#outside us nothing

[thefiresontheheight]

An INFINITE COOK is offering average pay to deliver A LOVE LETTER to A PIRATE STRONGHOLD -or-

A quick combo of two of the random tables in my RPG for making an NPC and a quick, preconstructed contract for the players to complete.

Outside us Nothing is an upcoming, rules-light, statless science fantasy ttrpg about survival and vulnerability in a strange and hostile universe, borrowing from the stylings of Cowboy Bebop, Space Sweepers, Firefly, and The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet currently being written by yours truly. You can find out more about it and talk with other people interested in playing or currently play testing it here: https://discord.gg/Q569jt8htP

[super-ion]

Lisa's story

Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2

Context: this is my ttrpg character from the homebrew system Outside Us Nothing. Lisa is a giant squid/fungus/tentacle monster that lives in the walls of the ship. The ship has just arrived at an enormous space whale that is infested with members of her species, including her long lost sibling. At the very end of the most recent session, she links up with their sort of mycelial network and finds herself in a sort of dreamscape in a (presumably) human mental projection. I can't stop thinking about what if a Lisa was a people, so I ended up spending a couple hours on picrew trying to figure out what she would look like.

~~~

She is standing alone in the void, surrounded by stars.

She has the stereotypical build of a born freetraveler, suggesting a childhood spent in low gravity and an occasionally sparse diet. She's a bit too tall, a bit too skinny, her limbs are a bit too long for any planet born Terre.

She very unambiguously resembles the woman from the picture she keeps next to her orchid collection, with bright blue eyes and a splash of freckles across her face, but there are subtle hints of others mixed in. If you've spent any time looking at her group photos with the various crews of her childhood home, you might see features from the various human presenting individuals. Looking closer at her face, you even see hints of Kara, mercy and Order.

The roots of her hair are a dirty blonde, but most of it has been bleached and dyed a bright purple. It's shaved on one side and the rest is slightly ragged, as if she had cut it herself. Her nose, her brow, both her ears are pierced with various rings and studs. One shoulder pokes out from her oversized hooded jacket to reveal her twined roses interwoven with the beginning of that old Terre poem, suggesting that she bears all of Lisa's tattoos, rearranged to fit a human body. Around her neck is the chain you've seen her wearing in the common area, the one holding the tag from her first ship and the pair of Teuth fangs, one from each of her siblings.

Logically, you know she's never worn clothes in her life, but her wardrobe has every appearance of being both well worn and well cared for, somehow utilitarian and flashy all at once in the freetraveler style you see at least once in most ports you visit. Beneath the extensively patched and repaired jacket, she wears a tank top bearing a faded logo of an obscure entertainment vid series. Her pants have too many pockets and the torn knees reveal fishnet tights beneath. Finally, to complete the ensemble are a pair of scuffed, sturdy workboots that wouldn't be out of place set alongside the boots belonging to the rest of the crew (at least, the crew members who wear boots).

She's staring down at her hands, her fingers, her chipped and mismatched nail polish with an expression of mixed wonder and horror.

Something catches her attention and she looks up. From whatever vantage point you have, you can't make out what she sees, but the wonder and horror on her face intensify at the sight of it.

She swallows nervously. She knows exactly who it is that wants to talk to her and she is dreading this conversation.

~~~

It is picrew, so the styles are all over the place, but I feel like each one captures her vibe.

[terminallytwee]

comms are tentatively open 💕🌞💕🌞 I'll be putting together a price sheet later but for now, enjoy this finished piece for @stilllynnthecloset 🥰

[willow-j]

I am completely normal about ttrpgs, especially Outside us Nothing and my oc, Polli. I have never been emotionally devastated by a combination of my own in game actions, NPCs, and GM description

[rainboq]

So I went a little nuts with character backstory

Nothing like writing a novella for your TTRPG character.

You can read it here.

[moran-with-a-g]

Do the antisemites that invaded the pro-palestinian movement know the origin of the word Palestine is from the Hebrew root פ.ל.ש, the root for the word invaders? Do they know it's based on Philistia, the name given to the region that's based after the Philistines? Do they know we don't actually know the actual name the Philistines called themselves, and that we called them that as an insult, because it's from the same root as invaders?

Like do you realise all this time the name of this land was "invaded" while we weren't here? When you try to claim Jews have no connection to the Levant do you realise what you're claiming? This is driving me insane.

(this is NOT saying palestinians aren't natives and don't deserve a country of their own, and I will block anyone who reblogs this trying to claim that)

[egophiliac]

Where can you play ride kamens? It looks fun looking at your blog but idk where to play

it'll doesn't start until the 30th, but there's some pre-release episodes/character bits that are scattered around the website and twitter! (the links to pre-reg/download are also on the website :D)

honestly I'm really enjoying it just based off of the pre-release stuff, these characters look like they're going to be exactly that blend of ridiculous and emotionally constipated that hits me so right.

[hoofpeet]

I'd probably have to read the printed version and web version back to back at some point to note all the differences but... ough

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)

[grotesquelly]

Bernard himself and timbern r so developed in my brain i forget how shitty DC has done them in canon

[punkeropercyjackson]

Oh did that trans woman present femininely in a way you find corny?Did that autistic kid annoy you by being passionate about their interests?Did that traumatized person cope by being a therian so you think they're stupid?Did that black person act in a way you found offputting?Thank you SO much for making a whole post to make fun of them because it was completely necessary to announce your most important feelings ever because weird people are vewy scawy.Should we throw a party to cheer you up?Should we invite JK Rowling?

[thefiresontheheight]

Working on layouts is insane cause you’re get hyped for a thing that looks like this with lazy placeholder art:

THOSE ARE PLAYSHEETS!!! READY FOR BETTER ART AND ALSO PROBABLY PROOFREADING!!! YOU CAN PLAY AS A DEVIL IN SPACE MEETING FERRET BUG ALIENS WHO TALK THROUGH FARTS AND TEACHING THEM HOW TO UNIONIZE!!!

JOIN MY DISCORD AND PLAY ITS SO COOL

[super-ion]

Lisa's Story

Part 4 (sorta)

Lisa is my character from the homebrew ttrpg Outside Us Nothing (it's great, go check it out!). I would describe her as a giant tentacle monster with a heart of gold who lives in the vents of her space ship. I've written a couple little ficlets about her over the course of the game (part 1, part 2, part 3) but there was a moment in our out of session roleplay chats that really made me want to draw it.

So, context, Lisa briefly reunited with Gwen, her long lost sibling, who has not had an easy life since they ran away from home, and ended up joining a cult. The conversation didn't go super great and the cult group mind thing tried to enslave her crew and ended up killing one of the aspects of the PC that Lisa is in love with. So, between sessions, they had this moment where they comforted each other in the ship's airlock and I was thinking that Lisa would definitely want to capture the moment in a picture, which led me to make this:

(The last time I took any sort of art class was 20+ years ago, so I'm amazed by how well this turned out)

So anyway, Lisa's dealing with some angst and drama right now, so here's a little bit of lore to drop with this:

On the wall in the common area that is proudly labeled "Lisa's Garden", scattered amongst her orchids are dozens of photographs: posed and candid shots of her crewmates and passengers, both past and present; planets and nebulae and star clusters; star ships and stations; cool mushrooms she's found around the ship. You might notice that she's notably absent from most shots. The only exceptions are three framed photos, displayed separate from the rest.

You saw one on the way into the common room: a group photo of the current crew that she insisted on taking and displaying under the stenciled name of the ship so that it is the first thing any visitor sees.

The other two, she keeps next to the pulsating mass of flesh, eyes and tentacles - the little bit of her that she doesn't hide in the vents.

One photo is another Freetraveler crew. A tall Terre man with dark skin, very clearly a born Freetraveler had his arm is slung over the shoulders of a Bawalang, whose bright patterns on their chitinous exterior were very obviously the inspiration for some of Lisa's tattoos. Slightly apart from the rest is a grumpy looking Harrisi, feathers ruffled in agitation as if he'd rather be elsewhere. At the center is a short Terre woman, planet-born with blonde hair and bright blue eyes, she's smiling widely as she grapples with a trio of juvenile Teuth, trying desperately to get them to hold still long enough for the photo. One is slung across her shoulders, trying to gnaw on her braided hair; another sits in her arms, cuddling affectionately as she peers curiously at the camera; the third is hiding behind her legs, clinging and almost terrified.

The other photo is the same woman, a bit older, laughing and scrunching her eyes shut as three adolescent Teuth attempt to shove birthday cake into her mouth. The ruined cake reads "happy birthday mom!"

Then one day, after the incident with the Teuth on the space whale, another framed photo appears: a figure seated at the edge of the open airlock, wrapped in tentacles, silhouetted by a nebula in the distance.

[greenerteacups]

Hermione, in both canon and often in fanon, seems to have predominately male friendships and kind of difficult time building strong relationships with women (Lavender, Fleur, etc.). Even initially with Luna, Hermione was particularly skeptical and had a rocky start.

What's your theory on why this is?

Hermione, especially in the early books, is written by an author who treats her unfemininity as a quality that makes her different from, and superior to, other girls. Hermione is self-serious, intellectual, and decisive, which are classically masculine virtues, which Hermione (and the author) are aware of; and so Hermione eschews femininity in any number of ways. The other girls at Hogwarts, meanwhile, with the exception of Ginny, are often portrayed as shallow, vapid, flirty (count the number of times Lavender or Parvati "giggles" or goes "oooh"), hyperemotional, and boy-obsessed. Meanwhile, Hermione is intense, driven, and oblivious to other people's feelings — in many respects "boyish." Not until the later books, when both the characters and their writing starts to mature, is humanity offered to people like Cho Chang or Fleur Delacour — and even then, Lavender's arc in sixth year is this remarkably mean subplot where a sixteen-year-old girl becomes the butt of endless jokes because she has the audacity to... act silly around her crush. (If you think "Won-Won" is a bad nickname, you need to go see what actual teens in relationships call each other, because I'm telling you, Ron has it easy.)

The narrative wants you to know that Hermione is special, and her specialness is underscored by her difference from other women. In canon, she buys into that specialness, which leads to a degree of disdain for other girls that's fueled by a superiority complex and internalized misogyny. I say this as someone who adores her, and adores her in her complexity: Hermione has trouble forming friendships with women because she believes that she is Not Like Other Girls, and her author agrees with her.

[croakings]

i apologize for mithrunposting incessantly but honestly if any of you expected better of me you shouldn't have

anyway i get it and some of the failguy jokes are funny. i can tell that nothing i've run into is even malicious. but also it would be really cool and awesome if there were simply less posts calling a disabled person a failure or baby or a dog or whatever for needing accommodation or extra help, especially when like. hey did you know the source material very on purpose did not do anything remotely like that. critical thinking question: could there be some reasons these phrases are not great, potentially

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I've been thinking about how Vash always seems to be hungry. Or at least, that he's shown eating quite often in the manga. Happily having his salmon sandwiches. Eating an entire box of donuts in the side car. Knowing the conversion rate of bullets to pizza. Seeing a flower and immediately wondering if it's edible. Pondering his life over breakfast. It's a really cute little character detail about him - he likes food.

But then I kind of started to think about the angel arm and its specific brand of destruction. How there were no bodies to be recovered. Nothing but a crater left of July, left on the Fifth Moon. It's all been incinerated. Devoured, even. Tristamp takes it even a step further and makes the power something akin to a black hole - a yawning drain; a constant destructive hunger.

Vash is clearly terrified of this potential for destruction, and for very good reason. But it's not separate from him as some kind of "power he can't control" - it's his arm. It's literally his arm. It is him. Vash is scared of himself, scared of losing control. He does what he can to repress it, even subconsciously (the gaps in his memory whenever it activates). He can't control it in the moment, so he takes steps to preemptively push it down, to avoid the use of his abilities entirely, to hide himself away.

I talked a bit in a previous post about how there are probably several interrelated reasons for Vash's chronically avoidant behaviour, but I'd like to throw one more into the ring and suggest that it's not just a matter of not deserving to want things, but maybe also that he's afraid of wanting. That if he allows himself to even think about what he wants personally that he'll want too much, take too much, and that the only cure in his mind for this is to give and give repeatedly.

I wonder how starved he is for love. Vash loves hard, after all. Once he loves (and I’m not talking about the broad, distant love/compassion he has in general), for better or worse, he carries them around with him forever, long after they've passed. Does he feel like it'd be selfish to admit this kind of want? His love isn't really a passive thing after all - it's the drive at his very core; a mournful inferno he is just barely suppressing. Does he remember how to love in a way that doesn't consume him entirely?

Is that part of the reason he checks out at signs of intimacy? Diverts gifts towards others? Tends to accept kind gestures only when under an assumed name? Intentionally starves himself in Tristamp? Runs and runs and runs? Is he afraid he won't be able to stop hungering? That allowing himself to want means his want will become insatiable?

I just have to wonder how much of his avoidance of connection is being scared that he will cause more destruction (to them? or to him?) by trying to take far too much into his hands than he ever caused by turning his back and running.

...of course I may just be entirely deranged here sorry.