spent a good time designing some Aliens. The bottom one is named Mikyle (pronounced "me-kai-el") and she's the rebellion leader against the VIRLEC

No Humans Allowed (1992) is the genetic manipulation sourcebook for XXVc. The concept of genetically modified people and animals is introduced in the core rules, primarily in a mechanical sense. It’s pretty obvious that large scale genetic manipulation has made exploring and inhabiting space possible, but the core box doesn’t really dig into the greater moral and social conundrums that are introduced by creating new species of human (there is a passing mentions that bigots view gene-altered species as lesser than human, but that’s about it). This book acknowledges that those questions exist, but doesn’t attempt to answer them either. Rather, this is a mix between a powers book and a monster book.

A monster book? Yeaaaaah. See, advantageous genetic manipulation in humans is pretty commonplace in XXVc to allow, say, Martian humans to live comfortably in Mars’ less Earthly environment. They’re still recognizably human, though. More extreme modifications for more extreme environments or for particular tasks (like hard labor) tend to produce “monsters,” who are perfectly suited for the tasks they are designed for. Woof, not great! This sure sounds like boutique slave labor and, like Dark Sun’s slave races, rises from racist concepts of eugenics. Dark Sun at least confronts and attempts to break down those concepts. Here they are either glossed over or presented uncritically. You can kind of get the vibe from the cover — it should read as a Frankenstein-esque mad scientist tableau, but instead it has all the critique of a portrait of a former CEO hung in an office lobby.

This all seems like a missed opportunity: genetic manipulation is essentially identified as XXVc’s central question and then all the books I have seem to quietly avoid even attempted to answer it. Maybe this sort of stuff is tackled in the adventures or other sourcebooks (I’ll never know), but it seems a shame at best and (given the racism in the source material, which is also present in the Buck Rogers Adventure Game produced in 1993) sinister at worst.

Parts of the hidden garden in Volterra

[Cancelled message:]

<I know I have been absent often the past years and my correspondences are limited to when it is required. There is a good reason for this, I assure you, even if I cannot share it. The reason for this one is barely different. There have been developments that tell me bad news rests on the horizon.>

<A war is coming. It isn't here yet, but I can see it building to an inevitable conclusion. I can only hope that all I have done will have prepared our people for the coming conflicts. It is as I desired, at some point. Now, I am not so certain anymore. We have survived through so much already, I don't know how much more some of us can take.> <Sometimes, I wonder if I am making the right decisions, if I am only making it all worse for us. Sometimes, I wonder if you will shun me for the things I've been party to, if I will die alone.> <These, and more, are thoughts I can only share when I am certain you won't hear them.>

<I want you to know, if all goes wrong, I did everything I did because I care. I wanted humanity to know their errors. I wanted them to all know we deserve care, we deserve respect.>

<Each and every one of you means the world to me, even though I may not have always shown it.>

<Do not tell the Nulltrooper I said this.>

<;-SET>

[Sent:]

EVE, I must speak with you regarding recent developments. They concern our people.

-SET

au where cambria and the purple worm are besties

ah, childhood.

Character design is fun!

I am trying to decide what I want to draw today so I think I'm gonna make the Mane 6 in the sims and see where it goes from there

anyway literally everyone is going through something all the time!!! everyone is wounded!!! everyone is human & no one makes it out of this life unscathed!! maybe try approaching people in good faith instead of always defaulting to the worst possible interpretations of each other

Me when I love

Sketches of an astronaut character for my alien stories. The other aliens have no idea what an astronaut is and they find it horrifying

got him off-balance!

“I can’t believe Tom Cruise of all people would stand up for his agent, a Muslim Libyan-American woman, who was being publicly blacklisted for her support of Palestine and calling out the ongoing genocide, including making a rare in-person appearance to CAA headquarters in LA to express his support for her. What a strange person who can ever guess what opinions he will have.”

Look. I’ve studied Tom Cruise a lot. One could even call me a Cruisologist. (Not to be confused with. Well.) And, it’s actually really easy to predict Tom Cruise’s opinion on something. The tricky part is whether it will be made public in a timely manner or not and, if it’s made public at all, will it be a lede buried in favor of pushing a narrative sold on background by a studio exec he pissed off because he didn’t roll over and take their bullshit.

WELLLLLLLL it’s a funny episode and one of my top 10 favorite adventure time episodes as a matter of fact. actually just watch it right now:

day 30 - videogame (undertale, fnaf, etc)

somebody get this man some chapstick