#Real tiny locomotives

[engineer-gunzelpunk]

Gordon the Big Engine sighting: Royal Melbourne Show

Somehow I am not surprised he’s a C-38.

[shinygoku]

@tomwaterbabies

why are people so mean to steampunk. what did steampunk do to you. are you too good for cogs? too good for goggles and a top hat? hmm??? bitch

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Buboo

Debut: Kirby: Squeak Squad

Bubbles! Heehee! Hoohoo! What fun! I love bubbles a lot. They are not only fun, but really amazing things! Perfect wobbly orbs of gas, encased in a beautiful shine, sometimes flying around, sometimes just descending, sometimes even landing on the grass or your finger without popping, and it's like a magical moment of connection with an entity so different from you!

Sometimes they pop. This fragile and beautiful marvel of science, suddenly eliminated forever from existence. And that's ok! It's part of the fun! The world will never run out of bubbles, so feel free to obliterate them as you please! You can always make more, whether it's with a bubble wand, your own lips and saliva, or even by a happy little accident, squeezing a bottle of dish soap in just the right way to release a little tiny hovering wonder.

This all being said, I do not love bubbles as much as Buboo does. Buboo may be the number one bubbles fan. With the ability to create spit bubbles, I may be a Bubble Elemental, but even I cannot create enough bubbles to encase myself, and fly! I would if I could! Buboo literally lives at bubbles.

You will notice, however, that I cannot say Buboo IS bubbles. It is among bubbles, but it is not one of them! Like some kind of impostor. But who could this be? Who is red, and has eyes? A scarlet macaw? An angry sunburned dad? Red Jumbo Josh With Four Arms Plush? There are so many things that are red and have eyes! It's going to take me forever to dig through this pile of things that are red and have eyes. I can't eat them all by myself! I'm worried we'll never find out what Buboo's true form is after all...

Hi. I'm just playing around with you here. I know what it is.

It's a little crab! Isn't that a wonderful result? Once its bubbles are all popped, Buboo will fall to the ground and run around, continuing to blow bubbles as a final attack until defeated. I think Squeak Squad, which was my first Kirby game, may have been my first exposure to crabs blowing bubbles in media. I don't think I made the connection, and thought it was just an "elemental animal" without much deeper meaning (besides being really cool and cute, of course). But crabs and bubbles are best friends in real life!

You probably know that some crabs blow bubbles on land! But do you know why? They're not in distress or trying to intimidate another creature or anything. They're just breathing! When a crab breathes out through wet gills, it often comes out as bubbles. It doesn't serve any real purpose, but nothing wrong with bubbles! Also, I like to imagine an exhausted crab sighing, but only bubbles come out, and the sigh is only heard once the bubbles pop. Imagine it. It's whimsical.

Obviously, there is no actual crab that uses bubbles for locomotion... but there is a really awesome snail that does!

This is the violet sea snail! It creates bubbles using its slime, and makes an entire raft out of them, which it spends its whole life attached to upside-down, drifting at the ocean's surface! If you are stranded on an island in an ocean, as a human, you should absolutely not set off on nothing but a raft. But snails are different, and this snail eats Portuguese Men O' War, so clearly it knows what it's doing.

In conclusion, bubbles are so epic and awesome! They are delights and pockets of whimsy to us humans, and to some creature, they are an entire livelihood! I didn't even mention spittlebugs on this post. If you don't know spittlebugs, you should go learn about them! That is your homework. You get a passing grade if you smile at the thought of a spittlebug. Have fun!

[cutiecorner]

A Gift

Fanfic • agere • Caregiver! Alfred Pennyworth, Regressor! Bruce Wayne • AO3

Babybat fic I did real quick last night!! Big fan of incorporating Bruce's autism into his regression, so there's a lot of that here. He's just a lil guy!! He loves trains!!

“Would you like to go in there?”

Bruce was snapped out of his trance by a gentle call. Bruce had been looking through a store window, completely entranced by the display inside. The cold wind biting at his ears, the snow falling on his cheeks, it all melted away as soon as he saw it. It was, in a word, magnificent.

“What? I - No, we should get going,” When Bruce turned back to Alfred, Alfred wasn’t there. He looked back in the window - the butler was already in the store chatting up the clerk. A look wouldn’t hurt, he supposed.

Bruce, against his own will, instantly got butterflies when he went to the store. He felt like a kid in a candy shop, but the goods were much better than sweets. He was surrounded by shelves and shelves of brand new, beautiful, trains.

Model trains lined every wall, many making loops around the perimeter that he craned his neck up to see. He couldn’t help the gleeful smile that spread across his face. Bruce loved trains. Ever since he was a boy and he helped his father set up their decorative train set for the holiday party, he was in love. They were so beautiful to him, he loved knowing every moving mechanism that made such a powerful machine go so far - and the models were no different. Even better, by a certain measure. They were lovingly crafted at a teeny tiny size, perfect to pick up and inspect all the little details.

“Are you going to look around, then?” Alfred made him realize he hadn’t left the doorway. He immediately shuffled in, paying no mind to his dripping wet coat while marveling at the whole store. He walked in excited strides, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep himself from handling all of the merchandise. The temptation was great though, as they all stood in neat rows to be marveled at. Bruce bounced up and down on his toes. He gasped,

“Hey Alfred, come over here!” Alfred came over with a smile, making work of Bruce’s wet coat while his ward rambled about one of the models in front of him.”

“This is the Bachmann HO 50556 USRA Switcher - isn’t it beautiful? It was made in this bright green and red because it was the ‘north pole’ line for christmas. We used to have one remember? In the office?”

“Yes, dear boy, I do remember that one,” There was a fond lilt in Alfred’s voice, considering how often he’d heard about that particular train in Bruce’s youth.

“Oh and this one here is an Athearn Genesis, and this one is a … a…”

Bruce trailed off, looking wide eyed at the display he just spotted in the back. No thought toward the end of his sentence, he gravitated to it, mouth practically agape.

It was a beautiful winter wonderland, with a little town and a ski slope and a water tower. There were children sledding, post workers delivering letters to santa, and best of all-

“A Raton Train locomotive…”

Bruce’s eyes twinkled as he lowered down to the level of the train. He rested his arms on the stand, watching wistfully as the train made its rounds through the elegant little town.

“What have you found there, Master Bruce?” the fondness had doubled in Alfred’s voice, as Bruce sat on the floor and stared like he was a little boy again.

“It’s a Raton Alfred! They’re so wonderfully made, look at that gold finish! I always loved the old locomotives, and this one is just gorgeous. Oh my goodness,” Bruce got even closer to the little train, “The details in these cars! There’s a dining car and a luggage car and… wow. Wow!”

“That sounds lovely, sir. How you could see into those little cars while they’re moving I’ll never know,” Alfred chuckled.

Bruce sprung up and looked around for the clerk. He walked up to the counter, suddenly feeling a little shy. He tried his best to look at the clerk’s face and not where he fidgeted with his sweater.

“Um, excuse me… could I, um, could I please stop that train over there? It’s um, to show my dad.”

“Of course,” The clerk smiled, “little switch on the underside of the table.”

“Thank you!” Bruce practically ran back to the table, ducking under to find the switch.

Alfred’s attention hit a wall at “to show my dad”. To show my dad. To show my dad. He repeated the phrase in his head, looking back down at his giddy son.

"See Alfred, look!" Bruce carefully picked up one of the cars and showed it to Alfred.

"Oh, that's just lovely, darling." Bruce flushed under the praise.

"Would you like one?"

Bruce looked back to the set with wide eyes, then back at Alfred.

"Like - Like the whole thing? The whole set?"

"Yes, dear boy. One of the many perks of being a millionaire," Alfred joked. Bruce couldn't contain his joy, his muscles tightening as he curled inward and flapped his hands with a huge smile.

"Oh really Alfie, really? I can keep it?" Alfred's heart squeezed. "Yes of course - If it's available?" Alfred asked toward the clerk, who nodded in agreement.

Once all the parts were packed and loaded into the car, Bruce couldn't keep but hold the locomotive box in the front with special care. He curled his arms around it, holding it tight to himself like a teddy bear. Bruce happily rocked back and forth, reading every bit of text on the box as they drove off.

"Well, that was lots of fun wasn't it, dear?" Bruce nodded and hummed in response.

"Um Alfred can, um can we put it up when we get home? In the living room where we used to?"

"Of course," fond warmth overtook the both of them as they remembered the holidays with Martha and Thomas. Alfred was on the lookout for signs of Bruce's mood turning, it often did when reminded of his parents. But the turn never came, Bruce continuing to rock and rattle off facts about his new toy all the way home. A wonderful gift, indeed.

[zarvasace]

Ok Random question but if The Colors lived in a time when Hyrule had trains i.e. the Spirit Tracks era, what do you think each Link's relationship with the trains would be. Like would they all end up engineers, maybe Shadow gets spooked by the trains since nothing like that existed in the dark world. I dunno this is just a random thought that has gotten itself lodged in my brain

Okay, so Tumblr didn't show me this came in until now. XD sorry!

I don't know much about Spirit Tracks but I can imagine an early industrial revolution AU with some magic just fine!! :) let's come up with a train-centric steampunky AU:

Kingdom of Hyrule, less of a political kingdom these days, specializing in innovation. They've expanded their rail lines within their borders and have been making deals with other countries to build outward. There is one main rail line sponsored by the government, and universities and a few smaller ones trying to break into the growing industry.

Green, Red, Blue, and Vio are all new graduates of the kingdom's university, each specializing in something different. They're all in minor competition for The Title of Royal Engineer, but otherwise good friends with each other and the dean's daughter Zelda.

Using a steampunky mad science/occult ritual, the most relevant bad guy summons Shadow and, I assume, kicks off the plot.

Green would be kind of an officer—I don't know how train hierarchy works but I can pretend it's something like a ship. He's advancing through the ranks toward captain conductor and took officer classes at school. He's considerate but a little snobbish, coming from a rich family and knowing he's on track to be in charge someday.

Blue clashes the most with him, though Blue doesn't have any intention of being conductor (anymore.) He's well-acquainted with heavy machinery, the real greasy bolts and wheels of it all, and not just for trains. His standards of cleanliness and organization are legendary, and Green consults with him about the condition of the train as a whole.

Red is concerned, of course, with the whole steam-power part of it all. He's intimately familiar with several methods of propulsion, and enjoys trying to come up with more and more efficient engines. He knows exactly how much fuel they need and how to portion it out. He got into some trouble in school for several explosions and usually has soot on his clothes. Where Blue is concerned with every wheel and cog, Red knows the locomotive and tender car like the back of his hand. Better, probably, since his hands are usually blackened or gloved.

Vio's more about the logistics, the theoretical, the communication. He keeps the timetables, the financial records, and telegrams. He's a chronic overworker, and it isn't uncommon to find him napping in his tiny little office chair, several drained cups of coffee rattling on the desk. He's often first off the train at a stop, though he prefers to get back to the office as fast as he can.

Shadow is the ghost in the train. He's the silhouette against the oil lamps, the rippling reflection in the windows, the thing out the corner of your eye. He's the false telegram message, the broken face of the temperature gauge, the bell ringing in an empty compartment.

Okay well that was fun XD got a little more Aesthetic than Conceptual there at the end but hey fun times!

[inactive-veins]

Starlight Express au that is probably super dumb but:

I’ve been rotating a super dumb au idea in my head for a while, but it’s sorta like if Netflix adapted Starlight. (Also there’s little bits of Alita: Battle Angel and possibly a little tiny bit of Hunger Games thrown in there too)

So in this new made-up world, it kinda has the same atmosphere as the world from the olc show (think, right place right time). Most of the characters are super down on their luck. Rusty is a loner who’s lost hope in his dreams, Electra is a failing popstar with a terrible record deal, Pearl is in debt for reasons I haven’t come up with, etc etc. So they all decided to put their names in the pool to get picked for The Races.

The Races are basically roller skating or blading races, where playing dirty is absolutely allowed. All of it is televised. The races are set up and narrated like a sports game, and there’s also “behind the scenes” which is treated like a reality tv show where they cover the drama and relationships that happen, well, behind the scenes.

So all of the cast were all of the people chosen, majority of them not using real names on the show. Every year when this event happens, the training/reality TV spans for half a year, from January to the end of June, and then the races happen. (This is kinda similar to the schedule that the actual Starlight Express cast has, at least in Bochum I think.)

Every time this happens, mostly industrial sponsors jump at this opportunity. There’s often a theme, main sponsors, and then sponsors who sponsor one member of the cast. For example, the main theme would be locomotives this year, and Joule would be sponsored by an electric company as the main sponsor, and the sponsor that specifically chose her would be a dynamite company.

The reason why industrial and tech sponsors jump at this opportunity is because the cast all get cybernetics to keep up with the strain that this absolute bloodsport puts on their bodies+it works with the train theme. Also everyone who is on the show lives together in this huge complex so that there’s ✨drama✨. So getting used to all of this + living with some actually insufferable people, at least on camera (cough, Electra, Greaseball, and possibly Pearl, cough cough)

Basically that’s why all of these people had to be super desperate to actually put their names in for this. The rewards are super high, but the risk and toll are also both high, and many people have a high return rate, especially if they don’t win. Because where else would you use your new cybernetics? (This is meant to explain characters like Poppa or Mississippi Belle)

So a third of the show would be backstory/what the cameras don’t see, a third of it would be the reality tv parts of it, and a third of it would be the races.

(I hope I explained this well + I hope it doesn’t sound overly stupid)

(Also the cast for this would likely be: Rusty, (Non-revival) Greaseball, Ashely, Buffy, (Pre-2018) Dinah, (Pre-2018) Pearl, The Rockies, Dustin, (OLC) Flat-Top, (Broadway) Red Caboose, (Pre-2018) Electra, Krupp, Wrench, Purse, Joule, Volta, Momma, and Mississippi Belle (specifically OLC).

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

 It would sound fun if my world was full of man made lakes so that pretty much all the roads are actually waterways. However I'm wondering where all the water and ground is from and how they create all that? Basically I just want to see the world full of boats instead of cars getting from place to place. I don't mean like single tiny cities like Venice that only works because it's on a lagoon but across the entire world basically. Large busy cities everywhere where the main transportation are boats.

Tex: How big are your lakes? Can anything get bigger than that? We have oodles of lakes on earth, but also significantly larger seas and oceans due to plate tectonics. Is it important to you that the only bodies of waters are lakes across the entirety of the planet, or will a continent or two suffice for the purposes of your worldbuilding? It’s certainly feasible to have your major transportation be via boats, but they will also be heavily dependent upon a consistent amount of water in their area, which will vary based on season and periodic droughts and floods.

Utuabzu: Historically, canals are pretty common. A lot more so than many assume. Prior to the widespread adoption of the steam locomotive and railroads, the most efficient way to transport goods and people in bulk was by water, which is why older cities in Europe and many other places are often criss-crossed by canals, or once were. Even early industrial cities like Birmingham were heavily reliant on canals for bulk transport.

These canals weren’t just intra-city affairs either. The 17th Century Canal du Midi forms a complex with some other waterways that allows boat traffic across France from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, while the Grand Canal in China is a system stretching over 1700km, with the oldest segments built in the 5th Century BCE, and the system considered to have been completed in 609CE. It is still in use as a major piece of transportation infrastructure.

Canals often also served multiple purposes, such as the canals of Bangkok which also served to drain the swampy marshland the city was built on and irrigate farmland, or the Sanitary and Ship Canal in Chicago, which reversed the flow of the lower Chicago River so that it flowed into the Mississippi river system rather than Lake Michigan, allowing shipping to pass directly between the Mississippi river system and the Great Lakes, and diverting the city’s sewerage away from the lake, where it sourced its drinking water.

Prior to the mid-late 19th Century, most urban areas with suitable geography would fill your needs. The major obstacle is going to be that canals just aren’t very practical in hilly or mountainous terrain, or in desert environments with low precipitation and high evaporation. Both can be worked around - uneven terrain can be traversed with the use of locks, and deserts with either sufficiently high water inflow or by roofing the canal over or building it more like a qanat - but there does need to be a good reason for people to bother doing so. At a certain point it becomes much more cost/effort effective to simply walk.

So, unless your world is fairly flat and pretty damp - or the parts of it relevant to your story at least - there’s going to be places where canals don’t really make sense as transportation infrastructure. But hey, now you’ve got an obstacle you can throw at your characters, so it’s not all bad.

Addy: Is the world heavily aquatic and close to sea level? If not, what advantage is there to using boats? Canals are very expensive to build and offer few benefits for everyday travel (trade is a different story, just look at the Erie Canal). I understand that you’re going for an aesthetic, and you can absolutely do that, but what’s the equivalent of a bus? And boats are fairly slow, being real. Cars also aren’t mandatory, either - plenty of cities are walkable.

Just something to think about.

[weekend-whip]

I heard Mer AU and came running—

Consider for Lloyd something not-venomous, tiny, and very cool

The Leafy Sea Dragon

(That, or a Lemon Shark because they’re social, not very aggressive, and apparently get ‘jealous’ if a diver is giving other lemon sharks in the shiver more attention)

Also if you don’t have one for Cole, may I suggest the Coconut Octopus (one of the few species with bipedal locomotion skills, which would make him even better at walking on land like a normal human, + they carry around coconuts to use as hiding spots)

For Olivia, Tiger Sharks would be my guess over Great Whites, but there’s a ton of terrifying-looking deep-sea sharks (ex. goblin sharks and basket sharks, who are very cool and funky lads who I will not subject photos of upon you and your followers)— or you could just run with the Ninjago mythos and say Megalodon, though that could also fit Lloyd

And for Kai I say maybe a Lemon Shark, a Nurse Shark, a Whale Shark, or a Frilled Shark (the latter I won’t include a photo of because they can be a little scary but they’re also super cool because they’re like living fossils and have barely changed in evolution!)

Definitely also considered Lloyd for a sea dragon! Couldn't remember if it was a real thing or not though haha

Had envisioned a really cool orange-yellow bioluminescent tail fr Cole MMMMBUT you make a compelling argument with the coconut. Maybe could use that for Kai instead...

...except Kai as the Lemon Shark has endeared me snksnksnk and I looked up the Frilled Shark!!! Really super cool!!! and kinda freaky!! but neat!!!

And for Olivia I'm so torn between ~generic shark~ or ~horror from the deep~ so now I'm considering giving her two forms, with a more...intense one for when she gets agitated/upset :O

[bracketsoffear]

Here's my usual dump of submissions that didn't make it:

Ludwig (Bloodborne): Holy shit does this man epitomize Body Horror. Man-horse-creature fucker. Too many legs and arms. Second mouth that's made of eyes. Flailing mass of pain and flesh. BAD HORSE VIBES ABOUND.

Ylfa Snorgelsson (Dimension 20: Neverafter): trapped and starving for days, eventually forced to kill and eat Death itself to survive, consequently turned into a werewolf. Took a Druid subclass specializing in shapeshifting, which manifests as contorting and breaking her body in nightmarish ways. Eventually goes full wolf after giving up the memory of her grandmother.

Mottom (Kill Six Billion Demons): An immortal archmage who was taken as the wife of Hastet Om, who forced himself onto any young woman who caught his eye and then discarded them when they grew old for his tastes--"His appetite was insatiable." Mottom killed him and buried him, but he came back as a monstrous tree with a gaping mouth. Feeding young women's blood to Hastet Om caused the tree to grow immortality-granting peaches which restore youth by causing the old flesh to peel away in a really gross manner. Using her magic and immortality, she became one of the seven queens of the multiverse. She represents the sin of Gluttony: her entire culture is based around being a gracious queen who freely shares the luxuries and glories of her owned worlds with her inner circle. Her parties are extravagant beyond compare, and her appetites strip planets down to the bedrock. She has her servants wear plates of food on their heads, and is constantly eating from them. In fact, her gluttony is so extreme that her desire for a particular fruit that grew in the forest around her home reduced the entire region to a scorched wasteland. She also inflicts Body Horror by turning a rebellious king into a peach tree: "For thy valiant concern o'er hunger, I grant thee a power. The power to tend to the hunger of others. Eternally."

Rykard (Elden Ring): let himself be devoured by the God Devouring Serpent—a primeval being worshipped with human sacrifice—to merge with it, becoming a monstrous man-snake-thing with a sword covered in wriggling arms and a desire to devour the entire world—starting with the player. Lures his champions to his lair, then eats them, leaving their souls conscious and writhing in eternal agony. From TV Tropes: “His transformation has left him a giant snake with long, peeling gashes along the scales, out of which writhe masses of tiny, blackened crimson arms and snake tongues (stated to be the souls of his many victims forever trapped in eternal agony as part of his 'family'). His real face is on the underside of the snake's neck: it's huge and flat, with no ears, bloodshot yellow eyes, and stretched out, ashen skin, with encrusted scales forming his crown, jowls, and beard. He's got two 'main' arms and legs (with too many fingers and toes) sticking out of some of the peeled slices on his scales, jostling for space as they crowd out the miniature arms.”

Charles (Choo Choo Charles): a locomotive with huge spider legs, a nightmarish face with More Teeth than the Osmond Family, and a craving for human flesh.

The Stepmother (Neverafter): Cinderella's stepmother who ate her daughters and became something monstrous. After destroying her name, she starts plucking illustrations from the various versions of her story, or rather, characters from those versions, and eating them. Eventually, she grows big enough and powerful enough to consume characters outside her original story, including the Wicked Queen. She is so horrible and terrifying that seeing her is enough to make The Wicked Fairy tear out her own eyes just to stop looking at her. Her skin is bulging with the worlds and stories she's devoured in her wake, and the mere act of viewing her true form in the sword of truth, combined with Pinocchio finally defying her, shatters reality itself.

The Formless Flesh (Darkest Dungeon): A writhing, amorphous mass of demon-possessed pig meat from a rich fuck's experiments putting demons in pigs that was discarded but mutated into increasingly-hideous and deadly forms. It's a beast with a pig's head, multiple eyes, a spine jutting out from its back, and a body composed of a single large tentacle. Sometimes. Sometimes it's one, none, or all of those things. The main form of attack from its rear end involves firing a Blight-dripping tentacle from what remains of a hog's backside. It also has a toothy mouth on the end, just in case that wasn't disturbing enough. Every last one of its parts has at least two mouths on or in it, giving it over half a dozen mouths at any one point--and those are just the visible ones. The Ancestor--the aforementioned rich fuck, who dabbled all sorts of unspeakably terrible stuff in pursuit of eldritch knowledge--thinks this thing is more horrible than he describe.

The Harvest Child (Darkest Dungeon 2): The Foetor was once a prosperous farmland in which peasants lived a simple life as they tended to their crops and herds. However, it was overrun by masses of putrescent flesh, covering the crops and houses in fleshy tendrils. Its inhabitants were all corrupted and mutated into Plague Eaters, covered in cancerous growth and filled with an unending appetite: they turned upon themselves to sate their hunger once their larders were empty and their animals gone. The Plague Eaters all have too many mouths, they gain buffs from eating corpses in battle, and they'll eat fellow enemies alive. The lair boss of this area, The Harvest Child, is a giant baby stuffed into a cornucopia with tentacles; its description is "Born to a corpulent, half-eaten mother, the child is a ravenous avatar of degeneracy!" It surrounds itself with rotting meat which tempts your heroes to take a bite if they do not resist the allure, giving said hero a minor stress heal and causing their maximum health to decrease for the remainder of the fight. When it gets close, it attacks the party with "Maws of Life"; when it's in the back, it inflicts Blight with "Sapid Drippings".

The Kraang (Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles): They conquer worlds by spreading Meat Moss over them, which twists organic life and technology alike into weapons under their control. After being freed from a prison dimension (where it's implied the survivors cannibalized the others to survive), they inflict monstrous transformations on the Foot Clan and start spreading their nasty flesh all over NYC. When they assimilate their victims, their flesh grows all over and consumes them, reaching underneath into their body and morphing their physiology into something alien, including eyes and mouths where those don't belong. This is shown off with Raph, who is found in a cocoon and comes out possessed with discolored eyes and an arm covered in spiky, meaty growths. Their Fleshness extends to their spaceship, The Technodrome, which is made entirely of bio-organic material; in order to take control of it, Donnie has to let the ship's tendrils go into his soft shell and basically get absorbed into the ship in a viscerally disgusting scene. Another Kraang brought Empyrean--a mutagenic liquid that is the source of all the mutants in the ROTTMNT continuity--to Earth.

Also Six and the Chefs from Little Nightmares, but I want to talk abt them in my Lady propaganda.

.

[suppenzeit]

Quick rundown of my StEx OCs, just to have them all in the same place! (and because i dont have images of all of them ooops)

Rosario | Freight engine | He/Him | a pink thing (ref sheet)

Loves his job but wishes there were more engines like him. More femme than an average freight engine, but would also build Ikea furniture for fun if he could. Chatterbox.

Sploinko | FRED (Flashing Rear-End Device) | He/Him | (ref sheet)

Awful and horrible little man!!

Ferruccio | Engine of Frecciarossa 1000 | He/They | (toyhou.se page)

A really mean greyhound dog.

Alix | Luxury Coach of Frecciarossa 1000 | She/He/They | (toyhou.se page)

Only a little bit nicer than Ferruccio. But only a little bit.

Gian | Bistro Car of Frecciarossa 1000 | He/Him | (toyhou.se page)

The Meowth of the group if Team Rocket was a throuple and they were all trains.

Joux | SBB RE 4/4 IV | He/Him | autism creature | gotta finish his ref

Kind and gentle passenger engine. Gets nervous easily. Loves to look at clocks. (my baldest oc!)

Haven the Hi-Level | Hi-Level coach | They/He/She | a doodle!

Slightly off-putting but still very social and friendly coach. Would probably give a gemstone as a gift to someone.

Chesley | A Functional Chessie M-1 | He/Him | still gotta draw a good image of him aaaa

Tall nervous wreck of a man. Like if a horse was a train! Also a hopeless romantic. I rambled a bit about him.

Roscoe | Bobber Caboose | He/They | small because he is tiny (toyhou.se page)

Little rascal :) I love him I have him in real life too! He sits on my keyboard!

Other OCs

CV the Caboose (horrible.), Thorne the Electric Engine (Elektras parent), Schofield the Skeleton Car, Toole the Tool Car, Veeti the VR Locomotive

[app-oh-sigh-oh-pieces]

The painting of the woman in the field is Christina's World, a portrait of a real disabled woman... sort of. The artist's wife, Betsy James Wyeth, posed for the painting, but it's meant to be a picture of the artist's friend and neighbor, a woman named Anna Christina Olson.

Olson was initially thought to have polio, but we now believe she had CMT, an inherited nerve disease that leads to muscle weakness and numbness, especially in the legs. There's no known cure, and no treatment for the underlying cause of CMT, only its symptoms. Since childhood, Olson's only form of locomotion was crawling, as she was against using a wheelchair.

The painting's always been controversial because it was seen as kitschy by the painter's contemporaries, but also from a disability justice angle, people have argued that since the Olsons never saw anything from it, the artist didn't ask Olson for consent (that we know), and he chose a younger woman to represent Olson, then he must have been taking advantage of her for his own benefit.

The truth of this is tricky, because to hear the artist tell it, Olson refused any of the gifts he offered her. She also reportedly loved the painting, saying the artist had put her where she wanted to be. But how reliable are these accounts? It was difficult to find sources for her quotes, and we only have the artist's word that he offered her compensation. Was she fully aware of her situation and making choices dependent on her values?

Both Olson and the artist are dead now, so we can only consult the historical record and our own interpretations. I personally wonder why the artist didn't give her brother(who was also her caretaker) money for farm upkeep whether his sister wanted it or not and told him to keep silent about it—it would've been underhanded, but still.

So I think that the reinterpretation of Christina's World is especially striking to me given the differences on display.

Christina's World never shows the face of its subject (given the two women involved, I'll call the subject Christina, for simplicity), and coastal Maine is a stark place, but Olson herself saw her happiest times in the depiction. The farm was her world, but her mindset of determination was also her world. Everything Christina sees is open to her. She isn't lying down passively—note the tensed position of her arms and how her left arm is outstretched, and remember how the real Olson got herself around. She's reaching out, moving forward, coming home from exploration. Even the fence of the house is only a few suggestive lines, more of a texture than an actual barrier.

Contrast this to the recreation by echothatislove. The landscape, a typical North American lawn, is similarly stark in the foreground, but echothatislove is facing a shed in her backyard—in other words, away from her house. She's not coming home, she's trying to leave. Beyond the shed, there are solid wood fences, just the right height to see the tops of houses over. All of these are much closer to her than the house and barn were to Christina. But they aren't open to her; no matter how far she wants to go, she can only go to this tiny little box.

And look at the position of her hands: unlike Christina, who was leaning forward mid-motion, she's stuck in place. Is this merely an artifact of the medium (it'd be hard to hold the exact position of the painting long enough to get a crisp photo), or can we infer more from this about the relative situations of the women depicted? Has she stopped moving because she's lost motivation?

I think it's also worth examining how these two images relate to the male and abled gazes. (As a reminder for people who are only used to hearing about the sexualized aspect of the male gaze, privileged gaze is not necessarily sexual, and I do not intend such an interpretation.)

Christina was a depiction of a disabled woman, modeled and named by a presumably abled woman, painted by a (mostly) abled man, for the benefit of that abled man. He once said that he didn't pay much mind to Olson, focusing instead on painting her farmhouse from the room the Olsons let him use as a studio, until he saw her crawling across the field. He then sketched her for the next two months.

Is Christina's World a true representation of what Olson wanted people to think of her? How does the depiction of Christina compare to the artist's intent in depicting Olson? How do our assumptions about disability color the experience of the piece?

Betsy Wyeth was her husband's manager, curator, and muse; she spent most of her life supporting her husband, father-in-law, and son in their artistic endeavors. As her son put it, "She should have also signed his paintings."

She seems to have been reluctant to be in the spotlight, but was this her desire for privacy or the "woman behind a great man" we see all too often in cultural narratives of male artists? What does Betsy Wyeth's naming choice contribute to Christina's World? How would this piece be different if a different woman had modeled Christina?

The recreation is a photo most likely either taken by echothatislove using a timer or, given this was in lockdown, her housemate.

How does the recreation alter the emotional perspective of the piece? Is it easier to empathize with Christina or echothatislove? Can we infer anything about echothatislove's interpretation of Christina's World from the recreation?

People with CMT aren't immunocompromised, but respiratory illnesses like Covid are riskier for them. They also need regular physical therapy to maintain muscle function, which is difficult when you're forced to stay at home. A study of people with CMT in 2020 found lockdown caused loss of function and worse pain.

Does either the recreation or Christina's World convey the perspective of someone with CMT? How does knowledge of Olson's disability, and the modern experience of people with CMT, influence interpretation of both artworks? How does the presence of an abled woman vs. a disabled woman in the role of a disabled subject influence what it has to say about the subject?

And finally, Christina is depicted as a visibly disabled woman, while echothatislove is not visibly disabled. How does this difference influence our perception of their emotional states and circumstances?

[blockgeni]

On a laptop or smartphone, artificial intelligence can create an autonomous robot in less than 30 seconds. It's not need to panic just yet about anyone being able to build a Terminator while they're standing in line for the bus, according to a recent study, because the robots are merely straightforward machines that move in straight lines without doing more complicated duties. (Interestingly, though, they never seem to acquire a configuration that involves wriggling, moving like an inch worm, or slithering.) But with more effort, the approach might democratise robot creation, claims Sam Kriegman, a computer scientist and engineer at Northwestern University and the study's lead author. According to Kriegman, it truly restricts the variety of the problems being posed when only big businesses, governments, and big academic institutions have sufficient computer power [to create with artificial intelligence]. What's really fascinating is making these tools more accessible. Design may appear to be the logical next step given that AI can currently drive vehicles and write essays. According to Columbia University roboticist Hod Lipson, who was not engaged in the research, it is difficult to develop an algorithm that can successfully construct a real-world product. The latest study, according to Lipson, is a huge step forward, but there are still a lot of questions. The technique builds robots that are capable of a particular task—in this example, forward locomotion—using a simulation of evolution. Before, evolving robots required generating random variations, testing them, improving the top performers with fresh variations, then testing those versions once more. According to Kriegman, that calls for a lot of computing power. As an alternative, he and his coworkers used a technique called gradient descent, which is more akin to directed evolution. It varies from random evolution in that the algorithm can evaluate how well a certain body plan will perform in comparison to the ideal. The process begins with a randomly generated body design for the robot. The AI can focus on the routes that have the best chance of success for each iteration. We gave the [algorithm] a way to determine if a mutation would be beneficial or detrimental, according to Kriegman. The researchers created their robots using random shapes in their computer simulations, gave the AI the task of creating terrestrial locomotion, and then let the nascent robots loose in a simulated world to evolve. Reaching the ideal state just required ten simulations and a few seconds. According to research published on October 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the robots were able to start moving from their initial, immobile body plans at speeds of up to 0.5 body length per second, or roughly half the speed at which people walk. The study also discovered that the robots consistently evolved legs and began walking. Lipson thinks it was impressive that the AI could develop something practical from a random form after only a few repetitions. By 3-D printing a mold of their best-performing robot's design and filling it with silicone, the researchers created examples of the robot to test whether the simulations were effective in real-world situations. To simulate muscles flexing and expanding, they pushed air into tiny gaps in the form. Each of the resulting robots was approximately the size of a bar of soap, and they moved like clumsy tiny cartoon figures. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="720"] An AI designed this little walking robot. Credit: Northwestern University[/caption] Because AI-simulated robots don't often transition into the actual world, Kriegman adds, they were really excited about it just moving at all and moving in the right direction. N. Katherine Hayles, a research professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and a professor emerita at Duke University, claims that despite the robots' simplicity and limited functionality, the research represents a step towards more sophisticated robot design.

How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, published by the University of Chicago Press in 1999, is another book by this author. It would be powerful to combine the brains and bodies, she argues, because the gradient descent method is already well-established in the building of artificial neural networks, sometimes known as neural nets—AI approaches that are inspired by the human brain. According to Hayles, the real innovation in this area will occur when you combine an evolvable body with gradient descent methods to develop neural nets. Then, as with biological beings, the two may coevolve. According to Lipson, AI that is capable of inventing new products might free humans from a number of nagging issues, such as designing the next-generation batteries that could slow down climate change and discovering new antibiotics and drugs for diseases that now have no known cures. These simple substantial robots are a step in that direction, he claims. All bets are off, according to Lipson, if we can create algorithms that can create things for us. There will be a tremendous upsurge for us. Source link

[dertaglichedan]

This date in Great Northern Railway History- June 10th, 1929:

The Empire Builder is inaugurated into service. 

Six new consists of luxurious, heavyweight equipment began service as Great Northern's premier passenger train, the Empire Builder.  Honoring GN's founder, James J. Hill (the Empire Builder himself) these Chicago to Seattle trains operated on a 63 hour schedule westbound (Train #1) and 61 hour, 15 minute schedule eastbound (Train #2).

The train took advantage of significant route improvements in the Cascade Mountains. These included the new 7.8 mile long Cascade Tunnel and the Chumstick Valley line change.

Motive power was either a P2 class 4-8-2 or S2 class 4-8-4 steam locomotive. Between Skykomish and Wenatchee, electrics handled the consist. These trains were the last word in comfort, amenities and speed for their day. Punctuating the train was the last car, an 89' buffet-lounge-solarium-observation with a sun room replacing the traditional open platform.

The Empire Builder ran between the Pacific Northwest and St. Paul on the Great Northern and on the Burlington Route between St. Paul and Chicago.

Then, as now, the train split at Spokane with one section going to Seattle and one to Portland.

***Riding this to the Twin Cities to visit our Grandparents was one of the best times of my life. So glad I was able to experience it. I still have a tiny liquor bottle from the Ranch Car. The Dome car, The Dining car (with real silver) and the Ranch Car (club car) with Texas long horns as seat backs.

[handc-lp]

Evaluation

Media and techniques

Evaluative section on the media and techniques that were used and explored in your project. What did you learn? How did research help this? How did these techniques meet your proposal?

I used mostly blender for everything from the map to the torch you hold in game i did use sketch fabe for my skeleton and for the crates around the map, i do believe the outcome was successful and the models from sketchfab did add a bit more to my map but i don't think now, that i should of had them as they dont have the same type of loy quality texture as the main map but other than that blender and unreal were the only two i used, i required models in specific ones for certain parts of my game and to fit, i also used youtube videos to help with changing over my games movement to locomotion

Purpose / theme / concept

Evaluative section: the thought processes and the way you solved problems. The creative journey and the decisions you made to meet the context and theme of your project. What did you need to change or explore to make sure you hit the themes of your proposal? Did you need to alter your idea or direction / outcome?

The concept was a bunker type facility with a dark background inspired by the creepypasta [russian sleep experiment], in the beginning there was a certain theme i wanted to go with which was the horror aspect of science gone wrong but after the halfway point i changed it a tiny bit but still falls under the original track, this was a leading factor for the game as the horrific nature of the testing was amazing how the concept was meant to work was your in the lab and you have to escape but you get chased by a ghostly figure but throughout the game play and testing i decided to cut that as the limitations of vr and optimization was pain, by cutting objects i wanted it did allow me to focus on the map a bit more and genuinely if i could of i would of added most of the cut object in turn i think it did allow me to make a better product of the map due to it

Outcome

Evaluative section on the final product. Did you meet your expectations? Does your outcome fulfil the project that you set and meet your FMP brief?

The project did not meet my expectations as if i had maybe more time i could of added a better map path with more item and a ghostly figure chasing you or if i did not do a vr game i would have been able to add particles such as wires still live on screen jumpscares and more, i believe it more than fills my FMP brief and i hope it does. I think what went well with this project is that i managed mainly to get a working game done as it was the first real test of vr game building i also think i got the coding side of this done very nicely

Conclusion

Evaluative section on the processes of evaluation, feedback and peer assessment. On reflection how you could have improved your project and what could you have done to support the improvements needed. What have you learnt and what do you need to make sure you do next time to improve your project?

In conclusion i wish i was able to add a lot more than i did maybe if i used my time here as well as at home this game would be better but with the limitations of what i did even through the moving where you can only move forward or backwards not left or right is good but annoying, if i did have more time i think i would have changed it to a first person game and not vr as with fp games there less hassle trying to optimise. I have learnt alot about the vr portion with unreal like with the coding of locomotion to the coding of just a train that can move faster or slower depending how far next time if i was given another chance i would of added more grabbable objects and more rooms to explore 

[magicalcelestialgem]

Crossover Headcanons Part 1

Just thought to put some headcanons about crossovers between… literally my fandoms and original content. I wanted to start with ADJ.

ADJ Crossovers (feat. Solaritia)

World of Cars (Glowing Eyes AU)

Solaritia is in the World of Cars, a world of living vehicles, planes, locomotives, boats, anything that got windows, wheels, or is straight up for transportation. What does she do? Well, what she usually does in a mortal world and as a dragon. Look for food, roll in sand or mud, or fly around. Sadly, poor goddess does not find any meat. She does eat tree leaves and grass though.

Solaritia, knowing she is in a dragonless world, she will go into her tiny spirit form and act like a cryptid of legend. She only goes into her true form when she is alone. This holds up for a while, but the world isn’t perfect and it was not long until at least one of the world inhabitants spot her in her full glory.

You can imagine who saw her. Could be a racer from Cars movies or a character from Planes movies. Once spotted, Solaritia will freeze like a deer in the headlights. But if they mean no harm, she will continue on about her day and let them watch her as long as they don’t do anything. But if they do mean harm, she will fly away and be forced to breathe her sun element (which is more powerful and hotter than normal light) when necessary before disappearing into her tiny spirit form.

Solaritia soon made the news as the mysterious alien sun dragon. Many cars and planes travel far to find and see her. Many even tried to capture her. Many had questions on who and what she is, why she is like this, etc. and some zoologists wanted to interact with her as they saw that Solaritia was a very intelligent creature, maybe even as intelligent as they are. Soon, she got the name, “Sunny.”

Solaritia does also tend to get curious around those who did not harm her. She approaches, calmly, and the ones whom she gets close to feel the gentle, warm bursts of air coming from her nostrils. She’s sniffing them. But then she turns arounds and leaves. Some take pictures of her to remember forever as they felt like she was a gentle creature and must be left alone. She even approaches boats, including Navy boats, when she is out flying at sea, but out of caution, as she does not like to bother anyone if they seem busy. Many managed to take pictures when she was spotted before she turned and flew away, never to be seen again. One time, she approached the Dwight D. Flysenhower, remaining about fifty feet away, and many stopped to stare at her. Most, like Bravo and Echo, were not sure what her intentions were and Solaritia feels a magical presence there. She is able to see that they mean no harm, but can tell that they were soldiers, letting her know that they will attack if she dares to do so. For some time, about thirty minutes, Solaritia just flew like a seagull does around a ferry and then she changed her direction and flew away into the horizon. Let’s just say that everyone who witnessed her can never forget that moment.

But then, one day, Solaritia disappeared. Like, really disappeared, without a trace. Many feared that she was killed, many were happy she was gone. Investigations went out to find her body, but it was nowhere to be seen. It was like she was wiped out of existence. Unknown to them, Solaritia was brought back her homeland. If there is one thing Solaritia remembers from that world, it’s everything. It was nice to get to know a world beyond her own.

Inspired by those animals, especially large cetaceans, who approached humans and did not do harm to a tiny living being. I’ve imagined Solaritia to be the friendly, approachable kind as she is curious and friendly, but very considerate and cautious as she knows that they can mean harm. Anyone who got approached by her can never forget the moment that a wild, intelligent beast has gotten close to them, but still did not mean harm. It is a magical moment I wish to experience in real life, to be honest. Seeing a majestic animal like a whale approach and do no harm.

[paarke]

The owner of the hotel had laughed in his face when he promised he was going to come back one day and take the whole island for himself. He started to get nervous when news stories started to break around the world about a bodybuilder that had got too big to fit into his house. He told the media that being too big for the gym would be no barrier to his training, and if anything, he was planning on stepping it up a few gears. He was looking forward to some epic pumps, and said he couldn’t wait until the awesome road map veins that covered his body were real size, like highways of blood and testosterone pumping around his body. He warned his neighbours they were going to have to make sacrifices and if he needed the space to train, whatever was on the land would have to go. Houses, schools, hospitals, he’d happily flatten whatever he needed to. It wasn’t long before more and more of his neighbourhood looked like a war zone, and was littered with trucks, locomotives, anything he could make into a weight. He took over more and more of the city, his growth defying the laws of nature. Seeing him now it hardly seemed possible that everyone really believed he was done growing when those images of him went viral, easily squatting with a couple of aircraft carriers that he’d mashed together, standing in the middle of the city while skyscrapers crumbled and collapsed all around him, totally oblivious to all the carnage, the huge fires and explosions he was causing. At least now, he was so big, what possible use could he have for a tiny island way out in the ocean? Thinking he was safe in his hotel, the owner knew it was all over when he could see the muscled colossus approaching even when he was way beyond where the horizon should be. His gargantuan quads never even came close to getting wet and powered him through the deep ocean as if it wasn’t there. The last thing he heard was the vast booming voice of the huge muscleman as he told no one in particular that if he wasn’t going to get to enjoy his island, he’d make sure no one else could either.