site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3549 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 16, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I have never watched more than half an episode of mlp and I have never had a desire to - will that impact my understanding much, or does the author cover anything unusual? I will definitely check it out either way, because mlp plus those elements sounds like madoka magica, which was amazing, but fan fiction can get a bit inside baseball sometimes so I would like to prepare if necessary.

Side note re Lovecraft - he works better in adaptation imo. I find his fiction writing style to be both too bland and too florid, which is an impressive but offputting combo (it works better in his correspondence I think, although you don't want to read that unless you are a super fan.) If you aren't averse to comics my suggestion would be to get Alan Moore's Providence and read that. If the hand-written prose sections at the end don't put you off completely, you will probably enjoy reading Lovecraft straight.

Otherwise I would stick to adaptations - movies like From Beyond and Color out of Space, podcasts like the BBC's The Lovecraft Investigations, comics like The Fall of Cthulhu and The Doom That Came To Gotham (neither are straight adaptations, but both have a deep understanding of the mythos and are good entry points - there are straight adaptations of Lovecraft's works in comic format, but they are old and very hard to get, although probably less so on the high seas. If you go that route, try to get your hands on the manga adaptations of his works, because the one I've read (shadow over innsmouth) was excellent.)

My memory is that it’s presented from an outsider’s POV, a donkey or a mule, and so he describes the culture of the colorful Hobbitish equines around him with a measure of accuracy and disdain.

Funny, I was also told to read adaptations & pastiches instead of Lovecraft himself when I posted this six years ago on /r/rational.

Excellent!

And yeah I'm not surprised that it's a common sentiment. This is a bit of a convoluted explanation but bear with me - it reminds me of a throwaway gag in the excellent Shadows over Loathing game where the game describes a character as 'phlegmatic', prompting something like 'ew, gross' as a response. And if you pick that response, the game tells you that phlegmatic as a description of a person means they are stoic and calm, not drenched in mucous or something like that. And when the game tells you that you can respond with 'Well just say that then' and the game retells the description of the character using calm instead of phlegmatic. I imagine his books are annoying to people who don't have large vocabularies, but even if you do you are basically thinking "You could have cut that sentence in half if you just used normal words, just talk normally you dink" at least once every two pages. I'm pretty sure Lovecraft's writing style is inseparable from his ability to build stories, but it can be very off-putting for new readers, and it's his stories that hook most people, not his writing.

I watched every episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic up to season 8 and can't stand any of the fanfiction, so maybe you'll be lucky and have the exact opposite reaction. That makes sense, right?

Perfect sense, but now I am in a predicament, because we haven't talked a whole heap about media, but to the extent we have I think we have similar taste, except I got the impression you have a lower tolerance for stupid and lazy writing. So I am going to have to give mlp a proper shot, and pray the off putting thing about the fan fiction is that it's stupid and/or lazy.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats