Tumblr; Substack with more fanart

[retroscifiart]

Art by James Nichols from ‘Case Files Revealed : The UFO Art of James Nichols’ (2007)

[abueloretrowave]

-Have you heard about giant flying pillars? some people say that you can see the pillars navigate high up in the sky?, they say it's an ancient lost city, like Atlantis...

[johnzybourne]

I want to believe.

[animarchive]

Yuri and Kei from Dirty Pair illustrated by Tsukasa Dokite (background by art director Tomoaki Okada).

(Animage - August 1985)

[johnzybourne]

You may not like it, but this is what peak summer looks like.

[socialmaya]

[johnzybourne]

The Final Frontier.

Recently I was reading about rural to urban population migration and the larger issue of population decline. People get weird about population decline; the majority still think the comical 1970's narratives about overpopulation are still current, but even if you find people who are aware of the numbers and the trend lines they tend to fall into two camps. First that it doesn't really matter or that it's the result of some nefarious scheme by "The Elite" to do... something. They're never clear on that exactly.

The reality is more prosaic, environments have a carrying capacity, and populations can climb past it but that causes birthrates to fall and populations shrink again. Given that this is a tumblr shitpost and not an ecology lecture I'll suffice to say that population contraction is not the end of the world, nor is it some evil plot. Go read Odum's 'Fundamentals of Ecology' or Catton's 'Overshoot' if you want to get a deeper understanding.

But here's where it gets cool. The net effect of this contraction is that areas that used to be settled; small villages, towns, even some cities are becoming abandoned. There are parts of the US and even population dense countries like Japan that today fit the 19th century definition of "Frontier" in terms of population density. There are entire regions that were formerly settled that could be settled again by determined people. You won't get rich and life will be hard, but it's a freer future that living in some west coast science fiction Martian fantasy Panopticon. And far more viable.

The true Final Frontier is out there, growing every day, just waiting for misfits and weirdos and miscreants to move out into it and attempt to live their lives. I'm working up the courage to join them.

[the-art-of-dieselpunk-war]

Hayao Miyazaki’s Daydream Data Notes (illustrated essays he contributed to the hobby magazine ‘Model Graphix’ in the 80s and 90s)

[honourablejester]

Numenera Oddities

So. Numenera does the thing I love from D&D 5e, and that is trinket tables. Or, in this case, oddity tables.

Oddities are ancient salvaged techno-magical items that aren’t necessarily directly useful, like the more powerful one-shot cyphers or reusable artefacts, but are more there for the flavour of the world. Characters often start with them, GM assigned, and I assume you can find more of them out and about. And … I do love them. These are from the Oddity Table on pgs 305-307 of the Discovery corebook, and they’re just … so illustrative of this future fantasy, scavenger world, 'remants of past civilisations' setting.

I think one of the things that I most love is that, from the characters’ POV, in their medieval fantasy setting, these are inscrutable artefacts of a bygone civilisation, but from our POV, with our technology, you can so clearly see what some of them are intended to be:

26 – Series of thin plastic cards that show all kinds of unknown creatures. (Somebody had trading cards or card games during the past billion years)

20 – Plastic bottle that contains a spray that cleans any stain and never runs out. (Somebody finally invented a universal household cleaner, an infinite universal household cleaner, I bet they made an absolute mint)

30 – Metallic jar that maintains the temperature of liquid inside indefinitely. (Somebody made an improved thermos)

60 – Cup that instantly boils any liquid poured into it. (As well as an instant tea/instant pot noodle/instead meal cup)

33 – Small wand-like device that keeps away normal insects in a 5ft radius. (As well as mobile personalised insect zappers)

55 – Shirt that displays your muscles, bones and internal organs when you wear it. (And, for whatever reason, a portable x-ray shirt? Was this a practical invention first, for field x-rays, or was it for funsies, or both?)

58 – Bracelet with a tiny bell charm that rings like a massive bell when intentionally rung. (Personal protective device?)

80 – A bracelet that rends you unable to reproduce while worn. (An easy, non-invasive contraceptive device, interesting)

76 – Ceramic ring that makes you feel as though gentle hands are caressing your body. (As well as a possible sex toy? Or aide for touch-hunger? Not going to lie, if I touched this with no context and no idea what it was going to be, I’d freak the hell out)

79 – A pair of small, floating cubes that keep a small, enclosed room at the temperature at which water freezes. (Portable refrigeration)

Like, a lot of these are clearly futuristic novelty items or household appliances, as well as some more in-depth and casual medical technology. And I love that? I love that. You’re in a medieval fantasy scavenger world where the detritus of past super-futuristic civilisations litter your world, and you’re there picking up random bits of ancestor junk and trying from your own frame of reference to figure out what the fuck they had going on.

Some of the oddities are a bit more inscrutable even from our POV.

7 – Box with a tiny group of musicians in it who play when it is opened and look horrified when it is closed. (Now, this could be a novelty item again, but this is also a setting where ancient crystal obelisks eat people and trans-dimensional portals and pocket dimensions are also a thing, so … not beyond the bounds of possibility that those are live and enslaved musicians getting shunted into a pocket stasis dimension every time you close the lid)

And some have a language barrier in effect:

16 – Small rod that emits a voice saying the same thing in an unknown language every time a button is pushed. (Could be anything from a personal memo to an ancient distress call)

47 – Five metallic plates that orbit around your head and display ever-changing, unknown symbols. (I fucking love this one, if I was a scholar in this world I would dedicate my life to figuring out this language from the presumption that those symbols are some form of reading from me and if I can just figure out what they’re reading from what symbols show when, maybe I can Rosetta stone this language out? I mean, that’s a lot of assumptions, but you’d have to at least try, right?)

There’s also a series of oddities that are clearly communication/monitoring devices:

17 – Glass plate that shows what seems to be a live image of the moon, but from a closer vantage.

43 – Glass cube that shows what seems to be a live aerial view of an unknown, ruined city.

89 – Plate of glass that, when you view the night sky through it, reveals ten times as many stars.

And we, the players, know that the setting does have ancient satellites still in orbit around the planet, full of nanomachines and other ancestors-know-what. So these are clearly receivers for satellite feeds, or possibly in the last case a light-pollution filter. Though I’d be interested to know if that last one is a live image, or if it’s an image of the stars of this world several million years ago.

And then, in the midst of all that, there are several oddities that are clearly just art, or novelties, or just for fun:

57 – Amulet that, when worn, projects holographic images of fish swimming around you.

Is this a nightlight? A holographic art piece? A fun fashion accessory? I don’t know, but I desperately want one, and no matter how useless it is, I would not sacrifice this one oddity for any number of more useful cyphers or artefacts. It’s pretty, and I love it.

I love the design philosophy of these, the illustration of the world and its history that they provide. And, I mean, some of them, like D&D trinkets, can also function as plot hooks. Where is that unknown city on the live feed? Are those musicians real people trapped in a horrifying pocket dimension? Could you Rosetta-stone one of the ancient languages from that metallic plate device, and if you could, what other, potentially more powerful secrets would it unlock?

They’re just … I love trinkets. I love environmental worldbuilding, I love archaeology, I love the illustration of setting inherent in physical objects. These are fantastic.  

Trinket tables are the best. Honestly, if you are designing a game, do put in a class of objects that don’t exist for any mechanical, game purpose, but are just there to show your world. To show the ethos of your world via the tiny details and physical objects that populate it.

Also, this game appears to be, to a large extent, ‘fantastic archaeology: the setting’, and I’m here for it. Absolutely!

[manila-automat]

The Complete Book of Home Decorating (1994) Barbara Mayer

[johnzybourne]

Hey Arnold energy.

[mapsontheweb]

North America, as seen in Crimson Skies

[johnzybourne]

More to say on this later.

[quote-bomber]

First ever recorded snowball fight (1897)

Happy Holidays And Merry Christmas To All!

[solarmama-plantsareneat]

Colorized!

Guy On Bicycle gets so smeared he leaves his hat behind to escape!

All Victorian ADULTS. Awesome.

[atlinmerrick]

I love this so much. Someone slowed it down so it's not the old-fashioned herky-jerky of old films, now someone colorized it…the past feels like the present because, well, people. Lookit them having fun! *beams at everyone*

[dozydawn]

Akina Nakamori “Cross my Palm” 1987.

[retropopcult]

from Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever (1963)

[johnzybourne]

Baste.

[johnzybourne]

I've been thinking about memories again. Not the movie, though you should see if it you haven't but memories as themselves. One of the things that I find fascinating is how tightly some things are bound to a memory of a specific time or place. Walking around Marunouchi listening to say Tomoko Aran's Midnight Pretenders does not make the experience more immediate. Quite the contrary, I find myself reminded of the time and place I first heard the song. Sitting in the passenger seat of a friend's car just after midnight somewhere in rural New York around a decade ago watching the bare late autumn trees get lit up by headlights as the car cruised up and down backroads through the hills. The glittering Tokyo towers at sundown feel oddly out of place in the memory, despite that environment being what produced the track in the first place. Memory appropriation I guess.

I've also been thinking about memories that are still extremely vivid in my mind despite their lack of immediately apparent importance. Like the time I spent talking with someone very close while waiting at a bust stop at a nearly dead mall about 2000's suburban culture. The notion that the coolest place on earth was whatever stripmall you and your friends happened to be was dominant and then rapidly faded away as the millennials grew up and decided to fetishize New York and LA like the generations before them. Or the time I spent a few hours sitting in a friend's den after school. The only light was an evening indigo blue filtered in through a light November snow outside. We drank tea and talked about high school things, nothing of real importance, it's the light and the warm tea that I still experience vividly when I let myself.

Small things like this, a late night drive with a retro Japanese pop soundtrack, a bus stop during the Covid era, tea time after school, these sorts of things stand out for some reason where as supposedly larger and more important things I just sort of remember almost as a date on a page.

Then there are the memories formed in dreams, but that's a topic for another time.

[dungeons-and-danis]

very neat idea for anyone who enjoys puzzle making!

[johnzybourne]

Seems like something I need to make.

[escuerzoresucitado]

[johnzybourne]

I need this ancient wisdom.

[prokopetz]

Honestly, the thing about the stolen RAM chips might be one of my favourite little details in Neuromancer, because it's both the most obviously ridiculous detail to modern audiences, and practically the only thing about computers the text actually gets right. Prior to the price crash of 1996, RAM genuinely was the most expensive component of a desktop computer – like, by an order of magnitude. There really was a thriving black market in stolen RAM chips. This was literally the one thing William Gibson actually knew about computers, and now it's one of the silliest lines in the whole book.

[johnzybourne]

This makes me want to run an RPG set in the late 1970's bay area where the player characters are a group of small time weed dealers that want to branch out into the wonderful new frontier of RAM fencing. I'll call it cybergroove.

[johnzybourne]

I've wanted to play this version of Risk ever since I first saw it. Too bad it's not real.