A hashtag for short horror stories shared by social media users on Twitter can be traced back to one user’s intention to start a tabletop role-playing game on the platform.
“#ManilaEncounters” gained traction on February 26, Tuesday but it already surfaced in the microblogging platform as early as February 24, Sunday.
Latest posts of the hashtag indicate that users have been sharing their own horror pieces, whether it is original, based on an urban legend or a historical figure or event.
There's a cafe in Manila that has an original print of the Bataan Death March hanging from the wall. If you whisper the name of your grudge to it under candlelight at midnight, misfortune will befall them.
Then it takes your face and adds it to the photo.
— Christine Anyong (@vyastanya) February 26, 2019
#ManilaEncounters Spend some time alone in Paco Park on days when Manila is silent. Let the quiet and the soft breeze of the wind envelope you. Soon, you will hear an opthalmologist's musings on his unwritten works. If you're lucky, you can hear him converse with three priests.
— 🏹 PALASO 🏹 ;; yunis (@koronelmagnet) February 26, 2019
#ManilaEncounters At midnight, Waze tells me to turn right at Balete Drive.
I refuse, and in my refusal is a punishment: San Juan, all blind corners and high concrete walls, is labyrinthine.
Waze recalibrates, and recalibrates, and recalibrates. I can’t get out.
— princess leia de lima (@staennis) February 26, 2019
#ManilaEncounters The MATH BUILDING in UP Diliman has a basement. No, you're thinking of the ground floor – there's one more below that. The staircase leading to it isn't always there, though.
Which is probably for the best.
— Nosfecatu (@bjrecio) February 25, 2019
Tracing the origin of the hashtag reveals it was created by Twitter user BJ Recio for a tabletop role-playing game with Metro Manila as its setting.
Started out #ManilaEncounters so we can have a Random Table for RPGs set in fantasy Metro Manila. If y'all feel like it, feel free to add!
— Nosfecatu (@bjrecio) February 24, 2019
His first entry for #ManilaEncounters features a fantastical creature called the “Dragon of Pasig.”
THE DRAGON OF PASIG, as large as your house and 5x as smelly. Its skin is plastic bags and shit and tetra packs. Its breath is corrosive factory smoke. It eats people, but it is tired of the taste of masa and wants to know what glutathione skin tastes like.
— Nosfecatu (@bjrecio) February 24, 2019
In a follow-up tweet, Recio said that his piece was inspired by the book “A Time for Dragons: An Anthology of Philippine Draconic Fiction” that curates seventeen short stories and an essay on “majestic creatures of the imagination.”
His hashtag trended as people started to create similar short stories with horror as its main genre—although most of the users have no idea about him and his intentions in the first place.
Ito ba yung hashtag para sa mga public cr na may ganap?
— Jo (@titojomasakit) February 26, 2019
whoever started #ManilaEncounters, thank you
— harvey (@iamharveylor) February 26, 2019
what are these #ManilaEncounters and why do i like them
— rob | STAN LUNA (@endsaymada) February 26, 2019
Tabletop role-playing
Tabletop role-playing is a form of a role-playing game where participants describe their characters’ actions through speech. It is a cooperative storytelling game with rules.
Dice rolls and character sheets are traditionally used to let the participants engage in fantastical worlds.
The game is conducted like a radio drama because people only use their voices to enact their roles, although they do not exclusively speak in-character.
Participants act out their role by deciding and describing the actions of their characters within the rules of the game.
