Are you the sort who loves mysteries? Well why not go down the rabbit hole and curl up with one of the most fascinating biological mysteries of our time!
Facetotecta is an extremely mysterious subclass of thecostracan crustaceans, and is so mysterious in fact that we have NEVER found an adult specimen of these organisms! Though the larval forms of facetotecta are found fairly regularly, we have no idea what they grow into, and pretty much no clue as to why we don’t know. Though in 2008 we did discover a potentially significant clue.
When larval facetotecta were inoculated with crustacean molting hormone, they successfully molted into what is presumed to be the next natural life phase. These animals were limbless, unsegmented, organisms that appeared outwardly slug-like. Based on this experiment, some biologists theorize that adult facetotecta are endoparasites that make their home within the body of another animal, which might explain why they’re so damn hard to find.
One of my very favorite things about biology is that mysteries like this can be found around every corner, if you’re willing to look. What could be more exciting than that?
The y-larva, a crustacean larval type first identified more than 100 years ago, has been found in marine plankton samples collected in the a
Crustacean y-larvae (subclass Facetotecta) were first described from marine plankton in the late 1800s, and they have since been recorded from the arctic to the tropical waters of all oceans. The adult organisms have never been identified, and the Facetotecta is the only crustacean group with a formal taxonomy based solely on larval stages.
Ontogenetic, morphological and molecular evidence all point to a taxonomic relationship with the crustacean class Thecostraca. These comprise the well-known barnacles (Cirripedia) and the Ascothoracida, but the Facetotecta forms a separate subclass and is not an ingroup in any of these two taxa. [Like Thecostraca], the developmental sequence hitherto known for y-larvae... comprises a series of (five) naupliar instars and a succeeding stage, the y-cyprid, which is obviously adapted for settlement... the Ascothoracida are parasites in anthozoans and echinoderms while the Cirripedia... also include the Rhizocephala, one of the most specialized groups of parasites within Crustacea. This has prompted speculations that the Facetotecta are also parasitic.
Exposure to [crustacean molting hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone]... induced y-cyprids to metamorphose into a new and unexpected instar. This 300–400 μm long juvenile has a greatly simplified morphology and is surrounded by an extremely thin (<5 nm) cuticle... Following exposure to the hormone, metamorphosis begins after 12–24 hours by a retraction of all, or nearly all, cyprid tissues into a compact body anteriorly, which is then surrounded by the newly secreted, thin cuticle. While still inside the y-cyprid, the body of the juvenile begins to exhibit contractions and bending motions... The ypsigon is unsegmented, slug-like and lacks appendages.
Within Arthropoda, the extreme morphological reduction seen in the new ypsigon stage is matched only by the early endoparasitic 'vermigon' stage recently discovered in certain parasitic barnacles, the Rhizocephala Kentrogonida... Analogy with the Rhizocephala also leads to the prediction that the adult facetotectan will turn out to have a highly simplified structure and this may help to explain why they have escaped observation.
I HAVE TRAVELED ACROSS THE MANY HEAVENS
AND SAILED ITS ASTRAL RIVERS
AND SPOKE WITH THE GODMINDS
AND LEARNED THE SECRET DOCTRINES FROM PROCESSOR-TREES.
I HAVE SURVIVED AGAINST PIRATES OF THE TRUE PRIMORDIAL DAO. I HAVE SLAIN DRAGONS WHOSE EDDIES FORMED GALAXIES.
I HAVE CULTIVATED MY HEART UNTIL I HAVE BECOME A STAR.
THROUGH IT ALL, I DID IT WITH MY FELLOWS IN TOW—
AND WE DID ALL SEE
NO GOD
BUT THE PROLETARIAT.
10,000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN is a Dark Science Fantasy Cultivation TTRPG set in the Thunderbolt Dialectical Materialist cosmos of THE TRICHILIOCOSM. Communist Martial Artists struggle alongside Kung Fu Wizards against the bloody grip of Capital upon a wasted world.
10k SWORDS eschews narrative-first, story-generating mechanics in favor of a call back to the traditional conceit, where Players play characters that live and breathe in a world, not chained to Narrative Trope or Story Mould.
In 10K SWORDS, you play as WANDERERS. Traveling vagabonds, disenfranchised laborers, hard-working salarymen who know a bit of kung fu on the side. As a Wanderer, you are nothing alone. But everything when you have become ORGANIZED into the SECTS.
SECTS grant you LICENSES which teach and allow you to wield TECHNICKS, MAGICKS, and GEAR to be able to hold your own against the magofascist onslaught of the Ruling Class. And even that is not enough: once you have this, you must CULTIVATE YOURSELF.
Only in your Cultivation of Self can you become great enough to support the Working Class and help usher in Humanity's next stage. You must become the very negation. You become part of the little quantities that contribute to the explosive qualitative step into Humanity's burst into the stars.
As a Cultivator, you wield the power of SIDHI—the mystic life force of the Trichiliocosm that binds us, powers us, interpenetrates us, and reminds us of our inseparability from the rest of the world. YOU ARE MORE THAN THIS. It is the strength of emotion, and responds to a Clear Mind and a Thunderbolt Will.
But Hingsajagra is filled with wanderers of all kinds. And they are beings of their own accord. It is up to them whether they will keep fidelity with the Revolution... or be an obstacle destroyed in its wake.
UNTIL ALL THE HELLS ARE EMPTY
UNTIL ALL BEINGS ARE FREE
UNTIL THE HUMAN IS HUMAN
UNTIL THE PROLETARIAT ARE CHAKRAVARTIN
SWORDS UP, WANDERERS
WHAT YOU GET
10,000 SWORDS AGAINST HEAVEN has the following mechanics:
A new weird setting inspired by the likes of PERDIDO STREET STATION, NEUROMANCER, BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI, MARATHON, GHOST IN THE SHELL, and ARMORED CORE, skewered through by ESOTERIC BUDDHISM, FILIPINO FOLK ESOTERICISM, ESOTERIC RELIGIONS, GNOSTICISM, SOUTHEAST ASIAN LIVED EXPERIENCE, and SOCIAL REALIST LITERATURE.
A d6 dice pool system based on counting successes. Inspired by the simplicity of the Exalted 1e Quickstart and its ready-to-play nature, it also creates a robust enough scaffolding for resting fiction-first play upon, without being bogged down by too much sub-rules.
A combat system, LIQUID STEEL ULTIMAVIOLENCE, that is built into the world rather than attempting to be a combat minigame cut out from the world. It has in-world measurements and timings as much as possible. However, the world is built on kung-fu physics, and so the rules while adhering to the world also create moments of gritty martial arts. This is exemplified by the Interrupt system intermixed with the Attack Check.
Attack Checks are opposed rolls between an Attack Pool and a Defense Pool. Every 4+ on a Defense Pool roll cancels out a 4-5 on an Attack Pool. But 6s are CRITICAL STRIKES that cannot be defended against... unless the Defender rolled a 6 too, known as a PERFECT DEFENSE.
The combat system does not create an arbitary action list you must follow. As it is built out of the world, you can do actions as you would in the world. Liquid Steel Ultimaviolence then also allows you to INTERRUPT at any time, using your own Actions within that interrupt window to do whatever you would like, as long as you can do it.
Rules for Survival, for Resting, for Social Play (focused on finding Leverage and improving Disposition), and other World-focused details for running a game in the planet of Hingsajagra.
15 SECTS—think like Final Fantasy Jobs, but a bit more Marxist-Leninist and with more Social Organization, rather than just being combat roles—that you can gain Licenses from to learn Magicks, Technicks, and gain Gear, inspired by the Job System of Final Fantasy XII.
get it here
Pugilist Praxis Occult Xianxia Role-Playing
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the wisdom hall for conversation about HINGSAJAGRA, the ultraviolent tropical gothic xianxia world | 377 members
Here’s some sketches exploring one of my ideas for the creature from “The Terror” by Dan Simmons, and how I imagined it could work as a supernatural element while still able to be mistaken for a polar bear at a glance or in the distance.
(In case it's not obvious to everybody, this is an edit; "they pay me in woims" is the punchline from a different Nancy comic. The original punchline to this one is also funny:)
The conversation surrounding cultural appropriation has been so severely mutilated by white “allies” that the original intention behind that conversation has become almost unrecognizable in most social contexts.
To explain what I mean, the conversation around cultural appropriation was started by black and native people to discuss the frustrations we feel at being punished socially and financially for partaking in our cultural heritage while white people could take, I.e. appropriate, aspects of our culture that we are actively shamed for and be heralded as innovators. It was about the frustrations we feel when the same white people who shamed us would take our culture and wear it as if they were the ones who created it while still actively shaming us for doing the same.
The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they “weren’t allowed” to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they weren’t doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.
White “allies” saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all it’s nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.
So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from “This aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism that’s creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolen” to “you’re not allowed to do that because if you do that you’re racist, we don’t really understand why that’s racist but you’re not allowed to do that and if you do that you’re a klansman no exceptions. So you’re not allowed because because”
At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldn’t. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.
White People are always asking me what they can do to help. You want to know? Stop talking. Aplify our voices and shut the fuck up because you all have pretty much derailed this conversation and many more like it to the point that we no longer are trying to make steps to understand and dismantle the racism around cultural appropriation and instead are just using it as social shaming tactics.
TL;DR: read my post. Most things worth learning about can’t be summarized in the bullet points of a buzfeed article. Don’t come into academic circles and complain because everything hasn’t been conviently summarized for you. Stop pretending that things aren’t accessible to you because you refuse to do the intellectual labor that is learning.
the dance dance rebellion has failed to become a dance dance revolution and the dance dance repressive regime has kidnapped your fellow dance dance radicals in the middle of the night and taken them to a dance dance re-education camp. they're gonna get dance dance relentlessly tortured
gummygunk
vaporwave
baratheonpilled
2087
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
