Monthly Archive:July, 2022

This Is Mr. Conductor Talking; I Know What I’m Talking About

James from Thomas the Tank Engine rolling his eyes because Thomas is being a fucking cunt dork about fishing.

“Your steam engines are splendid,” said the Duchess of Boxford.

“Don’t ya like them?” asked Sir Topham Hatt. “I do. That’s why they don’t make ’em anymore. They found out I like ’em. That’s the way it is with everything. They find out I like it, they stop makin’ it.”

—

“The winds be calm,” said Salty sagely.

“Well, if they’re calm,” said Cranky, “they’re not really winds, are they?”

Salty considered.

“Aye,” he conceded.

—

An angry farmer was telling Mavis just what she could do with her train!

“Why do we assume everyone knows where they can stick it?” asked Mavis. “Suppose you don’t know? Suppose you’re a new guy, and you have absolutely no idea where you can stick it?”

Read on…

Engines in Sidings: The Favourite

It was to be the Storybook Festival on the Skarloey Railway. People from near and far would come to admire the engines and hear the stories that had been written about them. All the little engines had received new coats of paint for the occasion, and were quite excited.

Rheneas gave Duncan a bump on accident as he was shunting his trucks into place.

“Mind the paint!” hissed Duncan. “I’ll no’ have it scratched before the Festival. Not that I expect anyone will notice if it is,” he huffed. “Every year they come to see the Little Old Engines, not poor Duncan, no sir. All the work I do, and none of the credit–”

Skarloey was sitting at the other platform watching them. He laughed. “Now, now. I don’t think The Thin Controller would be very happy if his favourite engine didn’t look his best,” he said, and he winked at Rheneas, like this.

Read on…

Engines in Sidings: Last Lookout

“Ready to be scrapped?” The younger engines gasped in horror.

“Yes,” said Culdee calmly. “It was a strange thing. It’s very sad to us, but he was relieved once he’d decided. One morning, he asked for the Manager to come to the Shed. They had a long talk after the rest of us left for our jobs. When we came back that evening, Godred wasn’t sad anymore. The Manager, he said, had made Arrangements for him the next day.”

“Didn’t you try to talk him out of it?” asked Alaric in alarm.
Read on…

Engines in Sidings: Godred

One evening, the other mountain engines came into the Shed to find Shane Dooiney already there and looking gloomy. They asked him what was the matter.

“A tooth broke off one of my pinion wheels,” he said sadly, ”and they say they have to replace it.”

“That’s not so bad,” said Patrick. “They know how to mend us at the Steamworks now. You won’t have to go to Switzerland like we used to.” Alaric and Eric agreed reassuringly, but Wilfred, Culdee, and Ernest were more sympathetic.

“Those were Godred’s wheels, weren’t they?” asked Ernest.

“Yes. They say they can’t just weld the tooth back on,” explained Shane Dooiney. “They can’t trust it not to break again. They’re going to give me new wheels instead.”

“When you used to tell me about Godred to scare me,” sniffed Patrick, “he sounded quite silly indeed. You ought to be happy not to have his silly old wheels anymore, Shane.”

“He was silly,” said Culdee, “but our Railway might have closed if not for him.”

“How’s that?” Alaric and Eric were listening raptly too.
Read on…

Engines in Sidings: Edward’s Advice

Edward chuffed into Wellsworth shed, feeling more his age than usual. He was glad to be home and was ready for a nice rest. Duck was already there, but he looked about as tired as Edward felt.

“What’s the matter, Duck?” asked Edward earnestly.

Duck hesitated a moment, unsure how to answer. Edward was patient and gave him time to collect his thoughts.

“I may have stressed the tension in my buffer springs when I helped Henry with a heavy load of cars today,” said Duck, averting his eyes. “I’ll have to get them checked tomorrow.”

Edward laughed, but it wasn’t unkind. “Oh I see!” he said. “You pushed hard at the start of the hills and all the way to the top.”

“I couldn’t tell how much help he actually wanted,” said Duck, lowering his voice a little. “He wouldn’t say what he wanted done.”

“You shouldn’t take that personally,” said Edward.

“They’re not speaking to me at all.”

“They don’t speak to me either when I’m banking them. We’ve all been doing it so long we don’t need to anymore.” Duck was not convinced by this answer, but he didn’t argue. Edward went on.
Read on…

Engines in Sidings: Duck’s New Paint

“What colour paint would you like, Duck?” asked The Fat Controller.

Duck heard the question, but he was certain that he could not have heard it correctly.

“Beg pardon Sir?”

“All the engines on this Railway may choose what colour they would like to be painted,” explained The Fat Controller.

“There isn’t a livery?” asked Duck in confusion.

The Fat Controller laughed. “Not as such, no.”
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]