#soylent talks

[soylent-crocodile]

No I think that's a good question! to be clear, i did write this assuming that they could speak despite being headless (after all, swords dont typically have vocal cords either). I assume its magical in some way, although it's not out of the question that there's a larynx buried somewhere in that chest.

Espite (Monster)

(Espite by anonymous)

(My own quirks demand I write up a "generic" blade beast, so what better way to start publishing these? Of note, the headlessness was a near-unifying design element from the start; at the time I didn't know why it felt right, but with maturity and hindsight I think it adds a depersonalization that really resonates with the theme of a person that's also a weapon.)

Espites are the simplest form of blade beasts, with a beast form that resembles a small metal cat with no head and a long tail ending in a blade. They are almost unconditionally devoted to their wielder and master, but can prove rather chatty, often voicing their opinion (generally fondness for combat or their master) unprompted. This devotion can cause issues, however; an espite will sometimes act in what it thinks are its wielder's best interests, and while they can be helpful, they also have a tendency to resort to clumsy threats of violence and to assume the worst of everyone but their wielder. As an espite ages and becomes more powerful, however, they grow wiser and more helpful and capable of restraining themselves, although they still tend to keep others at an arm's length.

Young, weak espites are often found by children. Most often, they show up in spaces and cultures where children are trained in combat, such as militant cities or nomadic tribes in dangerous lands, though it is not unheard of for the children of farmers and scholars to show up one day with an espite in tow. Typically, this is the start of a lifelong bond; the espite and its wielder will grow and train together, and often exceed their peers in combat. It is unclear if it is the presence of an espite that leads youths to military might, or if espites have some intuition that allows them to seek out youths with potential.

A spellcaster of level 7 or higher and any alignment with the Improved Familiar feat can take an Espite as a familiar. If they do, they are proficient with its weapon form, but not with other longswords, greatswords, or shortswords. Espite familiars can not be modified or advanced.

This graceful, catlike creature lacks a head and has a long sharp blade on its tail, but it purrs and paws just the same.

Misc- CR2 TN Small Magical Beast (Blade Beast, Shapechanger) HD3 Init:+2 Senses: Blindsight 60ft, Perception:+3  Stats- Str:14(+2) Dex:14(+2) Con:14(+2) Int:8(-1) Wis:8(-1) Cha:12(+1) BAB:+3 Space:2.5ft Reach:5ft Defense- HP:22(3d10+6) AC:15(+1 Size, +2 Dexterity, +1 Deflection, +1 Natural Armor) Fort:+5 Ref:+5 Will:+0 CMD:16 Special Defenses: Naturally Headless Offense- +1 Slash +5(1d8+3/19-20) CMB:+4 Speed:25ft Feats- Skill Focus (Escape Artist) Skills- Escape Artist +6, Perception +3, Stealth +6 Ecology- Environment- Urban (Any) Languages- Common Organization- Solitary Treasure- None Special Qualities- No breath Special Abilities- Blade Form (Su)- As a standard action, a blade beast can shift between beast form and the form of an enchanted weapon. An espite’s Weapon Form is that of an intelligent +1 Longsword with empathy, speech, and 30ft sight. Morphable (Su)- Unlike most blade beasts, an Espite can be given special abilities. If it does, those abilities apply to its Slash attack. In addition, an Espite can also choose to become a Greatsword or Shortsword when it transforms into its Blade form.

[nonbinary-sticks-the-badger]

i keep thinking "its crazy how confident sega are in sxsg" and then new things come out and like. AAAA? AAAAA! HER SCALESONA IS HERE????

[unheavenlybody]

can i just rant abt how bad being broke all ur life fucks w ur relationship with food immensely. i dont think i have an ed necessarily i just feel like my relationship w food has been irreparably damaged cuz i either end up skipping meals to save money or when i finally have extra money to spend im not even that excited abt eating food anymore. cuz im just thinking abt how much money im "wasting" even when im trying to nourish my body :-) buying groceries, preparing and eating meals or even occasionally treating myself to takeout has become so unenjoyable for me i wish i just didnt have to eat at all haaaA

[soylentmillions]

"Trigger warning for scars!" "Body horror warning: scars!"

What.

[polterpumpkin]

I am a very normal human person with normal yumeship thoughts. Muddy Buddy uses they/it pronouns and represent me!

you can pause to read everything if you want!

this was mostly to show off the amount of thought I have put into the lore implications of my persona being put into a specific series' universe

warning! mentions of science fiction , government organizations , human experimentation , bodily harm and dismemberment , cannibalism , toxic relationships (minor) , objectum thoughts (kinda it's a head in a jar) , torture , medical horror , vomiting

and finally spoilers for the entire series of Dorohedoro

i censored the display name of my bestie, nothing else

enjoy my ramblings of me and my Large Lizard Man

[markerofthemidnight]

Shoutout to crack theories. Shout out to theories that go in absolutely insane directions but still somehow manage to make sense.

[emotional-moss]

does anyone else have the entirety of dev lemons’ Eminem impression rattling around their head at all times

[spookiifi]

I love that the Grimace Shake came out as a fun thing for kids

And now it’s just a gross meme

[machine-saint]

i think there's a lot of talk about "supporting people being weird" or whatever, but a lot of the time it just boils down to "supporting people being weird in ways i personally find acceptable". this is especially true when it comes to "techbros" being weird and e.g. drinking soylent instead of food, or having sparse living spaces, or whatever. because, you know, if they don't find pleasure in things I find pleasure in, they're just soulless, right?

[play-now-my-lord]

imagine being a bluesky poweruser. firefox, 5 tabs open (bluesky, twitter, ex-hentai, bitcoin wallet, browser discord instance), burner discord in 12 foot fetish servers with no friends added, extremely active slack window, default windows 11 desktop image, high-power electromagnet and battery-operated power drill hanging on hooks by your standing desk, litterbox but no cat. you receive fundraising emails from nancy pelosi written especially for you. your e-bike has a cupholder you measured to the centimeter for grip quality on bottles of soylent. imagine being why god doesn't talk to us anymore

[ronqueesha]

It's Warhammer facts time!

The food most commonly eaten by Imperial citizens is corn. Regular, average sweet corn that we eat IRL, in all its different forms. It's one of the few plants that survived the destruction of Terra's ecology, largely thanks to how it can grow almost anywhere. It's been a staple of offworld human colonies since humanity first colonized the stars tens of thousands of years ago.

Agri-worlds are planets that have had the majority of their landmass flattened into continent-sized agricultural fields. The Imperium uses these endless fields to ship food to all the hungry planets of the galaxy. Of course, this is the Imperium we're talking about. They do not practice sustainable farming on a planetary scale. Every single Agri-world is eventually doomed to have its soil collapse from over-production. Many inhospitable and barren planet that has some tiny shred of human population living on it were once agri-worlds that were farmed to death.

The meat that MOST people eat, if they're lucky, is grox meat. Groxes are large lizards that have been domesticated and bred on agri-worlds in countless number. Like corn, they can live just about anywhere, so are perfect to be shipped to any part of the galaxy.

Corpse Starch is a bit of a meme because it's not REALLY eaten by that many people in the galaxy. Only the truly desperate and downtrodden citizens in the worst hive cities have eaten it. And is often used as an emergency food ration for soldiers when zero other supplies are available. As its name implies, corpse starch is the ground-up remains of dead people, processed into tasteless sludge packed into tin cans. Its whole existence is a meme referencing Soylent Green. In fact, corpse starch is also known as "soylent veridian" in some parts of the galaxy, if the reference wasn't blatant enough.

Games Workshop's official stance is that Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar are completely separate universes with no real crossovers. This stance was a little different in the past, with lots of little cheeky references in old codexes and magazine articles. Such as the non-canon notion that the entire 40k galaxy is actually contained in a bottle on the shelf of a wizard's tower.

BUUUUUUT - ever since Doom Eternal came out, the stance seems to have followed a path similar to how the Doom franchise treats hell. There is only one warp, only one sea of souls that connects all life, and all life across multiverses. The four chaos gods are constant because they are the same four beings in the warp, although they are viewed by very different lenses depending on where an observer thinks of them. Their greatest daemons likewise can appear in any reality the gods wish them to be, though the daemons themselves are unaware of how they're being used as toys. That's why you can play as Skarbrand/Kairos/Kugath/Nkari in Total War Warhammer 3, and also have those daemons on the tabletop in a 40k game.

Likewise, there is a character with an identical name, design and backstory in both fantasy and 40k. Be'lakor was the first ever champion of chaos. From an ancient unknown land, he was the first to gain their favor, and was forever transformed into an immortal daemon prince with immense power. But the gods quickly realized they gave him too much power, and his ambition and evil proved a threat to their grand design. So Be'lakor has forever been cursed to be toyed with by the gods, his schemes for revenge and domination always thwarted. In Fantasy he was even forced to crown another person the everchosen, and watched that man literally destroy the world.

And if you like Richard Armitage's voice, he did the voice acting for Be'lakor in Total War Warhammer 3. Just saying.

[soylent-crocodile]

Aspect warriors tiered by how much I respect their craft

[cryptotheism]

CT, I come to you, hat in hand, to ask about a weirdo conspiracy theory. sadly it's not occult-oriented but we talked about weirdo political reactionaries before so you might be able to help. apparently there are ppl doing Soylent Green is People bit, but with missing children from the migrant camps in the Southern USA and impossible meat? Like, it's made of missing migrant children and given artificial soy flavoring? I keep my ears pretty close to the ground, but this is the first time I'm hearing of it. Did Jones talk about this ever?

That doesn't sound like a Jones bit. That sounds more post-Qanon. I'd need to see what type of person is spreading this, bc that's so cartoony it could easily be a 4chan-crowd "Ironic but we are being racist about it" type deal.

[cromerholt]

dont never drink one of those limoncello bang energy drinks. my fucking god bro. shit tastes like straight research chemicals. im talking monsanto. thats that superfund slurp. this drink is not a place of honor. some drop and run drank. no fucking way bro. you do not want that exxon elixir. youll be sipping on some soylent green. told my children i love them. time for them to explore this galaxy alone. drink that makes you feel like its 25 or 6 to 4. feels like the enemy is spinning up the photon torpedoes and the ionic stellar dust is disabling our weapon systems. no sir. this shit tastes like fauci highball. he drank this shit in district 9. i just heard them play a sorrowful refrain on the mandachord. this shit tastes like a lexus dealership. not fit for man nor beast.

[thecreaturecodex]

Skelm, Palace

Image © Paizo Publishing, accessed at Archives of Nethys here

[Talking with me during the development of her red hag, @soylent-crocodile referred to it as "a species of Starscreams". Which is a great description, and also an accurate assessment of the palace skelm. Although it's obvious that Grima Wormtongue is also a major influence on this PF2e monster. The fact that palace skelms and red hags are the same CR and would absolutely hate each other is the icing on the cake for me.]

Palace Skelm CR 8 LE Monstrous Humanoid This humanoid figure is almost human, except for the pair of gleaming antlers growing from his skull. He is dressed in fine noble’s clothing.

Palace skelms are creatures that delight in the corruption of power. They often are found among military officers and politicians, some of whom transformed into skelms in that position. Palace skelms spend their time either jockeying for power or abusing the power that they do have, treating their subordinates with casual cruelty. A palace skelm is an excellent liar, and they can even insert their words into the mouths of others. They encourage competition, jealousy and paranoia in any court they find themselves in, turning functioning governments into a den of vipers to exploit. They are ostentatious by nature, and frequently flaunt their wealth and status with finery.

Most palace skelms prefer to exert power from behind the throne, ingratiating himself to a ruler and warping their perceptions so that they only trust the skelm. Coups and political upheavals are dangerous for palace skelms, as they simultaneously allow for more opportunities to inflict suffering while increasing the risk of the skelm’s true nature being exposed, or of the skelm losing their grasp on what power they have. Palace skelms have a tendency to self-sabotage, as their interlocking schemes can spiral out of their control, and their answer to being caught in the act is usually murder.

Palace Skelm     CR 8 XP 4,800 LE Medium monstrous humanoid Init +4; Senses Perception +16, scent

Defense AC 22, touch 14, flat-footed 18 (+4 Dex, +8 natural) hp 102 (12d10+36) Fort +7, Ref +12, Will +11; -2 vs. emotion effects DR 10/cold iron

Offense Speed 30 ft. Melee gore +18 (1d12+6 plus trip), slam +18 (1d6+6) Special Attacks incite violence Spell-like Abilities CL 8th, concentration +13 (+17 casting defensively) Constant—tongues At will—message, paranoia (DC 17) 3/day—clairaudience/clairvoyance, enthrall (DC 17), invisibility, suggestion (DC 18) 1/day—charm monster (DC 19), curse of the outcast (DC 21), private sanctum

Statistics Str 23, Dex 18, Con 17, Int 18, Wis 17, Cha 20 Base Atk +12; CMB +18 (+20 trip); CMD 32 (34 vs. trip) Feats Combat Casting,Combat Expertise, Deceitful, Improved Trip, Improved Vital Strike, Vital Strike Skills Bluff +21, Disguise +21, Diplomacy +14, Intimidate +21, Knowledge (local, nobility) +14, Perception +16, Sense Motive +13, Sleight of Hand +13, Stealth +16; Racial Modifiers +4 Intimidate Languages Aklo, Common, tongues SQ change shape (Small or Medium humanoid, alter self), corrupt speech, skelm traits

Ecology Environment urban Organization solitary Treasure standard

Special Abilities Corrupt Speech (Su) As an immediate action, a palace skelm can corrupt the speech of a creature within 30 feet. The skelm can say up to twelve words and makes a Bluff check as opposed to the Perception of other creatures that can hear the original speech. If the skelm succeeds, the perceiving creatures hear the palace skelm’s words come out of the speaker’s mouth. If the skelm fails, they hear the original speech. If the Perception check succeeds by more than 5, the perceiving creature hears both phrases, and knows that the skelm spoke the words. If the skelm’s Bluff check against a target succeeds by 5 or more, the skelm can cast suggestion or paranoia on that target as part of the same action. A skelm cannot use a spell-like ability on multiple targets in this way at a time, even if it successfully deceives multiple creatures. Incite Violence (Su) As a standard action once per day, a palace skelm can incite violence in all creatures that can hear it within 30 feet. If a creature fails a DC 21 Will save, it makes a melee attack against an adjacent creature of the skelm’s choosing, choosing its most powerful weapon or natural attack if it has multiple. If a skelm uses this ability and an affected creature has no creatures adjacent to it, the creature is instead stunned for 1 round. This is a mind-influencing, compulsion, sonic effect, and the save DC is Charisma based.  Skelm Traits (Ex) A skelm gains a +4 racial bonus on Intimidate checks and a -2 penalty on saving throws against emotion effects.

[alpaca-clouds]

Solarpunk and the "Hidden Dark Secret"

Let me talk about one thing in a lot of Solarpunk fiction, that I have a huge, huge issue with. A thing, that is best summarized by this short description for the Solarpunk TTRPG.

Specifically I am talking about this one:

Solarpunk presents a bright utopian future hiding a dark secret.

Really, in all the Solarpunk fiction I have consumed, this is something that came up again and again. The Dark Secret. Basically it goes like this: "Oh, yes, we have this Solarpunk utopian world, just that actually it isn't, because in reality the government is corrupt/a bunch of robots, and Soylent Green is people!"

Which... I have a big issue with. And it is kind of the core of why I in general have an issue with a lot of Solarpunk fiction I have consumed: Because in the end a lot of people really seem to be unable to actually imagine a truly better world. When asked to do so, they will instantly go: "Oh, but something needs to be really rotten at the core of things! Because things cannot be good!"

That does not mean that I want Solarpunk worlds, that are just perfect and without any conflict. When a lot of people live together, there will be conflict, duh. But I do expect Solarpunk stories to be more optimistic about humanity than Cyberpunk. I do want Solarpunk stories to be more than a Cyberpunk story with a green coat of paint, if you catch my drift.

If folks write a Solarpunk future, then humanity does not need to have everything figured out. But... Just stop creating Solarpunk worlds that at their core are build on some form of corruption.

I am sorry, but... That is just not Solarpunk to me. To say: "Oh, yeah, things can only be good if build on corruption" to me goes inherently against the core idea of Solarpunk.