#but i could probably figure out an alternative method also

[detectiveconnor]

who wants a "i'm sorry to tell you this but they're dead" starter, what if you replied to this post with the name/brief relationship description (if I don't know). of someone your muse knows/cares about. who could die for the purposes of a "connor has to tell your muse that person is dead" starter

[hedgehog-moss]

In my neverending quest to keep Pampérigouste from achieving her dreams, I have launched a formal investigation into her last escape, which I had no explanations for at the time.

I figured it out! At the far far end of her pasture, near the road, a few fence posts have become more or less horizontal (the ground is quite wet / muddy there so they've never been very stable, especially with Pirlouit using them to scratch his forehead)—so instead of a high jump + long jump combo to get to the road, Pampe just had to clear the long jump over the ditch. Which is still impressive.

I also suspect that she chose to escape from this place near the road on a snowy morning as a deliberate strategy, knowing the snow plough would erase any traces of her jump, thus preventing me from discovering where the weak spot in the fence was. Well done.

You need 2 people to fix these fence posts so in the meantime I decided to kill two birds with one stone: cut all the broom and thorny bushes in this corner of the pasture and use them to form a discouraging barrier. I set to work earlier this week, and here's the same place as above, mid-process:

When I texted my mum to tell her about my new thorn-based anti-Pampe plan of action, she said "Like the Maasai who make fences with thorny acacia branches to keep out lions!" and it made me feel even more confident. I mean, I have neither acacia nor Maasai fencing techniques but my thorny shrubs are pretty aggressive, they pricked my fingers even through my thick work gloves—which felt satisfying in an anticipatory way. Excellent! prick Pampe's nose exactly like this. How could a llama not be deterred by a fence material that deters apex predators?

Vexingly enough, she seemed quite supportive of my efforts. At one point she breathed some warm air against my shoulder in a gentle, patronising way.

We were engaged in psychological warfare all afternoon—every time I stepped away from my vegetal fence, feeling like it was now good enough, Pampe would immediately come to inspect it, cheerful and impatient, which sapped my confidence so I would go and add a few more shrubs. (Note that I sort of plaited the first / biggest shrubs with the pre-existing fence so they don't go flying on the road, and so Pampe can't just push them aside.)

On the right: Poldine, looking for little fresh leaves to eat amidst the chaos. On the left: Pampérigouste, thinking.

(At this point the barrier was only 20% thorns, and 80% broom—the fact that she waded through it without a care and didn't prick her belly made me go and add more thorny shrubs, and pack them more densely)

It's kind of fun watching Pampe think, honestly. Can I jump over this? Do I have enough visibility? Can I eat my way to freedom (again)? But these shrubs are disgusting. Am I above exploiting my daughter's lack of culinary discernment to achieve my goals? Maybe I should go back to my calculations re: probability of wild boar destruction. I may have pincushions for hands after handling prickly bushes for two hours but I'm helping stimulate my llama's intellect and creativity and that's so important.

I tried to alternate broom and thorny branches so that the non-thorny broom became tangled up with thorns and brambles to form an impenetrable and incomprehensible wall. I will call it this method the salmagundi-fence.

Poldine is in awe of my vegetal installation.

Can I just say, compared to Pampérigouste who constantly has a devilish glint in her eye, Pampelune's face exudes wholesome politeness and moral goodness. It's still hard to believe they're mother and daughter.

I went home once my fence started looking like Maleficent's forest of thorns and Pampe had long stopped trying to wade through it, but I still felt antsy and ended up coming back one hour later to have my apéritif with the llamas so I could keep an eye on Pampe until nightfall.

... where is Pampe?

Oh. Here. No worries!

Still staring at the road. Still thinking.

...

With all that said, please admire my beautifully delirious Forest of Thorns-fence and let me know what you think.

[fanfic-obsessed]

Failing to Thrive then Thriving in failure

I just had the funniest notion. Time travel comedy, but the twist is that Palpatine is the one to go back in time. 

So we start just after Kenobi, Palpatine has been emperor for about a decade, he succeeded. The Sith plan is complete, he has everything he had dreamed of and worked toward for a decade…and he is so bored. He never realized that 90% of his joy actually came from pretending to be a benevolent Chancellor and the intrigue of fooling people.  Now he has shown his true colors and could not go back to pretending (it simply would not work). Being the Sith in charge is not as fun as he thought it would be. Even getting to openly torture people has lost its appeal after 10 years.

It’s ok for Vader. For one Vader was never interested in those intrigues in the first place. For two 45% of Vader brain is taken up by trying to resurrect Padme Amidala, 50% is taken up by Obi Wan Kenobi (Palpatine is not sure if Vader wants to kill Kenobi, Kriff Kenobi, make Kenobi tuck Vader in every night and tell him is it going to be alright, Force Kenobi to help Vader resurrected Padme, or make sure Kenobi is eating, taking care of himself, and has a good enough blanket), leaving only 5% for everything else.  

Frankly if this is what Kenobi had to deal with before the war, Palpatine is somewhat impressed he got anything done.

Vader isn’t bored. Palpatine’s assorted lesser minions are not bored, they are living the dream of being as bigoted as their little fascist hearts desire. But Palpatine just could not find joy any longer. 

I do want it clear. Palpatine is not repentant. He does not regret the deaths that he caused, the genocide, the enslavement, any of it. He’s just bored. 

One day Palpatine finds a book, or maybe an artifact, or possibly a scrap of paper with an archaic formula. The title roughly translates to ‘Sith Master Time Travel’ (Listen The Son was also very bored, and being outside of Space Time meant He wanted to see what would happen). Palpatine is able to time travel, but only as far back as when he became a Sith Master. It was also a one time deal, he would not be able to use the method again AND it would destroy his origin timeline (not that that actually factored into Palpatine’s decision at all).  Not to mention he would essentially be possessing and killing his previous, alternate timeline self. 

Of course Palpatine time travels. He goes all the way back to the moment he became the Sith Master (it turns out the Sith titles are not just titles), looking at the still warm corpse of Hugo Damask, just as the Naboo crisis is wrapping up. 

Now Palpatine had already decided to do some things differently.  At first he was still working outward the Grand Sith Plan, if trying to keep his ‘Kindly Politician’ mask a bit longer, however he has decided that instead of Vader (or possibly in addition to Vader, if things get boring again) he will get Obi Wan Kenobi as his apprentice, figuring that there must have been a reason that every Sith Apprentice for 20 years ends up obsessed with the man (also because he thinks it would be funny to corrupt the Jedi’s ‘Guiding Light’). Dooku and all the pieces needed to start the Clone wars are already mostly in place. It is just a matter of maintaining until the clones are the right age.  So he does what he needs to to maintain the Empire building plans and decides to focus on corrupting Obi Wan. 

He fails, utterly. He fails so fully that Obi Wan did not even notice his attempts at corruption. Like he knew it would take time to corrupt a Jedi, he had done before after all, but he still expected at least a little change within the first year. There was nothing. 

And it was not a case of Obi Wan not trusting Palpatine. This is still a decade before the war. Obi Wan is a grieving, freshly knighted,  trying to keep up with a nine year old with somewhat unique trauma. Palpatine knows how to get Obi Wan to feel comfortable and trust him (Palpatine probably knows too well how to get Obi wan to feel comfortable and trust him, between Dooku and Vader). Obi Wan is just, for a given value, incorruptible. 

Now Palpatine’s obsession switch has been flipped. He went into it thinking that corrupting Obi Wan would be a fun side project, a way to pass the time.  He was wrong.  He knows from the previous timeline that torture would not be effective (Listen if the torture mask specifically built to corrupt lightsiders did not make a dent after a month it is pretty well proven that torture will not cause Kenobi to fall, Palpatine knows this) nor would killing Kenobi’s loved work (again, if it didn’t last time we have some pretty concrete proof). 

So now we have Palpatine trying every method he can think of to seduce Kenobi the darkside, always just shy of admitting to being a Sith or being creepy. To the point that he has actually forgotten the Empire building he was doing. He kind of even forgets to be Sidious.  He almost ghosts Dooku, before he remembers that Dooku is Kenobi’s grandfather(that is not the correct term, Dooku tries to correct Palpatine an even dozen times before giving up) and gets Dooku involved in the corruption that is STILL. GOING. NOWHERE.

Dooku basically becomes Grandpa Dooku to both Obi Wan and Anakin, and falls back into the Light while trying unsuccessfully to corrupt Obi Wan to the Dark. Due to darkside vow complications (also because I think it would be really funny) Dooku is not able to say, imply, or otherwise do anything to make the Jedi suspicious that Palaptine is a Sith. Also, to a certain extent he thinks that as long as Palpatine is focused on corrupting his incorruptible grandson, the other Sith is not thinking about galactic domination (To be fair he is correct).  

Palpatine spends most of his time trying to corrupt Obi Wan, while keeping up the act used to maintain Obi Wan’s trust. The thing is Palpatine is fully aware that Anakin in the original timeline was about observant as a particularly dense brick wall and would not have realized that the persona of ‘My friend Palaptine’ did not match the reality of ‘My pal Friendpatine’. Obi Wan would realize if his act was not consistent. 

So Palpatine decided to keep the act up 24/7.  And everyone knows that your actions become your habits become your personality. 

Somewhere in year 8 Palpatine forgets how to Sith. 

Technically he is still a darksider but not the extra layer of fucked up that comes from being an actual Sith. And he still has not even made a dent in Obi Wan’s light. He has also, almost single handedly, derailed the war that had been brewing and fixed about 40% of the corruption in the Senate.  All without killing a single senator.

Palpatine spends most of his time very confused. 

Palpatine lets his term as Chancellor end, having gone down in history as one of the most beloved Chancellors in history.  The Clones are found and mostly are inducted as an arm of the Jedi Order. Jango Fett is given a metric ton of therapy, which helps him see that the Jedi were not actually at fault for Galidraan (Jango had, in fact, been the person to escalate things to violence) before he is allowed to take Boba back into the galaxy. By that point the Clones want little to do with him. 

For the rest of his life Palpatine tries, unsuccessfully, to corrupt Obi Wan (who never noticed). At this point he is genuinely friends with a number of Jedi (He and Mace Windu have a surprising amount in common, including a love of the theater and a mild exasperation for Anakin Skywalker's antics). He is an honored guest at both the CodyWan and the Anidala Weddings (including a Jedi based wedding ceremony).

Honestly he is having the most fun of his life. 

He is also never caught as a darksider. He never figures out how that is possible either.

[friendlybowlofsoup]

Another Update

Hello Friends,

I have a rather long (but optimistic!) update to share with you all today. As many of you are probably tired of reading these kind of posts, I have a TL;DR here, but I did want to share what has been on my mind in that past half-year that I haven't been here.

It has been rough, and busy as always, but I think I'm finally facing myself and my project for the first time in a very long time.

TL;DR (it's actually long, I have a lot to say (*_ _)人)

I soul-searched and decided to stop compromising on my own feelings with regards to this project. I gave in to everything I wanted to do.

Plot changes, which means some character changes, which means some of the demo is outdated.

GotRM will be switching over to Twine.

----

OH MAN DID I SUFFER THE LAST FEW MONTHS

After my previous update, I hunkered down and really analyzed how I wanted to proceed with GotRM as a project. Because even prior to that post, I had already been going through long periods of hiatuses (which you are all aware of), and while I didn't lie about school taking up my time, I was also harboring a growing dissatisfaction with my own writing that really killed my progress for a long time.

So after everything had settled, I sat down and forced myself to peel apart my work. I know I said I would answer asks, but I uninstalled all of my social media and put aside this blog to focus. I made a note of all the things I liked and didn't like, and I made a list of things I wanted to change or improve on. The biggest point was that I also looked at my efficiency during actual writing sessions: how much of my time was spent writing vs. fighting with code? How could I change that?

And after a lot of deliberation, I figured there were a few things I had to change from the ground up, summed up in four points:

My working style was super incompatible with grad school. I can't spend 20-30 minutes scrolling up and down CSIDE checking code or looking for narratives while also jumping between chapters to make sure events line up. As this story grows, the more difficult it becomes to keep track of all the branches, so I needed an alternative working method, which I am adhering to now, and it prioritizes efficiency.

I hated the way I was tracking and coding stats in-game. I have griped so much about coding stats, and I have adhered to such a rigid style that I really felt trapped whenever I was confronted with balancing them out. So I'm throwing that to the wind and redoing how I utilize and convey them. Player-side, this decision doesn't change much since I never fully utilized stats in the demo anyway, and the stats page with indicators will still exist, but I'm getting rid of stat bars and how I treat stat checks.

The story I want to write now is different from the one I started out with. I've known for a while that GotRM was becoming far more than the tiny, wishful novella that I wrote as a teenager. I held onto that old story for a long time, but there's just so much I want to change that I realized I'd been clinging to a story I no longer enjoyed writing. So I spent the majority of the last few months rewriting GotRM from scratch. I redid some worldbuilding, I changed a lot of plot points, and I fixed a lot of characters' backstories accordingly. This meant scrapping stuff from even the demo, but that turned out to not be the biggest issue because:

I wanted to branch away from ChoiceScript. Honestly, I never really cared about getting officially published, but the camaraderie in the forums and on Tumblr were why I committed to CS and CoG. However, ultimately, I really want the functionality that other tools can offer GotRM, and so after a long internal debate, I will be switching over to Twine. Fortunately, since I was rewriting everything anyways, this has been relatively painless, and passage mapping has made everything so much neater. I am trying my best to make it up to chapter 2 before I release the new demo, so please look forwards to that!

And so yes, I am still here, chugging along.

I love this game and this story: it's been my creative escape for as long as I could remember, and you can imagine how frustrated I was when I realized I was starting to dread working on it.

I am forever learning more about myself and my writing style, and this is simply more of that journey. Thank you everyone for sticking around, for joining the discord, and for checking up on me--that I have all of you has truly been a dream.

Hopefully more updates to come soon! I understand that there may be questions about these new changes, so please ask away! I will (try) to release some asks that I've been working on in the drafts too, but I will wait until at least tomorrow to release them so that this post doesn't get drowned out immediately.

And as always, with a lot of love,

FriendlyBowlofSoup (Mei)

[regrator-the-ninth]

An overly detailed analysis of Muzan’s walking patterns

The way Muzan walks in this scene has been criticized for being “careless” or “rude,” and I see why people would say that considering his seeming disregard for the dead bodies, but I would like to propose an alternate theory. When I was watching this episode (and before I had seen anyone else comment on this scene), I noticed that his walk seemed oddly familiar to me and I think I’ve figured out why. It’s the way someone walks when they are actively thinking about how they’re walking.

I have an autoimmune joint condition that causes pain in my hips and back, and when it flares up, I have to force myself to stand up super straight and take really calculated steps when I walk to avoid doing things that cause the pain to get worse. I try take the straightest possible path, to not to change my steps by stepping over things to reduce variables that could make me “mess up” and move in a way that hurts. Muzan’s walk here looks a lot like my walk when I am doing this. He’s consistent, he’s stiff, he keeps a straight line, and he avoids stepping over or on things.

This makes sense given his backstory. Not only did he grow up chronically ill, he’s also permanently injured from Yoriichi’s past attacks on him. He’s probably in some amount of pain (or at least is very familiar with chronic pain). Even despite him becoming a demon and gaining a stronger body, you can still see it in the way he moves. He’s methodical about using his body in a way that only those who have suffered through chronic pain would be.

[pantoneyoongi]

neon signs | interlude: welcome to the family

title ; interlude: welcome to the family  pairing ; campus crush!yoongi x campus crush!you 

notes ; 

this is part of the neon signs drabble series, where drabbles are released in random order (but listed chronologically in the masterlist!) 

series description ;

namjoon doesn’t think it can get any clearer outside of yoongi building a giant neon sign saying i have the absolute biggest crush on you but apparently, book smarts don’t exactly translate when it comes to you and your massive crush on min yoongi.  (alternatively: namjoon and hoseok try for three years straight to get you and yoongi together.) 

word count ; 1.1k

tags ; everybody say hi taehyung, fluff as per usual, i don’t know a dam thing about architecture courses so pls don’t come for me, pls go to masterlist for more / general tags 

hoseok is a popular guy. you know it, yoongi knows it, namjoon knows it. even hoseok knows it, though he’ll just tell you that he likes to make friends. 

despite his popularity, hoseok doesn’t often introduce his wide variety of friends to your little group. mostly it’s just because you all know yoongi is actively averse to making new friends, but also because the four of you spend most of your time together anyway, so if hoseok’s hanging out with someone else, it’s because the rest of you are busy. 

that’s how you know hoseok is exceptionally fond of taehyung, because he introduces taehyung like he’s a new pet. “meet taehyung!” he beams, arms out, presenting his friend. 

yoongi looks bored. namjoon is nonplussed. and you stare curiously at the bright-eyed boy standing next to hoseok. 

taehyung waves. you wave back and he lights up. he’s cute, earnest, and entirely unbothered by the lackluster response from the rest of your friends, but thoroughly pleased with the attention you offer. “nice to meet you, taehyung,” you smile.

“he’s my little,” hoseok announces. 

namjoon furrows his eyebrows. “you’re not in a frat, hobi.” 

hoseok blinks back. “is that only for frats?” 

namjoon squints a little. “i - i think so?” 

“huh,” hoseok mutters. “well - i’ve adopted him anyway.” 

your mouth twists as you try to hide a smile. you stick out a hand. “welcome to the family, taehyung.” 

taehyung’s eyes gleam when he takes your hand, and that serves as namjoon’s first and only warning that this can only end in chaos. 

.

.

.

namjoon doesn’t know what it is. a decade’s worth of friendship with you, and this - he’s sure he’ll never figure this out. he truly does not know what it is about taehyung that brings out the most unhinged parts of you, and quite frankly, at this point, he doesn’t really want to know. 

“spaghetti. you are literally using spaghetti-” namjoon’s sentence crumbles into an exasperated noise, throwing his hands in the air before he flings himself onto his bed, which yoongi for once isn’t occupying the free horizontal space. he’s instead sitting in hoseok’s chair, looking like the math meme lady, trying to figure out what you and taehyung are doing. 

“there is method to the madness,” you drone, as taehyung helps you build your spaghetti-house-design-thing. you’ve done weirder things for class, you don’t know why namjoon thinks this is the weirdest. probably because taehyung also brought spaghetti sauce, which, yeah, admittedly not usually a part of the process. 

“you could paint with it,” taehyung had suggested when he first walked through the door, and since you’ve decided you kind of adore taehyung, you just let him run with it. but you’re definitely not painting your dry spaghetti building with spaghetti sauce. 

he gets an A for effort though. 

yoongi still looks deeply confused, though he’s starting to eye the spaghetti sauce a little more suspiciously now. namjoon knows you well enough to mostly be convinced that you won’t actually use it, but yoongi on the other hand has never seen you as giggly and scheming as you’ve been around taehyung, so he’s not so sure. 

the good news is, you seem less heart-eyes about taehyung and more just sheerly fascinated by the way his brain works, which yoongi considers a win compared to the way you are around seokjin. besides, it’s hard not to like taehyung. it’s like watching a toddler discover new things. 

taehyung helps you put together your project, careful and earnest. you’ve enlisted taehyung’s help mostly because namjoon is prone to snapping spaghetti in half, and since yoongi helped you blueprint the concept in the first place, you won’t let him get anywhere near the actual build. you helped a lot already, you’d insisted, so yoongi’s been relegated to babysitting duty - aka, keeping an eye on taehyung as he glues and tapes and pieces things together. 

taehyung doesn’t really need much help. he’s quite good at following instructions, so yoongi keeps getting distracted by you, instead. 

you’re pretty when you’re focused. you’re pretty all the time, but the way you narrow in on details, the way you bite your lip and your eyebrows pinch in as you steadily put together your project - yoongi has a hard time keeping his eyes from straying back to you. you’re serious about your studies, even if they come in the form of spaghetti architecture. 

your eyes lift away from your building to find his, and he freezes, caught in the act. he doesn’t even realize he’s holding his breath until you smile at him, eyes tired but happy. your hair’s a mess and you’ve got tools and boxes and glue all around you but he lets out the breath he’d been holding, smiling softly back at you, too. he gives you a tiny, encouraging thumbs up. you’re doing well. 

your eyes crinkle in the corners, pleased, and even when you’ve got bags under eyes and you’re in a ratty old sweater, and there’s still that concerning jar of spaghetti sauce beside you, yoongi’s heart trips all over itself because of you. 

.

.

.

the project is finished at nearing six in the morning. somewhere around one or two in the morning, the boys had started taking thirty minute shifts, rotating to help you while the others took a nap. you stayed awake through it all, insistent on overseeing your project, giving them instructions on what goes where, in which direction, using what tool. they listen carefully, but the longer you’re up, the more delirious you get, and at some point the communication is largely weak, sleepy hand gestures more than actual words. 

but it’s done. it’s done, and you hit the floor so fast, taehyung has barely just enough time to catch you and slip a pillow under your head. 

yoongi’s eyes blink open slowly. he stirs when he realizes you’re no longer sitting upright, but his brain isn’t running on all engines, and he can only register that taehyung is grabbing a throw from the foot of hoseok’s bed to lay over you. yoongi watches taehyung pull the blanket up to your chin, before he’s curling up on the floor too, out cold in seconds. 

yoongi’s gaze slides back over to you. he glances at taehyung, and from yoongi’s spot opposite the two of you on the ground, he can also see namjoon and hoseok snoring away in their beds. his eyes turn back to you, finally sleeping peacefully as the beginnings of the morning light start to filter through the window. 

taehyung’s nice, yoongi decides. sweet, like you, if a little unorthodox. but the most important is that, like everyone else you’ve let get close to you, he takes care of you. even if it means staying up till six in the morning, gluing together spaghetti on the floor of a cramped dorm room. 

and that’s pretty okay, yoongi thinks. 

series masterlist ; neon signs

taglist ; @thelilbutifulthings @bbsantc @chickentenderx @taegijns @princxssly82 @manuosorioh @sugaluvmyg @medicinemybish

[copperbadge]

Whenever I think about “mental images” or “a song stuck in your head” these days, I think about aphantasia and how that impacts perception. (Aphantasia is the condition of not seeing images or hearing sounds in your head -- most of the population does, but those with aphantasia do not, or do to a very diminished degree.) 

I’ve talked about how I don’t have locked mental images of my characters or their homes and such. Things can move around as needed -- like a sofa can move across a room, or a lamp might change tables, depending on what the action needs. I assumed nobody actually had mental images, it was just an agreed-upon method of describing nonvisual imagination. Having found that’s not the case at roughly the same time as I was diagnosed with ADHD (a few months apart) I think about it a lot. 

Recently I was playing with form and picked up the thread of an idea I’ve had for years, which is to write a novel as if it were a guidebook to the place you’re reading the novel about (I’m sure it’s been done before, and Italo Calvino has done something like it with Invisible Cities, I just think it would be fun to try). It occurred to me that while I don’t visualize things in terms of furniture in a living room or where people are in a space, I do have a firm and unchanging idea of what a city as a whole looks like, including some mental images.

Even before visiting Menton Garavan, where Fons-Askaz is located in an alternate world, I definitely knew what went where in Fons-Askaz. I know what the harbor and coastline are shaped like, where most of the local residential housing versus the tourist housing is, how the main street is shaped and where several landmarks sit along it, their names and what purpose they serve. I know where the one really divey dive bar is. And I do see images of all of them, but only partial -- specific angles of sight, mainly (I can see both main entrances to the pedestrian shopping area called the Promenade, but not most of the Prom itself, for example). 

When I considered this, I realized I could do it to a limited extent for Galia also, and for other fictional places I’ve written about, like Lea from Six Harvests or Low Ferry from Nameless. I could draw rough maps of most of those places -- I don’t have the map itself in my head, but rather a combination of non-visual knowledge and a series of vague mental snapshots. I don’t know the actual layout of the palace, but I know what it looks like from the train station and I know what I would see standing at the windows in Gregory and Eddie’s apartment. I can see about three different views of Wild Mayer’s farm in Six Harvests, and I know the layout of Lea’s main street. It’s like for every fictional city or town that I’ve written about, I have a series of mental postcard images. 

I have no idea why, or what it means. Probably it’s just that like many neurodiverse people I navigate by landmark, and I live in a city so recognizing urban landmarks and “views” is vital. I don’t need to “navigate” my apartment so I don’t care where the sofa is, but I have to know what the neighborhood looks like when we’re getting close to my bus stop so I know when to ring the bell to get off. 

Possibly it means I should have become an urban planner. 

Kind of fun, anyway, now that I’ve figured out I can do it. I can’t really “walk around” Fons-Askaz, but I can do a sort of flyover. 

[ectonurites]

I couldn’t find this anywhere else so I was wondering if you’d be up to answering—is Kon hearing Tim’s heartbeat/being able to find him wherever an actual thing in the comics or is it kinda overblown in fandom? And I know he used to not have superhearing I think, so…like, are there times he *couldn’t* do that but can at others? Idk i was just a bit confused/curious about the extent of Kon’s super hearing abilities and how they might relate to Tim in comics…if you have the time/energy/knowledge to answer!

OKAY so there's a few different things to address/discuss here- I'll try to do this in the most organized way I can. But the TLDR is the heartbeat aspect is more on the overblown side (but like, it's a case of 'this is actually a very plausible extrapolation based on canon, i just don't think it's been specifically stated on panel'), but it is for sure canon that all Tim needs to do is call for Kon from anywhere and he'll find him.

So yes, as you mentioned here, Kon did not always have super hearing! This is a power that he started to develop during the 2003 Teen Titans run (although it's something we learned he'd develop when he got older during Sins of Youth a few years earlier).

When this power was still new to him and developing, one of the first big instances we saw of it in action was actually him trying to find Tim in Gotham- because Bruce was of no help to Kon and told him to rely on his powers:

(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #13)

(Teen Titans Vol. 3 #14)

Now, as this was early in him having the power it takes him a hot sec- but he was still able to figure it out and find Tim this way! Fast forward several years, past Kon's death and resurrection and all sorts of other shit that happens, and we get to a point where Kon is confident enough in this ability (and his familiarity with Tim's voice) that he says this:

(Red Robin #9)

So yes, Kon can find Tim based on his voice if he calls for him. And even when he was less experienced with his powers, he was able to pick Tim's voice out of Gotham when he wasn't specifically calling for him- so presumably by later points in canon he could probably do that sort of thing a lot faster too (and likely within a wider range).

Alternatively if he needs/wants to find Tim and doesn't know where to start looking/listening (or any other reason he doesn't want to rely on his powers), he's also used the Krypto method:

(Adventure Comics (2009) #3)

Now, with the heartbeat thing specifically... The reason I said it's very plausible is because it is explicitly canon with Clark and Bruce- that Clark very specifically knows Bruce's heartbeat and can listen to the whole world to pick it out (or to find if it isn't there):

(Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1)

And I think people just kinda went with the 'well if Clark can do it so can Kon' logic, which I do think makes enough sense, because Kon does have all of Clark's powers by the end of pre-reboot continuity. I just don't believe there's ever been an instance with Kon that like... explicitly showed him picking Tim's heartbeat out, or explicitly had him search for/try to find anyone based on their heartbeat alone.

Though he has recognized someone by their heartbeat before- and it's someone he knows far less well than Tim (Lori)- so like, he'd logically also be familiar enough with Tim's to recognize it… just maybe not in the same 'pick it out of the whole world' extent like it is with Clark and Bruce. Like, due to a lack of canon example of it, my guess would be that as an adult he’d be able to do that sort of thing like Clark, but as a teen just isn’t quite experienced with the power enough to do so.

(Superboy Vol. 5 #7)

I hope that helps to clear things up a little bit at least?

[icycoldninja]

How to make a boring day sound interesting.

Have you ever been asked "how was your day" but don't have anything interesting to tell them? I mean, how exciting is telling anyone that all you did today was sit around on your couch watching memes and playing video games? Well, thankfully for you, I have a method for making boring days sound interesting so you have something cool to tell those who ask. Let's dive right in.

The key is to tell people what you did literally, that is, give no context. For example, let us say that today you played Metal Gear Rising and massacred a bunch of cyborgs. Instead of telling people that you played Metal Gear, tell them something like this: "Today, I maimed, then decapitated several men and tore out their brains, how was your day?" This not only gives others the impression that you are a force to be reckoned with, but also makes them conscious of what they did that day, making you appear more accomplished. This is best directed towards those who are heavily competitive or have a peer they wish to put down.

Alternatively, you could explain what you did in very complicated, often heavily scientific terms--the bigger and longer the words are, the harder they are to understand; most wouldn't bother trying to figure out their meaning, so others will assume that whatever you did was important. Here's an example.

"Today, I ignited a combination of carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene and nitrogen dioxide, thus creating a chemical reaction that resulted in the Malliard Reaction within the product of a Gallus Gallus Domesticus, which enabled me to eat said product." (I fried an egg)

As one can probably deduce, the majority of these words are incredibly hard to pronounce in everyday speech, and therefore are best used in text.

In fact, this entire paragraph was a practical application of the aforementioned methods, as it all boils down to this: If you want to make boring stuff sound cool, use lots of fancy words and use as less context as possible.

Thank you for your time.

[sarnai4]

Archipelago Academy

Here are some modern headcanons I have for the younger Dragons characters (including the Defenders because they're fun. I don't actually they are young enough to be in high school with the others. Looking at you, Mala👀)

Hiccup: He's the geek for a while. He's still not athletic and gets picked on for that and absolutely hating gym. As a student, he's pretty good. Lots of As and maybe a few high Bs depending on the subject. (He'd do better if he didn't daydream so much and he's not acing any music class. Might be get a pity D). When he finds out he's really good with exotic animals, he starts getting popular and that's when more people realize that he's also a lot of fun, a nice type of sarcastic, and gutsy. He's probably in a chess club before he starts his own that's about unique creatures.

Astrid: She's popular, but she's a little bit of the mean popular type. It's not that she actually is bullying anyone, but everyone knows she's tough and most think she's unapproachable. She's one of the top athletes and is captain on just about every team for the girls. If she's on the team, she's the captain. She doesn't have time for clubs since she's at practice a lot. She's a strong student who gets mad if there's ever a B in her report card, so she works really hard to balance physical and mental sides of school. Afterschool, she'll take some time to hang out with her friends.

Fishlegs: The nerd. We all knew this was coming. He's getting A+ every time (respectable) except in gym. He has the skills, but he's too scared to really have the aggression he needs unless he's just pushed to the edge. Then, maybe he finally wins dodge ball. Aside from that, he's part of the mathletes, is in charge of a book club, is in the chess club too, and enjoys volunteering in his spare time. He sits with Hiccup the most often at lunch.

Snotlout: The jock of course. He's basically the boy Astrid in how he's the captain for all the other sports teams. He'll talk badly about the girls until they had an unofficial game and they wipe the floor with his group. Then, he'll give Astrid the credit she deserves. When his dad gets in his head, he acts like the school bully. When he's able to just be himself, he isn't afraid to not sit with the popular crowd and will actually just eat with his buddies. Still, he values his status in school and doesn't want to ever lose a real game since he takes that to heart. His grades are pretty bad, but it's due to him spending so much time at practice and training. He has no clubs and basically no life outside of this because of Spitelout being an overbearing and sucky dad.

Ruffnut and Tuffnut: They're the class clowns. Their grades are constantly as low as possible without actually flunking because they secretly could do great, but they want to annoy teachers. They're the epitome of using their energy in the wrong ways. Undercover geniuses who'd rather find the best method for making stink bombs. Every chance they get, they're pranking some student or teacher. You'll find them at the front of the class just so they can irritate the poor instructor more with questions they already know the answer to. They're not in sports because no one will let them involve boars, so they're not interested. They're only in clubs started by their friends. They also have a YouTube channel where they do dangerous stunts.

Throk: He's another jock, but I think he'd become a coach's assistant. He takes his studies very seriously and offers tutoring, but he intimidates most of the younger kids, so he never gets many pupils. Snotlout might alternate between getting tutored by him and Fishy, but that's about it. Teachers love him because he's great with authority figures and is always trying to get the others back in line. This leads to him getting verbally picked on a bit by those in his grade since they think he's a teacher's pet. No one invites him to parties, but his friends make sure he never feels excluded in things they do.

Heather: She's in some of the teams with Astrid, but she doesn't do as many. She does soccer and more of the graceful activities like ballet and gymnastics. She's a pretty good student and also does some tutoring, but not for Snotlout since he wouldn't stop flirting last time (even though he apologized). She's known as the sweet girl in school and is pretty popular because of that. Her fiery side comes out on the soccer field. She can get obsessed with projects and will normally be asked to help set up events for the school, which she takes very seriously. She's not one for parties, but sometimes, her friends talk her into them and she has a fun time solely because of them.

Mala: She's the class president and basically right under the principal. Because of that, some students are terrified of her. She's a no-nonsense person, but she's more fair than most give her credit for being. She tries to help the students who are struggling and keeps an eye out for anyone who looks like they're being mistreated. She's an excellent student and cannot fathom receiving less than 100% on assignments. She wants to join some teams, but she has too much time that she spends caring for injured and sick animals. She also volunteers at soup kitchens, but only her friends know this. Other people think she's a bit cold, but her friends help her reputation change.

Dagur: He's the one most of the students really try to avoid. They are horrified with the idea of being alone with him. Somehow, he's always getting into trouble. He isn't always trying to cause trouble, but it keeps happening. Despite what everyone thinks, he's actually a really good student because he thinks good grades will give his family something to be proud of him for. So, he's the only A student who's always in detention. He's normally in a fight and is the person bullies are scared of since he doesn't tolerate that being directed towards his friends. This put Snotlout in his line of fire for a while, but they're cool now. They were very not cool when Snotlout flirted with Heather, but a few death glares later and they're buds again. He's in no sports teams because he got banned after tackling someone in basketball and not stopping when his wrestling opponent tried to tap out (he misunderstood the rules). He's in his friends' clubs and winds up starting one of his own for the other troubled kids.

[aortaobservatory]

what are your thoughts on the time aspect? ive always loved the theme of clocks, rhythm, death, and of course dave and aradia are the best characaters ever lmfaoooo. also random rambling: i feel like i often have this sort of ticking metronome in the back of my head that makes me feel very time-y and ive always LOVED music and cool antique stuff. im not sure how much of that is an indication of my actual claspect though lol

(apologies for the ramblings xD)

Apologies; you sent this months ago and I am only answering it now! I hope these thoughts of mine are still satisfactory to read about.

I feel as though Time's inverse, Space, is understood to be "creativity", and those who may not entirely understand what an aspect is meant to be tend to take its inverse's opposite. However, the "opposite of creativity" doesn't paint a very fun picture. While "creativity" isn't necessarily wrong for Space, I understand Space to be a journey, joy in the traveling. Time, therefore, would be an ending goal, the satisfaction of victory.

From The Extended Zodiac, I pulled these keywords from the Time Aspect description. These would be the "canon" traits; they are what I adhere to when analyzing, but it should also be understood that this concept encompasses much more to do with than these keywords. Its "vibe", if you will, is much more than what is written.

TEZ Time Keywords: Struggle, restless, action, goal-oriented, relentless, empathetic, problem-solvers, (ruthless, defensive, impulsive)

The keywords I chose to represent Time are "Repetition, Goals, Efficiency, Restlessness". This aspect, like all the other aspects, is inherently neutral. It is not good or bad, but has the potential to be either.

Time is about optimization. Timebound do not create new solutions; they use what they are given within the finite and refine it into the tools they use to achieve their goals. Their satisfaction comes from the end product of their labor, and they are not satisfied if they are not working towards something; anything can be a goal to work towards for the Timebound. If Space is an infinite destiny (a course of events within the present moment), then Time is a finite fate (the future outcome).

If it's not broke, don't fix it; an efficient method is a good method, and a good method is an efficient method. It is the nature of Time to stick to what it knows works well rather than attempt to figure out some other way of achieving the same goal. (Code, and the action of coding, is a good example of this.) This repetition of methods can certainly translate into a metronome of sorts; monotonous and keeping a beat. While music is the logical conclusion to draw from this, I could make a case that it is specifically rap that is Time's purest form of music, since it focuses on the rhythm of the words rather than singing a tone. At the very least, I would say each Timebound has their own rhythm and way of doing things that is simply what makes the most efficient sense for them to do. (Perhaps that is why Dave is so fixated on being ironic when he grew up under the care of a Prince of Heart...)

Dave is the poster child for all Timebound everywhere, of course. As the Knight of Time (Active Utilizer), Dave is extremely skilled with his aspect; since Time is about efficiency, Dave would be able to achieve a great deal of things in a very short amount of time. And he does! I would almost say that if he were any other class but a Knight, the beta kids probably would have crashed and burned hard. Meanwhile with Aradia, the Maid of Time (Passive Enhancer), she would rely on others for her aspect; this manifests in a few different ways. She documents the code on the frog temple for Sollux to then adapt into SGRUB. Ghosts are considered to linger behind after their deaths due to a state of unrest and "unfinished business", which is quite in line with the nature of Time. She relies on the destruction of alternate timelines to guide her choices, which ends up amassing an army of Aradiabots to passively help the trolls in their battle against the black king.

[canarydraws]

Hey y’all, here are some process stages for one of the more recent illustrations I did!

My sketches have never been very detailed. I remember being inspired for a pose while scrolling through pintrest and just threw some lines down on a page. I think more about the general pose and feeling I want more than the worry of anatomical correctness because I know I’ll fix it as I go.

In the next stage I establish stronger more contrasting colors and start to define the form of some shapes. The anatomy is still bad so at this point I’ll start to use the warp tool to move things around and adjust proportions. I also end up using the selection tool to cut various parts of the figure apart in order to put them back together in a way I like (I do not recommend doing this lol the sooner you can establish a solid foundation the better because it’ll save you a lot of work as you go. I just have a really hard time seeing my mistakes until I have something visual to work off of.) I alternate using the warp tool and selection tool and painting again and again until I get something relatively presentable like what I have at stage 3!

At this point all I have left are color adjustments and tweaking some small details. I usually don’t make such drastic color changes at the end of my work because I’ll have found my desired pallet through rendering. However with this one I wasn’t yet sure if I wanted a strong blue bg to contrast the orange of Lucéena’s eye or if I wanted the eye itself to be the main point of color. I knew I wanted the eye to stand out so I thought it was worth trying some things. That’s also why I decided to leave some parts messy in the final piece. I wanted the most well-rendered area to be Lucéena’s face to bring attention to that new shines eye she has.

I hope this was interesting and insightful!

With every illustration, I start off with a loose sketch. At this stage I’m not worried about perfection, my lines are more to serves as composition guides so I know where things will roughly go. If there are parts of the illustration that I know I want to put a lot of detail into (such as the face) I will often give that part more time. Then, I jump into colors by laying down flats behind the lineart and then beginning the process of refinement with a new layer on top. At this stage I would have 4 layers, 1 as the bg color (the blue expanse), 2 as the flats of the character, 3 as the line sketch, and 4 as the rough detailing. After this the number of layers I uses depends on how much of the illustration I want to preserve from itself or how many layer filters I end up using (to tweak color and lighting). Still, my illustrations always start with these 4. Once I get to a rendering point similar to stage 2 I start worrying more about the “correctness” of my structure and how I can make the anatomy more realistic. To do this, I like to duplicate then merge all of my layers, excluding the bg layer. Now I have my character one one whole layer and the expanse of blue on another. I have the individual layers still on hand if I want to refer to my og sketch but at this point having them all as one is easier to work with because to tweak the anatomy of a character I usually cut them up into parts and move/warp them to be more precise. Is this the most effective method? Probably not, but I rely a lot on the warp tool to get the exact shapes that I want. And seeing shapes for me is a lot easier when I have some color and value to work with. (I’m not a very “line visual” person if that makes sense XD) The rest of my process is a combination of rendering and adjusting details with the warp tool. At the very end I did some color adjustments (seen between stages 3 and 4) to see if I could get them closer to the initial feel that I wanted. Because I drew this to showcase Luceena’s new magic eye I wanted that to be the focal point of the illustration. So not only is that the place I put the most detail into, it’s also where I wanted the most color to be. I thought that having a blue bg would contrast nicely with the orange of her eye, but I ended up desaturating the whole piece and let that one note of color stand by itself. Lucéena also received her eye in the Shadowfell so the grey, drab vibes ended up fitting perfectly!

[system-of-a-feather]

hi there! i have a question related to birds for a uni project of mine and i was wondering if you could help me out with your extensive bird knowledge?

if rn is not a good time thats fine too of course!

but basically in one of our design courses the task is to design some object to cut any kinds of plants with, so i figured id take some inspiration from nature. And since garden shears look kind of similar to bird beaks i was wondering if there is indeed a connection?

are there birds who use their beaks to actually cut twigs or leaves? and if so, how are there beaks ideally shaped, or do they use other methods.?

regardless, i hope you have a nice day!

..... design? .... birds? i am so interested /joke but also genuine/

I dunno if this is design more so in a sense of art / concept design or design in more of an engineering / crafting sense, but I very very much ALSO like designing and taking inspiration from nature

Either way, to what I can think of, I don't know of any birds that really "cut" twigs or leaves, but that is largely semantics on the common terms I've seen used for best describing certain feeding / foraging / nest building methods in birds

The most related towards shears that you are pointing at probably would be geese species as they largely feed primarily on grasses and plant material and are actually known for seeking out specific parts of the grass that is the most "fresh" and high quality (cant remember the best word used to describe their selection cause its the morning whoops)

Typically they're talked about as "pruning" grass but they're specialized for clipping grass basically and that why they have their infamous "teeth" on their beaks as well as their serrated tongue. I think this page describes a lot of the goose beak adaptions in relation to their diet.

Alternatively, and away from the garden sheer relation but also relevant to the idea of "cutting" plant material, I strongly recommend also considering a number of parrot species.

Parrots are very very very infamous for their amazing ability to basically destroy anything and everything - even the smallest beak parrots can do some terrible damage if left unmonitored and left bored or just in any more

Parrots typically credit this ability to a combination of their hooked and pointed beak that allows for a very strong and pretty pinpointed puncture (similar to birds of prey and their hooked beak that is aimed for puncturing meat; for birds of prey this hook is smaller as they use it for tearing meat and not breaking things like nuts and similar; larger beaks tend to come with the cost of them being clunkier) as well as a very very very powerful bite force that basically allows them to bite off, crush, grab, and break most things which of course comes from their specialization to eat hard nuts which are often protected by tough and hard shells

There is actually a pretty wide variety in parrot beaks as well that don't get addressed as much when you look online afaik but the standard parrot beak has a few notable features

The Maxilla tends to be larger and "overbitten" and the mandible is smaller and sometimes has a notch in the tip (look at cockatiel beaks) which I imagine helps with controlling the food in the mouth. Most notably the thing that gives these beaks that would otherwise be a little pointlessly clunky and an issue for eating with is the very very powerful and muscular tongue which they use to shuffle the food and material around to adjust which parts are facing the bite force of the beak as well as to move the good food stuff from the nuts into their mouth while discarding the shell. Their tongue is more of a finger in their mouth.

Some species also have a like mini notch and/or bumpy and uneven parts (not the right term its early in the morning fight me) in their Maxilla which also helps in getting the "right" angle and bite force on the thing they are trying to tear apart

Specifically related to cutting plant material though, I strongly recommend looking up videos of female peach faced lovebirds and blue-crowned parrots as they are actually specifically known for cutting and precisely cutting off pieces of plant material (or in captivity, paper) for nest material and caching it in their feathers

And additionally for twigs just any big parrot (particularly cockatoos) are GODS at it

Also a good series that features cockatoos fucking up and just destroying shit is Maker's Muse's cockatoo puzzle series

Not related but also

Hope this gives some inspiration ^^ Feel free to ask more or anything that comes to mind cause me X birds

[humansbgone]

There were lots of other things taking up my attention this week, and in the end, I wasn't able to get a whole lot done on the new episode. However, I did figure out a few alternative methods for a scene I didn't how to tackle, so whichever method I choose, the setup is there waiting for me. 

Also realized I could simplify another thing I had slotted out for this week, so in the end, technically accomplished more of the to-do than I actually worked on. I also decided at this point, the rest of the props and backgrounds can and should be made as I go, for better integration with the animation and environment. (Luckily, all the most complicated props are already done!)

I also released an anthro design for Sophodra you may have seen. It was just for fun, but has gotten better reception than anything else I've released for this series. Maybe I'll do something with that, someday. Design here: https://humansbgone.tumblr.com/post/724575451809529856/thought-id-try-an-alternate-anthro-take-that 

The butterfly's shadow should be recognizable at this stage. The flowers, probably not.

I'll be busy with some more stuff, so I don't hold out a lot of hope for getting much done the rest of this week, or the weekend. Next week, however, I'll be diving in straight ahead with the animation! A month straight of that, at the very least, and then background and remaining prop work. That together with Gregorsa will take another month. So, with any luck, two more months and we're done! Fingers crossed. Until next time!

[granulesofsand]

hey there, good timezone. wishing you well. i've considered this for a while but never quite committed to the concept because.. hoo boy. anyway:

tbmc survivor here. do you personally feel that understanding the perpetrating organization's ideology could be useful in communicating, understanding, and figuring out how to work with parts? and, when their dogma/ideology is so complex/layered, how would you go about tracking and understanding it? especially when there's an excess of unusual vocab and concepts to be unraveled.

many thanks.

Unraveling Dogma

That’s up to you. I can tell you how we went about it, and if any of it sounds familiar we can talk again.

We’ve found a lot of good in unraveling our group’s ideology and what each alter was taught. It’s been smoother with the higher ups; not everything they learned was bad, but they couldn’t change anything until they understood what the different pieces meant to them.

They listed the principles, picked them apart, and put something together that was safer. It took a while, several cycles of picking and assembling, but a good few have come up with a healthy practice.

Part of the time spent in the spiral will be learning more about the heftier concepts— you can probably find a few fundamental beliefs and work out from there. It’s a spiral because you’re moving in more than just the same circle, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

You’re probably going to find conflicts in what you experienced versus what they claimed they were doing. Groups tend to work like that, and even abusive groups with abusive doctrine stray every so often. There’ll be times when people placed power over procedure, especially if it’s an offshoot of a nonabusive practice.

There were likely tricks to convince you the group or an authority was all-powerful or capable of defying the laws of physics. Even if you believe in some of what you were taught, you don’t have to believe they did it (talking with deities, for example).

Expect pushback from alters who were conditioned with all of it. Showing them new points to empower themselves where power was taken can help. Higher ups are often told they’re special or suffering for a cause; they might have to break down where they find meaning, but they can also build it back up.

The plain logistics with vocabulary and layers we did with charts and drawings. Every time we found a hierarchy, we drew it out separately. Every new word gets added to a list and a web connecting it to similar concepts.

Pull it apart and lay it out so you can see it, even if not all at the same time. We make books for our internal archive so others can learn without fronting, but that’s different for everyone too.

Researching other religions, starting with those entwined with that one, helps trace the origins of each bit. There’s a chance of finding other means of worship if you can trace the root

Our group was primarily dualist Christian, heavy belief in both God and Satan. Converts brought their previous culture with them, including some religious ties. The leaders prioritized power and balance, and thought their best bet was to trace those beliefs as far back as they could.

The end result was a convoluted and twisty belief system that sometimes contradicted itself. We learned about Crowley and sex magic and the Assyrian gods who used temple prostitution, and from that alone we got two of our higher ups participating in alternative methods.

You might be chasing word etymology and ceremonial history for a while. Ultimately, it’s good to have a better understanding of other beliefs. It might be too difficult to get into what your group had, but there is still benefit to exploring similar ideas and other options.

Grocery store school supplies are your friends. Get some 50 cent notebooks and pencils, get into it when you have a few hours free. It’s interesting if you can connect to it, and you can. Take notes on anything even vaguely relevant.

I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s hard. Sometimes you might end up learning a language to read old poems or counting in base 60 to understand numerology. It’s up to you whether it’s worthwhile for your system.

I do recommend it, though. With breaks and vacations where you hide the notebooks and do leisure activities only for a week. You get a lot of new information, even if it doesn’t relate back how you hoped. I cannot overemphasize the breaks, though.

Treat yourself and your system members well. Maybe pretend you’re an anthropologist. I believe you can do it, or I believe you can make the informed decision not to. Good luck.

[no-side-us]

Letters From Watson Liveblog - Mar. 26

The Dying Detective, Part 2

A part of me really wants to see an alternate and expanded version of this story, where everybody Watson encounters is, for some peculiar reason, really happy at the news that Holmes is sick and dying. And it would fall on Watson to figure out why.

I love descriptions like this. You couldn't make a building look smug and demure in real life, but in writing the imagination is all you need to make it so.

I'm all for pretending you're not home when you have unwanted visitors, but it'd probably work better if said visitors couldn't hear your voice. Does he not know that Watson can hear him?

So Mr. Smith does know that Watson could hear him, otherwise why else would he say this line. I guess he's just rude enough to not care.

Watson, you have to start trusting your own senses more. Sometimes it's not the angle of the light, or a nervous tick, sometimes people just let the mask slip.

You know, this line makes me think that a good way to make a villain for Holmes is to take one of his many skills and build a whole character around them. The same way Holmes is to the detective profession, or Moriarty is to crime and Culverton Smith here is to disease. It could be a chemist, or actor, or boxer on Holmes' level.

Is this the closest either Holmes or Watson will get to an outright "I love you"? Although it is a pretty roundabout way of saying so.

Oh my, Holmes is a method actor. I do question his efforts for this specific role however. There must be easier ways to play a dehydrated and starving man on the brink of death than to dehydrate and starve yourself to the brink of death.

I would be offended, quite honestly. And I think Mrs. Hudson and Watson should be too. Surely Holmes could have just told Watson the plan from the beginning. It's not like he and Culverton Smith were talking to each other for a long time anyways. In fact, Smith even forgot Watson's name!

Yeah, I feel like the makeup and the acting would have been enough to fool Culverton. Especially with the room being dark. I don't think the starvation and dehydration was necessary.

Also, today's letter taught me a new word. "Malingering" is the act of exaggerating or feigning illness in order to escape duty or work. I'm surprised it's not used more.

I like that at least Holmes acknowledges that he does indeed recognize and respect Watson's medical expertise, especially with how hurt Watson was by his earlier words.

And on to the next case. I will try to summon as much festive spirit for it as I can muster.

Part 1 - Part 2