If there’s one thing we know about ladies who hang around in lakes, it’s that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. If there’s a second thing we know about ladies in lakes, it’s that they’re not all looking out for the best interests of those people who ask them for magic swords, if this first episode of Doraleous and Associates is any indication. The animated web series is like if Home Movies were a D&D fantasy, which is to say I love the bejeezus out of it. If you’ve ever, ever owned a Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Guide, I highly recommend you give it a watch. (Via Kotaku)
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.