#story ideas
love the idea of an alien species that has no concept of gender, and whose culture is completely devoid of gender norms.
like yes they understand that different individuals have different reproductive systems, but that’s just a medical thing? They get confused at the concept of gendered pronouns, bc for what possible reason would their language need to constantly refer to an individual’s reproductive organs?
Oh, but alternately: sure, they have genders! They just… have nothing to do with the reproductive system whatsoever, and there aren’t just two of them. (Color? Shape of your scales? The possibilities are endless!)
Gender is how many limbs you decide to grow! (They come from a species that can grow as many limbs as they like)
Gender is what color you dye your prehensile tendrils
fun alternative: cruise ships. cruise ships exploit workers and can pollute as much as a million cars on a daily basis while dumping endless shit into the ocean and endangering all passengers on board because the on board air quality rivals some of the most polluted cities in the world while being a breeding ground for disease. cruise ships deserve to have negativity associated with them
stop using hospitals as horror settings
also all crimes commited aboard a cruise ship is under the juristiction of whichever country they’re registered to once they’re a certain distance away from land so you have the added bonus of the crimes being very unlikely to be properly investigated (due to usually being physically so very far from the actual police whose juristiction they’re under)
terrifying!
On top of THAT cruise ships tend to have their own morgue, as people tend to die on ships all the time. Good for those spooky scenes.
plus u can just like…leave a hospital. good luck escaping a killer or a monster or a curse or w/e in the middle of the fucking ocean
As an ex cruise ship employee, let me give you some stuff to work with!
Water tight doors! You get a special training video on interacting with these correctly because they will literally cut you in half if you try and go through them while they’re closing!
Freezer vaults for food in the sub decks - you can only get into these with the correct code and they have very thick walls. Good luck if you get shut in one of these just after the last round of checks bucko
There are cameras everywhere…except in the crew cabin corridors. Also there are no windows down there because unless you’re an officer, you live below the waterline. Day and night have no meaning because everything is in the same slightly unsettling yellow light.
Don’t piss off the guys who deal with the rubbish. They have machines down there that can crush metal barrels
As well as morgues, cruise ships usually have one basic operating theatre with all the attendant horrifying equipment in it
One cigarette thrown carelessly in the wrong place WILL start a fire that will gut half the ship.
When we’re pitching side to side, the anchor swings out and then back in, striking the metal outer shell with a noise that shakes half the ship
People disappear overboard more often than you’d really want to be a thing
A lot of cruise ships now have theatres on board (usually towards the front) with all the potential for dark corners, creepy costumes and electrical calamities you could want.
And as op says, you can’t really escape a ship in the middle of the ocean. Particularly during a storm, as then you can’t even evacuate to lifeboats unless the whole ship is going down. On the upside being on board during a storm means most guests hide in their cabins and the staff walk around like drunks, which would likely throw off a skilled murderer’s plans.
Takes notes
You also have the bonus of a corporate overlord who doesn’t give a shit about anything but profits and can be reliably counted on to downplay any disaster in an attempt to avoid publicity.
Character concepts that are always fresh and funny: characters who are trying to be a stock trope character type but the environment won’t let them.
Let’s say there’s a man who originally wanted to be one of those Wicked Cultured Cool Villains, but discovered early on that he doesn’t really have all it takes to be a fully fledged independent villain. So he readjusts his career goals and aims to become The Dragon, a fiercely loyal badass butler to some other, more powerful villain.
Unfortunately the only boss who’s interested in hiring him is an uncivilised brute who just doesn’t appreciate his true potential, and despite of his butler’s best efforts, just cannot be groomed into a proper and sophisticated gentleman villain.
So the butler shows up to the heroes’ door like “please excuse my unexpeted arrival. My personal code of ethics prohibits me from fucking strangling my master personally, but as we have similar goals, I may be of assistance to you.”
And the heroes are like woah what led you to regain your sense of right and wrong and decide to put a stop to your master, he’s like “trust me, I have no faith nor interest in your infantile little revolution. I want him dead because he can’t tell Chopin from Sibelius and I have never seen him use a coaster.”
I want more overlap between wizards and pirates. I want a fantasy setting where if you meet someone with a long coat and an unhinged expression it’s even odds if they’re going to whip out a flintlock and rob you blind or turn you into a baby harp seal
Person A: “We need to get a new angel for the tree.”
Person B: “Just put a picture of me up there.”
Person C: “Yeah, we can put a stick up your butt.”
“You were born royal, but you will die a peasant.”
Person A: “Don’t lose hope.”
Person B: “I thought you were supposed to watch her!”
Person A: “No, I mean hope with a lower case- wait, wHAT-”
Person A: “Hey, I’m still talking to you!”
Person B: “And I’m still ignoring you.”
Person A: “Your arm just got cut off!”
Person B: “Yep.”
Person A: “It’s on the floor!”
B: “So it is. Care to pick it up for me?”
A: “What? No way! It’s your arm.”
Person A: “I can see when and how a person will die.”
Person B: “So you know when I’m going to die?”
A: “Yes.”
B: “Are you going to tell me?”
A: “If you knew how you were going to die, then it would changehow you were going to die. It would cause you to change the actions that would lead up to the original death, thus causing a different death. It could change your entire destiny, or even the fate of the world.”
B: “…”
A: “Plus, all that space-time continuum rearranging would give me a massive headache. So no.”
Person A stared at the sky. Person B was busy with something else nearby.
“A storm is coming,” said A.
B frowned. “What are you talking about? There’s not a cloud in the sky.”
Fear flashed through A’s eyes as they looked at B and repeated, “A storm. Is. Coming.”
“I don’t know what I’m more offended by, the fact that you lied to me, or the fact that you didn’t put any effort into it!”
