Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:41 pm

Man, I read that book and I don't remember the fish-fucking. Wikipedia is no help either. What I do remember is awful enough on its own.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 7:51 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
Prak_Anima wrote:Huh, I'd always heard, as far as a specific term is concerned, Alicorn. I mean, when I was a kid the girls in class would call them winged unicorns, but...

Didn't realize that alicorn... wasn't the actual term.
Alicorn is indeed the horn on the head of a unicorn. Piers Anthony used the term "Alicorn" to mean "Winged Unicorn" in his 1993 book "Demons Don't Dream". This is the sixteenth Xanth book, and well after Piers Anthony became a really creepy pedophile. The preceding book is called The Color of Her Panties and the book after is called Happy Thyme. He seriously wasn't even pretending at that point. The book in question is about a boy fighting censorship and fucking a fish. I am not making that up.

The fact that My Little Pony fandom has latched onto terminology from a disturbing work of furry child molestation says fairly bad things about Bronies as a whole, to be honest.

-Username17

I'm glad I stopped reading Anthony well before that point (though I have to admit the post apocalyptic 'battle circle' trilogy is what I was referencing with shitty porn, which got his rape fetish rather pedophilia. And while disgusting, it admittedly was a gritty Post Apoc series and not teen fantasy), though I think the pedophilia was starting to creep in to the Xanth books I read.

Where he went over the horizon for me in the Xanth books was the excessively frequent bestiality (justified by Love Pools), and the weird bit with the evil magical computer that was essentially a Hitler analogue. Or more particularly, his response to a fan letter saying that it was fucking stupid for the main character to agree to serve the computer just because his parents promised he would (to get out of service themselves). At this point, Anthony went into full on rage mode in a response in the back of the following book, saying that the author of the fan letter was a moron and completely without any morals or dignity, and if his (the letter writer's) parents had promised Hitler that their son would be a willing follower, he was morally obliged to do so. Because promises are more important (and trump) than any sort of morals.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:27 pm

So if I promise you that Piers Anthony will stop propagating his insane and destructive moral philosophy, does that mean Anthony is obligated to stop doing so in order to make sure the promise is kept? What does he do if someone else promises he will keep propagating it?

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:55 pm

... I think I will drop the word "Alicorn" and just use the word "Princess" to refer to Cadance, Luna, and Celestia. I didn't know that Anthony had invented the term and will now stop using it.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:56 pm

Ted the Flayer wrote:... I think I will drop the word "Alicorn" and just use the word "Princess" to refer to Cadance, Luna, and Celestia. I didn't know that Anthony had invented the term and will now stop using it.

Ditto. I'm sure that most fans of MLP are unaware, and that the term has entered general usage. I've never read any Piers Anthony, and I seriously thought it was the actual term.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:57 pm

so, honest answer time:
did you know the term alicorn BEFORE MLP:FIM? O.o

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 8:58 pm

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:14 pm

In other news, the term "slash fic" derives from Star Trek gay sex fanfics. In the days before the internet, when people handed these around in paper format at cons. It comes from the slash (or "/") that comes between the character names in "Kirk/Spock".

For some reason I don't find this at all strange and have no problem with people using the term. It might have something to do with the fact that the current use of the terminology (basically any homosexual relationship in fanfic) is not really that different from the original context.

While I admit that Piers Anthony wrote some great stuff in the 80s (On A Pale Horse is just plain a good book), his 90s stuff is just really creepy. Like, really creepy.

Still, if people were the intended audience of Demons Don't Dream when it came out, which I take to be horny and confused 12 year olds, they would be 31 today. As I understand Brony subculture, that is basically right on.

Stahlseele wrote:so, honest answer time:
did you know the term alicorn BEFORE MLP:FIM? O.o

Yes. Both in its actual meaning and that Piers Anthony had attempted to use it to mean something else entirely. But before MLP, I wasn't aware that there were actually people out there who were confused that Alicorn meant Pegacorn. I had just sort of assumed that there were people who knew that the word meant "the horn of a unicorn" and people who did not know the word at all.

Although I think it is also important to note that you could call a winged unicorn a "Pegasus" (because in a lot of versions pegasi simply have horns), or a "Kirin" if you want to go all North Korea on the problem.

-Username17

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 11:02 pm

I read Piers Anthony when I was a sexually confused 12 year old. I stopped when I was a sexually confused 16 year old and moved on to internet porn.

I had heard the term in Might and Magic 7 (I think), an early quest gets you a pwerful alicorn wand of fireballs, but accepting it means later in the game someone comes back to try to get you to rob an ally in return. I think I ignored them and just killed the low-level mooks they sent. They didn't think their cunning plan all the way through.

I hadn't realized that Anthony had used the term previously. I had only read about half a dozen novels written by him and didn't read the term.

EDIT: Read Frank's link. Dafuq is wrong with Piers Anthony?

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 3:29 am

Well, the simple aside that 'only married women can be forced' is pretty fucking creepy in its own right. Not only is pedophilia a victimless crime (because little girls actively want it, despite not... having a sex drive at all); but feel free to rape your wife too. Because marriage means she can't say no.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 8:52 am

Stahlseele wrote:so, honest answer time:
did you know the term alicorn BEFORE MLP:FIM? O.o

I don't even know what channel FIM is on nor have I have I had an IRL conversation on the subject--Ponies don't seem like a very big deal outside of the echo chamber that is the internet. I knew the term though anyway; knowing an alternate name for a unicorn horn isn't even all that hard given that as a reagent it's an outright cliche whether you're going the high fantasy route or whether you want to roll ren faire style but wish to show that your character is too classy and rich to settle for a bezoar.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 3:13 pm

Regarding ren faires:

I've never gone to one because a girl I dated made them sound horrible. She said that if you went to one and if you were wearing clothes that were considered high-class, everyone would beat the crap out of you and kick you out because you were imitating royalty.

She also said there was no money exchanged, to get food or souvenirs you had to make out with people or let them punch you in the head for a predetermined amount of time rather than just pay money for stuff.

Is that true, or was she just fucked in the head?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 3:17 pm

That sounds like a PunkFaire. RenFaires are all giant turkey legs and mead and acres of cleavage.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 3:25 pm

If you've ever been to a county fair, a ren faire is basically the same thing, except with more overpriced swords and less livestock. You get a lot of booths selling fried food and ice cream, some shops selling ye olde tyme junke, and hopefully some jousting. If you go with a group it can be a fun time, but it might be a bit expensive, depending on where you are. Certainly not free.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:27 pm

I want you to imagine a place where people refuse to let you pay money for their items.

Now I want you to tell me how the people who work there eat for a living.

Yes, she is full of shit.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:45 pm

That is what I told her. She said that I "didn't get it".

I just wanted to ask because I have learned things that are crazier than that.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:51 pm

She just wanted an excuse to make out in public and live out some cuckold fantasy.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:56 pm

Considering she was schtupping me and two other people in my dnd group, that makes sense.

When we all figured it out, we had a good laugh and voted unanimously to boot her.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 5:38 pm

Ren Fair has a group of people who travel around with it and fuck each other a lot. As the saying goes "If you can't get laid in the SCA, you'll never get laid at all." Also, a lot of the people who do crafts and shit don't really have money, but make things that are really quite expensive because they are made out of many hours of reasonably skilled labor instead of being produced by the thousand-lot in a factory in Thailand. So there's a lot of barter between people who are producers. "I'll make you some chain mail, if you'll weave me a tabbard" type thing.

I have no doubt that you can get people who will combine the two and barter for sexy times. People who will let you have their home made old timey sausage if they can hide their metaphorical sausage. That sort of deal. Very frequently I imagine it isn't even explicit, with people simply asking for favors from people that they are making out with and ending up with various random wood and leather work.

But yeah, for everyone else the Ren Fair runs on piles of actual money.

-Username17

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 6:11 pm

I think at one point Burning Man didn't use actual money. Maybe it still doesn't. It's also the kind of place where "radical artists" would trade make-outs and physical violence for a sandwich, so maybe that's what she'd heard of.

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 6:55 pm

Stahlseele wrote:so, honest answer time:
did you know the term alicorn BEFORE MLP:FIM? O.o

Alicorn actually was popularized with the "pegasus/unicorn" meaning amongst little girl (as in actual little girl) fantasy readers in general. I saw it a LOT in fanfiction and stuff long before MLP arose. Alicorn as a horn was still present, but only in slightly higher tier fantasy circles and sometimes not even then.

Source: growing up amidst the little girl fantasy things

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Tue Jan 01, 2013 3:00 am

I used to go to fantasy conventions, and would refer to winged unicorns as just that, "winged unicorns". I would get the oddest stares from people. Apparently, people who take their fantast seriously don't like to use bland descriptors...

Oh, and Frank, if I kill a Kirin, will every single Good-Aligned creature in the known universe hunt me down?

If so, I could use the XP.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Jan 01, 2013 3:51 am

Not if you kill the right one:

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jan 01, 2013 6:24 am

I just had a great time playing the original Civilization boardgame. Can anyone recommend something similar with a sci-fi setting?

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Tue Jan 01, 2013 2:16 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Ren Fair has a group of people who travel around with it and fuck each other a lot. As the saying goes "If you can't get laid in the SCA, you'll never get laid at all."

This is true. One of my close friends helps run the local-ish Ren Faire and wants me to work it next year, with the explicit benefit of basically getting laid constantly by every woman there. Evidently, I'm crazy-hot by Faire standards.