Stupid dialog, free to a good home

[robkelk]

A thread for all those scraps of dialog that you don't have a use for.

Starting us off...


"I know you're on a diet, but this chocolate cake is sooooo goooood..."

"Nanoha! Stop tempting Fate!"

[DHBirr]

Arrrrghhh.  A few days before Rob started this thread, I had an idea hanging around in my head that I think would've fit here beautifully.  But there wasn't at that time any thread in which it'd work all that well, so I did my best to dismiss it ... and succeeded.  All I can recall about the idea is that this might've been the perfect thread for it.  I say again, Arrrrghhh.

Edit to add something of more-or-less value, rather than just whining:  A character who keeps cropping up in my thoughts, when asking "Tell me why" for the first time about anything in a non-crisis situation, can't seem to resist slipping into a Ricardo Montalban impression and adding, "And tell me ... where I may find James T. Kirk."

[Star Ranger4]

*Herve Villaches* "But Boss!!! You already run Fantasy Island!"

[DHBirr]

Bloom County, early 1980s, Opus watching TV; the voice from the set says:
"Well, Tattoo ... my fantasy is to see you drive a 1982 Chrysler Cordoba right off that giant cliff on the other side of the island."

But that doesn't fit this thread; it just snarks at Star Ranger4's prior comment.  What does fit here is the following:

A fellow is exposed as an inter-universe traveler.  He admits that he came tracking the disruption caused by the arrival of another such traveler (Doug?  Legion?  The Doctor?  Grantville?)  When asked if he represents some sort of space-time police, he replies, "No, I have no such authority.  I am merely a, shall we say, concerned citizen of the multiverse."

[DHBirr]

"Young fellow ... you had better be a lieutenant.  Because if you're an NCO and gave an order that stupid, I'm going to talk about you like a dog right in front of your troops."

Caveat:  The speaker isn't part of the same military as the person to whom he's speaking, or even in an allied military, much less the younger one's chain of command.  He thus doesn't feel the principle "Praise in public; reprimand in private" binds him in this circumstance, because his criticism is in no way official.

-----
I'm a very forgiving person ... on Lord Vader's terms.  "Apology accepted, Captain."

[Tennie]

I'd been considering making a thread like this for a while, but it's nice to see that someone preempted me on that.  Here's a sincere thanks!

Anyway, here's at least a couple of lines off the top of my head (I may add more later as they come to me).  The use of separating lines ("----") is intended to mark the end of one group of dialog and the beginning of another.  Anyway:

----

"I called for beam spam, not meme spam!"

----

"You know you've developed a certain kind of reputation when you call someone up and they answer with a resigned, 'What did you do this time?'"

----

There may be more to come in the future from me.

[Rajvik]

"Or how much is the bail?"

[DHBirr]

"You are a very cynical person, __."
"Why, thank you.  It's always gratifying when one's virtues and talents are recognized."

[ECSNorway]

"When the question is Nazis, violence is always a correct answer."

[classicdrogn]

"Violence and manipulation are like two sides of a coin. If it isn't solving your problem, you aren't using enough; if it is your problem, you need the other one."

"And If I'm not willing to spend the coin of evil?"

"Then you are a fool, and shall pay in blood and tears."

[Ebony]

"You are a very cynical person, __."
"Why, thank you.  It's always gratifying when one's virtues and talents are recognized."

Elder Scrolls Online has a couple of canned phrases for mobs to say when you are roaming around enemy locations. One of them is: "Nine times out of ten, the cynics are correct."

A suitable quote for a protagonist of an isekai story set in a literary or computer game setting: "You can't kill me! It's not in the script!" (Or code, in the case of the MMORPG.)

[classicdrogn]

Originally this scene came to me as Shinji and Kaworu from NGE (I have no idea why, I loathe NGE and it's maybe in character for Shinji to ask but the answer is not really Kaworu-ish, he'd probably say something trollish and ambiguously shippy) but really it could be any two young-ish characters in an us-versus-them battle situation.


A: "When all this is over, what will you do?"

B: "... I think I'll make a scrapbook. Or, a travel guide? A book of all the beautiful things that make the struggle worthwhile, even if I didn't find them until afterward."

[ECSNorway]

“That’s not ‘invoking the spirit of the wind’, that’s invoking the spirit of the Unites States Postal Service.”

[Mamorien]

Originally this scene came to me as Shinji and Kaworu from NGE (I have no idea why, I loathe NGE and it's maybe in character for Shinji to ask but the answer is not really Kaworu-ish, he'd probably say something trollish and ambiguously shippy) but really it could be any two young-ish characters in an us-versus-them battle situation.


A: "When all this is over, what will you do?"

B: "... I think I'll make a scrapbook. Or, a travel guide? A book of all the beautiful things that make the struggle worthwhile, even if I didn't find them until afterward."

Maybe it's Kaworu asking (facetiously, I presume) and Shinji giving a sincere answer.

[classicdrogn]

...no, that would be a very Kaworu thing to ask.

(I almost want to spoiler the rest of this, but it's been over twenty years now and as far as I'm concerned making people less likely to watch Evangelion is doing them a favor.)

He's trying to decide between fighting sincerely as the last Angel and throwing the fight, so "what will Shinji do if he's the winner?" is a very important question, and this could legitimately be a good answer on Shinji's part.

Thanks, now I hate having thought of it with those characters even more

[DHBirr]

He looked at me suspiciously.  "I've heard tales of the quality of 'food' you lot palm off on inspecting officers," he sneered.  "Stuff you wouldn't force your sailors or troops to eat – but you try to convince us that it's exotic foreign delicacies.  Well, my good man, I've been around, and I won't eat your leavings!"
"I assure you," I assured him, "you'll receive a meal fit for a king," who's about to have his head mounted on a pike by angry peasants.

[classicdrogn]

Like many of the fragmentary ideas I post, this originated in a dream, one that crossed over Real Ghostbusters and allegedly Shantae (mentioned in dialogue only) with some superheroes nominally based in X-Men (or at least wearing a costume based on it) but with no recognizable characters, and generic supernatural brain-snarfin'-alien body snatchers obsessed with contracts. Earlier details are therefore obscure, but for some reason Peter's secondary, alien contracted mindscape personification when they went in to resist and remove the possessing brain-slug beasties' influence was a pretty, long-haired woman and removing the alien required giving up the weapon it had granted her, a sword in the real world but whippy hair (the Shantae bit) in mental space for some reason. This for some reason made her entire head of metallic silver hair vanish when she agreed, plucked out one, and gave it to them, which is where the only actual Peter Venkman connection comes in, as he asked "Wait, this isn't going to make me go bald in real life is it? My hair's thin enough on its own already!" which is more live action Peter than RGB animated, but whatever. And her answer was a cold, narrow-eyed "No," while Egon interjected with a line about the loss of hair or teeth being common dream imagery for fears about losing the power for self-determination, like the giant dork he (especially RGB's blond version of Egon) is.

One of the superhero-side protag party members had a brother or something who had been previously captured and brain-slugged and was sent to delay them, for some reason (it was a dream, okay?) he didn't have any particular combat ability and could not-act as disobedience but couldn't just let them progress. Another of the party members was some kind of android with built in sensors and a very precise attacking ability that could project as a fine line from a fingertip. It may have been the co-opted weapon/single plucked hair from earlier; I have that impression though the actual details have faded. What hasn't though, is robot guy (Who wasn't ST:TNG Data, but spoke and acted in a similar way) offering to attempt to remove the brain slug by force:

"Its position is such that attempting surgical removal would require cause massive brain damage, but a sufficiently precise piercing attack from the other direction could remove it. However, there is a slight risk of fatal harm if the attempt is unsuccessful."

"So you're offering me the option of freedom or quick death? I'll take it."

"Brother, no!"

"You know why you're here. You know what they do. This is my decision."

"Very well. I will attempt to cause the absolute minimum of damage."

(It succeeds, of course.)

That bit may have been an inter-cut of the RL side party while mindscape shenanigans were ongoing? It wasn't clear at the time let alone now, because, again, dream-logic, nuttier than the memetic Insane Troll Logic.

The really good bit, though, was right before I woke up, when they found Winston's second/alien contracted self. This is the exchange I actually bothered to write all this down for:

"Hold on a minute. Your side of the supposed contract is the ability to cooperate with my friends? That's bull shit, working together with the guys is a skill I earned myself, by actually working with them for the past couple years. Your contract is invalid, now get out of my head."

"My power makes your timing perfect, your coordination superhuman! Mere mortal skill can't begin to compare!"

"Been human all my life, it's not so bad. Do it."

[robkelk]

You have the best dreams... (All I got was Yukari Akiyama from Girls und Panzer staffing a convention's dealers' room table, with no lines and no context... what am I supposed to do with that?)

[classicdrogn]

Love her and hug her and call her Aki-chan?

I mean, I'm just sayin'. I wouldn't call the Dog Police on her.

[robkelk]

Love her and hug her and call her Aki-chan?

I mean, I'm just sayin'. I wouldn't call the Dog Police on her.

I envy whoever manages to catch the attention of any of Anglerfish Team (or Turtle Team, for that matter), but Aki-chan's already got it bad for Miho...

Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me that attending a convention nowadays is just as fictional as GnP.

[classicdrogn]

Well, most of my dreams are either quickly forgotten, or being lost in a confusing building (which has at best an even chance of turning into a High School nightmare again) rather than being anything you could call "the best." Like just now, lost in a building, stumble onto a Tony Stark-type dude wearing "I am important" clothes, and apologize for being in the VIP area and for not recognizing him, but claim to be a new arrival (and have been pulling around a rolling luggage) and got turned around looking for a bathroom.

Leave that area and wander around a while more, lose the luggage at some point, then spot a woman leaving and figure it might be easier to go around the outside back to a main entrance and ask a receptionist. Outside it's the front entrance of my high school, but rather than pay attention to that I notice the jewelry box Mr. Big was holding earlier on the ground. Pick it up just in time to meet him also coming out the door and obviously seeing it in my hand, scramble for an excuse again, and spew out that I heard something fall as she was going out the door and thought I should check in case it was important and should be returned.

"Apparently not," says not-Tony, waving off my attempt to hand it back to him as he proceeds out to a waiting limo. A moment of lucidity ensues where I realize I'm dreaming about high school (and looking for a bathroom) and decide I'd better wake up, and the whole thing shrinks into a line and then a dot before winking out as I become aware of the fan noise and open my eyes, like a CRT television image being turned off. (This is also fairly common.) And now it's back to the insomnia routine, three hours after I staggered off to bed finally tired enough to fall asleep

[DHBirr]

Said of a reckless yet charming adventurer, distinctly lawless though never actually evil:  "If Satan had a scapegrace younger brother, his name would be __."  For the record, when this line first came to my mind, the name was "Sasha Koryutin" (Aleksandr Semyonovich Koryutin) and the setting was a "Ruritania" in the early-to-mid 1930s; he'd been part of the anti-Bolshevik forces in the Russian Civil War.

[DHBirr]

"Your mother and your older sister – their combat style can win Sensha-dou matches, but isn't suited to actual life-and-death battle.  Not when employing the limited forces available to us, which can't be so casually expended.  Your approach is.  I'm not asking you to play a game, Nishizumi-san; I'm asking you to save lives and win wars against men and women who have no honor, no decency, no mercy for the helpless. 
"Please consider my request.  You need not decide quickly.  I know you still have, at minimum, three years of college ahead.  When you've completed your schooling, though, Nishizumi-san, I hope you will join the United Nations' standing peacekeeper army."
He bowed, then, the grim old man, turned, and strode away, cane compensating for nearly all of his limp.  Miho looked down at the card in her hand.  She knew it was merely imagination and a trick of the sun's glare that turned the lettering the color of blood.  Wasn't it?
John Mattathias, it read.  Supreme Commander, World Armed Forces.
The Hammer himself.

[Mamorien]

"Your mother and your older sister – their combat style can win Sensha-dou matches, but isn't suited to actual life-and-death battle.  Not when employing the limited forces available to us, which can't be so casually expended.  Your approach is.  I'm not asking you to play a game, Nishizumi-san; I'm asking you to save lives and win wars against men and women who have no honor, no decency, no mercy for the helpless. 
"Please consider my request.  You need not decide quickly.  I know you still have, at minimum, three years of college ahead.  When you've completed your schooling, though, Nishizumi-san, I hope you will join the United Nations' standing peacekeeper army."
He bowed, then, the grim old man, turned, and strode away, cane compensating for nearly all of his limp.  Miho looked down at the card in her hand.  She knew it was merely imagination and a trick of the sun's glare that turned the lettering the color of blood.  Wasn't it?
John Mattathias, it read.  Supreme Commander, World Armed Forces.
The Hammer himself.

Somehow, this feels like a scene from either a CTSB or a CTSNB. Without knowing more about this Mattathias cove, I can't say for certain.

[classicdrogn]

From Hammer's Slammers, innit? At least, the last line makes me think so.