prokopetz :

penguinsdemise :

prokopetz :

prokopetz :

More favourite tropes:

• A bureaucratic institution has established forms and procedures for an extraordinarily unlikely event
  
  
• A character saves the day using a skill they have no excuse for knowing, which they claim to have learned through a mundane hobby or profession
  
  
• Explaining something patently absurd in a very matter-of-fact way, particularly while referring to the person receiving the explanation as “sir”
  
  
• A specific object or substance that’s needed to overcome a great danger proves to have been on hand all along in an unrecognised form
  
  
• A janitor, plumber, or other tradesperson reveals that they’re already aware of some esoteric threat and have dealt with it before
  
  
• An existential threat is accidentally averted in the course of dealing with an unrelated and much less serious problem
  

@indecisofan replied:

Can you prety prety please do more of these i love them.

I’ve done like a million of ‘em already. A few past highlights:

• Shipping tropes
  
• Size/scale tropes
• Tabletop RPG tropes
• Dialogue meme tropes
  
• Weirdly specific tropes
  
• Characterisation tropes
  
• Incongruity-based tropes
• Over/understatement tropes
  

When I saw ‘shipping tropes’ my first thought was ‘tropes about the transport of goods’. Not sure what this says about me.

Favourite shipping tropes:

• A courier shows up to deliver an addressed parcel to an unlikely location – e.g., on the Moon – with no clear indication of how they got there
  
  
• A postal worker casually evades or shrugs off various perils because Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Et Cetera.
  
  
• A character is asked to sign for delivery of an extremely large number of something no reasonable person would ever need nearly that many of
  
  
• Enormous shipping containers that, when opened, prove to contain a single very small item
  
  
• A parcel service is contracted to deliver an item at a specific time and place decades or centuries hence and actually follows through
  
  
• A protagonist saves on transport or infiltrates a secure location by mailing themselves in a large crate
  
  
• Being tasked to deliver a box with strict instructions not to open it, and – of course – opening it to discover something that Changes Everything™
  
  
• A perilous or emotionally fraught confrontation interrupted by an indifferent postal worker looking for a signature
  
  
• A character accidentally falls into an open shipping container moments before it’s sealed for transport and is sent to some remote locale
  
  
• Address label mixups, particularly when it’s implausible that one of the parties involved would have a posted mailing address
  

(Pale) Is it fair to say that Verona gets one thing wrong, in that she doesn't seem to realize Others are generally *more*, not less, constrained by arbitrary social convention than humans?

I mean, to start with ‘asshole wizards will try to enslave and exploit you’ is a pretty big drawback on top of everything.

But, in terms of inherent restrictions ‘Other’ is so broad a category I’m not sure you can say too much about it? Like, at the high level - gods, Judges, faerie nobles - sure they have some roles or responsibilities they’re obliged to fulfill, but their lives are pretty much strictly better than any given humans on almost every axis you can measure.

But for anything on a level Verona has a hope of turning herself into - you’re not really wrong. But the ability to choose which set of arbitrary bullshit and weird obligations are going to define your life isn’t nothing.

dakotajohnsongf :

modern love story about a barista and customer transposed to epic fantasy genre

argumate :

buttstothemoon :

argumate :

typhonbaalhammon :

ethnianmandarin :

argumate :

there’s no question that House of Cards is a terrible show, the only debate is whether it’s terrible in a trivial sense or a thought provoking sense.

its just bad.

The british version was just so much better. (cf https://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-943 for a comparison of the two).

“When Francis Underwood says of his wife “I love that woman, I love her like a shark loves blood” he isn’t telling us anything of substance about his character, or his relationship with his wife, or his feelings about her. He’s just establishing that he’s the sort of person who says cool, edgy-sounding things.”

I think that’s a good summary.

He is also saying that he can smell her from 3 miles away.

well she’d just been running

The whole Kevin Spacey as literal predator thing gives it all an unfortunate feeling now

argumate :

discoursedrome :

argumate :

Oh, I lie here in the wet patch in the middle of the bed
I’m feeling pretty damn hard done by, I spent ages giving head

Lily Allen still deserves credit for getting these lyrics into a top 10 song.

he hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword
his truth is marching on

goddammit

seems tame in the age of wet ass pussy

time-and-water :

lytefoot :

This is probably just a me-thing, but the thing that really keeps me engaged with the Harry Potter universe is just how shoddy the world-building is.

Like, when you’re reading the books, the world feels real, mostly because it does little to try to explain itself, but then you look at it after the fact and it’s, “Wait, it can’t really be that way, can it?” And trying to figure out how things really work, beyond the understanding of a 12-year-old, is a deeply engaging exercise.

So people are always like, “You should read X, it’s got really engaging characters too and the setting actually makes sense!” and I read X, and yep, the characters are great, and the setting makes sense, and I enjoy it very much… 

And then I come back to, “Okay, but Harry’s tri-wizard winnings couldn’t possibly have actually been a bag of 1000 gold coins, can it? Not if he was casually tossing them at people, anyway.”

I feel the same way.

I saw a graph somewhere that posited that measured people’s desire to write fanfic of a work against how good they think the work is. It peaked, not at the end, but in the middle.

yeah, and to a degree those kind of works feel more realistic, since the real world often also makes very little sense. Good worldbuilding often means working things out from first principles, where real life has a lot of random pointless shit that leads to weird outcomes that make no sense.

argumate :

PLEASE STOP MAKING MORE GAMES

Easy we just wait until the ratio is so screwed people will pay you to play their games

Ya know I'm not touching any of that imperialism stuff but I will say I'm really into this star wars posting. What can I say? Pointless and a snobby star wars discourse is a guilty pleasure.

the real question is how imperialism works in the Star Wars universe, considering the immense cost of maintaining a space fleet you have to wonder what they get out of it besides the rush of seeing all those massive triangles.

argumate :

partitionis :

argumate :

partitionis :

argumate :

tarilaran :

argumate :

tarilaran :

argumate :

tarilaran :

No they’re not. Please don’t bring them back.

兄弟姐妹大家都唱歌

*obsessively plugs it into Google translate even though I know I won’t like the answer*

我是性爱者吗？是的.

I’ve gotta believe that the actual meaning can’t be this funny.

endecision said: argumate no

我是你需要的一切吗
现在你最好摆动身体

argumate the fact that you use simplified characters makes me think less of you than any opinion you have ever posted on this godforsaken site

I say “listen,” and Taiwan motherfuckers be like

did you mean: king of ear hearts

I say “listen” and Chinese motherfuckers be like

did you mean: 500g of mouth?

(and it’s clearly king of ear ethics)

One Pound Of Mouth is my favourite Beijing rock band

“Written Chinese not complicated enough” is certainly a hot take

biggest-gaudiest-patronuses :

veeaziel">biggest-gaudiest-patronuses:

veeaziel :

every day i am percieved™️

There is a reason for this though!

The original tweet summarizes it pretty well. Fanfic tends to be popular among certain types of neurodivergent people (aka people most likely to read excessively as a child, and have burnout as an adult) for the same reasons that we tend to hyperfixate–neurochemical signaling (I hope I’m using that phrase correctly). What I mean is, for people who are really dependent on changes in dopamine/serotonin/neurotransmitter levels, who have low levels or wonky neural reward systems (perhaps the most common types of neurodivergence)…people like us rely on dependable external sources of those neurochemicals. In order to function, we spend a lot of our free time trying to level out our brain chemistry using things that can reliably bring us a steady stream of joyful moments (rewards) without costing too much of the mental effort that is already in short supply. 

significantly: the investment of reading has to be balanced with a steady “return on investment”–and this return has to start fairly quickly. because again, we don’t have a lot of attention/energy to invest on tiring things. we have perpetual “low batteries” in that regard.

that doesn’t mean these stories are “simple,” or that they lack complexity or value–only that the reward has to come in short regular intervals, and it has to have a low “upfront cost.” which is why fanfic stories are so perfectly formulated for neurodivergent readers–they are often beautifully written, but skip a lot of the upfront costs (of introducing new characters, of world-building, of getting the audience emotionally connected to the story elements).

the nature of fanfiction is that the reader has a pre-existing relationship with this world and these characters. that–combined with the shorter average length of fics–means that fan fics very quickly start “rewarding” the reader in a way that traditional fiction struggles to. that’s not a bad thing! and maybe it’s something more traditionally published writers should be paying attention to.

Fanfic, as a genre, has been uniquely helpful and accessible to many neurodivergent readers who would otherwise struggle to immerse themselves in stories. I’m glad so many of you have found a way to love and enjoy reading again! The important thing is that you are spending time inside stories you love–the way those stories are published or presented to the world is just one detail.

*holds your hand* no, we’re ALL bitches

I dont know how much of the neurochemistry talk is true but its certainly an interesting hypothesis

voxette-vk:

squareallworthy:

shieldfoss:

sophia-epistemia:

cipheramnesia:

solitarelee:

cipheramnesia:

solitarelee:

cipheramnesia:

runcibility:

the–amala–network:

endreal">loki-zen:

voxette-vk:

squareallworthy:

shieldfoss:

sophia-epistemia:

cipheramnesia:

solitarelee:

cipheramnesia:

solitarelee:

cipheramnesia:

runcibility:

the–amala–network:

endreal :

Say how old you are on the internet without saying how old you are

Here’s mine:

gpoy

napster

WWIV

log off, I need to make a phone call

See this, this is how I know we’re age-compatible 

Not the age in my bio?

What if I’ve been secretly dyslexic this whole time and never realized it said you were in your FOURS? It could be code for number of stages the polycule has spread. I can’t take that risk. I must find the truth through dial-up. 

That explains why it took so long.

Internet Relay Chat

webring

Atari 2600

You’ve got mail

Don’t give out your real name or location on the internet

badger badger badger badger

the-sunflower-spaceman:

the-sunflower-spaceman:

the-sunflower-spaceman">sisyphus-but-stupid:

the-sunflower-spaceman:

the-sunflower-spaceman:

the-sunflower-spaceman :

hedonism is good actually rich people just suck at it

i think not only do we have a moral obligation to preserve human life but also a moral obligation to maximize the pleasure of others and ourselves (provided it doesn’t hurt anyone)

people don’t just deserve to eat food, they deserve to eat good food that tastes good without worrying about nutritional content

people don’t just deserve clothes, they deserve nice clothes that are well made and fit their personal style

people don’t just deserve the bare minimum, they don’t just deserve to be alive, they deserve to live and have nice things for no other reason than making that particular person happy

- John Stuart Mill

primarybufferpanel:

michaelgovehateblog">mousathe14:

primarybufferpanel:

michaelgovehateblog :

I would like to wish everyone an uneventful new year

May we live in very uninteresting times

This post is a week old and aged like curdled milk almost instantaneously

headspace-hotel :

When I was younger, I was always fascinated by how people living through major events throughout history were always so focused on their day to day lives. When I read diaries and primary sources, people would be talking about huge events with worldwide significance but they would just be…living their lives. Like COME ON a world war is happening and your main area of focus is how the rationing sucks and how you want to go to dances and stuff after All This Is Over?

But I get it now.

Now I understand.

argumate :

dagny-hashtaggart :

argumate :

full time lover -> part time lover -> intern lover -> gig economy lover -> feudal handmaiden lover ->

AirTnA, or for the more fetishistically-inclined consumer, AirBnD

Under, it’s like Uber but for

Wait, aren’t fuckbuddies literally the gig economy for relationships?

argumate :

although it seems odd everyone darkly predicting that the robots will be used as cops, I mean are they likely to be worse than human cops? if nothing else they’ll have guaranteed functioning cameras and less ability to lie in court that they felt threatened.

Much like with predator drones, they may be soulless abominations but its relatively rare they take a bunch of meth and decide it would be fun to go murder and rape some towelheads

argumate :

argumate :

argumate :

argumate :

gonna be awkward when the moral progress of the 20th century turns out to be a mental side effect of reduced childhood exposure to parasites and privation

on the plus side, that suggests significant optimism for life in Africa 50 years after deworming campaigns, widespread vaccination, the eradication of malaria,

possibly an unpleasant pendulum swing in populations so enlightened that they eschew the use of measles vaccines

“your child cannot attend school until they are properly vaccinated or they will put other children at risk of catching chickenpox and homophobia”

attempts to create perfect moral beings by raising children in airtight containers met with mixed results

I assume you study Chinese. Are u a male, female, or other? (The three genders)

*politely asks your pronouns* “ta”

argumate :

so four people died in the riot, the woman who was shot plus three unspecified “medical emergencies”, pepper spray victims or stampede crush?

“trump supporters dying of heart attacks while rioting” reads like a particularly lame bit of satire of his core age demographic

argumate :

argumate :

might go to bed before midnight, see if I can sleep through The Wrappening when the year resets to -2020, hope I remember enough Wikipedia trivia to flourish in the new old world.

on the edge of #reblog2020

have you considered having a tag for present day posts? since they are now a minority, and it would make it easier for your loyal acolytes to find the new updates

argumate :

garmbreak1 :

argumate :

every time an Event happens we flip flop between trying to analyse it in abstract terms (this is merely the latest outbreak of such and such ideology, this is the continuation of an existing economic trend, this has numerous historical parallels) and trying to interrogate it in forensic detail (you can see he didn’t pull his gun out until 43 seconds into the clip, but the first shots were heard at 37 and 39 seconds) and somehow neither of these approaches is ever fully satisfying, we’re left staring in perplexity at a two inch piece of bark or a big green blob labelled “forest”.

I think we always crave an ultimate explanation of what something really means so that we correctly classify its genre in the story that is our lives, but the meaning squirms in our hands and shifts as the years pass such that we’re still recontextualising events that happened long before we were even born, and that act of reimagining is itself an event that feeds into the next generation of (mis)understanding.

it be like that.

onecornerface :

A lot of Trump-supporters’ horrible behavior would make sense, and be either excusable or justified, if the election actually had been stolen from their guy.

The objective truth matters, and the objective truth is that the election was not stolen. People who believe the election was stolen are wildly wrong and out of touch with reality.

But is their belief unreasonable, in the sense of violating obvious epistemic standards and being correctable if only they would try harder to understand the reality and not be so biased? I don’t know.

Certainly many Trump-supporters buy into and promote obviously unreasonable and invalid arguments, easily corrected by averting blatant biases. But also, the positive evidence that the election was legitimate might be quite complicated, technical, and difficult to parse. The articles debunking the allegations may be longer and more difficult to read than the articles saying the election was rigged.

And there’s the scope of the pro-Trump misinformation. There’s such a deluge of false and misleading claims about the election, widely reported on pro-Trump sites and in pro-Trump forums and accepted as gospel by so many Trump-supporters in general. This can easily lead a Trump-supporter to believe there was widespread election fraud even though there wasn’t any such thing.

A lot of Trump-supporters aren’t trying to do better reasoning, and that’s awful. But given the echo chamber, I ask: How many Trump-supporters could reason their way out of their intellectual black hole, even if they tried?

see what I found weird about the footage from the capitol was how they really weren’t acting like people who thought they were in the middle of a revolution against tyranny. They seemed shocked and genuinely baffled when the police (eventually) pushed back against them, and that they were facing consequences for their actions, if you sincerely believe what they say they do about a deep state conspiracy etc you would expect violent response from that very regime

argumate :

this is an actual frame from the show and not a video game?

is that an outrageously orientalist scimitar Drogo, or are you just pleased to see me

tygermama :

fluffmugger :

callidafox :

whofan26 :

atomic-darth :

tyrantisterror :

feifiefofum :

tyrantisterror :

noreasonisreasonenough :

spankzilla85 :

tyrantisterror :

bugcthulhu :

mousathe14 :

strixmoonwing :

literatedead :

tyrantisterror :

duskargentum :

tyrantisterror :

tyrantisterror :

tyrantisterror :

tyrantisterror :

I’m watching The Sword in the Stone for the first time in decades and I’ve gotten to the part where Merlin is trying to get Arthur to lose his virginity to a squirrel.

Y’know, if Merlin turned that squirrel into a human it would save Camelot a significant amount of problems down the road.

“Squirrels mate for life Arthur, so the chances of her fucking your best friend and inadvertently causing a schism that leads to the downfall of an entire utopian kingdom are completely nil!”

Ok hopefully this is the last time I add onto this but Arthur marrying the squirrel would stop both of the events that destroyed Camelot - namely the aforementioned falling out with Lancelot AND the birth of Mordred.  Being with him since youth, Squirrel would keep Arthur from being seduced by his half-sister Morgause (or Morgan Le Fay in the versions of the myth that cut Morgause out) when he was young and foolish, as he’d already be in a committed relationship and thus wouldn’t be able to be tricked into starting one with said half-sister.  No incest means no Mordred.  Then, as mentioned above, Squirrel would be a faithful wife, which means Guenevere would be single, which means Lancelot and Guenevere could pork each other without causing a huge row that ends with Lancelot killing dozens of his fellow knights of the round and inspiring several others to turn against Arthur out of loyalty to him.

Camelot would have been saved if Arthur just. Fucked. That. Squirrel.

You say all that but all I hear is “here is how Merlin trying to convince Arthur to become a furry could have saved the world”

Look this was a journey for me ok?

It started as “I can’t believe Disney made a movie where Merlin tries to get a squirrel to take Arthur’s virginity” and slowly became “I can’t believe Disney’s weird bestiality subplot actually solves the two biggest problems that cause Camelot’s downfall.”

Because as baffling as the squirrel fucking plotline is just on its own, the fact that it’d actually be solution to the eventual problems Arthur faces - whether anyone at Disney was actually thinking about that or not (and I’m guessing not) - is even more so.  It is bizarre and unsettling to me that squirrel fucking could have saved Camelot, and that’s, uh, the point of this I guess.

So, pointless fun fact. Around 2008, someone on 4chan actually made a ‘humanized’ version of the squirrel called ‘Hazel’ (i.e. one who had been changed to a human to be with Arthur). For a little while, there were a number of artists making pieces about her, and stories written suggesting alternate histories.

I know it’s a minor point, but I still love the notion that people are still finding ways to rewrite the story so Arthur can f*@# the squirrel.

Whole gallery of pics here, because some of this artwork gets downright amazing…

I REMEMBER THESE!!!!

Fascinating

@tyrantisterror  your legacy endures

To an ever widening group of people, I am “that guy who ranted about Arthur fucking a squirrel.”

Of all my legacies, this is certainly one of them.

I think I’ve posted about this before buuuuuuut fuck it? This makes me deliriously happy and sad.
The resolution of Arthur becoming human and having to try to explain himself to a sobbing squirrel is one of my strongest childhood memories about having to deal with heartbreak and I’m literally fucking tearing up right now GOD DAMN YOU TYRANTIS.

This completely leaves out the reality of cheating. Like, Arthur still could’ve been capable of sleeping with his half-sister and fathering Mordred. Also, he still could’ve gone after Guenevere even if she was married to Lancelot, which still could’ve caused a huge kerfuffle among the knights of the round table.

But yeah, that poor squirrel cooing her tears in the tree will haunt me until the end of my days.

Please don’t take the Arthur Squirrel Fucking post seriously.

Wait lancelot is already married. She dies of heartbreak because he fucked off to Camelot for too long leaving his son galahad an orphan. Oh yes, in some versions he fathered galahad. So even if Arthur avoids the adultery line, the sins of lancelot persist.

Please don’t take the Arthur Squirrel Fucking post seriously.

This post will forever be a part of you legacy.

“Please don’t take the Arthur Squirrel Fucking post seriously”

When you’re on to something, you’re on to something, dude

Just gotta say that in Le Morte d’Arthur he does in fact sleep with Morgause after he is married to Guinivere. In fact, he sleeps with Morgause exactly one page after he marries Guinivere. Sooo… Sorry squirel girl.

Unless we are arguing here that disney Arthur is a totally different characterization than Malory’s Arthur

MALLORY IS NOT A SOURCE

@theshitpostcalligrapher - any chance of ‘Please don’t take the Arthur Squirrel Fucking post seriously’ making it onto your list?

Disney’s Robin hood takes place in a universe where he did indeed Fuck That Squirrel and their furry babies repopulated england

fnord888 :

I do think that police sympathy for right-wing extremists is a problem worth being thinking about, However, when comparing the specifics of yesterday’s events to the BLM this summer, it’s important to keep in mind that the heavily militarized response to BLM protestors was not, by and large, done by the Capitol Police.

Pictured: Not the Capitol Police

Pay attention not just to how the people on the ground react, but to which people are put on the ground in the first place and who decides *that*.

(Of course, the National Guard etc, did get called in yesterday eventually. They also *eventually* cleared the Capitol with all due force, including demonstrably at least some use of live ammunition.)

doesn’t help that there seem to be about 5 different police/feds/military forces with overlapping jurisdiction for the capital. Lump them together and rename them the preatorian guard?

Am trying to spend less time on social media, insert amusing meta irony statement here

the-real-numbers :

the-real-numbers :

https://mathworld.wolfram.com/MoebiusStrip.html

Two interlacing Moebius strips made of gears.

Oh shit wait god damn it

dycefic :

writing-prompt-s :

You are a devout Paladin trying to prevent the resurrection of a dark goddess. Ultimately you fail. When the goddess awakens, she claims that she doesn’t know who she is or what has happened. After a few days you’re struggling to determine if she actually has amnesia or if she is just lying.

It wasn’t what I had expected.

I had expected…. Oh…  the usual things. Clouds of smoke, maniacal laughter, some monstrous being… they were always monstrous, whether fair or foul of face.

Not this. Not an egg.

It is already hatching, a jagged opening showing in the greyish, mottled shell. Even as I watch, small pale hands show, gripping the edge and breaking another piece of it away.

When I approach the egg and look down into it, I see a child. I would have guessed her at eight or nine, if I wasn’t seeing her hatching before my eyes. If I didn’t know she was Rek’na reborn.

When she sees me she lifts her little arms to me, like a toddler wanting to be picked up. “Help… pl’s…” she says pitifully, her voice wavering and uncertain. Are they her first words? They must be. Even though I know what she is, they pull at my heart. This is a child. I have never harmed a child, even one that might grow to be the darkest of goddesses. When she looks up at me, I know I can’t do it now.

I open the egg a little further, so the sharp edges won’t scrape her soft skin. When I lift her out with gauntleted hands, I try to be gentle. There were preparations made for her hatching, I can see… lengths of silk cloth to wrap her in, dishes of raw meat and bowls of what might be wine or blood. The priests and priestesses had their plans.

But they are dead or fled, and I wrap the child in my cloak and cradle her against one shoulder. She wraps her small arms around my neck trustingly, and I carry her out of the hidden temple to where I hid my horses. There I dress her in a spare shirt – four of her would fit inside it, for I am big and she is very small – and feed her her first meal. I don’t have fresh meat, and am not sure it would be wise to give it to her if I did, but I feed her bean porridge with salted meat, and a round of dry journey-bread, and she eats it eagerly.

I know I should destroy her. But she is a child.

Keep reading

exlibrisastra :

This line from Vetinari in The Truth:

“Oh, I do hope [we can] not [all pull together].  Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.”

Even as relatively early in the timeline as The Truth - right at the very, very beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and before the establishment of, for instance, the Lady Sybil Free Hospital - Vetinari is not making a secret of wanting Ankh-Morpork to be a city of free people.  Vetinari is openly rejecting despotism and tyranny.  The despot and the tyrant!  Whose entire modus operandi has been tricking people into assuming that he’s evil!  He is saying to William de Worde in the office of The Times that what he wants for this city is freedom.  That his endgame is a city that has no need for his role.

He is going open with his ideals and his goals!

His Revolutionary ideals.  The city had just got Truth.  If we say that Vimes’ reformed Watch is Justice, we acknowledge the Seamstresses’ guild, assume that hard-boiled eggs can be obtainable…. it’s just Freedom left.

And in the end?  It has that too.  Freedom to take the consequences.  The freedom upon which all other freedoms are based.

You could almost say that the Glorious Revolution succeeded - in the long run.  You just have to look at the bigger picture.

nekomas-heart:

adamtots:

kendallroy:

kendallroy">adamtots:

nekomas-heart:

adamtots:

kendallroy:

kendallroy :

what we’re NOT gonna do is let the bluechecks back in. the doors to this abandoned clown factory are LOCKED SHUT

Back in? We never left

It’s never worked before, what makes you think it’ll work this time