Line #10 Podcast/PretendingToBePeople


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pretending_to_be_people.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:What is up, my tropers]]
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4	Pretending to be People is a HorrorComedy ActualPlay podcast detailing the misadventures of three police officers in the fictional town of Contention, Missouri.
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6	The podcast begins on [[DaChief Chief Maggie Cook's]] birthday, where a strange, unmarked gift disturbs her to the point of tears. In the subsequent few days, officers [[RidiculouslyAverageGuy Clark Bishop]], [[GoodOlBoy John Lee Pettimore IV]], and [[ButtMonkey Keith Vigna]] receive a series of reports leading them into a conspiracy featuring murder, [[EldritchAbomination a strange black goo]], bizarre technology, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking a councilwoman's missing dog]].
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8	Pretending to be People is run a using modified version of TabletopGame/DeltaGreen; many rules are used sparingly, or eschewed entirely. In addition, [[GameMaster [=GM=]]] Zach incorporates elements from other games, most notably [[TwoFistedTales Pulp]] [[TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu Cthulhu]]. Season 1 began in November 2018, and currently features over 100 episodes of content of roughly 40 minutes to an hour in length. The crew released several non-Contention-related episodes, both as part of the regular podcast and on Patreon. Four recap episodes detailing the plot of episodes 1-96 were also released.
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10	Season 1 of the podcast ended in October of 2021, after 113 episodes. Season 2 began in July of 2022. This season takes place in an alternate version of The City, the otherwise-unnamed metropolis from Season 1. It focuses on a news crew working for City Action News (or CAN for short), as they investigate a seeming conspiracy centered around The Gottle Company, an agrochemical corporation with access to resources that may not be of this world. While the setting for season 2 is a version of The City from season 1, no knowledge of season 1 is needed.
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12	'''Given the amount of content in this podcast, the potential for unmarked [[LateArrivalSpoiler Late Arrival Spoilers]] is quite high. Proceed at your own risk.'''
13
14	!!Pretending To Be People provides examples of:
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16	* AbusiveParents: Keith's childhood was chock-full of emotional abuse, primarily based around him being [[TheUnfavorite pointedly neglected in favor of his brother]].
17	* TheAlcoholic
18	** [[LargeHam Dave from Akron]] is a humorous example of this, claiming that "any day of the week ending in 'Y'" is a good day to get blackout drunk.
19	** [[HangingJudge Judge Ephraim Courtland]] is a serious example of this, having abandoned all semblance of humanity, be it moral or [[ThePigPen social]] following the death of his wife.
20	* AmbiguouslyHuman: Wolf the Dog is arguably ambiguously canine. He howls like a dog, rummages through dumpsters at night like a stray dog, and is represented as a dog in most fanart. However, he also has a pet dog, named Wolf, and appears to have a job and a boss. Given his [[PhysicalGod apparent powers]], he may be both human and animal.
21	* AmusementPark: Splashylvania, a Dracula-themed water park, serves as the setting for the Residue's first on-screen attack.
22	* AntiHero: Keith and John both regularly engage in illegal activities, ranging from drug use, to drug trafficking, to outright murder.
23	* AristocratsAreEvil: The upper-crust of The City certainly are, at any rate. [[IAmAHumanitarian Cannibalism]] is just one of the many horrors they commit.
24	* ArtifactOfDoom: The small steel balls in the game are both interesting and capable of brutally murdering humans they contact.
25	* BadassNormal: The Contention PD may alternate between idiocy and amorality on a regular basis, but they're able to go toe-to-toe with things far above their cosmic weight class and survive.
26	* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: An odd example where the torture is accidentally self-inflicted. A misused spell that causes [[BodyHorror an agonizing "healing" process]] is the last straw in causing [[spoiler: Keith to go back in time, murder Silas Cole, and take his place]].
27	* BigScrewedUpFamily: The Beans family is one of the oldest families in Contention. Its most morally-upstanding surviving member is Keith, a coke-snorting weirdo with a LackOfEmpathy.
28	* BilingualBonus
29	** Those affected by the Number Plague begin chanting a two word phrase before killing themselves. This phrase ("tawil aleaql," or "طويل العقل"), Google Translates to "long minded."
30	** The Circle of Knowledge's mind-control experiments revolve around a flower whose name sounds like "Sanfera Blom". While spelling is difficult to parse out in an audio medium, this may derive (very loosely) from "Without Will" in French and "Flower" in Dutch.
31	* BlackAndGrayMorality: Most factions in the series have done truly reprehensible things. Some of them just happen to have the world's best interests at heart.
32	* BlobMonster: The Residue is an amorphous blob.
33	* BloodLust: Spectators in the [[WretchedHive Den of Sin]] will gleefully lick up any available blood, be it from the contestants, the staff, or their fellow spectators.
34	* BloodSport: Part of the Glass Syndicate's wheelhouse.
35	* BodyHorror: Happens remarkably often in the series, including to player characters.
36	* BreakingTheFourthWall: Wolf the Dog exists in-universe, but also addresses the listener to give recaps of previous episodes, commentary on the players, and announcements for the show's subreddit, Patreon page, etc.
37	* ButtMonkey: Keith Vigna tends to receive the short end of the stick in life. This is often directly due to his own incompetence or [[JerkassWoobie moral failings]].
38	* CannotCrossRunningWater: The Residue can be repelled by water. [[spoiler: Well, most of the time anyway.]]
39	* CoolCar: For a given value of "cool," at any rate. Drew Andrews drives a Mini Cooper.
40	* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Ferguson Beans and Bruce Robin, owners of [=BAR Corp=], like to play a little fast and loose with ethics. Ferguson, in particular, is a cocaine trafficker on the side and brags about exploiting loopholes in election law.
41	* CreepyTwins: Rich and Dick Nickles are an adult version of this, taking a [[BloodLust nigh-erotic]] fascination with blood, regardless as to whether it's from random strangers, [[HoYay each other]], or [[{{Squick}} themselves]].
42	* TheChosenOne:
43	** [[TheConspiracy The Circle of Knowledge]] views The Overseer as one.
44	** [[BigScrewedUpFamily The Beans Family]] views Ferguson as one.
45	* TheConspiracy: As might be expected in a Delta Green game. At minimum, there's [[TheMafia the Glass crime family]], [[TheMenInBlack Myriad]], and [[AncientOrderOfProtectors the Circle of Knowledge]]. At best, they're all morally ambiguous.
46	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: ''Remarkably'' common in the series.
47	** Victims of The Juice Box get crushed by a DescendingCeiling.
48	** Those infected with the Number Plague engage in obsessive, often-graphic manners before violently killing themselves in the most readily available way possible.
49	** The silver balls find new hosts by slicing into the backs of their necks, ripping out their spinal column, and burying into their brains.
50	* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: While not explicitly stated, none of the cyborgs we see in the series seem particularly friendly. Oddly, this may not apply to the silver balls, as [[spoiler: John Lee Pettimore]] doesn't seem out-and-out evil.
51	* DontLookAtMe: The Residue apparently only attacks people who look at it.
52	* EldritchAbomination: The black goo, aka "The Residue," has supernatural power and some form of consciousness.
53	* EldritchLocation: Whatever the magic camera takes photos of, it appears to be this. Given that [[GladiatorGames the Scrap Pit]] appears to exist outside of time, it may also count as a rather strange example.
54	* EmbarrassingInitials: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted.]] Both Calm Comfy Campground and the Contention Critter Coalition are spelled with the letter C.
55	* EmpoweredBadassNormal:
56	** Oz "Mayhem" Wolf is a cage fighter involved with the Glass crime family, who displays no explicit signs of superpowers. In at least one fight, he's equipped with technology that boosts his prodigious strength to superhuman capacity.
57	** As time goes on, the player characters start to show signs of this.
58	* EnfantTerrible: While growing up in Calm Comfy Campground, [[spoiler: Maggie Cook]] was this.
59	* DescendingCeiling: The Juice Box uses one of these to act as "human garlic press".
60	* FishPeople: They work for Marvin Glass as security.
61	* {{Fratbro}}: Brett, the strange young man in the Glass compound, dresses and acts like the douchiest of frat-boy stereotypes. He is also apparently an experiment by the Glass Syndicate's scientific crew to do...something.
62	* FreakyFridayFlip: A magical radio in the series has the ability to swap minds between two bodies.
63	* GambitPileup: There are, at minimum, three [[TheConspiracy shadowy organizations]] in the series, each with their own plans and motivations. In the middle of this there are three nimrods who are trying to figure it all out. This trope is inevitable.
64	* GoMadFromTheRevelation: As fitting for a Delta Green game. Most notably, Alfred Glass was rendered a blubbering idiot after seeing...[[NoodleIncident something involving John Peters' gun]].
65	* GoodIsNotNice: While it's hard to say which, if any, major players are truly good in this series, it would be easier to count the people who are both good and nice.
66	** [[TheChosenOne Ferguson Beans]] is described as "trying to help the world out in his own way," but also as "a [[{{Jerkass}} "total dick."]]
67	** Clark Bishop may be a mostly-upstanding person, but his HairTriggerTemper often leads him to erratic, violent behavior. His prior traumas don't help.
68	* GoodOlBoy: John Lee Pettimore IV, along with his extensive (and potentially slightly inbred) family.
69	* HangingJudge: Judge Ephraim Courtland turned into this after the death of his wife.
70	* HistoricalDomainCharacter
71	** Ursula, one of the witches in Marvin Glass' compound, is Ursula Kemp, of the [[http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Phil%20281b/Philosophy%20of%20Magic/Arcana/Witchcraft%20and%20Grimoires/wcwe/wcwe08.htm St. Osyth witches]]. The historical account is also quoted in-show.
72	** American politicians Paul Simon and Robert Byrd are mentioned as playing a role in the Circle of Knowledge.
73	* HorrorHost: Wolf the Dog serves this role fairly well.
74	* HumanNotepad:
75	** The player characters are branded with the names of various characters, which are crossed off as they go through different time loops.
76	** John Peters has the word "FOOL" branded on his forehead. This is also branded on [[spoiler: the version of Keith that went back in time. Germaine Glass, by contrast, has the word "FRIEND" branded on his forehead]].
77	* HumanoidAbomination:
78	** Marvin Glass is demonstrably inhuman in his appearance, speech, and morality.
79	** His fellow [[TheMenInBlack men in black]] also fit the bill.
80	** As the podcast progresses, [[spoiler: John and Clark]] both seem to take on traits of this.
81	* HumongousMecha: Planet Juggernaut
82	* {{Jerkass}}
83	** Francis Beans is not merely a {{Sadist}}, she's also an unrepentant asshole.
84	** [[HangingJudge Judge Ephraim Courtland]] has no sense of decorum [[ThePigPen or hygiene]].
85	* IBangedYourMom: [[{{Jerkass}} Ferguson Beans]] paid the mother of Bruce Robin, his colleague, for sex so that he could tell him this. It ended poorly.
86	* InelegantBlubbering: Early in the campaign, the Contention boys utterly fail at most of their rolls to pursue a potential lead, culminating in Clark [[EpicFail flying a drone into himself]]. Faced with their own incompetence, they decide to sit down on the sidewalk, sobbing.
87	* JumpScare: Elevated to an art form by the podcast. [[spoiler: Marvin Glass]] is quite fond of them.
88	* {{Kaiju}}: The Gigantumbrapithecus is difficult to describe, other than the fact that it's huge.
89	* KudzuPlot: The campaign is decidedly non-linear, has multiple parties with their own shadowy intentions, and surrounds mysteries of world-ending proportions. A tangled, perplexing plot line is less of a bug and more of a feature.
90	* LargeHam: A number of [=NPCs=] fit the bill.
91	** [[NoIndoorVoice Dave from Akron]]
92	** [[LargeHamAnnouncer Mick and Nick Nickles]]
93	* LargeHamAnnouncer: Mick and Nick Nickles from [[GladiatorGames The Scrap Pit]].
94	* LargeHamRadio: Radio DJ Wolf the Dog is decidedly larger-than-life.
95	* LighterAndSofter: The Contention Creek Critter Coalition arc features adorable animals on a mission to rescue Keith's dog. Only one person dies in the game itself, and the ending is [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] instead of a TotalPartyKill.
96	* MadeOfIron
97	** The cyborgs in the series are able to take a ''lot'' of punishment.
98	** Clark Bishop eventually gets a buff to his toughness after [[spoiler: dying]].
99	* MadScientist: Silas Cole, the founder of Contention, was both a brilliant inventor and a paranoid madman.
100	* MechanicalAbomination: The small silver balls found in the series are sentient, inexplicable, incredibly violent, and [[spoiler: are inhabited by human-like consciousnesses which allow them to pilot their victims]].
101	* MechanicalMonster: The aforementioned balls may also be this, as the precise natures of some balls' agendas or powers are unknown.
102	* TheMenInBlack: Agents of [[TheConspiracy Myriad]] are often dressed in black suits. They also possess [[HumanoidAbomination translucent skin, bizarre warbling voices, and eldritch power]].
103	* MindControlDevice: The Circle of Knowledge uses a dart gun with a toxin that makes its victim extremely suggestible. It appears to be derived from a pheromone produced by the flowers growing in The City.
104	* MindVirus: The Number Plague appears to transfer itself via perception, whereupon it begins manipulating the victim's behavior, ultimately [[PsychicAssistedSuicide culminating in their death]].
105	* MobileSuitHuman: Victims of the silver balls become this. By extension, [[spoiler: John Lee Pettimore IV]] is one such example.
106	* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Dr. Wormfingers, a MadScientist working for Marvin Glass.
107	* MoodWhiplash: The show often veers wildly from [[NightmareFuel horrific imagery]] from the GM to irreverent humor from the players themselves.
108	* NoIndoorVoice: [[LargeHam Dave from Akron]].
109	* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Francis Beans has a solid grasp on medicine, cybernetics, the supernatural, and eldritch math. She presumably learned these from her likewise-omnidisciplanry teacher, Dr. Wormfingers.
110	* PhlebotinumRebel: Marvin Glass was once a member of [[TheMenInBlack Myriad]], but turned against them out of a combination of boredom and spite.
111	* PhysicalGod: Whatever Wolf the Dog may be, he is quite powerful.
112	* ThePigPen
113	** Wolf the Dog is also quite enthusiastic about the contents of dumpsters, dirt-covered mushrooms, and anything that has a goodly amount of "stank" on it.
114	** Judge Ephraim Courtland never bathes, never cleans, and will gladly wear a hat that has been repeatedly used as a vomit receptacle.
115	* PsychicAssistedSuicide: Victims of the Number Plague begin engaging in bizarre, obsessive behaviors, then begin chanting, then kill themselves with whatever is most convenient.
116	* {{Sadist}}: Marvin Glass and Francis Beans take great delight in hurting others.
117	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: This appears to be the motivation of [[TheChosenOne the Overseer]].
118	* SmallRoleBigImpact: John Peters' actions in the series appear to consist of going into a coma, having visions of the future, racking up massive gambling debts, and stealing from major players in the world. We only see him after he dies, and yet he sets up a sizable chunk of the game's subplots.
119	* SpannerInTheWorks
120	** The Contention boys are probably a major example of this. Due to a combination of supernatural aid, personal motivations, and [[EpicFail sheer incompetence]], they tend to mess up a number of peoples' plans.
121	** John Peters appears to have been this as well. His actions kicked off a better chunk of the events in the series, which as of now resulted in the death of Marvin.
122	* TheSociopath
123	** Ann Love, aka "Agent Karen" is a constantly-smiling, unrepentant murderer whose gleeful, magically-enhanced slayings of others actively undermine missions she's on.
124	** Marvin Glass is a {{Sadist}} with a distinct LackOfEmpathy, who claims to have turned against [[TheConspiracy Myriad]] due to a combination of boredom and his disdain for taking orders.
125	* SoulJar: The Balls can contain human consciousness and animate the bodies they possess. [[spoiler: John Lee Pettimore IV]] is shown to be one such person.
126	* SpookyPhotographs: Whatever the Camera takes photos of, it's both otherworldly and unpleasant.
127	* StableTimeLoop: The series features several. One is keeping the player characters alive. [[spoiler:Clark Bishop and Keith Vigna use them to their own ends.]]
128	* StraightGay: Gary Daley and Harry Clinker, owners of the Daley Pho and Clinker's (a bar and day care), are long-time partners.
129	* SuperMobBoss: Marvin Glass
130	* ThemeTune: Most episodes use Kudzu's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzn0nhY2xSc "No Backbone"]] as their theme.
131	* TotalPartyKill: As befitting a game based on Call of Cthulhu
132	** The Contention Woods story arc ends in the deaths, [[CruelAndUnusualDeath and largely horrific ones at that,]] of the intrepid teenagers.
133	** The Numbers Plague arc ends in a similar fashion. [[StableTimeLoop they got better]].
134	** The Old Contention story arc ends with one player character dying horribly and the others being banished to a strange, infinite void.
135	* VoidBetweenTheWorlds: There appears to be a vast extraplanar space of inky nothingness in the world that exists outside of time. The Camera appears to be able to take [[SpookyPhotographs photographs]] of it.
136	* WasOnceAMan:
137	** Doug Jacobs and Agent Trent Chad were both transplanted into the body of Salem, a house cat.
138	** An agent of K-Cell was turned into a raccoon at one point.
139	** Other creatures in the podcast are implied to be examples of this, particularly [[HumanoidAbomination agents of Myriad and Marvin Glass]].
140	* WeaksauceWeakness: The Residue can be repelled by water. What's more, it can be absorbed and contained by vacuum cleaners and fish.
141	* WellIntentionedExtremist: The Circle of Knowledge's leadership can ''generously'' be described as this.
142	* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Agent Kennedy of the [=FBI=] uses a bad Irish accent when first meeting our heroes. She soon drops it.
143	* WouldHurtAChild: Strange armies of children feature prominently in the series. They serve as goons, participants in rituals, contestants in blood sports, and test subjects for fatal experiments.
144	* WretchedHive:
145	** The [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Den of Sin]], a social club/sporting arena for The City's rich and powerful, fits this to a T.
146	** To a lesser extent, the Scrap Pit serves as a coliseum catering to a more general audience.

Context Podcast / PretendingToBePeople