#balikbayan

[cennettendusenbalik]

intihar eşiğinde bir ruhum var.

[miyamiwu]

really loving that even the Department of Tourism is supporting SB19, but can I just talk about how much I love the concept of a galingbayan box

the culture of Filipinos working abroad is to occasionally send gifts to their families back home in bulk, packed inside a box called “balikbayan.” The word balikbayan is a portmanteau of balik (return) and bayan (country), so essentially, it’s a repatriate box. Balikbayan boxes contain all sorts of things, usually food, clothes, bags, etc. And the gifts are often not just for the sender’s immediate family, but also for their entire extended family. (I myself have received clothes, lotion, and perfume from aunts and cousins now living abroad even though we aren’t that close.)

but now, with SB19 spearheading the export of Filipino music, it’s the turn of those from the country to be the one sending gifts. As SB19’s new tagline says, “From the Philippines to the world,” and the galingbayan box reflects that. The word galingbayan, as you might’ve already guessed, is a portmanteau of galing (from) and bayan (country), essentially “a box from the country.” But galing also has another meaning, which is “excellence,” so galingbayan can also mean “the country’s excellence.”

the term is so witty and culturally sound that whoever thought of it deserves a big raise

[hecticelectron]

Rae Nedjadi Recovery Bundle is up now

What I love about tabletop RPGs is that it's not just a hobby or a business. It's a community.

Right now, one of indie TTRPG design's luminaries, Rae Nedjadi, is going through it. He's been terribly ill, hospitalized and got out. Now the work begins: he has to learn how to breathe on his own and walk again.

And Evil Hat Productions, who published Rae's game Apocalypse Keys, is pulling out all the stops to give Rae the support he needs.

They've bundled more than 20 amazing PDFs over on DriveThru RPG. $25 gets you $250+ worth of fun. Two games in there are Defy the Gods and Raccoon Sky Pirates!

Here's the lowdown:

Defy the Gods is a queer sword & sorcery adventure-romance set in fantasy ancient Mesopotamia. It's full of messy romance and cursed power.

Raccoon Sky Pirates is a raucous, GM-less story game where you play raccoons flying a ship made of trash. You raid a suburban house until the lights come on, then try to make it back home without exploding. But things keep going wrong. Because you're raccoons.

Go grab those games. Even if you have half of them, which I bet you don't. Get them for the fun, the fascinating ideas, the value! But most of all to show it's not just about the money. Show how we can come together for someone who's given so much to our community. Solidarity.

Rae's the genius who wrote:

Balikbayan: enslaved elementals in a cyberpunk future return to Earth and rise up in revolt.

Our Haunt: dead ghosts recover their memories in slices of life.

Once More into the Void: a shattered starship crew reunites to save the galaxy one last time.

and of course Apocalypse Keys: a team of Hellboy-like monsters solve mysteries to save the world from even worse monsters than them.

Rae mentored me through Defy the Gods, and you can see his ideas all over it. No kidding—after you get the bundle, skim Apocalypse Keys and Defy the Gods, and you'll see a conversation between designers: messy love, found family, monstrosity, the hunger for world-shattering power ... and all the shit you can stir when you finally get it.

Each book is over 300 beautiful pages. Hell, that's a bargain right there.

Go help Rae recover. And pick up Raccoon Sky Pirates and Defy the Gods while you do!

Thanks!

[temporalhiccup]

⛅️

🌤️Share your favorite mechanic from a game you’re working on.

In my on going war against Setting Elements in Belonging Outside Belonging (I'm half-joking!), I've been experimenting with unlockable and growing sections of the City in BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home. Here are two (out of eight) parts of the City you can work towards accessing: the Market and the Sensorium. The group tailors the leader, aesthetics, and threats to their liking.

In the Cyberpunk genre the city always feels like an important character. Also, unlocking components of the game that everyone can enjoy in a BoB game is one of my fave design things to do now. The Unlockable sections here are the Market Contacts and the Hidden Power, and you unlock Moves within that part of the City that any player can lean into as they like. It's worked out really well in playtests so far (and I have more about how to unlock the more magical/supernatural aspects of the City).

[rayjideguia]

On October 11, 2014, Jennifer Laude, a Filipino trans woman, was killed by US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton, whose presence in Zambales was made possible by the Visiting Forces Agreement. 

In September 2020, then President Rodrigo Duterte, known for his misogyny and whose regime was marked by extrajudicial killings from his drug war and anti-communist crusade, granted Pemberton absolute pardon, cutting short his time served by four years. Months prior in the same year, during the height of the pandemic, the Congress railroaded the passing of the anti-terrorism bill amidst rampant red-tagging of activists and dissidents; LGBTQIA+ protesters were arrested, detained, and harassed by police. 

Under the current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the largest Balikatan Exercise took place in 2023, a military exercise that was bolstered by counterterrorism training since the War on Terror campaign by the US. His father, former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., serving as the blueprint of violence and repression for Duterte, formalized the export of Filipino labor through the 1974 Labor Code in an attempt to stimulate the struggling economy, resulting in the human trafficking of Filipinos to this day.

This is the political milieu that informs the narrative of “Balikbayan. Through the protagonist Stella, a trans woman, whose motivation is to find her missing sister Katrina, supposedly teaching in Texas but ended up as a victim of tokhang in the Philippines eleven years later, the play tackles the entanglements of the US War on Drugs and Terror, neoliberalism, and extrajudicial killings under the Duterte regime, and how women, both trans and cis, are subjugated and dehumanized by the same system.

Like our page and save the date! 

April 13, 2024, 7 PM @ IGB Gallery, UP Diliman 

#Balikbayan #Balikbayan2024

[open-hearth-rpg]

#RPGCovers Week Thirteen BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home Rae Nedjadi

I was super jazzed last week when I saw a Tumblr post from Rae Nedjadi going over his TTRPG Projects on the table- and where they were at. In great part that was because I saw BALIKBAYAN listed among the games in “different forms of active.” I love the concept of the game, enslaved elementals in a cyberpunk world escaping to fight back against The Corp which has exploited you and your people. 

It’s a Belonging Outside Belonging ttrpg with a) some of the absolutely best pick lists for creating the world and b) some of the most striking and amazing playbooks for characters and beyond. 

I also adore this cover. The mix of colors here is so smart: both complementary and clashing. I am a sucker for distressed logos and so the title font at the center is absolutely my jam. I love the way the yellow backlash borders look like warning tape. There’s a great detail in how the neon characters in the background bleed upwards from the “BA” there. 

The figure in the center is striking, precisely because they aren’t looking out at the viewer. They look down: in worry? in exhaustion? in contemplation? It makes what otherwise might be an ordinary cyberpunk photo image into something more. There’s the additional detail of one hand reaching up to touch the side of their mask. I don’t know why, but it feels like a vulnerable gesture. 

Then there’s the whole background layer– with a blown out neon cloud at the top. But more importantly the two vertical titles on either side of the page. Through them you can almost see another world. As your eyes come down the page the elements become more mixed up and harder to separate. That ends in a complementary blow out of color in the bottom right.

[bonsaihunters]

I made it to Tiburon to give a skateboarding lesson to a 30 year old female software engineer. The trees were inspiring, especially the Monterey Cypress! It took years of skateboarding before a return on investment ever became possible for an average old skater like me. Seems like I should be teaching bonsai right? It's weird how life works. 😅🤣🤣😂😚🌳 ⏱ ⏱ ⏱ ⏱ ⏱ ⏱ ⏲ ⏰⚓ 💲💱 💲💱 💲💱 #return #invest #joy #active #thumbhead #bayou #bayuk #balikbayan #ideabox #thinklikeatree #beatree #stop #go #goskate #gobonsai #air #sea #time #tree #skate #learn #teacher #entrepreneur #selfempathy #followyourheart #love #feelings #skateboardcommunity #bonsaifam (at Tiburon, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByN-AjVjDjp/?igshid=1er4psx6il8kd

[hellowitty]

Ilang days na lang, flight ko na pabalik ng pinas. Yes! Excited na akong makita ang family at friends ko. Ngayon pa lang naplano ko na kung kanino ako unang makikipagkita, kung kailan kami magkikita, kung saan kami magkikita at kung anong isusuot ko sa pagkikita namin. Same goes sa iba ko pang mga friends 😊