#Holme Tunnel

[colgreen31]

Holme Tunnel, Cliviger Near Burnley.

www.clickasnap.com/f02df8ea-2689-54f0-a603-b8c2f89d3c16/photo/01GSR6M8WYT3C9MW040038CZ0M Check it out on ClickASnap

[cctinsleybaxter]

Why is the Chicago airport like. Fucked up

[joe-punisher777]

Having Cup of Coffee ☕️

[jontycrane]

Alps to Ocean Trail - Tokarahi to Oamaru

My final day on the A2O Trail, finishing up at the historic town of Oamaru after cycling nearly 300km over six days from Twizel. Between Tokarahi and Oamaru is basically farmland, which the trail weaves through thanks to the generosity of land owners. Tokarahi is a tiny place, with some old buildings, and even more old cars! After five days of excellent weather it finally started to turn but…

[1-50thofabuck]

All the World’s Monsters Readthrough

The following has not been proofread. It may contain typos, I may use the same words or phrases too many times, and so on. Tumblr also removes a lot of formatting such as underlines. Maybe I'll fix or update it in the future; maybe I won't. (Things like underlining being removed is beyond my control.) If there are serious corrections as regards facts presented, I will definitely amend such points. Please feel free to comment such corrections; or any comments at all. I want to read through with all of you!

All the World’s Monsters: 

A Readthrough, Part I

Longwinded Introduction

This is a feature I’ve been wanting to work on for quite some time. Originally I wanted to write it with another person, and had various ideas on how that would work, but that didn’t happen. It’s a readthrough of the world’s first monster collection for an RPG. That I’m aware of, anyway - there very well might be some obscure or unsung prior volumes on the same topic(at the very least, perhaps zine monster collections?). I’m talking about Chaosium’s All the World’s Monsters. It’s an interesting book for sure, in a number of ways. 

For one thing, not so much had become standardized. What information was important to know about a monster might vary by personal taste or by the specific version of the game being played. All the World’s Monsters was released after Holmes Basic but before the AD&D Monster Manual, which was the first of the AD&D books to be released(because I guess they figured people could still use the monster stats with other versions of the game while they completed the other core books). 

Holmes Basic, for those unaware(and I won’t go into it too far because you can find plenty of histories on this out there with all the detail you’d like - skip this paragraph if you know about this already), was created as a way of introducing people to the D&D game as presented in the original white box set and Supplement I: Greyhawk. It was also a way of teaching people how to put those pieces together, or at least, one of the ways to do it, since the white box game was sort of all over the place, and difficult for people to grasp - especially if they had no prior boardgame knowledge beyond Monopoly and no wargaming knowledge. It kind of assumed you knew a lot of terms of general procedures for the more advanced board games and such, and that you would otherwise fill in the blanks. Holmes Basic did that for you. Furthermore, and it’s my understanding that this was more of a “Gygax shoehorning stuff he wanted in” aspect, but there are a few references to AD&D concepts and even the game itself, such as the exhortation to purchase AD&D if you wished to know how to have exotic characters like halfling thieves, or progress beyond 3rd level. (With the OD&D books you could do that anyway, and this was just a sales pitch.) It also introduced something closer to AD&D’s alignment system, except that you couldn’t play any neutral character besides a true neutral one: no neutral good, no chaotic neutral(there goes half my players!). 

There’s a lot to say about this version of the game, and some people play this one exclusively, even coming up with retroclones such as Blueholme! And some of what I have to say on it will be relevant, because All the World’s Monsters was written with the assumption that Holmes Basic reflected the standard we would be seeing from that point on, including little oddities never to appear in any other edition or version of D&D ever again!

Another thing that makes the book so intriguing is, being the first of its kind, there were so many monsters out there that hadn’t been statted yet - at least in a published book that others could look at and draw inspiration from. So until they got statted in AD&D’s Deities and Demigods, who could argue, “officially,” how many hit dice a shoggoth should have, what its AC should be, and so on? The original books gave no stats for any kind of sphinx - what would an androsphinx’s HD be? Same as a lion? More? What’s a lion’s HD anyway? Spotted lions are listed in the OD&D encounter tables, but there are no statistics for them(in the white box set, anyway). Or how about an elephant - how many HD should it have? What should its AC be? While the white box told us that rocs are sometimes large enough to prey on elephants(an incredible concept rendered rather banal now by overuse), it didn’t tell us what statistics an elephant should have. How would you stat it, without peeking at your MM?  Guess, what would you give them? Highlight the following for the answer: 

Tumblr won't allow me to set text to white because why would it? I'm leaving the "highlight the following line" bit out of stubborness at not allowing the formatting I require. (11 HD, AC 6)

So at that time, there were a myriad animals and monsters that had never before seen print in the form of D&D/AD&D statistics. This gives a lot of room for creativity - you couldn’t look at some other book and say “Gee, I gave this monster 9 HD, but the official ones are 4/this unofficial supplement gives them 5. Did I overrate them that badly?” Maybe so, maybe not. 

Statting animals and monsters is more art than science, though there’s some of that, too. The fact is, these are fairly arbitrary measures, and if you attempt to work out the official stats and come up with some kind of formula, you’ll drive yourself insane. Many things in the game, admittedly, were varied for the sake of variation. Weapon damage, for instance, was stated to have been made up for the purpose of variety - there’s no real reason that one weapon causes 2d4 while another causes 1d8 other than providing a wide spread of different dice types and combinations for weapons. (Yes, 2d4 gives you a bell curve with average score of 5 and a minimum score of 2, but the reason for this wasn’t because the weapon itself logically should, but rather to provide a variation.) I suspect that wolves being described as far smaller than they actually are was for a similar reason - wanting lower-level characters to be able to fight creatures that low-level monsters(goblins) often ride, but also to offer dire wolves, wargs, etc as upgrades. (Which still could have been done with properly-sized wolves, so maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree…)

Not only were so many animals and monsters unstatted, but again - formatting, and even rules weren’t fully codified or formulated yet. To some degree, many wouldn’t be until 3e made a concentrated effort to make everything formulaic with very specific processes and rules for everything, as well as to “balance” every monster and class, a task monumentally failed. As a good example of the lack of cohesion, look up monsters that strangle or drown and see how many different ways it’s done. I’m not saying this to knock the “old way” - there’s a reason I play old versions of D&D almost exclusively. Restricting yourself with unnecessary formulas and intricate templates is not typically of benefit, and having the flexibility to model things in different ways is superior to having to consult a list of codified formulas to make sure everything adds up. 

But at this stage, even some of the few things that became standards had yet to come into play. In most instances, there were no examples to follow to determine, say, how almost any given special ability a creature might have should be modeled. So even this had to be determined by what were essentially fans writing for their favorite game. 

As you can see, this was an exciting time, and an incredible opportunity - to set in black & white, in numbers, all the different things that D&D/AD&D classifies as “monsters” - anything that isn’t a PC! Setting down on paper, for the first time, so many different monsters. Devising rules for powers and abilities that nobody had created(at least publically available) rules for. Incorporating rules that would only exist for one basic introductory iteration of the system. (Not that they knew that!) Having the chance to determine formatting and all kinds of things that nobody had yet done.

Worlds and cosmoses full of things that still needed to be expressed in numbers and ability descriptions were waiting to be codified. This was, in fact, one of my misconceptions about the book when I purchased it - I thought it was more like Monsters of Myth and Legend by Mayfair as part of their Role Aids line, where they went through all different world mythologies and folklore in order to stat out all the various legendary monsters. All the World’s Monsters was really just a compilation of monsters submitted to Chaosium, and most of them are provided by but a handful of people - but we’ll explore that as we get into the actual readthrough.

Book Description

The first thing one will notice, besides for the eye-catching red background with stark black art, is that it’s sideways. It’s designed to be flipped or turned “up” from the bottom, so the spine is to the top. Similarly, the back cover is read sideways, spine upwards. I don’t need to do a critique or commentary on the art here; it’s pretty cool. I’m pretty uncritical of art, especially in low-budget/indie publications, and especially if the content is otherwise good. 

To the back cover, we’re told the book is “an encyclopedia of the strange, the bizarre, and the deadly,” with “265 monstrous and dangerous creatures,” all by creators from the North American continent(or at least, most of it). We’re given sample stats for a kodiak bear - remember, there weren’t(to my knowledge) stats for any bears yet. (I didn’t consult the back cover before writing the bit about bears, previously.) Actually, we’re given the description, not the full stats - so we can’t read through and critique a set of stats just yet! But there’s an interesting part even here.

For instance, the description mentions that the kodiak can “fight at full efficiency so long as it has one-fourth of its hit points left.” There were some optional rules in OD&D that included dexterity reductions and various penalties at different percentages of HP loss. Such rules are difficult to implement, particularly at low levels, when a small hit will often take 75% of a PC’s HP, and adds yet another element(or two or three or four) to track. Regardless, people surely used those rules, and I imagine this part of the description was a special ability that applied only to those using these kinds of rules. 

A kodiak mother gains bonuses in combat to protect her young and kodiaks have a chance of a hug attack, nothing too noteworthy or mind-blowing.

We end with a note about this being the third printing(it’s what I’ve got), there being another volume out, and a third on the way, and a line about the editors. Steve Perrin is one of them, and the blurb mentions that he’s the “co-author of RuneQuest,” a game I like very much, personally. Then some info about Chaosium and where you can write for info and so on.

The book itself is 109 pages, with the last 3 pages unnumbered, as they are tables, specifically, a monster level chart, to help with placing the monsters found in the book on the appropriate dungeon level, and a table for creating random monsters. Perhaps we’ll roll up a few in a future installment for fun.

The Book’s Introduction Page

Opening the cover we get a title page and introduction. If you thought the sideways book was just a feature of the cover - it’s not. The whole book is like this. And I have to say, I tried to be open minded about it. I told myself “You’re using it the same as you’d use any book except for how it’s turned, it doesn’t actually make any difference.” I hate when something is done in a new way and everyone rejects it because it’s different. While I can see the flaws in it, I really loved the Monstrous Compendium stuff made with hole-punched pages for sorting in a looseleaf binder. I feel like it failed less because of the flaws in it and more because it seemed too different, and was simply dismissed out of hand. So I try really hard not to do that.

But the format really bugs me. 

Moving on to the introduction, I have to wonder how close this is to whatever introduction was originally written, since it opens by mentioning that this is the third printing. Mr. Perrin goes on to tell us that it was made for “games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, and the Arduin Grimoire.”

I have a few comments on this. Originally I wanted to say it was neat how this early one could simply reference D&D like that without a problem, but apparently the book did, in fact, cause a stir with TSR. I have not listened to the linked podcast, but the description says that this was the case. Once this readthrough is complete, I’ll go back and listen to the podcast; I’d like to get my own impressions, and maybe make a few guesses at some things, and see if I’m right or how much my ideas mesh with what they say.

Tunnels & Trolls(another game I quite like) is interesting since it didn’t really have monster stats, so using these in that game would be more for descriptive flavor.

As for the Arduin Grimoire, for those unaware, it was originally written as a sort of expansion and add-on to OD&D. This, too, caused problems, and it eventually became its own game(despite never playing it, its monster the “vampusa” remains a favorite of mine to this day). Gary Gygax mocked it in the form of a cursed item in AD&D, a book that drives the reader insane(one might have assumed it was a Lovecraft inspired item, but its inspiration was pure spite). 

It goes on to tell us that they have 50,000 monsters, and how they might not use yours and how they chose the ones that went in here, info about the art, where to mail feedback about the monsters you want to see. What’s of real interest here is the mention that Dave Hargrave and Paul Jaquays gave them permission to use some of their own copywritten monsters, but these had to be removed due to space limitations. They then recommend Mr. Hargrave’s Arduin Grimoire(I’m sure that helped endear them to TSR), among other things, as well as several publications by Jaquays. These were presumably the publications from which the monsters would have been taken, and we’re told they will be in future volumes of AtWM.

Table of Contents

Skimming through, there are some really neat looking ones. 

Archer bush? That was a later Mystara monster adapted into 2nd ed and currently 5e(not sure if it was in 3e or 4e or not and don’t particularly care). Sometimes it’s hard to say if multiple people had the same idea or one ripped the other off. Especially in this early time when lots of people were putting out monsters and few had previously, people were bound to have similar if not identical ideas. Such things have happened in much less likely circumstances. 

Some very odd ones right off the bat. Snake ape? On the other hand, things like “air squids” are why I read these kinds of collections.

Batarang. Was DC ever notified of this infringement?

Plenty of slimy monsters: blue horror(which I’m guessing is a slime-type?), red blob, maybe “brown ich?,” gelatinous blue horror(maybe the original isn’t a slime after all), green slime golem. Eh, maybe not as many as I thought. We’ll get a better idea as we read through them, I don’t want to spend all day browsing the contents. And neither do you, I’m sure!

Vampire bear. Heh. Brain stealer(geteit chemosit). Is that German? I feel like I’ve seen other monsters in here with similar names. Will have to see if that’s true and if they’re written by the same author.

Carnivorous… typo? Carnivorous typo. Typo, carnivorous. Are you serious? If this doesn’t end up being some kind of meta monster I’m going to be quite disappointed.

Here’s another thing about the formatting. It makes sense as a normal book, in that one column continues in the column to its right. But because of the formatting of the book, you expect it to continue down the column on the next page below it. It’s a small thing, honestly, but it’s noticeable. 

A lot of monsters that would see official stats later, as expected. Crocotta, cyclops, various demons - but no devils! There’s a “sun devil,” but since there’s no “devil” category I figure it’s a devil in the way a tasmanian devil is a devil - in a non-literal sense. It looks like there are some traditional powerful monsters from myth and legend among the demons, as Ymir(“Prince of Ice Demons”) is one of them, and some of these others may turn out to be similar things - it’s hard to tell from the names, such as “serpent king” and “twelfth plane,” which yes, is the name of a demon. As three demons are listed as “ice,” I imagine they were going more for a frozen Hell as opposed to a fiery one, which would be why they used Ymir instead of Surtr. The latter would have been a much more obvious choice, being a fiery giant who is to burn the universe to ashes as the grand finale of the final conflict between good and evil(yes I’m simplifying it, this isn’t a mythology lesson).

A good number of golems, including diamond, dust, the aforementioned green slime, ice(unusual but not impossible in a magical world, or in frozen places, where they’d be quite evocative), quicksilver(which would also appear in Mystara as simply “silver golems”), wood(ditto), and oddest of all - tar.

Ground octopus, like “air squid,” is the kind of thing I read these books for. Again, there’s kind of a similar monster in Mystara, the decapus, which tends to live in trees. Personally, my favorites are the octorocks of the Legend of Zelda series. While mentioning both air squids and video games, I’ll throw in that the Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 featured flying squids as well. I should also mention that I haven’t played video games in 30 years, so I will routinely recall things like this and not the 3,000 instances of them that have likely appeared in video games in the interim. 

I never thought I’d see triffids in a monster book. I love it! Some Lewis Carrol monsters, some from myth and legend, such as the “three sons of Argatron.” I had to look that up, by the way, as it sounded historical but I wasn’t sure. Google corrected me to some random other word first, and then when I insisted that it search for what I actually typed, it pulled the legends right up. I didn’t read them though; we’ll do that when we get to the entry! Man-Scorpion, another monster not yet statted. As far as I know, they’re usually called “scorpion men,” so the formatting of “man” first is an unusual coincidence and I wonder if there was some famous or classical text popular at the time that used that form. At any rate, it says “see Humbaba,” who, if I’m not terribly wrong, was not a scorpion man. 

There are several Lovecraftian things, including stats for Nyarlathotep. I believe I have probably 3 or 4 sets of stats for him, for various editions of D&D, and I look forward to contrasting them all and seeing how they compare, especially this earliest one to, say, the newest one I have. Of course, being published by Chaosium, they had the rights to these monsters.

Not so much the olog-hai, which was a direct property of the Tolkien Estate. If “hobbit,” a word Professor Tolkien did not even invent, had to be removed from early versions of D&D, one must imagine that the only reason the same didn’t occur here is that this book flew under their radar. (In fact, I believe hobbits were removed by choice, in order to prevent future legal issues, but this is another point I could be quite wrong on.)

Let’s move on and not spend all day speculating and rambling about a table of contents, shall we?

Creators

I don’t want to add up the number of creators used, as many are combinations of creators and so forth. Dan Pierson created the largest number of monsters, with 28 entries printed in the book. It seems like the average is about a dozen or a bit less, just glancing at the numbers and guessing. If someone cares enough to do the math, have fun. 

One little point is the last line: “There are 265 entries and 113 cross-references.” So out of these monsters, almost half of them are related to(in some way or another, whether as biologically related, as enemies, or whatever) others. If that’s what it means, that would make some sense given that some creators contributed a dozen or more monsters, and there’s often going to be such connections(such as someone creating a number of “ice demons”). This kind of thing is good, as it can be incorporated to give the denizens of your world, and your world by extension, more of a feeling of depth and history, that these monsters have relations, alliances and rivalries, and aren’t just a set of numbers. 

“Interpreting the Monster Entries”

An explanation of what the stats mean and so forth. There are a few points of interest here. They mention that random numbers are “expressed as die rolls,” in case you played D&D and somehow didn’t know what 3d6 meant. This is great though, as it saves the trouble of figuring out what to use to determine 3-6(it’s 1d4+2). There are reasons that Gygax chose to express numbers as, say, the aforementioned 3-6 instead of 1d4+2, which was to emphasize that the numbers were important and not how they were generated, opening people up to new dice rolling conventions and so forth. Unfortunately, what it mostly did was confuse people with some of the more difficult to interpret number ranges. 

We’re told that intelligence is abbreviated as IQ(as it is in the later GURPS) and expressed as a die roll - so instead of being told “very” or given a specific number, we’re given dice to roll to determine the intelligence of any given monster. (I do this in my own games and monster stats, so it’s nice to see someone else doing this a number of years before I was capable of playing.)

Most of the rest of the explanations are mundane and not worth reviewing, it’s basic information. 

One thing it doesn’t bother to explain or mention is the fact that it has a dexterity range for each monster in the same way it has an IQ range. Here, dexterity is abbreviated DEXT., which makes me wonder if the DEX abbreviation had been used yet on character sheets or was still a little bit away? Remember, this book was released after Holmes Basic and before a single AD&D book, including the first AD&D book released, the Monster Manual.

More importantly than the abbreviation is why that was there. It was there because in Holmes Basic, the melee combatants attack in order of dexterity, regardless of who won initiative or initiated combat. The Holmes book mentions the question of “who strikes the first blow?” as one unresolved in OD&D, which seems very odd. OD&D never really explained initiative at all, and expected you to default to Chainmail order of initiative. It may have not expected you to use the combat “phases,” but just the die mechanic that determined which side acted first - that being a d6 and the higher goes first. Later versions would have the lower roll act first, with the option to positively/detrimentally modify the roll by weapon speed. There is mention that dexterity might affect various things including initiative, but there’s no exact rule explaining how. Most people just assumed that the one with the initiative attacked first, and this was how the game has been played, for the most part, ever since(and I imagine, for most, during and before, as well). Personally, I think it’s great, and would enjoy trying the rule out. I favor using phases and aspects of combat that add some amount of strategy, where “I run up and attack” can often be detrimental to waiting for a more opportune moment and so forth. I’d prefer the combat phases, and have played with them for many, many years, but I’d be quite open to the Holmes Basic version of combat. (Someone want to run it for me?) 

As yet another digression, it’s funny how often I’ve played games with people that ran their system of choice for decades, sometimes since the game was released, and never knew how initiative actually worked in said system. People get so used to it working a certain way in lots of games, and they either never consult the rule in their own game, or forget it and replace it in their mind with another. I’ve played in multiple Marvel Super Heroes games where everyone rolled a d10 for initiative, and when I pointed out it was one die per side, the judges in each case looked at me quizzically and then continued doing it how they had been doing it forever. The fact that they had been performing the most basic part of their favorite game wrong for 30+ years was too much to consider so it was simply dismissed.

And with that, I’ll wrap this first entry. I hope it wasn’t too boring - I know I ramble and digress, but it’s kind of part of the point I suppose. I hope you’ll stick with me for the monsters, even if you found this part kind of weak, and that you’ll let me know what you think, as well, because I want to go over this with you, not just read a review to a brick wall. It’s not a review, it’s a readthrough, me and you, if you please.

So.

Let’s read All the World’s Monsters together!

[ersh-ova]

I died at "no kurit" this is beautiful

This is the Cursed English of all Russian Sherlock Holmes adaptations, reblog in 30 seconds to fail your English exam. 

[ozzgin]

The overwhelming urge for a spooky detective story where you take a boat to a remote island to investigate a series of suspicious murders, and the patron Lovecraftian monster of the town becomes interested in you (to an unhealthy extent). Thus he orders the cult to chase you down and retrieve you. You think they’re trying to kill you, so you do your best to evade their kidnapping attempts. The more aggressive they become, the more certain you are that truth is getting closer. In reality, eldritch creature is just becoming terribly impatient to be in possession of the curious little human.

But wait, now that I’m typing this, an idea occurs to me: the murders are completely unrelated to the cult! You realize it after finally meeting the ancient Beast. He is greatly amused by your detective shenanigans, so he insists on helping you solve the case.

There you have it. Sherlock Holmes with a tentacle Watson who occasionally tries to flirt with you. Next episode: the underground tunnels that lead to the true villain only have one bed available.

[Full story is now finished]

[thefictionalhurt]

Let me introduce you to my whump obsession: Link Click. I often see plenty of people on my dash theorizing about this show and they are right to do so because it is so much fun and destroying me slowly. Anyway, what I haven't seen is anyone capturing the beautiful whump, so allow me.

Obviously Spoilers for the first two seasons, if you'd like to watch it yourself (which I highly recommend).

I'm going to be focusing on Lu Guang here, because he is my little meow meow. Season 1 is relatively tame. Season 2 starts with Lu Guang having been stabbed.

Bonus: Live Reaction of his friend Cheng Xiaoshi

Lu Guang is rushed off to the hospital, while the police take Cheng Xiaoshi away (who they think stabbed the poor dude)

Police tell Cheng Xiaoshi his best friend died (for Lu Guang's protection) and that scene is an absolute highlight so I'll try to post it in a clip later.

Ah yes, then Cheng Xiaoshi almost gets kidnapped, Lu Guang rushes from the hospital to save him, gets kidnapped instead. And tortured. While his friends desperately search for him.

The bad guys(TM) set up a hostage exchange: Lu Guang for Cheng Xiaoshi. Not without staging it very dramatically.

The exchange happens, Lu Guang flees the building with his other friend, Qiao Ling, when it goes kaboom.

They survive, dragging a police man to safety with them (so heroic!) and Cheng Xiaoshi's plan to do Cheng Xiaoshi shenanigans and escape the bad guys failed. Lu suddenly turns into damn Sherlock Holmes and deduces where they must have taken his friend, so they follow.

Epic final battle in the subway tunnels. Cheng Xiaoshi is wrestling one bad guy, Lu Guang swoops in to save him. Proceeds to get tasered.

Ladies and Gentleman, we've got a whumper after our own heart here, because once bad guy has a hold of Lu Guang, he digs his fingers into his wound.

No, Lu Guang cannot catch a break, because now bad guy 2 shows up and shoots Cheng Xiaoshi. Lu Guang is feral and the two friends fight the baddy. He's an ex-cop tho and look at those abs. He wipes the floor with them.

The End. Just kidding, they get saved by cop friend (who literally never arrives with backup and frequently endangers civilians what).

I hope to make gifs or clips for all this goodness but phew, that needed to get out of my system. Seriously, it's so good. The English dubbed version is a master piece of pained noises if you ask me. But not just the whump, all around the characters, the music, the animation, chef's kiss. Also, there will be a Season 3 and a shorter arc of six episodes is currently airing.

[averagestrayrat]

why should we talk about it? is something wrong with it? it's a testament to the years of friendship between Holmes and Watson. what exactly are you trying to imply here?

I know we’re all talking about it but why is no one talking about the tunnel of brotherly love

[thegildedbee]

Jealousy/Empty: May 27 & 28 Prompts from @calaisreno

This latest chapter and the previous ones are here at ao3. ...............................................................................................

On only rare occasions did Mycroft Holmes’s body register qualms about a plan of action. Long ago he had decided not to second-guess well-studied plans at their point of execution; to do so was to invite potentially disastrous distractions, with the deployment of second guessing performing as does Hercules’s sword when it slashes at the neck of the mythical hydra, only for it to grow two more, and so on ad infinitum. The meeting about to take place that he had arranged by subterfuge is one of those rare occasions.

Watson’s visit the preceding week had been exceedingly unwelcome for a number of reasons, but mostly as it left him with having to decide how to resolve the dilemma it presented of his brother’s instruction that Dr. Watson was not to be given any indication that Sherlock had survived the fall from Bart’s roof. However, the stable door was no longer shut, and the horse had bolted.

After failing his brother in the Moriarty affair, Mycroft had felt honor-bound to accept Sherlock’s outline of his plans to go underground and undercover, after he had been summoned to the morgue by Miss Hooper. He had indeed acquiesced to Sherlock’s strategies at the launching of his mission; once a mission is underway, needs must as to corrections and improvisations that have to be made based on changed circumstances. Such was his conclusion.

In consequence, there was one matter that he had decided could no longer remain hidden. The remedy required summoning Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and Detective Inspector Lestrade. He refused to undergo the required machinations three times as a concession to his own disquiet about the matter. He had made a reservation for Watson to take Mrs. Hudson to tea at St. Ermin’s Hotel, and he had made an arrangement for the Detective Inspector to meet with one of his MI5 case officers off-site from their respective government offices at the Caxton Bar at the hotel. At the conclusion of these two events, preparations had been made to take all three of them through an underground tunnel that ran from the hotel to a secure location nearby, which held only three chairs and a table. It was now time for him to join them.

As he opens the door to the room, all three faces greet him – as he had expected – with various mixtures of surprise, resignation, resentment, and curiosity.

“I want to thank you all for being here,” he begins, with all three of them rolling their eyes. He grimaces, and continues, saying, “you will understand the need for secrecy directly.” He places in front of each of them a stapled stack of papers with a blank cover that contains only a series of numbers at the top right.

“I know from Dr. Watson that the three of you have divined that Sherlock is alive, and that he has been at work since his presumed death in espionage activities against the Moriarty enterprise. What you do not know is why, and I believe that, going forward, you must be read into that area of the case.”

“And what is it that we have come here to read?” Watson asks, his voice hard, with a challenging edge.

“My brother tossed his mobile on the roof before he fell. He had made such preparations as he could, expecting that the odds were that he would survive the fall, but he knew that there were substantial odds that he would not be successful. The public information about the mobile that was given was that it was empty of any relevant information. However, Sherlock had recorded the last conversation he had with Moriarty using the voice memo app on the mobile."

It is now Lestrade who speaks, his voice tinged with disbelief. “So what we have here is evidence that was withheld from the investigation.”

“Yes, Detective Inspector. On national security grounds. What I am going to share with you is, in fact, beyond your authorized levels. I have granted clearances for each of you for the next 20 minutes. My brother did not intend for you to learn of this conversation, so I have not brought the actual recording; to hear about this event in his own voice is – either through this means or directly – I believe, a decision for him alone. I cannot ask him for that permission, because Dr. Watson has told me that Sherlock is not to be told that you know the truth about his death. What you have before you is an unredacted written transcript of the conversation.”

“Mycroft Holmes!” Mrs. Hudson begins, addressing him with some asperity. “I am quite sure I do not know what to do with you!"

“For now, nothing. What is to be done immediately is for you to read the transcript, if that is your wish. You do not, of course, have to do so.”

He notes that all three look stunned; but there it is, there’s nothing that can be done to mitigate that circumstance. As difficult as reading through the record of Sherlock’s “last” conversation may be, they do all have each other, the closeness amongst them having become even more so over the last month of their shared investigations. He tamps down a flare of jealousy. They will be fine.

“I shall leave you to it then,” he says, with a slight bow. Taking one last glance at them as they each turn to the first page, he quits the room, softly closing the door behind him.

........................................................

@calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @friday411 @peanitbear @original-welovethebeekeeper

@helloliriels @a-victorian-girl @keirgreeneyes @starrla89 @naefelldaurk

@topsyturvy-turtely @lisbeth-kk @raina-at @jobooksncoffee @meetinginsamarra

@solarmama-plantsareneat @bluebellofbakerstreet @dragonnan @safedistancefrombeingsmart @jolieblack

@msladysmith @ninasnakie @riversong912 @dapetty

.............................................................................

[dumpster-fire-sapphic-failgirl]

Spoilers for act 3 of season 2 of arcane:

The ending, the weird question, and the detective of it all:

Okay, so, Jinx is alive. She hopped skipped and jumped away from the explosion and got on that airship. Because she realized that Vi was very bad at letting go of things, and that Vi will always sacrifice herself trying to save the people she loved

Caitlyn also knows all of these things. She knows how quick Jinx can move. She would know if there was a body or not (my money is on not). She checks the blueprints. She probably does a whole ass sherlock holmes mind palace breakdown of the tunnel and the explosion.

then she hears Vi. And she smiles. And goes to her. And asks “Are you still in this fight, Violet?”

The war with Ambessa / Noxus is over. The war with the machines is over. Piltover / Zaun have reached some kind of accord, with Sevika getting a place on the council. So what fight is left?

The fight to stay alive.

She’s asking if Vi still has the will to live.

And Vi, always the scrapper, even though she’s been hurt and lost so much, does. She’s around for the long haul. Ready to rebuild. Mourning, yeah, but knows she will eventually move on.

So Cait keeps her mouth shut.

Because she knew that if Vi thought there was a chance of Jinx being alive, it would consume Vi. There would be nothing but the search for her sister. And if Cait had been wrong it would have destroyed Vi.

If that’s what it took to keep Vi going, she would have told her.

But Vi didn’t need that. So Cait sits with it, knowing full well the gift Jinx gave them. A new life. A fresh start. The fight continues. But not the cycle

[edosianorchids901]

Where Flowers Bloom

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt - "pushing up daisies"

“Crowley!”

Crowley jumped, startled awake by the sudden call, and nearly fell out of the hammock. He steadied himself, then pushed up his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. “Hrgk?”

“Where are you, you old serpent?”

“Hammock.” He had been taking a nice, solid nap. Unintentionally. He’d been reading a sci-fi novel, but apparently it hadn’t held his interest. “Where are you?”

After a moment, Aziraphale traipsed out from behind a hedge and waved. He wore a floppy hat and green gardening gloves today. “I’ve just been looking over the vegetable beds.”

“Oh? How are they?”

“They’re pushing up daisies.”

Crowley stared at Aziraphale’s displeased expression. “What? What happened?”

“I just told you.”

“No, but how?”

“I have no idea.” 

“No, I mean, are the plants withered? Does it look like there were animals digging in the beds? Or did…” A sudden suspicion crept through the fog of Crowley’s mind. “Wait. Hold up. What do you think ‘pushing up daisies’ means, angel?”

Aziraphale stared at him. “That it’s pushing up daisies.”

“Right, but what does that mean?”

The befuddlement on Aziraphale’s face wrenched into concern. He stepped closer and laid his gloved hand on Crowley’s brow. Then he pulled his glove off and touched Crowley’s brow again. “You don’t seem overheated, but given your confusion, I’m a bit concerned you may have given yourself sunstroke.”

“I’m in the shade.”

“Yes, but you’re awfully confused.”

“Nuh.” Crowley shook his head. “I’m not now. ‘Pushing up daisies’ is an expression. Means ‘dead’. But m’ guessing you mean literal daisies, eh?”

“Of course I mean literal daisies!” Frowning, Aziraphale shook his head. “I really do find your methods of expression difficult to follow.”

“Oy, it wasn’t my expression. Human ingenuity.” Crowley tried to climb out of the hammock and almost flipped it over. Aziraphale wordlessly caught his arm and helped him out. “Thanks. Er. Er, okay. So, are you sure they’re daisies? Not vegetables that have bolted?”

“They aren’t runaway vegetables, no.”

Crowley groaned. Sometimes, having a conversation with Aziraphale could turn into a nightmare. For somehow who read as much as he did, he had tunnel vision when it came to vocabulary. “Nuh, that means when the plant goes to seed early. It doesn’t mean running away. Well, except maybe in the case of the horseradish.”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to groan. “That was an awful pun.”

“Yes,” Crowley agreed. “Come on, angel. Let’s go see.”

Once they reached the vegetable beds, it didn’t take very long to confirm that they weren’t growing vegetables. Crowley walked all the way around anyway, glaring at each flower.

“Well,” he finally said, looking over the sea of white and yellow with occasional splashes of pink, “those are definitely daisies.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“Never doubted you.” Crowley winked, knowing Aziraphale would see it despite the dark glasses in the way. Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Okay. Okay. So, what happened to the vegetables? D’ya think someone broke in and switched them out? Could be part of a secret plot.”

Aziraphale blinked at him. “You’ve been watching too many James Bond films. I think the true answer is much simpler than that. Elementary, really.”

“You’ve been reading too many Sherlock Holmes stories.”

“No such thing, my dear.”

“And there’s no such thing as too many James Bond films.” Crossing his arms, Crowley stared at the vegetable bed. Flowerbed, now. “Could be the seed company switched the seeds to save money.”

Aziraphale chuckled. “No. I really don’t think it’s that.”

“What is it, then?”

Smiling, Aziraphale took his hand. “My dear fellow, do you remember an afternoon when we’d had a little too much wine, and decided it might be fun to try ‘drunk gardening’?”

Crowley froze. “Oh no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Shitshitshit, we absolutely grabbed the wrong seed packets, didn’t we? Forgot to double check, didn’t we?”

“It seems so.”

Crowley hissed in annoyance. Then he pulled himself together, making a new plan. “Right, okay. Time to cut some flowers for a table centerpiece.”

[thishazeleyeddemon]

Yeah

(note: Kabru's internal narration refers to someone who's 15 as nearly an adult. I don't think this, I'm just following Dunmesh worldbuilding with culture.)

'Kabru met the woman and her daughter at just the right moment.

For Kabru, anyway. She was tired - bone tired, the kind of tired that made her wish fervently for Holm. She had no idea where she was - the goddamn tunnels had shifted, and now she could be anywhere. It was no use trying to find her party in this maze. She had to make it back to the surface. She could meet up with them there.

If she made it that far. She was acutely aware of her track record in the dungeon.

The flickering firelight up ahead made something in her stomach unclench. If she found people, she'd be okay; she wouldn't have any trouble persuading someone to let her tag back to the surface with them. A lone woman could be in danger from a party of strangers, she thought, and tightened her hand on her sword. Hopefully it wouldn't be needed.

To her surprise, when she rounded the corner, she was met with only two people.

The first was a kid. That much was immediately obvious. She had a curly mop of yellow hair and a round face - Kabru marked her at 15, at most. Almost an adult, then, but she had a couple of years left. Her clothes were dirty, but mended and looked of high-quality. She looked nervous. Her hands on her short sword were steady, but something in her grip said she wasn't that experienced in using it - maybe not her first time, but her fifth.

The second was - *beautiful*, was Kabru's first immediate, embarrassing thought. Rin would never let her hear the end of that one (the Eastern woman had adjusted better than Kabru had expected to Kabru's proclivities, but Kabru almost wished she hadn't, sometimes - now she had to hear Rin's opinion of her taste in women).

She was tall, with long dirty blond hair in a bun that was clearly falling out. She was maybe thirty, if Kabru had to guess - young, but old enough to have lost the remainder of her baby fat, to have a line or two around the eyes. She was broad - Kabru would be willing to bet that she had some muscles, underneath her green dress. She had armor, but it wasn't fitted well to her. Probably all she could afford.

And she had golden eyes, flickering in the firelight. Kabru's mouth went a little dry.

[averagestrayrat]

Fawx & Stallion 02x01 (!!!) fav quotes etc:

"The firing of two-thirds of the London police force according to the exact list he provided in his will?

LMAOOO please that's something he would 100% do

"Do you think his students still had to turn in their papers?"

Madge's asking the real questions here

"...a testament to the years of friendship between Holmes and Watson, The Tunnel of Brotherly Love"

I'm in fucking tears.

"Womb’s haunted."

Same degree of iconic of season one's "Luckily, I can't read."

I LOVED it! Excellent season opening, fast paced silliness, sets the mood immediately, the puns killed me (A sandal in bohemia??).

I adore the concept of 22FunB. Holmes would feel so mortified if he saw it. He'd have a panic attack if he stepped in it. He'd hear "the rain's afoot" and cry. This is the absolute last thing he'd want his name to be associated with. Complete exploitation of his fame with zero respect for him as a person and what he stands for. Amazing.

Can't wait for more (read: can't wait for Archie). You guys are making something great, I'm so happy <3

[asingerofdreams]

Live Reaction to Fawx & Stallion Ep 11 “The Case of the Alliterative Arachnid”

(Spoilers underneath the cut)

“THEY COULD HAVE EEEEEEEEIGHTTTTT”

“don’t make me crYYYYY. WAAAAAAH.” Horrifying thank you

“Again, in a VERY literal way”

“this extraordinary… friend?”

CONSULTING DETECTIVE AMUSEMENT THEME PARK?!?!?! Horrifying!

“22Fun B Merriment Park… and memorial”

The Dancing Man Revue

“And… it is!”

No, Madge, you’re asking the right questions. What happened the morning after

JAMES STALLION STARTED IT?!?!?!

Ohhhh my lord Hard Rock(s) cafe

Madge !!!! Fashion Icon !!!

Oh no the lack of cheering for Hampton…

“He is, in fact, still very much dead” “drat”

“right… well… that’s not iDEAL…”

“Feeling the merriment a bit more” OMINOUS

“Pound of the Baskervilles Adoption Center” 🥺

“The Tunnel of Brotherly Love!” “I mean, do I even need to say” AHAHAHAH

GREAT EX-PORK-TATIONS

“well that was my right as the bride” yes correct

“Wha- of course I was!”

From the transcript: The baby says nothing, as relative newborns tend to do.

THE DAUGHTERS NAME IS MADGE??????

“If THIS was my reward” “sUrEeee…”

womb’s haunted

That’s a LOT of pressure

“It’s called Glisten, it Glistens”

“We went from hoards to throngs weeks ago, keep up”

“We’ve been suffraging long enough”

FREEMASON DEFAMATION GANGS UNDER THE NAME SHERLOCK HOLMES

Ah yes Sherlock Holmes, the Ripper

OF A CHOLERIC SCHOOLCHILD AHAHAHAHAHA

“So sad” “and also with you”

“Are we even sure he’s actually dead” ohohohoho SOCIAL EXPERIMENT !!!!!

EMPTY CASKET. ON WHEELS.

“aaaaand could this be the perfect opportunity for meEEEE????”

“But she’s the tall one, so that just makes more sense, right”

SIDEKICK DEMEANOR

“WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD WANT TO BE THE WATSON ANYWAY” hampton bby that’s gonna end up in the Times

“WHAT DOES HE EVEN HAVE TO OFFER LONDON RIGHT NOW ANYWAY.” 👁️👁️

JOHN WATSON IS DEAD. OHHHHHHHH MY GOD OH MY GODDDDDDDDD

In conclusion, holy fuck

[snappedsky]

ROTTMNT: Retired Leo AU

Leonardo shares a story from the past:

--

Story Time 1

It was a day like any other in the apocalypse. The sky was a dark hue of red and perpetually cloudy. It had been ages since the sun had been seen or its warmth felt, let alone the moon and stars. It never rained or snowed, except for the occasional acid raid. And the portal to the prison dimension loomed overhead, like a huge rip in the sky.

The ground was arid stone, almost as red as the sky. There were no plants or animals, not even bugs. Everything was dryer than a desert. Any signs of what used to be civilization had been long destroyed: roads, signs, even towns. Only the larger cities remained, but just as mere corpses of what they once were. Crumbling towers reaching fruitlessly to the sky, soon to collapse to nothingness.

It was deadly silent, which was welcome nowadays. Krang were pretty easy to hear even from a distance, so if it was quiet it meant there weren’t any around. There-.

---

“Get on with it already!”

Donnie’s outburst interrupts Leonardo’s story and the older turtle glares down at him. He’s sitting on the floor with everyone else- Raph, Leo, Mikey, Casey, Cassandra, and April (Splinter is sitting in his chair).

“Excuse me,” Leonardo scoffs, “I’m telling the story here. Do you want dry facts or do you want a ~tale~?”

“I want you to not tell your story like it’s a Sherlock Holmes book,” Donnie grunts.

Leonardo huffs. “Fine. Where was I?”

“Getting nowhere,” Leo replies and the others laugh.

“Alright, alright,” the older turtle smiles wearily and clears his throat.

---

Leonardo was on a solo, scouting mission to the ruins of New Jersey. He often did scouting missions alone. It was faster and easier to stay hidden and if he ran into trouble, he could just portal or teleport away without worrying about anyone else.

The resistance had been growing a lot in those years and they wanted to expand their territory. New Jersey seemed like a good candidate. There hadn’t been any Krang sighted there in ages. If the sewer tunnels were in good condition, it would be perfect.