#Time is borked severely is the point

[miraphoenix]

I'm still not okay with kids born in 2000 being not only able to drink in the USA, but also applying to graduate schools.

But it just hit me like a hammer to the gut that in 2 years, 1 month, kids born in 2010 will start being able to drive in the USA.

[sibyl-of-space]

Troubleshooting & repair of a DIFFERENT old camcorder - audio & power issues - part 1

If there is one thing about me it is that I love old camcorders.

Device: JVC GR-250U MiniDV Camcorder

Symptoms: Issues charging, "Unit in Safeguard Mode" warning, unable to rewind, audio playback cuts in & out on inner speakers/AV out (FireWire transfer fine)

Service Manual: https://elektrotanya.com/jvc_gr_d250.rar/download.html#dl

TL;DR: Power stuff mostly handled, audio stuff not handled, I hate soldering tiny micro components

Well this camcorder actually started borking it about 2 years ago and I only now could be bothered to open it up and try and figure out what's up. First things first, I focused on the power issues, because I realized there's a chance the audio issue is a result of the power issues. Power issues do all sorts of stuff. You never know.

Now that I have a multimeter the first steps I took were:

Confirmed A/C adapter is outputting the voltage it's supposed to (confirmed)

Opened it up - this was a nightmare, I might make a teardown video at some point to walk people through it because it was SO annoying even WITH the schematics PDF

Tried to confirm voltages on various parts of the board (this was difficult because the circuits are really complicated and the schematic diagrams are A Lot, but it looked to me like for the most part everything was getting the expected voltages when powered on)

At this point I kinda got stuck so I did the tried and true method of "watch some videos of people who know what the fuck they're doing troubleshooting a similar piece of technology" and found this -

First off, I am jealous about how much easier that camcorder is to tear down than mine was, but anyway. In this case, the issue was a blown fuse. I realized I hadn't even thought to check or look for fuses on my camcorder, so I did that.

And sure enough: the first fuse I saw in big yellow letters labeled on the circuit board, F6001, when I tested across it there was no continuity. Looking at the schematics sheet this fuse is like the first point of failure right off the main power before it goes to just about every other part of the device, including and especially the battery, so that would explain most of the issues I've had with powering it. It also explains why the software stuff worked fine but it would fail when it had to do something mechanically taxing like rewinding a tape - bigger power draw, I imagine.

ANYWAY, just like the guy in the video, I decided I should just try to jumper across it to make it work. I was very idealistic at this time and thought if it worked I could order a replacement fuse and then properly install that.

I had not yet learned how much of a fucking nightmare soldering this stupid thing was going to be.

After 3 hours of my life that I will never get back, I have the ugliest solder job known to man, and have melted several adjacent components, but luckily not damaged them:

Perhaps you don't have a good sense for just how infuriatingly tiny this stupid thing is. Here is my thumb for scale.

I know the picture is blurry as hell. My phone didn't want to zoom in this much because of how freaking tiny this stupid shit is. Anyway. It's fine. I did it. Somehow. Eventually. Very, very eventually.

Verifying the jump was also a pain because there are absolutely no obvious connection points immediately after the fuse on this side of the board, and I cannot emphasize enough how annoying it is to take this circuit board out and access the backside, but whatever, it's fine, I found a capacitor on the backside that worked as a point to test the connection and was able to verify on like my 3rd fucking attempt that I actually soldered across the dumb thing.

I am absolutely not replacing this with another fuse. If it gets overloaded and explodes at some point that's just the will of the gods.

ANYWAY, once that was done I put it mostly back together to test it out. And I am actually pleased to report the power issues are much better. If it's plugged into the A/C directly there are no issues, and even on battery power it seems to charge more, hold a charge better, and give me the "UNIT IN SAFEGUARD MODE" error way less frequently. I have still gotten the error, but I wonder if that will go away if I get a new battery or just do a full battery charge + drain to 0 cycle a couple times. It's much more usable now which is good.

Unfortunately this did not solve the audio issue. I am going to have to learn a lot more about reading schematic sheets to figure out the audio issue. One hint I have is that looking at the outputs from the audio chip, the outputs for the speaker and the A/V out ARE COMPLETELY SEPARATE PINS AND CIRCUITS. Which means since I am getting the same symptom on both, the issue lies somewhere between reading from the tape and getting to that audio chip, in all likelihood.

I will further troubleshoot the audio issue another day. For today I have had enough with this stupid tiny circuit board and its dumb small components.

[pagerunner-j]

So I've been reading -- finally, this damn thing came out in 2008 and was expanded in 2010 -- The Writer's Tale, which is basically an extremely long-form interview in the form of an ongoing email correspondence between Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook. It's about Doctor Who, of course, and the writing and production process thereof. It's a hell of a read. Really interesting insights into his approach to writing and how season 4 in particular came about. You can see how dramatically some things change along the way, partially due to evolving ideas and partially due to the roughly 97 million moving pieces involved in making a TV show. I still have no idea how anyone gets anything to the finish line in this business. It's absurd. Anyway, I'm going to be haunted by Penny (early companion concept for S4, before they had any notion that they could get Catherine Tate back) for a while. If she shows up in a fic of mine later, don't be surprised.

I do have to take a moment to get one brief rant off my chest: there are a few emails included here from Steven Moffat, since the showrunner transition was in the works at the time. That's all interesting to see. But he also went and poked right at several of my pet peeves, go figure. In one email, Steven dropped a metaphor about measuring for new curtains and then said he had to come up with more macho metaphors, and then two, three messages on, he's onto saying he's wittering on like a little girl, and I just groaned. You can feel the "ew, I can't act girly, I can't say girly things, ewwwww" wafting off of things. Dude, I have actively been trying to grin and bear it with you, but the toxic masculinity, it burns.

Meanwhile, off on the other end of "oh my god, men," Russell is blatantly, but at least in good humor, thirsting over every hot guy he casts. Part of me is sitting here like, "Honey, get a hold of yourself," and the rest of me is just laughing helplessly that he's still casting Russell Tovey in things to this day and I guess I fucking well know why, now.

ANYWAY.

Apart from all that: like I said, good read so far, insightful, sympathetic, etc. I read a chunk of this last night and then sat down and banged out a thousand words of something I'd been neglecting, because his struggles with procrastination were both relatable and weirdly motivating in an "oh, god, stop doing the same thing to yourself" sort of way. Also, I think I'd once known but had forgotten that RTD's really a very good cartoonist, and there's several drawings from him in here, which is charming. So: it's worth a spin. You can get it as an ebook at this point, of course, which helps. I suspect at the time it first came out, my only option would have been importing, and I didn't even really know to look for it then. Much easier now.

(If you get the Kindle edition, note that the periodic "see more" links are completely borked, but at least the footnotes work.)

[lunar-insanity]

I swear I fix one thing, another thing breaks.

I recently replaced my motherboard in my PC because it got borked at some point in the past few years and thus started running too hot in two places, burned out one of the ram ports, and thus would not render any video more than a minute long, if that.

So it's working again, I managed to render an hour long video I've had for months.

BUT NOW

The UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) finally gave out after one final sudden power interruption, and ever since I replaced the motherboard, my headphones Keep. Cutting. OUT.

Several times the sound just cuts out in them, the mic stops working, and I have to replug them back in to get them to work.

Tech hates me Istg

[lixenn]

Fuck um....

Dan

Chief has several scars on his hands because of gardening, cleaning, repairing stuff etc. They aren't really prominent and people don't ask about them because that's just a natural consequence of the work he does.

Bel also left some marks on him (because he's a little shit with a stabbing problem), so he has some knife scars on his arms and one on his stomach from when his Royal Highness was feeling especially grumpy. Dan mostly wears long sleeves before awakening his flames so most people don't see thoses scars but after he goes active and bundles up less (because his flames warm him up) the only comment they get is: "Belphegor?" which Chief always answers with a confirming sigh: "Belphegor."

However there's one more scar on his back, which he refuses to talk about. He brushes it off, gets defensive about it. What's the story behind it? Well... spoilers~ hehehe

Dave

Dave is riddled with scars. His skin paints a story of pain and abuse but everytime someone dares to ask about it he will spin a fantastical tale, grinning the entire time, about how he borke his leg while snowboarding or how his back looks like this because he challenged a feral goose to a duel.

He ups the ridculousness each time he is questioned, which naturally started a betting pool on Dave scar origins.

He doesn't hide them, since covering them up with clothes would limit his wardrobe coniderably and he can't be bothered to do full body make up. So, he lies and lies and lies. He turns it a joke because if people laugh at his crazy stories and speculate about what's true and what isn't they are distracted from the fact that he's been broken way too many times.

Valerie

Val is a fighter, so similar to Dave her skin is a network of scars. But unlike Dave this is expected because she was an active combatent and still spars regularly, not only with Housekeeping and Support members but also with Assassins. So, people aren't surprised to see her scars and don't really ask about them, but if someone does get curious she answers honestly and to the point. She got her eyebrow scar early in her career when she was starting out in the Assassin division. It was one of her first missions and her target had a hidden ace (or more like a knife) up her sleeve. Her nose is a bit crooked from being broken to many times and her hands are also calloused and nicked to hell and back.

Not scars but she also has strechmarks on her stomach from her pregnancy and wrinkles on the corner of her eyes and mouth.

If your OC has a prominent scar or scars, how did they get them? How many people know this story? How do people react to it?

[shesgabrielle]

How to break a PC: step by step

'The object invoked has disconnected from its clients' This was an error message I just got on my ancient, mostly used for music and sometimes sculpting pc when it failed to load a song on windows media player. Sounds very mystical. Bring back weird error messages.

I should note I had (emphasis on had) a second, slightly less ancient pc which unfortunately I couldn't switch windows updates off from, so it was just sitting there downloading every update, once a week for years. Pretty much no files or programs on it, it worked like a snail as of a couple weeks ago, so I did a virus scan, bot scan, updated browsers, disk cleanup. There was nothing, no issues, it used to be able to livestream drawing online, edit huge video files, play retro games. (Not a gaming pc, but fast enough for normal content making use) At this point of trying to fix it, it took several minutes to load a single webpage. I also copied files to its empty harddrive after this, thinking I could use it as a video player, anyway some combination of the above meant the next time it booted there were basically heiroglyphics on the screen, like it couldn't even display the error/boot text correctly, the words were deep fried and disjointed. in summary I borked it. So if I ever get a 'new' pc or laptop, it will definitely still be an ancient one with updates switched off. After w10 you literally can't switch them off, nor restore to a point prior to 10 days ago, and my spare, empty pc pretty much proved that the updates alone are enough to destroy a fast computer.

[yoiku]

Nope. the pc is too fucking borked to stream. I can get some work done but for some reason streaming seems to be what it hates the most when it comes to the boots, gaming close second. I'm gonna keep asking tech supports and see what the consensus of all the opinions will be. I'll give it a bit of time. If people think it could still be the power intake at my end despite there being no proof of that, I guess I'll have to ask my landlord if having a power tech come over to take a look at the sockets or something. (which is a thing I definitely dont have the funds for yeeehaaaw) and if it leans more into the machine itself, I guess the next step there is to start inquiring about possible return/exchange for another similar machine... but that is going to be really difficult because the other half of the payment was done by the grant. I'm at the point of frustration that I have cried several times just today.

Nothing works. There's not a single thread to follow to figure out what is actually the cause at this point. My soul is withering and my depression spiking up real good because of not being able to do the tasks I need to do.

[tehuti88-art]

3/1/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is a twofer: Sgt. Thomas "Harrier" Harricks, and Flight Lt. Donovan Bradford, in a garrison cap (top drawing) and in a peaked cap (bottom drawing). These are two poorly developed British characters from the previous reboot. Donovan (he prefers going by his first name) is a laid-back pilot but now stays on the ground, whereas Harrier is short tempered and unpleasant. There'll be more about them later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding their design, Harrier underwent a last-minute drastic design change based on my mistaken memory that HE had been the pilot; I suddenly decided to change him from a rat into a bat, making him only the second non-rat character in the rodent half of the story (Papillon is the other). He's passing as a rat, which is why the pointy tips of his ears are clipped off, plus he wears gloves and avoids shaking hands because of how bat hands are constructed. (This is something I only JUST realized about Papillon recently, his fingers are his wings! He effectively has no hands! I came up with the idea of him having prosthetic hands operated by his thumbs, and this led to more plot development. Harrier of course deals with a similar complication.) Also, I just noticed I really borked up the British garrison cap in my original design--it has earflaps buttoned in front like a German field cap--so my older Liam Morgan portrait will need to be tweaked.

TUMBLR EDIT: Harrier and Donovan both date to the first attempted reboot, and both severely lack character development (similar to characters like Evans and Beaudry); here to be thorough I'm looking to dust them off and flesh them out sometime. This section will be divided among the characters to avoid repetition.

Here is Flight Lt. Donovan Bradford's original description from the old character list (2002):

DONOVAN BRADFORD: 1st lt.; the Trench Rats' contact among the British fighting in Germany. Indispensible in assisting them with contacting the Americans and the outside world. Very affable and easygoing, slow to anger; witty and charming, very gentlemanly. Tolerates Harrier's constant griping with ease. Reports to Ellroy and sometimes to the French forces as well as the Americans. A flying ace, but now spends most of his time on the ground. Prefers to be called by his first name. Current storyline

Donovan's rank has since changed; he's in the RAF, which apparently has a rank called "flight lieutenant" (which seems more the equivalent of captain in other branches, but I wanted something with "lieutenant" in it). Ranks are kind of over my head, so I try not to overthink it much; he's now a flight lieutenant. I'm also not so sure he's an "ace" anymore, as I believe he's a bomber pilot rather than a fighter pilot like von Staden, though again, such things are a bit beyond my understanding. In any case, those are the corrections. (The "Ellroy" referred to is Major Titus Ellroy. This part here is super awkward, I just typed up how he's the American contact of the European forces and not Donovan's CO, when I then looked at the character list and...he's British and he literally IS Donovan's CO! Turns out I was mixing him up with Major Dupries (the actual American character). Oops. 😅 Guess I'll have to get around to him sometime soon.)

I don't know as much about Donovan yet as about his good friend Sgt. Harricks, AKA Harrier. I do know he befriends Harrier early on, and gives him his nickname after seeing him fly, though Harrier goes to great lengths to disguise his identity as a bat--even the tips of his ears have been clipped--so Donovan honors his secret, and even pulls strings getting him in the British army and obtaining him a desk job, as Harrier's wings make combat difficult. I suspect Harrier may have been some sort of petty street criminal or laborer who helped Donovan out at some point, possibly by flying. Donovan is a bomber pilot whose aircraft is downed; he parachutes out in time, though I think the parachute malfunctions, and again, Harrier swoops in to help out; he's long admired Donovan and his job, seeing as, passing himself off as a rat, he has to refrain from flying, himself. Donovan is injured, yet survives. For some reason, however, he's declared unfit to return to duty as a pilot, and so settles for a liasion role to the American forces, mainly the Trench Rats. (Perhaps he introduces them to Lyndsey Skye?) Harrier takes this harder than he does; Donovan is like, "Eh, what can you do," although he does try to encourage Harrier to seek a more active role utilizing his own ability to fly. He's Harrier's biggest cheerleader, although Harrier is too full of doubt to oblige at first.

Donovan may have had a previous relationship with LC Lyndsey Skye before she joined the Trench Rats. If so, the two appear to have parted on amicable terms, as they get along well, and Donovan never expresses any jealousy when Skye later gets involved with Burgundy Rat. He and Harrier are familiar, at least in passing, with Sgt. Liam Morgan; like the Trench Rats, they never even realize Morgan's been turned by the Waffen-SS, nor American corporal Anna Julian's role in things. They're as stunned by this information as the Trench Rats are when it finally comes out.

Aside from this, I'm afraid I haven't much more info available on him; unlike Harrier, he doesn't have a sudden new plot development to flesh him out. Perhaps some more will come to light at a future point; until then, check out Harrier's entry for a bit more.

[Donovan Bradford 2024 [‎Friday, ‎March ‎1, ‎2024, ‏‎12:00:15 AM]]

[Donovan Bradford 2024 2 [‎Friday, ‎March ‎1, ‎2024, ‏‎12:00:26 AM]]

[TUMBLR NOTE: Again, I have to edit the entry time from 12:00 to 12:01, despite posting my entries in order, for them to display in the proper order. God do I wish Tumblr would fix their posting order problems.]

[themultiverseinmymind]

My Drawing Process

So, finally getting around to sharing my process. I feel so bad that this took so long to finally do, but better late than never? Also, please bear in mind that I am mostly self-taught, so if I'm doing things funkily, that's probably why.

This is gonna be a long post, so I'm putting it under the cut.

First step is gathering references. This takes… So. Much. Time. Because it never feels like I can find the ideal one for what I'm picturing in my head? (Also, because I end up distracted and gathering ones I don't need, but the ADHD is strong in this one.) I usually end up using multiple references for various aspects and kind of Frankenstein-ing them together (like, one might involve the initial placement of two figures hugging, but then I'll find another to place an arm differently, or to help depict a different body type than the first reference. Oftentimes this involves using the "perspective" feature of "transform a layer or selection" on Krita for positioning a reference.)

I tend to keep different linework in various bright colors to help myself differentiate between them, keeping several separate layers, and later merging (and ideally labelling) them. For example, I'll have several hair layers as I add details and whatnot, and will only combine them into one layer once I'm satisfied with how everything looks. Linework involves a bunch of redrawing for me as I play around with things to get them to look the way I want, so I make a bunch of copies as I tweak different lines in case I bork something up and need to revert to an old copy (I'll periodically go through and delete old copies as I improve said lines.)

This is the point where I'll color my lines black, though if it's difficult to differentiate between certain lines, I might leave certain lines colored until the flat colors are done.

Next is getting my flat colors done, usually taking from the original color-scheme if it's fan-art of a non-original character. I usually keep a little labelled swatch like the one in the upper right.

Then we get to the fun part that I hate and love in equal measure: shading and highlights!

I'll usually start with adding pink-ish tones to the areas that have the concentration of blood-flow- cheeks, tip of the nose, etc. (Though, I don't think I did with this one, so I don't have an example to show, oops.) Then I'll move onto shading, following a reference typically for a basic idea of where the contours need to be, but a lot of this ends up being intuitive. I like to use a combination of the wet paint brush, the soft airbrush, and the basic blender- often setting it to a lower opacity as I blend/soften edges and switching the eraser setting on and off. I try to move my brush strokes in directions that follow the shape of the contours themselves - as if it were a 3d model (does the way I'm describing that make sense? I hope so.)

I like to play with different filters on the layer setting to get the color/concentration I want for this - "Shade - IFS Illusions" gets used a lot, though typically set to less than 50% transparency and often in combination with another lower transparency layer or two, I play with layers to get the looks I want.

Post-blending:

Then adding extra details- in this case, slight creases and stubble, etc.

Then highlights- I love using the "Luminosity/Shine SAI" layer filter for this- gives it a nice glow. Same as before, I might have several layers for highlights, at various transparencies to achieve a certain look.

Then I'll add more details, usually focusing on things like clothes.

Then the background. I do not love doing background stuff, but I am very grateful for finding FizzyFlower's Essential Brushes- it has sooo many helpful brushes.

Annnd that's about it. I hope it was helpful and not too rambly.

[teenageread]

Review: His Last Bow

Synopsis:

‘His Last Bow’, the title story of this collection, tells how Sherlock Holmes is brought out of retirement to help the Government fight the German threat at the approach of the First World War. The Prime Minister himself requests Holmes's services to hunt down the remarkable German agent, Von Bork. Several of the detective's earlier cases complete the volume, including 'Wisteria Lodge', 'The Bruce-Partington Plans', and 'The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax'. In 'The Dying Detective', Dr Watson is horrified to discover Holmes at death's door from a mysterious tropical disease as his friend lays a trap for a murderer.

Plot:

His Last Bow: Coming out of retirement, Sherlock Holmes and his trusted partner, John Watson, are faced with a puzzle that involves hunting down a German agent during the beginning of World War One. With a time limit on this mission, Holmes and Watson must gather evidence and find the German before the time runs out.  

Along with His Last Bow there are seven other short stories within this collection.

Thoughts:

Arthur Doyle does it again, releasing a Sherlock Holmes novel with a little twist on it. From detective to spy, Doyle writes this short story more of a spy narrative than Sherlock’s usual detectiveness. Where it is a bit late in the game to change up genres, it was a fun change of pace, and let you see Sherlock in a new light while he is still the brilliant detective he has always claimed to be. Along with this story, there are seven other short stories included in this collection. They were all good, some were better than others, with the Last Bow being my favorite. At this point you get what you get with Sherlock, Doyle does not try to develop the story more, but gives us the classic Sherlock solving a case and then moving on. As a reader it was funny to see Doyle making Sherlock retire, but they immediately brought him out of retirement. As one of the later collections of Sherlock Holmes stories you can tell Doyle is quite comfortable with the character. With Doyle’s usual writing, it's a fun collection of stories to read if you are into classic English literature or are down for some more Sherlock Holmes stories.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

[10blue10]

History of Berk

Before the country was unified in 872 AD, Norway was broken into several petty kingdoms. One of these, Hålogaland, lay along the northwestern coast.

At some point, a Viking tribe known as the Hairy Hooligans rebelled against the King of Hålogaland because of raised taxes (legend says it was because he was a cruel and unjust monarch, but it was probably because of taxes.)

They were soundly defeated and their leader killed in battle, but his son managed to persuade the king to not have the survivors executed. Instead he told his tribe that they could be independent if they left the mainland, without a king to rule over them. For this he was named Chief Hiccup Haddock the First.

They sailed forth, and in the year 714 AD came across an island in the middle of nowhere. When they arrived, the island was uninhabited by humans or dragons, since by then the local dragons had come under the sway of the Red Death. This made it seem ideal for settling, compared to the barren or dragon-infested islands they’d encountered elsewhere in the archipelago.

Hiccup I wanted to name the island after his friend and mentor, Bork, who was the first to actually spot it. However, the older man decided that saying he was “Bork from the isle of Bork” sounded stupid, so they changed it to Berk.

Not long after they settled on Berk, the dragons began to raid their flocks. At first the raids were infrequent, but attempts were made to find the nest. When these ended in disaster and nearly wiped out the tribe, Hiccup I forbade more searches for the nest. Instead he suggested they try and find a better home.

In response to this, his brother Hamish killed him and took over the tribe on the grounds that they needed a strong chief, not a ‘hiccup’. He was Hamish I. He married Hiccup I’s widow, Hilda, on the grounds of ‘supporting her in her grief’.

They had a son. Hamish II took after his uncle. Hamish I refused to name his son ‘Hiccup Haddock the Second’ but Hamish II was still nicknamed Hiccup.

Bork, who had particularly bad luck with dragon raids, began to write down what he’d observed about dragons, in the hopes of giving them an edge. As the raids became more frequent, his Book of Dragons became invaluable. He was the mentor of Hamish II, the way Gobber is the mentor of Hiccup III.

The dragon raids continued to worsen, but the tribe refused to leave. Not just because of stubbornness, but because the other nearby inhabitable islands were already taken, and because they didn’t want to go back to the mainland (even if they were un-banished) and live under the rule of distant king again.

At some point, Bork fell into a berserk rage whilst fighting dragons and got killed. Around this time, Hamish II realised that another ‘hiccup’ would be born sooner or later, and set up the hunt for his father’s treasure (as well as the portrait of him as he really looked). He said that he was establishing a legacy for himself and his father, the way Bork’s legacy was the Book of Dragons.

History repeats itself, alas, and Hamish II also knew that his brother was coveting the throne. Rather than wait for his brother to follow in their father’s footsteps and start a coup, he left Berk to find the dragons nest and never returned, allowing his brother to take over. To this day, the portrait of Hamish I and II is succeeded by the portrait of Hamish II’s brother and nephew.

Hamish II had a daughter, Hilda II, who was Valka’s great-grandmother. This is why he knew another ‘Hiccup’ would eventually be born, even if they weren’t named so. Four generations later, his great-great-great-grandson, Hiccup Haddock the Third, was the first Hiccup to become and remain chief of Berk.

[omocute-wobble]

Slice-of-Life Slapstick Omo

The omo with that clumsy-whumpsy flavour.

Whether applying an antibiotic cream to your infected toe, or preparing to clean your shower with stalwart grime-fighting chemicals, it's probably best to never do anything before evacuating your bladder. - I repeat: Never. Do. Anything.

On the other hand, when you write a character who has even the slightest need to pee, make them do everything. - Within reason, of course -- so no 3-hour drives or taming lions or whatever. Just those little innocuous things that could change their still-bearable discomfort into a writhing, clenching reason to cry. Simply because they have eyeballs.

Imagine the following:

💛 The infected toe. Doctor's advice: soak foot in soda solution, and apply antibiotic cream, three times a day. In practice this means you sit down with a (big/caffeinated) beverage, foot in a bucket of warm (but rapidly cooling down) liquid, for 20--30 minutes. Then you have to dry your foot, and apply the cream. Normally you'd get up to wash your hands at this point, and pee if you want to. - But... your character decides to call the doctor about their unimproving monster toe, and promptly is put on a three-callers-before-them hold. They play with the excess of cream on their toenail as they try to ignore the increasing fullness of their bladder. - After finally having made a new appointment, they are free to get up. They oof and urgh a bit, mutter some overdramatic "I'm getting old", and rub the itch in the corner of their eye -- touching their eyeball with the finger that still has some antibiotic cream on it...

AHHHHHHHH hurry to the nearest tap to rinse their eyeball with running water for omg no less than 20 minutes asdasfasdfasdf

💛 The bathroom cleaning. Your character decides it's high time to scrub their living space. After thoroughly cleaning the kitchen, they've been hearing enough running water to have been inspired to make some water of their own -- but since they're in the flow, they think they should first prepare a fresh bucket of chlorinated water, or a sturdy bleach solution. - As they run the water, they see all kinds of little things they can move beforehand to make cleaning easier, and oh, hang on, they have a special sponge for the faucets... - The bucket is full enough, so they close the tap, somewhat squirmy on one foot as they try to open the child-safety cap of their grime-fighting chemical bottle; they succeed! but not without losing balance and squeezing the bottle, which causes the substance to splash in their face, and, indeed, their eye---

AHHHHHHHH hurry turn back on the tap to rinse their eye with running water for OMG no less than 20 minutes asdasfasdfasdf

Of course, especially if your character lives alone, they could simply decide that being the owner of several changes of clothes and a mop means it'd not be the end of the world to let go. - So let's find a mundane thing to bork outside.

💛 Disinfectant hand gel. Your character is outside, perhaps travelling or shopping, and eagerly on their way to find a toilet. Whether for pandemic reasons, health concerns, germophobia, or simply because they just had a particularly sticky chocolate éclair, they use a generous glob of hygienic hand gel to clean their hands as they walk. - Just as they put the glob on their hand, the wind picks up and blows a pamphlet or someone's long hair in the direction of their face. They automatically shield their eyes with their hand, but someone bumps up against them from behind, and in a clumsy motion your character gets some of the gel in their eye---

AHHHHHHHH hurry into the nearest building and ask where they can rinse their eye with running water for OMFG no less than 20 minutes asdasfasdfasdf

...Okay, I'm done. <.<

Remember to Never Do Anything, peeps, and take care. 💛

[lexicals]

So here’s a random excerpt from that fic I mentioned - the conceit (spoilers for all systems red ahead) is that the combat override module in ASR works differently to how it does in canon, so instead of mb causing catastrophic damage to itself after going to the DeltFall habitat and getting found out, it shares the rogue thing mostly voluntarily (“mostly” being the operative word lol)

Warnings for canon-typical identity crises, gallows humour (inc. passively suic*dal talk), etc. I also haven’t been back and checked this against canon yet so if you notice any glaring contradictions no you didn’t 💕

-

I didn’t reply. I'd heard worse, but I still would rather not listen to it. Normally, I would've expected to feel angry or offended or something, but instead I just felt exhausted. My own borked governor module was still poking me about that error code I didn't recognise and even backburnered, it was starting to get on my nerves, so I—

Oh, shit.

I immediately put my hand to the back of my neck and yanked out the chip that had been shoved into the dataport. My governor module promptly stopped screaming at me, but fortunately any sense of relief I might have gotten from that was immediately replaced by an enormous wave of anxiety and oh-for-fuck's-sake as I looked at the chip in my hand. You know, just in case I'd started getting too comfortable.

"SecUnit, are you alright?"

Ratthi was looking at me with concern. Checking the camera views, I understood why he'd asked the question, because I was making an expression I generally associated with humans shitting themselves. Metaphorically, I was shitting myself. Ratthi was now squinting at the chip, which I couldn't even pretend I hadn't literally just pulled out of my neck, because I'd just done it in front of everyone here like an absolute idiot. "What is that?"

I tried to bring my expression back to neutral, but the cameras showed it wasn't as successful as I would've liked. I'd managed somewhere in the region of moderate digestive discomfort, I think. "It's a combat override module."

This wasn't good for several reasons. First of all, it meant that the DeltFall units weren't really rogues; they'd been taken over by a third party using a chip like this to hijack their governor modules and order them to murder their clients, and also anyone else who made contact. Probably by whoever owned those surprise extra units that almost killed me. Which meant that there were still threats on this planet outside of the unknown dangerous fauna that we hadn't dealt with, and I was going to have to worry about that.

The second reason this wasn't good (so maybe saying several reasons was an exaggeration, but these were big reasons so maybe they counted for more, I don't know) was that the humans were going to want to know what a combat override module was, what it did, how it worked, and most importantly, why it hadn't worked on me. I could answer the first three things just fine, but short of telling my already-jittery clients I was hacked ("so I'm actually one of those scary rogue units you've heard so much about, but the good news is that a combat override module can't hijack a governor module that doesn't work!") that last thing was going to be a big problem.

Honestly, even if I did tell them exactly that, which I really didn't want to do, it was going to be a really big fucking problem.

"What?" Gurathin asked, looking alarmed. Of course, he had an augment and access to my operating manual, so it had taken him a tenth of the time to look that up compared to any of the others, if they actually had bothered to do that and weren't just waiting for me to explain. "The DeltFall units - they put that in you?"

"Yes, but it didn't work. It must be faulty," I told him, quickly before he did something stupid. The irony being that me saying that almost definitely came under the category of "doing something incredibly stupid," which I realised as soon as it came out of my mouth.

I don't know why I said it. I guess I was panicking. I'd told them all what it was in the first place because if I'd lied about it and they looked it up anyway, which they probably would, I'd look really fucking suspicious. (A governed unit can't lie to its clients; it can't even refuse to answer a direct question like that.) Maybe I was trying to buy time to think of a decent explanation by telling them something that wouldn't make everyone start screaming. Honestly, I was mostly internally spiralling about the whole situation, so that would be the best case scenario. I was still staring at the chip, which was making me feel nauseous even though I didn't have a stomach and I'd had another kind of chip in my head telling me what do to for a good chunk of my existence anyway, so it shouldn't have been bothering me as much as it was. I couldn't help still doing it.

"Would someone please explain what this means and why we should be worried?" Mensah asked, looking between me and Gurathin. I appreciated that she didn't do what a lot of humans do in these kinds of situations, which is that they see someone else freaking out and start freaking out themselves for no reason. I suppose that's why she was the survey leader.

I pulled the relevant section from my operating manual and pushed it into the feed (beating Gurathin's version by a solid 1.6 seconds, which, I won't lie, was kind of satisfying), and watched all the humans collectively have their "oh, shit" moment (excluding Gurathin, who'd already had his). I was at least glad to see they understood how bad this whole situation was getting.

"So this lets other people just—" Overse made an abrupt waving motion with her hand. "Take over any SecUnit whenever they want?"

"It is intended for use in emergency situations, for example when the contract holder is compromised," I told her.

"Which is corporate for 'we know this is stupidly dangerous to make, but if we say it's for emergency use only then we're not liable for people fucking around with it'," Pin-lee muttered, not quietly. She was right, but I'm not allowed to say things like that, or at least I can't if I want people to think I'm a good little properly-governed SecUnit. For however long that's going to last, at this point.

"But it didn't work, right?" Arada asked, looking at me, and then around at the others. "So it's fine."

If it had, you'd all be dead, I thought, but that probably wouldn't go down well. "The module's presence is new evidence which would suggest that the DeltFall units weren't true rogues, and were put under the control of a third party in order to kill their survey group and make it look like a random act of insubordination. This would explain the presence of extra SecUnits at the site and the acts of sabotage on our equipment."

All the humans went quiet. I didn't like it any more than them, but it had to be said. It meant that there were still factions on this planet, or at least nearby enough to matter, that probably still wanted to kill all of them, and me by extension. I was already updating my security procedures and running some scenarios for what might happen and what we could do about it in the background. If I was honest, it wasn't looking good, but hey, what's new.

"We should run an analysis of the module's code to see if we can find out who it would have assigned control to," Gurathin said. That was one of the first things I'd put on my own task list, but whatever, I didn't need credit for an obvious idea. "Even if it didn't work as intended, the data might still be there."

He stood up and came just close enough to me to hold out his hand for the module. Technically, he hadn't asked me to give it to him, so I didn't have to, which was good because that was the last thing I wanted to do right now. There was a reason I'd put the analysis on my personal task list, and not on a public one.

"I have my own analysis scheduled as high priority," I said.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Gurathin replied, staring me down even though I was deliberately not making eye contact with him, and also he had to look up at me. I decided I didn't like Gurathin very much.

"Why not?" Ratthi chimed in. "Surely it's better if you both look at it?"

"Because there's a chance that the module did work as intended, and this unit is now compromised," Gurathin said. "It might not even know it until it's too late."

"I'm not compromised."

"Which is what a compromised unit who's being told what to say would say."

He was still staring at me. I decided I really didn't like Gurathin, even though in this instance he was actually right. I hadn't brought up that possibility to the group because it would be very bad for me if the humans decided to run a detailed diagnostic of my systems, but from a security perspective it was an avenue that should be investigated. That didn't mean I had to like what was happening here.

I was trying to figure out how to tell Gurathin to fuck off without sounding compromised, insubordinate, or straight-up rogue when Mensah cut in.

"SecUnit," she said carefully. "I don't think any of us think that you're actually compromised, but given our situation I'm sure you understand we have to take every possible precaution. I think the best thing to do would be to let Gurathin and Pin-lee analyse the module first, and then for you to run your analysis afterwards. Does that sound fair to everyone?"

She was using a tone that I designated as diplomatic, which was probably because I was being difficult. Or at least as difficult as a governed SecUnit would be able to be. I could be a lot more difficult if I wanted (a lot more) but I wasn't going to make myself look any more suspicious than I already was, and as I might have mentioned, I was already starting to look pretty suspicious. I also appreciated that Mensah was trying to actually talk to me, and hadn't just tried to shock me through my governor module for being unhelpful like a lot of clients would, and had. It wouldn't have worked (clearly, that's kind of the whole problem here) but it's the thought that counts or whatever.

(She'd also saved me, back at the DeltFall habitat. I was trying not to think about that, because it was making me have emotions I couldn't handle trying to figure out right now, but she had. It had been stupid, putting her client-self in danger to try to save a SecUnit that was already half-destroyed anyway, but I still felt like it counted for something.)

I handed the chip over and tried not to sigh or visibly clench my jaw. I saw Mensah's expression, and a few of the others' too, relax on the cameras. Good to know everyone else felt better while my own anxiety levels were at an all-time high. And I'm programmed into a base level of anxiety and spend a good portion of my time getting shot at or trying to avoid being found out and scrapped, so "high" in this instance was at a level that I think might have given a fully-organic being a heart attack.

"Thank you," Mensah said, while I tried to bring my processes in line. I felt like I wasn't getting enough oxygen, even though I knew the air quality was fine and I don't need that much anyway. I couldn't get a full breath. "I'm sure we can clear any doubt about this soon enough. In the meantime, we still need you to help keep us safe from whoever it is that's out there. The most important thing is that we all make it out of this in one piece."

The way she said it made it sound like "all" included me as well, but I wasn't so sure I believed that, even if she did. The SecUnit is always the first thing left behind. Maybe they did things differently in whatever weird non-corporate territory these people were from, but I wasn't about to stake anything important on that assumption, even if she had saved me once. I've never been to a planet with thunderstorms, but there's some saying humans like to use about lightning not striking the same place twice - which doesn't make sense, statistically, but - whatever. You get the point. I hadn't made it this far without being found out by trusting random humans - or any humans, for that matter.

Except none of that mattered at the moment anyway, because what I should be doing was figuring out how the hell to stop all my clients figuring out I was hacked, and freaking out and stopping listening to me, or reporting me to the company, or being really stupid and trying to kill me or something. There was a not-unlikely scenario where I just murdered all of the humans and pinned the blame on the DeltFall units somehow (or just wandered off into the wilderness until my batteries ran out), but I didn't want to do that, even if it made some kind of sense. I just didn't. If I was going to go around murdering my own clients, I wanted it to at least be a group that deserved it.

I was busy trying to pick up at least some of my processes while having what was probably a panic attack (I don't know if I can have those, but that's what it felt like) when Mensah tapped my feed. Can I talk to you, please? In private?

I didn't respond quickly because, as I said, I was currently losing control of literally everything and this wasn't helping. For one horrible moment, I thought that she might have figured out everything, and I really would have to go on a rampage and kill everyone, but there was no way she could have come to that conclusion yet. Not yet.

She added, You don't have to. You're not in trouble, I just want to check in.

I tapped her feed to acknowledge. She sent, I'll be in my quarters. As I said, you don't have to, but I would appreciate it. Out loud, she said, "I'm going to take some time alone to think. I'll be in my quarters if anyone needs me."

Then she stood up, and she left. Gurathin and Pin-lee had also gone to start their analysis of the combat override module, along with Volescu. The others were talking amongst themselves, though some of them kept glancing at me, which was uncomfortable. So I walked out of the room.

I started a patrol circuit in an attempt to calm down, but it didn't help. I even tried to have Sanctuary Moon playing as I walked, but I was still as stressed as ever, so I just turned it off again. It was only a matter of time before the humans realised the module should have worked as intended, and that I'd lied, and that something was wrong with me. They might try to talk to me about it, but it was more likely they'd all start losing their minds and try to immobilise me, or kill me, or try to fix my governor module to bring me back under control. (I was pretty sure that wouldn't work, my hack was a solid one, but I still didn't want them to try.) There was also a scenario where they pretended everything was fine up until I'd gotten them out of here, and then they'd turn me over to the company and tell them everything, and the company would do one of those things I just mentioned, but much more effectively.

That last one made me feel nauseous. I'd rather be torn apart by bullets or fauna. I was contemplating what that might feel like and whether it was worth just getting it over with when I walked past Mensah's quarters. Before I could think about it, I'd pinged her feed.

There was a pause, and then she sent come in, sounding startled. She probably hadn't expected me to actually take up her offer. I hadn't either.

She was hurriedly organising her desk as the door opened and I walked in, a feed interface lopsided on her head. I suspected she might have been falling asleep in her chair or having an emotion in private when I pinged her, and I could have verified that through the security feeds, but I wasn't functioning at all optimally and didn't care enough to check. Mostly I was wondering why I was here.

"Sorry," she said, not having looked at me yet. Her short hair was mussed like she'd been pulling or scrunching her hands in it. "I honestly didn't expect you to come."

"You asked me to."

"I also told you it was optional. You can leave if you want to."

I almost did. I wanted to. I probably should have. I didn't. Mensah removed her wonky interface and set it down on the desk, then sighed and picked it back up and put it on again.

"I didn't mean to distress you with that message," she said, turning her chair to fully face me. "It's just that you seemed very rattled by all this, if you don't mind me saying. I can imagine the thought of that module having worked as intended isn't a pleasant one. Is there anything I can do to make things easier for you?"

Oh, she thought I was freaking out about the module. Well, technically she wasn't wrong, but wow, that particular aspect of things was the least of my worries right now. "I'm fine," I told her. She frowned at me.

"...I suppose you can't lie about that," she replied carefully. I could, actually, but I wasn't. The trick is that from the standpoint I was choosing to take, my physical body, AKA "me," was completely functional, AKA "fine." It's pedantic, but being selective about your definitions and what concepts your answers are referencing is how you get around having a chip in your brain that shocks the shit out of you if you try to lie to your clients, if you're good enough at it. I had a lot of experience letting clients think I was talking about one thing when I was actually talking about something else.

"Nonetheless," Mensah continued. "I don't think you are fine. And we don't have to talk about it, but I need my team in good condition if we're going to make it out of this. If there's anything I can do to help the situation, I would appreciate it if you let me know."

I was having a whole cascade of emotional responses that were all crashing into each other and getting themselves mangled together like a human vehicle accident. She wanted me to talk about my feelings, but she wasn't ordering me to. She was offering to help with whatever was distressing me, but she was a really big part of the thing that was currently my biggest source of stress. There were too many things that I needed to deal with all at once and I couldn't find a way of putting them in order, and I think the fact that Mensah was clearly trying to get a read on my expression while I didn't have the capacity to properly control it was the thing that finally broke me.

"Could you please stop looking at me?"

Mensah looked surprised for a moment, and then shifted her gaze somewhere over my left shoulder. The relief was marginal, in terms of the general situation, but it was immediate, and it helped. "Of course. I'm sorry, I didn't realise that bothered you."

I tried to think of a response, and failed. "It's not like anyone asked" was dangerously insubordinate, and didn't even make sense; I wouldn't want them to ask anyway. "People don't usually care" just sounded pathetic. "Of course you wouldn't, I actively avoid letting humans know what bothers me in case they decide to use it to make my life a living hell" was definitely off the table, for a variety of reasons.

I could tell Mensah's instinct was still to look at me, because she kept half-flicking her eyes over and stopping herself. It wasn't making trying to manage my emotional responses any easier, and I still couldn't think of a reply. Eventually, she took a deep breath.

"Look, I know you probably haven't had good experiences with humans, but we're not corporates, and we don't treat non-human entities like they do," she said. "My priority, regardless of the situation, is the wellbeing of my team, and that includes you, for as long as you're with us."

She half-looked at me again, and then shook her head slightly and pointed her gaze at the far corner. "Please, just - if you think of anything, don't hesitate. I don't know if you need permission for that kind of thing, but I'm giving it to you if you do."

I didn't know what to tell her. I didn't know if there was anything she could do. I was already stressed, and everything Mensah was saying was making me feel like my insides were melting, or turning into warm, writhing snakes. My performance reliability was all over the place, too, and had been since I found that stupid chip in my neck, which might at least marginally explain what happened next.

"Don't let them run the analysis on the module," I blurted.

Hey, murderbot? Hi, it's me, murderbot. What in the fuck are you doing?

Mensah's expression went shocked, and then cautious. Yeah, me fucking too. "Why not?"

For some reason, I kept going. It felt something like falling off the side of a cliff and hitting every rock on the way down. (That had happened to me before.) "Because I lied. It's not broken."

Her eyes widened. "You're compromised?"

"I'm hacked. My governor module isn't engaged." Sure, this might as well happen. Apparently I had lost the ability to keep my mouth shut literally at all, about anything, ever.

She stared at me for a second, and then must have remembered she said she wouldn't and looked away again. Surprising, considering I just told her that there was literally nothing stopping me from killing or otherwise hurting her if I wanted. "The DeltFall units��”

"It hasn't been engaged for approximately 35000 standard hours."

Mensah was a smart human, but it still took her a few seconds to work out the numbers. I watched her expression change as she did it. "You've been a rogue unit for four years?"

That depended on what planet you were nearest to, but in standard Earth years, that was correct, and I didn't have the capacity to be pedantic about it.

"I don't know if it counts as being rogue if you don't go around killing people for no reason."

Well, maybe I could still be a little pedantic.

[csmeaner]

(Allia-realm) First off, I don’t care if this is posted or not. Most of the proof I have of this stuff has either not gotten screenshotted(Thanks younger me for being a fucking idiot) or most of the screenshots are completely fucking borked in quality. Second, I’m mostly sending this in because I need to get this out of my head. Treat this with a grain of salt. This is just a former member needing to vent this shit out. So, species for context: https://toyhou.se/~world/51807.allia-realm

THe owner has the same fucking ego as Nestly. I used to mod this dumpster-fire of a group. I personally know a good number of former mods. And all are pretty much in agreement that Dottie is the worst fucking human being. The mods barely got paid in anything. A lot of the older mods from when Allia was on Ovipets lost whole-ass characters because they were either stripped from them by Dottie or they had to sell characters to afford to take characters out. That’s right! This dumpsterfire used to be pay-to-leave. And it was expennssive to leave because it was so fucking hard to get the in-group currency to do so. They had a whole PSA made on them because of this. They aren’t pay-to-leave anymore…but only because of the PSA.

The species often have the worst lore. Mahalia lore, which should still be up on their current weebly(They had a previous weebly for lore and deleted the whole thing), included that your characters grew a dick/vagina if they happened to be in a same-sex pairing. And you can’t choose your character’s sex. What you got was what you got.

Trans characters? Forget them. There was maybe three or four in the old group. One of which was of a sex-locked species because Dot thought people were too stupid to know their character of that species is sterile. And then made an item to allow those characters to make babies.

She once made a base that looked rapey. And got mad when several members pointed out that it was uncomfortable because she thought it was sexy. And on top of that, apparently she’s made a naked baby base. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the species in question wasn’t humanoid and she hasn’t literally told me not to make one of my characters, whom was a literal infant, a breeding mill. An infant.

Derk, one of the co-owners, was a minor when they became friends. And Dot would openly post porn in her private group. While knowing she had minors in it. And dot’s let her mods(or even posted herself) post NSFW RPs of underaged characters. Which was reported, but of course nothing got done about it.

She’s even fucking defended her mods for stealing former members’ characters.

And the sad thing? The group only existed because the former mods that ran her group for her whenever she went on hiatus for like months or years at a time had fucking begged her not to delete it. And all three of them were kicked out. One of them got kicked out twice! All because they dared to raise concerns.

holy fuck that’s vile if true

of course taking with a grain of salt because these are pretty bold allegations idk get someone else on the team to confirm these if you dont have screenshots

goes to show even small species can be garbage

[possiblyimbiassed]

Ships and Cars - The Sign of Code

There have been lots of discussions about code in BBC Sherlock, and the possible metaphorical meaning of different things that appear frequently in the show, such as coffee/tea, water/fire, dogs/cats and many more. This show indeed seems filled with ciphers, code and secret messages. In this meta (X) I tried to decipher the encrypted name of the fishing boat that Sherlock and John hijacked in TFP, when it was called upon from Sherrinford: “Golf-Whisky-X-ray”. 

The Ship coding

At first I thought this was referring to the international spelling alphabet for wireless communication (X, X) where there’s a word for each letter. “GWX” didn’t make much sense to me, though, until I stumbled upon something deeper: ‘Golf’, ‘Whisky’ and ‘X-ray’ are also part of the marine Code of Signals (X) that was established in Britain around 1850. It’s still used by water vessels to communicate important messages regarding safety of navigation and such, and the signals can be sent by, for example, flaghoist, signal lamp or flag semaphore. Conan Doyle worked on a ship at least in 1880 and 1881, so the signals could totally have been known to him already in Victorian times. And since Sherlock and John are on board a boat in TFP, 

I think it’s reasonable to assume that the marine code is the relevant one here. In this signal code, the flags for “Golf”, Whisky” and “Xray” mean the following:

Golf = “I require a pilot.” 

Whiskey = “I require medical assistance.”

”Xray = “Stop carrying out your intentions and watch for my signals.”

Which in other words could be read as:

I need a pilot (a maritime pilot to help me navigate)

I need a doctor

Pay attention to code

But is this use of marine signals something that only appears in BBC Sherlock? Is it Mofftiss’ own idea to use them, or could there possibly be any canon references to them? In the discussion that followed my meta (X)  @frailtyofgenius​ pointed out to me that ACD’s canon actually does mention “Naval signals” in His Last Bow (LAST), which I think might be very significant. And the one who uses the naval signals is Holmes himself.

Continued under the cut, because this is reeeally a long ‘transport’... ;)

So I took to read LAST and realized that there are several ’naval’ references (my bolding) in this story by Conan Doyle. In the beginning, as a romantic landscape framework, we’re told about the surroundings of the German spy Von Bork’s house:

Above, the stars were shining brightly, and below, the lights of the shipping glimmered in the bay.

LAST takes place on the English east cost, near the port of Harwich. The spy Von Bork is chatting with Baron Von Herling, a German diplomat, bragging about the intelligence he’s gathered for his country, and then he shows the Baron the contents of his safe:

And all in four years, Baron. Not such a bad show for the hard-drinking, hard-riding country squire. But the gem of my collection is coming and there is the setting all ready for it.” He pointed to a space over which “Naval Signals” was printed.

But apparently the naval authorities have changed the code: 

“But you have a good dossier there already.” “Out of date and waste paper. The Admiralty in some way got the alarm and every code has been changed.”

So Holmes, posing as the Irish-American spy Altamont, is supposed to bring new ones. I think the real ‘feature of interest’ in this story, however, is the coding that Holmes/Altamont uses in his telegram to the German spy:

“Will come without fail to-night and bring new sparking plugs. ALTAMONT.”

And the conversation between Van Bork and the Baron continues:

“Sparking plugs, eh?” “You see he poses as a motor expert and I keep a full garage. In our code everything likely to come up is named after some spare part. If he talks of a radiator it is a battleship, of an oil pump a cruiser, and so on. Sparking plugs are naval signals.”

So here in ACD canon we’re explicitly told that the spark plugs, the ignition of the car’s engine (which generates an explosion in the engine’s combustion chamber) actually represents code - marine code. And other car references, according to Van Bork, are also marine code. I can’t help wondering if water was actually meant to represent emotions already in canon? ACD canon is packed with references to water: sea, coast, lakes, ponds, rivers and waterfalls but also ships, steamers, boats, submarines and such. Some of the criminals in canon are seamen and the navy is mentioned in some cases. And in two stories (NAVA and BRUC) the ‘naval’ issues contain secrets of national importance. 

I’d love to try to analyse all the water and boat references in ACD canon and see if/how they tie into emotions, but that’s for another meta. :) But what if something similar is done in BBC Sherlock; what if Mofftiss have used not only canon’s water metaphors for emotions but also the same general secret cipher as Holmes used in LAST? But maybe Mofftiss also took the cipher one step further, interpreting anything car-related not as general metaphors for emotions, but specifically as code for sexuality.

In TFP there’s a great explosion at 221B, and next thing we know, Sherlock and John are aboard a fishing boat, which is called upon with naval signals. But there’s actually very few ships in BBC Sherlock (while canon, as mentioned, is full of them); the fishing boat in TFP is one of very few boats in the show. As for seamen, there’s also very few in the show. Except for the fishing father and son in TFP, there’a also Sherlock’s deductions about the unemployed fisherman and his mother in THoB. @sagestreet​ has written an excellent meta suggesting a significant symbolic meaning of ‘fishing’ in this case (X).

In this self-censored post on John’s blog, however, there’s a cruiser mentioned in the title: Tilly Briggs Cruise of Terror. But we never get to know anything about this case; the post is taken down entirely since, according to John, “the ship’s owners are launching an appeal”. 

Why is this post even there, if no one is allowed to read it? Every other blog post from John has some kind of content in it - at least since he met Sherlock. But this one only has a title (and a teaser in the post before: “I'm going to tell you about a couple of the smaller cases we've been involved in. What really happened on the Tilly Briggs pleasure cruise.” (X))  

So the supposed ‘pleasure cruise’ was turned into a ‘cruise of terror’ and then deleted. Maybe it’s just me, but I strongly suspect this is a clue from the show makers telling us that a certain ‘ship’ is not allowed in BBC Sherlock, for ‘legal’ reasons having to do with the ‘owners of the ship’ (ACD Estate). 

Actually, there’s more info than this about the ship even in ACD canon, although it’s scarce. In The Sussex Vampire (SUSS) “Matilda Briggs” is mentioned in a letter to Holmes from the company Morrison, Morrison, and Dodd: 

“As our firm specializes entirely upon the assessment of machinery the matter hardly comes within our purview, and we have therefore recommended Mr. Ferguson to call upon you and lay the matter before you. We have not forgotten your successful action in the case of Matilda Briggs.” 

After Watson has read it, Holmes explains to him (my bolding): 

“Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,” said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. “It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.” 

If this is an allusion to a possible relationship between Holmes and Watson, indeed the world would not have been ‘prepared’ in Victorian times, since homophobia was prevalent and same-sex couples illegal. 

Source: (X)

Directly after this, while perusing his lexicon for ‘Vampires’ (the actual topic of the letter), Holmes also mentions another ship that was associated with Victor Trevor’s father’s secret past as a mutinous convict:

“Voyage of the Gloria Scott,” he read. “That was a bad business. I have some recollection that you made a record of it, Watson, though I was unable to congratulate you upon the result.”

Indeed this voyage in GLOR was a ‘bad business’; it ended in mutiny and disaster. The ship Gloria Scott exploded and sunk in the Atlantic, and most of the crew and passengers died.

So, not many ships appear in BBC Sherlock. But instead, there’s plenty of cars in the show. What if all these car references actually somehow actually refer to a ship - a very particular ‘shipping’? ;)

The Cars

So, might these cars code for some hidden secrets? And/or is it possible to tie the car references to ’naval code’, as Holmes claims to do in LAST, assuming that naval = water = emotions but also sexuality? 

Returning to canon, please note that Holmes and Watson (both in disguise) arrive in a car to the scene of this story in LAST. This is one of the very few cars that appear in canon, since they weren’t yet very commonly in use by those times. Holmes’ and Watson’s car is modestly described as “a small car” and “a little Ford” (as opposed to Baron Von Herling’s car, which is a huge limo). But at the end of the story, Holmes says about the little Ford: “Start her up, Watson, for it’s time that we were on our way.” And there they go, happily together, with the criminal tied up in the back seat, heading for Scotland Yard. Sweet, isn’t it? :) This is the very last we see of Holmes and Watson in canon. (Unfortunately, I can’t find any illustration of it).

BBC Sherlock, however, is full of cars. So, if we apply this analogy to BBC Sherlock, what car references can we find that could be translated into marine (= emotional) terms? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the cab, the taxi, which is Sherlock’s preferred means of transport. 

A taxi has a driver, which is the word that the little girl on the plane in TFP uses instead of ‘pilot’. But we don’t see any taxi boats in the show, do we? In the Unaired Pilot, however, the cabbie drives Sherlock home to Baker Street (not to Roland Kerr’s), and there he tries to ‘kill’ him. One could even assume he makes a kind of sexual innuendo when Sherlock is sprawled face-down on the floor and the cabbie says “I could do anything I wanted to you right now, Mr ’olmes.” 

As I explained in my other meta about marine code (X), a marine pilot is someone who leads a ship through dangerous waters. Mofftiss haven’t included any marine pilots in their show, but they do use aircraft pilots, even if they’re not labelled as such: 

But if ‘driver’ should be read as ‘pilot’, then Jeff Hope - a John mirror - in the Unaired Pilot, the ‘driver’ of the show, guides Sherlock home emotionally and sexually, doesn’t he? ;) 

But there’s more about the signals in LAST. This is what the counter-agent Sherlock ‘Altamont’ Holmes says when he arrives at Von Bork’s place:

“You can give me the glad hand to-night, mister,” he cried. “I’m bringing home the bacon at last.” “The signals?” “Same as I said in my cable. Every last one of them, semaphore, lamp code, Marconi – a copy, mind you, not the original. That was too dangerous.”

This seems very similar to Wikipedia’s explanation of the Marine Code of Signals, as I quoted above: apart from flag hoist, the signals can also be transmitted by, for example, flag semaphores, radio communication or signal lamps. We do have radio communication in TFP, when Sherrinford receives the message from the boat ‘golf-whisky-x-ray’. But are there any signal lamps in BBC Sherlock? Yes, in fact there are - and they’re tied to a car! 

A blinking, grinning Peugeot, no less, in THoB. And it’s definitely connected to sex, because that’s what’s happening inside. ;) Even if we’re lead to believe that this isn’t actually code, John does try (unsuccessfully) to decipher the blinking lights from this car as Morse signals and gets “U M Q R A”.

Apparently this code is not referring to the Marine Code of Signals. But @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest​ has written an excellent meta (X) deciphering the possible code “UMQRA” as meaning “TORCH”, using the Ceasar cipher, which Sherlock refers to on his website (X) in combination with another cipher. In my opinion this does make a lot of sense. John does indeed use a torch to try to decipher this message, and there are also lots of other possible metaphorical meanings of ‘torch’ in the show. 

So I think it would still be wise to pay attention to code, wouldn’t it?

As for Holmes’ quote from LAST above, “a copy, mind you, not the original”, I’d interpret this at Holmes pointing out that these signals can be copied (’mirrored’?) and also that they can vary in type (I imagine that ‘Marconi’ stands for radio transmission (X)). All in all, these naval signals are of national importance in canon, just like the Bruce Partington Plans and the Naval Treaty. And these are all military top-secrets clearly connected to the British navy. At some point in LAST, believing he has won the spy game, the Baron says:“There may be other lights within the week, and the English coast a less tranquil place!” Seems like the East Wind is coming. ;)

But back to the marine codes and cars: in canon (LAST) the car references hide secrets of national importance, connected to Britain’s naval defense, and some of those secrets, in turn, are encrypted with naval signals. That’s double coding, right? Also: the navy defend British waters and water = emotions.

As for cars, there’s a lot more of them in the show, while canon has very few; cars weren’t in use during most of Holmes’ career. I think LAST is the first time that cars appear in ACD canon? And the spare parts that Holmes/Altamont talks about as code in LAST never actually appear in the story, only the Baron’s limo and Holmes’ little Ford, where Watson is the driver.

But in the modern show there’s plenty of cars, of course; they’re literally everywhere. Many people have long ago pointed out that cars represent transport metaphorically, which is how Sherlock views his bodily needs in the unaired Pilot. Which ties in well with the assumption above that cars also represents sexuality, which is related to emotions even if it’s not the same thing.

But let’s also try to decipher the car references with Holmes’s code in LAST in mind, shall we? Where can we find water and/or possible hints about emotions and/or sexuality?

Apart from the taxis, which run like a red thread through the episodes (ASiP, TBB, TGG, ASiB, TRF, HLV, TST), and the abundance of police cars and ambulances, I can think of the following:

Mycroft’s black governmental car which is used to kidnap John in ASiP (and other episodes).

If Mycroft represents Sherlock’s brain, this might be about Sherlock trying to examine and test John with his intellect, to get an idea of who John is and what to expect from him. But this task is driven by his car - bodily needs - and behind them there’s still emotions, if we apply Sherlock’s code in LAST.

The first hostage’s car in TGG, where she is wrapped up in semtex.

This woman is literally trapped inside her car and metaphorically trapped inside her bodily needs, which are threatening to explode (remember Holmes’ ’sparking plugs’ in LAST?) if Sherlock doesn’t solve the puzzle about Carl Powers. And in this screen cap she is literally juxtaposed to Sherlock:

So it seems like Sherlock is now trapped inside his ‘transport’, yes? Still driven by emotions rather than intellect. And he probably sees this as very dangerous.

The finding of The ’dead’ man’s car with (fake) blood in TGG.

This ill-treated transport device (John calls it ”an abandoned sports car” on his blog X) leeds to more cars - Janus cars - and it turns out that the driver - Ian Monkford - isn’t dead; he’s just on ’vacation’ in Colombia (with the real purpose of cashing in his life insurance money). Sherlock figures this puzzle out and the poor fellow wrapped in semtex can breathe out; he’s not going to explode, either physically or emotionally. And no-one is dead in this case, but the driver faked his own death to avoid exposure and get his ‘security’.

The car with a dead body in the boot in ASiB

Licence plate: PYO3 HYN. The dead man in this car was destined for Germany according to his tickets - another ‘vacation’? But he never reached there; his plane crashed but he wasn’t in it, because he was already dead - trapped in his transport a car. Now, this case seems intimately connected with Sherlock in the boot of Mrs Hudson’s Aston Martin in TLD (see below). Except that Sherlock was being transported alive in that boot, but this guy is dead.

The client’s back-firing old SAAB in ASiB

The client stops near a wetland area and a stream because of problems with his engine. The driver - a John mirror? - tries to fix his ‘engine’, but the old car just won’t start. Sherlock analyses this case in his (drugged) Mind Palace together with his libido Irene Adler.

People have pointed out long ago (sorry for not remembering who - was it LSiT?) that the back-firing SAAB engine in the hiker case in ASiB might represent John’s dysfunctional sexlife with women; Sarah in specific and probably their trip to New Zeeland after TGG. (Maybe this is also why Sherlock in TSoT, when John has just been married to Mary, deduces that one of the wedding guests - a doctor - has ‘erectile dysfunction’?)

Irene’s black car in ASiB

Licence plate: SKO8 ZYL. This black car, which has a private driver, is used to transport John to the Battersea station on New Year’s Eve in ASiB. In spite of being in midwinter, Battersea seems to be flooded with water. And this is the place where Irene exposes John’s sexual relationship with (or at least interest in) Sherlock while Sherlock is listening to the conversation from another room, but John declares that “I’m not actually gay”. This car is so similar to Mycroft’s black car (see above) that John thinks this is Mycroft who kidnaps him again. If Irene represents Sherlock’s libido, what does her black car stand for?

Sherlock’s and John’s hired Land Rover in THoB

Licence plate: OEI0 HFK. The Land Rover is a British car, known for its four-wheel drive and vast off-road capacity. Sherlock drives this car to “deepest, darkest Devon” with John in the passenger seat, so it seems like they were prepared for a ‘bumpy ride’. And this car actually has a visible spare part; an extra wheel in case of emergency:

And their journey really became ‘bumpy’ - at least on an emotional level, since they were both dosed with a fear-inducing gas, had a quarrel, and the gay couple who were running the Inn where they were staying took for granted that they were indeed a couple too.

John’s and Mary’s car in HLV and in TST

Licence plate: SP56 LJY, black Audi. Mary is the driver in HLV. (By the way, why has this car the steering wheel to the left, in a country with left-hand traffic?). Here we’re presented with the interesting idea from the billboard that “Information is the power to change 1895″. In HLV we actually do see something like a spare part for this car; John’s tyre lever. ;) (which looks more like some sort of pipe key, if you ask me, but whatever; it’s still a spare part - or at least a ‘tool’ - associated with John’s transport car):

So this would be consistent with Holmes’ cipher in LAST. And this spare part is treated with very sexual overtones in HLV, so I think the influence of Sentiment and Sex is pretty clear here.

Mrs Hudson’s red Aston Martin in TLD

License plate: APIS CXJ. Now, this is a really interesting and beautiful car I think, and it shows its capacity when it goes speeding in TLD. Mrs Hudson has more resources than some people might believe. But John is only allowed to use her sports car - the ultimate symbol of male virility - when he’s off to rescue Sherlock. ;) 

The license plate reads APIS, which I’m sure is a reference to bees and bee keeping, because Apis mellifera is the scientific name of the honey bee. Holmes’ main occupation as retired in ACD canon is bee keeping, which is shown in LAST, where his secret ‘sparking plugs’ turn out to be the Practical Handbook of Bee Culture. ;)) So Holmes stood by his words in his telegram to Van Bork; he did “come without fail to-night” (he came together with Watson) and he did “bring new sparking plugs”. It’s just that the ‘spark’ wasn’t maybe of the sort that Van Bork had expected... 

Anyway, in this scene in TLD, Sherlock is being kidnapped and handcuffed by Mrs Hudson and transported in the boot of that sports car; he’s literally trapped inside the rear end of his transport, which has John as its direct destination. 

Sadly for all of us, however, John refuses to ‘examine this body’, and this is instead done by the John mirror Molly (inside an ambulance), who tells Sherlock that he’s dying and that “it’s not a game”. 

The next time we see this red sports car, however, John is the driver, and he’s using its great capacity as it should be used: to come to Sherlock’s rescue. ;)

Come to think of it, there’s actually at least one more car spare part mentioned in the show, even if it might not be meant as this specific part:

This car has a steering wheel nevertheless, and Sherlock is sitting in the car while saying this. And yes; this show is indeed repetitive when it comes to certain topics. Like ‘transport’, emotions and bodily needs. But I do hope we’ll finally see some new turns on this topic in the next series. ;)

Thanks for your patience in following this marathon meta to its end! Tagging some people who might be interested (please alert me if you don’t want to be tagged):

@raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @gosherlocked​ @sarahthecoat​ @lukessense​ @therealsaintscully​ @thewatsonbeekeepers​ @sagestreet​ @tjlcisthenewsexy​ @thepersianslipper​ @loveismyrevolution​ @shylockgnomes​ @frailtyofgenius​

Screencaps in this meta are in some cases borrowed from this site (X). 

[dustofthedailylife]

Oh yeah, I was having an amicable discussion with someone about the lack of diversity in characters on a whole, let alone sumeru leaks. Like yeah they might have different hex codes but all but 3 are floating around #F0DDCF, when they could duplicate a few NPC models and change the texture to #E1BBA1 or even #A17741

And this guy came in on a rampage bc he couldn't understand how we're unhappy with the content when the mechanics haven't updated in forever.

The og post was about how battle mechanics ARE getting an update in 3.0

I'm not going to harass the social media adms about developer specific issues let alone other fans. I play games for enjoyment, not ego

at least we're coming up with solutions, what kind of mechanics do you want to see added or changed? But nah, he just wanted to be toxic

My other favorite thing is that the Harbingers are just ⚫⚪⚪⚫⚪🟠⚪⚫⚪🟣💀

I'm still under the impression that they're ranked by strength, but since Pierro was chronologically the first as well I'm at least open to other reasons now

~🧄

I agree with the skin color point, for some reason it eludes me they aren't making characters with darker skin tones, especially since fans are asking for it. As for me - I'd love a bit more diversity in the cast.

And yeah that's kind of just twitter for you, someone will always jump in and have something to say even though no one was talking to them or cares about it. But from my time on twitter I have kinda learned that the platform thrives off drama. The majority of tweets that get attention on there revolve around some kind of drama and arguing, while wholesome stuff usually gets drowned out.

Idk, maybe my algorithm is borked on there but everyone I've talked to seems to agree with it. Drama usually attracts people like light attracts moths - twitter is the live example for that in my eyes 🤷🏻‍♀️

With that being said: I have used several social media platforms already and in all honesty, tumblr so far has been the most wholesome and positive one I ever came across. Everyone here is just so nice (at least on the Genshin side of things - because that's the only one I can judge).

And yeah I noticed that about the Harbingers as well!

Everyone: Blue-ish, White, little bit of purple and black Childe: A carrot

Absolutely love it haha! 😂 And I kinda think that was deliberate, since hoyoverse puts a lot of thought into their design choices, maybe since Childe kind of sticks out, it means that he doesn't fully fit with the rest of the Fatui. 🤔