What would it take for someone to sell you three “magic beans” for $10 at a farmer’s market?
Specifically, what kind of person would you buy magic beans from? You have no way of knowing if the beans are actually magical – they probably aren’t. But just how colorful a character would a magic bean salesman have to be before you willingly spent $10 for the experience of buying magic beans from an eccentric stranger?
I wouldn’t buy $10 magic beans from a young man with an undercut and suspenders with sailor tattooes on his forearms. He might be a nice guy – maybe I’d be friends with him. But I would not spend $10 for the experience of purchasing magic beans from him, unless they were actual real magic beans and he could prove that.
I might buy $10 magic beans from a small child in a wizard costume. It depends. Maybe if they’re really committed to the role – then I’m purchasing the privilege of interacting with them.
I might but $10 magic beans from an incredibly sexy, mysterious lady with long opera gloves and glittering eyes, but probably not – I might give her money just for smiling at me but I don’t think she’d really have the right vibe for selling magic beans. Potions, yes. Not beans.
I’d probably buy magic beans from a wild-haired, cheerful witch in overalls and mud boots, but that wouldn’t really be about the beans, it’d be about finding excuses to talk to her.
I’d absolutely buy magic beans from a toothless old person dressed entirely in hot pink or chartreuse who answered my questions with rambling non-sequiturs and told me long, scandalous, scientifically impossible stories about how things used to be.
I would buy three magic beans from the white haired woman who sits on the back of her pickup with dozens of jars of jelly laid out on a table in the abandoned fair ground. She doesn’t sell jelly; she sells potted plants. If you compliment her on her wooden sandals though, she will give you a jar of jelly. She asks if my children are twins every week, and is disappointed they aren’t twins every week. I would buy three magic beans for $10 from her.
On another note, I have traded a crocheted snowflake for ten acorns with a small, barefoot, blonde child in a white dress I encountered in the woods. Two of the acorns sprouted on the way home and I now have them growing in pots.
dude at some point the signs for the goblin market and the farmer’s market in your town got switched but your fae are too polite to say anything when you keep coming back
Bold of you to assume it wasn’t the fair folk who did it in the first place
After a look at those vintage ads for iconic books,
how about some vintage ads and posters for all books? Delightfully
colorful and brimming with endearingly bad copywriting, these
mid-century gems exude the same charming literary enthusiasm we’ve
previously seen in the reading PSA posters of the WPA era.
Chapter 9 of 1983 is
now up. I don’t know whether I’m going to keep alternating this with
making notes for my Yuletide assignment, but it does seem paradoxically
easier to work on multiple pieces at once. I suppose because any one
story counts as procrastination from the others. In this chapter,
Lohmann continues to be not quite his usual self, and Skuld, Evie and
Maxie find nothing in Dana’s fridge but food.
Hey so friendly reminder about voting and elections that I haven’t seen going around yet but is SUPER IMPORTANT.
Watch what you wear and say while you’re waiting in line for the voting booth/at the polls. It is against federal law to do anything that might be considered campaigning once you’re there, and since we know that voter suppression is the name of the game this election, there will be people looking for ANY reason to remove you from the polling place. And they will nitpick. You have a shirt with a artistic picture of donkey on it? You’re visibly supporting the Democrats, you’re disqualified from voting. Want to wear a Black Lives Matter shirt? Not there you don’t. They’ll call it intimidation and kick you out. Pins, buttons, stickers, none of it. Wear the most bland, plain clothes you can imagine.
And then keep your mouth shut. Even the slightest hint of discussion about which candidate you’re voting for can get used against you. Don’t assume the people around you are safe to discuss it with. You might be overheard. There WILL people watching for these things, hoping to get rid of anyone they can. Voter suppression isn’t just about making registration impossible. It happens at the polling stations too. Be smart, be bland, be quiet, and make sure your vote gets in.
Also- and I have seen this mentioned but it bears repeating- DO NOT TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR BALLOT. EVER. It’ll also disqualify your vote. Take a selfie when you’re out of their with your fun little sticker.
one of my favorite d&d podcasts is doing a one-shot based on the friday the 13th movies. except the DM hasn’t told any of the players that it’s based on friday the 13th. he has them convinced it’s based on a sex-comedy coming-of-age film they’ve never heard of (that he made up). which is so fucking genius. because the characters in a slasher flick don’t know they’re in a slasher flick, why should the players? if you’re going for genre accuracy, make your players think they’re acting out animal house or something, or else they’ll end up weirdly genre savvy. it’s perfect.
and like, throughout the whole session, to keep the players convinced that the fake not-horror movie is real, the DM keeps mentioning weird, specific details about the fake movie, like, “oh yeah, didn’t i mention? your character is played by crispin glover before he was famous” or “so in the actual movie, you got lost and had a nice scene in an orchard, but so-and-so succeeded on his navigation roll”
and this has the players lulled into a false sense of security for the most part. but over the course of the game they get more and more suspicious of all the weird, doom-harbinging horror-movie details the DM keeps sprinkling in. every once in a while a player will be like, “okay so these identical hitchhiking twins are hot, right? wait, why are they speaking in unison”
it’s so genius. the DM introduces a small child who creates and collects ultra-realistic, cinema-quality latex monster masks, and none of the players even bat an eye. they don’t clock this creepy horror movie child at all. they’re too busy trying to hit on his older sister, just like their characters would be.
at one point one of the players gets weirdly, genuinely angry, and is like, “WHY DO I CARE??? so this old couple is talking about a tragedy at the local hospital, SO WHAT????? aren’t i just supposed to want to get laid right now?! why did you put this in the story, man?!?! was this couple even in the original movie? i don’t know, because you won’t let us look it up on IMDB, even! what is going on?!” and i know it’s an auditory medium, but fuck, i could SMELL the shit-eating grin the DM must’ve had on. that’s so fucking awesome
Mooncustafer 