TradingCardKind

🌈Feast your eyes on the dazzling colors of the rainbow leaf beetle (Chrysolina cerealis)! Though this insect is widely distributed across Europe, it’s seldom seen. Growing up to 0.5 in (1.3 cm) in size, this critter feeds on plants including ivy, roses, and thyme. It prefers to inhabit montane forests at elevations of up to 1,970 ft (600 m). 

You may ask: why not just sculpt a horsie! You can sculpt! And that is not the point for the people who do this. The point is to WARP and BOTHER the material I think.

Many, many people read this post addition and wanted to correct it with: "well actually, it's actually much easier to resculpt a horsie than to make one from scratch. And also, Breyers have an active community, and it's nice to be in a fandom."

Many of these corrections were well-intentioned, aimed at general readers, not aimed at me personally, and were intended to share knowledge. I am not singling anyone out and it's great to see how many people have passion for a hobby.

When people kindly messaged me to explain, in detail, the artistic intentions of the model horse customisation community, I said merely, "Thank you for your kindness in telling me." However, to me, this is a really educational example of a post and how we can use the information in posts. There is no information about what is going on in the original video or post.

To the post, I added the following information:

identified the brand of model horse as "Breyer," from less than 2 seconds of video showing the original horse.

identified the hobby being shown as "Breyer customisation."

identified the material used to construct Breyer horses as "resin."

noted that the general public may well ask why people do this hobby, instead of sculpting their own horse.

said that "sculpting their own horse" is not the point for people who do this hobby.

added jokingly that "bothering" the original horse is a source of satisfaction for people who do this hobby.

noted that custom breyer competitions exist, indicating, at this point, not only knowledge of a niche hobby, but knowledge of its community, and FURTHER, what its elite practitioners within the community do at the pinnacle of taking it seriously.

used a strikethrough for this text, indicating a certain sheepishness about knowing this at all.

Now, let's look at the information imparted in the seven sentences in my original post addition, and what they mean. We can see how each of the seven sentences contains information, and point 8 of the meanings has meta-information (here, a possible interpretation is that the person is embarrassed, or joking about being embarrassed, at publicly admitting the depth of their knowledge). When we think about what these sentences MEAN, it looks like the person writing them has some information about this hobby.

Now we can reflect on a few questions.

From the post, do you think that Elodieunderglass has ever heard of model horse customisation?

From the post, what level of knowledge do you assume Elodie might have about it?

Do you think that "why not just sculpt a horsie" is Elodie's question? Do you think that they are genuinely framing this as a request for information?

Based on the post, do you think that Elodie provides an answer to the question in the next few sentences? Do you think that Elodie needs an answer?

What level and depth of information do you think Elodie needs to receive in order to truly understand the hobby of model horse customisation? Beginner/intermediate/advanced?

What tone indicators can you see in the post? Do you think it is serious and literal, or joking and playful? What text is present? What is the subtext?

If, reading through, you start feel hot and defensive and say, "Well, I'm sorry, but just excited to share about my hobby," here is another way to frame that.

This person has indicated that they probably share your hobby. It's entirely possible that you could start from a different point, and end up with an entire friend who shares your hobby, instead of mildly irritating a peer.

Instead of using your knowledge to hit someone with a sledgehammer of a lecture, you could use your knowledge to reach out your hand to ask.

"I don't always read tone well, but I feel like you have some knowledge about Breyer customs! Do you do them? How serious are you about it? Would you like to see any of mine?"

I am extremely sympathetic to the excitement and possessiveness of a special interest or hobby. Here are three further pieces of advice.

Having a special interest or passionately held hobby does not mean that you hold more knowledge than others. And that's fine - the people with equal knowledge are your community.

People may occasionally use a joking tone about their own interests and hobbies. People may also be frequently sarcastic or critical of their own hobbies - often because people who hold a lot of knowledge about something are the most aware of the problems/criticisms of the Thing. Other times, affectionate joking is a way to express affection for the Thing.

If you are normally "bad at reading tone indicators," that's fine! However, because other people frequently use tone to communicate, being "bad at tone indicators" should be a mental save point - a clue to read especially thoroughly for tone before reacting. Skimming and reacting based on what you THINK the tone was, or what you THINK the text said (based on the tone you interpreted), is a recipe for really irritating people.

Okay, not to worry, back to everyone's regularly scheduled horfposting. Just.... yeah.

and for my final submission for the event 47. holding a handheld and 21. timed challenge <3

LOL

Top: in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the Boomerang Bros. were given unique designs to match the Beanbean Kingdom location (left) that differentiated them so much from the regular Boomerang Bros. that they were given a new species name in the Nintendo 3DS version: "Beanerang Bros." (right).

Bottom: however, the opposite happened to the Hammer Bros. during development. The earliest design, seen in the prototype version of the game (left), was also made to be Beanbean Kingdom-inspired, but was changed to merely a stylized take on the regular design in the finished game (middle). In the Nintendo 3DS version, this was then completely standardized to an on-model depiction of the regular design (right).

Source: Tailikku

I know I owe you a bunch of stories, and I’ve got them all lined up to tell, including Kouku and Girlgirl and Leika. I just finished with the hardest patients I’ve ever had. One was literally shredding, so needed two different stuffed animals of my own to act as models, and the other pair had fabric that was disintegrating in a way that made it sticky, so every time the needle went in and came out, I needed to clean it off! They were stuffing inside, and the top layer of their fabric was coming apart, but the backing of their fabric was sticky. It was new. :-/

But, today I am going to share the story of a turtle named Turtle, and for a rare special treat, you get to see part of the patient’s family. I don’t usually show families for privacy reasons, but, well, this is Turtle’s warm blooded being, Murphy:

They’d been together for six years, since Murphy was a puppy. Here’s their baby picture:

As you can see, Murphy has grown and Turtle has, well been worn a bit. Here are a couple of his diagnosis photos:

We agreed that Turtle needed transplants for his balding, and wounds sewn up. Usually, I don’t clean patients belonging to animals, as scent is so important, but in this case, the humans decided a spa was in order too. So Turtle flew down to the Bay Area and started his treatment with a spa:

You can already see him getting cleaner!

Once dry and restuffed, he got a heart with a bit of original stuffing:

And then the humans chose a fabric for his transplants from two options:

Soon his surgery was done and he was ready to head back north:

Normally I’d stop here, with a quote from the humans “He looks great!” But that’s not the end of the story. You see, once Turtle got home, Murphy sent some photos to make everyone smile:

Happy as a puppy that they’re together once more!

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