Not today Justin
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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Xuebing Du
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occasionally subtle
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trying on a metaphor
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hello vonnie
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@beboped1
BLACKTOBER POKÉMON GIJINKA COLLECTION PT.1 @PINALAFLAME
#digitalart #artistsoninstagram #illustration #procreate #blacktober #art #blackart #animanga #pokemon #pokemongijinka #gijinka #blackartist #canadian #anime #manga #blackgirlmagic #fanart
no nuance you have to decide
would jeeves have succumbed to the one ring?
no, he would diminish and go into the west and remain a valet
yes, he can't resist such power (burn bertie's ugliest trousers)
the ring has no effect on him, tom bombadil style
4 days left in the most important 'thoughts had just before going to sleep' poll I've ever made
"Well, Jeeves," I said, "That seems to be that."
"A consummation greatly desired," Jeeves agreed.
"The forces of darkness vanquished, the rightful king upon his throne, and all that. And, even more importantly, Tuppy Glossop disengaged from that horsy female and returned to the bosom of my cousin Angela."
"Indeed, sir."
"Rather a shock running into the Reverend Aubry Upjohn riding that fell beast, what?"
"I though you displayed great alacrity in relocating to that ditch in the nick of time, sir."
Far below us, the molten lava did a rather spirited impersonation of boiling soup. I mopped the p. off the b. with a handkerchief I'd improvised from an orc loincloth. I had been to some deuced uncomfortable country estates in my time, don't you know, but at least there one had been able to toddle downstairs and pour oneself a quick W. and S. as needed to stiffen the sinews. Galadriel's Buck-U-Uppo was excellent at vitalizing the limbs to forge on the last dreadful mile and all that, but it lacked the comfort that speaks to the soul.
I contemplated the glowing river. "Redirecting the army of Aunts to that Isengard place was a stroke of brilliance, I thought."
"You are too kind, sir."
"Still, all things must end, as they say. Travel is broadening to the mind and all, but it is past time to attend the call of heart and home. Among other considerations, I think something took residence inside this mithril shirt somewhere around the Morgul Vale and has been wandering about biting hither and thither ever since, and I am filled with the desire to strip it off and do battle with the blighted thing."
"Understandable, sir."
"I heard rather a good one the other day: Sing hey! for the bath at close of day that washes the weary mud away! -and by Jove if I don't think they were on to something, Jeeves."
"It is undeniably felicitous to be surrounded by the comforts of home," he assented, and yet I couldn't escape a certain sense of firmness about his gaze.
I sighed, for I knew what he wanted. Well, I mean, I'm all for taking a firm stance and not being trodden on in one's own home and all, but as far as rallying around to save the young master goes, none could have rallied more greatly than Jeeves. If a little firmness was the price I had to pay, well, so be it.
Slowly I undid the old school tie from around my neck. It was harder work than one would have thought; as if it could hear what was rattling around in the old brain, the ring that was threaded on it put in a last surge of effort in the gleaming and enticement department, filling my mind with heady visions: Freddie Widgeon gnashing his teeth as I sank yet another dart into the bullseye, Aunt Agatha wreathed in tears and begging my forgiveness for ever having misjudged me, Jeeves gazing admiringly as I displayed my newest waistcoat for his edification…
It was the last that broke the spell. Cursed objects of all-consuming power were all well and good in their sphere, but there were limits, don't you know? And yet I hesitated. "You don't think I could slip it on and just have a quick total domination of the world before I toddle around to the Drones for a stiff one?"
Jeeves gave a gentle cough of reproof. "I think you will find it for the best, sir."
It was a wrench, but one could not deny the man had earned it. With a heavy hand, I held the ring out to him. "Take it, then. You will know what do with it, I'm sure."
He took it from me with the sort of shimmer that showed he was exceptionally gratified. "Thank you, sir."
I watched as the ring fell from his hand into the depths below. It hit the lava and rested there for a moment before slowly sinking beneath the glowing surface, and as they caught fire I almost felt that the Old Etonian colors glowed brighter in approval. That Wooster, they seemed to say: not much in the brains department, but he gets the job done.
Outside, there came a hideous wailing as of something ages old abruptly losing the power which bound it to this mortal plain and all that, which I took as our signal to leg it down the nearest drainpipe before things got sticky. The road goes ever on and on, what? Yet I paused there, at the end of all things, because some things have to be said.
"No, thank you, Jeeves."
THANK YOU for understanding the assignment, bally good work, this.
@elodieunderglass I suspect you may enjoy this
Hahahaha; thanks @foxofninetales well done!
i dont consider myself a 'fashion guru' by any means but one thing i will say is guys you dont need to know the specific brand an item you like is - you need to know what the item is called. very rarely does a brand matter, but knowing that pair of pants is called 'cargo' vs 'boot cut' or the names of dress styles is going to help you find clothes you like WAAAYYYY faster than brand shopping
this also goes for aesthetic or -core titles. 'y2k tank top' is going to get you resellers and fast fashion brands advertising to people looking to meet a current trend. 'thin strap crop tank top' is going to get you a diverse group of results and not upcharge you to hell and back
additionally, shop second hand when you can, second hand and thrift sites typically organize clothes by the cut and color. theyll be more affordable than a depop seller curating you a style to sell you
useful terminology for different kinds of clothing shapes :)
here are more terms! these are all from enérie. it is a really good blog that has lots of fashion terminology and it's a good mix of menswear and womenswear! they also have a book as well compiling all their diagrams. you could also look into getting a visual fashion dictionary for terms as well!
Latest reblog reminds me of how much it pisses me the fuck off how every queer person alive has to adapt to the usamerican style of queerness lest we get shunned by the community for being too different. I bring this up a lot but bro that time I got death threats for having ele/dele in my bio bc "by using neopronouns I was making a mockery of REAL trans people" when those are literally just my pronouns in my native language, and when I said that I got hit w the "well you're on the internet so speak english" I HATE GRINGOS I HATE GRINGOS I HATE GRINGOS
I feel the need to miss out a crucial detail I missed out in this post I made out of anger, and no, it doesn't add any silver linings or good context, it honestly only serves to make it worse.
In portuguese, much like spanish, we have no gender neutral pronouns. People who do not use ele/dele and ela/dela (he/him or she/her) all use whatever neopronoun suits them best in portuguese (ie elu/delu, eli/deli) because we have no access to a universal gender neutral pronoun like gringos do. When I brought this up upon them making fun of my "neopronouns", they said to suck it up, and that being foreign does not make neos valid.
In mocking people who use neopronouns in english, you are mocking a very large sum of latin american genderqueer and trans people.
I know various latin language speakers that struggle with their identities in their native tongue due to us not having they/them equivalents, so they are forced to let go of their, in example, brazilian queerness, to appease to anglos who would harass them and call them mockeries of trans people for not sticking to what The Cis want.
When non-anglos tell you the usamerican and british dominance over queer spaces ruins things for them, they mean it. We are forced to repress our identites because you people think they're too "out there and problematic". We are forced to suppress our own queer culture because we don't fit into your neat little boxes of what makes someone gay what makes someone a lesbian what makes someone trans or what makes someone anything else.
You tell us to remember "our queer elders", but do you know of any queer latin american figures? We learn your history, and you refuse to learn ours because you already have "too much on your plate". You disregard us and shame us for not fitting your ideals of queerness and using labels for ourselves you dislike, and try to baby us and tell us the proper way to be gay.
Your culture is not universal.
You are not saving queer people by making jabs at other queer people you don't personally get. Odds are you are harming an entire group of foreign queers you never bothered to consider, because your anglo bubble is too self important.
If you want to do queer people a real favour instead of getting mad at identities that existed long before you were even born, here. Make yourself useful. Donate to queer brazilian housing and support programs. Your beloved dollar is worth a lot more than the Real. Even five dollars help.
Casa Um
Eternamente Sou
Transviver
Hey man reblog this version instead lol
ik "dont assume my gender" is a joke phrase (it shouldnt be) but goddamn some people have got to remember that there are people who look like cis men out there who are not in fact cis men or men at all
and yes: this applies to people who look like cis women too. there are a lot of people who look identical to cis women, who are not cis women, or women at all.
i'm adding this because i've gotten a lot of tags saying this. the reason my original post only said cis men was because i was talking about myself, someone who looks like a cis man but is neither cis nor a man
Collecting books is great until you have to move all of them at once and realize that every one of the little bastards weigh about as much as a brick and collectively have the mass of a neutron star
Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.
Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.
(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)
Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.
All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.
I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.
Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.
And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.
Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.
I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.
Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.
No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.
This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.
In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.
At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.
I think the least we can do is remember them for it.
I can’t begin to describe how happy and flattered and a little teary I am that this just broke 100k.
I may be the actual only human being on Tumblr with a post this popular that I not only don’t regret making, but am actually HAPPY whenever I notice a surge in its circulation.
I never intended this to gain any traction at all (you’ll notice there’s no sources or anything–this was a personal ramble, prompted in good humor by a friend after I jokingly said that I wished someone would give me an excuse to cry about Carpathia on Tumblr so I could get it out of my system.) I literally expected to get, like, maybe 20 likes and a reblog, from friends, indulging me in my nonsense.
It just….means a lot to me that it’s touched so many people. I see a lot of tags to the effect of “HOW DARE YOU HURT ME LIKE THIS AND MAKE ME CRY ABOUT A BOAT” that are often really funny, but overwhelmingly the tags on this post are from people saving it for a rainy day, or remarking in a sort of quiet awe that they never even really thought about her role in the story–and God knows I never did, I learned it by complete accident much as most of the people who’ve found this post.
And so many of you guys are taking strength and reassurance from the reminder not only that people are capable of amazing things together, but simply that kindness matters and that a simple, tiny act of compassion is never wasted. I’m just really glad to have been able to do that for some folks.
If I can just add one personal note. I need to emphasize something I only touched on in the original post.
I need to emphasize that Carpathia failed.
A lot of the tags and comments have a tinge of…despair, or guilt, or wistfulness about things like this happening so rarely. Or inadequacy, or just being overwhelmed or unhappy about not being in a position to step up in a comparable way. And I want to gently bring up the fact that this is still the sinking of the Titanic.
They did not get there in time. They did not save the ship. It can be argued that they may not even have saved a single life; we have no way of knowing. This was still a horrific maritime disaster mired in arrogance and incompetence and a lack of care.
If the response to this story shows anything, it shows this: It matters that they tried.
Even though they got there too late, even though the ship still sank. It matters that they tried. The difference between making the best reasonable speed after confirming the seriousness of the situation, and the miracle they pulled off–it matters. It makes all the difference. Even if it made no difference at all. Not one of you read this and concluded that I was stupid for caring so much when the Titanic still sank and all those people still died.
You don’t have to fix the world. You’ll likely be cold and sick and miserable and testy and scared, and unprepared, and in over your head, and entirely too small to be of any real use. It feels stupid, passing out blankets and coffee in the middle of an ice field knowing what just happened. It’s hard to feel anything but useless when all you can do is tap a wireless transmitter and promise help that you know will come too late.
It matters that they fought for those people. It matters that they cared, and it matters that they tried. It matters that they didn’t stop. If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have read this far.
You know. I reblog this everytime it crops up on my dash. I love the story.
But here and now I feel it’s more important than normal to remember that, like OP says, even though they failed, what matters is THEY TRIED.
noticing that for mono relationships you hear stuff like "they weren't right for each other" or "it just didn't work out" but for poly relationships it's always "this is why I could never do polyamory"
okay good, not just me then
🚌Presenting the BRAND-NEW season - Dimension 20: On a Bus!
DM'd by Katie Marovitch, and as players: Aabria Iyengar, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Jasmine Bhullar, and Mark Mercer!
Watch the full episode here
I don't think I can overstate the depth of impact trans women have had on indie ttrpgs.
What is the impact? I don't doubt it I just don't know it as I'm relatively new to the hobby. I'd love to hear if you have anything to share!
Hello! I feel like the best way I know how to answer this question is in the form of a recommendation list, so hold onto your hats! Below is a list of trans-feminine creators whose work has changed the hobby for the better, adding insights, games and contributions that challenge, inspire, and uplift everyone who participates in the community.
A clarification: Not all of the people I've listed here specifically identify as trans women, but I'm fairly confident that the folks I've listed can resonate with transfeminine experience. Gender's a fun playspace that doesn't have solid barriers, and in my list of trailblazers there are people who align more closely with a non-binary gender or no gender at all. Regardless, I think it's beautiful that so many trans creators have had the ability to flourish in the design space, and leave a lasting mark, and first and foremost, the goal of this list is to honor and celebrate that.
snow
snow has quite a significant games catalogue, her two most notable games being .dungeon and Songbirds 3e.
The original game of .dungeon is about characters (and the people that play them) living in an MMORPG. It's described by Spencer Campbell as a classic dungeon crawler that's incredibly meta, a game that well, talks about games and what they mean to the people that play them. As a result, loss isn't just represented in hit points - it's represented in your ability to continue playing the game with your friends. Both the original and the remastered version put a lot of emphasis on making the game easy to learn, especially with the tutorial adventure that is the first thing you read in the remastered version.
Songbirds 3e is an OSR-inspired game that synthesises ideas from places such as Breath of the Wild, Dune, Dragon Ball, Disco Elysium, Fallout New Vegas, Into the Odd, and much much more. This game is consistently praised for its content more than anything else; the weird and fantastical, the depth of the lore, and the themes of movement between death and life. The setting is full of dungeons, but it's not necessarily fantasy; there's modern technology, shopping malls, basements, paintings, and strange growths in the wilderness that can all be dungeons. (Snow's kind of known for showing how anything can become a dungeon.)
I personally appreciate the game theory playlist that snow put together on Youtube. Most of the videos on this list are not about ttrpgs. But the thoughts put forward in these essays are really interesting, highlighting themes and mechanics in other media, including video games and music, that prompt you to re-contextualize and draw from the subjects of the videos in your game design.
Snow's work asks you to push fantasy far past the limits of typical sword and sorcery games, and challenges you to think about how to blend and mix genres into new and flavorful combinations.
Jenna Katerin Moran. @jennamoran
Jenna Katerin Moran is a prolific author, who has written for Steve Jackson Games and White Wolf, but some of her prominent works include Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, Nobilis, and The Far Roofs.
Nobilis is a diceless game about people who are personifications of concepts; it's abstract, and pulls from modern mythology in a way that feels historied and yet new. Many of the reviews about this game praise its text and writing, while also admitting that it can be a terribly difficult game to pull off, because, for a 'narrative-style game', it's incredibly dense. In 2003, the 2nd edition of this game won the Diana Jones' Award for Excellence in Gaming.
Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine, like Nobilis, is diceless, and like Nobilis, is set in the same game universe. Where Nobilis is grand and sweeping, Chuubo's small-town and slice-of-life, using character quests and goals to drive players to figure out what they do next. Like Nobilis, Chuubo's has beautiful writing, that draws the reader into the world and gently asks them what they want. The genres and arcs of the game help players highlight the story pieces that mean the most to them, and serve as guideposts, making very clear to everyone around the table what kind of themes and narrative threads you want to play with.
The Far Roofs is Moran's newest game, a game about talking rats and the people who perhaps might have once been rats but are now heroes. It's an urban fantasy game that pits tiny creatures against moon-stealing monsters and dead gods.
Moran's work is beautiful and poetic, exploring fantastic and emotional worlds while proving that just because a game feels narrative doesn't mean it can't be just as complex as a tactical game. Her games ask you to think about the world your characters live in, not just the characters themselves, and in many ways I think it can be difficult to pin her work into one specific genre. Reading her work is rewarding even if playing the game is difficult; Moran's work touches your heart and asks you to walk away from your experience with a new perspective.
Jay Dragon, @jdragsky
I was gobsmacked to find out that Jay Dragon started publishing games one year after I discovered ttrpgs, because Wanderhome exploded onto the scene in a way that took the indie world by storm. Wanderhome looks like a cozy game on the cover, but buried inside its pages are themes of grief, trauma, and loss, in a world where the good guys didn't win. Wanderhome is a game about community, the journey between disconnected places, and a world where hospitality and the kindness of strangers can make a big difference in anyone's life.
Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, another game spearheaded by Dragon, takes away the option of creating your own character, and instead introduces the players to a vibrant cast of characters, asking you to place them into pre-written chapters of a piece of lost children's media, unlocking new content the longer you play the game. Similar to Wanderhome, Yazeba's is a game that can be played with a different play group every time; both of these games refrain from punishing players who can't make it to every session, while keeping the anticipation of wondering where each character is going to go next.
What I appreciate about Jay's work most of all is the consideration both of these games have for folks who have different gaming needs. Wanderhome and Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast reduce the barriers to play, from giving players the ability to step away from sessions without falling behind, to giving play options that allow players to participate in the practise of roleplaying without feeling the pressure to contribute to the story in the same way as everyone else.
Jay's most recent game, Seven Part Pact feels like a considerable step away from her previous work, I've already heard stories from play-testers about the ways the game affects them after they play it, particularly the strange trend of "wizard dreams." I'm curious to see where this game brings us once it's been published.
Avery Alder / Buried Without Ceremony
Avery Alder is the mind behind Monsterhearts, Dream Askew, and The Quiet Year, three games about community, queerness, and existence on the margins.
Apocalypse World is a game that introduced a whole new style of design to the indie scene, but Monsterhearts was the first game built on the Apocalypse Engine that proved that you didn't have to make the game about combat. Monsterhearts emphasized the personal conflict between characters that can be fruitful story seeds for roleplayers who truly feel fulfilled when their characters are emotionally backstabbing each-other. At the same time, the game was honoring media that was often derided due to the fact that it was loved by teenage girls - movies like Twilight, and monster romance fiction. Monsterhearts also took away a player's choice about who they were attracted to; being a game about teenage sexuality, it left attraction up to whatever happend when the dice hit the table, which, considering the way games can often be a way to explore identity, blew a lot of players' minds wide open.
The Quiet Year, and its partner, Deep Forest are GM-less map-making games that have provided the bones for various other map-making games. The games separate players from individual characters, instead asking you to introduce new people and make a few statements about them before handing them over to the table, their stories free for anyone to pick up and examine. Both of these games are about communities that are attempting to rebuild, and the obstacles & opportunities that stand in their way. One of the most poignant pieces of these games is the way that characters express dissent: if a character feels left out of a decision or harbors dissent, the player representing that character takes a Contempt token. These tokens give those characters justification for actions taken that harm the community as a whole, but they also sit as silent reminders to the entire table that the community is out of step with one-another; the lack of trust that can sit and simmer until it's too late.
Dream Askew is a product of the Powered by the Apocalypse design ethos, but re-contextualizes many of the processes into a new line of games, styled as Belonging Outside Belonging, or No Dice, No Masters. These games are known to typically be diceless and GM-less, with players taking ownership both of a major character as well as an element of the world they live in. This form of design democratizes decision-making at the table, both removing an element of power imbalance that exists at a GM-led table, as well as encouraging all of the players to contribute in similar ways. It gives players ownership over the setting, and invests the table heavily into the game.
Overall, Alder's design seems to prompt new ways of playing at the table, and her work is a priceless contribution to both storytelling-type games and GM-less tables. I'm personally touched by the ways her games aim to confront a sense of community and care even in moments where conflict isn't easy to navigate.
Jennell Jaquays
Jennell Jaquays is one of the early pioneers of games, known for both he work in ttrpgs and video games. Her work is a fundamental pillar of dungeon design, particularly her adventures titled The Caverns of Thracia Dark Tower, (adventure modules for D&D) and Griffin Mountain (for Chaosium's RuneQuest). Her dungeons exhibited a previously-unseen flexibility, and even gave birth to the term "Jaquaysing the dungeon", which referred to creating a dungeon that had multiple paths for players to follow, allowing a nonlinear progression. A dungeon with multiple pathways and entrances can be traversed multiple times over, with new layers and added complexity as the players grow in skill and knowledge.
Adventure modules in the OSR do this pretty much all the time now, but Jaquays is considered the godmother of the idea. The decision to give players options about what to tackle and what to avoid increases player agency and makes the game feel less scripted. While Jaquays passed away in 2024, her work leaves a legacy that has likely left an impact on any dungeon you pick up to play.
Adira Slattery
Adira's work is quintessentially indie, in that I feel that her games are made for her 30 sickos, and then outside of that, anyone who's willing to dip their toes in. I can't pick just two or three games to highlight when it comes to her work, because her ideas are unique and punchy and vibrant.
Deadly Weapons is a game about girls with guns who hunt demons, and hacks the BXLLET system in a way that removes dice nad randomizers, instaed asking players to take on risks in order to achieve their goals, all while being haunted by the guns that force them to kill demons.
Bad Moon is a cathartic game about yelling at the Moon, because you love her and she has wronged you.
No Love's Land is a duet game about lesbian robots working for opposing forcees in a war, assigned to assassinate each-other.
Feedback is a solo drawing game about answering surveys and drawing chairs.
Slattery's games are weird, they're messy, and they ask you to be vulnerable and engage with ritual. She uses unique mechanics and approaches to game design to give you new play-tools and challenge you to re-define what a game actually is. Her work is intimate and violent and I love the contrast that exists between the two.
Nem, the founder of Sandy Pug Games
Sandy Pug Games is a game-production co-op with a huge library, the most notable game being Monster Care Squad, a game about healers in a fantasy world working to take care of sick creatures in a humane way, and the most recent game being Hellpiercers, a game about breaking into hell after all the gods have died to free those unjustly imprisoned.
Nem is certainly not the only person who helps manage a co-op, (and certainly not the only trans fem person doing it either), but Sandy Pug is emblematic of what collectivist labour looks like; it's a studio that lifts up the work of all its contributors in a way that is heartening to see in an industry that commonly has various solo hobbyists trying to figure out how to make their passion a reality, figuring out the steps on their own. The community aspect makes their work special, and as the group's founder, Nem deserves some credit for spearheading the charge.
Emily Allen @cavegirlpoems
Emily Allen is the author of Dungeon Bitches as well as the adventures The Stygian Library and The Gardens of Ynn (to name a few).
The Stygian Library and The Gardens of Ynn are both system-agnostic adventures that work exceptionally well in various OSR-style games. Allen's adventures invented the idea of the depth-crawl, a method for procedurally generating a location as you play. Disparate locations and encounters are written up in the adventure, but the order in which they appear isn't set in stone; they show up according to player choice and GM dice rolls. The rolls generate different locations depending on how deep the players go, allowing for compact dungeon design that feels different every time you run it.
On the flip side, Dungeon Bitches is a PbtA game about queer women trying to survive in a cold and unforgiving world, with space for romance, sexuality, and the catharsis of grappling with abuse. There is no respite for your Bitches; polite society has no place for them, and the dungeon doesn't care about who they are or how they feel, it wants them dead all the same. The game embraces the ability of PbtA playbooks to make bold statements about the kinds of characters that live in this world and the specific struggles each archetype is going to face.
Between these works, Allen also has war-games, lyric games, osr games and experimental metafiction, wrestling with surrealism, whimsy, pain and queerness. She has range and depth in astounding abundance, and it makes her accolades well-deserved.
And now, a lighting round…
April Kit Walsh, designer of Thirsty Sword Lesbians, which as a naming convention, is probably the most transparent label you can give a game.
Evey Lockhart, who writes wild and weird content for Troika, the science-fantasy multiversal ttrpg.
curatrix-ribston, @ribstongrowback, a horror connoisseur and author of doll.bod, a cyberpunk game that lives rent-free in my head ever since I found out about it.
@thydungeongal is the world's foremost Rolemaster fan and her thoughts on what games do and what game design does have resonated in the the works of designers and games academics.
Austin Ramsey / @austinramsaygames is the designer of Beam Saber, as well as radiant and enthusiastic contributor to the Forged in the Dark design space: her game of mech pilots and an unwinnable war has inspired the PARTIZAN season as found on Friends At The Table, as well as CalazCon, a mega-campaign actual play featuring 30 players.
Kayla Dice of Rat Wave Game House @ratwavekayla is a Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award Winner who is behind The Fight Card System, a dueling game system that uses trick-taking games as a resolution mechanic. Kayla is also the host of the podcast This Is Your Lifepath, which interviews various designers.
Tanya Floaker is the designer of games such as Lo! Thy Dread Empire, Mum Chums, and Be Seeing You, games about capitalism, community, and surveillance, and her work examines the way things are while asking if the structures we live in have to stay that way.
wendi yu, @wendiyu, is a brazilian game designer known best for her game here,there, be monsters!, an unapologetically monstrous game about being queer, being monstrous, and resisting the boxes that capitalism and fascism try to shove us into. The game flips monster media on its head and asks you to embrace your weirdness and cherish the outsider.
Lex Kim Bobrow, aka @titanomachyrpg, is a non-binary game designer and the creator of Caltrop Core, the first of many SRDs that made it easier for newcomers to try out game design for the first time. Lex's work is also aggressively human-made, a testament to the beauty and uniqueness of personal creativity.
(as someone who isn't trans, I welcome criticism from trans creators who find any remarks in this essay that turn out to be insensitive, inaccurate or thoughtless)
Shout-out your own fave trans creators! I'd love to add to the list.
Trans women: I love you. <3
Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.
Might I add:
The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed
The woman who raised the changeling alongside her biological child
The human who died of radiation poisoning after repairing the spaceship
The adventures of a space roomba
Cinderella finding Araura (and falling in love)
I don’t know a snappy description but the my nemesis cynthia story certainly lives in my head
hilariously, these are almost all in my fic tag. so, a compiled list from the notes (and some extras):
The God of Arepo (graphic novel 1 / 2 / 3) (ebook)
The Monster of Sentan
The Witch’s Cat
Raise Both Children
Stabby the Roomba (honorable mention)
Cinderella Marries the Prince (comic)
My Arch Nemesis Cynthia
Pirates and Mermaid
Eindred and the Witch
The Demon King
The Cornerwitch
Grandmother Beetroot
Apocalypse Daycare Worker
Grandmother Accidentally Summons a Demon
New Year Saga
A Story About Changelings
Ranger in the King’s Forest
The Difference Between a Hare and a Rabbit
Goblin Men (Canines)
I am in love with you /p
Adding Faceblind Prince Charming and Cinderella
21. The human who died of radiation poisoning after repairing the spaceship
22. The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed
adding the Doctors Without Borders one
I LOVE tumblr storytime, so here’s a bunch more your weekend reading. Enjoy!
24. The Queen with Three Cursed Children
25. Tiny Dragon with one coin hoard
26. Haunted house
27. Shark hero was about to go rogue
28. Grandma lives in the woods comic
29. A Different Aftermath comic
30. Battery (microstory but I love it so much)
31. It’s A Date comic
32. Supervillian kidnaps rival’s kid and they want to stay
33. Narrative Town
34. I have been hired to clean the wizard tower comic
35. Robot Apocalypse
36. The Statues That Do Not Weather
37. Kushiel
38. Tooth Fairy
39. Alien abduction
40. Felonious wish-granting
41. When humans met actual space orcs
42. Space cousins
WAIT REBLOG THIS VERSION INSTEAD
burning text gif maker
heart locket gif maker
minecraft advancement maker
minecraft logo font text generator w/assorted textures and pride flags
windows error message maker (win1.0-win11)
FromSoftware image macro generator (elden ring Noun Verbed text)
image to 3d effect gif
vaporwave image generator
microsoft wordart maker (REALLY annoying to use on mobile)
you're welcome
spin this wheel of all the pokemon. you now have to fight this pokemon. just you and it, bare-knuckle
do you win
easily
it's hard, but i do it
could go either way
i might make it, but probably not
fuck no
The Quandrary Of Pokemon As A TTRPG
Pokemon is a really cool game.
Pokemon is also a really cool anime.
These are two dangerous things to present to a TTRPG player, because typically speaking, anyone who plays a tabletop roleplaying game, anything you see that you think is cool, you can immediately find a way to play with in a creative way. The example I was shown when I was a lot younger (shoutouts to BigAngry) was that any anime became a menu, and you don’t need to know how to ride a bike to drop an Akira Slide into your TTRPG.
Pokemon is a 25-year old anime franchise with a hugely expansive game place and numerous different ways to explore and express its particular conceptual space, and seemingly necessarily, people make TTRPGs that follow in this space. And yet, despite relentless attempts to create something that connects Pokemon to TTRPGs, I have yet to see someone actually present a way to make Pokemon a playable TTRPG experience, for a host of reasons, which I will now present as a form of numbered list.
#5 — Power Application Problems
In the main, standard Pokemon games, there’s a single player unit, a trainer. That trainer then goes about the world and approaches it in terms of structured Pokemon battles, where they use their Pokemon to fight things and those fights are turn-based, tactical, and reliant on learnable mechanics a child can handle. In the normal process of the game, players play with a simpler pool of options, and the competitive environment coalesces around the smallest, best pool of those options.
When a player takes the best options and plays like, you know, an adult and not a child learning to read, though, these games are pretty trivial. Enemies in the world are easily regarded as laughably weak, because they’re not there to be real representatives of difficulty in the real world, they’re speedbumps on a path in a dungeon that’s navigable by children.
How do you get players to make mediocre choices? What fiction constrains the players to the weakest options? And how does that make sense?
#4 — Randomness Problems
Here’s another problem: Pokemon is not a game without randomness but it is an extremely deterministic game. Most moves hit most of the time. Moves don’t have a ‘to hit’ check like you might imagine in most games but just a flat chance to land, and making yourself better at avoiding being hit is rare. This is to facilitate fast turn-absed play where the important thing is a player making the right choices about what and where to attack and then the response of what and where to use to absorb that hit. It’s a really great game, mechanically.
It also barely rolls dice. Pokemon moves have a damage range, but those ranges are pretty small – sometimes less than 10% variance on the overall attack. Not nothing but for the material world of people hucking dice and adding up damage values to sort out on paper, it’s a fine distinction that’s not really worth rolling.
This isn’t to say ‘all TTRPGs are about rolling dice,’ but don’t kid yourselves, rolling a bunch of dice is cool and fun. Why wouldn’t you want to do that?
#3 — Ecological Scope Problems
Pokemon are really varied! What’s more, shockingly, they’re really distinctive. Across a thousand Pokemon while a lot can be lumped together as doing different jobs, within those lumps there are still major differences. Some Pokemon are designed to fulfill the same basic genre as one another – like Ratata and Zigzagoon and Patrat are all meant to live in the same part of the game experience for a player, but they’re all still distinct to one another. Ratata has a unique move, Zigzagoon can give you material over time, and Patrat is horrifying.
If you want to present a world with Pokemon in it, you need to present a world with a lot of interesting and varied pieces in it. That’s hard to do, and it can get a lot worse if your system doesn’t have ways to make things meaningfully mechanically distinct to one another. Even if you just steal Pokemon’s Pokemon, you’ve got to stat up a thousand things to dump into your game system.
God help you if you use a point based system, too, because nothing gets as slushy and nonspecific as a point system.
#2 — Deabstraction Problems
Now, for now we’ll set aside what people assume a Pokemon game should be like as a TTRPG (but tune in for #2), and instead ask the question: How should the game be built for players? Are we assuming everyone is going to use the best choices? What actually infringes on people’s abilities to learn? Are there specific limited pools of powers and if so, what makes that limitation meaningful? In the context of Pokemon it works fine because it’s a fantasy fiction modelled on a computer game with limited rules and inputs, but when you translate that to a TTRPG you’re presented with the problem of players who don’t live on grids. They can avoid people, they can come up with alternate solutions to problems (especially with Pokemon’s special abilities), and of course, there’s no reason that a person who’s actually training Pokemon in a world with wide communication and study sources would have any difficulty finding the best moves and teach them – training! – before they ever go out and get kicked in the face.
These are all the problems that flow from when you take a game that’s made out of pieces for a gameboy system and then try to extrapolate them out to a bigger world, or when you take a world for an anime designed to appeal to 9 year olds and start asking questions like ‘okay, but what’s the tax system like?’
And how do you stop Pokemon breeding turning into conversations about eugenics?
#1 — Fantasy Misalignment Problems
In Pokemon, a player has a number of subordinate Pokemon and right there we have two different ways players approach this experience. Some players imagine themselves as being the trainer, and some imagine themselves as being the Pokemon.
But even in those groups, some people want to play Pokemon who are humans transformed into Pokemon, and some people want to play Pokemon who are born this way and can express and examine a wholly Pokemon view of reality. That’s right there a huge problem, because Pokemon as critters that are agents on par with people creates a lot of questions about how the world is organised and you might not be prepared for that.
But what if you’re a trainer? You want to play a trainer with one Pokemon and that’s their main way of interacting with combat? Or do you want to play a trainer with a squad of Pokemon they release one at a time? Or do you want to play a trainer who behaves like a sensible person would in a time of combat and stress, and pop out all the army of helpers you can when you’re under stress? Those are three really distinct kinds of fantasies. One treats Pokemon like a disposable or flexible resource, the other treats them like a small specific toolkit that needs maintenance and one is more like a specific pet class.
Also, if the adventures are meaningfully dangerous or fit standard combat adventure narratives (like, god help you, any attempt to jam this system into something like Dungeons & Dragons), then the question follows of what is the trainer bringing to this story? The trainer could be engaging with a weapon of their own, and all ideas of sportsmanship and fair play would go out the window when the battle is about contending with real material threats. And what’s the point of the trainer? Are they somehow improving the Pokemon if these ideas work alongside each other? How do you balance the time demands of a player character who can deploy six sub-sections and indeed, what do you do when players need to be doing things during combats that aren’t just waiting for this combat to end?
Do you go to a tactical combat form? That can work, of course, but now you’re looking at this same multiplying entities and time loss!
Conclusion
The way Pokemon works is fine because Pokemon is set in the Pokemon universe and that’s a pretty silly place and that’s fine. But when you start to engage with that world at large, you hit problems, and you need to know what the game is going to be about.
It’s not that it won’t work, but the thing that’s going to look the most like Pokemon is treating a world that’s like Pokemon like Pokemon games. Have a turn based game, make the combat simplified, make it fast, make it so players can have one-off battles. Maybe limit the combat to only the sport of Pokemon and get rid of ‘wild’ encounters, or, find some other way to make ‘exploring’ award XP to the system and not frame it as just ‘going into the bushses and beating up wild animals.’
I don’t have a solution but man, am I far too familiar with the problems.
Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!
The bean jar
[My Chemical Romance voice]: When I was…. a young boy… my Father… had what he called the bean jar…
have i mentioned recently @allieinarden is the best
Since Gerard Way wrote The Umbrella Acedemy comics, I felt the most powerful need to commission this. It’s finally done. Thank you, @eamhhair
The bean jar has me in tears every damn time
