#copper plate grounding

[axiselectricals]

IEC 62305 & IEC 62561 International Standards for Lightning Protection System Design and Product Testing

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The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) prepares and publishes International Standards, such as IEC 62305, for all electrical, electronic and related technologies and is the leading international organization in its field. The IEC technical committee is comprised of representatives from the standard bodies of various countries with each country getting one vote. The process of creating and issuing the IEC standards are thus an international effort with votes given to every member. The adoption of the relevant IEC standards are usually voluntary for countries and the content of the standards is usually introduced as improvements to that country’s existing standards.

In this article, we will be referring separately to design and component standards for Lightning Protection and Earthing. The Light Protection Design engineer or installer will use the design standard to design the complete lightning protection system including placement of the components. The lightning protection component manufacturer will use the component standards to ensure product compliance and quality.

IEC 62305 – Designing for Protection Against Lightning

IEC 62305 – Protection Against Lightning, is the apex level document that informs the standards for lightning protection around the world. It is a design standard that comprises of four documents that provide the lightning protection designers with the rules and regulations they require to design an LPS. The IEC 62305 standard covers the regulations required for the protection of equipment and structures from the effects of both direct and indirect lightning strikes. The diagram below which is taken directly from the IEC 62305 document, clearly shows the relationship between the 4 parts of the standard. Part 1 is a general introduction to the threat of lightning, part 2 delves into the calculation of lightning risk, part 3 describes the design of the Lightning Protection System (LPS) and Part 4 describes the design of the Surge Protection Measures (SPM).

IEC 62305, does not consider the following cases under the scope of the standard:

·         Railway Systems

·         Vehicles, ships, aircraft, offshore installations

·         Underground high-pressure pipelines

·         Pipe, power and telecommunication lines placed outside the structure

IEC 62305-1: General Principles

Part 1 of the standard is a general introduction to the entire standard in addition to the properties of lightning and the factors used to simulate the effects of lightning strikes. The basics of procedures and principles of protection that are used in the rest of the standard are also explained in IEC 62305 Part 1.

IEC 62305-2: Risk management

Part 2 of the standard is the key to the correct implementation of Part 3 and Part 4 of the standard. IEC 62305-2 is concerned with the Risk Assessment of a structure due to lightning flashes and to determine whether it requires a lightning protection system. This part of the standard provides the complete framework for Risk Assessment based on four types of losses namely ‘Loss of human life or permanent injuries’, ‘Loss of service to the public’, ‘Loss of cultural heritage’ and ‘Economic loss’. Protection measures can be determined based on this Risk Assessment and a residual risk is established. This residual risk is reduced using protection measures until it is below the tolerable risk. We can use this method to determine the class of LPS based which are in compliance with IEC 62305-3 and 62305-4.  As summarised in IEC 62305-2, “Once an upper tolerable limit for the risk has been selected, this procedure allows the selection of appropriate protection measures to be adopted to reduce the risk to or below the tolerable limit.”

Axis has used the guidelines of IEC 62305 Part 2 to design a Risk Assessment Software that allows you to easily calculate and assess the risks to determine the Class of LPS for your structure. This software uses parameters unique to your structure to help you determine the best and most efficient protection system. The risk assessment software is part of a bundle that always allows customers to also easily calculate earth rod length requirements, separation distance for lightning arrestors, Surge Protection Device (SPD) selection and more! Please contact us for more information on our software suite.

IEC 62305-3: Physical damage to structures and life hazard

Part 3 deals with the protection of people and structures from physical damage and injury due to touch and step voltages caused due to direct lightning strikes. The standard states that the “main and most effective measure of protection of structures from physical damage is considered to be the lightning protection system (LPS)” which consists of external lightning protection (air termination system, down conductor system and earth termination system) and internal lightning protection (equipotential bonding and separation distance). IEC 62305-3 provides the guidelines to help “LPS designers and installers, architects and builders” to correctly design, install and maintain the external and internal lightning protection systems to protect people from touch and step voltages.

IEC 62305-4: Electrical and electronic systems within structures

Part 4 was introduced due to the ever-increasing cost of failures of electrical and electronic systems in our digital world. IEC 62305-4 provides the details for the design, installation, inspection, maintenance and testing of Surge Protection Measures (SPM) to protect electrical and electronic systems from the effects of Lightning Electromagnetic Impulses (LEMP).

Part 4 also introduces the idea of Lightning Protection Zones (LPZ). The central idea is to limit current and voltage surges, induced by lightning or otherwise, from damaging a structure or its contents (people or equipment) by dividing the structure into a risk zones. These zones are nested within each other, with the most sensitive zones being the innermost. A risk assessment according to IEC 62305-2 is performed for each zone to select the most appropriate protection at the optimum cost for that zone. By using standard appropriate lightning protection systems, such as lightning arrestors and SPD’s, the effects of lightning hitting the outer zone, directly or indirectly, are meant to be reduced before they can affect people or sensitive equipment in the inner zones.

Axis can help you with the entire process from Step 1 of Risk Assessment to Lightning Protection System Design and all the way through the supply of internationally approved products. Our engineers will be on the field with you to make sure that they provide the most precise protection for your structure! Contact us for more information.

IEC 62561 – Lightning Protection System Components (LPSC)

The IEC 62561 series describes the requirements and tests for the various lightning protection system components (LPSC). It summarises the test requirements for the components of a lightning protection system (LPS) that is designed and implemented as per IEC 62305. The various components of the LPS include:

·         Connection components such as lightning conductor clamps, bonding & earthing clamps, bridging components, pipe clamps, equipotential bonding bars

·         Conductors and Earth Electrodes (link to the Earth Electrodes blog)

·         Isolating Spark Gaps

·         Conductor Fasteners

·         Earth Pits

·         Lightning Strike Counters

·         Earth Enhancing Compounds

You should only procure products certified according to international or national standards for your lightning protection requirements to ensure that the products perform according to the requirements of the design of the lightning protection system. Axis has supplied the entire range of products for Lightning Protection for over 25 years to hundreds of projects across the world. View our catalogue for our Lightning Protection Products

For more information, please contact us at

www.axis-india.com/contact-us

[alienzabeth]

The process of copper plate inking. You may experience some cool (unintentional) texture, but it all melts on the hot plate ✨.

[kcrossvine-art]

Hiiii friendssss! What the FUCK is up. What the fuck is up. What the Fuck is up. On todays cute little cookin excursion we are going to be deep frying things and using a wok. If you dont feel comfortable deep frying, and dont have a wok, im sure theres other ways to do it silly :DDD

I believe in you.

From LotR online we're gonna be making Fried Beetroot Sticks!! 

(As always you can find the cooking instructions and full ingredient list under the break-)

MY NAMES CROSS NOW LETS COOK LIKE ANIMALS

SO, “what goes into Fried Beetroot Sticks?” YOU MIGHT ASKSlices of sweet little beated root dipped into a batter with, watch out, special flavors too.

2 Beetroots

Corn flour

Salt 

Red Chilli Powder

Garlic Paste

Baking Soda

Water

Peanut oil

And we'll also be making some horseradish sour cream dip to go along with it;

Sour cream

Prepared horseradish

1 Green onion 

Few splashes of lemon juice

Salt to taste

Ground pepper to taste

"Cooked, tender beetroot sticks are dredged in a light batter and fried to give a crispy exterior and a soft, sweet interior. Served with a bracing horseradish sour cream, this snack is both filling and delicious."- LotRO Tooltip

AND, “what does Fried Beetroot Sticks taste like?” YOU MIGHT ASKThis is like homemade fair-food and it sounds like a contradiction but its not

But maybe its just because its fried food? American brained, sorry.

Retains the inherit sweetness to beetroot

And similar to pickled beetroot the sweetness contrasts the spicey of the batter

(which i encourage you to amp up if youd like more spice)

The horseradish sourcream dip is to die for

Measure with your heart for that one, and save some green onion to top it with when you serve

This would pair very well with a lime italian soda or with shaved ice cones

Im always very anxious about deep-frying things, or working with oils at high temperatures, but i didnt run into any complications with this dish. Just make sure to keep best practices and safety precaution in mind, especially with a wok as it can tilt!

. If you dont have corn flour, you can substitute all-purpose flour . If you dont have peanut oil, look up oils with the same smokepoint to decide what else to use

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

The recipe stuck out to me, as i was assembling a list of foodstuffs from tolkiens work, for being such a "regular" named food. Also its worth 19 silver 69 copper in the LotR MMO and im immature.

I think the dip has the most room for improvement and tinkering. I've never made horseradish sourcream before, so more practiced tastebuds could perfect a simple thing like this. In the future id also like to try adding red pepper flakes along with the the powder and garlic paste, to give more visual variety and spice. I think cumin in the batter would be a nice midtone flavor too.

I give this recipe a solid 8/10 (with 1 being food that makes one physically sick and 10 being food that gives one a lust for life again.) for its relative simplicity and modularity with things you could add.

🐁 ORIGINAL RESIPPY TEXT BELOW 🐁

Beetroot Sticks Ingredients:

2 Beetroots

130 grams corn flour

1 tbsp salt 

1 tsp Red Chilli Powder

1 tsp Garlic Paste

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

178 grams Water

432 grams peanut oil

Horseradish Sour Cream Ingredients:

225 grams Sour cream

200 grams Prepared horseradish

1 whole green onion (green and white parts VERY finely chopped)

1 tspn lemon juice

Salt to taste

ground pepper to taste

Beetroot Method:

Peel all beetroots and cut them length-wise into  rectangles.

Combine flour, salt, chilli powder, garlic paste, baking soda, and water in a bowl.

Mix well into a smooth batter.

Heat peanut oil to medium in a wok and dip beet roots into batter. Deep fry until golden brown in color.

Stack beetroots on paper-towel lined plates to cool and dry as you go.

Serve with horseradish sour cream!

Dip Method:

Mix all ingredients

Cover and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour for the flavors to blend.

[minkydinks]

SandWings

It's finally time, people!!!

SandWings have been on the agenda for a while and I'm so happy to finally have them done. Here's as much info as I can give right now.

General

SandWings are medium-sized bipedal dragons that inhabit the desert, badlands, and other transitional biomes of Pyrrhia. They come in a variety of muted desert-y colors, but the most common include: Yellow, brown, red, dusty orange, and some black.

SandWings, unlike most other tribes, are built for running long distances rather than flying. While their wings are still perfectly good for travel, it's far more efficient to travel on foot, since they are the fastest tribe on the ground.

Their wings are smaller in comparison to their body than most other tribes as well, so they largely rely on desert thermals to keep them aloft. In places with minimal air currents, or with excess cold, SandWings have trouble gaining lift.

SandWings have light armoring along the scales of their back, although these armor-plated scales are not quite as tough as you would expect. These armored scales are thicker than the rest as to protect them from the harsh sun; although they do double as a nice additional protector from other SandWings' venomous tails. Otherwise, they're not great for protection.

Their armored appearance bears heavy resemblance to MudWings, and it is believed that MudWings and SandWings are quite closely related; albeit MudWings are much more on the heavyweight-end.

A SandWing's horns can be of any shape and array, although most commonly, SandWing horns protrude forward like bull horns; especially female SandWings, where they're used to vie for the throne. These horns are utilized at high-speed to ram into targets, and to duel with rival SandWings. Being hit by a SandWing horns-first at top-speed is near equivalent to being impaled by a motorcycle on the freeway.

SandWings are also adorned with frills along their head, neck, & chest. Male SandWings have additional frills along their lower jaw & lower torso.

These frills are continuously-growing, meaning that SandWings typically cut, style, & shave them at their discretion. Some SandWings prefer their frills long, like Princess Blister. Other SandWings cut them quite short to keep them out of the way during battles, like Six-Claws. Short frills became standard for SandWings during the War of SandWing Succession, as they became a distraction or a detriment otherwise. It was rare for a SandWing not to have short frills during the 20-year conflict, if they were battlers and not factory-workers.

SandWings are notorious for their potent venom. This venom is created and stored in sacs inside the barb at the tip of their tails.

While adult SandWings are perfectly capable of killing another dragon with a lethal dose, SandWing dragonets are far more deadly. Not strictly because of the venom, but because they lack the control needed to limit how much venom they inject. A sting from a newly-hatched SandWing is more likely to kill you than a sting from an adult, who can decide how much they want their sting to hurt.

Culture

SandWing culture is nothing mysterious; they have some of the most well-known festivals and armaments in the continent.

SandWings, having so much land to themselves, utilize much of it for factories and plants. They are one of the most technologically advanced tribes, with steampunk-esque mechanisms and structures throughout their kingdom.

Their metals of choice include copper, tin, and bronze; much of it mined within the desert itself. However, with the SkyWings' alliance, SandWings on Burn's side of the war have been able to import metals and other materials from the mountains to create stronger weapons & armors. Similarly, Blister & Blaze's forces have been able to do this as well, albeit with fewer materials overall and less armored dragons total.

Weapons and armory aren't the only things SandWings create with their metallurgy though. SandWings, having deep respect for their veterans and a cultural motto that you will always survive to fight, also create advanced prosthetics.

Prosthetic legs & arms are the most common, but you might also catch a SandWing with a prosthetic wing or tail. Some SandWings get horn replacements if their horns break off in battle and become less effective at fighting with.

Prosthetic wings are by far the rarest to find, since they are the most expensive to make & obtain, and don't actually perform quite as well as a normal wing. Most dragons with prosthetic wings use them to show off their worthiness in battle, how they survived and were heavily rewarded for their supreme skill and efforts.

Each prosthetic, weapon, and piece of armor comes branded with several labels: The name of the factory it was made in, the name & seal of the queen/princess it was made under, and its serial number. These labels would allow each rival sister to check their dragons' true alliance. SandWings with the seal of a rival sister would be killed, as it would then be apparent who they went to for their supplies.

After the end of the War of SandWing succession, the seals for Burn, Blister, and Blaze were retired in favor of Queen Thorn's own seal. As a result, armor with the royal SandWing sisters' seals were considered limited collector's items, and have increased dramatically in their value.

Prior to the death of Queen Oasis, these seals were not a generic serial label, but a gift from the Queen, almost like being knighted. To have armor with the Seal of the Queen was considered a great honor, but times have changed.

RGAAAAH I HOPE Y'ALL LIKE THIS If you have any questions or ideas you want me to fill in on, please shoot me an ask or something bc I would love to answer !!

[shelandsorcery]

Etching and Acid Baths and Surrender

(this is another classic from my personal site I'm belatedly resharing on tumblr, ftr)

Friends, I just finished teaching the last third of a course on print production, and between that and the whole thing with twitter's crop changing (somewhere? not for me but somewhere?) I've found myself thinking a lot about copper etching and my relationship with the acid bath.

So, first up, copper etching is an art form where you engrave (through various means) thin grooves into a copper plate, then squeeze thick ink into those grooves, then wipe off the ink on the face of the plate, then soak paper so it's very soft, then push it all through a press.The pressure forces the paper into the ink-lined grooves of the plate, pushing the ink onto the paper, and you thus transfer the image from your copper plate to your paper. It's a magnificent art form you've certainly seen examples of, even if you didn't know! Here, a Rembrandt:

There's a lot of ways to create these grooves in the plate; Rembrandt used a steel point and scratched them in, a technique called drypoint. Later, artists used a technique where a waxy resist would coat the plate, then drew lines in the resist, then soaked the plate in acid.

This is the acid bath of which I speak.

There's a few ways to apply resist to a plate, and they give you different effects when you etch with them. First is a hard resist, which is a thick, firm wax that coats the plate and is removed by using that steel drypoint tool to create thin line work, like this Doré hatching:

You can also use soft resist, a malleable wax that allows you to press textures into it, like Barbara Smith has in her piece "Textures" here:

(my terminology might be a bit off, I'm noticing as I google, but hopefully the metaphor will still stand) 

And the third method, my fav, is aquatint; a process where you add a resist that is .. spotty. Something like a light spray, or a dusting of wax, so that the plate is covered with a rough, dithered dot pattern of resist, with exposed copper in between. Example via Wikipedia:

I decided to try out copper plate etching, also called intaglio print making, after seeing David Blackwood's work, where he works with aquatint extensively:

Aquatint lets you lay down fields of tone, which he uses in great contrast and collaboration with the linework he etches into the plate as well. It's magnificent work, but it's made all the more miraculous when you understand the whole thing with the acid bath. So, when you put a copper plate into the acid bath, anywhere on the plate that isn't protected by hard, soft or aquatint resist (also called ground) is slowly dissolved into the acid, creating little grooves. The longer it's in the bath, the deeper the grooves - kind of.

The acid is fickle, and the more copper already dissolved into it, the slower it will dissolve new copper. And that's a problem because you want to control exactly how deep those grooves go; the deeper the groove, the more ink it will hold, the darker the line will be on paper. Under-etch your plate, and your lines will be faint, hold very little ink, and be extremely hard to get ink INTO when you apply it before making a print.

But you can't know this until you take all that resist off the plate, wash it, and ink it up and print it.

OVERetch your plate, and the acid will start to eat the copper away from under your resist, widening your lines or flattening out your aquatint, so it's easy to get ink into the lines, but hard not to wipe it back out when you try and wipe ink off the un-etched face of the plate.

Again, not obvious until you go and try printing your plate.

And with intaglio, by which I mean copper plate etching, you might want lines of varying darknesses - you might want aquatint of varying darknesses - and so you will be adding and removing resists of various kinds, and etching and re-etching your plate over and over again.

And you can do various things to get the feel for the acid bath's ... acidity ... on the day you go to etch something in it, but depending on the size of your bath, you etching a large plate for a while might change the bath's acidity. Worst is if it's fresh and you didn't know.

So this whole art form, whereby people produce some of the most precise and exquisite pieces in the north western historical canon IMO, is actually an absurd collaboration with a rogue chemical that may or may not do what you want at any point in time.

And by my third year of making work like this, I had concluded that you simply had to think of the acid bath as a rogue collaborator who you handed your plate off to over and over again throughout your process. You had to just take a deep breath and accept chaos as an element.

Yes, you did your best to prepare your plate, get the right resist on it, draw the right lines where you wanted them; and yes you set a timer and kept an eye on your plate and checked the etch over and over again - but in the end you were teaming up with chaos chemistry.

And I loved it! I loved the surprises you got from acid bath, even if they went against what I had planned. I loved improvising around its unpredictability! Once I accepted that it was part of the practice, I found it exhilirating.

And for me, that's the appeal of all traditional media - I can't predict every little thing, I'm not 100% in control at all times, and artwork has to happen despite all that.

And so I expanded this concept for myself out to my larger practice. When I send a file to print? I'm collaborating with a printer; both the person, who I can maybe talk to, and the machine, that will have its own peccadillos. I prepare as best I can and still I may be surprised.I'm not saying I never threw out plates that got way out of hand, and I'm not saying I never had a print run of my work I had to send back or reprint - I'm just saying that my thought process around them has changed, so I allow for a wider range of surprises than I used to.

So when everyone was going on about the twitter crop finally changing, and I realized I didn't really care, I noticed that I had expanded this concept to publishing online as well. I prep a nice jpg and then I take a deep breath and accept twitter's chaos in collaboration.

And that's how I discovered that, to me, twitter is just another acid bath.

Read the full article

[jinnie-ret]

oddinary house pt 1

cyborg!chan x reader

genre: horror

content warnings: electrocution

word count: 1.7k

summary: a girl approaches oddinary house, no idea of what would be inside

ODDINARY HOUSE MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

This was a mistake, the young girl thought to herself as she warily approached the dark, abandoned mansion that barely held itself up in front of her. Metal railings that would have once protected this home were bent and twisted in all sorts of different directions, like someone had once fought to escape the place. Or maybe it was to stay inside the grounds that were overwhelmed with weeds and ivy running up the sides of the building. Yet, despite it's unwelcoming aura, there were some signs of life, such as the electricity running through the red neon sign that said 'Oddinary House'. Albeit was flashing, she at least knew she was at the right place.

It was a mysterious predicament she had found herself in, yes. The letter she had received a week ago inviting her over for the week leading up to Halloween had been very convincing. There was promises of permanence her childhood home had never given her. Sentences that enticed her into the feeling of safety, which contrasted with the appearance of the mansion, she must say, but hey, she wasn't going to judge a book by it's cover. Quite frankly, she didn't know why she was here, but there was also something in the back of her mind reminding her that she had nothing to lose. Even if she was to never be seen again, she wouldn't mind that. Anything to be rid of the same four walls she was restricted to the whole of her life.

As she approached the front door, she wondered, should she knock? It was completely see through, offering a transparency to the house the girl hadn't expected. They must be anticipating her entrance, the guests of the house who offered her a cleaning job, to fix and repair the house and help restore it to it's original form. She decided, she should knock, with such big responsibility about to be in her hands, it was only right to treat the place with such respect. Yet, as she rose her hand to tap at the door, it slowly opened on its own accord, like it had a mind of its own. There was no wind to explain what had just happened in front of her very eyes.

"Hello?" she called out timidly, wincing as her boots met the creaks of the rotting wooden floors. She'd have to keep an eye out for that.

"Come. Forward."

The girl jumped as the robotic voice sounded from around her. Where was it coming from? It was like it had been tuned into surround sound speakers, and how could they see her?

"You are finally here," the voice spoke again, words disjointed.

The girl turned again to see a... man? Except it wasn't quite a man, it was more like a half man, half robot. A bolt was screwed into his right ear, and half of his face had been invaded by metal plates. His blue eyes mirrored that of which she could only assume was blue synthetic hair.

"Are you... Mr Yang?" she asked nervously, surprised to say the least. She couldn't remove her gaze from his electric blue ones.

"Mr Yang is, pre, pre, preoccupied with other matters," he began, head suddenly jolting to the side as smoke came out of his ear, until he could eventually get the words out.

"Are you okay?" the girl asked concerned, a frown appearing on her face. This was surely no environment for a robot to be in, the whole reception area of the house was damp, droplets dripping onto some open wires. In fact, she was sure she saw the robot flinch when water met the copper plates of the wires.

"I am OK. I am... Not... me," the robot man said abruptly, hands struggling to lift his glasses back on his face. She noticed the open machinery on his arms, embedded into his fingers and running up his arms, acting as joints and muscles.

"Here let me help," the girl cautiously pushed the man's glasses further up his face.

"Thank you. What is your name?"

"Y/N. Y/N L/N. I was offered a job by Mr Yang to work here, in a letter. What's your name?" Y/N explained to the robot, before returning the favour, unable to hide her curiosity no longer.

"My model is CB97, but they call me Chan," Chan nodded rigidly, his answer seeming to have taken longer to load than his other words, like it was the first time in a while he had been asked this.

"Nice to meet you Chan... ummm, what do I do now? I was told to expect a tour of the place," Y/N retold the words she has read in the letter she had somehow misplaced, but she remembered every word.

Unfortunately, the words seemed to have stirred up a malfunction, what the girl could only assume was Chan's anger.

"No. No tour. Wait. Wait here. Then it will happen," Chan's blue eyes glowed brighter. Then his metallic body shifted to stand, a buzzing sound echoing around the room as he slowly but surely approached her.

"Wait here? Is Mr Yang coming here or not?" Y/N asked, now a bit frightened at the cyborg clanking its way towards her.

"Wait," Chan stopped in his tracks, a few feet away from Y/N, as his feet became planted into the floors, like there were outlets that he generated energy from.

"Chan, what is happening?" Y/N asked again, fear filling her from the unknown of what would happen next.

"Welcome to Oddinary House. Take a seat behind you. My name is CB97. I will send you to your room. Thank you for choosing to stay with Oddinary House. We hope all of your monsterous needs are fulfilled," Chan froze in his robot form, blue sparks flying from his body as his mind went on autopilot and he spoke what seemed like a monologue he was very used to. Or perhaps he was programmed to do so.

Y/N was taken aback when she found herself suddenly strapped into a chair as silver cuffs kept her wrists against the arms of the leather chair, her ankles being strapped in against the legs of it.

"Chan? Chan, what's going on?!" Y/N yelled out terrified as she tried to wiggle out of the chair.

His feet were unplugged from the ground, and he marched behind her chair, resting his hands on the sides of her head with an expressionless face.

"Name."

"Chan what is this?!"

"We cannot find that in our records. Name."

"It's Y/N, you already know that!"

"Y/N. Age 20. You are staying in room 143."

"Chan listen to me! Chan?!" Y/N's tears ran freely down her face and she could her them fizzling against Chan's fingers that framed her face as her head was held still.

"Your stay here will be indefinite. There is no time listed."

"CB97!!!" Y/N desperately shouted, and that's when the buzzing that had filled her ears stopped, and the girl didn't know of it was for the better of for the worse.

The clanking of the metal marched once again, Chan, or CB97 standing in front of her, yet this time, he had a red eye alongside a blue one, instead of both of them remaining the same colour.

It was for the worse.

"CB97. Umm, release. Yeah, release! CB97. Release," Y/N cleared her throat, trying to be firm and hide away her shakiness so that the robot would listen to her and understand what she was saying. The metal cuffs were now beginning to feel really tight and the fact that her stay at this building was indefinite, was making her even more scared. Yet, a sad part of her still felt safer being restrained and unable to move in front of an unpredictable creature, than at home with her family.

"Request. Denied."

"No, no, no! Chan, listen! CB97, explain! What will happen now?" Y/N whimpered after knowing that she wouldn't be freed.

"Y/N. Y-y-you, will, b-b-b-be taken t-to your room. You cannot leave," Chan's voice became deeper yet he seemed to be bugging out, and suddenly wires sprang out from the uncovered workings on his arms and they connected to the metal cuffs. Electricity charged into the metal, and Y/N screamed out in pain as she was electrocuted.

"Ahh! Ahh! Stop! Stop!" her screams rang out around the room.

Chan's body was jolting and nearly bouncing in its place as the electricity ran out from his body and be finally shut down, like he was being restarted. Y/N sighed in relief, body going lax in the chair as her body was exhausted from the electricity having been forced into it.

"CB97. Restarting."

"Chan?" Y/N whispered, seeing his eyes shutter open and close before they turned back on, and thankfully revealed his normal blue eyes.

"Y/N. Extreme body exhaustion detected. Cause: electrocution." Chan reported as his eyes did a scan on Y/N's body. "Explain how this happened."

"Chan, you sort of malfunctioned and then some wires came out and got me. You sort of just went... out of control?" Y/N stared at the robot in front of her, and there was a flash of human emotions in his eyes, an almost furrow of the brows.

"CB97 malfunctioned. We apologise for this mishap. Chan will do better. Next time," Chan's head tilted downwards and he genuinely looked apologetic.

"Chan, I just want to rest now," Y/N said tiredly. She could see her frizzy hair out of the corner of her eyes and her arms nearly felt limp.

"CB97 will send you away now."

And with that, the chair started moving quickly down what seemed like a never ending hallway, and as it slowly started to begin to move, Y/N saw Chan return to his space behind the reception desk. It passed through a long hallway, different patchy wallpapers seen as she sped forwards at what felt like the speed of light.

The motions were too much, to the point where Y/N passed out, slouched in the chair. The only semblance she had of where she was, was when she felt the softness of a bed, a blanket encompassing her body. That slight moment of consciousness allowed her to see the door to her room close, a bat flying through the small gap before it did.

What had she gotten herself into?

taglist: @skz-streamer @kiraisastay @hannahhbahng @backintomykpopphaseagain @sakufilms @hanjiquokkaaa @arloo00 @dunno-wut-to-do @splat00z @cheesemonky

[blue-and-gilt]

Late 18th Century European smallsword with a chased and pierced steel hilt. The guard is a symmetrical in the 'Pas d'ane' style and decorated with military trophies indicating that this might have belonged to a military officer. The grip is square and bound with alternating copper ribbon and twisted wire. Originally this would most likely been silver plated. 

The hollow ground trefoil blade is by Johann and Clemens Boegel of Solingen and maked with their I.C.B trademark and other motifs typical of the time. 

The term 'Pas d'ane' comes from French and translates as 'donkey's foot' after the shape of the donkey sole. Commentators on smallswords often misidentify the small loops between the guard and the knucklebow and quillon as the 'pas d'ane' when the correct term for them is annulets. 

On Western European smallswords the annulets are a decorative hang over from earlier fencing styles when they were larger to allow the fencers' finger over the crossguard.

[thesherrinfordfacility]

edit 16/04: pouring one out for the bullet theory, you were fun whilst you lasted babes x

okay ive remained sceptical about the 'something in the mouth' thoughts making the rounds but you know what, i love a batshit theory (exactly how batshit, remains to be seen - im fully prepared to eat my words) as much as anyone, so let's take a look.

first off, i truly just thought it might have been a wee bit of slobber. that's fair, right? saliva on aziraphale's tongue, catches the light, whatever. but it's the frame before that one that has me wondering how much weight the theory has:

because in that first one, just as aziraphale's mouth opens, you can see that there is - what looks like - a dark, round object. it doesn't match the surrounding colour and texture of aziraphale's tongue, and then in the next few frames it catches the light in the same exact spot. the highlight is also curved, in such a way that, yeah, it definitely looks like a metallic object.

i know im not breaking new ground when suggesting it contains memories. idk if the object itself is:

a bullet from the rifle in 1941 (although i do doubt it; the calibre it would take would be rather unwieldy to hold in your mouth like this? plus: copper plating - this looks to be steel)

a pistol round from the hitherto-unseen derringer (more likely than the above, and in terms of potential significance of s3 would fit rather nicely in with a 1941 spec of mine regardless: potential crowley discorporation but. it's purely hypothetical), or

a ball bearing (which seems like it would just be a bit anomalous in terms of what props we've seen so far, but who knows. and i feel like if any prop was going to be at most risk of being swallowed accidentally, it's this)

but my current favourite is the derringer round so far. which would indicate that if - big if - crowley were discorporated in 1941, he could potentially have the bullet on him that 'killed' him, so to speak, for the time that follows afterwards.

i'll come back to what memories would be contained within it in a sec, because first, there's the question of whether aziraphale accessed them. if this theory is true (im fully taking this all with a pinch of salt, idk how i actually feel about it yet), i think aziraphale probably accessed them right then and there, as soon as crowley kissed him.

as soon as crowley kisses him, aziraphale looked mighty confused - arguably because of the kiss itself (im predominantly in this camp for the moment), but also possibly because he's just been volleyed something in this wild-ass game of tonsil tennis - before he begins to relax into it. potentially, as he relaxed, that could be when the memories first begin to 'play'.

and then we have the video below - sharpened and at 0.2x speed - that captures after the kiss breaks:

there's a moment, after his mouth presumably is handling around said object and sliding it under his tongue, that his expression clears, and - im sorry, but i'll die on this hill - instead takes on a look of betrayal. it's almost a realisation, a near instantaneous revelation. so let's say he does access the memories during the kiss, has been 'watching' them since the kiss first made contact/the object switched over... what would make aziraphale take on that expression, and react in betrayal and with an 'i forgive you'?

well, i have my thoughts, but let's go back again to the kiss itself. y'all remember this, right?

it suddenly feels a liiiiittle more deliberate that a) aziraphale would reach for crowley's wings, and b) the camera would capture this particular angle. maybe it's not, but again - humour me a sec.

so in terms of what the memory is? that crowley would place inside said object, would make aziraphale reach for crowley's wings, and result in aziraphale's initial upset and then expression of betrayal? the damning "i forgive you", and crowley's responding look of dejection and resignation, followed by "don't bother"? the memory that crowley would see fit to impart in the context of aziraphale choosing to return to heaven - the memory that would fit the scenes that have come before the kiss?

im wondering if it was the fall.

aziraphale sees crowley's fall, responds in sympathy and sadness in the back touch, but then perhaps remembers now/knows now the potential part crowley had to play in it.

now, it could be crowley's own account of the fall that he watches, sure. but we haven't seen that as a possible mechanic in the show - being able to access someone else's memories. we've only seen gabriel accessing his own. but that doesn't preclude that it's possible. however, that would suggest that crowley himself now can't remember his fall etc, which would be weird and potentially open too many loopholes.

alternatively, as others have put forward and would be logical, crowley accessed the records whilst in heaven and found that aziraphale's memories were incomplete. that, for me, would be the more plausible, because im not convinced that aziraphale does remember the fall. he makes references to crowley having 'been an angel once', and that he remembers 'the angel you were', and frankly it's all a little loosy-goosey. it would make wider narrative sense, too, that aziraphale can't remember - heaven doesn't want dissent to become an institutional problem, after all; so what do you do? you wipe away the crucial information that would give the angels any ideas in rebelling just like the fallen did.

if crowley did in fact have something to do with the genesis of the rebellion in heaven, instigated it or played an active, crucial part in it... and aziraphale can't remember that... maybe that is where the 'i forgive you' originates. and why crowley would reply with 'dont bother'. he attempts to make aziraphale understand why he can't go back, and why aziraphale shouldn't go back either, but all aziraphale can now concentrate on is the part that crowley had to play in it... the part that, for good reason, crowley has kept from him all this time.

again, idk how i feel about all this, but i do have to eat humble pie on my initial reservations about the narrative value of the theory and admit that it's compelling. especially as it would have aziraphale return to heaven with full understanding as to what heaven did in cause of, leading up to, and in response to, the rebellion - knowledge that presumably the metatron does not know he has... dangerous for the metatron especially, when you consider that he may have had a bigger hand in it than aziraphale previously thought.

[alithographica]

I lied it's not actually new art. Is it new art if it's old art in a new medium? idk but let's do some science to our art, welcome to

ACID TIME

Here's a horseshoe crab I drew in ballpoint pen a while back. I took a short etching class and wanted to use this as my image—I've done a little etching before but not this much detail, so it was a bit of an experiment.

Quick etching explanation: You first cover a flat metal plate in a waxy substance called "ground", then use a sharp tool to carve through the ground to reveal your plate. You then dunk that into an acid bath for like 30 seconds to an hour, depending on how deep/bold you want the line to be. The ground protects most of the plate, but the acid will eat away at anything you exposed. When you put ink on your plate to print it, the ink will sit in those grooves and then transfer to the paper, producing a print!

(If you're interested in the specific chemistry: We used copper plates and a ferric chloride solution (aka iron (III) chloride, or FeCl3). Ferric chloride is an acid with a pH around 2 (strong!) and it reacts with the copper to produce copper chloride. Copper (II) chloride is soluble, so as the copper gets eaten away from the plate, the copper chloride floats away in the solution.)

You can also do multiple passes in the acid to get different line strengths. The next photos are some WIPs of the different rounds of scratching and/or etching I went through. The dark stuff is the ground, and the bright lines are the copper plate I've exposed—in the first photo you can also see where I've transferred lines from my original drawing to the ground that I haven't scratched yet.

(Printmaking reverses the image, so I had to flip the image while I was working so that it would print normally at the end—that's why it's backwards here.)

I ultimately did 4 rounds in the acid—I exposed the darkest lines first and put it in for 40 minutes, then scratched the medium-dark lines and bathed it for 15 minutes, then two rounds of light lines at 5 minutes. However, it's cumulative because the prior lines stay exposed (unless you specifically cover them with new ground) so the darkest lines actually received just over an hour of etch time.

And then here's what the plate looks like once the ground is removed! This is ready to be inked and printed.

Typically you have to re-ink between each print. This involves smearing the ink on, then using a cloth to buff it off of the surface of the plate while it sits in the etched grooves. Takes a few minutes and you can also control how clean or inky your plate is. I personally prefer more ink for a more shadowy print area and darker darks—left-hand is one where I polished it more, right-hand is one where I left more ink.

And there's the print!

🦀

(okay they're not a real crab but that's the only emoji we've got rn, sue me)

[sirfrogsworth]

Thankfully this post was a joke. He is not going to put a power cable on a TV that costs less than the actual cable. But I had to look up the product page and see what kind of nonsense AudioQuest came up with for this one. I've already checked out their $12,000 power cable, so I'm curious how their "budget" $430 version works.

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

Low-Distortion 3-Pole Power Cable

Perfect-Surface Copper (PSC) with Silver-Plated Drain Wires

Quiet Background and Minimal Active-Circuit Misbehavior Due to RF/ND-Tech (US Patent # 8,988,168) & Direction-Controlled Conductors and Shields

ZERO (No) Characteristic Impedance (Uncompressed Current Transfer)

THE CHALLENGE: No matter how perfect an AC power source, distortion is added within any AC cable. Even the most sophisticated filters and power supplies cannot eliminate this Transient Intermodulation Distortion (TIM) as the induced RF noise modulates the low-level audio/video signal.

THE SOLUTION: NRG-Z3 cables use direction-controlled Perfect-Surface Copper (PSC) strands in a 7-strand Semi-Solid Concentric conductor arrangement in which strands are packed more tightly and never change position within the bundle. This construction significantly reduces strand interaction distortion. The extremely pure and smooth-surface PSC conductors minimize distortion caused by grain boundaries which exist in any metal conductor.

NRG-Z3’s patented RF/ND-Tech and direction-controlled Silver-Plated shield conductors efficiently drain RF noise from the line and neutral shields to ground via the third “ground” pin. In addition. NRG-Z3’s common-mode phase-cancelling array provides additional differential linear filtering. The net result is powerful, dynamic and immersive!

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

Okay, Star Trek needs to hire these people to write their technobabble. This is next level "reverse the polarity" nonsense.

Gotta get that PSC to control the TIM or else you'll be SOL trying to minimize that grain boundary distortion. The phase-cancelling array is really the star of this cable though. Whenever I hear differential linear filtering, I'm just like, "THIS IS NOT DYNAMIC AND IMMERSIVE ENOUGH!"

[axiselectricals]

Improving Operational Efficiency for SME’s During the Lockdown

Over the past few weeks of the lockdown, we at Axis have been working tirelessly to improve our internal operations systems. Manufacturing facilities may be closed across the country but this lockdown has given us the time to work on projects with long term benefits. Our focus has been to make sure that we are improving everyday:

Open Communication with the Team:

From the day that the lockdown was instituted in India, we have been conducting weekly all-hands meetings where the entire team is present on a Microsoft Teams video call. The goal of these calls from the start has been to have open and clear communication with the entire team on the strategies and tactics on the way forward and to build team unity. By bringing the entire team into the inner circle of strategizing during a time of upheaval, team participation and buy-in has increased into improving operational efficiency. These weekly calls also present a great opportunity for different team members to talk about the work that they’ve been doing, thus building better bonds across various functional teams.

Data-Driven Process Mapping:

By using a data-driven approach to identifying bottlenecks in operational activities, we were able to identify the exact processes that would have the largest financial impact on the organization. Many processes in materials management, order processing, purchasing, and other departments were identified and during the lockdown, we used the extra time to have long conversations with the operations teams to brainstorm solutions to the bottlenecks.

Rewriting Standard Operating Procedures:

With the data gathered from the previous step, the operations teams had a unique opportunity to take time out of their order deliveries to work on rewriting their SOP’s. Right from the first interaction with clients to the final delivery of goods, every team has spent countless hours going through every step in the process to make sure that Axis is further optimised towards customer satisfaction once the lock down is finally complete.

Optimising SAP:

Going through the thousands of product codes is never an easy task but during this downtime, the product and manufacturing teams have had the time to upload missing drawings, update BOM’s, update process routings, find mistakes and overall just improve the entire SAP system for manufacturing. Other operations teams have been able to successfully utilise this time to improve their modules within the SAP system. Different teams have also used the time to get deeper training into the system, understand the interconnectedness between different modules, and thus make the organization more efficient.

Learning and Development:

At this stage, several weeks into the entire lockdown, everyone is talking about learning and development. Within our team, operational learning has included both internal and external training including SAP training, further logistics training, data visualisation and more. We also have various members who are learning new languages for the first time or taking various courses outside their usual job role to upgrade themselves. In the long run, we will reap the benefits of our team members upgrading themselves and their careers.

We are already seeing the benefits of some of our initiatives while others will deliver benefits in the long run. The increased digital literacy to use online tools such as Microsoft Teams and daily video calls with colleagues has vastly improved the connections between teams. This remote working model has also proved to us that even for a manufacturing firm such as ours, certain aspects of remote working can work even once everything is back to normal. In the long run, improved SOP’s and a more efficient SAP system will bring incalculable benefits to the firm and the customers that we serve.

Visit us at axis-india.com for more information.

[zoesblogsposts]

o 625 words to know in your target language o

There is a really interesting blog called "Fluent Forever" that aids foreign language learners in tricks, tips and techniques to guide them to achieving fluency "quickly" and efficiently. One of the tricks is to learn these 625 vocab words in your target language, that way you have a basis to start delving into grammar with ease as you can understand a lot of vocab right off the bat. Plus this list of words are common across the world and will aid you in whatever language you are learning. Here is the list in thematic order

• Animal: dog, cat, fish, bird, cow, pig, mouse, horse, wing, animal

• Transportation: train, plane, car, truck, bicycle, bus, boat, ship, tire, gasoline, engine, (train) ticket, transportation

• Location: city, house, apartment, street/road, airport, train station, bridge hotel, restaurant, farm, court, school, office, room, town, university, club, bar, park, camp, store/shop, theater, library, hospital, church, market, country (USA,

France, etc.), building, ground, space (outer space), bank, location

• Clothing: hat, dress, suit, skirt, shirt, T-shirt, pants, shoes, pocket, coat, stain, clothing

• Color: red, green, blue (light/dark), yellow, brown, pink, orange, black, white, gray, color

• People: son, daughter, mother, father, parent (= mother/father), baby, man, woman, brother, sister, family, grandfather, grandmother, husband, wife, king, queen, president, neighbor, boy, girl, child (= boy/girl), adult (= man/woman), human (# animal), friend (Add a friend's name), victim, player, fan, crowd, person

• Job: Teacher, student, lawyer, doctor, patient, waiter, secretary, priest, police, army, soldier, artist, author, manager, reporter, actor, job

• Society: religion, heaven, hell, death, medicine, money, dollar, bill, marriage, wedding, team, race (ethnicity), sex (the act), sex (gender), murder, prison, technology, energy, war, peace, attack, election, magazine, newspaper, poison, gun, sport, race (sport), exercise, ball, game, price, contract, drug, sign, science, God

• Art. band, song, instrument (musical), music, movie, art

• Beverages: coffee, tea, wine, beer, juice, water, milk, beverage

• Food: egg, cheese, bread, soup, cake, chicken, pork, beef, apple, banana orange, lemon, corn, rice, oil, seed, knife, spoon, fork, plate, cup, breakfast, lunch, dinner, sugar, salt, bottle, food

• Home: table, chair, bed, dream, window, door, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, pencil, pen, photograph, soap, book, page, key, paint, letter, note, wall, paper, floor, ceiling, roof, pool, lock, telephone, garden, yard, needle, bag, box, gift, card, ring, tool

• Electronics: clock, lamp, fan, cell phone, network, computer, program (computer), laptop, screen, camera, television, radio

• Body: head, neck, face, beard, hair, eye, mouth, lip, nose, tooth, ear, tear (drop), tongue, back, toe, finger, foot, hand, leg, arm, shoulder, heart, blood, brain, knee, sweat, disease, bone, voice, skin, body

• Nature: sea, ocean, river, mountain, rain, snow, tree, sun, moon, world, Earth, forest, sky, plant, wind, soil/earth, flower, valley, root, lake, star, grass, leaf, air, sand, beach, wave, fire, ice, island, hill, heat, nature

• Materials: glass, metal, plastic, wood, stone, diamond, clay, dust, gold, copper, silver, material

• Math/Measurements: meter, centimeter, kilogram, inch, foot, pound, half, circle, square, temperature, date, weight, edge, corner

• Misc Nouns: map, dot, consonant, vowel, light, sound, yes, no, piece, pain, injury, hole, image, pattern, noun, verb, adjective

• Directions: top, bottom, side, front, back, outside, inside, up, down, left, right, straight, north, south, east, west, direction

• Seasons: Summer, Spring, Winter, Fall, season

• Numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 30, 31, 32, 40, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52, 60, 61, 62, 70, 71, 72, 80, 81, 82, 90, 91, 92, 100, 101, 102, 110, 111, 1000, 1001, 10000, 100000, million, billion, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, number

• Months: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December

• Days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

• Time: year, month, week, day, hour, minute, second, morning, afternoon, evening, night, time

• Verbs: work, play, walk, run, drive, fly, swim, go, stop, follow, think, speak/say, eat, drink, kill, die, smile, laugh, cry, buy, pay, sell, shoot(a gun), learn, jump, smell, hear (a sound), listen (music), taste, touch, see (a bird), watch (TV), kiss, burn, melt, dig, explode, sit, stand, love, pass by, cut, fight, lie down, dance, sleep, wake up, sing, count, marry, pray, win, lose, mix/stir, bend, wash, cook, open, close, write, call, turn, build, teach, grow, draw, feed, catch, throw, clean, find, fall, push, pull, carry, break, wear, hang, shake, sign, beat, lift

• Adjectives: long, short (long), tall, short (vs tall), wide, narrow, big/large, small/little, slow, fast, hot, cold, warm, cool, new, old (new), young, old (young), weak, dead, alive, heavy, light (heavy), dark, light (dark), nuclear, famous

[pwlanier]

Cloisonné enamel elephant statues (pair), Qing Dynasty. Gold and silver enamelware/enamel.

There is a pair of elephant statues, erect, with a chelon on the back and a human figure on the back. The two vessels are different, and the copper body is plated with gold. The elephant is white, with a slightly tilted head. The bridle, breastband, and chest straps are glazed with sapphire blue enamel, and are decorated with red enamel-glazed chisel flower buckles. The saddle is in the shape of a Ruyi cloud head, with a lotus pattern on the black ground, and the middle of both sides of the saddle. Each is decorated with the Chinese character "Shou", and the remaining parts are filigree with a lotus pattern on a light blue ground and colorful tassels hanging down. One of the elephant carriers looks like a Buddha, and the other looks like a king of heaven. The Buddha has his hands clasped together, and his robe is filigree with a lotus pattern on the dark blue ground. The king of heaven puts his left hand on his chest, and raises his right hand. The palm is perforated. It was supposed to be holding something, but it is now lost. The armor is filled with Dark blue and green enamel glaze.

Courtesy Alain Truong

[ilexdiapason]

just got hit w the idea of false getting scared by say. sausage. he breaks into her house [as one does] and hes like "HI FALSE!" and she gets so jumpscared she teleports away and thats how sausage learns false is an enderman. this is also how false learns shes an enderman she did not know she could do that

Oh.

Oh, dear.

False is on the roof now.

She's not entirely sure how she got up there - and yes, by not entirely she means in no way whatsoever, but the specifics can wait while she's processing the situation. False is on the roof, and she's sliding incredibly slowly down the slope of it, because her boots are gripped for snow but not for copper plating, so while there's no immediate danger of falling she still ought to put some thought into stopping before said danger does become immediate. She's on the roof and grabbing at a shingle, tutting frustratedly when it slips out of lock under her fingers, grabbing again for a sturdier hold, eventually leaning up against the thing to gain some stability and letting her steel-capped toes click to a halt on the gutter of the roof-trim. She's on the roof and staying still. She's on the roof but safe.

Okay, part two. What's the last thing she remembers?

And, well - False can't exactly claim to have the best of memories here, okay, she'll admit that, this is her weak spot, but... she's got a pretty good bet going on the fact that her last memory being I'm in the hallway just inside my house and I'm putting a shulker away in my Ender chest and then Sausage's voice says HI FALSE and I start yelling is most likely not from the moment before this one. Largely because, well, that was in the hallway, and this is on the roof.

Time jump, then. Wouldn't be the first time.

The question of what happened inbetween her memory of crying out - a perfectly-cut scream in the highlight reel that is her choppy memory - and the present moment... that can honestly also wait until she works out how to get down.

"False, there you are!" Sausage's voice comes again, this time circling above her, elytra-loft. "What the heck was that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," she laughs nervously.

"I mean, I was just talking to you, and then you turned around and you were all AHHH, and then you disappeared in a puff of little purple particles! Do you have a stasis chamber set up or something?"

"A what?" The phrase does ring a bell, but she definitely hasn't encountered a stasis chamber in living memory. Maybe she should ask about that. It sounds like it'd be something really useful.

"Hmmm," Sausage muses, having come to a stop a few blocks away and with a much better understanding of how to keep his foothold on a copper curve, "you don't know what a stasis cha- oh! Oh, oh, ohhhh, I get it! I'm so sorry I didn't realise before, I wouldn't have tried to make so much eye contact!"

"I don't know what you're talking about." False hates eye contact - always has, it feels like an active threat - but she never realised it was that obvious.

"No, it's okay! My dad is half-rabbit, I'm completely good with hybrids. You don't have to cover up, your secret's safe with me!"

A secret is never safe with Sausage; she's known him long enough to know that. That's beside the point, though. "What do you mean, hybrids?"

"Well, I mean, you teleported just now! And it was all purple-y, and - and there's only really one thing that can - and you know I did always wonder why you were so tall, but -"

False tunes him out at this point, focused once again on how to get the hell down from the roof. Maybe if she sent him down first he could fetch her some extra wings, or leave a water source for her to land in - not that she's much a fan of the latter, because swimming tends to give her hives... She could always edge round and scale a beam...

The problem may well sort itself out by the next time she's aware of goings-on. That tends to happen. In the meantime, False keeps her eyes low to the ground and fidgets with the hilt of her sword in its scabbard - having something to hold has always kept her grounded, made her feel safer.

She misses Sausage's entire explanation. This fact doesn't register to her for another three days.

Thankfully, her sheepish expression ducking through the strange trapdoor-front-doors of La Catedral de Santa Perla tell Sausage all he needs to know, sans need for her confession.

"An Enderman?"

"That term's kind of archaic, I know a lot of people haven't heard, but most communities use Enderian instead these days," Sausage nods sagely.

False blinks the information in. "An Enderian. ... I'm an Enderian."

"Probably only half! If you were totally Enderian your skin would look a lot different, and your eyes, probably."

False pictures herself with purple eyes and obsidian skin. It doesn't feel like it fits quite right. "What's the other half?"

"If you're not at least half human, I'd be surprised."

"Okay." Half human, half Enderman. Enderian. Whatever. That's... strange-scary-exciting. "What does it mean I can do?"

"That's the fun part! We don't know! Besides teleporting," Sausage shrugs, "you could be a total wild card."

False imagines picking up a grass block with her hands and not having the blades rip away into dirt beneath her fingers; zipping into the middle of a crowded room to grab something and zipping straight back out without causing a fuss; leather-black wings enfolding her in an endless void, for one absurd moment, before the mental image of the vast escapes her.

... Yeah, she decides. This is gonna be fun.

"I guess I'll just have to start testing things out?" she offers wryly.

Sausage beams. "Oh my goodness, please keep me updated!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna. Just - try not to tell everybody and their mother, okay?"

"Of course! Your secret is safe with me, False."

(The whole server knows by Thursday.)

[generic-sonic-fan]

I Can't Take All This

Summary: A corollary to “I Can’t Accept All This”. 

Metal Sonic finds itself buried under the rubble with Sonic, and is forced to contemplate the most extreme execution of its prime core directive.

(Or: what if it was Metal Sonic buried alive with Sonic instead of Omega?)

Word Count: 1677

(Inspired by the lovely @ramblingsofasandvich!)

Metal Sonic’s processor could not even begin to chart a path of egress before the rubble fell. 

Catching the falling debris with its arms joints locked above its vital processor was a decision made in the next three frames of its continued existence. It flexed its elbow joints to prevent them from snapping. Its legs sheared off at the knee joint instead. Now its foot and calf plating lay in front of it, tactile sensors refusing to reconnect no matter how many times it urged them to. 

Its every other sensor was tuned to escape options. It did not need to devote precious processing power to the calculations to know that its frame would only withstand another half an hour bearing this weight, and that was a generous estimate. It probed the wreckage above and to every side for weaknesses or natural cavities in the collapse formation. It found none; at least, none accessible, even if its turbine could achieve maximum spin-up and airflow in these conditions. 

And it registered, upon turning its scanners to the floor, that Sonic the hedgehog lay only five feet southwest of its position. Heart rate, elevated; breathing, erratic; alive. 

The only barrier separating them was a metal panel. This panel was not load-bearing and only a quarter of an inch thick. Easily pierceable. Metal Sonic ran simulations of the various tearing motions with its claws that could achieve a breach. All of which, though, required releasing its hold on the ceiling. It could not flee to Sonic’s cavity for shelter should it pursue that course of action, as his cavity was not a natural result of the debris formation, but rather-

But rather-

Metal Sonic flinched its head forward as its operating system was whipped with a reprimand for its direct disobedience of its prime core directive. Its arms shook. This motion translated into the greater debris, knocking particles loose from the ceiling. One large particulate landed on Sonic’s head, rousing him from an unconscious state. 

“Hello? Help? HELP!”

The organic hedgehog rose from his prone position. A surge of tactical protocols flooded Metal Sonic’s already overwhelmed processor. It calculated, in two-point-three seconds, every possible angle of attack Sonic could utilize should he choose to tear through the thin metal plating, and it concluded that it would have no defense. This would lead to near-complete chassis loss and require extensive repairs from Dr. Ivo Robotnik to remedy. 

. . . or it could release its hold on the ceiling. 

“Is anyone there? I’m here! Help!” Sonic screamed. 

Sonic would be crushed in an instant. His skull would cave, his ribs would snap, and his viscera would be squeezed into whatever miniscule gaps remained. Metal Sonic had run similar simulations thousands of times before. The outcome was certain.

Similarly, though, its own frame would be not just lost, but obliterated; titanium torn, copper and hydraulic fluid spilled into open air, every last trace of its code arcing down the nearest conductive surface to be lost to the ground below. “Repair” was not a concept that existed after this outcome. Neither was “restoration”. The closest was “rebuild”, and that was if Dr. Ivo Robotnik could even find enough salvage to make the operation worthwhile. 

This was no mere processor wipe. This was complete annihilation.

“Come on, come on, Sonic! Calm down! Think! I have to find a way out of here.”

Metal Sonic was once more whipped with punishment from its prime core directive for allowing itself to disassociate in the presence of its enemy. Its frame shook. Something snapped in its left shoulder joint, causing its arm to slam into the pit of the socket. The resulting vibrations in the ceiling structure caused Sonic to whimper, a unique sound that Metal Sonic saved to its memory banks for later analysis before it could stop itself. There should be no future analysis. It should fulfill its prime core directive.

Another, secondary core directive surfaced in its processor, whispering something about self-preservation. Metal Sonic seized this directive and brought it alongside its prime core directive. Combat circumstances allowed for the secondary core directive to be violated if this meant fulfilling the prime. But these were not combat circumstances, it reasoned to itself. Sonic was trapped and incapacitated. These were not combat circumstances, so therefore it must consider both directives. 

The rationale was weak, but enough to allow it to forgo an immediate decision while its subroutines detangled the paradox. 

“Okay, let’s try this. . .”

Sonic was pawing at a wall of loose debris. This debris, though not load-bearing, held back a wall of gravel-sized pieces. The gravel supported other concrete chunks throughout the structure above, the shifting of which could impact the load Metal Sonic was bearing. Sonic was digging, and fast- it did not have time to calculate whether the impact of the shifting gravel would be negative or beneficial. 

It tested its vocalizer and released a negative ping. 

Sonic ceased his movements. “Hello?”

After a few seconds, Sonic continued. Metal Sonic released another negative ping. 

“No, wait, I know that sound. I know that sound. Who- Metal?”

Sonic knew it was here.

“You’re trapped here too?”

Sonic could easily tear through the metal plating separating them. 

“Metal, if you’re in here, gimme another ping.” 

Sonic would destroy it. The ceiling would collapse. They would both be obliterated.

“I’ll- I’ll get us out of here. Don’t worry about it.” Sonic panted. “Don’t worry. We’re okay. I’m okay. Are you okay?”

His voice diminished the longer he spoke, and his heart rate spiked. His breaths became shallow gasps. It matched an emotional state Metal Sonic had witnessed from Amy Rose when it had first captured her. The colloquial term was a “panic attack”. 

It was. . . remarkable, to register such a drastic fear response from Sonic. 

This observation was interrupted by a snap in its right shoulder joint. Its other arm was forced deep into the pit of its socket, now uniform with its left. The consequent shaking dropped a watermelon-sized rock onto Sonic’s lap. The impact did not break any bones, but it would leave him severely bruised, and caused him to begin openly sobbing. This was another unique sound that Metal Sonic recorded to its memory banks. 

It would not have much longer to record things to its memory banks. With both of its shoulder joints having failed, its arms now impaled into the walls of its center chest turbine. The load would force these walls to fail in fifteen minutes, and with that, send the debris tumbling down atop its processor. 

Why did it delay the inevitable?

Self preservation, its secondary core directive whispered. But what difference did fifteen minutes make?

Metal Sonic let go.

At least, its processor sent the command to its actuators to release, only to find both its left and right shoulder joints inoperable. 

If it was programmed to laugh, perhaps it would have. 

It began calculating methods to wiggle its arms out of their sockets, before abandoning this pursuit. What difference did fifteen, now fourteen, minutes make? Sonic was going to die. Its purpose was going to be fulfilled. It no longer needed to strain its processing capabilities towards this end. It no longer needed to exert its physical form or make determinations about the limits of its chassis. Its purpose was complete. Its existence was now unnecessary.

It should find itself finally able to rest, with this conclusion. 

. . . it should not be scrambling to find any other solution. 

Metal Sonic scanned every inch of the ceiling above for points of weakness and found none. It scanned the walls around it for natural cavities to flee to, and found none. It scanned, and scanned, and scanned, and found only the same unforgiving concrete and the same panicking hedgehog. It reviewed all of the lines of rationale its short-term adaptive processing had generated since the collapse, analyzing each bit of logic for any hidden clues or missed solutions, only to be led to the same conclusion. 

Suddenly, there was a massive shift in the rubble above, and the load Metal Sonic was supporting decreased. Another vibration swept through the space around it. Then another. Then another. 

The ceiling was lifted off of its hands, revealing Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s Eggmobile hovering above. He released the chunk from the claw of his crane before lowering the glass dome surrounding him with the press of a button.

“Well, well, my finest creation! You certainly have a habit of wanton destruction in your attempts to destroy Sonic. Still wasn’t expecting you to bring the roof down on top of yourself though. I’ll see if I can tweak that habit during your next-” 

Metal Sonic flicked its cameras in the direction of Sonic in an attempt to warn its creator of what he’d just done, but it was already too late- Sonic jumped to his feet, scrambled up the debris, and disappeared beneath the open sky before Dr. Ivo Robotnik had uttered his last syllable. The man ducked beneath the walls of the cockpit as the shockwave rocked his vehicle.

When the Eggmobile steadied, he peeked his eyes over the side. “Huh. You didn’t tell me you managed to trap the rodent down there with you!”

Metal Sonic had not engaged in any communication with the outside world after the collapse- the layers of concrete had blocked any signal but the strongest, most bare of distress pings.

Distress pings. Metal Sonic checked its communication feed and found that it had given off the signal automatically the moment the roof had collapsed. If it had disabled this ping, its creator would not have stumbled upon it, and Sonic would finally be dead.

“Eh, that’s alright. There’s always next time.” Dr. Ivo Robotnik shrugged as he returned to his controls.

He lowered the crane claw and grabbed Metal Sonic’s frame. Upon safe retrieval, protocol was to enter standby mode to limit processor activity. Metal Sonic allowed this mode to dampen its awareness as it was hoisted into the cabin of the Eggmobile.

It could analyze its utter failure later. 

[thxndercrestfallen]

@skxrbrand crosses paths with the Lonesome Tyrant.

Bloodshed.

A hunting party of barbarians surround her. Of course, it's nothing she willingly started. The band of humans simply saw her on their path and decided to initiate battle. Whether or not they wanted her for her plated scales, or to sell her between settlements didn't matter to her, she would NOT allow them to tie her down like a submissive animal.

The taste of copper is thick on her tongue, rejuvenated with each bite into flesh and armor. Every human caught between her jaws is forcefully pulled apart, bitten in half, sent careening into the distance, or pulverized into the ground. Others were but paste beneath her feet, or crushed beneath her muscular tail.

Though even if the battle were leaning in her favor, the Rex, too, had her fair share of axe gashes across her legs, and spears peppering her hide that managed to dig into the softer parts of her hide. Yet these new wounds do not stop her. Men are slaughtered, several in between are singed to a crisp by currents of electricity.

None of these men run, accepting their fate of death to this paled, undead monstrosity. And in the end, all that is left is she. Standing among shattered corpses of her opponents, and the pools of blood beneath her.