October | 2023 | Brinens and Things

sigmaleph:

sequel to this poll, new approach

Click this link five times, and for each answer the question: would you take the superpower at the cost of never having sex* again?

*since i know people will ask otherwise: ‘having sex’ goes by whatever your personal definition is right now, broadly construed (e.g. if for a given act your current opinion is ‘eh it’s arguably sex’, then it’s banned). the ban does not update if your personal definition of what counts as sex changes

please don’t ask me questions about interpreting superpower implications. use your judgement.

Tags:

#hahahaha it offered me a perfect memory and also immortality #(I will assume I get the required secondary powers for no-wish-is-truly-safe-with-a-malicious-genie reasons) #however I will *not* swear never to have sex-broadly-defined in exchange for Fat Attacks #my initial inclination is also to say no to the ability to run across curved surfaces as if they were flat a la Sonic the Hedgehog #though that sounds vaguely like the sort of thing that would have perpetual-motion-type exploits if only I were capable of figuring them ou #the fifth one was so unimpressive that I would need the perfect-memory power to even know what it was #oh right it was some sort of synergy power for combo attacks #but I really don’t expect that to come up #surveys #sexuality and lack thereof

whatcha-thinkin:

You have the opportunity to travel to a fictional universe but with an important restriction. Which if any would you accept?

roach-works:

mcu: this world but freelance cops can punch through walls. low chance of fucking an alien.

star wars: a thousand different planets to put up with fascists on. democrats somehow even more spineless and ineffective. however, very high chance of fucking an alien.

star trek: a thousand different planets to be a communist on. may get your shit kicked in by swarthy footballers or chicago gangsters. fucking an alien is inevitable

harry potter: this is just england with an even higher chance of getting hate crimed

middle earth: 50/50 chance on if you’ll get a lovely cottagecore lifestyle or some orc lops your head off. elves very unlikely to put out.

battle tech: chances of fucking an alien unknown. chances of fucking a robot not good.

discworld: not worse than our world but definitely smellier. you will be turned down, crushingly, by a beautiful werewolf. not sure i could survive this.

dune: coachella with no bands and no weed and no way home. they don’t let you ride the sand worms.

hitch hiker: you only get to fuck an alien if it is both humorous and sorta damp. not great odds.

narnia: god is real and you get to be a badger. as a jew, im honestly tempted.

fuck it i guess ill stay home: bad dragon dildos are really expensive and the economy sucks shit. reconsider.

fruityyamenrunner:

shit, the Discworld would be a terrible place to live. the only thing that makes it worth living is having the narcissistic magical power of will to turn that shithole into somewhere you can survive. when you get like 3 inches outside the skull of one of the magic-using main characters it’s all misery barely kept at bay by the main character of the disc’s ego-defences.

shieldfoss:

I feel like “Star Trek outside of Starfleet” is the extremely obvious choice? Yeah it’s all communism but it’s communism with the problems solved you’re not going to get Gulaged for proscribed literature because then it wouldn’t be Star Trek, it would be some tankie’s revanchist Star Trek fan fic where they reintroduced the bad parts because that’s the only way they can get hard.

Obviously you might get Borged or Klingoned or Qed or something but IRL you can get hit by a car – we’re not comparing with perfection, we’re comparing with the other options. ST is better than IRL and also better than all the other options.

(That is, for every non-IRL option my first thought would be “Jesus Christ how am I going to survive this?” but for ST my first thought is more like “Ok, time to have a good time. Transporter, one ticket to a great location where I can build my dream house thank you.”

dagny-hashtaggart:

Also if you’re really that into adventuring and exploration I’m pretty sure there are avenues other than just Starfleet. And if you’re not, as revealed preferences suggest most of us aren’t, there’s a perfectly good near-utopia to live a long and comfortable life in.

Honestly even Star Wars probably wouldn’t be too bad. There doesn’t seem to be substantially more poverty than in the real world, life under the Republic was pretty alright and even the Empire seemed to have let the leash run a lot longer than most real world authoritarian states, and you still have a bunch of futuristic technology to improve your quality of life. Somewhat more planet-killing superweapons, which isn’t great, but honestly with there being about a million planets in known space your odds aren’t too bad.

Basically what I’m saying is that in the absence of widespread healing magic and similar (which none of the fantasy settings aside from HP really have), I feel like “access to modern or better medicine and running water” is a pretty high priority, especially if I’m not going to be the main character.

Tags:

#surveys #yeah pretty much #(honestly it would be a bigger downside if it were ”you *are* in Starfleet”) #(but even then I could probably get some nice low-level-bureaucrat job and #never get up close and personal with a Negative Space Wedgie in my life) #((whereas with comic-book universes‚ especially‚ there is *no* escaping the Negative Wedgies)) #though I respect the people who are like ”Narnia because then I get to shed this human form” #that’s legit