#Technology in Kung Fu

[liligeometry]

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[undertale-accessibility]

Random post.

So, let's say that a man from 100 years ago somehow suddenly time traveled to our present day. Imagine his reaction to seeing not just our technology but also the way we use it. For context, here's what technology was like during the time. https://theinventors.org/library/weekly/aa121599a.htm

Time traveler: So, let me clarify. You people made a movie called "Kung-fu Panda"?

Present day person: Yep.

Time traveler: And then you made THREE MORE?!

Present day person: Uh huh.

Time traveler: What is wrong with you people?

(Please add to this. I trust Tumblr users to be appropriately hilarious.)

[alanstudios]

In promotion of my new upcoming original comic strip, Eve & Adam, I created a list filled with 2000s Pop Culture References that inspired the webcomic! (With the exception of Portal 2) It is a compilation made by me.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own anything, the listed images and all rights belong to their rightful and respective owners.

[mechawolfie]

a short hike is the closest thing i've played to botw and it frustrates me to no end that so many open-world games seem to be made with the thought of "i want this to be like botw", when they very obviously don't understand that it's not the Hugeass World that makes botw/totk so Good, but rather how you interact with that world.

a short hike has a big beautiful world and u can go basically anywhere anytime but that's not the only thing. it's also got some funny little guys to get to know and see their little corner of the mountain and just chill with them. it's awesome.

[aci25]

China’s humanoid robot turns into Kung-fu master after dazzling dance debut

Robots train in a virtual setting, learn human actions, then transfer skills to real robots using Sim2Real technology.

Unitree’s latest video shows its compact humanoid robot mastering kung-fu moves, including punches and roundhouse kicks, while maintaining balance. The Chinese company is in the process of constantly upgrading G1’s algorithm, enabling it to learn and perform virtually any movement. The most recent update seems to have expanded the humanoid’s balance capabilities and repertoire of movements.

In a video released last week, G1 showcased agility and balance, performing smooth dances, precise footwork, while being interrupted.

In January, Unitree showcased its G1 robot’s smooth walking and running system, demonstrating agility, stability, and precise control on inclines and uneven terrain.

Humanoid robot’s agile moves

In its most recent video, Unitree’s G1 humanoid performs amazing kung-fu movements with amazing balance, albeit it almost trips once. The new algorithm upgrade that powers these nimble movements improves the robot’s capacity to learn and carry out intricate tasks. The G1 exhibits remarkable coordination and flexibility with 23 degrees of freedom (DoF) and enhanced stability. Notwithstanding this demonstration of martial arts expertise, the film concludes with a warning that users should not alter the robot in any way that could endanger others or teach it actual combat techniques. Unitree claims that the G1 is made to handle difficult, filthy, and repetitive jobs in a variety of settings, including at homes, factories, and hospitals. It embodies Unitree’s concept of humanoid robots serving as useful work and life companions.

Training begins in a virtual setting using Nvidia’s Isaac Simulator, allowing the robots to learn complex behaviors before they physically exist. This method entails building a digital twin of the humanoid robot that uses motion capture and video data to observe human actions. These behaviors are exercised in the virtual environment through reinforcement learning. Through a procedure known as Sim2Real, which smoothly converts simulated actions into real-world applications, the acquired abilities are subsequently transmitted to the physical robot.

Open-source motion

To improve the natural movement of its humanoid robots, such as the H1, H1-2, and G1 models, Unitree Robotics has released an open-source full-body dataset. This information enhances the robots’ flexibility and coordination, allowing them to mimic human-like movements – like dancing. Captured using LAFAN1 motion capture technology, the dataset is fully compatible with Unitree’s main robot models and showcases lifelike movements in a newly released demonstration video. The dataset features a redirection algorithm that combines interactive mesh and inverse kinematics technology. By taking into account end posture restrictions, joint positions, and velocity limitations, this novel method maximizes the robots’ movements.

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Unitree hopes to enable researchers and enthusiasts to investigate novel uses for humanoid robots in diverse real-world contexts by making this dataset publicly accessible.

High-performance H1 and H1-2 models from Unitree are built for advanced capabilities; as of March 2024, the H1 held the Guinness World Record for sprinting at 7.38 mph (3.3 m/s). The G1 model, on the other hand, provides a more portable and reasonably priced choice for research and development.

According to the firm, it aims to promote exploration and creativity through this open-source project, expanding the possibilities for more dynamic, human-like interactions and pushing the limits of humanoid robotics.

Source: https://interestingengineering.com

[madscientistshowdown]

PROPAGANDA

Princess/Long Quiet

I was writing somewhat cohesive propaganda and then the phrase “She is everything. He’s just Quiet” popped into my head and i think that sums them up better than anything else I could have said. The Princess can change to be anything she’s perceived as, and the Long Quiet… he’s silly :)

Fuuko/Andy (propaganda by @tokiro07)

Fuuko became the boss of a time-looping organization designed to fight and kill God, looped back to the 1800s and used visions she acquired from previous loops to become an oil baron. By the 1970s, she'd amassed enough wealth to outstrip most governments, re-founded said organization with incredibly advanced technology, and used all of her resources to avert the horrific tragedies of all of her loved ones. Along the way, she became skilled in several fields, such as language arts, surgery, cooking, kung fu, metallurgy, sharpshooting, singing, dancing, boxing, and drawing. In addition to being an oil-baron and effectively the CEO of a secret organization, she also became a ramen-themed cryptid, an astronaut, and a deadbeat dad

While Fuuko was gathering capital and recruits, Andy sat on the sun for an unspecified number of years, but likely the full 4.6 billion years since the creation of the Earth, to keep God's ten strongest soldiers sealed away within it and prevent them from interfering with Fuuko's preparations. For all intents and purposes, Andy acted as a stay-at-home wife while he waited for Fuuko to finish her work

They are canonically in a relationship, and they weaponize it. Fuuko's power, Unluck, is directly proportional to how much she likes whoever she touches x how long she touches them x how much surface area she touches, and Andy's power, Undead, allows him to tank whatever horrible thing Unluck sends his way while redirecting it at an enemy. A single, one-second high-five between the two was enough to summon a comet, specifically to cancel out a meteor she'd accidentally summoned on a close personal friend. She was able to think of the plan needed to facilitate this while fighting one of the aforementioned ten soldiers within 10 seconds while also performing major heart surgery, and then immediately infiltrated the sun alone to confront the other nine

Andy was originally a nameless amnesiac until Fuuko came up with the name as a pun on Undead. Since Andy got his first name from Fuuko, many fans have taken this to the logical conclusion that he would also take his last name from her, and thus refer to him as Andy Izumo

[artbyblastweave]

So I blew through Ultimate Marvel Team-Up in order to get context for when Daredevil starts sticking his horns back into the main Ultimate Spider-Man book, and what's really interesting to me is that Bendis's rendition of basically every non-Spider-Man cape who shows up in that gesture at what could have been an extremely cohesive Ultimate Marvel setting;

Hulk is very visibly classic Hulk in every respect, but with the added implication that he's currently neck-deep in a thriller-conspiracy uncover-the-truth kind of plot regarding the government experimentation with super-soldiers that's upstream of all of superhumanity in the Ultimate Universe. This idea was later binned, Banner was framed as neck-deep in spook shit and unlikely to try and defect from it in the way he was implied to be trying to do.

Iron Man's origin is changed so that he got abducted by rebels while attempting to sell weapons technology to a right-wing U.S-backed junta in Guatemala during the Reagan Admin, and moreover in direct retaliation for attempting to do that; this is upstream of his decision to stop selling weapons technology, and the two-shot where he teams up with Spider-Man involves Latveria attempting to steal the Iron Man Armor- with Tacit SHIELD Backing, because Nick Fury is willing to let Dr. Doom have that tech if it increases the chances of the U.S. Government eventually getting a crack at it. This extremely interesting cold war dynamic between stark and Fury also mostly got binned.

The Fantastic Four are nearly identical in function to their 616 counterparts, except that instead of a spaceflight they got their powers on a years-long expedition to the Negative Zone, having Challengers-of-the-Unknown style adventures, which both neatly resolves the datedness of the spaceflight origin and allows them to have their veteran hero status simultaneously with the idea that the heroic age is just starting out. The Negative zone was also mentioned to be the home dimension of the Skrulls, Kree, and possibly Galactus, neatly explaining why so many spaceborne threats keep making themselves earth's problem so specifically. Ultimate Fantastic Four was just good enough (And Bendis's two shot otherwise boring enough) that I can forgive the parts of this that they binned. I mean we got Marvel Zombies out of it, that's worth everything in the world

Ultimate Dr. Strange is interesting in that he's the son of the original Dr. Strange, whose origin, career and supporting cast are actually largely exactly the same but also linked to the IRL time period of Strange's debut, the early 60s through the early 80s. Stephen Strange Jr. is the inheritor of a legacy his disillusioned Mother Clea spent twenty one years trying to keep him well away from, rapidly attempting to learn the ropes under the apprenticeship of a long-suffering Wong and largely coming across as a scientologist-adjacent crank in the media. This is actually a really fun way to put Strange at the Metaphorical kids table with the rest of the aged-down heroes while also keeping him from breaking every story, and although Bendis did get to keep using him in this capacity it ultimately didn't amount to much because he got turbofucked during Ultimatum after only a couple of appearances.

Shang Chi is introduced in the middle of a Kung-Fu walking-the-earth situation, with Spider-Man haphazardly (and unsuccessfully) seeking him out for martial arts lessons when he realizes he's just leaning on his powers as a crutch in most fights. He offers him like 20 dollars

The broad outline of a lot of these ideas, and the political themes they were gesturing towards, survived their later delegation to other authors to some extent, but were corroded by Millar's cinematic bombast on The Ultimates in particular. I mourn the version of the Ultimate Universe where they just gave Bendis enough amphetamines to have him do all of it. At any rate you bet your ass that if I ever commit to trying to do some kind of fanmade unified Marvel Timeline I'd poach all of these

[lyvhie]

>ᴗ< what my moots remind me of .ᐟ.ᐟ

ib: @spacejip

only brazilian songs 😈 and the colors will be in hex code because i'm not on my computer 😔

★ @spacejip

space ofc / duo dance / WASP-19b / dbd / leon kennedy / fennec fox / mangas / aib / ice cream in a hot day / technology / cars / friendship / hot 2d guys / chenle / tall people / drawing / art / afternoons / limão / vermillion (#e34234) / pupila by anavitoria

★ @yizhrt

banana / fireworks / jupiter / nights / the sims / aesthetic / friendship / roblox / little chick / tycoon / mark / kids / canada / piracy / sleep / comfort / family / ferret / coding / watermelon pink (#fc6c85) / mania de você by rita lee

★ @peterm4rker

ootds / sun / sunset / butterflies / tim drake / spiderman / beach / stars / haikyuu! / cars / study / voice messages / robots / marriage / ☝️🤓 / bees / cerulean (#0492c2) / exagerado by cazuza

★ @luv4connie

PIRULINES!! / mornings / peace / calmness / flower field / tulipas! / cats / bunnies / daily reminder / NCT 127 / wool sweater on a cold night / white chocolate / SNK / SKIN CARE / late night talks / SURPRESA DE UVA / yellow (after our agreement) / pela luz dos olhos teus by miúcha

★ @yuwushi

tau ceti / polar bear / sakuya / snowman emoji from love and deepspace / african pygmy hedgehog / body pillows / puppies / quiet nights / this blue #ddeef4 (i couldn't find the name in eng help) / love love by gilsons

★ @sinisxtea

saturn / cooking / kung-fu panda / lies / red (the movie with the red bear) / cowboys / storytelling / cocks / china / winwin / the voice / honey gold (#ffc30b) / dragão de nome impronunciável by kamaitachi

★ @nlovesbjh

neptune / big time rush / siberian flying squirrel / winter / kun / snow / cherries / warm mornings / mario / snow white / barn red (#7c0a02) / lana by kamaitachi

★ @polarisjisung

wishing well cluster / sweets / constellations / spaceships / teddy bear / tumblr developers / jisung / hugs / koala / matcha / dark purple (#301934) / nosso primeiro beijo by gloria groove

★ @viasdreams

jack stauber / hatsune miku / moon / caterpillars / christmas lights / cotton candy / clowns / aliens / dreams 😭 / weed 😭 / psychology / rainbow / bitter lemon green (#cae00d) / se você quer sorrir by patati patatá

★ @xjxnox

jeno!!! / bubbles / the letter X 😭 / autumn!! / rainy days / calendula flower / pinocchio (dont ask me why) / burnt orange (#be5103) / sorvete de ovomaltine by magyn

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played FENG SHUI ?

By Robin D. Laws

Feng Shui is a martial arts-themed role-playing game, sharing its setting with the collectible card game Shadowfist. It is heavily inspired by Hong Kong action movies, and crossing genres including gunplay, magic, martial arts and advanced technology, characters begin at a high level of competence. It has simple rules, and a focus on over the top combat which flows quickly, moving from one action scene to another.

It was originally published by Daedalus Entertainment, and republished by Atlas Games, with a second edition kickstarted in 2015.

The name Feng Shui refers to one of the central themes of the game: those who control places with powerful Feng Shui control the world. These people find that events go in their favour more often than would be explained by chance. The outcomes of major historical events, such as wars, elections and natural disasters are dictated by who has the most powerful Feng Shui. Numerous groups vie for control of these sites, and thus control of the world. ( rest of the description below the poll)

Skill tests are based on the characters Action Value, which states how good they are at that skill, which is pitted against the difficulty value of the test. This is modified by two differently coloured d6 - one positive, one negative. What this means is that skill tests tend to be much less swingy than other systems, with a reasonable estimate of whether your character can succeed at any given skill test, but with a little uncertainty added in. Rolling one or more 6s can also result in more extreme successes and failures. If you roll a result that is better than you needed, you are strongly encouraged to narrate the result as if you were trying for something much more challenging.

Characters are based on pre-written archetypes, drawn from the action films that the game is influenced by (such as Magic Cop, Cyborg, Two-fisted Archaeologist or Old Master) and intended to get you up and running as quickly as possible. Of course, to fit with the genre, every character also needs a melodramatic hook!

The core part of the setting is that in various parts of the world there are portals to a place called the Netherworld, which in turn has portals to other time periods (or Junctures), an ancient one (69CE or 690CE depending on the edition), 1850, contemporary, and the future. Of course, because there is time travel, people will inevitably try and change the past or future. Because they do not alter the flow of Chi in the world, changes that do not result in a Feng Shui site changing hands can't transform history in a significant way; history will snap back in the most economical way possible. While anyone who has visited the Netherworld will retain their old memories and identities, when they return to their life they may have a different name, home, or history they are unaware of. A Critical Shift can occur when a faction possesses enough Feng Shui sites as history diverges in their favour from that point onwards, which can mean that subsequent junctures have changed in large (and sometimes unexpected) ways.

The key factions in both editions vying for control of the Feng Shui sites (and thus, the world) are:

The Eaters of the Lotus are a group of evil eunuch sorcerers originating in ancient China, and who use magic, demons and political intrigue.

The Guiding Hand ae a group of neo-Confucian monks committed to bringing about a world of peace and harmony within strict rules. They are isolationist and traditional, are based in 1850s China and specialise in kung fu.

The Ascended are the descendants of animals that became human through force of will. As too much magic will revert them to their animal forms, they have gained control of the 1850 and contemporary junctures, and also have abilities based on their animal heritage.

The Jammers are a group of anarchists composed mostly from failed experiments on apes and monkeys, with the aim of restoring free will by wiping the world clean of all influences of Feng Shui at any cost. They principally use guns, heavy weapons, explosives and cyborg enhancements, and are led by Battlechimp Potempkin.

The Four Monarchs once ruled a magical version of the contemporary juncture until a critical shift removed them from power. Each of them now rules a portion of the Netherworld, scheming against each other and the other factions. Each of them is a powerful sorcerer in his or her own right, and their followers specialize in either sorcery or kung fu.

The Dragons are a loose set of idealistic warriors opposed to the tyranny of the other factions, dedicated to the fight for freedom, justice, and the right to look extremely cool while doing it. This is the faction that the player characters will generally belong to.

The second edition had a foreword written by John Rogers (screenwriter of Jackie Chan Adventures, Leverage and The Librarians fame…)

This is (one) of my favourite RPGs that I've never had the opportunity to play, and yes, I am an unapologetic fan of Robin D. Laws!

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

and found - outtakes

Hey, folks, I have weathered the first feast holiday of my winter season and had a super breakfast, and now I have to be at work but there's obviously nothing doing so it's time to post a couple of things that got cut from "and found," generally due to lack of narrative space for them.

***

girlboss

“Jiao Liqiao did some incredibly out of pocket shit, but she was kind of a girlboss. Or at least she knew how to be straightforward about, like, ‘hey, Di Feisheng, I want to tie you up and have insane sex with you.’”

Di Feisheng lets out a startled cough. “You're overestimating her willingness to explain anything ever.”

“Well, ok, yeah, but she knew what she wanted and she did something about it and I respect that as someone else who would, like, commit serial murders to hang onto you. And like. She looked at you and said, man, he's super hot and good at kung fu, the dick must be insane, and it's not like she was wrong.”

This time it's Fang Duobing's turn to cough, as Di Feisheng transitions into looking smug. “She had y–h–Bicha poison?”

“Oh, and god forbid women do anything.” Xiangyi glances at them and then cackles. “No, I mean, don’t get me wrong, if I could time travel I’d break her fucking jaw, but game recognize game.”

“I don’t. I don’t think that phrase applies here? Since you’re not evil?”

“You are seriously underestimating the degree to which you both make me feel like an insane person, if something happened to either of you nothing could get between me and the nuclear launch codes.”

“The. The Secret Service?”

“Shifu. I could take them! You don’t think I could beat up the entire Secret Service?"

Di Feisheng snorts. “And you worry about me getting on watchlists.”

***

“Of all of the technological innovations you’ve seen over the course of your life so far, what would you say is your favorite?”

(this one isn't even an outtake, it's just something I wrote down because it was funny even though there's never been a spot in the story where I could start having Xiangyi shoot interview questions at various immortals)

Fang Duobing: “I really like typewriters? Fountain pens were good, but getting a typewriter was game-changing.” (“Not word processors?”) “I mean. A word processor is fine, but it doesn’t go click in the same way.”

Di Feisheng: “Motorcycles.”

Wen Kexing: “Zippers are the greatest invention of the past eight hundred years. Although blenders are also good.”

Zhou Zishu: “Milkshakes and smoothies, any frozen drink. Unless that doesn’t count as technology, in which case hydroponics.”

Jing Beiyuan: “Hm. Noise-cancelling headphones. And there have been significant advances in the field of sex toys that I really appreciate, but I doubt you want to hear about that.”

Wu Xi: “Noise-cancelling headphones. Rubber gloves. Poison control hotlines.” (“You think of poison control hotlines as a technological innovation? What are they an improvement over?”) “They’re better than waking me in the middle of the night because some idiot’s eaten something they shouldn’t.”

Orlando: “Photography, and I do appreciate how easy it is to bathe now.”

Kenzaki Kazuma: “I mean, I haven't actually lived longer than a normal human yet, but smartphones are great.”

Kurenai Gai: “Ramune.”

Hob Gadling: “Modern painkillers are incredible, do you know what I would have given in the 1500s to be able to go round the corner store and get a bottle of paracetamol?”

Wen Ning: “Electric lighting is really nice.”

Song Lan: [ text messaging ]

Xiangyi: “If we don't get flying cars in the next hundred years or so I’m fully going to throw a tantrum. Unless Elon Musk is involved. Hey, A-Fei, can we kill Elon Musk?” (“You have a major study running right now.”) “Well, yeah, obviously we’d do it after that.”

***

Ultraman

Xiangyi bats his hand away without looking at the screen. “Cut it out, illegal to be horny at me during Ultraman time.”

Di Feisheng raises an eyebrow. “You said earlier that Ultraman makes you horny.”

“Which is true, and I stand by it, but this rise is important to the whole, like, emotional arc of the show and I don't want to miss it.”

“Not that I’m not enjoying this show, but I didn't think these aired in the USA.” Fang Duobing adjusts his glasses, apparently fascinated as he watches the transformation sequence. “How did you get to be such a big fan?”

“Oh, Uncle Xun had a couple of the old shows on, like, laserdisc, Yuze and I used to stay up all night watching them when we were kids. We got in fights about which one to put on, even, because he always wanted to watch Return because he has no fucking taste but then he’d make fun of me for wanting to watch Ace because he thought it ‘wasn’t fun’ or some shit.”

“I’ll be honest, I don't recognize any of those names? I watched the original show when it first aired, and Ultra Q before that, but then after that I was busy doing other things, so I never got around to watching anything after those. Didn't see the point, anyway, since Eiji had died, it felt weird watching his thing without him working on it.”

Xiangyi freezes, reaches for the remote very slowly, pauses the show, and turns. “Xiaobao, are you saying you knew Tsuburaya Eiji?”

Fang Duobing blinks. “Yes? Him and Kinjo Tetsuo, they were good men. I spent a few decades living in Japan mid-century.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Ah…sabotaging warships and fighter planes, mostly. Well, until I got arrested. I broke out, of course, but I couldn't manage to get out of the country, so I was living under an assumed name for a while, and then there was. I mean. I…” He trails off, looking haunted. “It's hard to stay angry at an entire country after you see something like that happen. So…I stayed. Someone always needs a doctor. I’d rather not talk about it. Ah, so, I set up a practice and one day a couple of men came in and asked if I’d come with them because there’d been an accident, and when we got there the first thing I saw was a monster? It was very startling.”

Xiangyi realizes that he's been holding his breath. “Was it Godzilla?”

“No, ah, Rodan. Anyway, someone had a sprained ankle and once I’d gotten it wrapped up I said, what were they doing here, and they said they were making a movie, and here was the man who’d designed the monster and he wanted to know what I thought of it, since apparently the face I’d made was very funny.” Fang Duobing smiles fleetingly. “I kept hanging around because safety standards in filmmaking at the time were…not good.”

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello,

I apologize in advance if you've already answered something like this but my cursory look didn't show anything. I am looking for a game system that has an emphasis on the feeling of a wild west movie while still retaining general fantasy elements from DND. The wild spaces are slowly becoming tamed, increasing technological/magical advancement are pushing disparate communities together, and of course cocky assholes with guns (or a magical equivalent).

Thanks in advance

Theme: Wild West Fantasy

Hello friend, you might want to check out my Fantasy Westerns rec post, to see if anything there fits what you’re looking for. I especially recommend checking out the rec for We Deal In Lead and Clink. For the rest of this post, I try to span a very broad range, so I don't expect everything to stick - but perhaps one or two do!

Inevitable, by Soul Muppet Publishing.

Knights and wizards have defended the Kingdom of Myth for centuries. These lands have known peace and prosperity, but soon the kingdom shall be destroyed. The Prophets have declared that your city shall burn and Myth will fall. All those who follow your King shall die. It is INEVITABLE.

But you shall defy fate. Myth will not end while you bear arms. You will fail, but as long as there are still stories, they will sing of you!

Inevitable is a Arthurian Western roleplaying game for 2-6 players and a GM, where your party of disastrously sad cowboy knights fail to stop the apocalypse. This 284 page book contains all the rules, character creation and the setting for your campaign, thoroughly and evocatively detailing The Barren, the lands surrounding the Kingdom of Myth.

This game might be way you’re looking for: it describes itself as a fantasy kingdom, with western aesthetics. There are wizards, prophets, and rune-carved revolvers. Your reputation in the kingdom is important; it determines how well you can face challenges, and roll pools of d6 on a table of staggered success. If you want a taste before you buy, there’s a Quickstart with some evocative set pieces, a quick overview of the rules, and a quick adventure to run through with a list of pre-generated characters.

Far West, by Adamant Entertainment.

Imagine a fantasy setting that shatters the tropes of Medieval Europe. Imagine a collision of Spaghetti Westerns and Chinese Wuxia by way of Steampunk. Imagine a world where gunslingers and kung fu masters face off against Steam Barons and the August Throne. Imagine fantastic machines powered by the furies comprising the fabric of the universe. Imagine an endless frontier where wandering heroes fight for righteous causes while secret societies engage in shadow wars. Imagine…

This game is a combination of Wild Western tropes and Wuxia fantasy. Your characters are wandering heroes, defending the small and helpless against the strong and powerful. I look at this game and I think of movies like The Magnificent Seven. Mechanically, it’s its own system, but it draws heavily from Fate, using positive and negative aspects to boost rolls and spark complications.This game relies on some tropes that require entire table buy-in: I’m not sure how many assumptions the game makes about the cultures it takes inspiration from.

Holler: An Appalachian Apocalypse (Savage Worlds), by Pinnacle Entertainment.

In Holler, the mysterious “Big Boys” own the mines, mills, and logging operations. They rule over every aspect of their workers’ lives—subjecting them to extraordinary dangers on the job and crushing oppression outside of it. The Big Boys have transformed the land of the Holler—rivers bubble with strange chemicals, strip-mined mountains crumble into valleys, and the air is choked with a toxic fog known as the Blight. The flora and fauna of the Holler grow more monstrous by the day. Demons of every description lurk in the forests. Mutant cryptids haunt villages with their strange cries and appetites. Vengeful haints leer from abandoned shacks and lonely cliffs. No one is coming to save the people of Holler.

The goal of the resistance is to build a coalition, to bring together diverse factions—humble workers, roustabouts, mountain men, dirt track racers, cultists, and even strange creatures of myth and legend to raze the works of the Big Boys and drive them from the Holler forever. Holler draws deeply on Appalachian history, mythic folklore, and culture to create a dark fantasy world of apocalypse and vengeance.

This sounds a little more grim and gritty, with cryptids, toxic fog and demons lurking in the forest. It uses the Savage Worlds system, so you’ll have to pick up the codebook to play with it, but the setting is very very fleshed out. This is a little less Wild West and a little more Appalachia, and the setting is a bit more on the horror side than most of the other games on this list, but there’s certainly a lot of wildness out there for you to fight!

TROUPE, by TheOriginalCockatrice.

A game about travel, discovery, and outsiderness, a combination of the best of Old-School and Story Games. Complete with 6 Jobs, including the Ghelf, the Hedge, and the Ogra, and includes a system for holistically coming up with a character from scratch.

The designer describes this game as an exploration of the road; the odd and unknown of the wild, what it means to belong, and what it means to be on the outside. You’re not heroes - you’re entertainers, jokers, healers and bards. There isn’t exactly magic, but there is myth and legend. This is a great game for folks who want plenty of challenges that exist outside of combat. Each character playbook comes with a balance of mechanical elements and descriptive options, and you’ll be rolling 2d6 plus your stat in order to determine success.

I’m not sure how much of a Western this is, but the designer actually hacked this game for BXLLET, a game about gunslingers in the apocalypse, in the zine Bxllet Clip, so it might be worth checking out!

Shotguns & Sorcery, by Full Moon Enterprises.

Welcome to Dragon City, a grim, gritty metropolis ruled over by the Dragon Emperor, with legions of zombies scratching at the city walls by night.

Whether in the streets of Goblintown or the prestigious halls of the Academy of Arcane Apprenticeship, people try to scrape by, make a living, and survive from one day to the next. You, however, are looking for something more than simple survival. And in this city, if you don’t make your own adventure, another adventure is sure to find you.

Shotguns & Sorcery is a fantasy noir game complete with Dragon City Intrigues, roving hoards of undead, and unexplored mountains rife with magical creatures. You’ll see magical staffs alongside light pistols, bows alongside submachine guns, and greatswords alongside canteens, playing cards and a camp stove. The game uses the Cypher System, with an additional character option alongside the three-part character sentence: your race. This includes the signature hafling, elf, dwarf etc.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Knights of the Road, by bordercholly.

[asharkapologist]

Jade Palace + Social Media

Basically, I thought up of a bunch of silly headcanons about if Po + the Furious Five had social media because I thought it would be funny. Enjoy!

Viper has the most followers. Like, she has millions of followers. She was also the first one to ask Shifu if they could get social media accounts, as she wanted to keep in contact with her family. Shifu kept telling her no, thinking such a thing would be a distraction for them. (Viper, then Monkey and Mantis, went behind his back and got accounts anyways. After Po came along and Shifu found inner peace and became a lot less strict to his students, he allowed them to get social media. They wisely pretended as if they never had it when they made their accounts public.) Viper was originally fine with just commenting on and sharing what her sisters and other family posted, but then she discovered ASMR, and fell absolutely in love with it. She developed a strong attachment to ASMR, and began practicing it, and people love it, thinking her voice and the rattles she makes when she moves are perfect for ASMR. She also gives excellent affirmations.

Monkey and Mantis also downloaded social media before Shifu allowed it. They both have a substantial amount of followers, with Monkey having slightly more than Mantis. Monkey posts selfies/pictures but also spams the group chat with memes. Mantis advertises his acupuncture services and sends extremely cursed memes to their group chat, which Monkey appreciates. Tigress is not so amused. She has threatened to block both of them multiple times in order to not see their constant cursed memes.

Po has the second most followers. He had social media before he became the Dragon Warrior that he used to market his dad’s business, but after he became the Dragon Warrior, naturally his follower account exploded, as did his dad’s business. Po fills his stories and posts with selfies and pictures of Shifu (despite him trying to avoid appearing on social media posts), the Furious Five, and shares all the content that his friends make. Naturally, whenever he posts pictures of him and the Five eating at Mr. Ping’s restaurant, Mr. Ping experiences a boom in business. Po also posts pictures of his food just as much--if not more--than his pictures of his friends and family.

Crane was somewhat hesitant to get social media, and his account was private for quite a while. He eventually made his account public after being peer pressured into it. He’s the least active of Po and the Five online, and Viper and Po (especially the latter) are trying to convince him to post his calligraphy and artwork, considering it to be quite skilled. His self-consciousness has prevented him from doing so thus far.

Tigress has the third most followers. She’s very no-nonsense on social media, and surprisingly, Po managed to talk her into getting it fairly soon after Shifu allowed it. Now, Tigress posts manageable workouts on her accounts for the average person, focusing especially on self-defense skills that women can use. Her popularity online has certainly grown quite well. Po also talked her into doing a couple lives with her followers, keeping everything professional and answering questions relevant to the content she posts. Po keeps trying to talk her into teaching a kung fu class for girls or a self-defense class for women in general. (“Come on! They think you’re awesome! They love you! You’re so hardcore!”) She may be considering it. 

Shifu is not terribly technologically literate. He is definitely a boomer who would struggle to figure out how to download something to a flash drive. He also has a habit of taking pictures that are very off-center, or otherwise do not look great (his thumb has covered the camera several times before). He doesn’t have social media, and is constantly asking Po to teach him how to take good pictures (Po takes the best ones) and has accidentally downloaded viruses onto the Jade Palace computers twice. Oogway is chuckling at him from the Spirit Realm.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

So I wanna do an add-on about the SHREK 5 first look, which I'm not really gonna call a teaser unless it ran in theaters with something.

And it's gonna be about the look of the movie, but not what you may think. I'm overall okay with how it looks, honestly. If they had this kind of technology and rendering capabilities and such back in the late '90s and early aughts, I'd reckon this is more or less the look they'd go for. Or at least something closer to it than not. Like, it doesn't really look like a Disney CG movie to me, it doesn't really resemble a FROZEN or a MOANA type. It's more or less PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, but done in regular more traditional CGI rendering and not a painterly storybook-type look.

I'll be honest, the visuals were never really my thing with the SHREK movies. I find those movies kinda just there-looking. Certainly a lot of hard work went into them, and I do like some of the set design in the first two films, Donkey's character design was always very solid to me... But, other than that, it doesn't really do too much for me in the way some other DreamWorks CG pictures do. Like, gimme MADAGASCAR and KUNG FU PANDA, I *love* the entire production design of those franchises. SHREK's fine, and the character design was mostly alright for me.

It's often defended as "it was supposed to be ugly, it was supposed to be the anti-Disney", but the original book illustrations were truly scrunkly and ugly, as was the mid-90s test footage when Chris Farley was set to voice the character. Like, SHREK as it is does not even compare to the likes of scrunklier not-like-Disney art styles in animation, like the UPA's works or Ralph Bakshi films or many of the game-changing styles we saw in '90s Western television animation: An era of THE SIMPSONS, AEON FLUX, BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD, SOUTH PARK, anything made by Klasky-Csupo, etc. Like, nah, SHREK's just a little less cute than - say - Disney, Bluth, mid-to-late '90s Warner, and Pixar. The original 2001 movie I feel leans more towards how cool the tech was in 2001, more so than a genuinely ugly look, so I don't really buy that. And if anything, the all-new 2026 SHREK model is kind of a meshing of fundamentals established in the original and the LAST WISH art style, with - again - a typical CG coating.

Which leads me to ask... If Puss In Boots does show up in the film, as Antonio Banderas hasn't been named yet... Will it just be a sort-of "the films have multiple art styles" deal?

When the first look at THE LAST WISH got out in the middle of 2022, I was really surprised to see a more SPIDER-VERSE/MITCHELLS/BOOK OF LIFE-esque approach to the visuals. And then the movie came out, and really committed to the bit, stuck the landing. The final shot of them approaching Far, Far Away. Looking dreamier and more ethereal than usual... Like, I assumed SHREK 5 would look like that. A complete visual reinvention for a long-running CGI movie franchise, not merely a touch-up, like how the actual results look to me. It's giving more TOY STORY 3 vs. TOY STORY 2, than that.

If Puss is in the movie, I assume he'll be rendered in the same way, albeit bearing the form, shape, and basic principles of his LAST WISH appearance. I also wonder if it'll do an experimental sort-of thing where the scenes from Puss' perspective - again, if he's in it - are the LAST WISH art style, and Shrek and Fiona's perspective are the regular art style. That'd be kind of neat, but I don't think that's happening. Donkey is supposed to get a solo movie, and with this logic, what kind of animation style would *his* perspective look like? Given that he's a goofy comic relief, I'd imagine it'd be a very silly and wacky style. That'd be kinda cool, IMO. Shrek's perspective being the main style, Puss being the painterly storybook, Donkey something off-the-wall and cartoonish, I'm probably getting ahead of myself here.

The movie is still a long way off. It's unknown if Puss is back or not, what the final scene in THE LAST WISH leads to, where Shrek's other children are, basically anything. It's also worth noting that this is the first SHREK feature film not fully made at the DreamWorks campus nor Pacific Data Images, the latter of which was shut down by DreamWorks management in 2015... No, this is being animated largely by Sony Pictures Imageworks, who'll provide most of the animation services for these big-time DreamWorks movies going forward. That was set in stone for after the completion of THE WILD ROBOT. This year's THE BAD GUYS 2 is the first of their efforts. Jellyfish, Mikros, houses like those'll handle the much smaller-scale pics like DOG MAN and GABBY'S DOLLHOUSE. (DOG MAN came in at $40m, for example, in comparison to THE WILD ROBOT's $78m.)

Once again, I also wonder what DreamWorks non-sequel movie will be released between DOLLHOUSE (September 26, 2025) and SHREK 5 (December 23, 2026), when Disney/20th Century Studios will blink on ICE AGE 5 (very soon, I'd imagine), and... Well, that's about it. The road to release pretty much starts now, then...

[kungfuwushuworld]

A Chinese culture tech company has used modern technology to recreate the scenes of Chinese martial arts master Ip Man and Kung Fu film star Bruce Lee practicing Wing Chun Chi Sao!

[agent-karamazova]

𝚁𝙰𝙸𝚂𝙴𝙳 𝙸𝙽 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚁𝙴𝙳 𝚁𝙾𝙾𝙼

At a young age, Varvara Karamazova was indoctrinated by the Red Room, a Russian training program that took young girls and turned them into lethal undercover agents.

𝙼𝙰𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝙷𝙰𝙲𝙺𝙴𝚁

Karamazova also displays great skill when it comes to hacking into computers and technological systems to dig for information or to regain control.

𝙼𝙰𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝙵𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃𝙴𝚁

She is extensively trained to near perfection in various fighting styles, such as karate, judo, kung fu, and wrestling. Combining all manner of weapons with her background in gymnastics, acrobatics, and ballet, she always accomplishes her mission and still does.

𝚂𝚃𝚁𝙴𝙽𝙶𝚃𝙷 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙰𝙶𝙸𝙻𝙸𝚃𝚈

Exhibiting no superhuman abilities, the Black Widow boasts ultimate human levels of strength, agility, and stamina.

[madscientistshowdown]

PROPAGANDA

Fuuko/Andy (propaganda by @tokiro07)

Fuuko became the boss of a time-looping organization designed to fight and kill God, looped back to the 1800s and used visions she acquired from previous loops to become an oil baron. By the 1970s, she'd amassed enough wealth to outstrip most governments, re-founded said organization with incredibly advanced technology, and used all of her resources to avert the horrific tragedies of all of her loved ones. Along the way, she became skilled in several fields, such as language arts, surgery, cooking, kung fu, metallurgy, sharpshooting, singing, dancing, boxing, and drawing. In addition to being an oil-baron and effectively the CEO of a secret organization, she also became a ramen-themed cryptid, an astronaut, and a deadbeat dad

While Fuuko was gathering capital and recruits, Andy sat on the sun for an unspecified number of years, but likely the full 4.6 billion years since the creation of the Earth, to keep God's ten strongest soldiers sealed away within it and prevent them from interfering with Fuuko's preparations. For all intents and purposes, Andy acted as a stay-at-home wife while he waited for Fuuko to finish her work

They are canonically in a relationship, and they weaponize it. Fuuko's power, Unluck, is directly proportional to how much she likes whoever she touches x how long she touches them x how much surface area she touches, and Andy's power, Undead, allows him to tank whatever horrible thing Unluck sends his way while redirecting it at an enemy. A single, one-second high-five between the two was enough to summon a comet, specifically to cancel out a meteor she'd accidentally summoned on a close personal friend. She was able to think of the plan needed to facilitate this while fighting one of the aforementioned ten soldiers within 10 seconds while also performing major heart surgery, and then immediately infiltrated the sun alone to confront the other nine

Andy was originally a nameless amnesiac until Fuuko came up with the name as a pun on Undead. Since Andy got his first name from Fuuko, many fans have taken this to the logical conclusion that he would also take his last name from her, and thus refer to him as Andy Izumo

Morticia/Gomez

The OG relationships goals married couple