Welcome to my Sock Drawer

[eligible target] just another tunglr user my bones are dusty, old, and full of green dust.

[gooseworx]

More freaks for the freak pile.

[jburneko]

From an RPG perspective, I've been struggling for years to explain that "playing a character in a myth" and "treating a mythic world as if it were real" are two fundamentally different things. A part of this frustration is that I want a whole lot more of the former and a whole lot less of the later.

[iojg]

okay alright. can you elaborate just a bit? particularly on how specific you are about the meaning of "myth", as it throws me off

[jburneko]

So, I'm sure scholars probably have a more technical definition of "myth" than I'm using. I'm primarily talking about when elements of a story are meant to be received and processed emotionally rather than logically.

For example, we might have a character that wears jade armor and sits on a throne of ruby. Now if your mind starts thinking things like what the implications are for the culture and economy of a society that uses jade for armor and ruby for furniture design then you're thinking in the wrong direction. Same if you start thinking about the actual real world properties of jade and ruby and what you could possibly make with such a large and plentiful supply of it. No. Just. Stop. Don't do that. Instead, be *emotional*. What *feelings* does such an image/character invoke you. Disgust at their opulence? Awe at their power? Respect for their commanding presence? Fear? Now have your character react *to that feeling*. What emotion do YOU want your character to reflect back. In an RPG, your character TOO is a pile of evocative aesthetics in both image and action. Do a thing that will evoke a feeling IN ME as a fellow player at the table. You can't control WHAT feeling I have, but you can do something evocative, "logic" of the situation be damned.

[iojg]

i kinda see what you are getting at, hopefully. i think it's really mostly about being impressionistic, isn't it? my mind immediately drifts to pulp fantasy, to which such "loose" imagery seems to be very important. i personally don't get much from it mostly because i'm not that great at visualizing. i could never really get into howard because of it, for example. would you say this generally applies outside of fantasy roleplaying, though?

[jburneko]

Pulp fantasy (and actual mythology) is where you see it at its boldest. But I'm not talking *purely* about visuals it can apply to "entities" whose only "logic" is their symbolic/metaphorical place in the narrative.

You see this a lot in standalone horror novels that don't get caught up in their own "lore." My absolute favorite example of this is "The Library Policeman" by Stephen King. The creature in that book and how it "works" is wholly defined by the scope of the protagonist's personal trauma. It does not "exist" nor has "logic" independent of the protagonist's emotional journey. Sure, it all makes "sense" in that story but trying to tease out the creature as an independent entity with a consequential "existence" simply falls apart.

I would also point to something like Frank Miller's Sin City stories. The characters are BOLD archetypes with no substance behind their evocative presence. Senator Rourk is a complete tautology. He is a Senator because he's rich and powerful and is rich and powerful because he is a Senator. Things happen because Rourk wants them to happen. By what means? What's the power structure propping him up? Who are his allies? Who are enemies? What is the network composing his wealth? These things are not only unanswered, I would suggest they are UNASKED. It simply doesn't matter. Rourk might as well be Zeus.

It is that element of UNASKING, I am focusing on.

This is one of the reasons film franchises begin to lose their luster because later films are often built by asking questions the earlier films not only didn't ask, but were never designed to answer. "Fandom" may be clamoring all the time for "answers" but they're always disappointed when they get them and for good reason. The questions never should have been asked in the first place.

[anim-ttrpgs]

I'm usually a huge fan of fantasy/sci-fi logistics, groundedness, biology, etc., but this is also how you get people constantly trying to "solve" vampires by saying "well they drink blood so that means they are scientifically hematophages and there is no problem with them drinking blood of any animal because other hematophages can drink the blood of any animal" and "if it's transmissible by bite that means it's a virus or bacteria that causes a mutation."

No, this was never a legend meant to operate on a 21st century biology, the blood is blood but it's also life, and so on.

Sometimes the answer isn't "it's magic" because the author hasn't thought about it, sometimes the answer is "it's magic" because the author has thought about it.

[jburneko]

Exactly. You can pick and choose. In fact, supernatural things become MORE scary when they operate spiritually when everything else operates realistically. Yup, the world works exactly the way we believe it to, oh except this *thing*. This thing is unbounded by reality. It has uncomfortable existential implications or reaches into questions that have no answers. That's scary.

[strawberry-crocodile]

Pokemon has never had a generation where all three starter pokemon are mammals. Two generations- gens 1 and 3- have had zero mammals, and from gens 5-8 there've been two mammals to pick from, but none have had three mammals. I think this is an important part of the franchise's brand.

[strawberry-crocodile]

Back when gen 8 got leaked someone pointed out that you can generally tell a real GameFreak Pokedex from a fakemon dex by the amount of "ugly" pokemon and the number of invertebrates and inanimate objects, and I think there's a similar thing going on here- Pokemon genuinely makes an effort to make its monsters varied.

The last 15ish years have seen so much ink spilled on the Vanillish line, on gen 1 designs, etc etc, but I think it bears repeating how easy it is for a Mons game to stick to charismatic animals like mammals and birds and dinosaurs and pets. And pokemon does have that (we have, what, six cat lines? more if you count regional meowths) but it also makes sure to add, like. A crinoid. A bagworm. A bell. Creepy humanoid mushrooms, a sand castle, a big iceberg.

Something would be lost if every single pokemon was as cool as Haxorus or as cute as Snom or as furrybait as Goodra. Pokemon succeeds because it lets you be best friends with shit that's just weird.

[strawberry-crocodile]

"ohhh op is telling on herself for calling goodra furrybait" idk maybe you're telling on yourself for how you have no furry friends. do better.

[northernolddragon]

[wolfsong-the-bloody-beast]

[bogleech]

It's funny when Tumblr screenshots circulate other websites or you show one to someone who's not super online and they think they're supposed to pay attention to the usernames as a part of it so they get really hung up on the fact that a comment comes from a handle like "SloppyMuppetBalls" or "werewolf-smegma-collector." No not that part. That's the normal part. Don't laugh at our dear friend ClownHoleSlurper I'm trying to show you their insightful takes on economics

[raiasintended]

[hesitant-bivalve]

Some art by me, trying to capture the feeling of a D&D book cover

[cartoonrival]

im completely addicted to Open Link in New Tab

[kurulover]

I hate that when you’re stressed enough your body just starts falling apart. I think it should realize you’re already stressed and don’t need that and start functioning better actually

[kurulover]

[unhelpfultarot]

Seven of Swords and The Devil reversed

You earned that golden fiddle fair and square.

[unhelpfultarot]

Two of Swords and The Magician

Even your loyal assistant doesn't know exactly how the trick works.

[unhelpfultarot]

Four of Wands and Three of Wands

It's one of those days when you're feeling like you're one stick short of a good time.

[unhelpfultarot]

Justice and Six of Pentacles

You may be eligible to receive a very small amount of compensation, as part of a class-action lawsuit.

[unhelpfultarot]

Ten of Swords and Ace of Pentacles

It took all your weapons to finish that thing, and you barely got any loot from it.

[dailyarchean]

everybody say thank you ryoko kui

[crazy-brazilian]

[suchcrispwhimsy]

never been seen in the same room together

[seat-safety-switch]

Things have gotten so P.C. nowadays that you can't even call a forklift a forklift. Suddenly, every piece of "power lifting equipment" in your shop needs a special name. Even the mutant bullshit like telehandlers don't want to be called something cool like zoom-booms anymore.

The other day, the intern and I are out at Subway. Van saying "lift trucks" comes by. Picture on the side? You guessed it. Forklift.

"Skip," my intern explains - I don't like to be called boss, and he's nice and doesn't do that - "that's what the manufacturers want us to call them now. A forklift is too reductive, obscures nuance. Imagine if you had a huge shop full of these things, you'd need to know the difference between a reach truck and a stacker."

He makes an excellent point, which I admit by silently chewing on my Mesquite Chicken Power Bowl. I have ordered it meticulously, in order to accommodate my unique dietary needs. Some people think that's unimportant, and I should just get one of the combos and not explain myself to the Sandwich Artist every time. They're wrong, it's critical that I be recognized for who I am. Safer for everyone, too.

Even though it draws so much embarrassment when I misname the things, I just can't get over how every forklift insists on its own special name. My grandfather never had to put up with that kind of nonsense. He'd just get out there in the morning, lift up a car with whatever he had on the jobsite, and steal the catalytic converter. Then he'd go to the bar, and sob in the bathroom for a couple of hours at home by himself without ever explaining to any of us what was going on. Probably saw all this coming.

[ca-dmv-bot]

Customer: AN HOMAGE TO “POUNDING THE PAVEMENT” DMV: POUND THE PUSSY? Verdict: DENIED