Hello there! Mostly fanart and reblogs over here
Like what I do? I have a ko-fi! -> https://ko-fi.com/spectralgecko
I'm an artist, writer, and occasionally a musician. Also an available proofreader.
Hey y'all! Lots of fanart and eclectic fandom posting over here, plus miscellaneous postings from life and a lot of reblogs.
Tagging is perfectly fine, and the ask box is open if you have any questions!
My original content output is not super consistent. If you were hoping for regular content short of reblogs and day-to-day stories, alas, this is not the right blog. I sporadically drop art into the void and then disappear for a month. I do have an art tag below, though, for easy perusal!
If I'm taking a while to respond to an ask, don't worry - I've probably seen it and haven't had a chance to get to it. You're welcome to check in, though (I'll likely answer privately).
Oh, also, I keep things SFW over here. Just a heads up.
Additional Info:
Other blogs ● tags ● fandoms
Other Blogs:
@sqarletsworldlesswandering - Various shenanigans about the gorgeous indie game Worldless (100/10 recommend it - Steam has a free demo here).
@sqarletgecko - A separated blog for more original stuff and official stuff. Dormant for the time being (also, my apologies for the confusion with the deactivated version of the account - I needed to rearrange, and now it's all confusing)
@bugfablesampedau - A designated blog for all my Bug Fables Amped shenanigans.
General Tags:
SqarletTalks - any and all rambles from yours truly
AU tags are "[fandom] AU: [name]". I will also often have a shorter version that's just "[abbreviation] AU". Ex: TSBS AU: Everything is Fine; EiF AU
Fandoms:
While by no means a comprehensive list, here's some stuff you can find on my blog at the moment. The gist is "indie games and some youtube shows."
Stuff I've made content for:
The Security Breach Shows: Mostly TSAMS, LAES, and rarely MGAFS. Some of that is more tangential and AU related, so those don't have show tags besides "tsbs au." The one that's currently got an actual AU tag is "Everything is Fine"/"EiF." Bunch of OC and concept designs. There's also the Hyper Light Drifter/HLD AU. I'm not very active in this community anymore. I will maybe finish the astral designs sometime.
Worldless: I occasionally reblog Worldless content here, but that mostly stays over on my other blog, mentioned above.
Black Resin: A small game currently looking to be published. It's a neat lil' game! You can find the demo here.
Portal: I've got some crossover stuff with that so far.
Minecraft/Steve Saga: Yes the Steve Saga is... quite old by now. But I rediscovered some old art I had for it, so that's going here. There's an AU/Speculative Worldbuilding project for it that's tagged "Worlds and Wonders"/WaW.
Bug Fables: I finally made art for this! Lots of miscellaneous stuff and AU stuff. The main AUs I have are the Dead Lander Hoaxe AU and Bug Fables Amped. Acolyte is in progress.
Thomas the Tank Engine: Getting there, at any rate. I may make a side blog to archive stuff.
Other stuff I've not made (much) content for yet but enjoy:
For a bit of context! I’ve talked about this concept briefly here and here. In a nutshell; the engines in my AU act as their own drivers and firemen because of the lack of humans. They get around under their own steam; they liaise with station/depot/dockyard staff to put together orders and they pull their own trains.
How the heck do they do that? It's pretty simple on the surface.
NORMALLY when an engine is built, they have a rig built with them. A rig is essentially a glorified flatbed with wheels, the complicated stuff is up the front. In-universe rigs look pretty similar to irl rail carts/maintenance carts/dollies, whatever you wanna call them. These things, basically!
Buuuut in-universe they're a little more complex.
The most noticeable difference is that they're quite a bit bigger and more robust, even if you're dealing with a narrow gauge model. They’re built to be operated by something bigger than a human after all. That isn’t to say that humans can’t operate or fix these rigs though - they were the ones who designed and built them originally. I’m sure at some point in the Dissent timeline, the engines would’ve been able to construct their own rigs, buuuut in the earlier days, they were often discouraged from doing so, or at the very least were advised not to try without a human around to “help.”
Another big difference is how they're powered and how they're driven!
If y'all remember my Tugs post, you'll remember me talking about something called "calibration." The Star fleet and the Z Stacks get around by using a tiller-like mechanism to steer their vessel, but all the power comes from them; they're the engine and the same can be said for the on-land robos.
Said power gets into the rig via these points ! These points that I've only just started to drawww haha...
But! These are the connection points! I imagine they have two on the soles of their shoes too, since they more than likely have to use their hands, even if it's just to wave to someone else travelling on the other line! The steam generated by the engine flows through to the rig via those four connection points aaaaand bada bing bada boom, we're moving!
Like a tug's vessel, an engine's rig is an extension of their bodies and more often than not, said rig is made alongside the engine so they're specially calibrated to that specific rig.
Unlike a tug though, omni-calibration is pretty common among engines, within reason anyway. Most narrow gauge models can use each other's rigs, most standard gauge models can use other standard gauge rigs etc etc.
But it's never 100% smooth sailing if you're using a rig that wasn't made for you and that's where problems start to arise. If you know anything about me or this blog, you'll know that this is a big reason why models like Smudger and Stanley had a pretty bad track record with their work.
Smudger came to Sodor with no number and no rig and Stanley sure as hell wasn't allowed to bring his military-grade rig with him, so the both of them had to be given spares. Being a prototype-build already, Smudger never quite got the hang of driving his spare rig and Stanley was too busy trying to radicalise everyone to really focus on his work. So you can imagine how that went down.
Nowadays, Stanley (now Bertram) gets by with a spare rig left at the mines, while Smudger finally had one constructed for him when he was rebuilt. He's still a little scatterbrained and occasionally forgets what controls do what, but he's a lot better with a proper, calibrated rig than he was back during his MSR days.
If any of this sounds a little shaky and not how things work irl, don't worry, I know. I'm no engineer and I sure as hell don't know the ins and outs of how a steam locomotive works, so you'll have to slather a pretty thick layer of artistic license over all of this hahaaa.
guess who's baaaccckkkk (its been like barely any time lol).
anyway, for some clarification, I put the events of Iron Lung in 379 eic. its never specified in the film (or the game? not sure about that one) what year it is, so i made it 379 eic of rvarious timeline purposes that will be revealed later. Simon also told them this year in the previous page, if that wasn't clear. i just felt that he wouldnt mention it in the journal cuz like. he already knows the year, he's not gonna write it down.
I wonder if any of the other engines give Spencer nicknames to annoy him. Cuz there's a lot of things you could do with "Spencer" that would absolutely drive him up the wall XD
