Monthly Archive:June, 2021

Twenty-Two Short Films About Wellington Wells: Sinneslöschen, Pt. 5

September 4th, 1964

“Did you poison me?” Gemma asked. She hadn’t bothered getting out of bed for Verloc this time, feeling entirely too miserable to even bother, and instead just lolled her head to the right to stare in his direction.

“No,” Verloc said. He leaned against the wall next to the door, looking bored like he was merely biding his time in here. He hadn’t asked her any questions about how she was feeling, which Gemma found strange given the purpose of his visit, but not out of his character. “Blackberry withdrawal is difficult and unpleasant. Didn’t Sally tell you that?” He didn’t ask in a spiteful tone; he sounded as if he thought that wasn’t like her not to have been thorough in her warnings.

“She did, but she didn’t say death would be preferable.” The headache that started yesterday had only grown sharper and more insistent, and today it had been joined by the vague, itchy heat of an impending fever on her back. That morning’s dose of Coconut had added a generalized feeling of anxiety that she couldn’t put a cause to and was now working to ignore. “You have to have Crash here, don’t you? Wouldn’t it make more sense to test your Joy formula without the Blackberry interfering with it?”

Read on…

Twenty-Two Short Films About Wellington Wells: In Monochrome for One Thin Dime

A screenshot of the breakroom of the O' Courant office.

“You’re Mary Ann, right?” Gemma said as she ordered a cup of chicory from the “coffee” machine. The newest addition to the “O” Courant bullpen, Mary Ann Evans, was already in the breakroom, sitting at the table and planning out her schedule that day on a small notepad. “You came from So Mod, didn’t you?”

“Yes! And you’re Gemma Olsen. Looove your work, darling. It’s like what I do, but for the stuffier people in town.”

Gemma wasn’t sure if that was an insult or a compliment. She rather thought exposing corruption and authoritative lying was not especially similar to reporting on what minor changes Davy Hackney decided everyone should apply to their wardrobe or who Nick Lightbearer was marrying or divorcing this week, but she bit her tongue before she said something overtly snotty in reply.

“I hope you won’t take this wrong way,” Gemma said, electing for a more subtle jab instead as she waited for her chicory to finish pouring, “but isn’t the Ladies’ Page a step down from So Mod?”

Read on…

Twenty-Two Short Films About Wellington Wells: Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

A screenshot of the foyer to the Department of Science and Industrial Research. Jack Worthing's introductory video is playing on the screen.

“Hargreaves! Did you finish replacing the signage?” Richard Arkwright called down the spiral staircase leading to Arkwright Labs’ House of Tomorrow exhibit.

“Just this last one to go, sir!” Timmy Hargreaves answered from the bottom of the stairs where he was pulling last year’s poster off its display stand. Visit 1983 in the Wellington Wells House of the Future!, it read. He had another identical poster from further down the lane rolled up on the ground at his feet. The one he was peeling off the display now ripped at the corner, but they were just going to throw them away.

Every year on the second of January, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research renovated the House of the Future exhibit. That is, they updated the signage and Uncle Jack’s guided tour video to be one year further into the future. Arkwright had just finished replacing the sign underneath the television screen in the foyer and now he was ready to test the updated tour video the Broadcasting Corporation had sent over before the Christmas holidays. A fresh tour video was filmed every year to detail all the “new” technologies the DSIR were planning to bring to Wellington Wells.

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Twenty-Two Short Films About Wellington Wells: Turn Me On, Dead Man

A screenshot of an alley in the Village.

Hobbling into the alleyway on his crutches, William Godwin turned the corner, eased himself down to sit on an empty beer crate at the top of the staircase tucked in the alcove, and waited.

When he had finally felt up to journeying to his out-of-use call box to collect his order of Blackberry Joy today, there had been a folded note sitting on top of the package. It had asked him to meet in this alley and to sit at the top of the stairs. The writing didn’t match Sally Boyle’s round, bubbly script so William worried that he might be being set up. There were plenty of people who would love to silence him once and for all. The alley was small enough and close enough to the street that he didn’t feel too vulnerable to take the chance on the meeting though. If anyone asked, he would say he was just having rest. Moving around on crutches was hard on the armpits.

Eventually, he heard footsteps approach. Whoever had wanted to meet with him stopped at the corner and didn’t come around.

“You there?” whoever it was – a man – asked.

“Yes?” William answered. “Who are you?”

“If I wanted you to know who I was, I’da come ’round the corner, wouldn’ I?” the mystery man said.

“All right, fair enough,” William said. “What do you want then?”

“Nick Lightbearer is dead.”

Read on…

RETURN HOME

Hello

Presently

The Future is Still Silver and Black: The MSI’s Pioneer Zephyr and the IRM’s No. 9911-A “Silver Pilot” are pen pals, writing to each other from their respective museums about their service lives both pre- and post-preservation.
Low Art Lyseum: DJ, Ray, and Ellie play and critically analyze videogames. 7:00 CST on Thursdays/Fridays. Currently playing Mafia: Definitive Edition.
Engines in Sidings: Thomas the Tank Engine stories. Written with Ray.
We Happy Few Poedit: all the cut content I’ve collected out of the game’s translation file.

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Previously

Twenty-Two Short Films About Wellington Wells
The Take!
The Team Pank Chucklefucks
Grand Theft Auto Online Lookbook
videogamedecor
Clowntown
Cap the Point

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This is going to be a startling question: Are you aware of the youtube ai age verification situation? If yes, could you help me get more awareness for this issue? If no, I would highly suggest looking into it as well for your benefit.The age verification will destroy online privacy and effectively censor the rest of the internet. We may lose the ability to watch videos that an ai determines to be of childish nature, whether it be a commentary of a tv show or a slime review video. The ai will deny you of your access to youtube, unless you present an id like a credit card or a drivers licence to regain access to watching any video. Even if you are an adult, it will not allow you access unless you surrender sensitive info about yourself. Should this spread, internet privacy and safety will be gone, and even a 1984 situation would take place (hoping not). The surrendered data can be exposed to the world, doxxing so many people and allowing scammed and hackers to steal personal info. I do not want to see this ruin anyone's love for anything that may seem childish to a faulty machine designed to somehow replace a parents' responsibility of looking after their own children. It is scheduled to take into effect on August 13th this month.I am afraid that this is what will shatter many fandoms of beloved childhood shows, games, books, and franchises. I just hope that at least the TTTE fandom will help step up against the loss of internet security and privacy. United we stand, together we fall. Let us stand and stand firm against this ruin.Cheers,A worried American who is a thomas fan

So like, there seems to be a wave of bad, privacy-violating legislation going around lately. Gonna be real in that I don’t really know how to fight that kinda thing effectively. Based on the UK one that just passed, kinda seems like the point is actually to stifle communication, since… [more]

for the WIP ask game... The Future Is Still Silver and Black? (original train fiction from you two sounds really interesting!)

So last year, I went up north to visit Ray. Ray lives in Chicago, which just so happens to have the largest railway museum in the United States, the Illinois Railway Museum.

At the IRM, we saw the Nebraska Zephyr, which is a streamlined stainless steel articulated trainset. Each of the… [more]