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[trainsinanime]

And here's the other model railroad thing: A german class 426 train, model from Kato. Plus this time some white paper to make the lighting better, not sure how well it worked.

I bought this one as a kit at a model train show in Göppingen in September of last year. "Kit" meant a box containing all the components as spare parts, and a spare part order sheet as the "instructions". But, you know, it's Kato, it's really not that difficult.

What was difficult was getting DCC into the bloody thing. The official Kato way is to buy three different decoders, five if you want internal lighting to be DCC controlled, and shove them at various parts into the machine. Obviously I didn't want to do that, I have a Dremel and a soldering iron, so I did it myself, with one decoder (again the PD10MU that I also put in the FP7s and that was the reason for my rant about Bit.ly. There's nothing special about this decoder, it's just cheap and small and works well.)

The thing is that Kato's models are really intricately designed out of lots of cleverly interlocking plastic parts, and soldering a DCC decoder in requires undoing all of them and drilling holes. Some parts are just plain insane, like the motor contacts - if you solder anything to them directly, they'll come out of the motor. If you solder to the small copper strips that transmit the power directly, you'll have to find some way to isolate them because if you put them upside down, they won't conduct properly.

And then there's the fact that there's two parts of this, and of course I didn't want to use two decoders. Routing the wires through was not trivial.

Finally, at the last moment I decided they needed interior lighting, because I still had some Kato interior lighting kits from the Hiawatha. All Kato trains use the same light kit, which is great, except the light kit and the way it's integrated into the train can be very fiddly. In this train, you need to shorten a plastic light bar, lay it down on the roof, and then insert the chassis straight up so that the lighting part comes to sit right behind it. But you also need to push the chassis in diagonally forward, so the headlights come to rest in their proper holes. You need to push forward and straight up with no forward motion at the same time. The solution for me was to glue the light bar in place using adhesive pads, push the chassis in diagonally, then poke the lighting assembly with a long wooden stick until it lands in the right position, then finish closing. I don't think that's right.

It was worth the effort, though, it looks much better with lit windows, even if that means you can see all the cables. Also, yes, some of the cables are not in their right position (I think I'd need to cut some more plastic) so the front part's shell isn't positioned quite perfectly, but I have no intentions of fixing that. I also lost the plastic part that lights up the top headlight and destination display. Oh well. It's nice that it's done, but definitely no more Kato EMUs for me for the foreseeable future (at least next six months, probably). It's always something like this with them.

[trainsinanime]

Short model railroad update: I got the locomotives for the Olympian Hiawatha! An FP7A, F7B and another FP7A of the Milwaukee railroad

Going ABA instead of just two units does look nicer, doesn't it? I've fitted them all with DCC, using a PD10MU decoder, a basic thing for soldering in.

I've tried the Digitrax plug-and-play decoders before for other F units, and I've always been less than impressed. They're relatively expensive (two Digitrax ones would have cost more than the three I picked), not really that much less work, and I always felt like they're not super great with dirty rails. Of course in an ideal world Kato would just put a standard decoder plug in these things, but I'm not holding my breath. Instead I'm holding my soldering iron.

As for speed matching, that has not been a problem, since all three have the same decoder. And the long passenger train with the long train of locomotives in front looks really nice. The passenger train also has lights in now, but no pictures because, well, I couldn't be bothered. Maybe I'll make another post explaining the reason why I couldn't be bothered. It's to do with yet another train.

[trainsinanime]

never watched to show but I have a strange obsession with its concept art/animation

[trainsinanime]

Please stop telling people, for any reason, to kill themself. Stop advocating for suicide in any form or capacity.

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a clingy girlfriend

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Emo cuties

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I was already onboard with bisexual Alya to begin with, but what really cinched it for me was Tikki choosing her as Marinette’s replacement for the ladybug miraculous during Transmission. Because if there’s one thing that this show has been pushing since day one, it’s that Marinette and Adrien are made for each other. Fu mentions it while congratulating himself on choosing the right holders at the end of Stone Heart, Jessica and Aeon talk about it after spending ten minutes around them in the New York special, and Tikki comments on how they draw their strength from it when Plagg tells her they need to find new holders.

And see, I’ve got this idea in my head. Just from watching the way that Tikki and Plagg have thrown out certain comments throughout the series to encourage Marinette to keeping thinking about Adrien, or let Adrien know that “Hey, you’re acting kind of weird about someone you consider ‘just a friend.’” I’ve started to wonder if maybe the ladybug and cat miraculous actually do draw power from their holders’ feelings towards each other. Literally. What if every holder of these two miraculous have actually had some degree of chemistry with one another, and for whatever strange reason, the kwamis are able to sense it, and use it to enhance their powers. Joan of Arc and the Dark Grimalkin were just the only two who actually got together before setting aside their mission, thus Tikki wasn’t obligated to mention them when Marinette asked in Reunion.

This would mean that when Tikki chose Alya, Plagg had to use this mysterious sixth sense to find someone who would be absolutely perfect for Alya. But as we all know, Nino is incapable of keeping a secret identity to himself to save his life, so. . .

What I’m getting at is that Plagg and Zoe were about to fuck up Nino’s whole relationship and he should be grateful Hawkmoth invaded the school when he did. 

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mari doodle

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Pig!Marinette for my kwami swap roster. It's... already been half a year since the last one, apparently. Oops. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a fan of the canon colors for the pig holder's outfit, so I stuck with Daizzi's colors, but muted and pinker... fine! I did my own thing (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ No regrets.

|Check my Miraculous Ladybug tag for redesigns and lukanette content| |DO NOT REPOST MY WORK|

[trainsinanime]

anytime im playing on a TF2 server and i want to throw it into chaos I ask "which merc do you think would make the best husband?" it doesn't matter if the server is filled with straight men. everyone has a very strong opinion on this.

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When people get a little too gung-ho about-

wait. cancel post. gung-ho cannot be English. where did that phrase come from? China?

ok, yes. gōnghé, which is…an abbreviation for “industrial cooperative”? Like it was just a term for a worker-run organization? A specific U.S. marine stationed in China interpreted it as a motivational slogan about teamwork, and as a commander he got his whole battalion using it, and other U.S. marines found those guys so exhausting that it migrated into English slang with the meaning “overly enthusiastic”.

That’s…wild. What was I talking about?

[trainsinanime]

Alya's doodles

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proposal for Nino finding out Adrien is Chat Noir scenario:

for Contrived Plot Reasons, Adrien has to use the black cat miraculous in front of Nino. maybe Nino was supposed to pick a substitute wielder, idk.

good thing he has a secret identity for his secret identity. cue Cat Walker.

Nino is so happy. they are going to bro out so hard. no one in the world deserves to feel powerful and free and heroic as much as Adrien does.

Cat Walker has zero fun. Cat Walker is a professional business cat doing his job. This is so awkward and he wants to end it as soon as possible.

Nino is heartbroken and manages to express this to Adrien in a way that successfully lands as "I want so many good things for you" rather than a guilt trip

Adrien chooses to identity reveal to Nino from a place of wanting to share his joy and express his true self to his best friend

[trainsinanime]

One day I’ll draw a face the same way I drew it the previous time

I guess I couldn’t go a month without drawing them. My brain was rotting away, my soul degrading not engaging in my interests for longer than two days.

Gotta build myself back up with Alyanette

[trainsinanime]

i’ll never forget how to draw them but i WILL forget what marinette’s balcony looks like @ladybeug