alyssa @alyssa@cat.family

when people recast extremely ubiquitous social phenomena in fandom terminology to try to present it as bad because some peeps really hate fanfic... :/

what can i make with blueberries to take advantage of the good flavor of blueberry without the unpleasant texture of blueberry

i got a bunch of blueberries at the grocery store but i think maybe i don't like blueberries oops

there is more that i could have said and strongly believe about what Wisher Theurgist Fatalist is about, but that would be reaching too far into what is properly a question for you and the people around you to decide, perhaps with a Harmony roll. If you do give it a try absolutely do hit me up with your thoughts and I’ll share my own more personal thoughts and experiences with it.

#DecRecs if you're at all into weird roleplaying games, I highly recommend Jenna Moran's Wisher, Theurgist, Fatalist & Weaver of their Fates. Some have described it as a self-aware joke about her games' reputation for esotericism. There's perhaps an element of truth to this: it is certainly true the game is named WTF&WTF, and I don’t know if there’s another designer out there who could write a game at all WTF not as a joke.

But, in addition to being a great read qua surrealist art project (or qua phenomenological analysis of role playing, for that matter), there’s actually I think a very approachable and interesting game in there. For that part, you mostly only need to read the beginning and end of each role’s book. As a games system, WTF is concerned primarily with how to resolve disagreements between players: especially about the setting, the rules, and how to play WTF, although it considers also such questions as “what if we disagree about who is playing” or “what if we disagree about whether I can [invoke the rules for resolving disputes about how to play WTF]?” (https://geostatonary.tumblr.com/post/162541011403 is a direct quote from the rules). It is an intrinsically incomplete rules system; this is true of every game, but WTF foregrounds and emphasizes and beautifully handles this fundamental tension of roleplaying games. It also does so in an easy to pick up and engaging to use way.

As a game WTF cares about what is, about what might be, about what we desire, and, above all, about who we can trust to know what it, to recognize what might be, and to wish for what should be. It cares about the moral implications of your journey as much as about the events therein. It is a game about finding the Jewel of All Desiring and remake the illusion of reality into something genuinely true, into something that has always been true, and, maybe, something that should be true.

http://hitherby-dragons.wikidot.com/a-small-gift-to-my-readers for downloading WTF&WTF.

tonight for #DecRecs I will recommend the freely-available Press Start tutorial scenario for Fabula Ultima.

Fabula Ultima is an Italian #TTRPG inspired by JRPGs (as the name may suggest); it's based on the core rules of Ryuutama with the addition of a neat turn-based JRPG-style combat system, plus a variety of neat little bits.

Press Start is an excellent introduction to the system and the vibe of Fabula Ultima. Unlike a lot of starter scenarios, it makes a considered effort to introduce the rules of the game piece-by-piece. The characters (pregenerated PCs, villains, and other NPCs alike) are interesting and the fights and other scenes were quite fun when I played it.

It's also pretty suitable to just picking it up and playing it right off. The friend who ran it when we played had I think not looked at it at all before we started and it still went great. Give it a try if you'd like!

forgot to actually post my #DecRecs last night so here it is!

Did you know that you can download the entirety of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary for free online? I mean, okay, probably like me you don't have a lot of really good reasons to look up the meanings of Akkadian words. Most of us are not out here trying to read cuneiform tablets in their original language.

But if you want, say, character names for a fantasy setting (it might also be useful for historical stuff set in ancient Mesopotamia but for names there you should probably look into sources specifically about names then), then consider Akkadian! The language is likely unfamiliar to your players/readers/whatever regardless of their cultural background, so it will help to make your setting feel unfamiliar; names like "Nablu" or "Paharu" probably won't have prior connotations, which isn't always an advantage but can be useful; as with any use of a consistent naming language, the use of it will allow you to hint at connections and relations even to an audience which is unaware of the meanings of the elements.

Also it's just neat to randomly page through and read about a long-dead language.

https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/assyrian-dictionary-oriental-institute-university-chicago-cad

Today for #DecRecs I suggest this very charming #HonoTsuba (from #LoveLive) doujin. Honoka how could you!!! (I mean, also relatable, but oh no.)

fan (english translation)

(Ichihi also put out a couple more follow-up books too, which are also available in translation there)

#DecRecs

The Partial Historians is a podcast i've been enjoying about ancient roman history, from two female historians of ancient Rome. I've mostly been listening to their "From the founding of the city" series of episodes, which is essentially going thru (mostly) year-by-year and discussing that year in roman history. It's probably on track to finish sometime this century, maybe. I've enjoyed it, the tone is fun, the historians are not hesitant to have very reasonable opinions about things such as that patricians are terrible and roman conceptions of virtue were bad. Also there are major players with names like Spurius Furius. Plus sometimes there are episodes on things like Aram Khachaturian's ballet about Spartacus (not part of the "From the founding of the city" series).

belated #DecRecs for yesterday:

Tale of Maj'Eyal is a roguelike game that more heavily emphasizes the combat side of things and has pretty adjustable difficulty (allowing you to both make things directly harder/easier and/or just play with 1/some/infinite lives). The randomization is a bit low (individual zone layouts, the locations of a few zones, most enemies and loot, but not much on the larger scale), but it's got a variety of classes that play pretty differently (and extensive customization within each class in terms of which abilities you choose to spend your points on) and are p fun (among the initially-unlocked classes, alchemist is a really fun one imo). I might suggest checking out the wiki and/or forums for some spoilers (particularly on things like which zones to do when) after possibly a few deaths.

It's free, although there are paid expansions that add some neat stuff (new classes, new zones, an entire campaign from the perspective of an antagonist faction from the original campaign).