Watching the Detectives

Holmemes pt. 51

Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.

This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.

A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.

Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.

One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.

Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.

Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.

Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.

Only experienced silverbacks or the boldest young Dads dare venture into a craft store for long without his mate or offspring to keep roving Craft Ladies at bay and guide him in this strange ecosystem. If a Dad enters with his mate and is separated from her, he will often scuttle for the seeming familiarity of Woodcrafts, Models, or Paints (the latter not to be confused with Fine Arts, unquestioned territory of art students), but he eyes Scrapbooking and Jewelry with trepidation and will usually venture into those exotic areas only in the company of females of his pack.

Lumberjacks are rarely spotted entering craft stores of their own volition, for while they do not fear it as Dads do, they know it is an environment unsuited for megafauna such as themselves.

Hardware store Lesbians generally adapt more easily to craft stores, although they may enlist another Lesbian of a subspecies more adapted to that environment to guide them until they find their niche. Lesbians have even been known to seek the aid of a Craft Lady, a native fauna that share similarities with Lesbians but are usually smaller and nimbler to suit their chosen habitat. Dads who witness this are often awed by the Lesbians’ temerity, for although larger, Dads are generally wary of the cunning and dexterous Craft Ladies and may mistake their enthusiastic pack greetings as predatory swarming.

Craft Ladies, secure in their ecological niche, have no fear of interlopers and take the presence of non-native beings in stride, although they may become territorial about scarcer resources.

Hello my lovely followers! I don’t know if you’re aware, but I have a Patreon where I post short stories and serialised novels (and other things!). I write Holmes/Watson inspired fiction, stories prompted by tarot decks, vampire and werewolf fiction, and even the occasional poem (not often, promise!).

If you’ve liked my work in the past, and that sounds like your jam, I’d love for you to take a look at my Patreon and I’d love it even more if you choose to support me there! Every new Patron helps me to write more fiction (and rely less on the day job!).

To help tempt you to the Fic Side, I’ve made the first three chapters of my new serialised novel, Murder in the WayBelow, free for everyone to read.

Murder in the WayBelow is set in my ‘Cog and Bone’ Universe – a steampunk-ish future SF series where a fleet of colony ships, populated by humans and sentient androids, is over 800 years away from an abandoned Earth. The novel begins with the gruesome death of unethical scientist, Victor Frankenstein, in the unruly and cobbled-together lowest of the lower decks of The Londinium; the ship’s version of the Rookeries of Victorian London. The Londinium’s police force, the Yardarm, is inclined to pin the murder on the impoverished and frequently undocumented people (both Cog and Bone) of the WayBelow. That is, unless consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and her new flatmate and colleague, W4t50n, who runs the Clockwork Morgue, can find the true killer.

Along with Sherlock and W4t50n, Murder in the WayBelow includes droid and human characters both original and drawn from period fiction, including the perennially young robot-boy P3t3r and his gang of cast aside child androids, the ship’s Bosun, who has been serving the Admiralty for over 800 years but is neither human nor ‘droid; and an equally venerable droid going by the name of Hyp4t14, who oversees the unauthorised Night Library.

If that whets your appetite, you can become part of my beloved Patreon posse starting at the Melbourne Coffee tier ($3/month) and get a new chapter monthly. You’ll also get access to around 300 previous posts of fiction and blog posts.

You can also choose higher tiers, like Bite Club, Fan Mail and World Tour, with new posts and rewards at each level, up to getting an annual gift of goodies hand-made by me!

Make my day by coming to take a look, and make my year by joining the gang! And of course you can cancel any time if your circumstances change or it turns out to be Not Your Thing.

Hello my lovely followers! I don’t know if you’re aware, but I have a Patreon where I post short stories and serialised novels (and other things!). I write Holmes/Watson inspired fiction, stories prompted by tarot decks, vampire and werewolf fiction, and even the occasional poem (not often, promise!).

If you’ve liked my work in the past, and that sounds like your jam, I’d love for you to take a look at my Patreon and I’d love it even more if you choose to support me there! Every new Patron helps me to write more fiction (and rely less on the day job!).

To help tempt you to the Fic Side, I’ve made the first three chapters of my new serialised novel, Murder in the WayBelow, free for everyone to read.

Murder in the WayBelow is set in my ‘Cog and Bone’ Universe – a steampunk-ish future SF series where a fleet of colony ships, populated by humans and sentient androids, is over 800 years away from an abandoned Earth. The novel begins with the gruesome death of unethical scientist, Victor Frankenstein, in the unruly and cobbled-together lowest of the lower decks of The Londinium; the ship’s version of the Rookeries of Victorian London. The Londinium’s police force, the Yardarm, is inclined to pin the murder on the impoverished and frequently undocumented people (both Cog and Bone) of the WayBelow. That is, unless consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and her new flatmate and colleague, W4t50n, who runs the Clockwork Morgue, can find the true killer.

Along with Sherlock and W4t50n, Murder in the WayBelow includes droid and human characters both original and drawn from period fiction, including the perennially young robot-boy P3t3r and his gang of cast aside child androids, the ship’s Bosun, who has been serving the Admiralty for over 800 years but is neither human nor ‘droid; and an equally venerable droid going by the name of Hyp4t14, who oversees the unauthorised Night Library.

If that whets your appetite, you can become part of my beloved Patreon posse starting at the Melbourne Coffee tier ($3/month) and get a new chapter monthly. You’ll also get access to around 300 previous posts of fiction and blog posts.

You can also choose higher tiers, like Bite Club, Fan Mail and World Tour, with new posts and rewards at each level, up to getting an annual gift of goodies hand-made by me!

Make my day by coming to take a look, and make my year by joining the gang! And of course you can cancel any time if your circumstances change or it turns out to be Not Your Thing.

"Heated Rivalry" is all the buzz - but if you've read/watched it all and you're keen on something HR-adjacent, you might like my 5-novella Duo Ex Machina series - about musicians Milo and Frank and their unfortunate and unwelcome adventures with crime!