Charlie Stross12h ago
The great thing about writing a Stainless Steel Rat homage is you get to do things like this (in which our protagonists, having returned from a *very* long trip, have found and are preparing to rob a museum exhibit dedicated to ... themselves): #amwriting
Show threadwoe2you12h ago
@cstross They won't win, obviously. That never happens.
Show threadCharlie Stross
@woe2you Not-a-spoiler: of course they didn't win! (They did, however, come back that night and rob the museum. NB: this is in chapter 2, it's part of the set-up for the main story.)
1:46pmWeb
Show threadComplexity of systems 🏳️‍⚧️4h ago

@cstross @woe2you the whole "Your Costume Needs Work" trope has so much inertia that it would be genuinely surprising if a character entered a look-alike contest as themselves and won

It's also older than most people think Charlie Chaplin losing a contest to look like one of his own characters. The trope is definitely older than that but it only came into its current form after the invention of film/photography before that the mistake would have been more understandable

Show threadwoe2you4h ago
@addressforbots @cstross I suppose by this point it must be ripe for subversion. $protagonist thinks group of $protagonist cosplayers is perfect cover, is unexpectedly dragged up to collect prize...