mysteriousgreenbean

[mysteriousgreenbean]

You seem to be knowledgeable of this sorts of things, so if you don't mind. I'm trying to learn about real-life druids. I'm barely starting, but still, from what little I've read I have no idea of how they ended up being stereotyped as "nature clerics" by DnD. Would you know how that happened?

Druids aren't "nature clerics" in Dungeons & Dragons; they share some of the same game mechanics with clerics, but the actual media inspirations the two classes are drawing on have very little overlap.

To the point, however, the greater part of the reason D&D druids are Like That is because they're basically Merlin (i.e., the figure from Arthurian folklore) as interpreted though a very specific pop-cultural lens. At the time that D&D was taking shape, it was often asserted by New Age writers that Merlin was a real, historical druid who was later incorporated into the Arthurian myth-cycle (a claim that's now generally regarded as false), and this idea got tangled up with popular media depictions of Merlin to produce a picture of druids almost entirely divorced from the historical reality.

Some of those media depictions are quite recent, too; for example, while you can point to precedents for the D&D druid's weaponised shapeshifting shtick in various folk-tales, the way it actually works in the game is nearly a direct lift from Merlin's shape-changing duel with Madam Mim in T H White's 1938 novel The Sword in the Stone (though most folks reading this post are probably more familiar with the 1963 Disney adaptation).

[mysteriousgreenbean]

BJ has a very clear understanding of Objectives unfortunately he lacks that level of comprehension when it comes to tactics methods procedures etc. Thus: his Behaviors.

[mysteriousgreenbean]

The thing I love about the "why so serious?" line is that it works for every iteration of the Joker, but each of them would mean something different by it. I want you to picture Batman (1966) Joker delivering the line with that exaggerated "buh" expression Romero likes to put on as though he's genuinely shocked at Batman's reaction to his antics, versus Batman: The Animated Series (1992) Joker dropping a "why so serious, Batsy?" with Hamill's smug, almost sensual sneer.

[mysteriousgreenbean]

But then "long and normal" is perfectly reasonable. Normal is indeed 6 seconds because this is how long and turn is in in-game time in D&D. But it is also long, because this action restrics you from making bonus action, reaction and movement. So it's long, because it takes your whole turn, but normal, because it takes only one turn.

That being said - as a GM you'll say stupid shit. And players will catch on it and joke around it for decades. On the bright side - players also say stupid shit, and you, along with other players, get to joke around it for decades too.

Embrace the silliness!

DMing is hard. I acknowledge this. Weaving a story with words for long periods of time means you’re gonna say something silly sometimes when your brain blips. And it’s not your fault that it’s so silly that your players share it around turning it into an inside joke, immortalizing your brain fart moment forever.

My DM was narrating a scene between our tiefling rogue and the NPC she was romancing. He was trying to set the mood for their first kiss, up on a tower overlooking the city, looking into each others eyes. They’d just been on a romantic date, there was a bottle of wine between them. And this was their moment.

The NPC leaned in to kiss the rogue and the kiss was, according to our DM, “long and normal.”

The entire session went off the rails. We became ungovernable creatures of hilarity. How long is normal?

We are informed normal is six seconds and we devolve even further into chaotic paroxysm of laughter. The DM desperately tried to rein us in but for the rest of the session everything took a long and normal amount of time.

My betrothed and I would kiss each other while counting to six in our heads then declare afterward, “Ah yes! Long and normal!”

I accidentally told my school team about it, reasoning that they’d at least never meet the DM who lives out of state. They’d say we needed the scene to be the long and normal length, or hold a pose for a long and normal time.

At the end of the year I invited them to my house for a celebratory meal and was surprised when my DM joined the DnD video call early. My teammates looked at him, expressions slowly spreading into evil grins. “Long and normal!” They greeted him.

He turned a look upon me of utter betrayal while I hustled them out of my house.

“It’s been a year!” He cried at the unfairness.

“Maybe it’ll phase out by next year,” I told him.

[mysteriousgreenbean]

Happy 15th anniversary of what is technically Vriska Serket's first on-panel appearance.

[mysteriousgreenbean]

animation of charmander makin some pancakes

[mysteriousgreenbean]

25 ways to be a little more punk in 2025

Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality

Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway

Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups

Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay

Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward

Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient

Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative

Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!

Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community

DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!

Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?

Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.

Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability

Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough

Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing

Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work

Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market

Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question

Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them

Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area

Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...

Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable

Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact

Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive

Think about wealthflow - there are a thousand little mechanisms that corporations and billionaires use to capture wealth from the lower class: fees for transactions, interest, vendor platforms, subscriptions, and more. Start thinking about where your money goes, how and where it's getting captured and removed from our class, and where you have the ability to cut off the flow and pass cash directly to your fellow working class people

[mysteriousgreenbean]

  I re-blogged this (the first time) in 2014. Today, I tried half a dozen times to re-blog it, and it wouldn’t work. So, I saved the images and re-posted it. I hope it helps make life a little easier. :-)   The original post is by iraffiruse.

[mysteriousgreenbean]

Do you ever think Aang wakes and forgets he isn't a hundred years in the past...

[mysteriousgreenbean]

u should read this

[mysteriousgreenbean]

This song has single-handedly taken over my life and it’s only been like a week

[mysteriousgreenbean]

Friday Again Garfie Baby

[mysteriousgreenbean]

of course you have blood all over you. and pronouns

[mysteriousgreenbean]

Scott McCloud’s incomparable “Understanding Comics”.

I swear you can open this book to any page and it’s amazing.

(ps it’s actually a digital image of a printed copy of a drawing of a painting of a pipe)

[mysteriousgreenbean]

I’m just going to leave this here

[mysteriousgreenbean]

References to “the Seven Seas” are found throughout history, but the exact list varies by time and culture. Here are three of the most popular lists