#Letters from the ashes

[lettersfromtheashesgame]

LFTA July Update

Well. This month has been interesting.

Some quick numbers:

Total Letters in July: 39

Most Sent by one person: 10 (Mills Golden)

Most Received by one person: 7 (Rust Falls)

Starting with July I sent all the players a summary letter in character as the founder of the Inter-Regional Courier System, mostly as a way to entertain myself, since as the GM I actually don't interact with much of the game, I'm here more as an adjudicator. But I had a player reach out asking if I could include a flyer they had designed in the mail drop. This is the first in a string of interesting ways players have been interacting with the game so far.

A couple of people sent positive responses. I have no idea if the Rust Falls player is planning to mail actual cassettes, links to a Spotify playlist, or what, but I know they're planning to send something.

The next really interesting development happened when a player sent a letter directly to the IRCS! I hadn't expected this at all. I invented the IRCS mostly as a means to frame the monthly resource drops and to summarize events. I was delighted to receive a letter that I could respond to!

Naturally, the IRCS responded, explaining the founder's backstory that I totally didn't just make up on the spot. And I also awarded that player a new achievement that I had to make up on the spot as well.

Otherwise, players are also starting to decorate the resource slips! I had been looking forward to this sort of thing from the beginning, so it makes me really happy to see this happening now. Some are really simple, but some are more elaborate.

I'm loving these so much. It's so good.

As far as events, Kyarn Meeting has formally defeated Meadows, and due to a combination of events, knocked Meadows out of the game. That player can of course come back whenever they want with a new community, but Meadows as we know it is gone. I expected something like this to happen eventually, but not this early.

Otherwise, it seems like a lot of the communities are reaching an equilibrium, and we're really in the "finding out about each other" phase of the game. Secrets are bound to come out soon! I'm really excited to see where this goes in August.

[rugsrat]

Debating starting a series where I talk about the letter-writing game I just started for some friends. It's called Letters From The Ashes and it's set in a vague post-apocalypse where communities are pretty isolated so they have to communicate via courier system (aka the usps).

Is this something people would be interested in hearing about?

Might do it anyway, regardless of if people read it.

[docces]

　　　 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ˚　　 ▒ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ₊ㅤ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Ⳋ᧙ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ⁺

ㅤㅤ　ㅤㅤ⠀ ͚֯ ི Please let Me bring Him ့ ◌๋ ▒ ˚

　　　 ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ˚　　 ▒ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ₊ㅤ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Ⳋ᧙ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ⁺

[blizardstar]

Me when Ashton Greymoore is denied honorable and meaningful self-sacrifice, and now must face the reality that they MUST keep living after it’s All Over

[autisticgayplushie]

all nine of the stretch goal designs for this campaign - I am not sure how many goals we will be able to reach but there will come a point where I won't be able to do any more goals unless I get fulfillment help, so we'll see if it gets to that point and if I can get help! below the cut are the names, info, and artist statements for each plushie! I may end up changing the names as I am still not sure about ash, sandy, kelly, and luca, but let me know if you like them!

Tristan The Depression Raccoon: Tristan’s plushie will come with a removable hoodie accessory! He loves cozy video games like animal crossing and stardew valley. There are not many widely used symbols for depression that I could find, so I chose Tristan's colors based on how my depression makes me feel, bruised and cold.

Ash the Anxiety Bunny Moth: Ash’s plushie will have fluffy moth antennae and removable magnetic wings similar to Bug’s plush! They love to visit the home depot lights section when their friends are with them! I chose gray and yellow for the main body colors because my anxiety personally deals with uncertainty and things out of my control. The green comes from one of the anxiety flags created by Beyond MOGAI. To add moth features was a suggestion I got that I thought fit very well!! 

Sandy the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Kitty: Sandy is an artist and loves to draw and paint landscapes! Her wings will be attached via magnet, similar to Bug’s wings. The colors of her design are based on the OCD flag created by lucellion, with spirals in her paws to represent repetitive thought processes.

Melon the Sensory Processing Disorder Opossum: Melon is a silly opossum who has bat wings! Melon’s wings will be attached via magnet, similar to Bug’s wings. Melon’s colors are inspired by the SPD pride flag created by Beyond MOGAI.

Jazz the Borderline Personality Disorder Kitty: Jazz is a tortoiseshell kitty that loves to read!! Jazz’s plush will come with a pvc charm of the hand of Eris symbol for you to put on xer collar if you choose! The colors are loosely based on the BPD flag created with community input by ptsdsafe on tumblr.

Kelly the Schizospec Axolotl: kelly is an axolotl who is studying chemistry and loves science! kelly’s design is inspired by the Schizospec flag, created with community input and organized by schizosupport on tumblr. They will have a collar tag once again made of PVC featuring the associated double sided arrow symbol.

Em the Bipolar Disorder Chimera: Em is a chimera kitty who has dragon wings and a snake tail! One side of the snake tail is smiling, the other frowning. This takes inspiration from the :): symbol often associated with Bipolar disorder.

Cy the Irritable Bowel Syndrome Otter: Cy is a happy little otter griffin! They love to sculpt and craft and sew! Cy’s color pallet is based on the assortment of medications I take for my own IBS symptoms.

Luca the Dyslexia Fox: Luca is a dancer and loves to perform! Their design and colors are loosely based on the infinity heart+ moon and star symbol that is often found on dyslexia flags. they will have L and R embroidered on their paws, which was a suggestion I was given.

[pupkinpumpkin]

I like thinking about the way my DA characters remember their loved ones

My Cousland only had her family's sword and Highever shield when she left, so she never lets them go. Doesn't leave them in Soldier's Peak and doesn't give them to anyone else to use, even though she can't use them herself (two handed weapons are her go to). Instead she cleans and sharpens them to perfection. Even though they're weapons, she can't bear the thought of them getting dirt or blood on them and she goes feral when someone tries to touch them. Over time, she becomes less obsessed with them, putting them on mantels in the castle when her and Alistair get married, but whenever she needs time to herself, she'll take them down and polish/sharpen them like she used to.

My Hawke remembers people through clothes and smells. I like to think that Malcolm had a coat he always wore, and when he died, Carver took it, but Hawke cut off a bit of the bottom piece for herself. When Carver dies, Hawke takes both the coat and a piece of Carver's outfit. When Bethany becomes a Grey Warden, she gives Hawke her scarf. I'm pretty sure Leandra wasn't in her own clothes when she died, so after All That Remains, Hawke goes into her room just once to take a piece of her old outfit from when they were fleeing Lothering. She keeps all these fabrics and cloths in a box and just lays down and smells them, hoping their scent will never fade.

Lavellan is afraid of forgetting what people look like after they die, so she draws. When she cares about someone, she'll sketch their face over and over, making sure to get every last detail right, and when they die, she goes back to those sketches and makes one last finished drawing that she can look back on so she never forgets what they look like. She keeps all these finished drawings bound in a journal she keeps on her at all times.

I'm planning to make a Rook for every romance, but my first Rook, my De Riva, wears jewelry. She either wears jewelry that her loved one used to wear or takes a bit of their ashes and has someone make jewelry from them. She usually just wears her own jewelry and keeps the special jewelry in their own boxes, but on the days she misses her loved ones or wants to honor them, she'll wear their jewelry so she feels closer to them

Just interesting things to think about

[mamasplat]

The kalos vs amour au is rotting in my WIPS I only have the motivation to shitpost I’m sorry

Calem will use Serena as a human shield, she can take it- I believe in her-

[ofmdlovelyletters]

This lovely letter is for @ashes-skye! Ashey is quite literally the epitome of kindness and friendship. She goes above and beyond to always make everyone feel welcome. She will pebble you with little things that remind her of you, and make you feel so much better when you’re down. She keeps so many of us going behind the scenes when days are tough. I cannot express to you how lucky so many of us are ti have her in our lives. Love you Ashey 💜💖🫶🫶🫶💖💜

Hi @ashes-skye! You've received a lovely letter. 💌

[millidew]

trans4trans4tra...sh (playing with these characters like dolls)

[gilgamushroom]

There was a sound upon the stairs, and our door was opened to admit as fine a specimen of manhood as ever passed through it. He was a very tall young man, golden-moustached, blue-eyed, with a skin which had been burned by tropical suns, and a springy step which showed that the huge frame was as active as it was strong. 

1) yet another W for Bisexual Watson 2) do you guys think one of the reasons Holmes complains so much about the "fluff" in Watson's stories is because he pulls paragraph-long shit like this in almost every account. Like

Watson in all of his chronicles: and then she was the most beautiful gorgeous woman to ever walk this earth 😍 AND THEN he was the handsomest hottest man my eyes had ever seen 😍 AND THEN-

Holmes, who was also there, reading this:

[lettersfromtheashesgame]

June Launch

Letters from the Ashes launched its first playtest in June of 2024, and there were some interesting things that happened. One of the first things to note is that I was actually late sending out initial Resources to people, which meant that the actual things that made people need to interact arrived late, so letters didn't start being sent out until about halfway through the month.

The second thing is that I noted immediately that there was a lot of "Hey, message me if you want to make contact" in the "Mail Coordination" channel of the discord server, and far fewer people willing to make first contact. I, in hindsight, should have foreseen this. I love my friends dearly, but many of us are introverts, after all. That did not stop me from being frustrated with the slow start, though. I had hoped that there would be a flurry of letters immediately, and for a few standout players there were! Kyarn Meeting (the Mothman Cult) earned a secret achievement for being the first person to send a letter to every single other player within a 3-month span, and he did it in 2. Granted, most of these letters were shitposts, but I found them extremely on brand:

In addition to the wild nonsense being sent out by the Grannies at Kyarn Meeting, they also declared war on two people immediately. Mostly as a way to get feelers out there. One of those players left the game basically immediately afterwards, so I haven't included them in the player listing, but the other is on my list of "Extremely Inactive", and so I've actually had to add a rules hotfix to prevent turtling from being a viable defensive strategy in my rules. We'll see how that goes.

One very fun thing from the end of June is that Hazelwood Farmstead (the totally normal farm that is definitely not doing Cannibalism) has itself in what is honestly a very fun conflict triangle. Hazelwood and Rust Falls were slotted together as adversaries before the game started to give some immediate tension to the game, (everyone got these rivalries, but they're not super relevant, to be honest). They decided that it would be interesting if, before game start, a person from Rust Falls had gone to Hazelwood Farmstead and been missing since then (you, know because of the definitely not Cannibalism). This has been having some very good back and forths that I'll probably cover in more detail at some point. But the fun part is that off to the side, Mills Golden has been allied with Hazelwood, and Hazelwood sent the Mills some food, which is just food (for now, because the Hazelwood player informs me of every time they send Human Steaks to other players, and I cackle every time), but I'm just waiting for the time when Hazelwood sends Lars Liverwurst to Mills Golden and for Rust falls to find out.

This is a compounded funny situation because at the end of June, I got a monthly update from Mills Golden in character, which included a decree from their leader saying "Cannibalism is now forbidden."

It's gonna be so funny when they all find out. I know the Hazelwood player is extremely excited for there to be consequences to their actions.

[i-dont-talk-for-days-on-end]

So Holmes canonical keeps a diary! And while I'm sure it only contains the "hard facts" of his life - like where he went and whom he talked to and maybe his expenses if he didn't keep them separately, and of course his case notes - it is very tempting to think that he maybe also made notes about Watson. The book he looked at for a moment longer than usual so Holmes knows what to get him for Christmas, his preferred composers (probably not the same as Holmes's), maybe a thing he said that struck a chord with Holmes ...

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

as an artist, what do you think are the most important aspects to keep in mind if someone is designing/drawing a black coded character? I’m digging into this myself and it’s weirdly confusing because I’m more used to drawing black people as they are. My own concern is when does the character stop becoming black coded and just starts becoming obviously black? is that even a problem? Sorry if this is too much

I'm not quite sure but I think a good way of doing it is trying to make the characters' facial features/hair look as close to a human Black person's as possible, maybe even use a Black character's/person's face as inspiration, and also maybe give them a Black name/name them after a Black person tho that's ofc not a necessity. An example would be like a girl who is an anthropomorphic tree having giant green leaf balls for hair that resemble Afropuffs and brown bark for skin. I can't really think of anything else yeah sorry but I hope this answered your question.

[1960z]

though I don’t at all dislike the actual practice of having an unresolved case that took place before the start of an ace attorney game that haunts the narrative, I do think every time post DL-6 where they specifically refer to a case as [two letters and one number] incident it feels more and more cheap because you know they’re specifically trying evoke the gravitas of DL-6 without putting in much work to do that beyond the name.

like you’re not gonna convince me that the KG-8 incident has the same level of importance and intrigue as DL-6 just because you named it something similar

[spacetimeaccordionfolder]

Someone got me thinking about old ocs and what was supposed to be a silly warm up sketch of a vague person ended up being Mara not having a good time

[jackass-jones]

Something about the way Ashton Frey has horrible self worth issues and constantly feels like he’s a bad friend and letting everyone down by existing wrong but also the way he shows his affection for his friends is by bothering them by invading their personal space crashing on their couch without asking first using stupid nicknames no one likes and like, they genuinely do get annoyed with him for this! But he lacks the social awareness to know where he’s gone wrong and just assumes he’s this horrible presence who inevitably ruins everything for everyone. It’s like he knows he’s annoying but doesn’t know WHY or how to make it stop. Good shit