@curiouslilbird / curiouslilbird.tumblr.com
How to make a story better: add dragons
How to make it even better: Add dragons you don’t have to kill.
You’re promoted
Best Idea, make the dragon the protagonist.
The prodragonist
Dragon Heritage Post
I think the funniest dynamic for arranged-marriage royalty would be a queen who came here 100% prepared to murder her future husband and rule as a widow queen in her own right, only to discover that the king is autistic as hell and responds to her wish to rule with "oh thank god please do, I don't want to be bothered by these people. I can just tell them to go bother you instead, if you really want that. I've got beetles I wanted to study."
"I'm really not good at it," the king admits with horrible, aching grief. The country is in disarray. Peasants go hungry. Nobles trade power amongst themselves with impunity.
So the queen takes over and ruthlessly sets things to rights. Fires several generals, hangs nobles, redirects wealth to the peasantry. It isn't long before the first assassination attempt, which she expected.
She did not expect her docile, beetle-obsessed husband to go absolutely feral and fling himself at the assassins wielding a pair of sharp knives.
Also, the beetles are intended to attack and kill a certain type of invasive worm that has been killing off the gourd and potato crops for decades. He’s been trying since he was a child to crossbreed several native species to be hardier and better diggers. When he finally gets it right it’s all over for you bitches (“you bitches” being mass starvation of subsistence farmers).
Mad Scientist and the Head of HR ass dynamic
*Spidey and the Sinister Six having their usual fight*
Doc Ock, landing a hit: You’re getting slow Spider-Man! Age finally catching up to you?
Spider-Man: You wish! I haven’t even hit my 30s! From those costumes I can already tell I failed to save you guys from those midlife crises! Sorry by the way.
Vulture: Watch it wallcr- wait… Did you just say your not in your thirties yet?
Spider-Man: Surprised that this spiders so young and spry? Well-
Electro: Dude I’ve been fighting you for at least 5 fucking years! How old even are you?
Shocker, joking cause he’s the only one who picked up no grown adult acts likes Spidey: Don’t swear in-front of the boy you don’t want him to pick it up.
Rhino: Christ! You’re tellin me I almost crushed some 12-year-olds skull all those years ago?
Spider-Man, regretting his quipping: I was not that young! Like just starting freshman year but-
Sandman, horrified as he’s the only one with a kid and dad instincts(as of my iteration): I could’ve killed a kid…
Shocker, genuinely curious: Are you even old enough to drink? Cruel to kill a man who ain’t had his first drink yet.
Electro: Please tell us you’re at least over 25 as of this fight. Hell, I’ll take over 21!
Spider-Man:….
Sandman, realizing just how young he really is: Oh my god.
Spider-Man: My birthday’s coming up soon so I guess it counts?
Doc Ock, exacerbated: It. Does. Not!
Vulture: What would your mother think if she knew her son was out here risking his life telling poorly constructed jokes?
Spider-Man, offended cause it quips slap: 1. My jokes are great 2. She and my dad are dead so-
Sandman, hysterical cause holy shit he almost killed a kid orphan: OH MY GOD!
Space trains are such a fun sci-fi idea, like just a train flying through space.
Like you get all the fun of a space ship but you can make it refined and full of glitz and glamor. Like I am imaging like an old streamliner with art deco cars just floating through space.
And if you want a more working class setting you can do that by taking inspiration from a modern diesel and American stainless steel trains to make it seem less fancy and add some grime and you get a perfect setting for a cheap transport across the vastness of space
And you could combine the ideas by making the beautiful art deco cars be at the back of the train so they can have a better view and have the working class more bare bones basic cars near the front because they would be hotter from the engines
Hear me out
What if elf ears worked like puppy ears where when they’re young they’re kinda floppy and bend over and then they get fully pointy when they’re grown up a bit more
Poor awkward middleschooler age elves walking around like this
HI I HEARD THERE WERE ELF EAR HEADCANONS??
Allow me to add:
A roguelike game that takes place in the world's biggest library, which has been overrun by monsters, where you play as a librarian determined to save it. You venture inside the library armed with your weapon of choice and two messenger bags you plan to fill with whatever books you can rescue.
After you clear the monsters in a particular section of the library, such as the Poetry section, you'll unlock a permanent buff that will last for the remaining of that run. For example: clearing the Travel section will help you map areas faster, and also unlock the bookworm railway system that will allow you to move more easily between certain parts of the library.
Besides section buffs, you'll also be able to learn all kinds of useful attacks and skills by finding specific books in the shelves, reading them and carrying them in your messenger bags. The more books you carry, the stronger your character will be, and the abilities each book will grant you will be on theme with the book, it's literary genre or one of its tropes: carrying with you a bestiary will allow you to quickly identify the weak points of monsters you've met before, a book with an enemies to lovers trope will allow you to turn a monster into a temporary ally that will fight alongside you, a botany book in your bag will let you gather medicinal herbs growing in the library, and carrying a potions book will allow you to prepare healing potions (more effective than just herbs), etc.
Not everyone believes the library can be saved, which is why during your expeditions your mission is not only to kill monsters, but also to rescue books and bring them to the new library. Since getting books out is one of your main priorities, starting your runs with your satchels nearly full of books that grant you useful abilities won't be very efficient, so you'll need to decide how many books you want to bring back with you to the library during each run.
Fighting monsters is dangerous, and sometimes you get hurt, but also, sometimes books get hurt, which why after some runs you might need to stop by your workshop to repair any damaged books. The hides of certain monsters are very sturdy, so using them to rebind books will make them more durable.
There is no respawning in this game. If your librarian dies inside the library, the next librarian that ventures inside might eventually find their body. If you're close to death and you have a particular book from the Travel section in your bags, you'll be able to use it to summon a bookwork that will take you quickly and safely back to the entrance with whatever books are currently in your bag.
You love your library, and you are determined to save it, armed with the greatest weapon in the world: knowledge (and a sword), even if it's one book at a time.
so i can't code, but i feel i could make this a solo journalling game, ttrpg like. maybe..
i'd use the carta SRD, and each suit in the deck of cards that forms the playing field could be a genre, black cards nonfiction and red cards fiction perhaps, and limited resources, and you can easily fail but then restart
“Hey, so… you know that trouble I was having with that rabbit warren? Well, it turns out they’ve developed into a bronze age society, and I just don’t have what it takes to remove them now.”
(CW: animal death and injury)
It wasn’t the end of the world. Maybe if this place was my livelihood I’d start panicking or packing up, but it’s not. I’m a vet, I own my own home, and I’m not hurting if my vegetables get looted. The garden’s a hobby at best, and yeah, maybe it was Grandma’s pride and joy, but I warned her I killed my mom’s geraniums when she told me she was leaving me the house, so it’s not like she has room for disappointment.
If anything, the rabbits are lucky they picked my land to figure out civilization on, because I’m pretty sure my neighbor Carl would be dropping dynamite down the burrows in my shoes.
I won’t lie, I came close. Monster Truck got out while I wasn’t looking, and when he came hobbling home with a goddamn spearhead embedded in his leg, I was about ready to rain my own personal Iliad down on the little bastards. Lucky for them, treating arrow wounds on my cat gave me enough time to calm down and think. I figure it was self defense. I don’t like letting my cats outside off-harness anyway, and I would’ve been plenty upset if he’d come home with a dead bunny in his mouth.
You know that whole trope where like, the protagonists get teleported up into the aliens’ spaceship or base or whatever and the alien appears to them only it doesn’t appear as it really looks like but rather, since it doesn’t want to scare the protagonists, it takes the form of something we find familiar and pleasing and is like, “I look like your dad or whatever–is this form okay?” Like I think about that trope a lot and I think like, what if the alien couldn’t pick out a form via telepathy and only had earth media to try and decide what form would scare its human guests least and be accepted almost immediately and honestly the more I think about it the more options for what form that might be are just really fun to me.
“I have chosen the form of your earth playwright and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda–do not be afraid. I come in peace.”
“Greetings. I am Glofnorbo of the cloud you call the ‘Pegasus Nebula.’ I have scanned your earth media from afar and empirically decided that you would find the form of the one known as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson most pleasing. I have come to confer with your leaders.”
“Do not be panic. I come in peace. I have assumed the form of your insectoid demigoddess ‘Hatsune Miku’ so that we may communicate peacefully without my true form horrifying you.”
“It was decided that I would assume the form of your ‘Mister Rogers’ in order to best welcome your world to the galactic neighborhood without frightening your kind.”
“…So did your colleague take on the form of Jack Black for that reason too?”
“No, that is the actual Jack Black. We do not know how to make him leave.”
“…So did your colleague
take on the form of Jack Black
for that reason too?”
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
Concept: You walk outside one night and notice that there are two full moons. A few hours go by and they don’t seem to move.
You stare up at them.
They blink.
You blink back. It’s only polite to return the greeting of the Big Night Cat.
I meant for this to be all spooky and ominous, but fuck it, this is way better. I love the Big Night Cat. She is beautiful. I support her.
hand slipped so heres a gif
Reblog to respect the Big Night Cat
"what if [character] was a neet" this is played out, I've seen it, it's just gonna be hitting the same buttons people have been robotically hitting for the past 20 years.
"what if [character] lived in the highly specific location I live" endlessly fresh. show me that anime boy standing awkwardly at your favourite restaurant. what does he order.
imagine if every chapter in a real book ended with an author's note
"sorry guys i think that chapter kind of got away from me😅 if you see me projecting my own religious trauma onto these characters no you didn't. but seriously that was more than 20 pages maybe i have issues lol... well the next one is a doozy. ivan will finally confront smerdyakov properly. stay tuned!"
I want to see a work of fiction that reverses the "vampires are snobby upper class, werewolves are brutish lower class" stereotypes
Consider a vampire's reliance on blood as a metaphor for living paycheck-to-paycheck and depending on the kindness of others to get by, and the desparation that can make one slip into taking.
[Image description: Tags reading:
#meanwhile werewolves who like #treat the full moon like a monthly vacation#or like aristocrats on a hunting trip #claiming unnecessarily large swaths of land as territory #or just throwing their weight around wherever they please #waking up the next morning either oblivious#or entirely indifferent #to the devastation#environmental and personal #they've left in their wake #maybe even doing it on purpose#most dangerous game-ing people #just to keep the wolf 'stimulated' #something like this?
A gif from Pacific Rim, where Stacker Pentecost says "You, keep talking.]
Sugardaddy/sugarbaby relationship but the one with money is an annoying 23 year old who like, made a successful app in college or something, and the poor one is a 40-something single dad with medical debt who was just 'made redundant' at his soul-killing job. Mmmmm-hmmmm.... Thinking about this.
