#the strange

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

John Macklin - The Strange And Uncanny - Ace - 1967

#witches #strangers #occult #vintage #the strange and uncanny #the strange #the uncanny #ace books #john macklin #1967 #internationally acclaimed #expert #psychic phenomena #psychic #phenomena

[owlbear33]

what with the new Planescape book coming out, for 5e, me being trepidatious about that, what with recent 5e quality, and me not being the biggest fan of 5e, and not wanting to give money to wizards, what else is available for that sort of planes-hopping weird fantasy

short of going back and getting books from Ad&d:2e for Planescape what are the other options?

I'm fairly sure "Troika" does some plane-hopping type stuff, but I've never really vibed with OSR, also Troika is really really weird

KSBD has an RPG, "Broken Worlds" I think it's called, I love the setting, Throne is similar in some ways to Sigil, kinda (not really but kinda), but it's PbtA, not for me, Moving on

"The Strange" honestly makes the best use of Cypher Systems' strengths, but I'm always going to want a bit more crunch than Cypher has, and I'm never going to be a fan of its xp as metacurrency thing, also its plane-hopping is not quite the same

"Age of Sigmar: Soulbound" looks great, like super cool, mechanically about the right place as far as crunch goes for me, I have my critiques of the setting (it could do more to lean into the planes also sigmarines are Dumb) but we don't need to get into that (it's probably the best option here)

you can do a bit of plane-hopping in Mage: the Awakening, or Exalted, but neither setting is built with that in mind, much as I love both systems

looking for systems with integrated settings or settings for systems that are not PbtA, FitD, or Fate

#owlbear grumbling #ttrpg stuff #Planescape #troika #ksbd #kill six billion demons #The Strange #Age of Sigmar: Soulbound #d&d

[thatsbelievable]

#tonight’s mood #emotions #moods #affirmations #E.M. Hasty #The strange

[jacquelinesbookclub]

The Strange – Nathan Ballingrud

Fear. It’s often what drives us, as human beings. Fear of pain, fear of being alone, fear of the unknown. When I first read this book about a year ago I was in recovery following a major surgery. Alone in a hotel room on the other side of the planet, doused with heavy painkillers that did a paltry job of actually killing pain, but a bang up one of killing clarity, fear was my most present companion.

Fear is a major theme in The Strange. Unlike many stories set on Mars, Ballingrud focuses less on Mars as Roman god of war, instead turning his attention on the moons, Deimos and Phobos: in mythology the sons of the Greek god of war Ares, and representing dread preceding battle and panic in its mist respectively. This is the driving force, the great motivator throughout the story, fear looming over the people of mars, shining down on every decision they make.

The townsfolk and the sheriff's fear of the Moths and the unknown outside of New Galveston feeds Anabelle’s fear the invaders will shirk their deserved justice. Joe’s fear of the gallows is bait for Anabelle to drag him out into the crater, and Sally’s fear for Joe gets her on the hook too. But the overwhelming fear blanketing the entirety of martian society is caused by the silence, the loss of contact with earth and inability to return, its the fear of abandonment, and the severed tether of safety. This is core to colonial stories, both from history and fiction. Left on your own without support from the homeland, food supply is scarce and tenuous, everything outside your compounds walls is a perceived threat, fear is bombarding from every angle. And the characters in this book act as we unfortunately do in real life: with violence. It’s fight or flight when there’s nowhere to flee. It always begins with outsiders; Anabelle’s father, Sam, kills a miner from Dig Town to protect his own from what he believes is an active threat, but then it becomes their own, their friends and neighbours and customers, that strip the diner clean immediately when Sam is arrested. Towards the conclusion, we see the end result, suicide: a man’s fear turning the violence back on himself.

In the acknowledgements section of the book, Ballingrud says “This book is also a love letter to westerns, a genre which has only become richer as it grapples with historical realities instead of indulging in mythology.” This, I think, perfectly describes the books tone. For something that is ostensibly a science fiction novel meets pulp serial, it reads like historical fiction. Alternative history, sure, but the premise never feels ridiculous, Ballingrud seems to fully understand the time and place, and constructs the characters accordingly. It all feels very real, very… Plausible. And it’s that colonial anxiety that roots this story in reality, a fear that colonists bring with them from home.

With the benefit of time removed I can see that I was never in any real danger in that hotel room post operation. I was safe, surrounded by friends, and under the care of one of the best surgery teams in the world. The fear was mine alone, the anxiety disorder I pack with me every day charged up with new circumstances. I think this is the origin of most of the fear we experience day-to-day, it’s the assumption of danger, writ large, the perceived potential for pain that makes us turn our backs on logic and dolly zoom on our imagination.

I’m not saying that all fear is baseless and fake, of course not. If I were actively being attacked by a tiger then I have every reason to fear for my life, in that moment, but if I head into the jungle every time expecting an attack, that’s fear I’ve bought in with me. There may not even be tigers in this jungle, who knows? I’ve never been attacked by a tiger, I’ve never even seen a tiger, the fear of being attacked has stemmed from my imagination, from countless “what ifs”. These passive fears we create are far more prevalent than the active fears we experience, and far more damaging.

We create these fears as a defence mechanism, being afraid of the tiger ahead of time means I’ll be more alert in the jungle and ideally avoid being attacked, but where does it end? Somewhere along the line, fear for self defence becomes self harm, and harm of others. It’s one thing to be afraid to see a doctor for the flu on the unlikely off chance it’s cancer and you’re dying, and quite another to murder vast swathes of native peoples because you’re afraid they’ll do you first. It’s absolutely insidious, this passive fear, it’s infected every aspect of our culture and made us sanitise ourselves of any sign of the real “natural” world, just like we’ve always wanted. Build a wall, keep the tigers out. An excuse, surely, but in trying to solve for potential tigers, we unwittingly (or not) feed real human lives to the jungle, people who need shelter from the active tigers, and then we tell ourselves they’re all tigers, that there’s no humanity there at all and the walls are working as intended and keeping us all safe. We don’t have to think about tigers anymore, we’ve removed the threat, don’t worry about it, there’s no tigers in here with our reverse cycle air conditioning and our car traffic at 9 and 5 and our perfectly straight #ed9121 orange carrots and pre-washed refrigerated eggs. We’ve solved the passive fear, as ever, through violence; and ignorance. We all know this is the case, but we’re too afraid of facing our passive fears to really change anything. “But what if there are tigers?” remains the most convincing argument for the continuation of global suffering, we have become the tiger that we fear, and perhaps we always were.

So then, what’s the solution? I don’t know, I’m just a white woman in her thirties with anxiety who’s tired of seeing tigers around every corner, and frustrated that no one will admit they see them too. Perhaps that’s the way forward, to see the tigers and recognise them, filter out which ones are real and which are imaginary, and manage them accordingly, but first and foremost, admit that you’re afraid. We’re all afraid, you’re not alone. Go into the jungle and see that it is safe, I’ll come with you.

What really compels me about The Strange is this idea that we bring our fears with us. Take Phobos and Deimos for example. They’re moons, right? Moons don’t create light, they passively reflect the sun and are perceived to shine in the nights sky. Similarly, Phobos and Deimos do not create fear, they’re just big rocks in the sky, we gave them that role, we named them after our own mythological imaginations of fear and now they reflect that back on us. Silas talks about humanity as an infection on Mars, and I think he’s right. Mars itself is only able to communicate through humanity using the Strange, and so it’s forced to integrate with the ideals humanity brought from earth. Through the war engines and the cultists and miners of Dig Town, through the cylinders indoctrinated with human needs and voices, Mars never had a chance to speak for itself. Humans bought fear and pain and suffering along as building blocks for colony and forced it into every crevice available. And the result, in the final words Anabelle hears from her mother as spoken by Mars itself:

“...I’M AFRAID…” she said. “...I’m afraid...”

#jacquelinesbookclub #book club #bookblr #writeblr #spoilers #the strange #nathan ballingrud #long post

[poeticlicense12345]

The Strange - Tonight I'll Say Anything

#youtube #art #umjetnost #music video #music #glazba #video #the strange

[dutchs-blog]

Lego Swimming Pool Layout

#lego land #lego #legoland #amazing #video #omg #weird #strange #hilarious #funny #lol #laugh #my video #funny tumblr #funny content

[lostonmyroad]

jessica really said “god forbid women do anything” and doomed an entire people to war by installing her twink son as a false prophet by stealing her cult’s 10,000 year old breeding program propaganda

#dune #dune part two #dune 2 #jessica atreides #chani kynes #paul atreides #oh jessica u are so strange and yet i find u endlessly fascinating

[adriles]

they are Cancelling me for dealing with my grief as best i can . also for the vicious war Crimes

#book 24 #the conversation between the gods at the beginning there is just this #greatest hits #all i say is vicious war crimes in a vague way #and you all start frothing at the mouth like rabid dogs #a lot of yall get the memo with the blorbo tags but also. seeing quite a few strange pulls #not exactly war crimes but Ok #sometimes normal vicious crimes can just be normal vicious crimes ok guys #can yall stop tagging this as israel u guys r fucking weird…. #if u see this and think it is a joke about actual fucking horrific war crimes and ethnic cleansing. u may be fucked up in the head #please be normal #will people stop commenting on this please. none of yall r funny

[omatoxin]

strange happenings -

#eee #all of them together <3 #art #digital art #digital drawing #artists on tumblr #illustration #digital aritst #artist #new artist #fish art #shark art #shark #arowana #char #day cycle #surreal #strange #strangecore #surrealism #surrealist art #night #day #sunset #omatoxin

[spinejackel]

What are dead man walking tornadoes? :O

it’s a multi-vortex tornado. i dont remember the tribe it originates from (i think it was cherokee), but there’s a native american legend…? saying? that goes “if you see a man in a tornado, you are about to die.”

the most infamous shot of a dead man walking tornado hit jarrell, texas in 1997

it did so much damage to the town it caused the scale that tornados are measured by, the fijita scale, undergo revisions, and it made anchoring buildings in the tornado alley region pretty much mandatory. (it took the entire town off the map. only those who had taken shelter outside of the town or in underground bunkers survived.)

two more examples of dead man walking tornadoes looking like a person are a tornado from 2011 that hit cullman, alabama

and a tornado from 1975 that hit xenia, ohio

edit: it has been brought to my attention that the native american “legend” part of this post was a rumor spread by a documentary.

i have been asked to remove it, but i believe in letting my errors stand because i’m not perfect. i make mistakes

#ask #nature #tornado #sorry if this reply is late #hope the image of walking tornadoes chills you to the bone as much as they do for me #usually i find tornadoes strangely awe inspiring #what with the shear power and destruction they can cause in such a short amount of time #but walking tornadoes are another class all their own #also i made a typo in fujita scale and it’s too late to fix it now

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

FATE magazine, Clark Pub., February 1954

#witches #fatalists #occult #vintage #fate magazine #fate #clark pub. #february 1954 #1954 #the strange #the unknown #true stories

[variksel]

i hate you ai art i hate you "unalive" i hate you youtube premium i hate you twitter 8$ checkmark i hate you nfts i hate you therapy app advertisements i hate you non-chronological timelines i hate you instagram reels i hate you subtle tiktok filters that cant be turned off i hate you family bloggers i hate you ads on true crime episodes i hate you facebook i hate you vr glasses on chickens i hate you dystopian social media

#sorry but genuinely sometimes i feel like we live in a fucking dystopia #i get ads of chat bots designed to look like cute girls who will listen to your problems and it. god #its so unbelievably strange in some indescribable way #how am i supposed to explain that the word unalive makes me want to tear my hair out #vent #rant #idk

[maxthesillyy]

#so..many #life is strange #lis #max caulfield #chloe price #pricefield #im just gonna start spewing them out into the void soon #okay #😀 #anyways #one that my brain is stuck on that most people already know but still #between max and chloe #max is objectively the more bold one when it comes to touch or talking or shit like that #if max thinks smth wrong #she gon say it #aftr overthinking a bunch but still #between the two of them max is more likely to speak out #no offense to chloe or to say she doesnt at all #chloe just has a bit more issues when it comes to shit like that <3 #also #with touch #have you ever seen the game #max starts off almost all the contact they have in that game #NEXT #max is asexual NOT because she can be stereotyped into a quiet so much anxiety and has so personality girl or whateever the fuck #but because IM asexual #and IM projecting #which is also why i could not tell you what kind of asexual she is #but #one of them <3

[jacquelinesbookclub]

Currently Reading: The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

1931, New Galveston , Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange to find Silas Mundt’s gang who have stolen her mother’s voice, destroyed her father, and left her solely with a need for vengeance.

#jacquelinesbookclub #book club #bookblr #the strange #nathan ballingrud

[azukailgames]

D6: The Strange Rumours – Recursions: Atom Nocturne

The Strange is a game published by Monte Cook Games. It is, at least in part, set in the normal world, but there are other worlds out there, in the Strange. This list has six rumours for that setting, similar to the various different adventure hooks in the books, and these can be used as adventure hooks or simple misinformation. Fallen have always been a by-product of the psychic abilities that…

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#GameMaster&039;s Resource #The Strange

[ratcandy]

we just keep naming bugs like this

#this is honestly my favorite type of common names. i love when we give that guy some strange adjective #clamtalk #bugposting #bugs #entomology