Bad: aliens that insist upon referring to human women as “feeeeemales”.
Good: aliens that insist upon dividing humans into binary categories, but the binary in question is based on something we’d regard as trivial and bizarre.
pro cilantro and anti cilantro
Just to screw with us they refer to have designated half the population as “edible” and the other half is “inedible.”
No intention of eating anyone, they just like how uncomfortable it makes everyone.
Even better: the aliens all agree on who is edible and who is inedible, but the humans have no idea what the criteria is
Even better: there is no criteria, the Aliens just keep a running list of whenever one member designated a human as edible or not. People are baffled because the selection appears random yet all the aliens are up to date, so there must be SOMETHJNG
I love this because it implies the aliens possess either (1) a universal hive mind or (2) an intergalactic group chat dedicated to fucking with humanity
If Hugh Jackman can deadlift 405 pounds, he shouldn’t have settled merely for Marius. He could’ve picked up Enjolras as well. You know what, add Eponine. Street gamines can’t possibly weigh that much. Man let’s just add the whole of Les Amis (including Gavroche). It’s Hugh Jackman. He can take it.
“yes my child I forgot what your booby of a young man looks like so please pick one from the pile”
*tries to subtly tilt the more sensible looking ones towards cosette*
#but imagine him trying really hard to get her to choose combeferre
“Look, Cosette, this one is practicing medicine! And he seems to have an extensive reserve of facts on things from moths to space!”
“Papa, I think that is Marius beneath him.”
“No it isn’t. But look at this Combeferre, his glasses truly frame his face.”
“Papa-”
“Cosette. P L E A S E.”
The best part about this is that Valjean has no idea who his daughters dating, but damn it he knows it’s one of them, so he just takes everyone. The young doctor? Coming. The drunk one? Hopefully not, but bring him anyways. The small child? Might be the brother of whoever Cosette’s with, better bring him just in case. This young woman? Well, Cosette’s already proven she doesn’t tell Valjean everything, so she’s coming too.
And then the final confrontation between him and Javert. Valjean comes staggering out of the sewers holding a pile of people.
“IT’S YOU JAVERT, I KNEW YOU WOULDN’T WAIT TOO LONG!”
“Valjean, what the fuck-”
“THE FAITHFUL SERVANT AT HIS POST ONCE MORE!”
“How are you balancing all of them.”
“THIS BOY AND THIS BOY AND THIS BOY AND THIS BOY AND THIS BOY AND THIS BOY AND THIS BOY AND THIS GIRL AND THIS BOY AND THIS BOY AND THIS CHILD HAVE DONE NO WRONG, AND THE NEED A DOCTORS CARE!”
“I’m not dealing with this, just go.”
“COME, TIME IS RUNNING SHORT!”
“I said you can leave!”
“LOOK DOWN, JAVERT, THEY’RE ALL STANDING IN THEIR GRAVES! MAKE WAY, JAVERT, THERE’S ABOUT A DOZEN LIVES TO SAVE!”
Library Mommy: library lady trope, wears an overly large sweater and has a collection of pens; doesn’t actually have kids, but sometimes a family can be one woman, two cats, and a netflix account
Mechanic Mommy: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I want her to fix my car; two twin kids that run around, has three tattoos and a barbershop haircut, fixes other gadgets on the side and shows me how to hold a wrench
CEO Mommy: pencil skirt, on the phone, gotta work hard to woo her but she will take you to the pier and you’ll ruin the financial lives of several wall street bankers together, Buff™- works out to get rid of stress
Ghost Mommy: floats in and out of the game, totally dead, kind of see-through, solve her murder and you unlock some supernatural lovin’
Rockstar Mommy: plays the guitar, ripped clothing, responds in grunts, a lil’ tipsy at points in the game and will show you hergauge collection, wears sunglasses 23/7
Susan, from accounting: she’ll have to date me eventually
Monster Mommy: straight up funky monster lady of your choice, rips her shirt off at least once during the full moon, route involves getting rid of all the silver in your house; her son trades Yugioh cards
If the sun is up return to bed and wait until nighttime. There are not enough hours in the night to spend them sleeping. Once it is dark you can be all Dante Rossetti about it and stroll about some darkened woodland or else lay amongst Chinese patterned pillows in the nude reading Marcel Proust.
In fact do a great many things naked. Or if you insist do them naked under a silk robe which trails after you as you stalk the halls of your estate.
And since everyone is fated to die anyway smoke cigarettes while you can. Be blasé about death in general. Or lament it constantly – incessantly – until all who know you associate it with your presence. That is what being a Romantic is all about.
And in the spirit of Byron take such bad care of yourself – by eating badly and drinking copiously – that you might at any moment pass into that lamented great beyond. The best ways to die are in a battle or in a Revolution as well as from sloth – simply laying about wasting away transfixed by a beautiful painting or the memory of a lost lover – or finally simply succumbing to an illness procured from exposure to the harsh elements of nature. The last is the most probable since you will often find yourself standing on mountaintops above mist-laden seascapes shouting Nietzschean quotes into the frosty air and heralding your own impending doom in the process.
Read many books. Watch Orlando bySally Potterfor immortal style tips.
Become a sensual creature (as opposed to a sexually satisfied one) so that you may either conquer a harmen of lovers wherein you can loose yourself for hours on end in a kind of Delta of Venus scenario or else live as an Dionysian hermit finding solace entirely in literature, flowers and moonlight.
Be not strictly woman or man but rather an amalgamation of femininity and masculinity. Embrace bisexuality.
Keep strange pets. Anything besides a dog or cat or gerbil. Or if you must have a dog then choose a Borzoi or Wolf Hound. And if you must procure a cat then name it Lassitude or Nothing as Jean Paul Sartre did. Raise peacocks and keep a menagerie of exotic fauna and flora in an otherwise overgrown rose garden.
Half of what you say ought to be a quote by John Milton, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare or Oscar Wilde. Either that or nothing. If you are not reciting – either the work of others or your own – then be quiet. Observe and consider, but rarely speak.
Drink red wine. And white wine. And champagne. Do not however drink vodka unless you find yourself in the Russian Winter Palace filial roaming pale and crazy-eyed down halls with a fur coat whipping behind you and a novel by Tolstoy in your pocket.
Life is a feast. Eat oysters for breakfast and decorate your dinner table – and the food itself – with flowers. Hannibal is the go to cooking program for culinary flair.
In fact Hannibal ought to be the only tv show you watch besides Penny Dreadful.
Wear chokers. All your jewelry ought to be heirlooms.
Keep a much younger lover – if you are a woman – or a much older one – if you are a man – and have them rip the choker from your pale neck as you fall together in a passionate throw onto a 17th century ottoman.
Dress in shrouds of velvet and silk.
Stay out of the sun.
A moushe – a painted-on beauty mark – is entirely appropriate, as is a Jacobin ruff.
From now on sex shall be referred to as Making Cattleya.
Appropriate venues for socializing are cafés which do not play music or serve cappuccinos, theaters built before 1960 and opera houses not built after 1930. Jazz clubs which refrain from fusion or acid. Libraries and old cinemas in general. Family estates and parental mansions, abandoned houses in the country side, churches and cemeteries, woodland openings and castle lawns, museums and – of course – small apartments where you can sit on the floor smoke cigarettes and discuss the collective sense of ennui you share with your friends.
Inappropriate venues are shopping malls, franchise coffee shops and anywhere where reading a novel or smoking might seem out of place. In fact stay clear of any place built after 1980. Avoid food courts, gyms, sports or hotel bars and clubs with more than one dance floor as the plague.
Refer to your circle of friends as your Family. Be religiously devote and romantically involved with them. When it comes to your actually family a cool somewhat distanced relationship is the most appropriate. Or if so inclined consider a more obsessive cloistering constellation that will inevitably lead to rumors of past inbreeding – the French aristocratic kind – and scandal. Refer to your parents by their first name or not at all and thus have them remain an elusive periphery to your life.
Instead declare Richard Wagner as your emergency contact.
Descend stairwells slowly.
Express yourself through Greek axioms and lyrical poetry or lingering secretive stares. Consider perfume as a means of communication.
Remember that the only respectable means of transport are the Oriental Express, steamships across the Atlantic or long boats along the Nile. You may also travel by foot if you do so in a languid fashion. As far as tourism goes the primary vehicle of experience ought to be stargazing and kissing.
Have a chart I developed for visualizing the disposition of your character! This is partly inspired by a chart I saw of Aristotle’s Golden Mean, which is a system he had for developing good character, but of course, this is more about gauging a character’s traits than bringing them into any kind of balance.
For a printable PDF version of the chart please follow this link.
@probablybadrpgideas Replace the alignment chart with this in all games. Be strict about players sticking to it.
Nothing weird to say this time, just throwing in my 2 cents that this might be more useful if the scale was 1-20 instead of 1-25. Nothing major, just lets you roll for them if you want to.
Someone else on tumblr pointed out that PASSENGERS might have been a more
meaningful movie if it was about just THE ONE person dealing with being
alone on the ship for the rest of their life. And if, to cope, they go
through and make it a point to learn everything they can about all of the other
people on the ship.
And I just keep thinking about this idea.
There are
4999 other people on that ship and what if the protagonist spent the
remainder of their life (and they do live their full life) learning about each of them.
They took an
interest in their hobbies so that they could have some sort of
connection to them.
As their sanity flexed in an effort to cope, they could have had these really involved
imaginary conversations with the crew about their interests. And by the end
of their natural life they will have known everything they could have ever known
about these other 4999 people.
…
AND THEN THE REST OF THEM WAKE UP. And they have some
90 odd years of security footage of this one crew member talking to each of them in turn. And it goes far beyond ‘I have figured out how to cook that one dish you were struggling with’ or ‘I have readTHE SILMARILLION at your suggestion and Jesus Christ I have thoughts about it.’
They actually start making connections between all of the crew.
Like ‘You like bugs! You should totally talk to Cindy! She’s an entomologist!’
Or ‘Did you know that you and Said’s grandfathers were both in the same infantry?’
Or ‘You and Jamie are both avid bee keepers and I think you need to meet.’
Or ‘I know you’re really struggling with this, but Aneesha said she went the exact same thing and I think talking to her can help.’
And because all of these crew members are watching the videos that have been individually addressed to them (Because why not? They’re colonizing. There’s not a lot yet available by way of entertainment) they sort of start talking to each other at the Protagonist’s suggestion. And within a year they are THE MOST unified interconnected colony of any of the colonies because this one crew member broke the ice for them a lifetime ago.
Several of them are engaged.
Two are about to have children named after the Protagonist.
…
AND BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE NOW they notice when one week a crew member isn’t out and about and no one can get in touch with them. So finally somebody goes to check and they find them huddled in a ball and mourning.
Because Protagonist is dead.
And the other people are like: ‘Yes. We know. This is literally the first thing we knew about them.’
But Mourner is like: ‘You don’t understand. I got to the end.’
And then everyone realizes that the mourner has basically been BURNING through all of the videos Protagonist has addressed to them and got to the last one they made to them before they died. And Protagonist left a final message for each of them.
Suddenly everyone’s having a real frank conversation with themselves about how fast they’re going through their videos and if they’re prepared to keep going at that rate and get to the end, or if they should put it off indefinitely.
And one by one, in time, each of them realizes they can’t put it off. Not only are they invested in the end, but they care enough about Protagonist to really acknowledge their death.
Each crew member does this at their own pace. It becomes a rite of passage of sorts. And Protagonist is given some sort of proper memorial so the colonists all have a place to go when their time comes to grieve.
…
BUT BEFORE EVERYONE GETS TO THE END, someone has started noticing how Protagonist treated the robots on the ship over the years. And surprise, surprise, Protagonist named all the robots too and treated them like individuals depending on their quirks. So now someone has finally solved the mystery of why droid 808 insists on being called ‘Bob,’ and why 239 knows ASL, and why the auxiliary robots are so salty about nobody ever being able to tell them apart.
Not only that, but security logs shows that the robots were about 19% more efficient when Protagonist was alive than they are now. And THE VERY SECOND the rest of the crew starts observing the same habits Protagonist used in treating these robots ALL OF THAT EFFICIENCY COMES RIGHT BACK.
Because they missed Protagonist too.
…
And things settle. Everyone thinks they’ve reached the end of Protagonist’s surprises.
…
THEN THEY ARE FINALLY ABLE TO START TRANSPORTATION BETWEEN THEMSELVES AND THE OTHER COLONIES.
And a visiting party shows up.
The visitors are surprised to see HOW WELL everyone on this colony is getting along, because, wow, people are civil where they come from but GODDAMN.
And one of these visiting members is really excited to see their sibling.
And ‘Oh, that’s so nice! Who is it?’
And then the visiting member says a name every single person on this colony knows.
The colonists have to tell them what happened to their sibling, Protagonist.
But they also HAVE to tell the sibling what knowing Protagonist MEANT to them. And what Protagonist knowing THEM, meant to them.
And it’s sad.
The colony pretty much wholesale adopts Protagonist’s sibling as a part of their family because they don’t know what else they can do to fill that void. But just in case, they give the Protagonist’s sibling THE ENTIRETY of Protagonist’s security footage. Because there is 90 years of it and that way they can carry their sibling with them for the rest of their life even if only in video.
And then the colonists think:
‘This. This was the end of Protagonist’s story. And this was a good a proper way to observe it.’
…
AND THEN ONE DAY A SHIP SHOWS UP THAT IS NOT LIKE ANY SHIP THE COLONISTS HAVE EVER SEEN.
And the people driving it aren’t human.
They speak English and passable French. They can chicken scratch Urdu, Mandarin, and Swahili.
Everyone is stunned and wants to know ‘why…?’ and ‘how…?’
And the aliens are just, like, ‘Oh. Protagonist. We ran into them while you were in space. They told us you’d be settling here and asked that we check up on you whenever we were rolling by this quadrant next.’
‘They were really nice. Taught us English. Gave us the files on a couple of your other popular languages as well just to be safe. How’s the colonizing going anyway?’
And everyone thinks back to THAT ONE MONTH of security footage where Protagonist was NIGH IMPOSSIBLE to find. And when they finally did come back to their normal routine they were really quiet and thoughtful for about a week before really getting back to themselves.
The linguists all suddenly remember that IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THAT REALLY WEIRD MONTH, Protagonist had a new coded language saved to their personal affects and was very insistent that they LEARN IT. ‘FOR REASONS.’
And very quietly, the entire colony makes peace with the fact that Protagonist established a very successful first contact while they were all asleep.
sparksoffandommagic 