#the engineering chronicles

[gloamses]

crazy how philip reeve invented the only characters ever tbh

[starleska]

YELLING THOUGHTS ABOUT DOCTOR WHO SEASON 2 EPISODE FIVE 'THE STORY AND THE ENGINE' 🕷️💈

enormous gigantic insane spoilers for this episode!!!! what are you doing?!?! GO AND WATCH IT NOW!!!!!

jaw is on the actual floor after that episode, holy SHIT. we knew that anything written by Inua Ellams was going to be profound and absorbing, but oh, that felt like a movie in its own right. this might be the most...evolved episode of Doctor Who we've had in a long time: a perfect, self-contained story that encompasses multitudes of stories and cultures and ideas, and such a huge love letter to Black barbershop culture and African mythology 👀 from the second we saw the spider lots of us clocked that Anansi and West African folktales were likely going to be a huge part of this episode, especially with Inua Ellams being known for The Barbershop Chronicles...and the beautiful, meta, character-driven story is such a wonderful combination of them all! it was so interesting to hear how the Doctor reached out to the Black community in Lagos to find a sense of belonging in his new body, and absolutely devastating to see that sense of safety and comfort ripped away again, reinforcing that he is still an alien, and still without his own family and culture...jesus 😭💔💔 Omo's betrayal was so well-written, and it cut like a knife, because he was trying to save those who he has true allegiance to: his fellow humans. it echoes the transactional nature of the Doctor's relationship with so many humans, because the Doctor is an 'evolved life form': he's the one who's supposed to save us, and time after time he's wounded for it, but he can't stop himself coming back. so much so that in this ultra-meta run of Doctor Who, he's aware of the power of his own stories: that he drives the narratives, he powers the engine. but that's the difference with this story, isn't it? this time, the Doctor was saved by the ingenuity of enslaved Black women and the maps they wove in their hair. he's saved by the stories he's lived through with humanity. and he's saved by knowing that he does always have a place on Earth, with us 💔 i loved seeing more of Fifteen's insecurity, anger, and fear...we need that. this is definitely one of Ncuti Gatwa's best episodes 👏👏 i could gush for hours about The Barber | Adetokunbo: what a spectacular performance from Ariyon Bakare, i got chills!!! 😭💖 gahhh i adore the idea of a spurned, overworked human being who propagates the stories of the gods and becomes so consumed with envy and spite that he wants to take the power for himself!! he's so skilled and intelligent that he could well have ascended to godhood himself, and honestly, i would've loved to see it. there was a good ten minutes in there where i thought the Barbershop was a TARDIS and The Barber was a Time Lord name—but the concept of the Nexus and his spider-inspired machine-shop traversing the web is so genius and fitting with the story!!!! i'm just so blown away. sounding like a broken record without offering much criticism this season, but of all the episodes for series 2, this was the one that had me rapt and breathless the entire time. i yelled seeing all of the other Doctors and the Fugitive Doctor again!!! what a treat!!! the big question on my mind is: where does that leave us with Mrs. Flood? i was utterly convinced that she was going to be a member of the Pantheon and have dominion over stories, but is that possible now we've seen that The Barber | Adetokunbo effectively ghost-wrote the gods' narratives?? god i need to watch all of series 1 and 2 again to understand 🙈💖 my guess? i think that The Story and the Engine was able to happen as a consequence of the Doctor casting salt and inviting in the Pantheon, driving the main narrative from science-fiction to sci-fi/fantasy, and without that happening, we would not have been able to see The Barber | Adetokunbo or Abena. and i think past The Interstellar Song Contest, reality is going to break in a huge way 👀

[diegocambreart]

I continue to expand what started as a "six fan arts"

[with-my-murder-flute]

Tomb of Dragons spoilers

Still can't believe that meanwhile in the background of a different plot, Maia quietly nationalized the largest mining company in his entire empire.

You know, the company that literally put out a bounty on Thara Celehar's head. And bankrolled the plot to usurp the prince of Thuäthama. And murdered one hundred and ninety two dragons.

MAIA YOU CAN'T JUST—

[mak1lol]

"..."

[shinyboomboom]

🤖 Lihn Cinder 🤖

"Some stains never came out."

[wall-maria-around-ba-sing-se]

Xenoblade X emulation on Cemu runs perfectly 99% of the time

[naurasweetarudesu]

Yukari and Skarloey's Day Off

An art trend on Twitter where you draw two of your comfort characters in that one Steven Universe meme. So here's mine!

Original tweet by @/g4teway31:

Original meme:

Bonus, ttte OC meme

What Sri doing in Skarloey Railway:

[moreaujeans]

there is literally noooo reason for me to be torturing myself like this i could have been done studying and sleeping soundly by now ages ago. but no

[leejaeyun5]

Good news guys, I will be publishing my ref sheet art of the steam team including toby and other engines too🥳 so my au name will be named

"calestra chronicles"

So basically in this au, every engine have powers and magic exist in this au, this is all about adventures,powers,and magic. And there is this one engine who is the "servant of lady" but no one knows who is that yet,for years it has remained mystery and it has been said that, that engine is currently working on the railway, will they found out who is that engine?

Anyways here's the list of powers of the engines, (steam team along with duck)

Thomas-telekenesis

Edward-telepathy, telekenesis

Henry- superhuman strength, nature control

Gordon - speed

James- Pyrokinesis,shadow technique, therianthropy

Percy- healing,barrier creation

Toby- animal creation

Emily- attraction, pull ability

Duck: teleportation

---------------

Skarloey railway:

Skarloey: cryokenesis

Rheneas: Hydrokinesis

Sir Handel/Falcon: therianthropy (same as James)

Peter Sam/Stuart: shape shifting

Rusty: shadow technique (same as James too)

Duncan: Electrokenesis

Luke: energy blast

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: post- and transhumanism

AKA: cyborgs, uploaded minds, and humans otherwise altered by technology.

I have previously written a rec list for books featuring robots and artificial intelligences, but ended up excluding various titles for not quite fitting the theme. Hence, this list, which focuses more on the step from human into something else, commonly with themes of what it means to be human.

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, portal fantasies, robots and artificial intelligences

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with an * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi*

Place this one in the category of ‘accept that you’re gonna be confused as hell and just let the world wash over you’. The singularity has come and gone and humans can now easily upload, download and copy themselves into new bodies, not all of them human and not always willingly. Consciousnesses and time has become something close to currency. Follows a murder mystery on Mars.

The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace duology) by Erin Bow*

Young Adult. Featuring a dystopian future in which an AI forcibly keeps world peace by holding the children of world leaders hostage. If anyone attempts to start a war, their child will be executed. Greta is one of these children, kept in a school with others like her. But things start to change one day when a new, less obedient hostage arrives. A unique, slowburn take on the YA dystopian craze, also featuring a bisexual love triangle.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox (Jenna Fox Chronicles) by Mary E. Pearson

Young Adult set in a near future. Jenna wakes from a year long coma after an accident, and something is wrong. Is this really her life? Are her memories her own? Exactly what happened a year ago, and what did her parents do to get her back?

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

Millenia and generation spanning scifi. After the collapse of an empire, a planet once part of a project to uplift other species to sentience is left to develop on its own, resulting not in the intelligent monkeys once intended but in sentient giant spiders. Millenia later, what remains of humanity arrives looking for a new home, only to be met by the artificial remains of the ancient woman who once led the uplift project - and she is not willing to let them on her planet.

War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi*

In an enviromentally fraught future, the Nigerian civil war has flared back up, utilizing cybernetics and mechs to enhance its soldiers. Two sisters, by bond if not by blood, are separated and end up on differing sides of the struggle. Brutal and dark, with themes of dehumanization of soldiers through cybernetics that turn them into weapons, and the effect and trauma this has on them.

The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey

1969 classic. Features a future in which children born too weak to survive are put into and raised in mechanical bodies. Helva, one of these children, grows up to be put in charge of her own space ship, from which she works to fulfill various missions out in space, missions which she quickly comes to learn are much more dangerous than she could've imagined.

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles) Marissa Meyer*

Young Adult fairy tale retelling. Cinder, a cyborg with a mysterious past she can't remember, lives with her stepmother and two stepsisters in New Beijing as a deadly plague ravages the world and a race of Lunar people threaten war against the entire planet. As Cinder becomes entwined with the young prince Kai, she is pulled more and more into dangerous politics that see her as less than human due to her cybernetics, yet need her to save them.

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

Six million years in the future, humanity has spread across the entire Milky Way galaxy. Purslane and Campion are both clones of the same woman, sent into the galaxy millions of years ago to explore along with almost a thousand clones like them. Every 200 000 years they all meet to compare memories and experiences. But this time Purslane and Campion arrive late - and discover that a secret millions of years in the making has lead to an extinction level attack against their kind. Now they must find out the truth before their line is completely wiped out. Absolutely wild world-building, featuring various kinds of posthumans (among which the clones are, shockingly, the most similar to people of our time).

Nexus (Nexus trilogy) by Ramez Naam

In a near future, a nano-drug is developed that can link human minds together, having the potential to change humanity forever. As different factions fight over it - some wanting to control it, other to eradicate it, and many to exploit it - a scientist who's caught improving the drug is thrust into a world of danger and international espionage.

Skinned (Cold Awakening trilogy) by Robin Wasserman

Young Adult. Rich girl Lia Kahn had the perfect life - until she died and was brought back by having her memories downloaded into a mechanical body. Despite having her life back, Lia also finds her life changed, as people fear her and treat her differently. Worse; she herself isn't sure if she's still really Lia, or whether she's even a person at all anymore.

Blindsight (Firefall duology)by Peter Watts*

Vampires and aliens and questions of the nature of consciousnesses, oh my. A ship is sent to investigate the sudden appearance of an alien vessel at the edge of the solar system, but the crew, a group of various level of transhumanism, isn't prepared for the horrors awaiting them. No, seriously, this book will fuck you up, highly recommend if you’re okay with a lot of techno babble and existential horror.

Mortal Enginges (Mortal Engines quartet) by Philip Reeve*

Young Adult. On a barely survivable Earth humanity has taken to living on great wandering cities, hunting each other across the plains for resources. Tom lives in London, but when he intervenes to stop a murder, he falls off the city alongside a strange and hostile girl on the hunt for revenge. Together they set out to catch up to the city, but are chased by a murderous machine like being set on stopping them. Trans/posthumanism isn't the main theme of the book, but it continues to grow in importance throughout the series.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

Meru by S.B. Divya

A human and a posthuman, called an alloy, venture together into space to explore a newly discovered, earth-like planet, testing the future of the relationship between their peoples on the way.

WE by John Dickinson

Humanity has become a hive mind, constantly connected. When Paul is sent on a one-way mission to a frozen moon, he must disconnect from the rest of humanity, for the first time seeing what it has truly become.

Accelerando by Charles Stross

In a time in which the artificial and the posthuman is more and more outpacing the human, something strange enters the solar system and starts dismantling its planets.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

[secondbeatsongs]

since I just watched the movie, and because I adored Shrike and Anna and the visual effects but felt like the movie was missing something in a way I can't explain...

[melongraph56]

day five - music

"I have my share of reasons to not go there again. Perhaps this time it won't be quite as bad as it was then."

- Engineering (Privateering by Mark Knopfler Parody)

silly reference picture

[nerdyfangirlingbooks]

Rereading the lunar chronicles but I'm an engineer now and I'm being nitpicky

It took Cinder's scanner 2.6 seconds to recognise Kai?? That feels slow, given how much their technology has progressed? Especially because the system presumably has a LOT of data about him?

It should be able to pick up the points of his face pretty quickly, his disguise was a hoodie (so face not covered at all) and decent current tech can do this in a practically negligible time

And then it just needs to go through the database and I guess it depends how it's doing it. If it's doing a manual searching algorithm then 2.6 seconds is probably actually pretty quick but I assume it would use AI so it should be able to recognise so someone that famous very very quickly

[mak1lol]

Lost Sodor chronicles episode (FOUND!!)

[mythawolf]

SPOILERS FOR MORTAL ENGINES PREDATORS GOLD!

'Hester Shaw was starting to get used to feeling happy.'

As you should be, you wonderful little murder child!

...something going to go wrong this chapter, isn't it?