Summer (?) 1992. The final game supplement for the Mayfair Games DC HEROES ROLE-PLAYING GAME was a loose-leaf WHO'S WHO supplement, intended to complement DC's loose-leaf WHO'S WHO update. Only three of the four planned volumes were released before Mayfair lost the DC license. The first volume includes this entry for Legionnaire Brainiac 5, also covered in 2995: THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES SOURCEBOOK, which came out months later.
Brainy's game statistics are mostly the same (although this entry gives him 20 more Hero Points), but the special Psychological Instability rules are unique to this version. This wasn't really a problem anymore in the period when this supplement was published, since it really refers to one particular story from 1979 (a guy loses his shit and creates a universe-destroying super-monster ONE TIME and nobody ever lets him live it down …), but it's an interesting mechanic, so I can see why it was included. The reverse side also has a handy checklist of Brainiac 5 appearances, for completists:
The Personality/Role-playing section on the front side makes some dubious assertions. The first paragraph says:
He might be incredibly intelligent, but Brainiac 5 has a great deal of difficulty when it comes to expressing his emotions. When he first joined the Legion, he tried to concentrate on his feelings to fit in with his teammates, none of whom was Coluan. He even fell in love with Laurel Gand and spent a number of peaceful years with her. But inevitably, he became so overwhelmed with leading the team and protecting the universe that he was forced to forgo the luxury of emotion so that he could use his intelligence to its capacity.
While the 2995 sourcebook was written by Legion scripters Tom and Mary Bierbaum, this supplement was not, and I'm not sure what Winninger was talking about in the final sentence. What had happened in the latter third of the 1984–1989 Levitz series was that Brainy had fomented a conspiracy to avenge the death of Superboy by destroying the Time Trapper, one of the Legion's most powerful enemies, a plan that involved sacrificing Brainy's old friend Jaxon Rugarth. The other Legionnaires then put Brainy on trial for violating the Legion code, and although he was exonerated, he was so annoyed by their attitude that he resigned in a fit of pique and went back to Colu. He returned during the Magic Wars and sort of mended fences, although the team subsequently collapsed and he went on to other things during the five-year gap (principally trying to find a cure for the "Validus plague" afflicting Saturn Girl's kids). Some of the specific circumstances were subsequently retconned in ways not reflected in the actual comics, but that was still basically the gist at the time this supplement was published. It was messy, but it was certainly NOT a matter of his forgoing "the luxury of emotion."
The second paragraph says:
As a Brainiac, Dox has an affinity for pure logic. As time goes on, he seems less and less interested in establishing normal relationships with his teammates in the reformed Legion.
This was not at all true. Indeed, one of the charming aspects of the "Five Years Later" period was that Brainy had actually mellowed quite a bit. He was still a little awkward, and there was unresolved baggage between him and Laurel (who in the interim had had a baby with his best friend!), but he was more at peace with himself, and more patient with the people around him, than he'd ever been in past Legion stories. According to the Bierbaums' sourcebook, he was even writing sweet little haiku about his former teammates in his spare time — hardly the action of a cold-blooded logician.
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the internet of everything fucking ruined every piece of modern technology. everything we could have devoted to making Stuff That Works Good, at least 20% of the budget and space needs to be allocated to some dumb app or two-factor authentication on some private platform that sucks your personal data dry for those nonexistent advertising dollars.
i had to sign up for an email to use my 10 year old printer so i could scan a piece of paper WHICH IS CONNECTED TO MY COMPUTER DIRECTLY WITH A PREINSTALLED PROGRAM and??????? what are you securing me from???? who the fuck else could be in my house using my printer which the wifi function is useless for a single computer???? which dumbass decided this.
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I understand that this is a profoundly pedantic bit of crankery, but it bugs the hell out of me when a robot has jiggly boobs, but then later their chest gets opened up for someone to mess around with their internal gadgetry and you can clearly see that the interior wall of the thoracic compartment follows the exterior contour of the breasts. Like, are these tiddies rigid, or are they not? Pick one or the other!
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My egg gadget journey.
Since I started learning to cook eggs in a pan I have been trying to solve various problems in my usual way... buying gadgets.
Because I love gadgets.
My first problem was that I wasn't happy with my whisking. I didn't feel like I was getting the egg whites and yolks fully incorporated. So I bought this fork whisker thingie.
It has little holes in the tines for optimum whisking!
Or so the Amazon page said.
I thought it would be the size of a normal fork. But in reality, it was gigantic and unwieldy.
I felt it was so large that it actually made it *harder* to whisk eggs.
So that has been retired to the drawer and has not seen the light of day since.
Then I was having trouble flipping my omelettes. So I got a special omelette flipper.
This helped a little, but it was too thick and I still had trouble getting it underneath.
Into the drawer it went with its whisking fork friend.
Then a follower suggested a different kind of omelette flipper.
These have a very thin edge and really get underneath the omelette well. This was my first big success in egg gadgetry. I was able to achieve my first successful fold using this.
Then I was becoming frustrated with egg cracking. I couldn't do it consistently. I tried on the side of the pan. I tried on the flat countertop. I was improving over time, but I still felt like a gadget could be helpful.
In my brain I was envisioning some electronic doodad that used A.I. cracking technology to perfectly open the egg.
But then I found this...
It's just a small dish with a raised edge in the middle. Just about the simplest solution imaginable. Doesn't even take batteries.
And it is fucking fantastic.
It's called the "Crack'em" and so I like to say "Release the Crack'em!" when I use it.
You do have to develop a technique, but once you get that down, it cracks eggs perfectly. And it gives you a nice clean section to pull apart the eggshell. And the yolk doesn't drip out as much before you are ready to release it.
Everyone should get a Crack'em.
I still wanted to solve my incorporation issue. I got better at whisking but I still felt like a gadget could improve things.
So I decided to go with the nuclear option.
This thing is nuts. For the low price I am really amazed at how solid and well-built it feels. And it fucking pulverizes the eggs into a perfectly homogenized substance where white and yolk no longer exist and you just have... egg.
Pure 10,000% incorporated egg.
And with this gadget I was able to increase my egg fluffiness by 20%. And my eggs were already pretty damn fluffy.
The egg pulverizer is also very easy to clean. You just run water and turn the blade and angle it so it doesn't spray you in the face. You will get sprayed in the face before you figure out that angle. So prepare yourself for that.
And that is my gadget journey so far.
I'm considering this weird flippy pan that would allow me to cook my omelettes evenly on both sides, but I am in a scrambled eggs era so I'm not sure I need that right now.
It also looks like I could easily yeet hot omelette juice into my face if I am not careful. So I might just stick to my traditional pan.
OH! And one non-gadget thing I learned.
If you have seen The Bear there was a scene where Sydney cooks an omelette and crunches potato chips on top.
And it works! Tastes great on scrambled eggs as well.
Potato chips, who would have thought?
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