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[bdun140]

I was visited by a dream last night. A dream of dumbass robots. The Mechsploitation Mech, a triply fucked hybrid of an Evangellion and an Armored Core, is sitting like a gargoyle with its butt on the ground and its hands between its feet. A gaggle of significantly less advanced and consequently less humanoid mechs are surrounding it. They each only come up to about its midsection despite it sitting down.

Chicken Tank: Ooh, nice missile pods you got there, what's the range on them bad boys?

Buggernaut: Hope they can make some tight turns, what with all that jump jetting around. Seriously, you'd think they were air-force! Sometimes, you just gotta plant your feet in the dirt and remind the other guy who owns said dirt!

God's Angriest Forklift: Bet they're helpful for getting up close and personal! Look at those CLAWS! What wouldn't give to have had some of those when I was starting out... Kids these days don't know how good they got it!

Gun On Stilts: I dunno if good is the word I'd use maaaaaaaaan... Them combat stims, they mess you UP, I swear... They just don't teach people how to get into the flow state naturally. Shortcuts man, gotta ask what you're losing as well as what you're gaining.

Mr. Bucket: If it gets the job done, it gets the job done. Hey, not to harsh the vibe or anything, but am I the only one wondering what a piece of tech this advanced is doing, out here in the middle of bumblefuck, nowhere?

Rescue Sled: Eh, probably above our paygrade. Now what I'm wondering is, how do you fix those joints if they get hit by shrapnel? Field repairs are always a bitch, and that's with normal tech instead of whatever this is running on.

OSHA Man: While we're asking questions, anybody know what comms channel our new friend here is on? They haven't said a word this whole time... They OK in there?

Waddle-Yeet: The Major'll be 'ere in five, we can make it 'is problem. This yahoo got a unit patch or anyfin'?

Armor Thicker Than Yer Mum: This is Lieutenant Major Findley. I am clamped to the exterior of the super heavy transport and have eyes on your location. What. In god's holy name. Have you gagglefucks done this time. (image credit goes here)

[bdun140]

So 2 separate people now have commented on my last thing asking for more, and that's kind of a problem because there *is* more, but it's being written by other, vastly more talented people. Fucked Up Shitcan Mechs With Fucked Up Child Soldier Pilots Contrasted Against Literally A Super Robot is the work of @punkitt-is-here and can be found under the tag "Flowersteel". It gives the poor murderous traumaball an entire squadron of barely functional human weapons, and basically does everything I spoke about but way better. Well Beloved Rustbucket Mech With Space Hillbilly Pilot Contrasted Against Bastard Lovechild Of An EVA Unit And An Armored Core is the work of @yadanathreefour but cannot be found on their tumblr as it was originally posted to Twitter (which is why I will now be posting a bunch of it here). They have some cool worldbuilding, but no word yet on what the mechs were doing when they crossed paths, or if the less advanced mech is working as part of a squadron. Which is a shame, because I appear to have become faintly obsessed with the Giant Robot equivalent of Lightning McQueen winding up in Radiator Springs.

I *very desperately* want to believe that The Eisenhower has a bunch of goofatronic buddies.

Look at this shit. LOOK AT THIS SHIT. I WANT TO SEE THESE GUYS, PLUS LADYBUG, MR BUCKET, AND GODS ANGRIEST FORKLIFT, PILOTED BY A BUNCH OF SPACE HILLBILLIES WITH WW2 PINUP ART AND SARCASTIC BUMBER STICKERS. GIVE THIS TO ME. PLEASE.

[bdun140]

Divergent Evolution

So I literally did not give a shit about Mechsploitation until a little under 12 hours ago, when I was exposed to the above picture for the first time. For reasons unknown to man or beast, my brain immediately placed it in contrast to the below picture, which I had been exposed to some time previously.

And I am just. Fucking. FACINATED by the contrast in tone and assumption, on whether or not having the less humanoid mech is a good thing or a bad thing. Above: Less humanoid mech has less stable pilot, more humanoid mech has more stable pilot. The less humanoid mech is disposable, expendable, dehumanized in the eyes of both commander above and enemy ahead. A pawn, a less even than a dog, an unusually expensive bullet you fire at the enemy and maybe get back in order to fire at the enemy a second time. The more humanoid mech, in stark contrast, is vibrant and colorful and expressive and alive, ready to fight with everything it's got to give this story a happy ending, even if reality itself has to get punched in the face for that to happen. An idealist, one willing and able to stare a cruel and unjust world in the face and refuse to bend before it. Their dynamic can be summarized by that one scene from Star Wars TCW, where the clone trooper says, "We're meant to be expendable" and the jedi unflinchingly and without a moment's hesitation replies, "Not to me." And then the giant enemy flying battleship or whatever the fuck gets taken apart like a video game boss. Below: Less humanoid mech has less fucked up pilot, more humanoid mech has more fucked up pilot. Technological sophistication and battlefield lethality come at a heavy cost to the fucked up pilot. Blurring the lines between flesh and metal to better end the lives of the foe, yet now the fragile creature of carbon and hydrogen is at risk of being devoured by the vaster edifice of steel and silicone. And then you have this clunker, this junker, this outdated rust bucket. This bargain bin basic bitch "battlemech" that none the less has seen more war and emerged on top so far. And in that time, so too has it seen more love, not the love that leads to two humans mashing genitals together, but the love of a gearhead for their ride, of a hunter for their rifle, of a musician for their instrument. The kind of affection for the inanimate that gets an object dubbed "Ol' Reliable". Their dynamic is that of a CAS fighter and a poor bloody infantryman, one staring up at the other in awe... Until the ace pilot gets shot down behind enemy lines, and right when it seems all is lost... They learn that this ground-pounder, this foot-slogger, this so called ally they never knew as anything but a voice on the other end of a radio and may not even remember saving one time or a hundred, has just DROPPED EVERYTHING and is now ON A RAMPAGE towards their location, whatever objective they were previously tasked with discarded in favor of a self-assigned rescue mission. And then the Even More Fucked Up Rival who's mech resembles a flayed corpse for some ungodly reason takes a 105 millimeter shell to the face. Possibly followed by someone who by all rights SHOULD be cannon fodder shouting "Get away from her you BITCH!" on an open comms channel.

[prokopetz]

Fantasy setting with magic neatly organised into elemental spheres, except each magic-using culture disagrees with all the others about what the primordial elements are, what their associations and correspondences are, and even how many of them there are. Spells always interact with other spells from the same magic system as though its elemental theory is complete, consistent, and correct, but when spells from two different magic systems come into contact it all goes a bit sideways, often in ways that require flowcharts to explain. Like, you think Ground Type vs. Rock Type is bad? There are five separate, mutually exclusive spheres of magic all called "Fire". The Sylvan Confederacy's "Water" magic explodes on contact with the Empire of the Five Pillars' "Water" magic and nobody knows why.

[prokopetz]

Addendum: we are explicitly not allowed to make this into one of those "reality is secretly determined via mass consensus and each culture's magic only works that way because they foolishly believe it does" deals. That's been done to death, and having a secret unified theory that tidily explains everything but only the super special protagonists are allowed to know about is frankly trite. We can do better!

[bdun140]

Sorry boss. Best I can do is "There is in fact a super secret unified theory, but it's secret for some GOOD FUCKING REASONS, including but not necessarily limited to, practitioners having a greatly elevated risk of exploding into demons like the Psykers from WH40k, which makes it exclusive domain of the antagonists rather than the protagonists".

[oifaaa]

How about the first time Jedi Padme ever laid eyes on Senator Anakin 

(Request 5/5)

[bdun140]

So it’s 5 in the morning and I have multiple chores I’m putting off doing but FUCK IT WE BALL. I was introduced to this AU by someone in a star-wars adjacent Discord server a while ago, and while going through my old posts in said server I found the following: >I enjoy the idea that Senator Skywalker is actually capable of subtlety and decorum, he just chooses to be a bull in a china shop 90% of the time to make people underestimate him. Like, he knows for a fact there is some fuckery going on in the background to take a former(?) slave from the sandblasted, poverty stricken, mad max-ian hellhole that is Tatooine, and then put them in The Galactic Fucking Senate. Thus, he is bound and determined to slip whatever chains have been placed upon him in the process of elevating him to this position, and possibly from there do some actual good for his home planet. [4:01 PM] Longer people think he's an idiot, the longer people look upon him as some backwoods barbarian, the longer people don't take him seriously, the more time he has to start unraveling this tangled web of conspiracy and intrigue he's been dropped headfirst into with far less preperation than he would have prefered. (edited) Seeing that, I decided to find out if the artist of this work did any other works for this AU, and not to put too fine a point on it, they did. And honestly, that just makes it even more likely that there is Some Fuckery going on to get Anakin to the senate, because if that work takes place in the same continuity as this one, then the Hutts probably want Annie boy up there eleven different kinds of dead. If my brain could brain gud for more than fine minutes, I might write something about this. But, alas.

EDIT: I should be going the fuck to bed but it occurs to me that the 90% figure may be a bit high. Sometimes he’s doing it on purpose, but other times he’s doing it because he’s genuinely like that, and trying to figure out which is which drives people up the damn wall.

EDIT 2: So apparently the person I rebloged wasn’t the only person to have the idea but I can’t fucking find the exact piece of art and I SHOULD FUCKING BE IN BED NOW WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME but fuck it have another link I’ll find the thing and reblog it in it’s own thing tomorrow. Maybe. Probably not.

[prokopetz]

Let’s see what the old Steam recommendation queue thinks it’s going to sell me today.

[prokopetz]

Insightful as always.

[prokopetz]

Lily is Girls with the Ability

They Fight Again

This is a game about girls with the ability. You will take on the role of a girl with the ability, and explore the fundamental tension of being a girl with the ability.

Character Creation

You are a girl with the ability.

Choose a Number. Your Number must be in the range from 2 to 5, inclusive.

A low Number means that you’re better at solving problems with girl. A high Number means that you’re better at solving problems with the ability.

Decide what kind of girl you are, and give her a name.

After all players have created their girls, collectively decide on the nature of the ability.

Playing the Game

When you encounter adversity, decide which of the following approaches you intend to use to overcome it:

girl

the ability

Pick up one six-sided die (d6), plus an extra die for each of the following conditions:

You’re prepared

You’re an expert

You have help (see below)

Roll your dice, and compare them to your Number:

If you’re relying on girl as your approach, dice that roll over your Number are successes

If you’re relying on the ability, dice that roll under your Number are successes

0 successes: It all goes wrong somehow, and things get worse. 1 success: You get what you want, at a cost. 2 successes: You pull it off without a hitch. 3+ successes: You do it and get an extra benefit!

If any of your dice roll your Number exactly, you momentarily achieve a perfect synthesis of girl and the ability. Describe one thing that changes about the current situation as a result of your new insight; whatever you describe is true, regardless of whether your roll succeeded or failed. Afterwards, you may adjust your Number by one point in either direction, if you wish; the same minimum and maximum values that applied during character creation apply here.

Helping

If you want to help someone, describe how you’re helping and roll for it. If the person you’re helping is a player character, and you scored at least one success, they count has having help on their next roll.

License

Lily is Girls with the Ability is based on Lasers & Feelings by John Harper, and is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

[prokopetz]

@macer84 replied:

What the FUCK did I just read?

A relatively conventional example of a one-page tabletop RPG.

[bdun140]

I swear to god this is not the first time I’ve encountered this concept. There was one where the aspects were “Horny” and “Viking”, and another, significantly more interesting one where the aspects were “Anything that involves inflicting physical violence on a person or object” and “Anything not covered by the previous”, with the additional caveat that your character’s number would move in the direction of being better at violence as they got increasingly pissed off over things. Another reason this second one was the more interesting of the two was that your number would be represented by sticks of bubblegum, and when it hit zero, your character was, officially, drumroll please... All Outta Bubblegum. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du5YK5FnyF4&ab_channel=Movieclips

[tainbocuailnge]

like the thing with senator armstrong that makes him so iconic and dare i say realistic even though he only has like one scene and spends it throwing cars at a cyborg ninja is that he correctly identified the symptoms - modern media and consumerist culture is geared towards providing an endless stream of bullshit that doesn’t matter in order to distract the masses and keep them complacent - but because he never actually struggled a day in his life he’s completely wrong about what it’s a symptom of, and therefore, what the solution is. everyone is fucking sick of late stage capitalism! it’s not meant to actually benefit anything other than the line that shows the profits going up and even this guy at the top of the food chain thinks its a load of shit. armstrong and raiden actually agree on that part. but raiden is the saddest wettest most pathetic poor little meow meow who suffered every possible crime against humanity as well as being forced to perpetuate those crimes himself so he correctly identifies that the media spectacle is meant to distract from the blood of the weak that oils the machines while armstrong thinks it’s meant to distract the strong from the fact that they could totally kill people with their bare hands and only pussies rely on the machine to squeeze the blood out of the weak. which makes him fucking insane! and at the same time an incredibly real portrayal of the way upper class white men feel alienated by the system built from the ground up to benefit them and radicalise into being batshit insane precisely because the system has always benefited them but they’re still unsatisfied so instead of continuing to adhere to the rules of this alienating society they think the world should just be a complete free for all in which they’ll surely still come out on top. and even though he absolutely and undeniably is a villain, when he’s screaming “fuck the internet fuck the 24/7 stream of internet celebrity bullshit fuck all of this” you still wanna scream it with him because we all hate it here

[bdun140]

Jesus fucking Christ why does this make so much sense

[prokopetz]

I love how wholeheartedly the composers for the various Kirby games believe that King Dedede is the biggest badass in the universe.

This is King Dedede:

This is the music that plays when you fight King Dedede:

And this isn’t just an artefact of the latest game in the series. King Dedede’s battle anthems are literally always like this.

[bdun140]

I have literally never posted on tumblr before but I absolutely need to comment on this. From the Dark Matter Trilogy onwards, our pink puffball has, with disturbing regularity, thrown down with planet killing abominations and come out on top. Kirby: Star Allies in particular implies that the reason Kirby is able to do this (and the reason Kirby is Like That just in general) is that our gluttonous friend is in fact an infant version of SOMETHING with similarly cataclysmic potential. Dedede, meanwhile, is literally some guy from planet Popstar. That’s it. No hidden legacy, no secret power. Just some dude, who has been training his ass off to try and keep up with his friend/rival. Who, as previously mentioned, may or may not be a round, pink, eldritch abomination. The fact that Dedede is strong enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Kirby is a spectacular accomplishment, and his royal majesty’s theme song can go as hard as it damn well pleases.