I Would Play/run/write/read This

I would play/run/write/read this

Concept: a tabletop RPG setting that’s sort of a Star-Trek-meets-Paranoia mashup. It’s a utopian post scarcity sci-fi setting where nearly all production is handled by automated systems, and most people spend their days pursuing their weird hobbies. It’s not secretly dystopian or anything, but the automated systems aren’t very bright (true AIs are free citizens!), and a lot of those weird hobbies can get very weird indeed, so things sometimes Go Wrong in ways that only people with free access to bullshit space-magic hypertech they don’t really understand can manage.

Enter the player characters, an organisation of dedicated troubleshooters tasked with intervening in situations like this before the entire city is buried beneath a mountain of self-replicating squid (or whatever). Their job is complicated not only by the fact that every problem they face is by definition an outside context problem, but by the reality that most of the people they’re responsible for protecting a. don’t really believe it’s possible for anything bad to happen to them, because, well, nothing ever has, and b. are unaccustomed to dealing with authority figures, and consequently tend either to refuse to take them seriously, or else to wildly overreact – or both in succession!

Troubleshooters do have one advantage in their pocket, however: they’re aided by a semi-godlike AI that secretly guides society by publicly masquerading as an Internet search engine and personal organiser service. Their patron is very keen on preserving human self-determination, and consequently gives no orders, expressing its priorities solely in terms of what information it chooses to divulge or withhold; in practice, this generally amounts to a lot of passive-aggressive hinting that, oh, I don’t want to be a bother, but there’s a situation developing down at the boating club that might be worth looking into, you know, if we’re still doing the whole “valuing human life” thing.

On top of that, it refuses to reveal its existence to anyone other than the troubleshooters, which probably has a lot to do with their reputation for talking to themselves, and is generally just deeply weird to deal with. Still, it’s hard to justify refusing the input of a quasi-omniscient entity, so they all put up with it.

(Thanks to @acceptableduraz for suggesting that last bit!)

How surface texture affects bloodstain patterns. (Video)

How cookie cutters are made.

ten truths you will learn growing up

i. when someone leaves this earth forever, the world will come to a halt for you but two years later the waves will break at the shore just the same and you will wonder how the moon can care so little that he’s gone.

ii. the only way home will never leave you is if you find it inside of you. you will learn eventually not to build it out of bricks, you will learn eventually not to build it out of people, either.

iii. you will outgrow the dreams you thought were all you ever wanted. you must understand that this is different from giving up.

iv. i know you always think you are the exception but when your friends move across the country, your hearts will grow apart. that does not mean they have any less of a place in it, but it will hurt.

v. no one is invincible and everyone you put on a pedestal is just skin and heart and bleeds as red as you.

vi. you will not always remember that you were born good enough.

vii. there will come a time - when you are twenty, when you’re thirty, when you are forty-three - where it will hit you at 2 am that the years you have lived are gone. that sixteen-year-old you lives inside of you but her skin is made from paper and photographs. you will scream and rage against time but 2014 will not come back. you will learn to live with that ache like you always do.

viii. you will keep on marking down dreams and wishes and plans as “i want to do that someday”, and one day you’re twenty-five and you realize that “someday” has passed a hundred times in the form of yesterday. you will promise to do better next time, but you will not always keep it.

ix. people will keep telling you that it gets better but they will never say when.

x. you are so filled with kindness, and others will not be kind to you. if you do not let that harden you, it will be a blessing, not a curse.