penthius

The cultural psychosis had began, they thought, after the major war was lost and the popular president was booted from office in a temporary fit of spite. His successors seemed to take the booting as a sign that they shouldn't be such nice guys, regular guys despite at all, after all. So they didn't. And they weren't. It didn't help that the first real "nice guy" to come along and run for office was revealed to be a closet pedophile about halfway into his campaign. So there was that. And then, with the politicians and the pop stars going for the "bad boy who can get things done" image, advertising followed. The body wash was to get rid of the smell of smoke and liquor. The deodorant was so you could pole dance without those awkward moments.

Inspiration: StumbleUpon's link to "American Psychosis: From the page: "The decline of American empire began long before the current economic meltdown or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It began before the first Gulf War or Ronald Reagan. It began when we shifted, in the words of Harvard historian Charles Maier, from an" - Didn't actually read the article before writing.
Story Potential: Medium
Notes: So, okay, can kind of see this--then what?

Aphrodisiacs and psychotropics were illegal and possession of them was punishable by death on Ratfree, so naturally we'd pumped the tent full of them. The crowd queued up, big-eyed, holding their tickets to the spectacle. We'd insist that each and every person or individual hand over their ticket personally, from the oldest grandma to the smallest toddler. Each ticket was coated in a quick allergy-test that would fluoresce around their fingerprint if they might have a bad reaction to any of the drugs we used or the quick strobing sense-field. Those with heart problems or anything like an allergy would be shuffled off into the smaller tent with the promise of an exclusive performance that they'd been promoted to. They'd go--make it sound like they were getting something--

Inspiration: "Ladies and Gentlemen" by Saliva
Story Potential: High
Notes: Hmm. But what if one sneaks inside anyway and has an eccentric reaction that isn't life-threatening but makes them more valuable to the world outside this backwater? Setting notes: more advanced civ is bound by treaty not to invade or taint the deliberately simpler worlds, but is allowed to put on demonstrations, so they run a circus every decade or so to tempt, educate, and lure away the citizens? Int'resting.

After a hundred years, it's time to move on, to pull up those roots that run so deep through the community that you know exactly why everybody does even the slightest little thing, from Liz hanging her laundry out to dry only on cloudy days because her grandmother taught her that was the best way to gt dry, soft laundry, to Ila worshiping a pagan god by killing one of his children--he's been a sneaky one from the day he was born and you weren't too surprised when you read about it in the paper. You know everybody, and everybody's great-grandparents, and it's difficult, sometimes, not to use the wrong name when they look so alike. Everybody knows you. They know who and what and where and with whom. It's not even a --

Inspiration: "Bubbles" by Tricky
Story Potential: High-ish
Notes: Because all vamp/immortal stories with a truly old protag have him with deep roots and all kinds of power and connections, I kind of like the idea of a start-fresh policy, and the way the culture shock would affect them.

They were pirates, she thought, when she saw the way they swaggered and staggered into the tavern. They had the peculiar rolling gait of seamen freshly ashore, but the gold they were showering around was not the navy-issue allotment, and they did not travel in the same sort of packs as navy sailors did. These ones seemed to gravitate to sub-species. She watched them, making notes on her didactic as she followed their progress with her eyes. She keyed her hearing up to high so that she could pick up the cant and slang of their speech--it was key for her ethnography to track and follow the way they spoke to each other, ingroup, and to others, outgroup. She had some theories--

Inspiration: Headline: "Orlando Bloom swashbuckles in Pirates 3"
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Primative colonized planet, pirates, ethnographer, something goes terribly wrong, and she ends up having to seek haven among the pirates. Did I mention pirates?

The gatherers walked among us, though we did not know it. They did not bring with them their cameras, for we had long since grown clever in the ways of identifying those and refusing them entry. They did not bring anything that we knew we should fear with them. We did not realize that we should concern ourselves not with what they brought, but with what they would take away with them. He was not a frightening individual, and we did not guess that he was there to steal something more sacred than even our image: our very selves. We thought him merely eccentric when we happened to observe him scrounging in a scrapheap behind our houses. He was not the first of these anthropologists to do so. We tolerated all manner of foolishness in the hope that some--

Inspiration: A NYT.com article about the tribes refusing to allow scientists to collect their DNA.
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: There are lots of religions/cultures that have some serious issues with allowing others to take their photograph.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

|

Entries tagged with culture

Expand Cut Tags

Cultural Psychosis: Spec-fic

Circus of Civilization: Science Fiction

Every Hundred Years: Dark Fantasy

Pirate Ethnography: Science Fiction

DNA Gatherers: Science Fiction

Profile

January 2025

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Syndicate

Style Credit