Why appropriating cultures for profit is bad: A Roleplay

[Galgallin]

TL;DR: See title

Sign-up thread: OPEN SIGNUPS Black Magic & Golden Hearts OOC and Sign-up

The masquerade is well and alive in the small suburban city of Aldenburg, Pennsylvania. Humans are oblivious to the true nature of their neighbors - the pale, red-eyed woman who likes to deliver the morning paper before sunrise, the wolfish family down in the trailer park, the gravekeeper with a heavenly voice who sings at wakes, the fisherman who disappears beneath the waves at night.

All is quiet and calm here. People keep to their own lane. Nothing gets out that shouldn't get out.

But something has come in.

An old abandoned storefront, overnight, has been stocked with all manner of antiques and curios. Charming, rustic. Evil.

Anyone who's One of Them can tell. It's like a tingling in the air, the longing for freedom in the way a murderer longs to escape death row. Someone, or something, has come to Aldenburg and brought with them That Which Does Not Belong.

Jewelry sparkles with the malevolent glint of dormant curses. Polished weapons reek of the blood of ancient foes, and thirst for more. Tealight candles line the store, while a massive rug hides gouged wood underneath. An orange tabby cat winds itself around anyone foolish enough to walk in.

It only takes one careless mistake to kill someone - or worse.

But that's okay. Miss Black is very careful when it comes to destroying evidence.

The premise but in boring words: Humans live alongside supernatural creatures in the modern world without realizing it. Some dumb broad is threatening to ruin everyone's day by selling off cursed magic items to clueless idiots. You can play a clueless human, a not-so-clueless human, a supernatural creature in disguise, a minion to the store owner, a member of the magical SWAT team, etc.

 

[Duwang Chew]

Sounds like a fun ride. How do you feel about playing a character whose entire gimmick is nobody knows what he is exactly, and if he's in the loop or not. Just some nice, reserved guy that hangs around as a part-time worker in another shop, who enjoys drinking, board games and indoors camping, and may or may not be an old demon. Of course, that's ridiculous and sounds like an anime.

I'm perfectly sure he's anything but that.

 

[Galgallin]

He sounds like the kind of chap who minds his own business, a fine and upstanding citizen of blue collar America. Such a wonderful potential addition to the roster!

 

[Loveless]

I'm in. (honestly, can't stop thinking about this, guess the brain has compromised before I could even decide)

Character idea: A clueless normal young man who's barely graduated, has a boring, mundane life and is just really glad that he found this nice paying job at the cursed antique shop. Has no idea about the events he's helping set into motion.

Is the type of guy that is not smart nor proactive enough to question any set of weird rules such as 'don't ever touch any of the goods without gloves' and responds to client's concerns with a nonchalant "I don't know, I just work here" way too often.

 

[Antiqubalist]

Yyyyyoooooooo get me in on this

 

[Galgallin]

Cool. Setting question: summer, fall, winter, or spring?

 

[kixinorbit]

What's the writing level and desired posting frequency? Also, what kinds of creatures would you accept?

 

[Antiqubalist]

Fall for that sweater aesthetic and pumpkin spice latte's. If I don't see the evil relic lady carrying a cursed sword host to a great demon in one hand and a single pump caramel, pre-melted sugar pumpkin spice latte in the other whilst still wearing a Christmas sweater I'm pressing charges.

 

[Loveless]

I honestly have no season preference, anything is fine by me

 

[Galgallin]

What's the writing level and desired posting frequency? Also, what kinds of creatures would you accept?

I'm on the road so I can't make any detailed responses right now, sorry.

I haven't thought about post length much. I tend to write about half as much per my opening post above in an in character post. Posting once or twice a week would be rad, I don't mind if you post faster so long as the thread is able to keep up with itself.

Creatures, most traditional supernatural creatures and cryptids are fair game I think. The important thing is that they have a believable human disguise.

 

[Galgallin]

Fall for that sweater aesthetic and pumpkin spice latte's. If I don't see the evil relic lady carrying a cursed sword host to a great demon in one hand and a single pump caramel, pre-melted sugar pumpkin spice latte in the other whilst still wearing a Christmas sweater I'm pressing charges.

Bite me.

 

[kixinorbit]

If this advanced/detailed writing, I'll be interested to hear more. c:

 

[Impudimp]

I'm totally in for this ride.

 

[Drama Fraud]

Ohh interest piqued.

I want to play a boy protagonist in generic teen supernatural novella. Traits included:

• Having so much free time to explore the supernatural world despite going to school
• Optimistic and resourceful as hell
• Actually have little to no social life that allows him to interact with the main cast continuously
• Open minded toward everyone

 

[Galgallin]

And now I'm finally on my computer, woo!!

 

[kixinorbit]

Would you consider a gorgon so long as she has a reasonable disguise? I fancy the idea of her being an artist. With an emphasis in sculpture.

Also, I'd lean toward early fall. I feel like the fall/Halloween feel would lend itself to the opening of such a shop. More customers, more trouble?

 

[Galgallin]

@DinoFeather Excellent choices! A gorgon is perfectly fine, they are near and dear to my heart. I think a pair of mirrored sunglasses should do the trick, right? And yeah, I'm learning toward fall, especially since it's September IRL now. We're gonna be so spoopy!

 

[Red Thunder]

...how do you feel about Death as a character?

 

[Galgallin]

I'm gonna put the kibosh on that, only because I'm not prepared to take this RP to pantheon level stuff.

That said, an entity of death who isn't necessarily Death Himself should be fine.

 

[kixinorbit]

Would it be necessary for her to have the stone gaze always switched to ON, or would I be able to have her control that? Either way, I was thinking large glasses and coloured contacts-- in addition to concealing her other non-human characteristics. Wigs and big hats, namely-- though I was playing with the idea of the full-on serpentine lower body, perhaps concealed with some...thing. A ring or pendant or some such cliche object, perhaps? Again, this is just me spitballing. Figuring out if I want to attempt to sketch a character design or just start shoveling through images online.