RPG stuff
Magical Negrito - 9th century wuxia romance about a black Austro-Asian slave who rescues his master’s lover from a court official’s harem using supernatural physical abilities. Later play attributes blackness to bad karma; becomes Taoist Immortal. Gotta love that Han chauvanism!
Traditional nomadic/outsider hero archetypes:
- Knight-errant
- Swashbuckler
- Pirate/privateer
- Hard-boiled detective
- Cowboy/gunslinger
- Youxia (wandering force)
- Ronin (lordless samurai)
- Space explorer (miners, resource prospectors)
- Hacker (Gibson’s cyberspace)
Post-singularity nomadic/outsider hero archetypes: (permit overlap, mix & match)
Salvage - Recovering and repairing pre-singularity technology is a lucrative field, particularly on the fringes of Civilization, where hypertech is prohibited. Complication: should have something to do with environmentalism or sustainable enterprise; the bad guys might strip-mine entire systems or even unleash nanoplagues to harvest biomatter. Skills: Technology, Ranged Combat
Meat - Slavery is mostly for sport. The violent kind. Although some professional athletes claim high salaries and lavish lifestyles, the lives of most Meat is nasty, brutish, and short. Complication: owned. Skills: Athletics, Close Combat
Negotiator - A nod to Roger Smith of The Big O. I still don’t know what he did, but he did it with style. Alternately, Diplomats from settlements outside Civilization may be permitted to use foreign praxis, but they are definitely mistrusted by the public. Complication: professionalism. Skills: Persuasion, Expertise (law)
Cable Guy/Gal - Similar to Salvage, but seeks energy sources. Complication: Efficiency, Thermodynamic Principles (zero-sum, conservative or conservationist, similar to ‘equivalent exchange’ in Full Metal Alchemist). Skills: Technology, Ranged Combat
Rockstar? - The Bard, up to 11. Complication: Vampiric Managers, drug addiction, fame. Skills: Expertise (performance), Deception
Union Thug - Wandering anarcho-syndicalists could overlap or conflict with other archetypes (organizing Salvages against mining corporations, or organizing android slaves against Salvages). Research Wobbly (Industrial Workers of the World) jargon and compare to gaibang, or Beggars’ Sect, of wuxia. Complication: Revolutionary Ideology. Skills: Persuasion, Intimidate
Transhumanist - The Most Dangerous Idea. Civilized people do not trust freaks, but regular people might permit grudging respect for the Transhumanists’ supernatural abilities as long as they don’t move in next door. Complication: Scientific Methodology. Skills: Technology, Treatment
Wyld Hunter - The Fey are spooky motherfuckers who kidnap children. But from their perspective they are rescuing them from a life of boredom or insanity. Existing at the boundary between two worlds and two societies, they are not quite at home in either. Complication: Oaths, Vows, Geas, Quest, or whatever the Fey call their obligations. Skills: Expertise (Magic), Stealth
Void Smuggler - Trafficking between city-states is a literal nightmare. Complication: probably addicted to stimulants (or sedatives?). Skills: Vehicles, Deception
Anglophone Expat w/ University-Aged Girlfriend(s) - The Ultimate Badass. Complication: teaches English on weekends
Foreign trash
White Nights hiked prices on everything I like. I’ve never felt especially welcome here. Do I really want to stay in Beijing for another year?
The Skeletons in Redditors' Closets →
The Greatest AskReddit of All Time?
Worth reading for the war stories alone.
This is an awesome bathroom, set above a 15 story high elevator shaft.
Imagine this with an Asian-style squat toilet and staring between your knees, or crawling to vomit during a drug binge or hangover.
I’d be scared shitless.
Paul Newman and Shirley MacLaine in What a Way to Go!, 1964.
I want to go to there
Forbidden Colors →
Before I start writing about a recent 2c-i experience:
TIL sth neat about the limits of human perception.
Try to imagine reddish green — not the dull brown you get when you mix the two pigments together, but rather a color that is somewhat like red and somewhat like green. Or, instead, try to picture yellowish blue — not green, but a hue similar to both yellow and blue.
Is your mind drawing a blank? That’s because, even though those colors exist, you’ve probably never seen them. Red-green and yellow-blue are the so-called “forbidden colors.” Composed of pairs of hues whose light frequencies automatically cancel each other out in the human eye, they’re supposed to be impossible to see simultaneously.
![fingeringtrinkets:
tal9000:
[Image: A probably-famous painting of Jesus casting the moneychangers out of the temple, with the words “Daily Mail” written above it, and the headline “Immigrant Hate Preacher Attacks Herod’s Temple” and subtitle “Innocent money-lenders and merchants injured in self-proclaimed messiah’s ‘orgy of violenge’” written across the top of the painting]
get a job, y’ long haired hippie!
Occupy… wait, on second thought…](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luaw7s7JSd1qzvl4eo1_1280.jpg)
[Image: A probably-famous painting of Jesus casting the moneychangers out of the temple, with the words “Daily Mail” written above it, and the headline “Immigrant Hate Preacher Attacks Herod’s Temple” and subtitle “Innocent money-lenders and merchants injured in self-proclaimed messiah’s ‘orgy of violenge’” written across the top of the painting]
get a job, y’ long haired hippie!
Occupy… wait, on second thought…
