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caffeinated-binturong · 3 months ago

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Derailed

Sevika x Reader

Synopsis: You thought it would be like any other day but things go wrong and you end up injured in crossfire you weren’t even supposed to be there for. Genre: Hurt/Comfort POV: Second Warnings: General violence, head injury Word Count: 3.1k

Epilogue: [LINK]

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If watching paint dry was boring, watching supply barrels wasn’t much better. Between that, the unchanging stone walls, and general isolation, you had a lot of time to think about how little there was to think about—a stolen nap was the most exciting part of these trips. You much preferred when you got to actually work on the locomotive or some other machine, doing something—anything—that required thinking, but that had ultimately backfired. The old engine was in such good repair now, you were sent out on runs more often than not.

You had offered to fix up anything else if someone else did the deliveries but there wasn’t need for that many trains so you ended up back on delivery duty. Sometimes you thought about how easy it would be to strip a gear or loosen a seal just to get out of the drudgery of it all, but there would be hell to pay if you got caught. It was tempting but not that tempting.

It was a better job than many had, you knew this, but you’d still complain about it.

While waiting for the cargo to finish being loaded, you idly watch the extra bustle in the manufacturing bay. People moved that much faster with more purpose, there was more care about following safety protocols, and conversations would be much more focused on work, if you could hear them. You’d been working here long enough to not get caught up in it but newer folks were always anxious when inspections came about, if that’s what was going on—it was about time for one. The worst it meant for you was having to look busy until you left, the one time you looked forward to it, and you could manage that for the occasional shift.

Or someone had been caught skimming again and were about to learn why you didn’t do that.

Either way, it didn’t concern you, your work was impeccable and you weren’t stupid enough to steal. That is until a group lead by the foreman started heading your way.

With a sigh, you push off from the railing and stretch until joints pop. Time to put on a show. Walking over to the engine controls, you look over dials and gauges you knew were fine but it was still expected. You may be apathetic about much but you didn’t neglect the broiler, something you had to convince your boss was true after being caught not looking busy once. If something had taken a turn for the worse in the past five minutes, people would have more important things to worry about than getting a gold star.

It’s while standing there looking important and engaged while doing nothing that you catch the tail end of a conversation.

“… word on that,” came the foreman’s whiny voice.

“That’s why we’re here,” says a voice you didn’t recognize.

“You wouldn’t have,” says a one you did.

By then, they were at the train and starting to climbing onto the deck as if they owned the place, the foreman leading the way. Behind him was a wiry fellow you hadn’t seen before followed by a larger guy you recall seeing on the streets in passing but knew nothing more than that. Bringing up the rear was Sevika, the voice you recognized. You weren’t exactly friends and your respective work often kept you separate but both of you had been around long enough to superficially know each other. And you knew who to go to if you felt like a card game so maybe it was more than superficial.

If she was here, it meant trouble.

“Engineer!” says the foreman a bit too sharply. “Are we ready to go?”

“Once the last of the cargo is loaded,” you answer carefully, not missing the plural. Something was going on if the foreman and Silco’s primary enforcer were going to join you on a milk run but you knew the danger of showing it. If you weren’t supposed to know, you had to pretend you weren’t suspicious.

“Excellent!” he claps. “I’ll leave you to it then!” He wastes no time hopping back down, leaving the other three and a growing number of questions with you. Even if the foreman wasn’t coming, you still had more passengers than usual.

The smaller of the remaining men is distracted by all the mundane work going on almost instantly, getting excited by the smallest things. If he had worn a neon sign that he was new at this, it would have been less obvious. The other one tries to reprimand him, get him to focus, but is too amused to sound any more stern than a parent scolding a child for something they think is hilarious. Only Sevika is being serious—not that she was known for goofing off at work—but you see her looking over everything with a purpose you didn’t know. You didn’t like not knowing.

“Is something going on?” you risk asking under your breath when she got close enough.

“Might be trouble ahead if intel is right,” she answers. To the other two she yells, “Hey assholes, stop gawking!”

This was the first you’re hearing of it. There was the occasional raid on the supply train but they were infrequent and haphazard, a last desperate attempt by people who knew what would happen no matter the outcome. For those, you had your own counter measures and if there was word an attack might happen, you were either told to take another route or the entire shipment got delayed while it was dealt with. In all your time doing this, there had never been a need for this level of force.

“Last one,” grunts a burly worker, shoving the final barrel into place, the clang a finality.

You automatically put up a chain to act as makeshift railing for the open spot. If it had just been you, you wouldn’t have bothered but you didn’t trust the two guys to not walk off the edge once they couldn’t see it. It also gave you time to silently ask Sevika if this was really going forward—you didn’t have the authority to make that call but she did. The thin hope she would died when she gave you a nod to continue instead.

With apprehension, you release the breaks and the machine lurches forward not sharing the same concern. On cue, the bay doors open, letting air flow in. It wasn’t exactly fresh air—nothing around here was—but it lacked the smell of sweat and machinery you were desensitized to so may as well have been. Usually you enjoyed this part, the rush of air and brief openness before everything closed in again, but it left you feeling exposed this time.

Whether it was from rolling forward or having their boss call them out, the two stooges were suddenly replaced by professionals. With practiced ease, they quickly and quietly take up positions among the cargo and blend in. They were easy enough to spot if you knew to look for them but someone who didn’t risked getting closer then they might like. If anyone had bothered to tell you about this, you could have made it easier to hide—and found something for them to sit on. But what made your hairs stick up wasn’t seeing them do this, it was Sevika doing the same.

“Act like you normally do!” she hisses under her breath, catching you staring.

Giving your head a shake and pushing down growing worry, you focus on doing just that, which meant leaning on the rail looking utterly bored. Sevika glares in disbelief but you only shrug back and feign disinterest in everything—if she thought you stood at the controls the whole time, she was sorely mistaken. You’d probably get chewed out later, though.

The light from the outside world is cut off as the train enters the decommissioned mine, the only sources allowing you to see now were instrument panel and a few dim chem lanterns. If the goal was to be able to read by them, they could have been brighter but this was about drawing as little attention as possible. Even though there were more direct routes to the distribution hub, they all involved going over land in plain site of any who looked. The mines may be longer and kept speed to a minimum but it effectively rendered you invisible.

Besides, no one from up top thought twice if they saw a train in the mines down here.

Despite acting like you weren’t doing anything, you were strain your senses to detect the faintest change, not knowing what to look for. There’s nothing, though, and after passing the halfway mark with nary a sign, you’re about to call it but that’s when you feel it. The noise of the engine, wheels, and tracks were a familiar melody to you, as part of you as your own heartbeat, but there was something else that had joined them. A low thrum you felt more than heard weaved its way through it.

It takes a moment to recognize where it was from but when you do, you grip the rail to keep from jumping into the black and running. Trouble was an understatement and you were in the middle of it.

Then the thrum becomes buzzing and all is chaos.

The lanterns disappear at once, plunging the train into darkness, only the dim light from the engine and streaks of green kept you from thinking you had gone blind. You start forward only to have something pass close enough to your head that the wind from it stirred your hair.

You spin toward a thump behind you but you can’t see the weapon getting bigger or how it was aimed at your face. Something shoves you to your knees from behind as metal grinds against metal. The Firelight is as surprised as you, having expected to get a wet crunch instead of sparks, something Sevika doesn’t hesitate taking advantage of. Hearing something soft hit the floor, you start to stand.

“The hell are you doing?! Get down!” Sevika yells to be heard over all the noise. You don’t stop your movement, though—can’t—instinct overriding the ability to parse the situation. Seeing this and not having time to deal with you, she shoves you none too gently into the metal cargo to get you out of the way. It had only been moments from the Firelight’s boots hitting the deck to being tossed like a ragdoll but it felt longer, much longer.

While getting your bearings, something scrapes the bone in your head and your vision swims.

Green snakes hang in the air.

Pink hunts the snakes.

Red blooms.

Metal winks.

A deep rattling swallows you and the car.

Something forces your eyelids apart, the sudden brightness an assault. You groan and feebly swat at the hand.

“Still alive.”

“Told you they’re tough.”

“Nasty gash, though.”

With all the effort you possessed, you open your eyes again, this time willingly and on your own. It’s exhausting and painful but you manage it. You think of standing up but a gentle hand on your shoulder is all the force needed keep you down.

“Don’t move yet,” says the closer of the two voices. You force yourself to focus on it and slowly the blob of colour takes on a more human form. There’s a familiarity to it but everything is too thick, too slow. It’s probably not important anyway. You try to say something but all that comes out are incoherent gurgles.

“Please say I didn’t do that,” says the other voice.

“I don’t think getting slammed into all that metal helped but blame whatever caused that gash.”

The shapes before you no longer interest you. The lights above, however, beckon you to join them. You sway as you follow them..

“Hey. Hey! Focus on me,” says the person in front of you, urgency seeping in. Breaking free of the wisps, you do as told only to find yourself diving into a tattoo.

You groan, frustrated at… something.

“Keep still,” the woman reiterates. “You got banged up pretty good but you’re safe now. Take your time.”

As she checks you over for other injuries, she tells you what happened more to give you something to hold onto than because you understood what she was saying. Firelights ambushed the shipment but weren’t prepared for the resistance they faced. The same tunnel that concealed them also limited the mobility of the hoverboards. The larger goon was killed in the attack. There was an attempt to blow the cargo but it failed. The surviving Firelights fled when the end of the tunnel came into view.

“—That’s when you rolled up. You gave us quite the fright,” she finishes.

You work your tongue but you can’t quite talk yet.

“They all right?” asks Sevika, walking back into your view. When had she left?

“Disorientated and might have a concussion but no other serious injuries I can find.” To you she asks, “Can you stand?”

In response, you haul yourself up with all the grace of a newborn animal.

From your new vantage point, you can see the aftermath of what went down. Shiny scrapes and gouges litter everything, a sharp contrast to old metal. Barrels that were neatly organized were now scattered around. Splotches of red are everywhere. There’s scorch marks. The surviving goon is alone with two others.

Something’s missing.

But before you can figure out what it was, a wave of nausea hits and threatens to knock you to the floor. Wavering, you cling to tattooed forearm and squeeze your eyes shut, willing yourself to keep your feet under you, putting all your energy into it. Except the arm slips away and without it, you’re falling into darkness.

Then something wraps itself around your waist and keeps the darkness from taking you.

“I’ve got you.” Sevika’s voice was far too close.

Nausea rises and falls until it feels like it would never end. It does eventually subside, though, and when it does you’re exhausted and being held up. You want to make a wry comment but you don’t know what to say or if it would even make sense. You find yourself leaning into warmth instead.

“Cold, huh?” says Sevika with a strained chuckle. “Can you walk?”

“I… I think… so,” you manage to say.

With a lot of help from Sevika, you finally make it to an office. You were surprised how patient she was being, letting you set the pace and never said a word whenever you needed to stop. She could have easily tossed you over her shoulder and gotten here in a fraction of the time but she didn’t. Maybe she knew you would have hated that, maybe she knew you needed the time to recover. Either way you felt like yourself again by the time you were sat down. Battered and bruised but yourself.

“You weren’t supposed to get hurt,” she sighs as she runs a hand over her head. The room is tiny with the two of you in it but it had a door that could close and that was what mattered—you had your fill of curious eyes for a long while.

“Bit late for that,” you smile weakly.

“I should have pulled you. Had someone else take your place,” she says, ignoring your attempt at humour.

“I knew what I signed up for.”

“Yeah, to be an engineer not a fighter.”

“There are still risks.”

“It was my fault.”

“Shit happens.”

Sevika looks like she’s going to continue arguing but deflates. “Not the best day.”

“Nope.” You didn’t have the energy to argue, either. “Least you know the intel was right.”

“Tch. Didn’t know you looked for silver linings.”

“I am very mysterious.”

“Sure you are,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Know where the med stuff is?”

You look around, recognizing the organized chaos. “In the first aid office?”

“This isn’t it? Shit…”

“Might be something in that desk, though.”

Sevika rummages around the draws until she lets out a sharp laugh. “Not quite what I meant.”

“But it’s something.”

“It’ll do,” she says, sitting across from you bottle now in hand. “How’d you know it was there?”

“You ever work in one of these places? They’re stashed everywhere.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Sevika opens it and takes a swig. You reach for it thinking it’s your turn only to have your hand knocked away.

“The hell?” you demand, anger flaring. You nearly died, you deserve a damned drink if you want to!

“Gonna take it from me?” she asks with a raised brow. You both knew you wouldn’t be able to but before you can get too worked up, she leans forward with mechanical hand closed around something. “You get this instead.”

Sevika lets you unfold the fingers until she presents you with a piece of cloth. “… A rag?”

Without another word and before you can figure out her plan, she pours alcohol on it and presses it to the gash on your head. You jerk away with a mix of a hiss and a yelp.

“I’d have preferred the bottle,” you mutter.

“Damned waste but you need it more than I do,” she says as starts wiping the wound and dried blood from your head and face, taking the occasional drink from the bottle herself and holding you still whenever you try to worm away from the stinging bite. By the time she’s satisfied, you smell like a distillery but there was no way you were going to deal with an infection now.

Sevika tosses the rag into the trash but not before you notice how much redder it was. You must have looked ghoulish, no wonder she was worried.

“Sorry about what’s-his-name.” You don’t know what else to say.

“He was a good guy,” Sevika says before polishing off the bottle and sending it after the rag, not elaborating further.

The silence was as mournful as it was companionable.

“What happens now?” you finally ask.

She looks at you then sighs. “I report on this, you see an actual doctor and take some time off.”

You’re about to protest, insist you’ll be fine to work tomorrow, but the look she gives you stops it before you can start—you would be taking time off to recover and nothing you could say would change that.

“If you’re given the okay, I’ll buy you a proper drink. How’s that?” she says, a compromise.

—

A/N: I accidentally deleted the list of possibly overused words before I could go through them so apologies if some made it through. Turns out clicking random buttons is a bad idea.

#arcane fanfic #sevika fanfic #sevika x reader #sevika x you #sevika x y/n #cb writes

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identifyingtrainsinposts · 2 years ago

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Lima Locomotive Works - C-70-3 (left) & C-150-3 (right) AKA Cass Scenic Railroad No. 4 & 6 Both of these engines are Shays, Geared steam locomotives with several distinct features. They have 2 or 3 pistons (in this case both have 3) mounted vertically on the right side. The boiler is shifted to the left to make room for the pistons. These pistons drive a driveshaft on the outside, which drives the wheels via gears. This design gave you a lot of grip and made the engines pretty light, which was fantastic for small industries like logging and mines, and terrible for the main line due to its low speed.

The fasted a Shay has ever been recorded going is 18 MPH. No. 6 is the largest Shay in existence, and the last one built by Lima.

#Lima Locomotive Works #Shay #steam locomotive #geared steam locomotive

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stevebattle · 8 months ago

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Kermit (1978), by Ron Milner and Larry Nicolson, Cyan Engineering, Atari's secret think tank in Grass Valley, CA.

"The robot was a pet project for Nolan Bushnell, then still the head of Atari and a very creative guy. Its purpose in life was as Nolan put it to "bring me a beer!" Navigation for robots was a sketchy thing at that time with lots of pioneering work at MIT but no consumer cost ideas. Nolan brought us the incredibly original idea to navigate a robot (which mostly meant knowing where it was) by means of scanning bar codes attached here and there to the baseboards in the rooms the robot was to service. Why it wasn't patented I don't know.

I had lots of fun building the R2D2 style robot about 20" tall. I liked to put mechanical and electronic things together and we had a great shop at Cyan. Its brain was one of the 6502 based single board computers-I think it was a KIM but not sure. Locomotion was two DC gear motor driven wheels and an instrumented caster-about the same rig as a modern Roomba. A rotatable turret covered with a plexiglass dome carried microphones, an IR sensor to detect people, and ultrasonic ranging sensors I built on a separate PC board. A speaker so Kermit could beep gleefully, of course.

A ring of contact-detecting burglar alarm sensing tape (green in the pictures) around Kermit's middle told the software he had hit something and should back off. The ultrasonics provided range to obstacles and to some extent direction as the turret was rotated, so we could go around things.

My pride and joy was the barcode remote scanner which was mounted on the bottom of the robot so its rotating head would be level with the barcodes on the baseboards. It had a vertical telescope tube with a beam splitter between the IR Led and the photodiode sensor and a lens to focus 2-20' away. It aimed down at a front surface mirror at 45 degree to scan horizontally. The mirror was mounted on a motor driven turret so it spun around continuously with a sensor once around to resolve the continuous angular position of the beam horizontally of course with respect to Kermit's rotational position. Unfortunately, this part of the robot did not survive the closing of our group. The barcodes I made for the prototype to detect were about 4" tall made of 3/4" reflective 3m tape on black poster board.

My programming partner on the project was Larry Nicholson, a really bright guy. He made the barcode reading work to detect not only the barcodes, but where they were angularly with respect to the robot and also their subtended angle or apparent size (all from timing of the rotation of the scanner) which was a measure of distance combined with angle from the barcode. We worked out some pretty clever math to resolve that information from two or three of the barcodes into a position and orientation of Kermit in the room. We had rented an empty room upstairs on the third floor of the Litton building to try all this out and work out the navigation. Larry and I got the basic navigation and obstacle avoidance working so Kermit could go from one place to a designated other place in the room and avoid wastebaskets placed randomly. We demonstrated it to Nolan and he was impressed.

Shortly thereafter Warner Communication who had bought Atari from Nolan kicked him out and the Kermit project was cancelled."

– Kermit The Robot Notes by Ron Milner.

#cybernetics #robot #1978 #Atari

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whirligig-girl · 4 months ago

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NWR No.1 and SLYM No.11513 at a dual gauge interchange just outside of the city center.

SLYM No.11513 is an Advanced Steam Locomotive native to Gymnome--a coal-burning steam engine operating at high pressure, with technological improvements to allow it to rival the efficiency and ease of use of a diesel locomotive, such as electronic controls, compound expansion of steam, a gas producer combustion system firebox, dual exhaust, and automatic firing and oiling. 11513 was built some time in the 2340s, and survives to 2381 as a museum piece.

NWR No.1 is a much older locomotive and from another planet altogether, built 1915 for the LBSC railway as a one-off prototype for a six-coupled shunter to replace the aging Terriers and to supplement the much larger E2-tanks. NWR No.1 made it to the North Western Railway not long after it was built, having been allocated there for the war effort. It is not clear how a locomotive built 465 years in the past on planet Earth made it intact to Gymnome, nor how its gauge perfectly matched Goo'iw Broad Gauge, at least not without invoking some kind of universe-spanning magic railroad, or perhaps the notion that this is all a simulation being run in some kind of virtual reality in some alien starship.

(no this isn't canon.)

Artist's notes:

Earlier today I doodled this in my sketchbook.

And when I got home i decided, hey, I have my Thomas 3D model, and I have the game model of the Advanced Steam Tank Engine... why not actually stage them together and draw them to-scale. The size difference is greater than I expected--partly I think this is because the Thomas gauge-1 prop was not designed with scale in mind, so it's bigger than British Railways loading gauge. Granted, they are at different gauges (standard gauge versus roughly meter-ish gauge), but the loading gauge on the advanced steam engine is very wide.

My first attempt at the drawing was from a very different angle:

But I quickly realized that you can't actually see the Advanced Steam Engine's wheels, and that's a major design aspect.

So i chose a different angle.

I constructed the dual gauge track before anything else.

And before long (the better part of 2 hours) I had the line art finished.

The Advanced Steam Engine ended up being a hybrid between the original illustration I did of it months ago, and the game model--with most of the geometry accurate to the game model, but with the subtler detailing of the illustrated version.

Thomas was meant to be a sort of hybrid of the Gauge 1 Prop from the TV series and a realistic loco. I prioritized the geometry and simplicity of the gauge 1 prop in most respects, but added details below the running board, in particular brake rigging, sanding gear, and these blade-like protrusions of the frames which i'm pretty sure are some kind of debris deflector, a british version of a cowcatcher. There's also snifters on the cylinder saddle, and the whistle is made of two different lengths to justify Thomas' multi-tone whistle.

The original background was going to be this marshland with (electricity-generating) windmills in the background, a callback to that first shot in the Thomas & Friends opening credits, but I hated how it felt like the middle of nowhere, so I introduced the retaining wall and an alien city scene.

British steam engines are generally given very shiny liveries which reflect the environment in interesting ways, so I made sure to do that justice, using a GWR 14xx autotank as reference.

By contrast, the Advanced Steam Tank Engine is kept in a more workwormlike condition, with a somewhat faded matte paint work and a fair amount of grime.

The original illustration of the advanced steam engine, for comparison.

Finally, a version with faces.

#advanced steam engine #tank engine #thomas the tank engine #ttte #train puzzle #mellanoid slime worldbuilding #train #steam train #ttte thomas #steam locomotive #worldbuilding #art #digital art #crossover

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shefightslikeagirl · 3 months ago

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Stages Through the Ages - Part II

An Asylum History post by @shefightslikeagirl

Go back...

2008: The Asylum Grows

The Plague Tour kicked off in Spring of 2008. The stage design didn't change much, but it did evolve. More props, new costumes, and new set dressings started to appear. The concerts were drawing more people and, notably, two concerts were professionally filmed for a never-to-be-released DVD.

Two new pieces of scenic debuted this tour, the most notable of the two being an "Asylum Clock." It was a handmade clock that hung centerstage, equipped with black-and-white drapery and forever pointing at 4 o'clock. Depending on the venue, it was either flown (hung from the catwalks/lighting rafters) or hung up on the back wall. Occasionally, if there truly wasn't any room, it would end up on floor.

Nachtelben, 2008

Bristol, 2008

The second piece of scenic was a familiar one: a second shadowscreen! This was the only tour where there were two screens on stage, both of them adorned with a crown of gears and clocks. You can see two screens and a flown clock in the video below, from the La Locomotive show in Paris.

youtube

The "full" stage set up from The Plague Tour was, by far, the most complicated stage EA ever had. A full setup consisted of two shadowscreens, a flown clock, the keyboard drapery and props, a props table with chairs, fabric all over the stage, and a space for Joo Hee and her cello. This was probably best shown at the (filmed) Islington concert.

youtube

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of great recordings or photos of the full setup. However, there are some great shots of the stage details--including the shadowscreen topper--from EA's book readings at Wave Gotik Treffen.

WGT, 2008

2008: Keep Calm and Carry On

The Gate Tour was next. Now, if you were in the fandom at the time, you might remember some of the drama that surrounded this tour: Vecona leaving, EA's relationship with Trisol imploding, Joo Hee dropping off the face of the earth, and so on. There was a lot of change happening in the Asylum, but the show aesthetic staged largely the same.

The first half of The Gate didn't see many changes. Some scenic was given a facelift, including the keyboard, which was redesigned with a red-and-white drape. But everything still felt the same, even with Vecona gone.

Utrecht, 2008

We went back to having only one shadowscreen, which moved centerstage instead of being off to the side. (I have a sinking suspicion that this one may be larger than on other tours, but that could just be because the photos are better...)

Utrecht, 2008

EA had a handful of dates in North America during this tour, which was her first time performing outside of Europe since 2006. Because her set was mostly small items, fabrics, and easy-to-travel props, her stage remained largely the same. It appears they didn't travel with the shadowscreen, as it was missing from the New York and Ontario dates.

2009: Gears and Glitter

In 2009, the Gate II Tour began and our first significant design change took place. The fabric shadowscreen was replaced with a new version: a gear-lined, industrial themed shadowscreen (v2). It stood centerstage and acted as the focal point for the set, with everything else set up around it.

youtube

For those of you who might not know, this was a true upgrade. EA went from a handmade, pop-up screen to professional scrim. I can only assume that it was mounted to an aluminum frame, which would have kept better tension. The gears and decorative facing to hide the frame would have been made by EA (and friends).

In addition to the new clock, some empty antique-looking frames were suspended from the rig and both new and old props were scattered about the stage. But! A new icon debuted:

Wheelie!

Amsterdam, 2009

Allegedly inspired by the wheelchair from Wicked, Wheelie became a permanent fixture in EA's concerts all the way through 2014. She would be redesigned and replaced a few times, but she always returned.

EA was still touring almost exclusively in Europe, but after she split with Trisol, all that would change...

2009-2010: Tick Tock

After a significant amount of drama surrounding two cancelled North American dates, EA announced a brand new North American tour: The Key. The stage design changed again, this time pulling back a little on the number of props and small items onstage.

Emilie and Basil prepping for tour, Twitter, 2009

The biggest change was the combination of two different set pieces: the Asylum Clock and the shadowscreen.

Introducing: The Asylum Clock.

It was v3 of the shadowscreen, thematically taking the place of the clock that had once hung over the stage. It appeared in two different forms: the full face, which you see above, and what I'll call the skeletal version, below.

Brooklyn, 2009

This is a beefy set of truss, which EA loved to climb on when it was in its skeletal form.

youtube

In addition, the keyboard was given new drapery and the stage props were "neatly" placed on some new tea tables. An antique frame or a lamp-post chandelier might get hung up if the venue allowed. Wheelie lost some of its gears and jewels, which can be seen a bit farther down in this post.

Pomona, 2009

For EA's one-off Mexico date, the set was scaled back slightly.

Mexico City, 2009

Not much changed with this design through early 2010. Between the North American leg of The Key Tour and the European leg, the keyboard drapes changed again and the skeletal version of The Asylum Clock became the go-to.

Effenaar, 2010

When EA traveled to South America during The Door Tour in 2010, the set was stripped down entirely. There were no set dressings and no decorative frame for the shadowscreen, likely as a cost-saving measure. The focus was on the costumes, whatever stunt equipment they brought, and the few props they could shove in their bags.

youtube

2011: The End of an Era

The Door Tour was the last Opheliac tour. Again, as had become the trend between tours, the stage was scaled back. Most props were cleared away and it was rare to see anything hung from the rafters. Gone were the hand-painted gears and numbers from The Asylum Clock. It's newest iteration (v4) was a simple screen-printed truss cover, with a few props hung near the top.

Los Angeles, 2011

The keyboard decorations were massively simplified. Gone were the heaps of props, replaced with some electric candles ontop of a screen-printed Asylum logo. The props for the tea tables were scaled back, though that never stopped Maggot from spitting tea on the audience. The lack of aesthetic clutter didn't take away from the show, exactly, but it did detract from the vibe.

There's more to say and a few tours to left to talk about, but I'm running out of image space.

Part 3, anyone?

#emilie autumn #photos #concert #live #asylum history post #stage #theater #2008 #2009 #2010 #2011 #Youtube

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trainsinanime · 5 months ago

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Okay, but let's discuss the important questions here:

Does the train in Wicked make sense?

…well no, of course not, it's Wicked, I'd be disappointed if it made sense. Way too many gears on that damn thing (gears happen to be expensive), but you know, that's on purpose, that's the point of the whole thing.

I will actually say that it makes more sense than you'd expect at first glance. There's an implication that this is a private special purpose rail vehicle, not the train usually used here, specifically to get Elpheba to Oz. See how the station platform is infinitely long, obviously designed for far longer trains. Between the luxurious interior and the dome-car style canopy, this may be the Wizard's own personal train. I don't think he'd actually use it, but it would make sense for him to have one. Like how the Pope in the real world has a rail connection that's completely pointless. This train is definitely the thing to send if you want to impress, well, the only one with actual magical power in the whole kingdom.

And I really love the design of it. It evokes both 1920s and 1930s streamlined locomotives and 1930s streamlined cars like the Bugatti Type 57:

But it also puts its own Art Nouveau spin on it. It's beautiful, intricate, needlessly complicated, the only knock against it is that it doesn't appear to be wheelchair accessible, which is genuinely not great.

There are a lot of questions you could ask about it. Like, why does it appear to have a 2'D2' (that's 4-8-4) wheel arrangement like a tender steam locomotive when it doesn't appear to be one of them, and the rear isn't a tender? Beats me. How is it powered? No clue. Why do the tracks have moving parts? No idea. How does it stay on the tracks, is that why the driving wheels appear to be slanted? Impossible to tell. Isn't this going to be hell on maintenance? Quite possibly. But all of these feel kind of silly to ask in the heightened reality of Wicked.

The important part is that the train is really beautiful and I love it.

#wicked #trains #railroads #train review

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brightonterrier-blog · 28 days ago

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Dodgy Designs & Dirt

The story of how a crew, beset with turmoil, overcame their locomotive's design flaws. It is written from the perspective of the fireman.

The matter of favourites on the Portethwaite line was a highly opinionated subject and could easily depend on the day.

But it can be agreed by all of the staff that The ‘Brigitte’ was the most polarizing.

When built by Anstis Works, she was designed with aesthetics first and practicality second. None could deny that she was a beautiful engine and passengers came to see her as an icon of the railway and the valley. But any crewman that worked with her on a rainy day saw past the dazzle and might start to resent her.

It mostly came down to her cab. She was built a few miles west of Brighton, and it clearly shows as her outline was influenced by the Stroudley appearance of a cab thinner than the tanks.

A necessity on the LBSCR due to the tunnels at Hastings, but nothing short of impractical on the narrow gauge, for a rainy day meant soggy sleeves for both men on the footplate.

Another abnormality of The 'Brigitte' was her lack of sanding gear, or any sanding pots to speak of. Both of her colleagues possessed sand pots, and No.2; The ‘Bowen Cooke’, even had a sanding mechanism.

Crews would bring with them a small container of sand; not too big or it would eat up precious space in the cab, not too little or they would run out before they got anywhere. If this failed them, the solution was always to use the bucket of sand kept in the guard’s van. It was meant for tackling fires and this practice would likely be frowned upon by Mr and Mrs Health and Safety of today.

However, I recall one trip where even this wasn’t enough.

It was mid-spring and we were now working to the summer timetable, but despite that it had been raining heavily for the last couple of days.

With sleeves rolled up and hats firmly secured around our heads, my driver and I were rostered to take The ‘Brigitte’, 4 coaches and half a dozen wagons to the lake. A load like this was never usually a problem, but we had the misfortune of needing to stop on the gradient at Rockfahm Halt.

We tried to restart but No.1 slipped and stalled and soon I was walking alongside the engine with our pot of sand, trying to throw it onto the railhead whilst avoiding having my hands cut off by the valve gear.

Eventually underway, we steamed into Hardbrooke at 10 minutes past the hour; only 5 minutes late but with the good fortune of the next 3 miles being downhill.

I spent those next few miles building up my fire. The proceeding 4 miles after Butary were the most punishing and we would need all the steam we could manage. Cautious not to slip, my driver slowly eased her out of Butary and we immediately climbed towards the lake. The gradients went from 1 in 77 to 1 in 50 throughout the journey in a sneaky and unceremonious way.

It was one moment we were going fine along a ridge overlooking the river, the next moment the wheels had lost all grip and the train quickly dragged to a halt. Checking the pot, I found to my horror, we had used it all on the climb from Rockfahm halt to Hardbrooke.

Then I remembered, we still had the guard’s bucket of sand in the van. The ridge the train was on meant we could get out of the cab, but we couldn’t walk down the train. I signalled to the guard to bring the bucket to this end. Striding down the corridor through the carriages as far as he could, it was then we encountered our second problem: the first coach in the train was unlike the others. Instead of having balconies at either end and a corridor in between, it had separated compartments.

By now we already had the attention of the passengers, as they all popped their heads out of the windows. Thinking quickly, we employed them to pass the bucket between them from the guard to the engine.

We had to hurry, for as it got further up the coach, it got heavier with all the rain soaking into the sand.

That was when disaster struck; from one burly gentleman it passed to an older gentleman who couldn’t quite match. It dropped, slipped from his hand and tumbled down the ridge, scattering clumps of sand everywhere but the rails we needed it on.

In a moment of dumbfoundedness, my driver could do nothing but quip, “It’s a good thing the guard won’t be needing that sand for fires then.”

We tried to start the train again on our own, but it was no use. The heavy load threatened to pull us back and The ‘Brigitte’ wouldn’t grip.

In a last act of desperation, my driver told me to start digging a hole on his side. “Is now the time to start digging our graves?” I remarked.

“If we can’t use sand, we’ll use dirt. Dig up as much dry dirt as you can and throw it under the wheels.

I got busy frantically digging, and when I came across dry stuff, I threw it under the engine’s wheels. It worked well although at one point I slipped on the mud and only just caught myself.

When you’ve experienced your head next to the whirling and untamed rods of an iron horse, you rather wish you had dug those graves ‘just in case’. Each time she lost her fitting, she lurched and swayed alongside me. It felt like I was a horse jockey and at any moment she would ride up on her trailing wheels and leep towards me. But my driver was a skilled man and steered her to grip the hill.

Leaping onto the footplate with a shovel looking like a space, I held my breath as she galloped up to speed and towards where the line levelled out.

Understandably none of the passengers bound for Ekend really minded that we’d blasted past the halt. It was either that or complain to the snorting beast pulling their train.

There was little time to shunt the wagons and get the train turned around. We refilled our sand pots from the station supply at Leakbeck, and I washed my shovel off under the water crane.

The train arrived back home behind schedule, but fortunately we could eat into our down-time before the next trip.

The rain continued for several days after that and we didn’t retrieve the guard’s bucket until a week later on our day off. Safe to say, the guard really wouldn’t have been putting out any fires with or without it.

(I know I don't post much here, but having a full on story is one worth posting)

Character art by @colloquial-kayak

#L&P

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dragimalsdaydreams · 2 years ago

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[image ID: several cartoony diagrams and infographics of Melusines from the game Genshin Impact, but re-imagined as nudibranch-like creatures.

the first image is a diagram of a Melusine's basic anatomy. they're shaped like typical nudibranch sea slugs, with a mantle over top a muscular foot. the front half of the body is lifted up, with the rounded head facing forward. a couple of round, antennae-like rhinophores sprout from the head, with the text, "scent and water/air currents provide sense of spatial awareness." a mass of rounded, feathery gills sprout from the back end of the mantle, just above the foot. ocelli/eyespots sit on the head just in front of the rhinophores, with text reading, "wide range of color vision, poor depth perception." five sets of legs are situated underneath the body, with the foot partly hanging over the lower legs. these legs are much like caterpillar prolegs-- chunky and short, hydraulically powered, with cup-like suction grippers. the two front sets of legs are lifted up above the ground, with the lifted half of the body, and have slimmer grippers that look modified for grasping.

a doodle below shows the Melusine walking with all five sets of legs, with text reading, "'rippling' walking motion. they normally walk on just the lower 3 sets, but can use all 5 sets. usually reserved for running." another doodle shows the Melusine swimming flat in the water, with text reading, "legs pull up into body cavity when swimming. foot extends out farther and provides wavelike locomotion."

another doodle shows the Melusine slowly forming around a mechanical gear, with text reading, "Elynas goop clung to 'tokens' over time, leading to current forms."

the next image show a simple doodle of Melusine skin covered by a layer of Hydro particles, with oxygen molecules in the air gathering towards the Hydro. nearby text reads, "Hydro layers over the skin on land, protecting Melusines from desiccation and sun damage, and providing support to their soft bodies. Melusines can also pull oxygen and water from the air through the Hydro layer, breathing and retaining moisture as they would in water."

below that we see a human hand patting a Melusine on the head, with text reading, "the Hydro layer also provides some protection from physical damage. touching a Melusine, one would only feel the cool, smooth, somewhat rubbery surface of the moisture-wicking Hydro layer, rather than the truly moist, slimy skin of the Melusine. this layer can technically be broken, but it's difficult to break the molecular bonds outside of elemental damage."

below that is a doodle of a healthy Melusine on land in Fontaine, then that same Melusine on land anywhere else, laying on the ground dried up and dying. nearby text reads, "this semi-aquatic lifestyle is only possible in Fontaine's heavy Hydro concentration (arguably Watatsumi as well)."

the next image starts with text reading, "Melusines can change their color/patterns, and their language is based in complex color/pattern cues. each Melusine has developed unique color/pattern preference over time, so communication rules/cues vary widely between individuals. (though they've learned to telepathically communicate using common human languages, with Neuvillette's help)." a doodle below that shows two Melusine staring blankly at one another, with text reading, "having a heated argument (they've been completely silent and still for 10 minutes, but their patterns are rapidly shifting)."

a short comic sits below that, starting with text reading, "*early in Sigewinne's career*" Sigewinne-- a light blue Melusine with pink accents, wearing a white nurse's cap-- stands silent, staring into a box at her feet. Wriothesley the human stands nearby, thinking to himself, "Hm, Sigewinne hasn't moved in a while." grabbing Sigewinne's attention, Wriothesley says, "doin' alright there, Sigewinne?" Sigewinne flips through a yellow book with the title, "Human Expressions for Dummies" with a simplified Melusine mascot on the cover. then she turns back to Wriothesley to telepathically yell, "No, I'm not!!!" with angry eyebrows and a cartoonish pulsing vein on her head, created using color patterns on her face. Wriothesley simply replies, "Ah."

the next image shows many different Melusines, with text reading, "Wide variation in body, rhinophore, and gill shape." indeed, some Melusines are thin and tall, others are short and round, while others are stocky and squared-off. some have thin, upturned snouts, while others have short, stubby snouts, or blocky, drooping snouts. some of their rhinophores are thin and straight, or round and curved, or branch/antler-like, or have more pronounced nodes/ridges. some of their gills are bulbous and pointed, or thin and wavy, or feathery, or branch-like, and some Melusine even have extra gills higher up on their bodies. all of these Melusines have different colors and patterns, with text reading, "Melusines can be found in all colors across the spectrum (including colors humans can't see), but individuals usually prefer a few specific colors."

a doodle below shows off Sigewinne's present-day outfit. she's wearing a white nurse's cap tied to her head with a pink bow, on top of a grey wig with a bob cut and curling bangs. a white apron with blue hearts and pink ribbons is tied to her front, with a two-tier cut to allow her front legs to move freely. another white apron with pink and blue bows is tied across to her back, covering most of it. nearby text reads, "no concept of nudity, clothes are just fun accessories. wigs are both exotic accessories, and a way to show kinship with humans."

below that is text reading, "Melusines usually darken their tones outdoors, for extra sun protection." a nearby doodle shows a pale Melusine indoors, then that same Melusine outdoors, her colors visibly darker.

the final image is an edit of a meme, reading, "If a Melusine wore pants, would she wear them like this or like this?" above two drawings of the same Melusine. in the first, the Melusine is wearing jeans cut to fit around her three lower sets of legs and the bottom edge of the foot. in the second, she's wearing jeans cut to fit around the back end of her body and last set of legs, covering the back end of the foot and mantle, and cut around the gills.

end ID]

I swear I had no idea it was nudibranch day yesterday, this was just a happy coincidence LMAO

anyways, I hate how Melusines look in-game, so I decided to make them Actual Slugs b/c that's objectively cuter. obvious nudibranch base design, but I added in some planaria and caterpillar elements for the eyes and legs, respectively. it's a bit goofy, but I'm real happy with how it all turned out <3

also sorry if the Sigewinne comic isn't true to her early career, personality, or her relationship w/ Wrio. we haven't seen her much yet, and tbh I didn't rly care to look into her current lore all that deeply

#genshin melusine #genshin melusines #sigewinne genshin #genshin sigewinne #nudibranch #kinda #genshin impact #notes #long post #ganch redesigns

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