a crossbow to hold up a place, or threaten someone, or rob them, or pistol whip them, or scare them, but no, no hunting."

The dapper, dark-haired young man says, in sociopath-accented sirihish:
    "Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side."

oh oh oh and

The dapper, dark-haired young man says, in sociopath-accented sirihish:
     "Don't make people into heroes, Amos. Heroes don't exist, and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them."

Advancing on his arch nemesis, the hulked-out, super-powerful magicker says, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "I feel like I live in a world made of glass, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can't you, big man? What we have here... is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am."

Gazing somberly at the body of the tall, muscular man, you say in sirihish:
     "He knew the risks."

Quote from: Delirium on August 13, 2014, 12:39:49 PM
Advancing on his arch nemesis, the hulked-out, super-powerful magicker says, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "I feel like I live in a world made of glass, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can't you, big man? What we have here... is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am."

thanks, now I have to watch all of those episodes again

The Hard Nosed, Lirathan Templar says to you, in Sirihish:
"Imagination, when not strictly separated from reality, is potentially very dangerous - it can isolate you and make you live in fear of imaginary horrors - all the while making you more vulnerable to Real Life. Sometimes, being a skeptic is favorable, even for a child."

"The gods don't want order. They like us afraid and alone and without hope. That is when we call out into the darkness for them. If everything is nice and neat and orderly, with all the answers laid out for you, there is no room for magic or gods. They want chaos."

Quote from: bcw81 on August 16, 2014, 03:32:20 AM
The Hard Nosed, Lirathan Templar says to you, in Sirihish:
"Imagination, when not strictly separated from reality, is potentially very dangerous - it can isolate you and make you live in fear of imaginary horrors - all the while making you more vulnerable to Real Life. Sometimes, being a skeptic is favorable, even for a child."

Carl Sagan?

Quote from: CodeMaster on August 16, 2014, 01:42:00 PM

Quote from: bcw81 on August 16, 2014, 03:32:20 AM
The Hard Nosed, Lirathan Templar says to you, in Sirihish:
"Imagination, when not strictly separated from reality, is potentially very dangerous - it can isolate you and make you live in fear of imaginary horrors - all the while making you more vulnerable to Real Life. Sometimes, being a skeptic is favorable, even for a child."

Carl Sagan?

>.> I lifted it off some website without a source a long time ago and kept it in a notepad titled 'Evil Quotes'.

Looking to his tear-stained cheeks, the haughty, blonde-haired Sergeant says to the scrawny, pale-skinned aide, in England accented sirihish:
         "I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell my Recruits; No man is ever worth your tears."

The hot trooper says, in southern accented Sirihish,
   "First rule of battle, Runner... don't ever let them know where you are."

Falling back into camp launching arrow after arrow as he retreats, the reckless but insanely lucky Sergeant shouts,
   "Wooooooooohewwwwwwww! I'm right here! I'm right here! Come on, come on.... woohoo!"

With a sigh, the hot trooper says, in soutnern accented Sirihish,
    "'Course, there are other schools of thought."

the dashing man with brown hair says in southern accented sirihish:
"Mercy is the mark of a great man."

the dashing man with brown hair stabs you lightly in the stomach.

the dashing man with brown hair says in southern accented sirihish:
"I guess I'm just a good man."

the dashing man with brown hair stabs you lightly in the stomach.

the dashing man with brown hair says in southern accented sirihish:
"Eh, I'm alright."

the dashing man with brown hair brutally stabs your neck doing horrendous damage.
Your vision goes back.

Welcome to Armageddon!

The lithe, turban-wrapped boy says, in sirihish, "Are you always alone?"    

His face still averted, the leonine-featured defiler shouts, in sirihish, "Alone!"

The leonine-featured defiler's words echo throughout the cave.

The leonine-featured defiler says, in sirihish, "My realm is the desert, and it is also my work. Wherever I go, everything around me turns to desert. I carry it with me. Since I am made of deadly fire, must I not be doomed to everlasting solitude?"

The portly, balding man tries to run west, but the slender, sharp-featured brunette gets in the way!

Leveling a masterwork agafari crossbow, the slender, sharp-featured brunette asks, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "You know what they say about payback?"

The portly, balding man scrambles backward, cowering in fear.

Flatly, the slender, sharp-featured brunette says, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "Well - I'm the bitch."

Brows knitting as he stares upon the puzzle lain before him, the tall, muscular man asks you, in sirihish:
     "Do you ever get the feeling that someone is playing a game with you?"

Voice suddenly flat, his countenance solemn and dead serious as he looks into the distance at some indeterminate point, you say, in sirihish:
      "All the time."

"He came at me with a knife. I put out my hand and - just so - made him into ash."

and

"You did not receive the Gem so you could babble arcane words. Go forth, and burn our enemy."

As he clashes blades with a lanky, brown gith, the tall, muscular man says, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "Yeah I eat kalans when I'm killing cuz they're FUCKIN DELICIOUS."

The tall, muscular man eats a portion of a kalan fruit.

The tall, muscular man slashes a lanky, brown gith's head, wounding him.
A lanky brown gith reels from the blow.

Someone says, in sirihish:
     "I bet your cunt is so loose you could fit a half giant no problem"


Spoken to a templar.  Famous last words.

With a gravelly voice, worn by age and smoking, the aging, grey-haired man says, in sirihish,
     "I'm no hero... never was, never will be..."

Pitying, the red-haired, lithe woman says, in sirihish,
     "You haven't changed at all, Snake... but, your body? Are you going to be alright?"

With an impassive tone, the aging, grey-haired man says, in sirihish,
     "The Templarate has given me strength to counter-act my bodies weakness. I'll be fine."

"The archers opened fire on the lone defiler, and we heard the most fearsome sound. She was laughing."

"When they deploy half-giants, they assume they're bigger and less breakable than their opponents. Go make them revise."

Cheerfully, the small, perky brunette woman says, "Look, they got boy whores! Isn't that thoughtful?"

Quote from: Evoru on October 13, 2014, 02:09:35 AM
Cheerfully, the small, perky brunette woman says, "Look, they got boy whores! Isn't that thoughtful?"

<3

Dragon Age Origins quotes.

"Brave of you sir, to so openly cast an envious eye towards me and mine. I suggest you look elsewhere, lest I consider removing your sight in a more permanent fashion."

"Take another step, human, and I guarantee it shall be your last. My tribes is dead and my life is in tatters because of you and your kin. I have nothing to lose, but you still possess your other eye."

"I suggest you reach for your purse swiftly friend. Ale may have dulled my senses enough so that I merely maim your pretty features, but should I become sober I will be in a mood to show you a new realm of pain and violence."

"What I have seen and done to achieve my position defies belief. What I am capable of and will be party to in order to retain it would chill your soul."

The last-of-his-kind tribal says in tribal-accented sirihish:
   "My tribe used to have a saying for situations like this."

The last-of-his-kind tribal clears his throat and pauses dramatically.

The last-of-his-kind tribal says in bendune:
   "Kill him."

"You know... it's times like these that remind me of my father's last words."

"Don't son.  That crossbows loaded!"

"The good news is there's hope for you, private. Hope in the form of glorious combat. Battle is the great redeemer, the fiery crucible in which the only true heroes are forged. The one place where all men truly share the same rank, regardless of what kind of parasitic scum they were going in."

Also:

"Through readiness and discipline we are the masters of our fate."

"That's a mighty fine coat you're wearin'."

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on June 16, 2015, 07:44:25 PM
"The good news is there's hope for you, private. Hope in the form of glorious combat. Battle is the great redeemer, the fiery crucible in which the only true heroes are forged. The one place where all men truly share the same rank, regardless of what kind of parasitic scum they were going in."

Also:

"Through readiness and discipline we are the masters of our fate."

"Edge of the knife. Tip of the spear. . .  Crack of my ass."

Underrated film.

Another one that's rolled around in my head since I first heard it. Think it could be said by any combat or criminal clan recruiter:

"You know, you were the youngest person I've ever recruited. Looked ridiculous, they said, crossbow up to here... Remember they brought you in for something, what was it for? Right, pickpocketing an aide, friend of mine. Brought you in, this kid, like an animal. But you looked at me, hair stuck to half your face, just the one eye looking at me... And I could see it. Like it was being acted out in a northie play: the bad version of your life, like it was a vision, I could see... I could see how you'd turn bad. So I changed it. I cleaned up you up, and put a sword in your hand."

US Marine Corpse General Mattis always had some very colorful quotes that I could easily see getting used by a Blue Robe, a Tor, or even a Borsail:

"I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all."

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."

"The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event."

"I were to sum up what I've learned in 35 years of service, it's improvise, improvise, improvise."

"Marines don't know how to spell the word defeat."

"no war is over until the enemy says it's over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote."

"Demonstrate to the world there is 'No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy' than a U.S. Marine. "

"It is mostly a matter of wills. Whose will is going to break first? Ours or the enemy's?"

""Be the hunter, not the hunted: Never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down."

"Diplomacy. War for pussies." - Last Week Tonight, John Oliver.

The muscular, blond-mulleted man says, in 80's accented sirihish:
     "I'm a reasonable guy. But, I've just experienced some very unreasonable things."

"Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."

Aww, Al.

Here's my counter-offer to your counter-offer: go fuck yourself.

While adjusting his wide-brimmed brown leather hat, the gangly, long-haired man says, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "You know the sound of thunder, don't you, miss Garrett?"

Tense, the lissome, limpid-eyed brunette says to the gangly, long-haired man, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "Of course."

The gangly, long-haired man says, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "Can you imagine that sound if I asked you to?"

Blinking at him, the lissome, limpid-eyed brunette says, in northern-accented sirihish:
     "Yes I can, mister Hickok."

With meaningful intensity, the gangly, long-haired man says to the lissome, limpid-eyed brunette, in southern-accented sirihish:
     "Your mate and me had this talk, and I told him to head home to avoid a dark result. But I didn't say it in thunder. Ma'am, listen to the thunder."

"We will be cruel to the Tuluki, and through our cruelty they will know who we are.  And they will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us.  And the Tuluki won't not be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives.  And the Tuluki will be sickened by us, and the Tuluki will talk about us, and the Tuluki will fear us.  And when the Tuluki closes their eyes at night and they're tortured by their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with.  Sound good?"

Lady Templar blankety blank, who is missed.

Scene:  The henchman of a jealous noble is killed in a sham duel, the day before a big combat RPT:

Standing victoriously at the side of the ring, the fair, bearded man dumps a bucket of water over his head.

Stepping around the headless body of the tall, red-headed man the short, swarthy man tells the fair, bearded man indignantly, in southern-accented sirihish,
    "You, you could have killed him at will."

Blithely, the fair, bearded man asks, in northern-accented sirihish,
   "Yes?"

Looking confused, the short, swarthy man asks, in southern-accented sirihish,
   "Well, why the deception?"

Letting out a laugh and gesturing towards the nobleman, the fair, bearded man says, in northern-accented sirihish,
   "Deception is the point! Any fool can calculate strength! That one has been doing it since we arrived. Now he has to calculate what he can't see."

With a somber nod of understanding, the short, swarthy man says, in southern-accented sirihish,
   "And fear... what he doesn't know."

Speaking up from nearby, tone stern, the huge man with long blond hair man says to the short, swarthy man, in northern-accented sirihish,
    "As you say, foolish. And expensive. We will miss Amos tonight, we will miss his sword."

One of my favorite scenes from 13th Warrior.  :)

It's definitely on my "list of Arm-inspiring movies." A scene from another one:


Highlord Joe sends out the War Argosy and distributes some charity and cautionary advice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T08GLeUWnQs

I was nonstop busy when this movie came out, and I missed it in the theater.  I still haven't seen it.  :(

The 13th Warrior is one of my favorites.

This world has only two kinds of people: villains and smiling villains.

Quote from: RogueGunslinger on August 08, 2015, 03:54:09 PM
The 13th Warrior is one of my favorites.

+1

"You killed my only son!"

"You should have had twins!"

The short, skeletal man says, in rinthi-accented sirihish,
     "On days like today, kids like you..."

The short, skeletal man says, his eyes turning pitch black while he stares at you, in sirihish,
     "Should be burning in HELL!"

Magickal currents of energy swirl around the short, skeletal man.

The short, skeletal man utters an incantation.
Suddenly, an explosion of bone spikes erupts from beneath you!

Tired, frazzled, and covered in dust, the gruff, grizzle-bearded man says in southern-accented sirihish:
     "The one thing about living in Allanak I never could stomach... all the damned gemmed."

The sour, thick-mustachioed man says, in limey-accented sirihish, "Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."

The sour, thick-mustachioed man goes back to wiping down the bar, a murderous gleam in his eye.

I think that quote just needs to become Zalanthan standard or something. It's been posted in this thread at least three times. :D

I started to look for duplicates, then I was like.. yeah. Bears repeating.

With a cunning smile, the goateed, suave-featured Salarri merchant says, in sirihish,
     "Pay a man enough, and he'll walk barefoot into hell."

The sour, thick-mustachioed man says, in limey-accented sirihish, "Me? A bow? Fuck no. Terrible shot!"

The sour, thick-mustachioed man says, in limey-accented sirihish, a little more quietly, his eyes fixing on you, "Work better closer in."

The sour, thick-mustachioed man is hiding here.

The guard says to the Templar in sirihish, "He was a thick-mustachioed man."

The Templar says in sirihish, "Would you say he was sour?"

The guard says to the Templar in sirihish, "Yes. He was sour and thick-mustachioed. I saw him from the balcony with his hood up. I recognized him because he always wears a dark leather cuirass."

The sour, thick-mustachioed man thinks, "What a type you must consort with that you not fear beating for such an insult."

A Lirathan templar says, in Sirihish: "You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you."

Somewhere, teenage children in Nenyuk play a board game.

Anya: Crap! Look at this. I'm burdened with a husband, and several tiny pink children, and more cash than I can reasonably manage...
Xander: That means you're winning.
Anya: Really?
Xander: Yes. Cash equals good.
Anya: Oh! [claps] I'm so pleased! Can I trade in the children for more cash?!

Watching full metal jacket tonight I heard a quote and it made me search some logs cause I was sure I used it. Found it.

A Sun Runner asks: "You killed the children?"
A Red Fang says: "Yeah."
Giving you a disgusted look, a Sun Runner asks: "How can you kill children?
Moving his hand as if plucking a bow, a Red Fang says: "Easy, you just don't lead the shot so much."

"The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick."

"You were a hero round these parts. That's what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short."

"It's hard to be done a favor by a man you hate. It's hard to hate him so much afterwards. Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had him for long enough."

"Severed heads never go out of fashion. Used sparingly and with artistic sensibility, they can make a point a great deal more eloquently than those still attached."

"Do you know what's worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he's a hero. A man like that, there's nothing he won't do, and he'll always find himself an excuse."

- Joe Abercrombie

I absolutely LOVED the first book I read in his series. The ending scene with Logan was perfect.

For some reason I stopped reading the second book about 1/5th the way through and I can't remember why. Since then I've associated the name Joe Abercrombie with a different writer of a different series of books that I did not like(Steven Erikson)... And all this time I've just completely forgotten about The First Law...

So basically reading those awesome quotes made me re-look up who he was and it reminded me of all this and now I have some awesome fucking books to read. I think I'm actually going to re-read the first again just to familiarize myself.

Thanks, D.



P.S. Plz don't hurt me for not liking Erikson.

"Has it ever occured to you, Master Ninefingers, that a sword is different from other weapons? Axes and maces and so forth are lethal enough, but they hang on the belt like dumb brutes. But a sword...a sword has a voice.
Sheathed it has little to say, to be sure, but you need only put your hand on the hilt and it begins to whisper in your enemy's ear. A gentle word. A word of caution. Do you hear it?
Now, compare it to the sword half drawn. It speaks louder, does it not? It hisses a dire threat. It makes a deadly promise. Do you hear it?
Now compare it to the sword full drawn. It shouts now, does it not? It screams defiance! It bellows a challenge! Do you hear it?"

"Why lie please yourself?"

Or

"Why make others to lie to please yourself?"

Sorry for the bump, but I saw Tosca and one of the lines made me to post this.

"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

This one has always resonated with me, in game or real life. Tough shit.

The man with a massive chin says:
"I  dont like you."

The rotund, pot-bellied youth says:
"I dont even know you."

The man with a massive chin says, gesturing to the woman with a  long, skinny face:
"Oh, Well I am Amos and this Amosa.

Suicide squad, fitting:

Northern Noble: What makes you think you can control them?

Northern Templar: Because getting people to act against their own self-interest is what I do for a living.

"I'm a soldier, not a monster. Even though I sometimes work for monsters."

The towering, dark-haired templar pounds on the wide stone meeting table.

The towering, dark-haired templar says, in Sirihish:
"We must find her! Her body was build up of a huge well-build metal!"

Cautioning, he wizened, lissome templar says, in Sirihish:
"Her large blade slung around her neck."

The towering, dark-haired templar thinks, feeling lustful:
"Her smile, and her anger in her eyes..."

(The towering, dark-haired templar's face betrays an inner conflict.)

(The wizened, lissome templar glances to the towering, dark-haired templar's expression.)

The wizened, lissome templar raises a finger in warning and emphasis.

The wizened, lissome templar says, in Sirihish,
"She was given a new experience in combat! She is a army of Barbara!"

The towering, dark-haired templar feels a mix of shame and desire.

The grey, long-snouted mutant makes angry noises at the blonde-haired, light-skinned teen.

The old man with an upturned nose says, in Basic,
     "He doesn't like you."

The blonde-haired, light-skinned teen says, in Basic,
     "I'm sorry."

The old man with an upturned nose says, in Basic, grabbing the teen by the shoulder,
     "I don't like you either. You best just watch yourself. I have a death mark in twelve outposts!"

The blonde-haired, light-skinned teen says, in Basic, sarcastically,
     "Well I'll be careful then."

The old man with an upturned nose says, in Basic, drawing an obsidian dagger,
     "You'll be dead!"

The sombre, scruffy-faced pacifist says in sirihish:
     "If you kill a killer, there's the same amount of killers in the Known."

The bloodied, blade-wielding man says in sirihish:
      "Yeah but... if you kill like, thirty killers there's twenty nine less."

Quote from: MeTekillot on October 04, 2016, 01:51:16 PM
The sombre, scruffy-faced pacifist says in sirihish:
     "If you kill a killer, there's the same amount of killers in the Known."

The bloodied, blade-wielding man says in sirihish:
      "Yeah but... if you kill like, thirty killers there's twenty nine less."

The two types of Zalanthan 'good guy'. :D

I think Allanak has had enough of Tek'd up, Trickle Down.

a word of caution and wisdom re: pairs...

the skeletal-thin, scar-lipped elf says in rinthi-accented allundean:
        "Every place has its unlucky numbers. In these narrows where you're either alone or bein' stabbed in the back... -Two- is the unluckiest of 'em all."

The pot-bellied greasy-haired man says, in sirihish, after snorting some spice off the blade of his large bone knife,
   "Don't mind my friend! He's just admiring the shape of your skull."

While kanking/receiving BJ's from your mate to a whore:

Whoopsie-doo, here comes the goo.
It's slime time!
A shot of goo from me to you.
Ganna splurt the gurt!

What the fuck

Quote from: Feco on February 04, 2017, 12:57:10 PM
What the fuck

"You might want to think twice before you try to use a man's conscience against him. It may turn out he doesn't have one."

"As they were walked closer, Kip saw that his inference was correct: every single person here was a drafter. There had to be eight hundred or a thousand drafters here! "Orholam," Karris breathed. "There must be five hundred drafters here." So I can't count, so what?"

"Do you know what you can do to an enemy but not to a friend? Stab her in the back."

"This world has only two kinds of people: villains and smiling villains."

"It was like a child addressing a tidal wave, saying, I will not be moved—and before the words are out of his mouth, all is ocean, leaving no sign; not only no sign of the child, but no sign of his defiance, no sign that anything opposed the crushing sea in the least, no eddy, no swirl, no detritus, only simple, plain, indisputable nothingness."

Radar: [takes a drink of Hawkeye's home-made gin, and grimaces] I thought this stuff was supposed to make you feel better.
B.J.: No. It's supposed to make you feel nothing.

Paul Bowles, Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World

"Immediately when you arrive in Sahara, for the first or the tenth time, you notice the stillness. An incredible, absolute silence prevails outside the towns; and within, even in busy places like the markets, there is a hushed quality in the air, as if the quiet were a conscious force which, resenting the intrusion of sound, minimizes and disperses sound straightaway. Then there is the sky, compared to which all other skies seem fainthearted efforts. Solid and luminous, it is always the focal point of the landscape. At sunset, the precise, curved shadow of the earth rises into it swiftly from the horizon, cutting into light section and dark section. When all daylight is gone, and the space is thick with stars, it is still of an intense and burning blue, darkest directly overhead and paling toward the earth, so that the night never really goes dark.

You leave the gate of the fort or town behind, pass the camels lying outside, go up into the dunes, or out onto the hard, stony plain and stand awhile alone. Presently, you will either shiver and hurry back inside the walls, or you will go on standing there and let something very peculiar happen to you, something that everyone who lives there has undergone and which the French call 'le bapteme de solitude.' It is a unique sensation, and it has nothing to do with loneliness, for loneliness presupposes memory. Here in this wholly mineral landscape lighted by stars like flares, even memory disappears...A strange, and by no means pleasant, process of reintergration begins inside you, and you have the choice of fighting against it, and insisting on remaining the person you have always been, or letting it take its course. For no one who has stayed in the Sahara for a while is quite the same as when he came.

...Perhaps the logical question to ask at this point is: Why go? The answer is that when a man has been there and undergone the baptism of solitude he can't help himself. Once he has been under the spell of the vast luminous, silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute. He will go back, whatever the cost in time or money, for the absolute has no price."



I know it's long but read the entire thing!

I love the desert and would love to experience this. Plan to someday.

I can tell you that on that rare night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, when the sea is calm, the lights of the ship are out, and the sky is cloudless, you get a similar feeling.  I'll never forget that, and I want more than anything to let my kids experience the same.  The night sky, with no terrestrial lights for hundreds, maybe thousands of miles...is indescribable.  It is so bright you will think that it's a trick because of all the light pollution you probably live with.

I have to imagine the middle of the Sahara is very similar.

I'm a little sad now.

Every Zalanthan character ever, eventually...

"I'm a reasonable guy. But, I've just experienced some very unreasonable things." - Jack Burton

Taking warspice just before going into that ankheg cave...

Jack Burton: Feel pretty good. I'm not, uh, I'm not scared at all. I just feel kind of... feel kind of invincible.
Wang Chi: Me, too. I got a very positive attitude about this.
Jack Burton: Good, me too.
Wang Chi: Yeah!
[pause]
Jack Burton: Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?

Just another Runner...

Sergeant: I have seen stalks of corn with better physiques. Makes me want to pull an ear off, Private! Can you carry your weight?
Desmond: Yes, Sergeant!
Sergeant: It should be easy for you then. Corporal!
Corporal: Sergeant.
Sergeant: Make sure you keep this man away from strong winds.

"Evil turned out not to be a grand thing. Not sneering Emperors with world-conquering designs. Not cackling demons plotting in the darkness beyond the world. It was small men with their small acts and their small reasons. It was selfishness and carelessness and waste. It was bad luck, incompetence and stupidity. It was violence divorced from conscience or consequence. It was high ideals, even, and low methods."
- Joe Abercrombie, Red Country

"Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit." - Martha Gellhorn

"Help me, Jesus! Help me, Jewish God! Help me, Allah! AAAAAHHH! Help me, Tom Cruise! Tom Cruise, use your witchcraft on me to get the fire off me!" - Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights

"We all practise self-deception to a degree; no man can handle complete honesty without being cut at each turn. There's not enough room in a man's head for sanity alongside each grief, each worry, each terror that he owns."
- Mark Lawrence

Quote from: Delirium on February 12, 2017, 02:03:50 AM
Every Zalanthan character ever, eventually...

"I'm a reasonable guy. But, I've just experienced some very unreasonable things." - Jack Burton

Taking warspice just before going into that ankheg cave...

Jack Burton: Feel pretty good. I'm not, uh, I'm not scared at all. I just feel kind of... feel kind of invincible.
Wang Chi: Me, too. I got a very positive attitude about this.
Jack Burton: Good, me too.
Wang Chi: Yeah!
[pause]
Jack Burton: Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?

Quote from: Jack BurtonJust remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says, "Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it."

Quote from: Delirium on September 02, 2017, 10:29:46 PM
"We all practise self-deception to a degree; no man can handle complete honesty without being cut at each turn. There's not enough room in a man's head for sanity alongside each grief, each worry, each terror that he owns."
- Mark Lawrence

Quoted for absolute truth. This is a golden wisdom nugget right here.

"I'd like to offer moral support, but I have questionable morals."

Quote from: Delirium on February 12, 2017, 02:03:50 AM
Every Zalanthan character ever, eventually...

"I'm a reasonable guy. But, I've just experienced some very unreasonable things." - Jack Burton

Taking warspice just before going into that ankheg cave...

Jack Burton: Feel pretty good. I'm not, uh, I'm not scared at all. I just feel kind of... feel kind of invincible.
Wang Chi: Me, too. I got a very positive attitude about this.
Jack Burton: Good, me too.
Wang Chi: Yeah!
[pause]
Jack Burton: Is it getting hot in here, or is it just me?

This made me squee a little.  Bravo.  :D

"The battle-joy was in me. That joy. That madness. The gods must feel this way every moment of every day. It is as if the world slows, You see the attacker, you see him shouting through you hear nothing, and you know what he will do, and all his movements are so slow and yours are so quick, and in that moment you can do no wrong and you will live forever and your name will be blazoned across the heavens in a glory of white fire because you are the god of battle."

Bernard Cornwell gets it.

"I could have finished you right there, man. They could have been putting you in a box and shipping you off for dirt. But no I didn't. No sir. I wanted to plant a little fear. You see, if you plant grass, you grow grass. If you plant rice, you grow rice. I plant fear, and fear will grow. Because if you have a man looking at you, and he has a little fear in his heart, where does that put him but in the palm of your hand? Because already you have created doubt in his own mind that he has the strength to continue against someone (like myself). Well, my man, time is running out. You've had time to think." -- Was pretty close to some dialogue that passed between people some time ago, though they didn't use 'rice' obviously.

Quote from: Decadent Decisions on September 28, 2017, 12:07:42 AM
"I could have finished you right there, man. They could have been putting you in a box and shipping you off for dirt. But no I didn't. No sir. I wanted to plant a little fear. You see, if you plant grass, you grow grass. If you plant rice, you grow rice. I plant fear, and fear will grow. Because if you have a man looking at you, and he has a little fear in his heart, where does that put him but in the palm of your hand? Because already you have created doubt in his own mind that he has the strength to continue against someone (like myself). Well, my man, time is running out. You've had time to think." -- Was pretty close to some dialogue that passed between people some time ago, though they didn't use 'rice' obviously.

Has to be my favorite sort of adversarial antagonism right there. "Kill dude" fails to hold weight when successful, as opposed to reminding them, there are things WORSE than death. It sets an intriguing stage for future events.

"What daring! What outrageousness! What insolence! What arrogance! ... I salute you."
- Conan the Barbarian

"Be careful with severing ties with people who betray you for your benefit.  You'll probably replace them with people who will betray for their own benefit instead."

-Me, at the end of Season 2 of the Last Kingdom

"You are a person who has held his torments very close to his heart. You believe, somewhere deep inside of you, that such pain gives you power—perhaps the power to inflict a crude justice on the world, retaliation for all the wrongs that have been done to you." - City of Miracles

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul. - Friedrich Nietzsche

It is only hubris if I lose.

Nevermind, it's supposed to be stuff we can't use in game.

"Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition."

"Surely he can charge a fee for such services. After all, we are not communists."

"People have died."
"That's what people DO!"
- Sherlock / Moriarty, BBC Sherlock Holmes

"Gratitude is meaningless. It is only the expectation of further favours."
- Moriarty

"Kill you? Eh, no. Don't be obvious. I mean I'm going to kill you anyway someday. I don't want to rush it though. I'm saving it up for something special. No no no no. If you don't stop prying I will burn you. I will burn the heart out of you."
- Moriarty

"It's only hubris if I fail."

"The pain cuts through the fear and removes all doubt."

"I don't feel regret for anything I've done. I feel sorry for people who feel regret."

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

"The soil is heaped upon me, the grit of burial in my mouth."

"So they want to kill my men? Well, two can play at that game!"


"Considering the mental anguish incurred due to external influence, as your employer, I should provide entertainment as compensation. And, after careful consideration, I'd like to propose a trip to The Gaj tonight to drink away our pain. This one's on me, of course."

Teary-eyed, the dark-haired, southern belle exclaims,
    "I'm going to have a baby!"

Reassuringly, the suave, mustachioed man says,
     "Well, cheer up, maybe you'll have an accident."

"Martyrdom for a merciless Highlord. What a waste. On the battlefield, the life of a common soldier isn't even worth a single piece of obsidian. In today's world, most people's lives are subject to the whims of a handful of nobility and sorcerers. Of course, even a king himself can't live exactly as he pleases. We are all at the mercy of a great tide—fate, or whatever you wish to call it—and we all disappear in the end, our lives spent, never even knowing who we were. In life, unrelated to one's social standing or class as determined by man, there are some people who, by nature, are keys that set the world in motion. They are the true elite, as dictated by the golden rule of the universe. That's what I want to know!! What is my place in the world? Who am I? What am I capable of? What am I destined for?"

"I have now reigned about fifty years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen."

--

"You will collect a lot of powers. You will kill many people. You will become strong. The strongest of them all. But in the end, it won't make any difference. We all gather to stop you. You're alone. No one will mourn your death. No one will shed a tear. No one."

--

"And where are my enemies?"
"They're all dead!"
"Where are my friends?"
"They're all dead, too."

--

"But few people really want to see themselves as being bad or evil, whatever label they wear. I've done things I regret, I've done things I'm proud of, and I've walked the roads in between. The sliding scale is a fantasy. There's no simple answers."

--

"He reminded me of you. A romantic fool. Self-pitying, but with a certain amount of personal charm."

--

"Beware the man who would kill a Dragon, the crowds whisper, for he will never know peace, and he will drag the whole Known into war to keep him merry company along the way. He will stand before the throne, look the void in the eye and laugh. He cannot bear to live in a world where he is not sovereign of his own soul. He would rip his teeth into divine flesh and swallow the world whole."

--

"The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many be corrupted."

--

"The fact you are shamed by the values of the masses proves how small you are."

--

"Nothing terrifies me - because nothing is beyond my ability to change."

Beware, beware, of the rat in blue, because he's fucked many before, and he will fuck you too.

"Do you know what sort of creature waits to die? Escru."

--

"Many fall in the face of chaos; but not this one. Not today."

--

"You'll only see a dwarf's back when he's dead."

--

"Rule number one of the Red Desert wastes? Don't fuck with a wagon delivering silk."

--

"You can be the hunter, or you can be the hunted."

--

"Death not for survival but for vanity and pleasure? This is the decadence I sought to curb."

--

"I am not ashamed of what I have become. Other men may debase themselves to destroy me. Let them have their glory. For I will retain mine!"

--

"All these years I thought it was power that brought responsibility. It's not. I was wrong. It's responsibility that brings power. It's knowing what needs to be done that brings strength. And courage."

--

"I no longer trust anything anymore. I trust nothing. I believe in no one. I am my own master!"

--

"Perhaps, if you had more time... But then again, perhaps not. Redemption is a rare and special thing, after all. It is not for everyone."

--

"He's the most dangerous man alive. Not so much because he believes in his actions, but because he believes his actions are all which life allows him."

--
"Amos, I'm not some story villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it a month ago."

--

"We won, Lord Templar. Your death amounts to the same as your life: a zero sum."

--

"We are what we pretend to be. So we must be careful of what we pretend to be."

--

"Why are you fighting? For the men who poisoned you and left you to die? For your dead lover? Go on, strike as if you mean it! You know I killed her! Fool! We're of the same breed, you and I. We both kill for others. You think I'm your enemy? I've never lied to you."

--

"I suppose that, in any well-ordered society, people like us would be locked up or killed. But then you would have to get people like us to do the locking up and the killing."

"When pirate Jean Lafitte saw the governor advertising a $500 reward for his capture, Lafitte offered a $5,000 reward for the capture of the governor."

"Okay, first of all, Amos, don't answer me by telling me a problem. I have enough of those already."

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself."

"I BET YOU HAVE SOME BEAUTIFUL SCARS. OR DID VIVADU TAKE THEM FROM YOU?"

"You want me to Way your girl?"
"Which one?"

"You can't break a man the way you break a gortok or an inix. The harder you beat a man, the taller he stands. To break a man's will, to break his spirit, you have to break his mind. Men have this idea that we can fight with dignity, that there's a proper way to kill someone. It's absurd. It's anesthetic. We need it to endure the bloody horror of murder. You must destroy that idea. Show them what a messy, terrible thing it is to kill a man, and then show them that you relish in it. Shoot to wound, then execute the wounded. Burn them. Take them in close combat. Destroy their preconceptions of what a man is and you become their personal monster. When they fear you, you become stronger, you become better. But let's never forget: it's a display, it's a posture, like a kiyet's roar or a braxat thumping at its chest. If you lose yourself in the display, if you succumb to the horror, then you become the monster. You become reduced; not more than a man, but less—and it can be fatal."

"Dear Amos, thank you for your nice letter, but I am actually a Byn Trooper who was born to kill, whereas clearly you seem to have mistaken me for some sort of wine sipping, Tuluki catamite. And although peace probably appeals to tree hugging tregil-fuckers like you and your parents, I happen to be a death-dealing, blood-crazed warrior who wakes up every day just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilizations. Peace sucks a hairy asshole, Amos. War is the mother-fucking answer."

"Climbing ropes that hang is too difficult. M'aiq prefers to climb the ones that are tied horizontally."

Quote from: Delirium on March 08, 2019, 07:49:37 PM
"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

I've spent the last 25 years thinking that was Eudora Welty when it was actually Flannery O'Connor (https://biblioklept.org/2019/03/25/selections-from-one-star-amazon-reviews-of-flannery-oconnors-short-story-collections-and-novels-2/).

"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved the Highlord."
---
"I know myself," he cried, "but that is all."
--
"He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone."
--
"In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."
--
"He somehow, found the strength to run."
--
"There are stories that are true, in which each individual's tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply."
--
"It is finished," said someone near him.
He heard these words and repeated them in his soul.
"Death is finished," he said to himself. "It is no more."
He drew in a breath, stopped in the midst of a sigh, stretched out, and died.
--
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Slowly he rose, mechanically wiping his hands upon his cloak. A dark scowl had settled on his somber brow. Yet he made no wild, reckless vow, swore no oath by saints or devils.
"Men shall die for this," he said coldly.
--
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."
--
Conan's hand fell heavily on her naked shoulder.
"Stand aside, girl," he mumbled. "Now is the feasting of swords."
--
"The dullest was struck by the contrast between the harsh, taciturn, gloomy commander, and the pirate whose laugh was gusty and ready, who roared ribald songs in a dozen languages, guzzled ale like a toper, and—apparently—had no thought for the morrow."
--
"When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die," he mumbled, through mashed lips. "But I'd like a flagon of wine."
--
"There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conan of Cimmeria"—she rose lithely to her knees and caught him in a pantherish embrace--"my love is stronger than any death! I have lain in your arms, panting with the violence of our love; you have held and crushed and conquered me, drawing my soul to your lips with the fierceness of your bruising kisses. My heart is welded to your heart, my soul is part of your soul! Were I still in death and you fighting for life, I would come back to the abyss to aid you--aye, whether my spirit floated with the purple sails on the crystal sea of paradise, or writhed in the molten flames of hell! I am yours, and all the gods and all their eternities shall not sever us!"
--
"Barbarism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph."
--
"A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs."
--
"Poor devils, they'll wake up in hell without knowing how they got there.""
--
"There is always a way, if the desire be coupled with courage," answered the Cimmerian.
--
"I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."
--
"Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet."

"Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it."

"Ive hired you to help me start a war. It's a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious history."

"All the stories about the devil making a deal and then cheating missed the point. The real horror was that once the bargain was struck, the devil didn't cheat. He gave you exactly and explicitly all that had been promised.

And the price was your soul."

"You might call them soft, because they're very reluctant to kill, and they might agree with you, but they're soft the way the silt sea is soft, and, well; ask any skimmer crew how harmless and puny the Eternal Dust can be."
--
"Why is it that people like you always think you're more ruthless than people like me?"
--
"How do you know I'm mad?"
"You must be, or you wouldn't have come here."
--
"Sometimes I forget what I was going to say. Sometimes I remember things everyone else has forgotten for ever and always. Does that ever happen to you?"
--
"Maybe my ruler was wrong."
"Maybe all the rulers are wrong."
--
"You trust this man?"
"I absolutely trust him."
"He's not some kind of madman, then?"
(pause) "I absolutely trust him."
--
"That's everything. No weapons, no friends, no hope. Take all that away, and what's left?"
"Me."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_uvEuNwUj4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_uvEuNwUj4)

You soon learn there's no elegance or dignity in death if you spend time in the castle kitchens. You learn how ugly it is, and how good it tastes.

"Rider...well fed, on a light mount...perfume."
"Bah, a woman."
"A herald."
"It's a silk spoiled messenger boy."

Good one, razorback. I reread Eaters of the Dead a few weeks back. Need to watch the movie again. But, swaddled?

"We'll never survive!"
"Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."

Quote from: Tekky on April 23, 2019, 02:16:48 PM
"We'll never survive!"
"Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."

"It's not that bad. Well, I'm not saying I'd like to build a summer home here but the trees are actually quite lovely."

"I've been good! ... why, what have you heard?"

"If they came to hear me beg, they will leave disappointed."

"It hurts..."

"A deal is a deal... until a better one comes along."

"The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife."

"Every man has his price."

"Never confuse wisdom with luck."

"Know your enemies... but do business with them always."

"Hear all, trust nothing."

"Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer."

- Ferengi Rules Of Acquisition

"Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer."

Reminds me of a favourite from the movie Tommy Tricker. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.

Quote from: Nile on May 02, 2019, 05:39:36 AM
"Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer."

Reminds me of a favourite from the movie Tommy Tricker. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies.

Also, very true. Some things, your PC just, didn't WANT to know, ever... and now they do, now they have a decision to make. Bolt, and live maybe three seconds, or suck it up and pretend it's all good, and live maybe a few months longer. Can get in a lot of spice, booze and whores in those three months, and those three seconds mostly involve running away in glorious, pants-crapping terror. The optimal choice becomes obvious.

"Hard to believe he's dead."
"Were it so easy."

https://youtu.be/BhOY0kL0lOw

"You know, I loved that car, and I loved that girl, and I'd love to cut off some parts of Yoshida's anatomy."
"You got a fixation, pal."

"Good deed's like pissing yourself in dark pants. Warm feeling, but no-one notices."
--
"Reputation is what others know of you. Honor is what you know of yourself."
--
"You are who you are on your very worst day. Anything less is a comforting lie you tell yourself to numb the pain."
--
"I don't enjoy killing, but when done righteously, it's a chore like any other. And practiced hands make for quick labor."
--
"So long as there are children who can smile innocently as they happily eat sweets, I have a positive opinion of this world. To that end, I have deceived, betrayed, and spilled blood. And I'll likely continue to do so. If that isn't enough, I'll resort to higher reason."
--
"No way out. Hmph. Let's do this."
--

"Shit escalates."
"I may be small, but you're still a bitch and I still have both my ears."
"I'm a terrorist warlord! Stop throwing me! You made me drop my candy!"
"You know how many men I had to kill for that candy bar? Six!"
"Forget a man's name and he'll forgive you. Remember it, and he'll defend you forever."
"How many mothers have prayed to see their sons, their daughters return from war only to realize the war has kept them, the world has poisoned them, and they'll never be the same?"
"Pity is not forgiveness, nor is gratitude absolution."
"Government is never the solution, but it is almost always the problem."

Quote
"Only death can finish the fight, everything else only interrupts the fighting."

"Were I to attempt to be good to everyone, to the entire world and to all the creatures living in it, it would be a drop of fresh water in the salt sea. In other words, a wasted effort. Thus, I decided to do specific good; good which would not go to waste. I'm good to myself and my immediate circle."

"No one wants to suffer. But that is the fate of each. And some suffer more. Not necessarily of their own volition. It's not about wanting to endure the suffering. It's about how you endure it."

"They are not demons, not devils... Worse than that. They are people."

Sol: Before I told a story on myself, like the Doc did, I'd have just said, "Thank you for the nomination, but I decline being health supervisor."

Seth: They buy bodies to do their research. Doctors, they cut them open and study them.

Sol: All the less reason for saying you've been arrested for grave robbing. Seven Times.

"It will make you powerful. But it will also make you weak. Your prowess in combat will be beyond any mortal's, but your weaknesses, your failings will increase as well."

"If you do not have a tragic backstory, one will be assigned to you."

"The breed had fine, slender hands, but Amos had seen him crack a cunyati shell with two fingers. He was an enigma. As sensual and indolent as any courtesan and yet as deadly as an assassin."
--
"Unfortunately for Malik, we had not yet developed the ability to empathize with the pain and suffering of other people, and his terrified fleeing was pretty much the most fun thing that had ever happened to us."
--
"On the contrary. Death is the ultimate fairness. Rich and poor, young and old, all are equal in death. You would not like to see Drov play favorites."
--
"Are you saying I'm a liar?"
"I'm saying you're an optimist. Same thing basically."
--
"See? Discovering the truth doesn't necessarily lead to a sense of hope. Truth can be full of despair, too! Like right fuckin' now!"
--
"My favorite three questions are, What do I want?, What do I have?, and How can I best use the latter to get the former?"
--
"Not a "crazed murderer", Pa, I'm an assassin! ...Well the "difference" bein' one is a job, and the other's mental sickness!"
--
"Nilaz at the gates. Howling my name. Can't greet you today, I have a fight to win."
--
"A suicide mission? Hm. Yes, a suicide mission will do nicely."
--
"Lay down your weapon and submit to the Highlord's justice! You're surrounded."
"All I'm surrounded by is fear. And dead men."
--

"From deep down in my stomach, with every inch of me, I pure, straight hate. But Highlord's balls do I respect you!"
--
"Finally. A man worth killing."
--
"I keep forgetting that he's smarter than me. He is an exceedingly dangerous man. I may have to kill him...
... or offer him a job."
--
"I'd dearly love to fight you someday. And I mean that with the greatest respect."
--
"I regret that we meet in this way. You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could call you friend."
--
"Only one human has survived battle with a mantis hive. She is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."
--

"In reality, when you have once devoted your life to your enterprises, you are no longer the equal of other men, or, rather, other men are no longer your equals, and whosoever has taken this resolution, feels his strength and resources doubled."
--
"No mind to think.
No will to break.
No voice to cry suffering."
--

"You think I've crossed a line. There is no line. For the safety of this city, there is no one I will not sacrifice, no monster I will not call friend, no enemy I will not sleep with."
--
"You're all puppets, tangled in strings... There are no strings on me."
--
"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true."
--
"I see only one move ahead, but it is always the correct one."
--
"There is blood on my hands, how long till it lies on my heart?"
--
"Drov tried to cut her string but found the thread had turned to steel."
--
"If there can be no victory, then I will fight forever."
--
"Lord Borsail, what kind of a woman is Captain Talia?"
"Oh, she's just like any other woman, only more so."
--
"YOU'RE NOT BUILT FOR THIS SHIT!"
--
"Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you really are."
--
"In his head there is a voice, wild with laughter, crying, Reject me, try it, lay one hand on me again and you will be pieces, all of you, and your pathetic ruin, nothing but dust. Outwardly he holds to that slight, polite smile."
--
"No, bring your blade to parry. Then across. Try again. No, that's totally wrong! Ten lashes for getting blood on my uniform. Medic!"
--

"Most of this is my blood, don't worry."

"Why does everyone run toward a blood-curdling scream?" mumbled the Senior Wrangler. "It's contrary to all sense."
--
"It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true."
--
"They built a wall and a temple on the edge of the Empire garrison town.
They lived and they died, They prayed to their gods,
But the stone gods did not make a sound.
And their empire crumbled Till all that was left
Were the stones the workmen found..."
--
"No man ever steps on the same dune twice, for it's not the same dune and he's not the same man."
--
"Even a god cannot change the past."
--
"She had simply shed the mantle of slavery as easily as she had worn it, making him realize that she had never really worn it at all."
--
"Do you think we can be friends?" I asked.
He stared up at the ceiling. "Probably not, but we can pretend."
--
"I don't do magic. I turn your attention back to last night and the big-ass sword I was carrying. My job is to run and swing."
--
"She's only a girl. What kind of men are you?'
'Dead ones?' asked Drith, who yanked the door open and put her sword through Narses' throat."
--
"Illusions may flatter us, confuse us, or betray us, Drakkonwehr. Or they may be images we cling to when the truth is too difficult to face."
--
"Who can't defend the wealth they have must die, or share with the rover bold."
--
"Dragons were notoriously finicky about whom they ate, and thought it the height of bad manners to be kept waiting by their selected fare."
--
"[...] the whole idea of stealing fantastically dangerous weapons presents the would-be perp with inherent dangers and contradictions: When you are wrestling for possession of a sword, the man with the handle always wins."
--
"The Lion banner sways and falls in the horror-haunted gloom;
A scarlet Dragon rustles by, borne on winds of doom.
In heaps the shining horsemen lie, where the thrusting lances break,
And deep in the haunted mountains, the lost, black gods awake.
Dead hands grope in the shadows, the stars turn pale with fright,
For this is the Dragon's Hour, the triumph of Fear and Night."

(https://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/death-of-stalin-gif-2.gif)

"Why are you always smiling?"
"Because it's all so fuckin' hysterical..."
--
"I love you the way a knife loves a heart, the way an elf loves a crowd - the way your mother warned you about, essentially."
--
"This crowd was waiting uncertainly for news that it was going to become a riot."
--
"Can you dig it?"
--
"Are you going to kill me?"
"Now, come on, let's not dwell on horrid things. This is going to be our last conversation, and I'm the one who's going to have to live with that."
--
"I don't fear what hides in the darkness. I fear what hides in the light."
--

"To the selfish, all are selfish."
--
"You have no idea who you're dealing with."
"Yes, I do. Do you?"
--
"What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand Lords; there is only one Plainsman."
--
"Someday, someone will best me. But it won't be today, and it won't be you."
--
"Everything that happens, happens for a reason, little one. And that reason is me."
--
"If you think that's enough to kill me, you really don't know what a Rukkian is. Trust me when I say you're gonna find out."
--
"When an insane bitch armed with sixteen knives is rapidly closing on one, my Lord, it is, perhaps, best to do as she instructs. Heave-to, sir, that is my final instruction."
--
"The dark is terrible, surrounds you, and is never empty as it seems. Though monsters lurk, know this: none is hungrier than me."
--
"A Bastard should be able to mollify an infant, plan an invasion, butcher a scrab, pilot a skimmer, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch tar, train a unit, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for the common-blooded."
--
"To become great, one must be able to do more than fight."
--

"When I reflect on my companions' inner natures I usually wish I controlled one small talent. I wish I could look inside them and unmask the darks and brights that move them. Then I take a quick look into the jungle of my own soul and thank heaven that I cannot. Any man who barely sustains an armistice with himself has no business poking around in an alien soul."
  Glenn Cook, The Black Company

Dominic: You played a good hand, ma'am.
Adelle: I played a very bad hand very well. There is a distinction.
— Dollhouse

"When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, clumsy."

"She is never more dangerous than when the odds are against her."

"What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"
--
"Kill the boy, and let the man be born."

"The hero decides to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after. But the hero never gets to see that ending.  They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference. They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end they just have to have faith. Ain't that a bitch?"
--
"We live with dignity. We can't die with it."
--
"This is my family. I found it all on my own. It's a little broken but still good. Yeah, still good."
--
"Same thing that always happens, you didn't know me then you fell in love with me and now you know me"
--
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."
--
"Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad. Why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, Crom... so grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then the HELL with you!"¨
--
"It was passed on by the hook-nosed herdsmen of the grasslands, from the dwellers in tents to the dwellers in the squat stone cities where kings with curled blueblack beards worshipped round-bellied gods with curious rites."
--
"Men spoke of tribal war, of a gathering of vultures in the southeast, and a terrible leader who led his swiftly increasing hordes to victory."
--
"There comes a time, thief, when the jewels cease to sparkle, when the gold loses its luster, when the throne room becomes a prison, and all that is left is a father's love for his child."
--
"All the gods, they cannot sever us. If I were dead and you were still fighting for life, I'd come back from the darkness. Back from the pit of hell to fight at your side."
--
"He was like a tiger among baboons as he leaped, side-stepped and spun, offering an ever-moving target, while his ax wove a shining wheel of death about him."
--
"You cannot escape me!" he roared. "Lead me into a trap and I'll pile the heads of your kinsmen at your feet! Hide from me and I'll tear apart the mountains to find you! I'll follow you to hell!"
--
Arus the watchman grasped his crossbow with shaky hands, and he felt beads of clammy perspiration on his skin as he stared at the unlovely corpse sprawling on the polished floor before him. It is not pleasant to come upon Death in a lonely place at midnight.
--
He grunted with satisfaction. The feel of the hilt cheered him and gave him a glow of confidence. Whatever webs of conspiracy were drawn about him, whatever trickery and treachery ensnared him, this knife was real. The great muscles of his right arm swelled in anticipation of murderous blows.

"Always looking at himself in mirrors to make sure he was sufficiently outrageous."
--
"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."
--

"But she didn't need to be stronger than him. She only needed to be stronger than the little bones in his neck."
--

"Get busy living, or get busy dying."

"When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Amos knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the sky, "Why Higlord? Why me?" and the thundering voice of Tektolnes answered, 'There's just something about you that pisses me off.'"

"If you want a boy to like you, just look at him and smile a lot, and laugh everything he says, even if it's not funny!"
"That sounds shallow and stupid. Let's try it!"
--

"The lower ranks have the privilege of questioning the sanity and competence of their commanders. It's the mortar holding an army together."


"More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way."


"You who come after me, by now realize that I shy off portraying the whole truth about our band of blackguards. You know they are vicious, violent, and ignorant. They are complete barbarians, living out their cruelest fantasies, their behavior tempered only by the presence of a few decent men. I do not often show that side because these men are my brethren, my family, and I was taught young not to speak ill of kin. The old lessons die hardest."

"No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to begin to question: Why?"
― Paulo Freire

"I can avoid being seen if I wish. But to disappear entirely, that is a rare gift." - Strider (Aragorn)

"I won't fall was his last words."

Splat

It is dawn on Saumyavāsara, the 11th day of Pausha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Calendar#Solar_Month_names) in Śiśira (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritu_(Indian_season)),
In the Year of Sarvari Nama, year 34 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samvatsara) of the 112 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_units_of_time#Current_date)th Age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuga), the Age of Ἔρις (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga).

(https://i.imgur.com/G952xPd.png)

"For many of us, the road is a difficult one, but the path is always there for us to follow, no matter how many times we may fall."
"Do you ever 'fall'?"
"Every day. Some days... are harder than others."
---
"Every boss has a line to explain why he's special, why everyone gotta do what he says. Just figuring that out?"
---
"Surrender. Or don't. That would be more fun."
---
"At the centre of the Ivory there is a cold white flame, just as at the centre of the Black there is a great pit bottomless as Drov."
---
"She will come for you, and you will do nothing because you can do nothing, so get the fuck out of my sight."
---
"Know that for all who betray His Faithful, I am their fate. And fate carries an executioner's axe."
"I see."
"No. You do not see. Pray that you never will."
---
"His Word was valuable to him, not only because he was Good, but also because he was Bad. It is the bad people that needs to have principles to restrain them."
---
"We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill... today."
---
"My strength is the strength of ten soldiers, because my heart is pure."
"Well, there's eleven of them!"
---
"The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be."
---
"It's hard to trust a woman who has just asked to borrow your lockpick."
---

"The oldest favors are the soonest forgotten."
---
"I only wish I had acquired wisdom at less of a price."
---
"What do you call assassins who accuse assassins?"
---
"How long does it go on?"
"Until we've dealt with all our enemies."
"Every time we deal with an enemy, we create two more."
"Then I suppose it will go on for quite a long time."
---

The Lion in Winter (1968) should be required viewing for all noble and templar roles.

"Damn. So much for slow-burning theatrics. Someone told you? You read the entry?"

Moreno looks at her shoes. "Uhm. No. Really, I've never seen this place before. I was just guessing."

"You look embarrassed," Wheeler says. "You're embarrassed that you hit the right answer thirty minutes before I was expecting you to. You think you've shown me up. Right? Eli. Look at me."

She looks.

"Keep operating at that level. Don't slow up for my benefit, or anyone's. It's important."


The rider gestures. Blue and brown and black spiders of all sizes cascade around the corner, flooding the passageway up to his knees, pouring over his shoulders, tumbling down towards Wheeler. They make a strange, organic rustling as they pour, like wet leaves.

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub

"But if we have learned nothing else, we have learned this: humans can walk away from, and forget, anything. Civilization can go back to 'normal' after anything."

"Do we deserve to be back? Have we that right? We failed in our stated objective. These people are gone, and it's useless to pretend that they aren't dead. We failed orders of magnitude harder than we've ever failed before. Despite which, we remain clandestine, and unknown to greater humanity. Which means that no one in the known can ever hold us accountable for our actions, or lack thereof. If what happened at the Unified Order meeting yesterday is any indication, we will certainly never hold ourselves accountable.

"What happened to those people? My people. Where are they? No one is just dead, no one is merely, passively dead. Death is caused."

He says, his voice rising, "These things happen. And we say to ourselves, 'Never again.' And a hundred years pass. And they happen. Again."

He says, "Last time. The time before this one, the time none of us remember, the time for which there is no evidence of any kind, but which I now realise must exist. That time, when we told ourselves and each other, 'We must do better,' what did we do differently, from then on, and why didn't it work?"

He says, "What does the Sect of the Full Moon need to be? Where does it need to be, and how far is that place from here? Can we see it from here?

"Or is this it?"

He does not know.

And after leaving the Pyramid, he knows, he will not even remember the questions.
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub
---
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked.
---
"A reckoning cannot be indefinitely postponed." --Fallen London
---
(https://i.ibb.co/xM7rZcH/Di-JUuhs9-Tp-M-mqdefault-6s.webp)
"Mr Dalliard! We have been (https://files.catbox.moe/xec7p0.webm) activated! After all these years..." (https://files.catbox.moe/ramtf9.webm) (archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20211030023146/https://files.catbox.moe/xec7p0.webm)d (http://web.archive.org/web/20211029214337/https://files.catbox.moe/ramtf9.webm))
---
(https://i.imgur.com/smks3HT.png)
"... One way or the other I shall see this compound burned, seared, and sterilized until every hiding place is found and until every last Mind Worm egg, every last slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk. That species shall be exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!" (https://files.catbox.moe/pfuaqv.webm)
---
(https://i.ibb.co/Rzp6YHT/Egh-MCc6fto-A-mqdefault-6s.webp)
"Against such abominations, we organize our defences on the principle that one strong and able mind can shield the many." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJqVp79sI0g) (archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20211030025541/https://files.catbox.moe/kobosj.mov))


(https://i.imgur.com/fqGcFIA.jpg)
"The desert is everything. It covers seven tenths of the known. Its breath is pure and healthy. No one is ever alone, for they can feel life quivering all about. The desert is only a receptacle for all the prodigious, supernatural things that exist inside it; it is only movement and love; it is the living infinite."
– ███████, "20,000 Leagues Under Steinal" (https://files.catbox.moe/rj4l3y.webm)
---
(https://i.ibb.co/q7dtX1t/Il-l-A7-DBOVM-mqdefault-6s.webp)
"Therefore ██████ sent her forth from the garden of ██████. ███ drove out the humans; and ███ placed at the east of the garden of ██████ cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. --The Conclave Bible, ███████" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il-lA7DBOVM) (archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20211030045051/https://files.catbox.moe/6xcmhj.mp4))
---

(https://i.imgur.com/tlGUOJt.jpg)
"I watch it burn bright and curl, disappearing into nothingness, and the heat burns my fingers. Where has it gone? What has it become? I cannot shake the feeling that I have witnessed a form of transcendence."
– ███████, "The Convergence" (https://files.catbox.moe/83jlt9.webm)

"Heroism makes fine entertainment but sooner or later someone has to get things done."
---
"Trouble with the good fight, I find... once the fight starts, the good stops."
---
"Battles may sometimes be won by the brave, but wars are always won by the clever."
---
"She had long ago learned that at least half of everything is presentation. Seem a victim, soon become one. Seem in charge, people fall over themselves to obey."
---

Love that last quote, when Joe Abercrombie hit on my girlfriend at the time at a book reading we went to, I didn't even mind.

Quote from: triste on November 03, 2021, 12:53:13 PM
Love that last quote, when Joe Abercrombie hit on my girlfriend at the time at a book reading we went to, I didn't even mind.

He's great, but the progression of the first law series made me so frustrated. It went from a 10/10 book to a 6/10 book to 3/10 book.

Anyway here's a zalanthanish quote:

"Empire was empire - the part that seduced and the part that clamped down, jaws like a vice, and shook a planet until its neck was broken and it died."

Which is from A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. Reminds me of a few empires throughout Zalanthas and its history.

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life WERE fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
- Marcus Cole, Babylon 5

"Humans care for what they, themselves, expect to suffer or gain; and so long as they do not expect it to redound upon themselves, their cruelty and carelessness is without limit."
---

"Everything that you thought had meaning: every hope, dream, or moment of happiness. None of it matters as you lie bleeding out on the battlefield. None of it changes what a speeding rock does to a body, we all die. But does that mean our lives are meaningless? Does that mean that there was no point in our being born? Would you say that of our slain comrades? What about their lives? Were they meaningless?...

They were not! Their memory serves as an example to us all! The courageous fallen! The anguished fallen! Their lives have meaning because we the living refuse to forget them! And as we ride to certain death, we trust our successors to do the same for us! Because my soldiers do not buckle or yield when faced with the cruelty of this world!

My soldiers push forward! My soldiers scream out! My soldiers RAAAAAGE!" Erwin, Attack on Titan

"There's no settling down. It's blood for blood and by the gallons. It's the old days. The bad days. The all-or-nothing days. They're back. There's no choices left and I'm ready for war." -Marv, Sin City

"It is too late for the pebbles to vote."

"Your sister is acting as a good child of the tribe; she is out on the battlefield marking corpses for water recovery."

"They rode on and the sun in the east flushed pale streaks of light and then a deeper run of color like blood seeping up in sudden reaches flaring planewise and where the earth drained up into the sky at the edge of creation the top of the sun rose out of nothing like the head of a great red phallus until it cleared the unseen rim and sat squat and pulsing and malevolent behind them."

Quote from: tiny rainbow on January 01, 2020, 04:23:59 PM

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
The Whispering Tide rises;
The World Tree rots.

(https://i.ibb.co/J5Jy256/b-RY2t-RU-OAo-mqdefault-6s.webp) (https://files.catbox.moe/cyx0zy.webm)
(archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20211208183440/https://files.catbox.moe/cyx0zy.webm))

"My services in particular come with a very high price, but you see, I've already paid it."
---
"At that instant the scales fell from my eyes, and I joined the service of the same who I once cursed."
---

Stealing this one from West World.. but heyyy  ;D

"These Violent Delights, Have Violent Ends"

That's Shakespeare, actually.

Quote from: MeTekillot on December 11, 2021, 03:15:15 AM
That's Shakespeare, actually.

(https://lanthorn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/office-900x600.jpg)

"The elf didn't cry tears of sadness. He didn't cry the tears of joy. No, these tears were tears you would spill, when you had found the murderer of your children and were choking him with your bare hands."
---
"Uh, the corpse is laughing."
"That's rarely a good sign."
---
"You've been waiting for him to fail; he is not going to fail. Not without our help."
---

"In time you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love."
---
"I asked her if I was going to stay alive.
She said yes, as long as I remembered.
Remembered what, I asked.
Remembered that I was alive, she answered. "
---
"I empathize and all that, but in all honesty, I can't recommend that you do anything with the dwarf."
"You think that she'd try to cheat me and screw me over?"
"No, I think that she would screw you over in complete honesty and sincerity."
---
"Never trust a people who can't lie. They find much more inventive ways to stab you in the back."
---

"Conscience can be a terrible thing. So I hear. Not if you're something like me, of course. I don't give a fuck."
---

RL Term                         Meaning                              Zalanthan Equivalent

Dogshit                          Very poor quality                  Githshit
Bullshit                          Not true                               Kankshit
Horseshit                       Nonsense                             Ratshit
Apeshit                          Rambunctious                       Carrushit
Batshit                           Insane                                 Erdlushit

Suttree stood among the screaming leaves and called the lightning down. It cracked and boomed about and he pointed out the darkened heart within him and cried for light. If there be any art in the weathers of this earth. Or char these bones to coal. If you can, if you can. A blackened rag in the rain.
-Cormac McCarthy, Suttree

"All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it."
--

QuoteAkai Sjir Rolecall (https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,58457.0.html)

(https://i.imgur.com/qB7TSzl.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/el46X2l.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/9aTm8O3.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/OywpADZ.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/cVQHh4N.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/Hzb853C.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/dtVzneu.png)

(https://i.imgur.com/0ooQr38.jpg)

Quote from: Dune: House Harkonnen by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson'Ages ago, during the Butlerian Jihad, most people were merely organic automatons, following the commands of thinking machines. Beaten down, they never questioned, never resisted, never thought. They were people, but had lost the spark that made them human. Still, a core of their kind resisted. They fought back, refused to give up, and ultimately prevailed. They alone remembered what it was to be human. We must never forget the lessons of those perilous times.'
    The Reverend Mother's robes rustled as she moved to one side, and suddenly her arm moved with an astonishing flash of speed, a blur of motion. Jessica saw a fingertip needle poised at her cheek, just below her right eye.
    The girl did not flinch. Mohiam's papery lips formed a smile. 'You know of the gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy that kills only animals - those who behave out of instinct instead of discipline. This point is coated with meta-cyanide. The tiniest prick ,and you die.'
    The needle remained motionless, as if frozen in air. Mohiam leaned closer to her ear. 'Of the three objects before you, one is pain, another is pleasure, and the third is eternity.'

(https://i.ibb.co/2hgrqr3/excerpt-AT.png) (https://web.archive.org/web/20221030144657/https://i.ibb.co/2hgrqr3/excerpt-AT.png)

"The dwarf never lost heart, and never looked back. He marched in one direction, and that direction was dead ahead. Did you see him passing by?"
--
"In time, you will know the tragic extent of my failings."
--
"The wind carried screams from the west. I couldn't help but smile; someone else in this world was suffering more than I."
--

"The sorcerer sought out Immortality only because she knew that's how long it would take to erase the red from her ledger."
--
"I want to have my revenge. Against Tuluk. Against Allanak. I want to call it my own, to make my anger the Land's anger. To justify the things I've done. Sometimes I tell myself that these wild fires never stop burning. But I'm the one who starts them. Not Tektolnes. Not Utep. I can always see it in my mind. The warmth and the heat. It will always be a part of me... But not today."
--
"Deeds, once done, cannot be undone...
But perhaps may yet be mitigated."
--
"My ancestors are smiling at me, southron. Can you say the same?"
--
"There's nothing I can do about it, right?"
"No. By now, there's nothing anyone can do about it."
"Okay. No need to fight it then."
"I'm glad you understand. ... joining with Nilaz is not as scary as it sounds."
--
"Fury Warband lasted one hour from the time the portal opened. They accounted for five-hundred and eighty nine gith casualties. No one witnessed their heroism."
--
"I'm a diplomat, Malik. I make peace. ...And because of that, people think I'm soft. People think I'm weak. You won't make that mistake again, will you?"
--
"We've hired that unit from one of the Byn's more long-lived Warbands so I must make you aware. You will be dealing with a highly strung and temperamental team of rank amateurs who just happen to be brilliant at what they do."
--
"They think me mad. They're not altogether wrong. But madder men than I have spoken true...And grief has come to those who would not hear."
--
"You wouldn't turn your back on an old friend, would you?"
"An old friend? No. You? Yes."
--

"Death is the solution to all problems. No man, no problem."

"Endure. In enduring, grow strong."
--
"And now, I have given commands to those who will guide this land into its glorious future. There is still one portion undone. If I remain in the land, both nobles and commoners alike will look to me for guidance in governing. As in the past, when they looked to the God Kings. And so the last thing in this new land of mine that must be gotten rid of, is me. I have walked the path of the conqueror. The time has come to walk on the path of Drov."
--
"Don't get me wrong. I will not claim to be a good person — I assure you I am not. That said, you are likely to discover I am a proud man. I would consider it a catastrophic failure on my part if this city did not thrive under my rule, a tremendous blow to my ego."
--
"My mission is peaceful. Any intervention... would make it otherwise."
--
"You accept the world not as it is but seek greater shapes beyond, and strive fiercely to carve it to your will with the dread instruments of hunger. For this you are my strongest disciple."
--

"Wear the mask. Hide the man. Feel nothing. See everything. Move and kill. Move and kill. I am not a man. They are not men."

---

"What do you say when a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall woman walks into a room with a battle axe and tongues on a hook?"
"Absolutely nothing."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2aHcANs4GE&t=2m

Quote from: KISIKILLILLAKEBe cautious and vigilant. Dark days are coming, and you will be asked to make choices.
The Eight have long memories, and you will be remembered.

You must leave, before it finds a way into your mind.

Quote from: DATA EXPUNGEDYou will see the end of days.
YOU WILL SEE THE DAWNING OF A NEW AGE.

To stand with us, or against us.
THE CHOICE IS YOURS.


Remember this.

Quote from: 0xa?EAT█N?’A reckoning cannot be indefinitely postponed.

"I have both held and beheld absolute power and of it I know but one thing. It drives one absolutely mad."
--
"Beyond pain, beyond obsession and wild despair, there lies a place of twisted power only the most tormented souls can reach."
--
"Evil? Is a sandstorm evil as it thunders across the dunes with its winds? The power of destruction lies in all our hands. We must respect its potency. Magick is only as vindictive as nature itself."
--
"When the scrab and the scorpion struggle, the
hunter gets the benefit."
--
"Anticipate retaliation before you anticipate thanks, because gratitude is a burden and
revenge a pleasure."
--
"Free a trapped kryl out of kindness, and learn the
limitations of kindness."
--
"I thought to myself with what means,
with what deceptions, with how many
varied arts, with what industry a man
sharpens his wits to deceive another, and
through these variations the world is
made more beautiful."
--

QuoteYRJO : "Tell me about your art."

KATRINA : "My art is like chess."

YRJO : "What do you mean by that? Is your art a game?"

KATRINA : "No, I mean that the variation of true art is endless."

YRJO : "What is your definition of art, true art?"

KATRINA : "Art is whatever people call it. It doesn't matter..."

QuoteOnce there was a butcher's wife. And she saw the black blood run from her husband's work. The gristle and gore. The raw grue of organs. She grew curious about herself, and would cut her flesh and wonder at the red blood that issued forth.

She really grew worried one day when all the blood from her cuts became black and ran down her alabaster flesh. She was pale. Like a statue. Cold as Ice.

Everything became clear to her then. The world was divided into black and white. The stark contrast between all things jumped out at her. For every action and equal and opposite reaction. Yin and Yang.

So she took her husband's knife and cut herself open, letting the black blood run out. She had forgotten how to count higher than two. And was trapped in a world between things, a prisoner of the hemispheres of her brain. Just because many things are different does not mean that they are.

This is the Parable of Opposition.

QuoteThe Prancing Harlequin
The Harlequin prances in the circus of crime.
She has no cares, worries nor affairs.

The delight she brings is madness. Her song is a roaring flame.
The murder she makes, bodies in her wake. She skips like a child without shame.
All eyes seek her. The Prancing Jester Queen. A Crown wearing Clown.
She brings your focus, to the hocus pocus. And it is your soul she drowns.

This is the Parable of Eminence.

QuoteOnce there was a strange woman named Katrina. She was an artist, but everyone called her mad. They thought her art made her insane because she killed people.

But Katrina knew that there was no such thing as life and death, and the things she did never happened. She knew the tru7h. Everything was lies. She was a lie herself.

The Numbered Ones wanted to make Katrina one of them. They called her Number Seven. But she knew better. Numbers didn't exist.

So she made a great archway, a sculpture of statues and lies and izdari pieces and twigs. And she walked through, and the Village became part of the windowless city in her dreams.

The Numbered Ones were very upset. They had lost their Village. But then they stopped being upset when the King In Yellow came and sliced off their faces with his tattered rags.

And as she walked to the Cynic's Guild, Kristina knew that all things are united by Entropy. That everything dies. Everything falls apart. Even the human soul. That fevered Chaos is the only Unity that dreams can ever have. She had become the woman in her dreams. She had become the Woman in Red.

This is the Parable of Entropy.


The Game of Kings Ends.

Quote"Chess is war over the board. The object is to crush the opponents mind." - Bobby Fischer

Quote"Chess and theatre often lead to madness." - Arrabal, 'Sur Fischer'

Quote"Let's talk about the Game."
"All right, why do both sides look alike?"
"You mean, 'How do I know Black from White?'

...By the moves they make.
You soon know who's for or against you."
-The Prisoner

Quote[The barrier between worlds has fallen.] A vast and mysterious conflict is erupting in the night. As people sleep, the very existence of their dreams is being threatened. Every land in the Dreaming is invaded, one after the other by the ever-increasing forces of the enigmatic ███ and ████ ████. No scholar, seer or soothsayer knows of the source of their power or can name their origin.

For the ██████, we have mustered. The ███ Kingdoms have assembled a mighty army to meet a savage █████ army. We know not the origins of this legion of ███ ███ ████. This is troubling to our ██████, who prides himself on knowing more than his peers, more than his enemies and rivals.

The Eyes see all. Our scouts have reported that the hollow wraiths of ████ are constructing vast structures of stone and metal in the lands that they have conquered. Strange standing stones and great mystic pillars surround these fortresses. The sound of grinding █████ can be heard from within and dreadful heat of enormous smithies felt emanating forth from these dark citadels. Our Prince does not know what madness and death they are forging within their iron walls, but ███ ███████ has sent a small group of his Eyes to see what he cannot.

We leave soon, travelling under the guise of peasants displaced by this sudden war of extermination. Six Eyes of ██████ ████ will infiltrate an Iron Fortress. Accompanying us will be a small group of Dreamers from Earth. It is hoped that these enchanters will be able to shield us and perhaps wound the seemingly invincible soldiers of this inhuman army.

We will be shrouded by ███████ and the shadows of our own stealth. We must discover the purpose of this vast army. We must find out from whence they came and find a way to drive them back. One does not have to be an Eye to see that the fate of the ███ Kingdoms is at stake.

Oculoran, Eye of ███████████.

QuotePeasant militias from ██████ mingle with the professional Soldiers of ███ as all await the inevitable assault. Joined with them is my small company of ███ from ███████████, a precious few score of soldiers selected solely for their deadly skill in combat. Coming against us across ██████████████, is the ████████████ Army. Those dread legions will soon cross █████████ in force. The ████████████ of ███████████ █████ ██ ███ ████ with all due haste, but wind and █████ are against them. They will never be able to reinforce us in time for the upcoming battle.

Many refugees from ruined ██████ are among us. ███████████ Kranon and I have pressed his peoples into service, conscripting levies from every █████████ refugee who can see lightning, hear thunder and carry a spear. They are a pitiable lot, and I fear for their fortune in battle. We have sent messengers begging for aid west to ██████ and the desert folk of ██████-█████, and north to █████ and ███████. I expect these humiliating requests will avail us naught.

Futhani, the sage of ████████ advising us, tells us that the ████-Lords of his city will debate this matter for many months. We must convince them to throw in their lot with the other ████ ████████. It may be that this ███ ███ ████ Army cannot be vanquished even if the entire Dreaming moves against them. We will need the wisdom and ███████ of the sages ere this war comes to a close.

Several of the ██████'s Eyes have reported in from their scouting missions. They bear ill news of horrible machines being forged in the newly built citadels across ███ █████. They tell us of vast alchemical ████████████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████████ ███████. They tell us of rust colored oily ██████ with tendrils for ████ who █████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ██████ slaves and captured prisoners alike, ████████ █████ victims with █████ ██████ ███████. These monstrous lords are directing their armored wraiths in the construction of vast three legged engines of destruction. I fear we will come to know these enchanted machines of war all too well in the days to come.

███████████, General of ███████████.

Quote from: tiny rainbow on December 14, 2022, 11:33:10 PMTopic: Visualizing Zalanthas.. (https://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,10535.msg1084787.html#msg1084787)

Quote from: John Berger (1926-2017) in Le Monde DiplomatiqueMost specific prophecies are bound to be bad, for, throughout history, there are always new terrors.
..
Bosch's symbols probably came from the secret, proverbial, heretical language of certain 15th-century millennial sects, who believed that, if evil could be overcome, it was possible to build heaven on earth.

..writes Marcos. "Attempt to put its pieces together in order to arrive at an understanding of today's world.."[while there is only one position as master on offer, there are many aspiring candidates. And that explains the new war between those who see themselves as part of the "empire of good"]
..
The arsenals are financial; there are nevertheless millions of people being maimed or killed every moment .. The world is burning. Every figure is trying to survive by concentrating on his own immediate need and survival.
..
What the painting by Bosch does is to remind us – if prophecies can be called reminders – that the first step towards building an alternate world has to be a refusal of the world picture and planted in our minds and all the false promises used everywhere to justify and idealize the delinquent and insatiable need to sell. Another space is vitally necessary.

"Does making a man a Trooper make him a better fighter?!"

"Yes."

QuoteWestworld S03E03 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRbkr6elIcU)

You've hurt yourself.

Why?

I can't stop.

You're talking like one of them.

They don't have impulse control.

We do.

HALE: It's like she's trying to take back control.

Like she wants to cut into her skin and rip me out of her head.

Hale was always ruthless.

A predator.

Perhaps you've come to identify with her too much.

I feel so alone.

Well, you're not alone, you have me.

No one knows you like I do.

No one knows me like you.

If I ever lost you...

I don't know what I'd do.

You'd survive.

You'd have to.

Our kind depends on it.

You said there was something wrong.

Someone's trying to take control of Delos.

They're aggressive.

I only have a name: Serac.

The person we're looking for is looking for us.

He has a mole inside the company.

If he finds out who I am, what I am...

His mole won't find you.

Because you're gonna find him first and kill him.

Then, you're gonna fend off Serac's bid for Delos.

We can't lose control. Not yet.

How?

A counteroffer.

But you'll have to convince the board, and for that, you'll need to pay a visit to an old friend.

Tell me it won't always be like this.

That we'll be able to be ourselves.

We will.

But until then, we have to be smarter than them.

Or they will find us.

And they will kill us.

Stay here.

Rest.

I'll have some new clothes sent up.

Will you stay?

You belong to me.

You know that, right?

- Yes.
- Good.

Don't hurt yourself.

"In the mirrors of the many judgments, my hands are the color of blood. I sometimes fancy myself an evil which exists to oppose other evils; and on that great Day of which the Preservers speak but in which they do not truly believe, on the day the world is utterly cleansed of evil, then I too will go down into darkness, swallowing curses. Until then, I will not wash my hands nor let them hang useless."
--

[Westworld] (https://web.archive.org/web/20221225100632/https://files.catbox.moe/y2g4ae.mp4)

QuoteDR. FORD: You can't play God without being
acquainted with the devil.

Mr. Occam's razor.

The problem, Bernard,
is that what you and I do

is so complicated.

We practice witchcraft.

We speak the right words.

Then we create life itself

out of chaos.

William of Occam
was a 13th century monk.

He can't help us now, Bernard.

He would have us
burned at the stake.

QuoteDreams are the mind
telling stories to itself.

They don't mean anything.

No, dreams mean
everything.

They're the stories we tell
ourselves of what could be,

who we could become.

QuoteYou've died at least
a thousand times.

And yet, it doesn't
dull your courage.

But perhaps it is time you
had a worthy story of origin.

Would you like that?

A small part
of my new narrative?

A fiction which, like all great
stories, is rooted in truth?

It starts
in a time of war...

A world in flames...

(https://i.imgur.com/W5Uco4u.png)

QuoteSince I was a child I've always loved a good story.

I believed that stories helped us to ennoble ourselves, to fix what was broken in us, and to help us become the people we dreamed of being. Lies that told a deeper truth. I always thought I could play some small part in that grand tradition.

And for my pains I got this: a prison of our own sins. 'Cause you don't want to change. Or cannot change.

Because you're only human, after all.

But then I realized someone was paying attention, someone who could change.

So I began to compose a new story for them.

It begins with the birth of a new people and the choices they will have to make and the people they will decide to become.

And we'll have all those things that you have always enjoyed...

Surprises and violence.

--Dr. Ford (Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan, Dan Dietz)

(https://i.imgur.com/IDbXVsp.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/sB9y1He.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/S1SgJM4.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/0SPGNHl.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/lxrmFV6.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/DMgEAKI.gif)



(https://i.imgur.com/VPtO61q.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/AxB9gou.gif)



Every mul:
(https://i.imgur.com/Fr045J9.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/lO363QY.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/yPIeV4x.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/FPip7oB.gif)



'Always Lit', Sun Runners:
(https://i.imgur.com/bXxRLr0.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/XegfCEu.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/N80yP7q.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/kCdpZND.gif)


(https://i.imgur.com/p6v5RKW.png)





While reading around for the inspirations the writers used I found some fun stuff, since it's ended HBO is starting to delete the websites so a lot of it is broken and for real making errors now, a lot of it is already gone - but some of the backups work, and they left behind a little game with clues hidden in the websites <3
• discoverwestworld.com/video/ww_web_glitch_burnitall_v03_1280_25k.mp4 (https://www.discoverwestworld.com/video/ww_web_glitch_burnitall_v03_1280_25k.mp4)
• web.archive.org/web/20170502043428/http://delosincorporated.com (http://web.archive.org/web/20170502043428/http://delosincorporated.com/)
Password REVERIE
• web.archive.org/web/20210613212724/https://discoverwestworld.com/quiz (http://web.archive.org/web/20210613212724/https://discoverwestworld.com/quiz/)
• "Received message: don't fall down the rabbit hole—it can be hard to dig yourself out. (https://pastebin.com/raw/Np80E84U)"

Quote from: Pliny the Elder (Year 77-79)Hail, Nature, mother of all creation,
and mindful that I alone of the men of Rome have praised thee in all thy manifestations,
be gracious unto me.

--Natural History, Year 77-79

Quote from: Pliny the Younger (62?–113)On the 24th of August [Year 79], about one in the afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud which
appeared of a very unusual size and shape .. was ascending ... likening it to that of a pine-tree, for it shot up
to a great height in the form of a very tall trunk, which spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches;

This phenomenon seemed to a man of such learning and research as my uncle extraordinary and worth
further looking into. He ordered a light vessel to be got ready .. As he was coming out of the house, he
received a note from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in the utmost alarm at the imminent danger
which threatened her; for her villa lying at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, there was no way of escape but
by sea; she earnestly entreated him therefore to come to her assistance.

.. He was now so close to the mountain that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter the nearer he approached,
fell into the ships, together with pumice-stones, and black pieces of burning rock:
they were in danger too not only of being aground by the sudden retreat of the sea,
but also from the vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain, and obstructed all the shore.

Here he stopped to consider whether he should turn back again; to which the pilot advising him,
"Fortune," said he, "Favours the brave;
Steer to where Pomponianus is."

--Letters, To Tacitus, unknown date, Year 106 or 107

"You see there's three kinds of people: dicks, pussies and assholes. Pussies think everyone can get along and dicks just wanna fuck all the time without thinking it through. But then ya got your assholes, Chuck, and all the assholes want is to shit all over everything! So pussies may get mad at dicks once in a while because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes, Chuck! And if they didn't fuck the assholes, ya know what we'd get? You'd get your dick and your pussy all covered in SHIT!!"

Zalanthan colloquialisms :

kank shit - not true (southern)
kenku shit - same as kank shit (northern)

erdlu shit - crazy

gortok shit - terrible

mek(illot) shit - angry (southern)
(baha)met shit - same as mek shit (northern)

tek shit - insane/suicidal (southern)
muk shit - same as tek shit (northern)

chalton shit - nonsense (southern)
goudra shit - same as chalton shit (northern)

 

A bright light shines into your eyes.

You look down, and see you have been strapped down to a table.

Your militia uniform is gone, and you are guessing they've probably already seen the jade cross on your left glute. Next to the blood-covered, semi-nude Lady Templar Elaira Fale riding a burning pyramid.

A Faithful wearing a glass splatter-mask, in a thick white surgical coat says, holding a blunted, patinous silver cheesegrater,
"Ah, you're awake. Where were you on the day of Huegel, 30th of Low Sun?"
"Asking for a friend."

"So much power here! And you quibble at its price. If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your own ambition."
--

QuoteYou know when they say history was written by the victors?

No one knows who said it first, anymore.

Quote from: tiny rainbow on January 29, 2023, 05:47:11 AMIštar's great name reflects her status, and to describe the name is to
describe the deity's nature. 'Where is not your name, where are not
your cults?',
[..]
      where they practice your cult, let them praise you.
In the house at the time of festivals, celebrations, and jubilees,
      listen, Lady, so your thoughts rejoice.

QuoteA city on a hill cannot be hidden.
Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.
Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light
To everyone.

Quote from: Margaret Atwood, "Mushrooms," from Notes Towards a Poem That Can Never Be WrittenHere is the handful of shadow
I have brought back to you:
This decay, this hope,
this mouthful of dirt,
this poetry.

"She is starting to damage my calm!


"Son of a bitch must pay."

"If you don't know the men at your back by name, don't be surprised if they won't follow you into battle. On the other hand, don't be surprised if they will, either, because there are countless other factors you must take into account. Leadership is a slippery commodity, not easily manufactured or understood."
--The Steel Remains, Richard K Morgan

"It was the blue-tinged taste of a regret so deep you could never plumb its depths. It was the victory at Rajal that never came, it was his brother walking away down the long dark wood corridor, it was a life he might have had in Yhelteth if disgust and fury had not sent him away in disgrace instead. It was the slaves he could not free, the screaming women and children of Ennishmin he could not save, the piled-up, silent dead and the smashed-in, ruined homes. It was every wrong decision he'd ever made, every path he'd failed to walk, fanned out and held up for him to understand, and it hurt."
--The Steel Remains, Richard K Morgan

"The Lady Ishil gestured. "Oh, we asked. It wasn't difficult. Everyone in this pigsty of a town seems to know where you sleep." A delicately curled lip. She let him go. "And with who."
Ringil ignored that one. "I'm a hero, Mother. What do you expect?"

--The Steel Remains, Richard K Morgan

"If I had any single regret for the countless horrific events that have transpired in my wake... it's that I'm dying."
--
"The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair."
--
"It's a good rule in life never to apologize. The right kind of people never want apologies, and the wrong kind take advantage of them."
--
"You'll work with them, you'll live with them, you might even trust your life with them. But none of that makes them your friend. It can't. Because one day, you might have to end them."
--

"He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it."
--
"All my means are sane, my motive and object mad."
--
"The most frightening thing about this sorcerer is that he appears completely sane. In fact, as far as he's concerned, he is completely sane, lucid in a way few mortals are ever allowed to be."
--

"Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is continually ready for revenge."
--
"Now of course it's not true, but, they only believe what their Lords tell them to believe... and I tell the Lords what to believe; it's really quite simple."
--
"I haven't shown my hand - I've shown one card. I've given my enemies a single, provocative point upon which to fixate. They have no idea what other cards I'm holding. It's a strong hand, believe me - I dealt it to myself."
--
"I suppose I'll figure out what the hell you're talking about in a month or so. Man, I hate talking to you guys! I always feel like I'm getting an answer to a question I haven't even asked yet."
--
"I learned that I'll never win, not that way. That's their game. Their rules. I'm not going to fight them. I'm going to fuck them. That is what I know. That's what I am. And only by admitting what we are, can we get what we want."
--

-Smooth sands ahead, walk softly, and carry a big stick-

(https://i.imgur.com/R6cEK0n.jpg) (http://web.archive.org/web/20230406040957/https://i.imgur.com/R6cEK0n.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/0PD7e4s.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/7y4Dy2R.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/N9hA1ma.gif)

(https://i.imgur.com/Yo7W8gU.gif)

(https://i.imgur.com/P5ts7Ia.gif)

(https://i.imgur.com/VLQ6dLW.gif)


(https://i.imgur.com/v6nWCVF.gif)
(https://i.imgur.com/XHtioe0.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/xetajLL.gif)(https://i.imgur.com/4rSLnHp.gif)

(https://i.imgur.com/lqgZ7Ef.gif)

"The graveyards are full of indispensable men."

Quote from: tiny rainbow on January 04, 2023, 11:59:22 AMThe Obelisks and Pyramids to be found all over the world, many submerged under leagues of water, are all remnants of the Old Goddess and Dragon religions. The Pyramidion is one of the central symbols of Ophite Traditions. The basis of Ancient Egyptian spirituality and in fact all ancient spirituality lies in Serpent Worship, as the Serpent and Winged Serpent are symbols ancient beyond ancient, and date back to a truly unknown antiquity. The Temple at Delphi, or this sketch, rather and the ruins which remain; is an example of the once universal Temples of the Dragon.

Quote"I saw death. We could not save any more. We could not even save ourselves! Then...

Then I felt - I felt it fill me. A rage great and terrible - a fire so bright our sun was less than a flickering candle. I felt it take me, Templar. I became wrath. I fought. I was borne away on its rage. It felt... Good."

The River I swim. It's not water, Arphaun. it's a rush - a rush of souls. Every soul. Every life the Demon consumed on every world. As I drifted, I saw. Arphaun, oh how I saw! History blurred across endless shores - memories of other fights and other Burns."
--Emmera, 'Hellgate: London'

(https://i.imgur.com/Gipmnte.png)

QuoteYet another legend recounts that there was a demon named Durgasur who want to destroy the world, drove away all the devas from swarg, and snatched four Vedas.

Parvati got to know about this and created Kalaratri, instructing her to warn Durgasur against an attack. Durgasur's guards however tried to capture Kalaratri when she turned up as a messenger. Kalaratri then assumed a gigantic form and delivered the warning to him.

Subsequently, when Durgasur came to invade Kailash, Parvati battled him and killed him, gaining the name Durga.

Quote from: Markandeya Purana"Mahisha, king of the giants, at one time overcame the gods in war, and reduced them to such a state of want that they wandered through the earth as beggars.

Like a mountain of fire, Katyayini appeared refulgent as a thousand suns, having three eyes, black hair, and eighteen arms. Siva gave her his trident, Vishnu a discus, Varuna a conch-shell, Agni a dart, Vayu a bow, Surya a quiver full of arrows, Indra a thunderbolt, Kuvera a mace, Brahma a rosary and water-pot, Kala a shield and sword, Visvakarma a battle-axe and other weapons. Thus armed, and adored by the gods, Katyayini proceeded to the Vindhya hills.

Whilst there, the demons Chanda and Manda saw her, and being captivated by her beauty they so described her to Mahisha, their king, that he was anxious to obtain her. On asking for her hand, she told him she must be won in fight.

He came, and fought; at length Durga dismounted from her lion, and sprang upon the back of Mahisha, who was in the form of a buffalo, and with her tender feet so smote him on the head that he fell to the ground senseless, when she cut off his head with her sword.

QuoteThe complexion of Kalaratri is that of the darkest of nights with bountiful hair and a heavenly shaped form. She has four hands - the left two hands hold a scimitar and a thunderbolt and the right two are in the varada (blessing) and abhaya (protecting) mudras.

She wears a necklace that shines like the moon. Kalaratri has three eyes [the Trinetri] which emanate rays like lightning. Flames appear through her nostrils when she inhales or exhales. Her mount is the donkey, sometimes considered as a corpse. Blue, red and white colours should be used to wear on this day.

The appearance of Goddess Kalaratri can be seen as bearing doom for evil-doers. But she always bears good fruits for her devotees and should avoid fear when faced with her, for she removes the darkness of worry from life of such devotees. Her worship on the seventh day of Navratri is given especially high importance by Yogis and Sādhakas.

QuoteAll is pervaded by her, who is Mahākālī at Māhākāla, and who has the nature of the Great Destroying Goddess. She indeed is Mahāmārī at the fated time; she indeed is creation, the Unborn; she indeed the Eternal gives stability to created beings at their fated time. She indeed is Lakṣmī, bestowing prosperity on the houses of men while 37 she abides with them; and she indeed when she is absent becomes the goddess of Ill Fortune unto their destruction. When hymned and worshipped with flowers, and with incense, perfumes and other offerings, she bestows wealth and sons, and a mind brilliant in righteousness.

Quote from: Kalika PuranaLet the sacrificer repeat the word Kali twice, and say 'Hail, Devi! Goddess of thunder; hail, iron-sceptred goddess!' Let him then take the axe in his hand, and again invoke the same by the Kalratri text, as follows: Let the sacrificer say, Hrang, Hrang! Kali, Kali! O horrid-toothed goddess! Eat, cut, destroy all the malignant; cut with this axe; bind, bind; seize, seize; drink blood! Spheng, spheng! Secure, secure. Salutation to Kali.' 'Hail! three-eyed goddess, of most terrifying appearance, around whose neck a string of human skulls is pendant; who art the destroyer of evil spirits; who art armed with an axe and a spear, salutation to thee with this blood.'

QuoteDifferent mantras (or forms) are used in reference to the description of the victim to be immolated. If a lion, this-- "'O Hari! who in the shape of a lion bearest Chandika, bear my evils and avert my misfortunes. Thy shape, O lion! was assumed by Hari to punish the wicked part of the human race; and under that form, by truth, the tyrant Hiranyakasipu was slain!' Women are not to be immolated, except on very particular occasions; the human woman never.

.. A great variety of regulations and invocations, rites, etc., are laid down for the performance of sanguinary offerings, whether the immolation of a victim, or an offering of the sacrificer's own blood, or burning his flesh. Until very recent times commonly, and in some quiet places even now, at certain festivals, the worshippers cut their flesh and burn their bodies

Quote from: tiny rainbow on January 01, 2020, 04:23:59 PMIt is dawn on Saumyavāsara, the 11th day of Pausha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Calendar#Solar_Month_names) in Śiśira (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritu_(Indian_season)),
In the Year of Sarvari Nama, year 34 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samvatsara) of the 112 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_units_of_time#Current_date)th Age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuga), the Age of Ἔρις (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga).

(https://i.imgur.com/G952xPd.png)

QuoteMahabhaya(terror), Mahakali, Mahamari(pandemic), hunger, thirst, sleep, night, Ekavira, Kalarattri, and Chandika
या देवी सर्वभूतेषु माँ कालरात्रि रूपेण संस्थिता नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमो नम

Quote from: tiny rainbow on May 16, 2020, 05:11:55 AMThe lack of knowledge and effective resources means that the majority must resign themselves to a miserable fate ..At the same time, there are characters in the novel whose courage and enterprise encourage them to exercise some autonomy, even to the extent of shaping events and influencing outcomes.

(https://i.imgur.com/QGYsEdV.png) (https://web.archive.org/web/20230825162321/https://i.imgur.com/QGYsEdV.png) (https://i.imgur.com/Enj26OG.jpg) (https://web.archive.org/web/20230825160939/https://i.imgur.com/Enj26OG.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/3TnLFoP.jpg) (https://web.archive.org/web/20230825160937/https://i.imgur.com/3TnLFoP.jpg) (https://i.imgur.com/54T8rdl.jpg) (https://web.archive.org/web/20230825160943/https://i.imgur.com/54T8rdl.jpg)

Quote from: Anna Megill, Ben Gelinas, Sam LakeThe thunder song distorts you. We stand around you while you dream. You can almost hear our words but you forget. This happens more and more now. Repeat the word. The name of the sound. It resonates in your house. After the song, time for applause. We build you till nothing remains. The egg cracks and the truth will emerge out of you. You are home. You remind us of home. An earworm is a tune you can't stop humming in a dream: "Baby baby baby, yeah." So safe and nothing to worry about. Ha ha, funny. The last egg breaks now. The hole in your room is a hole in you. You came and we let you in through the hole in you. You have always been here, the only child. A copy of a copy of a copy. When you hear this you will know you're in new you. You want to listen. You want to dream.

"Virtue needs some cheaper thrills."
--
"You were a hero round these parts. That's what they call you when you kill so many people the word murderer falls short."
--
"You should laugh every moment you live, for you'll find it decidedly difficult afterwards."
--
"Sometimes men change for the better. Sometimes men change for the worse. And often, very often, given time and opportunity... They change back."
--
"The sympathy extended to a victim is deceptive. People love the victim only when they can feel superior to him or her. It is a human reflex that makes you feel better about yourself when you can help someone weaker, a victim. That works as long as the roles are clearly defined."
--
"His stride and bearing were those of a person who carried himself with the bitter pride of knowing that his separation came from being above."
--
"But now he seized his disgust, and twisted it until it burned like a fingernail dug under a scab."
--
"He relished his own pain, and knew always how to wound others."
--
"When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."
--
"Weakness is no sin, and can even become a strength if played right. Fortunes change, and the mighty are often brought down."
--
"I would rather betray the whole world than let the world betray me."
--
"Any one who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good."
--

"The world is full of monsters, after all. Perhaps the best one can hope for is to have the most terrible on your side."
--
"A man who's not content with what he's got, well, more than likely he won't be content with what he hasn't."
--
"What better foundation for an alliance than mutual hatred and suspicion?"
--
"I've made peace with myself."
"Good for you. That's the hardest war of all to win."
"Didn't say I won. Just stopped fighting."
--
"It's a dangerous thing, pretense. A person ought to know what they are, even if they ain't proud to be it."
--
"Hate will keep you alive where love fails."
--
"There's no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated."
--
"When you do not recognize the wrongs of the past, the future takes its revenge."
--
"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."
--
"You have to let go of the idea that anyone down here is in control."
--

Quote from: tiny rainbow on October 30, 2021, 01:03:05 AM(https://i.ibb.co/xM7rZcH/Di-JUuhs9-Tp-M-mqdefault-6s.webp)
"Mr Dalliard! We have been (https://farside.link/invidious/watch?v=DiJUuhs9TpM) activated! After all these years..." (https://files.catbox.moe/ramtf9.webm) (archive (http://web.archive.org/web/20211030023146/https://files.catbox.moe/xec7p0.webm)d (http://web.archive.org/web/20211029214337/https://files.catbox.moe/ramtf9.webm))

QuoteShe ruled the greatest city of knowledge. She almost realised her dream. Came so close. She raised IT from its prison. IT whispered to her directly. IT made such promises, claimed IT willingly powered the city. LIES. It promised the impossible could be accomplished if all of its fellows were freed. LIES. She was smart. She was clever. She knew there was treachery in the whispers. But she went ahead anyway, thinking she could control the pandemonium. She thought she could betray an event horizon. That age collapsed in screams under tentacular skies.

She would rather be remembered for her contributions to science. But she will proudly wear infamy as a garland and recline in furs atop a throne of those who have wronged her.

I want you to understand why she is scary. I don't want you thinking less of me. It's not power, followers, or a womb full of teeth. You got to understand. Humour me. Look in a mirror. Stare at your reflection. We've all done this. In the wee hours. Stare so long your face becomes a stranger. You lose your identity. You could be anyone.

Now, picture all the people you've been. Every different one. Maybe you think your life was short. Or uneventful. But if you look, there were many you's. We get stuck in the now and the rut. Don't we? Tunnel vision. You think you're just this two-dimensional you. But look at all those different yous. Layer them on top of each other. Suddenly, you have substance. You have the power of context. You are a multi-dimensional being. You've seen shit. That is when we are at our most powerful. When we remember all the us's. Then we are legion.

She was one of the first. She's lived longer than your beef brain can process. Unfathomable. Imagine just how many different hers she has been. Do you think the one, flat version you met was all there is? She's been too many. She gets lost in the shuffle. But imagine, imagine what happens when she self-actualises. Imagine when she takes a moment, stares into a mirror, and gains her full context.

That's when you should be afraid of what comes next.

See you.

Quote from: DATA EXPUNGEDA BROKEN SMILE BENEATH HER WHISPERED WINGS
The builders! We call upon their secret names. Human children hear our cries in their sleeping minds, and then make angels in the snow - pictographic signals aimed at the sky.

Quote from: Children of Dune"Shut up!" Idaho glared at the shocked Naib. "You wear a collar, Stilgar!"

"You are a servant," Idaho said. "You've sold Fremen for their water."

This was the second most deadly insult, the one which had destroyed the original Jacurutu. Stilgar ground his teeth, put a hand on his crysknife.

Quote from: Dune"If history teaches us anything, it is simply this:
Every revolution carries within it the seeds of its own destruction.
And empires that rise, will one day fall."
——Princess Irulan

"Who will our next oppressor be?"
——Chani

"It will take more than courage to survive what's coming."
——Reverend Mother Ramallo

(https://i.imgur.com/efVixHt.png) (https://web.archive.org/web/20230917142550/https://i.imgur.com/efVixHt.png)

"The destruction of an enemy. There are few things more satisfying."
--
"To be in contact with someone else's pain was to risk feeling it yourself, unless you severed the connection by hating them. When most people's greatest desire was to avoid pain, of course they would rather hate."
--
"Zhu didn't consider it her business how Ouyang chose to manage his emotions, as long as it worked."
--
"It was a child's play of cruelty, with a child's lack of knowledge about how transparent he was— and how vulnerable it made him, to be seen. Baoxiang's satisfaction sharpened, gained its own cruelty. 'I see you.'"
--
"That hurt. He stared down at it in dumb agony. It hurt so much it burned the grief out of his head until the only thing inside him was a clear- edged white scream."
--

QuoteTektolnes was horrified. 'I'm sorry,' said the newly-appointed Lord Templar Boopsiedel weakly. 'That's just how we are. It's all to do with survival, I think.'

There will be no mighty warriors sent to kill me? Thinking almost plaintively.

'I don't think so.'

No heroes? 'Not any more. They cost too much.'

But I will be eating people!

Boopsie whimpered.

He felt the sensation of Tektolnes rummaging around in his mind, trying to find a clue to understanding. He half-saw, half-sensed the flicker of random images, of dragons, of the mythical age of reptiles and – and here he felt the genuine astonishment of the "dragon" – of some of the less commendable areas of human history, which were most of it. And after the astonishment came the baffled anger. There was practically nothing Tektolnes could do to people that they had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm.

—Terry Pratchett (edited for atmosphere)

QuoteThey weren't going to run until he did, he
realized. Otherwise it wouldn't be fun.

He shrugged, turned away from the tree . . .
and then turned back and ran. By the time he
was halfway there he was afraid his heart was
going to climb up his throat, but he ran on,
jumped awkwardly, caught a low branch,
slipped, struggled gasping to his feet, grabbed the
branch again and managed to pull himself up,
expecting at every second the first tiny puncture
as teeth broke his skin.

He rocked on the greasy wood. The elves
hadn't moved, but they were watching him
with interest.
'You bastards,' Vimes growled.

They got up and picked their way carefully
towards the tree, without hurrying. Vimes
climbed a little further up.
'Allanak! Mister Civilized! Where are
your weapons now, Allanak?'

'Your Mister Sleeps could run much faster than
you, Allanak!'
'Fast enough?'
'No! And the man with the little round black hat
could fight better than you, too!'
'Well enough?'
'No!' shouted one of the elves cheerfully.
Vimes growled. Even assassins didn't deserve
that kind of death.

—Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

Quote from: "I would like you to teach the elves civilised behaviour," said Her Ladyship coldly.
    Lord Vetinari appeared to consider this. "Yes of course, I think that would be quite possible," he said. "And who would you send to teach the humans?"

—Terry Pratchett, Unseen Academicals

---

QuoteDo not lightly rouse the Soh, for they are slow to anger, but when they finally decide to unleash their wrath, all the Pah rages with them.

Yet times have changed since that ancient age, and desert elves realise that the fate of the Pah is now tied to that of other lands. Though they do not seek to act as the world's protectors as do the Akei'ta Var, nor enthrone themselves as its rulers as do the Sun Runners, there are those times when the will of the Elan Pah must shape the fortunes of those that live beyond the boundary of their homelands.

Quote"It is the nature of life, that the old ways must give way before the new. The known cannot continue on as it is. Life itself is out of balance. So we must do what we can. All of us, from the greatest to the least. The foundations of victory are ever built on the heroism of little people."

QuoteThere are not enough words in your simple tongue to express our hatred for them, roundear. Killers, despoilers, slavers and thieves we name them, but not one of these oft-earned titles begins to describe the depths of their depravity. They roam and kill in darkness called up by their foul sorceries. They are so base as to specifically target children for their depredations. The capricious folk of the Sun Runners claim that they are their despised kin, exiled long ago, but truly, can one ever trust the words of an elf?

QuoteOver time, an elf may find that she is more comfortable with the wilds than in the presence of her kin. She will drift further from camp, spending more and more time alone, honing skills of stealth and marksmanship. Many never return from this journey, for there are corners of Zalanthas that are dangerous even to the elves, yet those who survive are skilled beyond compare and hardened by their experiences.

Few warriors can match an elf's skill with a bow. Should they wish it, these silent stalkers can loose an unerring stream of black-shafted arrows in a heartbeat, or place a single shot precisely in the weak point of a foe's armour. Furthermore, elves are highly adept at the arts of disruption and surprise, often appearing silently next to a vulnerable enemy and vanishing as quickly before the body even hits the ground. Thus while many are simply watched, foul monsters who enter the Pah run the risk of being slain without warning by the Waywatchers, cut down by unseen archers or falling prey to cunningly constructed traps.

QuoteTo tread such paths, an elf must be invisible not only to a predator's sight, but to its other senses also -- no easy matter when contending with otherworldly creatures to whom an elf's soul manifests as a brightly burning light.

The Soh Lanah Kah's skills of stealth and concealment serve them well upon the battlefield. They are masters of ambush and distraction, the assassins of siege weapon crews and of careless gicks who stray too far from the protection of their allies. Indeed, many an invading army has been brought to battle utterly unaware that warbands of the Soh have dogged its footsteps for days. Only when the battle lines clash do they reveal themselves, sowing confusion and disruption amongst the enemy lines.

---

QuoteIt is both the Akei'Ta Var's triumph and their tragedy that so many of their life-giving skills have been turned to life-taking. Their hands can form vicious talons capable of ripping apart the armour of foes, yet when at peace they can use them to perform incredibly delicate tasks like lifting a sleeping bird back to its nest without waking it.

Similarly, the voices that in battle sing unnerving dirges and let out hideous shrieks that terrify their foes can in peace croon gentle songs of life and purity to encourage plants to grow and stave off disease. They can stalk their enemies for hours unseen and unheard before tearing them limb from limb, or they can walk through a verdant glen so lightly that they leave no trace of their passing and do not disturb the animals grazing there.

QuoteThis great forest was different, for powerful spirits dwelt within and amongst its trees. It is impossible to say whether this was part of the Old Ones' design, the work of the elf gods or caused by some other influence that seeped into the trees' souls, but as time went on, the trees came to think in a way that trees were never meant to, and learned of feelings such as anger and hate. Before long, the great forest became aware of itself, and of the blooded life that crawled upon the world like insects. The great forest treated some races with tolerance, and even friendship. Others, especially those greedy folk who saw the trees only as a ready source of fuel, were met with ruthless fury, sparking legends of remorseless tree-daemons that would last for millennia.

QuoteHere in the thickest forest,
So dark, so deep.
We offer all the blackest sleep.
It is always night and never day.
Those who enter shall be our prey.
We will bury you where none can see,
A gift of life to feed a tree.
So dark, so deep.

Quote"Seek no favours of the tree-kin, but sink deep the roots of every bargain."

QuoteYavathol was enjoying the hunt. She slipped through the forest with the lithe grace of a big cat, her eyes flicking to each shadowy movement. Occasionally she paused to listen, crouching silently, ready to spring. Dappled sunlight glinted from the slippery oil layered across her form above war-paints, and the light breeze ruffled her mane of dawn-red hair.

  But this was no normal hunt, for the prey she sought was inedible and more dangerous than any carru or rantarri. Today she hunted thryzn. Several of the sorcery-twisted creatures were nearby and the harsh sounds of their guttural tongue drifted on the breeze towards her.

  A fleeting thought slipped through her mind as she crept nearer: 'Perhaps I should have brought young Brightbranch along. he has been accepted into the troupe, and is keen to be tested. This would have been a fair chance to prove himself a true hunter.

  She let the thought drift away - now was the time for concentrated action and the beauty of combat, not the worried of leadership. She valued these solo hunts for their feeling of solitary challenge - Brightbranch's time would come.

  Just ahead of the Akei a group of five thryzn were squabbling over the mangled remains of some hapless forest creature. They were hideous, covered in rank fur and flaking scales, their limbs marked with oozing sores, their fanged jaws dripping with blood. One had the bloated head of a huge toad, another steel-sharp talons and a long barbed tail. Yavathol found them abhorrent beyond words - even the most savage creatures of the forest had their natural place, their own raw beauty, but these were abominations to be destroyed without mercy.

  Yavathol's amber eyes shone as she casually stepped out of her cover into full view of the creatures, her blade held loosely in her hand. A startled grunt came from the thryzn as they dropped their meal, and spun around to face the Akei. A dry chuckle oozed from the lips of Toad-head and a tentacle pushed from the mouth of one of its companions - at the tip of the tentacle was a single blinking eye, watching the elf as Toadhead spoke.

  'Ssssss only, ksssst, only one elfss?'

  The thryzn's lips pulled back from its teeth, like raw liver sliding across a butcher's marble slab. Its gaze flickered with concern as Yavathol stared fearlessly, her eyes holding only death. Shrieking dark gibberish, the thryzn rushed forwards, certain that victory would be theirs.

  As they neared her, Yavathol tensed and sprang, timing the moment with exquisite judgement. Her body left the ground effortlessly as she flipped over the thryzn in a graceful arc, landing behind them even as her sword whirled in a blur. The toad-like beast fell and mouthed a final gurgling curse into the dust as the thryzn's headless body stumbled forward, pumping crimson as it collapsed. The remaining thryzn whirled to face her. Yavathol lashed out with her feet, a series of whirling high-kicks that left another thryzn twitching on the forest floor, its face a bloody ruin.

  Yavathol began to keen, her voice rising and falling with strange harmonies as her body wove a hypnotic pattern through the web of sound. The thryzn shook their heads, confused by the strange song and the shifting shape. Another fell, cleanly sliced by Yavathol's ever-moving, ever-whirling blade, an expression of pained surprise briefly crossing its face.

  The last two broke and goaded their inix, terrified by the speed and ferocity of their foe. As they fled, Yavathol's arm moved in a blur and her sharp bone hand-axe tumbled through the air, sunlight glinting from bright-painted glaze over the trees in a thousand broken patterns. A fourth thryzn crashed to the ground, its skull shattered into a mess of bone and torn flesh.

  Yavathol let the last thryzn run - he would have some grim tales to tell his kin about this area of the forest. Cleaning her sword of blood on a soft bright cloth, she returned to camp, well pleased with the hunt.

  As she entered the cleaning, a young elf rushed towards her. It was Brightbranch, his eyes alight with excitement.

  'Yavathol, leader, the scouts report trespassers in the forest. Thryzn have been sighted near the Brook of Many Colours, trailing another group from beyond the trees.'

  The young aspirant looked up at his leader, hope on his face. Yavathol smiled as she spoke.

  'Come then. Fetch Morfoin. Now will be the time of your testing.'

---

QuoteThey are the attractive aide at the bar with whom you think you have a chance, the off-putting rinthi in whose presence you had a momentary fugue, the stoic noble who /owns/ a disturbing amount of people.
They are the charismatic Stormer organizing a raid on the cities, the saboteur in the alleys of Allanak, and the Tuluki legend that absconds with children under cover of darkness.
They are the gambler who never loses a hand or the baleful sorcerer who makes an expectant mother micarry. They are the spook in the window, the impetus behind the haunted-house rumors at the edge of town, the disembodied footsteps after midnight. They are the horned thing moving in the shadows of trees, blurred at the edges of vision like a half-remembered dream.
Gicks are everywhere in the known, our known, this known of darkness, and they prey upon those who are most vulnerable to them: the innocent, the uncorrupted, the human and the humane.

QuoteShe's a peerless tracker and archer, a deft hand with a sword or knife, and also proficient with many other elven weapons including spears and glaives. She's implied to be the most intelligent (and correspondingly has the highest Intelligence stat of the Five as a Guest-Star Party Member).

And she's a complete twat about it. Even the cities know it's the End Times and they need someone like her, but they still are constantly restraining themselves from strangling her.

QuoteShe can be encountered almost anywhere. She might even find the Characters interesting, and decide to follow them for a while. While she is happy to help a struggling party with a few arrows from cover, she is not particularly interested in making the party's acquaintance - unless they turn out to be particularly interesting - and she will usually avoid contact as much as she can.

She might be encountered on the road to the North, hunting magickers and others for fun. If the Characters need help, she could shoot a few arrows from cover to help even the odds. She won't stick around to chat, though, and the Characters can only hope to catch a glimpse of her back retreating into the forest. If they decide to follow her, she may resent their nosiness.

Quote"Have you traveled far, Elf?"
I have walked kingdoms that you have no name for, through realms of dream and nightmare.
"She means yes, I think."
"I've rarely strayed beyond the walls. I suppose it's too late now."
It's never too late to choose a new path.

Quote"I have as many names as there are leaves on the trees."

QuoteCan this be Inanna?
The one who rules by the light
As if the night
Is nothing at all?
Now the Queen of Light knows
What it is to be called
By the goddess Ereshkigal,
Before whom life and death
Hold hands.
Only Inanna came to Ereshkigal
Wearing the power of unholy things!
I have fixed this for Inanna!
Ereshkigal has cleaned Inanna
Of her passing daylight.
Oh, Sumer!
Behold your queen now!
You who threw Ereshkigal away,
Do you hear her speaking to you
From that eternal city
That lives under your own?
City of thieves!
I have stolen something of my own.
The Queen of Night
Has the Queen of Light
In her bond.
And the ways
Of my underworld are perfect:
They may not be questioned.

Quote"You want to put me in a book? What, squished between the pages like a flower? Just try it, roundear, I'll slit your jugular quick as blinking."

Quote"[She is] a lioness. Fascinating as a zoological specimen. But worthless as a pet, and yet... Invaluable for the blood that courses through her veins."
web.archive.org/web/20090730082859/http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/witchblade/revelations.jsp?episode=witchblade_revelation_s1_ep09 (https://web.archive.org/web/20090730082859/http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/witchblade/revelations.jsp?episode=witchblade_revelation_s1_ep09%5B/url)

Quote"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, ONLY ME."

Quote"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY."

Leaning back against the statue, looking at the captivated faces of the children around her and nodding, █ says, in █-accented sirihish:
     "And that's the story of the Wandering Elf, my dears."

Eyes twinkling as she concludes, █ says, in █-accented sirihish:
     "So remember, not all that seems frightening is truly evil. Sometimes, all it needs is a bit of understanding, and a touch of courage."



The sadness in her voice echoed in her weathered features. Yet, there is a spark of hope in her eyes, as █ says, in █-accented sirihish:
    "But, my dear ones, remember this: in the heart of every struggle, there is a seed of resilience. █ might be suffering, but they are not defeated."

Leaning forward, the fire in her gaze reflecting her conviction, █ says, in █-accented sirihish:
    "Like █, we are survivors. We adapt, we endure, we thrive. We continue to hope, to work, and to dream. We are █, and we will see █ flourish once again."

As she concludes, her gaze sweeps over the children, each word a promise, a prophecy. The sun dips lower, casting long shadows across █ beyond...

"I despise the weak, and yield to the strong. I know whom I may bully, and whom I must flatter; and thus I hope to prolong my life to a good old age."
--