[two tumblr soldiers bleeding out on the internet frontlines]
“heh… remember strawbebby…. And ranibow spramkle… always made me laugh”
“Don’t talk like that man. We’re gonna get out of here i prommy.” [mortar fire sails overhead and land nearby] “christ its like a childrens hospital out there”
[through shallow breaths] “I always loved…… the color of the sky…………”
The thing that always Kills Me with Nemesis is that for all that she's driven by hatred and a desire for revenge, for all the death and destruction she brings, when we see her idealised delusion of a perfect life at the end of MoN it's not her standing victorious over her slaughtered enemies. It's her... having a party with people who were important to her. A normal Christmas party. A regular, happy life.
And it includes not just people who she knew and cared about (Nyoze, Gammon, Shiro) or people who we know she desperately wanted to care about her (Gallerian, Ma) but also people who she only ever had reasons to hate. She has no reason to care even a little about Tony or Bruno. And yet they are included in her delusion of a perfect, peaceful, ideal life where she gets everything she ever wanted.
I love victim-perpetrator characters so much. Yes girl continue that cycle of harm and feel absolutely terrible about it but unable to stop because this is the only way you have control yesss
the most occidentalist cnovel I ever binged via MTL was about a chinese guy reincarnating into europe right before the black plague & teaching the savage europeans how to cook food and do agriculture and industry properly and inventing an innoculation for the plague and he wound up gay marrying the sexy young pope & collecting a really unreasonable number of magical animal companions along the way, including a tiger. the tiger's introduction led to my favorite author's note in the following chapter, which was basically "I've been informed Europe doesn't have tigers but I don't really give a fuck" ... that was kind of charming.
This year's 8/15 will include DazeJam, a multi-format fanwork jam for all things Kagerou Project! TTRPGs, art, audio, zines, and anything kagepro-related are all welcome!
If a fantasy world has an ancient tree of wisdom, that means it must also have young trees that are dumb as shit. Just giving terrible advice like, "the evil wizard is kinda hot"'
guy with depression: it's so sad when they're doing the same thing over and over again insisting this time it'll be different. it sure would suck if time loops were real!
stop stop stop making appeals to some 'natural state of humanity.' war and slavery and xenophobia are in fact some of the most universal human behaviors ever recorded. humans do not have any kind of innate Noble Spirit that is being corrupted. You can just say "war is bad because it hurts people" you can just leave it at that! that should be an effective statement just by itself! shut the fuck up about Essences!
thought about that quote "homosexuality exists in 1000+ species, homophobia only exists in one" but how awkward would it be if we discovered another species that was homophobic
"homosexuality exists in 1000+ species, homophobia only exists in two. what? oh, humans, and the yellow-patched cuboid pinecone wren that was recently discovered on an island off the coast of canada. they're fucking bigots"
AND THEN ORPHEUS TURNS AROUND is a GMless duet ttrpg about grief and inevitability. One player takes the role of Orpheus, and the other Eurydice. Both answer questions as the two lovers (attempt to) leave the Underworld. You know how the story goes - it's in the title.
I Love You Since 1892 (2025) opting to still go for a pastel/beige color palette for almost all the characters is now depressing to me (despite me defending their costume choices before i even watched it).
since this was set in the 1890's and revolved around the elite, then the women should have had stiffer/starched/upright butterfly sleeves, but I'll let go of that nitpicky detail
If they could not afford the pinya outfits of MCAI, then they should have had focused into bringing in more colors and patterns instead. It would have been better for characterization too. The lack of variety makes distinguishing the characters challenging and annoying.
to compare:
Maria Clara At Ibarra (2022) - had same pastel colors but were more detailed and expensive
imo, CCP Noli Me Tangere 1992 still have the best costumes because they experimented on a lot of textiles and patterns more than MCAI and ILYS1892 ever could
tfw ccp nmt 1992 looks like they were lifted straight out of tipos del pais
👏WE NEED MORE 👏 STRIPES AND PATTERNS 👏 IF WE ARE DEALING WITH 👏 19TH CENTURY PHILIPPINES 👏 PEOPLE! 👏
10,000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN is an Ultraviolent Tropical Gothic Xianxia Tabletop Role-Playing Game set in a Buddho-Communist Revolutionary Asia Dark Fantasy World.
Out for free!
Ultraviolent Tropical Gothic Xianxia Role-Playing
As Wanderers, you will cultivate your spirit—your Ardor—into burgeoning Cultivation Wombs that will allow you to attain greater power. But remember that this power can only be attained in two ways: by the strength of the community or by exploitation of the oppressed. Which way will you take? Look closer and you will know that there is a right answer. All Cultivation leads to Power, but not all Roads lead to Enlightenment.
It is Ultraviolent because it deals with the wielding of violence to break free from cycles of violence. The World reels from Post-Calamity and burgeoning, unstoppable capitalism. Those exploited are even more exploited, those that benefit benefit even more. It understands that Violence is the only recourse against those committing Violence, but it is a pure, unalloyed Violence that wishes only to break free from oppression that breaks cycles, instead of Violence wishing to gain the power to oppress.
It is Tropical Gothic because 10kSwords’ World centers cultures, aesthetics, ideas, and ideologies that resonate or look like the ones in our third world, in the neocolonies and current colonies and semicolonies and semifeudal states of our world. In the socialist states of our world. Tropical Gothic is an old literary concept that blends gothic horror with tropical realities, dealing with colonial violence, marginalized indigenous histories, imperial faiths clashing with local cults, monstrous legacy of colonies and liberalism.
It is Xianxia because this world is a Dark Fantasy rooted in Buddhism, Daoism, and Folk Religion. Wanderers must cultivate themselves and, more importantly, their communities to create a force powerful enough to topple heaven—in this case, the neoliberal world order. Collect violence, esoterica, and lore to benefit not just themselves but the People. To cultivate for one’s own power is not Ultraviolence.
here, our systems...
Built from a 3d6 roll under system inspired by the likes of GURPS, Fading Suns, and Exalted. But the game's rules express gritty world-first principles similar to the OSR or NSR movements. It is a normal Success/Failure system—Failure is not always just a failure of action, but can also be an opportunity for chaos or absurdity, or a partial pass forward.
a robust Intercessor system (GM) where Intercessors telegraph the movements of the world, and then apply appropriate consequences.
The Liquid Steel Ultraviolence System: a brutal, skull-on-pavement, bloody-knuckles xianxia combat systemthat emphasizes the brutal exchanges found in many xianxia fiction and media, fusing supernatural spirit-violence with gritty The Raid 1 & 2, Ong Bak, and Sleeping Dogs style visceral pugilism. Built from the same Telegraph system of the Intercessor, so combat is not a separate "screen" but directly in the fiction, a sudden bite of mechanic or of reality. You can see what an enemy is about to do and react accordingly as a decision point, similar to Soulslike games in feel.
The Attachments System, inspired by Exalted 3e's Intimacies system, where social situations are driven by the Attachments of everyone involved and the leverage, manipulation, or influencing of these Attachments.
The Enlightenment System which is a currency gained by learning new things or seeing things you're not supposed to see, and then spent when picking items, searching rooms, etc. to gain Lore about them. A mechanized version of Player Notes. The more Enlightenment you have, the stronger your connection to the unknown of Magick, but the stronger some Magicks' effect on you is too. And the more Mad you become (what is madness but sanity in an insane system?)
Cultivations that let you learn Technicks and Magicks from the World, letting you change the world or attempt to End Violence. These come as Martial Arts or Magick Arts.
Semi-vent art. Severino Vibal, a swellbloom kid who can communicate with his parallel selves through The Hollows, a space within the Great Balete that reaches into all realms and timelines.
This is how I feel about Joshua Trees. They and avocado trees produce fruit meant to be eaten and dispersed by giant ground sloths. Without them, the Joshua Trees' range has shrunk by 90%.
(my own photos)
Not only they, but the entire Mojave ecosystem is still struggling to adapt since the loss of ground sloth dung. their chief fertilizer.
Many, many trees and plants in the Americas have widely-spaced, extremely long thorns that do nothing to discourage deer eating their leaves, but would've penetrated the fur of ground sloths and mammoths. Likewise, if you've observed a tree that drops baseball or softball-sized fruit which lies on the ground and rots, like Osage Oranges, which were great for playing catch at my school, chances are they were ground sloth or mammoth chow.
You can read about various orphaned plants and trees missing their megafauna in this poignant post:
Trees that once depended on animals like the wooly mammoth for survival have managed to adapt and survive in the modern world.
Yeah, that's life. Sometimes the niche you evolved to fit into falls apart, and you just have to adapt the best you can. Even if your environment doesn't go through any specific changes which ruin critical components of your survival strategy, smaller changes will accumulate. Evolution is inevitable.
Maybe you find a new niche, maybe you go extinct. Try your best.
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