bowlingalleycarpetmuncher

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

where's that masterpost of quotes that have no right going as hard as they do. I'd like to submit "Protagonism is best left to teens and the insane"

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

i can't fucking shut up about the man that people are starting to call "The Claims Adjuster" because he not only shot that evil fucker but:

wrote deny defend depose on the bullets in sharpie

deliberately left behind a backpack in central park full of fucking monopoly money

and the cherry on top (so far) is that he potentially used a gun that was designed for veterinarians to put down sick animals

its art, its amazing, this is the best thing thats happened in like 10 years and he is my hero. Everything has felt so bleak and this is like a ray of light shining through the dark clouds into my soul

may they never catch him, and may we never find out who he was

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

Concept: in a setting where vampires exist and can only be harmed by symbols of faith (crucifixes, etc.), a James Randi-style skeptic/supernatural debunker witnesses his family murdered by vampires, and dedicated his life to hunting down what he believes are a cabal of ordinary serial killers with a blood fetish and some cheap plastic fangs. They die when he shoots them with an ordinary gun, granted holy status by the sheer force of his belief that they are actually just ordinary humans who will die when shot.

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

im just saying, wrt Flight of Dragons, Peter started his graduate degree and burned out and decided he wanted to write fantasy instead. Except his book is unfinished, and his board game is something he's trying to get random pawn shop owners to invest in to get off the ground.

He's in the late 90s, even if he succeeds 3.0 is a month or two away. The resurgence of tabletop is coming. And that isn't to his benefit. His one shitty boardgame is going to end up in a handful of LGS and that's about it. People play it sometimes, it's fine.

If he hadn't become suddenly rich from selling magic artifacts irl, he'd have been yet another person trying to ride the tabletop gaming wave and washing out. And the fact that this is the dude that used """logic""" to deny that magic was real despite experiencing it, how much fun do you think his games really are?

Anyway, but that doesn't happen. He gets rich selling artifacts he stole from his adventure and marries Melisande. But you know what? The kind of guy who is big into the IDEA of science but washes out of graduate programs? The kind of guy who can quote random science facts without context you know what sort of asshole that is?

A science fan. Someone who is a fan of the idea of science.

In ten years Peter is one of those biotruth assholes, and he's explaining to Melisande, the literal faery princess who left the world of magic to be with this gashead, he's explaining to her how biological essentialism means as a woman she's obligated to be attracted to the most successful male in the area, and how of COURSE she left everything to be with him, he's very rich and successful now and she is biologically obligated to want to obey him.

But it's the internet age, and Melisande is bored of listening to this guy whose accomplishments were "was okay at delegating tasks during an adventure, and did one single dragony thing I guess" and "got rich because Melisande brought a crown with her when she joined up with him" and she's getting tired of listening to him, and she's spending a lot of time on skype with a transsexual dragon otherkin and realizing she reallly misses home.

In another five years she's the mommy milf to this trans dragonkin, and they've found a way back into the world of magic, remantling their identities as a faery princess and a dragon in truth, and now Peter is blogging about Trump and pizzagate and Jan 6 and about how you really just can't trust women because they're inherently duplicitous.

He and Notch are friends for a year or two before they get into a fight about something completely asinine. Peter masturbates to dragon porn most nights.

Melisande rides her dragon girlfriend around going on adventures and as the world of logic destabilizes because it turns out no, humans aren't ever creatures of logic and we, as Peter proved, use logic systems in a magical-thinking way to create and believe in insane things--it turns out that no, humans don't believe in logic, we believe, largely, in magic, and only replaced the symbology of the charm with the symbology of the chromosome even if we dont know what it means--it turns out most humans just want to do magical thinking.

Peter proved that when he defeated the evil wizard not with clever thinking or explaining HOW his magic shouldn't work, but by holding up statements of science as if they were charms. He didn't explain why the evil wizard couldn't breathe fire--he told him that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. He didn't explain why the wizard shouldn't be able to transform because where does all that mass come from? He tells him he's too gross and ugly to be real.

We don't say Trump lost because people were sick of him and voted him out. We say Trump lost because of a grand pedophile satanic conspiracy. We don't say trans people are just people living their lives--they're an evil cult trying to brainwash children.

We know that chromosomes exist, and instead of referencing them for what they are--constructive blueprints that are not referenced continuously after the sexual system is created?--we call them magic codes and if you have these chromosomes, you are definitively this, because science.

It's magic. Humans turn entirely to magic.

The barrier is no longer needed. Verisimilitude breaks down, as it is. Putin recruits Hearts of Iron players to do military stragedy for him. Polticians say things that are verifiably untrue because it doesn't matter anymore--you just say something and everyone believes it, and by the time we're done fact checking and proving why it's wrong everyone's internalized it and it's too late.

NOW we are in the era of magical thinking.

Melisande and her tg dragon gf return from the world of magic, empowered by relative centuries of adventure. They do not make a call to reason at the world. They descend in sword and fire and unmake the insanity of humankind, as it deserves to be, as it begs to be.

Man wishes to once again be small tribes, reclusive, afraid of one another? It is granted. Their empires are broken. Their cities are scattered.

Man wishes to once again live in a world of feeling, of conspiracy? It is granted. Beasts, monsters, faeries, ghouls, dragons, creatures of all kinds ascend to power. Arbitrary strength, as mankind craves, is the rule of law. It has always been--but they no longer need pretend otherwise.

Things are as it should be. It is the time of dragons, and mankind gratefully makes room, freed of the burden of the center stage.

Peter himself becomes the equivalent of an evil wizard, brandishing """"logic"""" (reciting wikipedia quotes) to create absurdly clearly magical effects. Melisande and her tg dragon gf kill him.

As he dies Peter thinks of Clytemnestra, and about the inevitable duplicity and danger of women everywhere. He does not think about what Agamemnon has done to deserve his murder--as a fan of science, not a man of science, the idea of questioning his own assumptions never occurs to him.

The magic facts he's read are spells that tell him women are the evil ones. He can recite them--they must be true. He is so confused and heartbroken as he dies. Many in this new world will die like this. Most will deserve it.

Melisande and the dragon gf rule eternally atop Peter's former wizard spire. They live happily ever after, and also a cute enby unicorn joins the polycule eventually also.

And that's how the rest of Flight of Dragons goes.

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

i should have a big fuckass tail so i can hit people with it and be annoying

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

no matter the outcome of this election: organize, build local community, build strength in masses. elections aren't the only time politics happen, it also happens on the streets, in the community and by mutually supporting each other.

the way forward is together. we build power from the ground up. in the US and everywhere else in the world.

a better world is possible and we can start building it now, by ourselves. anarchism starts in the now.

hack the planet

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

"do it scared" ok but I would like to do something some other way occasionally. Like at least once. For a change.

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

Don't worry, no one in our family is [REDACTED]

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

This was basically my first childhood mental illness

archivists were put on this earth to neatly catalog every stoplight in the world with attention to manufacture, timing, and appended signage. but unfortunately we have to work for financially unstable nonprofits sorting printed out emails from ten years ago and the boxes of emails never end and the boxes of emails never end

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

it honestly blows my mind that there are real life people in this world who don’t experience mental illness. they don’t want to kill themselves. they don’t cringe when someone moves too fast. they don’t have missing chunks of time. they don’t panic over nothing. they don’t sit up all night worrying that they’re silently dying for no real reason. they don’t hear and see things that aren’t there. they don’t drive randomly all over the place just to make sure a car isn’t following them. I can’t believe these people exist.

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

It always gets me that the name "Gandalf" literally just means "Wand-Elf" or "Stick-Elf". I'm imagining old Gondorians just being like:

Librarian: I saw that weird guy at the library again today.

Guard 1: What weird guy?

Librarian: The old guy with the beard? Kinda elfy-looking, apart from the beard?

Guard 1: Oh, with the big-ass stick?

Librarian: Yeah, looked like he was carrying an entire tree branch.

Guard 2: Yeah, that's the Stick Elf.

Guard 1: Hell yeah, I fuckin' love the Stick Elf.

Librarian: The "Stick Elf"?

Guard 2: He comes by every few years, usually after some weird book or other.

Librarian: Oh. Yeah, he wanted a treatise on goblin breeding habits.

Guard 2: Like, how they have sex? We have books on that?

Librarian: Yeah, turns out we do. I was as surprised as you are.

Guard 1: What'd the Stick Elf need a fuckin' goblin-fuckin' book for?

Librarian: I didn't ask. So you just call him "Stick Elf"?

Guard 2: I mean, he looks kinda elfy and he always has that stick, so, like, yeah.

Guard 1: Dude also has some fuckin' dope pipeweed.

Guard 2: Oh yeah, his pipeweed is awesome.

Librarian: How long has he been coming here?

Guard 2: Oh, for decades. He's, like, super old.

Guard 1: More like fuckin' centuries. Dude's old as balls.

Guard 2: Wait, really?

Guard 1: Yeah, my gran-gran used to talk about him. She loved his pipeweed too.

Librarian: So he's… an immortal pipeweed dealer?

Guard 2: I think he's just, like, a connoisseur. He doesn't sell it or anything. He just always has some really top-notch pipeweed on him.

Archivist: Oh, are we talking about Stick Elf?

Guard 1: Hell yeah we are!

Librarian: You know about the Stick Elf, too?

Archivist: Oh, totally. Stick-Elf's a super chill dude. Gave me some awesome pipeweed when I was maybe 12, and tee-bee-aitch I think I'm still a little buzzed from it.

Guard 1: What'd I tell ya, fuckin' dope pipeweed!

Archivist: Also he's really old.

Guard 1: Old as balls.

Librarian: Yeah, so Éodan and Jenniforomir were telling me.

Archivist: My grandpa used to tell me stories - he said one time he saw Stick Elf enter a smoke-ring contest.

Guard 1: Ooh, I'll bet he kicked fuckin' ass.

Archivist: Apparently the guy made an entire warship out of smoke and it flew around shooting down the other rings.

Librarian: And how much of this "fuckin' dope" pipeweed had your grandfather had by this point?

Guard 1: No no, that's totally plausible. Dude's got weird elf powers and shit for sure.

Archivist: He brought fireworks for the king's birthday one year, too.

Guard 1: Oh fuck, I forgot about those! Fuckin' incredible fireworks! Dragons and knights and glowy trees and shit! I was fuckin' 6 years old or something, they totally blew my mind. Hey Éodan, did you see that shit?

Guard 2: No, I think that's before I lived in Gondor.

Guard 1: Wait, you're not from here?

Guard 2: Oh, no, I grew up in Rohan. We moved here when I was, like, thirteen because my uncle Éojeff said he could get my dad a sweet job. And also that there were houses that didn't smell like horseshit.

Guard 1: Oh shit, are you related to Éojeff and Éosteve who run that æbleskiver stand on Norndîl St?

Guard 2: Yeah, they're my uncles!

Guard 1: Shit, they cook a fuckin' great æbleskiver!

Librarian: Ok, hold up a sec, "Stick Elf" can't possibly be his real name.

Guard 1: Why not?

Librarian: What? You think his parents named him in the hopes that he would carry around a fucking tree when he got older?

Guard 2: Maybe they gave him the tree when he was born!

Archivist: I don't think a baby could carry that stick.

Guard 1: You ever seen a baby hanging onto something? They're hella strong.

Archivist: It's not a strength thing, their hands are tiny. That staff is enormous!

Guard 1: My halberd's bigger 'n I am, I can hold it just fine.

Archivist: You're not a baby.

Librarian: Also why would elf parents name their kid "stick ELF"?! Presumably they know that their kid's going to be an elf!

Archivist: Is he actually an elf? I didn't think they grew beards.

Guard 1: How'd he get old as balls if he's not an elf?

Guard 2: His ears aren't that pointy. Maybe he's just a really old guy? Like, a Numémoriam or something?

Guard 1: Did you just say "Numémoriam"?

Guard 2: Nûnenorman? Munimõrbitan? Y'know, those guys like the king that can get super old.

Guard 1: You mean the fuckin' Númenóreans?

Guard 2: Yeah, the Númenóreums.

Archivist: Even the Númenóreans don't live THAT long.

Guard 1: Plus he carries that fuckin' stick around.

Guard 2: Wait, what does the stick have to do with it?

Guard 1: That's an elf thing. Y'know, trees and shit? Very elfy.

Librarian: Ok, look, but his parents naming him "Stick Elf" would be weird whether or not he's an elf. In fact, it's even weirder if he's not - what human names their kid "elf"?

Archivist: Huh. Yeah, you're right, he probably does have another name.

Guard 2: Yeah, I guess so.

Librarian: He's been coming here for decades and nobody's ever asked his real name?

Archivist: I dunno what to tell you, he's Stick Elf. Even his library card just says 'Stick Elf'.

Guard 1: Fuck yeah, the Stick Elf!

Guard 2: Maybe we could, like, ask him his name sometime?

Guard 1: Hey, look, Elrond's over there. He's old as balls too, maybe he knows?

Guard 2: Oh, we shouldn't interru-

Guard 1: HEY ELROND, YOU'RE OLD AS BALLS, RIGHT? WHAT'S THAT OLD ELF WITH THE STICK'S NAME?

Elrond (coming over): Do you mean an old man cloaked all in grey and blue, leaning on a rough-cut staff, who came to the great library this day?

Guard 1: Yeah, the Stick-Elf!

Guard 2: (Sorry to bother you, sir...)

Librarian: He's got to have a real name besides 'the Stick Elf', right?

Elrond: Indeed, for no elf is he. You speak of the wizard Olórin, wisest of the Maiar, older even than Eä itself. Many are his names in many countries: Tharkûn among the Dwarves; Incánus to the south; Mithrandir he is called among my people, the Grey Pilgrim.

Librarian: Oh.

Elrond: And here in the North he is called Stick-Elf.

Librarian: Oh.

Guard 1: Fuck yeah!

[bowlingalleycarpetmuncher]

by Rythaz