sandypuggames

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whenever i see talk about third spaces people pretty much always mean bars, or other places of consumption. Nobody really talks about something like a public bathhouse that would be a massive boon for local homeless people, or making local laundromats a free public service. These can, and I think absolutely should be valuable and very utilitarian third spaces for community building.

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I think about Lycion and his relationship with beauty soo much

Looking at him, we can see that he easily meets the elven beauty standards. He has long silver hair, clear skin, and androgynous form: he's the picture of a youthful, pretty man.

And yet.

He experiences such a visceral reaction to his own body. Despite looking like your stereotypical pretty boy, he doesn't fulfill the expectation of being vain in the slightest (at least not in this form).

In fact, we see in the extras just how badly his body dysmorphia got to him. This was not a passive discomfort or a shallow desire. Lycion was trying to destroy his body. He hated living in his skin so much he was actively self harming in multiple ways in an effort to punish himself.

It's not until he uses ancient magic to get his beast form that his perspective of himself changes. The magic required him to be heavily tattooed over his whole body and we can clearly we can see that he wears these marks with pride. But that's not where any of this ends for him because despite having the solution to his problem, Lycion can't be a wolf all the time.

This means that he has to learn to cope with existing as an elf still, and what stands out to me is how Lycion's hair is almost always in his face. Even now, in the body he likes more, he hides. Whether this is a lingering discomfort or just a habit, there's no saying, but it makes me sad.

Especially in this panel, where it's clear that a lot of his hair had been pulled forward to cover his face rather just the few strands. His expression looks so hollow. He looks tired and uncomfortable. This isn't the casual playfulness he usually has. I think this is a peek into the idea that it's very self soothing for him to use his hair as a shield when he's forced to stay in his human body for too long.

I think that his hair is so important to him because we can see that it's the only trait that carried over into his wolf form. This means that when he's forced to be human he can cling to the single part of him that's shared between his current body and his preferred one.

In summary: I love him so much

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The End

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im noticing that for a lot of americans “free palestine” has been an ideological motto and symbol rather than them actually believing in their heart that freedom is attainable and necessary

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psst if you uh, are the type to boost various indie ttrpg bundles, might i suggest snow's personal fundraising bundle for laser hair removal? (link: https://itch.io/s/121206/laser-hair-removal-for-snow)

snow makes the songbirds system and lots of other very cool games; if i was in a position to, i'd donate the money she needs to meet her goal; i'm not, so for now i'll try to boost her bundle to other folks in the indie ttrpg space

I saw, go support snow, she's a phenomenally talented creator, I've checked out some of her games and while most of them are squarely under not my thing, they all demonstrate a lot of mastery and passion

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Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials was well received and won a couple of awards (and a second edition, I think in ’87?). It took a little while for the sequel to emerge: Barlowe’s Guide to Fantasy hit shelves in 1996.

Even though I am not super widely read in either fantasy or science fiction, Barlowe’s fantasy book is the one I really vibe on. Maybe because it allows him to do stuff like Grendel from Beowulf and Gorice from The Worm Ouroboros. Wouldn’t have expected Gideon Winter, the antagonist from Peter Straub’s odd novel Floating Dragon to be included, but he was. Other surprises are the Psammead from Five Children and It and the Saw Horse from Oz.

One of the coolest things about these books is the fold-out size comparison charts. I love a good size-comparison (and again, this is a big feature of those Petersen’s Guides for Call of Cthulhu, and I am sure it came directly from here).

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“In Harrison, Virginia, we set up an anarchist community center, allowed homeless people to sleep there through the winter, and provided free food and clothes out of that space. Within six months the cops shut us down with a creative array of zoning and building codes. In the 1960s, the police took an active interest in sabotaging the Black Panther program that provided free breakfast to children. How exactly are we supposed to build alternative institutions if we are powerless to protect them from repression? How will we find land on which to build alternative structures when everything in this society has an owner? And how can we forget that capitalism is not timeless, that once everything was an “alternative”, and that the current paradigm developed and expanded precisely out of its ability to conquer and consume those alternatives? Ehrlich is right that we need to start building alternative institutions now, but wrong to de-emphasize the important work of destroying existing institutions and defending ourselves and our autonomous spaces in the process. Even when mixed with more aggressive nonviolent methods, a strategy based on building alternatives that constrains itself to pacifism will never be strong enough to resist the zealous violence that capitalist societies employ when they conquer and absorb autonomous societies.”

— How Nonviolence Protects the State by Peter Gelderloos

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“Red is the first color of the rainbow” - Pro-LGBT propaganda poster from Filipino communist Emiliana Kampilan (c. 2019)

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I've seen several sites mention this, it's real.

Do not make the MISTAKE of thinking you need to put your side forward. The Guardian is transphobic as fuck, and will twist your words. DO NOT ENGAGE.

By the way, this is in the aftermath of the Cass Report, and the goal will be to make Trans DIY something that needs to be regulated or stamped out. DO NOT ENGAGE.

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hey whats this about a supposed NSFW expansion for a sandy pug game? ive searched around but havent found anything and i am interested in sloppy

Sandy Pug Games released a game called Monster Care Squad. Its a very cute game about playing as doctors and going around treating monsters from horrible unknown diseases. Its very well put together and I highly recommend it.

One of the really cool things they did with their kickstarter funds though, was set up the Ald-Amura Historical Grant Fund. This was a grant that other game designers could apply for to get some funds to help them make their own expansion for Monster Care Squad. Absolutely INCREDIBLE way to pay it forward, and I really hope this becomes a more common practice going forward.

One of the people to apply for the grant was famous twitter horny poster and THE monster/plant fucker of all time, Leaf Tilde. She created an adventure called The Tangle in the Snarlwood. It includes a new rule that replaces the normal "I'm gonna give the monster medicine to make it all better!" move, with a "I'm gonna fuck this monsters god damn brains out to make it all better!" move.

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Radical posters spotted in Brisbane

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This NPR interview with with Angela Saini about how race science never really left the global scientific consciousness is super interesting! I’m gonna read her book!

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in HELLPIERCERS, we represent the larger War of Infernal Liberation through a strategy phase called STRATCOM. This phase takes a ton of inspiration from map games, like A Quiet Year, as well as faction-focused TTRPGs like REIGN.

Each faction gets its own map to start with, and you will spend a lot of the game adding buildings, locations, traps, hazards, armies, convoys, and more to it in the same kind of collaborative-combative vibe as the rest of the game, with the GM trying to dominate Hell, push back your forces, and retake lost locations, and the players pushing up toward the final fortress of the enemy faction.

Each map is an abstraction, covering roughly a 800 mile stretch of territory that you'll grow into a complex visual log of The Last War.

First map is a representation of the SYNCRASIS faction's paleoproterozoic landscape, illustrated by the incredible @leafie-draws, and the second represents the industral-blasted nuclear wasteland of @leaftilde's AUTOPHYES faction, illustrated by the marquis of shadows, @jnbutlerart.

budget allowing I'd like to ship everyone two 11x17 trifolds with the maps printed, because Risk Legacy permanent changed my brain chemistry and i love the idea of physical maps covered in drawings and supply lines and armies and stuff.

How this side of the game plays out is very very much one of the more exciting elements of play, and I can't wait to see how you all engage with it. And remember, Hell is a prison. Break its bars.

#HELLPIERCERS #sandy pug games #indie ttrpgs #ttrpgs #fantasy maps