Would you rather?

[Jubal]

Campfire in the woods, I don't get out enough. And I'd just rather curl up in the fort than tell stories, lately.

Would you rather be a member of an order of necromancers who are very ethical about helping the dead, or of assassins who never actually assassinate anyone and mostly just pose on rooftops with swooshy capes?

[The Seamstress]

I think I'd look good in a swooshy cape. Though my fear of heights would probably interfere with posing on rooftops...

Would you rather be transported into a novel by Charles Dickens, living through the story as the main character, or into a film adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, being a character of your choice?

[Jubal]

Dickens novels are often rather long in terms of how much of a character's life is involved, so I'll go with Jane Austen.

Would you rather be remembered in little writings etched in a script barely readable upon the lowest stones of walls in small villages, or remembered in the echoing dreams that people have on days when the leaves fall dry but the air still hangs with the still warmth that recalls summertime?

[The Seamstress]

Hm... the latter, I think.

Would you rather follow a stinky swamp creature into the darkest corner of the swamp, or accept a challenge from a wild-haired witch? Both would grant you a wish.

[Jubal]

Stinky swamp friend!

Would you rather live in a lighthouse or a houseboat?

[The Seamstress]

Lighthouse.

Would you rather timetravel to visit Pompeii and see it like it was before the volcano, or visit 14th century Rome?

[Jubal]

I think C14 Rome probably, but that's a tricky one.

Same question, but Egypt during the building of the pyramids vs Ohio during the building of the Hopewell culture earthworks?

[The Seamstress]

The Hopewell culture earthworks, because I didn't know about them and am curious now.

Would you rather work as a costumed interpreter in a Victorian pharmacy or in a Regency era cloth merchant's shop?

[Jubal]

The Hopewell culture earthworks, because I didn't know about them and am curious now.

They're enormously interesting! I saw several in 2018 though at least one sadly had a golf course cut through it.

I think the Victorian pharmacy sounds fun, I like silly old timey bottles with weird labels

Would you rather have big cow horns or tiny little muntjac deer antlers?

[The Seamstress]

The antlers, definitely!

Would you rather be invited to a banquet at robber-chief Gustav the Golddigger's fortress, or to a fancy cocktail party at Calvin the Clown's circus-themed mansion?

[Jubal]

The banquet. I am not messing with clowns under any circumstances.

Would you rather have three additional moles (as in the body growth) or three additional moles (the small talpid mammals, which you would be held personally responsible for looking after)?

[The Seamstress]

I already have approximately 43272653 moles (as in the body growth) and would rather get rid of a few instead of getting additional ones, so the answer is clearly the animal-moles. I guess they're not very high-maintenance when I'm providing them with a garden or field to live in and occasionally feed them earthworms.

Would you rather have a second head (with an independent mind) or wings like a bat (which, for reasons unknown, would require you to sleep upside down like bats do)?

[Jubal]

Assuming I could sleep upside down and had the necessary physiology changes for that not to screw me up, the bat wings. If not, the second head.


Would you rather have a fairly pointless seeming job coming up with silly names for food products to help sell them to tourists, or have a job cooking the said food knowing that, however much you put into your job, most of its value was going to be added by the silly name that made the tourists pay a wildly overinflated price for it?

[The Seamstress]

I think coming up with silly food names would be something I'd be reasonably good at, so that.

Would you rather live a week being another gender, or being another species (both randomly selected)?

[Jubal]

Another gender. If I could be changed to any species, and assuming we're alone in the universe, then the overwhelming probability is that I would end up as a bacterium, average lifespan maybe 12 hours, so I probably wouldn't last the week, or I'd have self-replicated a bunch of times during the week and would come back with, if every doubling was successful, up to a bit over sixteen thousand of me (assuming I can double twice every 24hrs, so 2¹⁴), which is Too Much James. Gender is very complicated, but it is simpler than working out what to do with 16,000 Jubal clones.


Would you rather wear a tricorne or a bicorne?