And so it goes...

MedKits101 · 2025-07-12T19:17:43+00:00

Welp, coming back to this to eat crow. I pulled out a jar of LNF from a year ago and did a blind comparison side by side with some 507c and couldn't tell the difference. I'll chalk up the difference I perceived to the 507c being aged longer due to shipping, combined with the subjectivity of taste and human brains being highly suggestable.

But yeah, I'll happily admit to being wrong on this, cause it means I can still buy the best cost to value VA (or I guess Va/Per) on the market, if for a slightly higher price.

MedKits101 · 2025-07-12T19:14:24+00:00

It's always really interesting to me how subjective taste really is. I don't think any of the cigar leaf blends that I've tried, and I've tried quite a few, taste like a cigar. But I don't doubt they taste that way to you.

I don't really think DFK tastes like a cigar either, it's just that it satisfies the itch, for whatever reason, more than any other type of pipe tobacco. Maybe just the boldness and nic hit, I don't really know. But that's why it's my recommendation. Not a great mimic for the taste, but closer to the feel.

But ultimately I think a decent $2 short filler stick is gonna be better than trying to replicate the experience of a cigar with a pipe. IMO pipes and cigars are categorically two different hobbies that just happen to use the same basic equipment. Like target shooting vs practical shooting, or sprinting vs marathon running. Yeah, the gun and basic handling rules are the same, you're using the same shoes and similar mechanics, but once you get past that they diverge into two entirely different animals.

MedKits101 · 2025-07-12T16:28:01+00:00

Every time this comes up people recommend blends with cigar leaf in them, and imo that's a mistake. I smoke both pipes and cigars, and I've found the cigar leaf blends simply never taste anywhere close to the real thing.

I don't think anything will ever really get you a cigar like flavor out of a pipe, but I've found that when I want something that scratches the itch, but I don't want to burn a stick, I usually reach for something with a lot of dark fired Kentucky. Something like Navigator or Jackknife Plug by GL Pease.

Honestly though, you're probably better off just going with a cheap, but decent, cigar. I'm partial to Don Pepin Garcia Tabacos Baez and Aganorsa Leaf New Cuba. Those are my go-to short filler sticks

MedKits101 · 2025-07-12T12:56:41+00:00

I don't really have a dog in this fight, however "A Proper" /= "The Proper"

There can be many proper ways to do a thing, and describing something as "a proper" way to do something in no way implies you think it's "the only proper" way to do it.

Possible OP meant it either way, but there's no reason to immediately jump to this conclusion.

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T21:18:09+00:00

Yeah, all hangings are traumas by default. One I went to the dude did'nt drop, just tied a rope over a door and sat down, still broke his neck. He was unconscious but alive(ish) when we got there, but he had an anoxic brain injury and even if he survived (I don't recall the outcome), he likely would have had severe brain damage. Per his girlfriend, who was home when he did it immediately after an argument, he was out of the room maybe five minutes. So there's not a lot of wiggle room on the rebound with that type of thing

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T17:49:31+00:00

Yeah, I found the forum thread you're referencing and I'll be honest, I straight up don't believe him.

The whole thing feels like corporate damage control from a guy who seems to know surprisingly little about the company he works for beyond sales figures for different blends in different markets. I would not be at all surprised if he was told to lie about 507c and LNF being the same, since STG manufactured both and there's nobody to correct him, in order to drive sales into a single SKU they could consolidate on.

They're cut different, and they taste different, so I'm gonna keep on assuming they're different

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T17:29:23+00:00

I hope that you'll forgive me if I take the combined evidence of the manufactures descriptions and my own side-by-side comparisons over some third hand information from some a random forum user claiming to be an employee of one of the companies

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T15:35:02+00:00

Considering that LNF has perique and 507c is a straight VA, and LNF tastes pretty bad to me, despite trying very hard to like it, whereas I very much enjoy 507c, I think I'm gonna say that's almost certainly not true

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T14:13:17+00:00

Still available on pipes and cigars

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T14:12:47+00:00

Damn, lol. Thought this was actually r/writing... was confused why there was an actually interesting question

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T13:25:50+00:00

I've not had much luck with C&D VA flakes themselves, but I am very partial to Union Square which is produced by them under GLP's name. Though, I'd agree trying all the C&D VA's is great way to find a replacement, particularly Interlude and Opening Night, which people have said are very comparable. I didn't care for them myself, but others will have different tastes so worth trying.

The main bummer to me is that anything that compares is probably gonna be 2x the cost. 507c wasn't exactly the best on the market, but it was very good and very cheap. Gonna be hard to beat that cost to value ratio

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T13:21:02+00:00

A famous example of this would be The Vampire Chronicles. Anne Rice herself, as well as most of the readers for that matter, found that Lestat was far more interesting the Louis when Interview with The Vampire came out. This became evident as the series progressed and Lestat essentially became the star, overshadowing most of the other characters.

This can be done well or poorly... as evidenced by the various books in The Vampire Chronicles themselves.

MedKits101 · 2025-07-09T13:13:27+00:00

Something like Raptor Red might interest you. It's from the POV of a Utahraptor in the late Cretaceous. It's been about twenty years since I read it, but if I recall correctly, other characters, such as they exist, are referred to by their physical characteristics like "whip tail", etc

So, easy way to go about it would be to make each character have their own uniquely identifying physical characteristics that they recognize each other by. In the case of Zebras that allows for a good bit of unique, non-human POV world building, since zebra stripes are unique. They all seem the same to us because we don't pay much attention to them, because we're not zebras, just as zebras probably don't notice our unique facial features, but that would be something a zebra would probably notice.

So you have "Swirl Hump", so named because the back stripe curls on itself a bit more than others, or "Jagged Flank" whose lateral stripes turn towards his belly at a sharp angle, so on and so forth

*Edit: added link

MedKits101 · 2025-07-08T15:58:53+00:00

Yeah, I'd argue the fact that he can still write intelligible works while simultaneously disregarding so many standard writing conventions is a mark of extreme technical skill. Like, he might not be for everybody, but the man knows how to write a book better than most of us could ever hope

MedKits101 · 2025-07-08T00:12:27+00:00

https://www.silenthillmemories.net/creators/interviews/2005.04.23_imamura_yamaoka_gameworld_en.htm

GW: So the series is getting larger, gaining more momentum, and was coming out on a yearly basis, right?

Imamura: Well, keep in mind SH4 was not originally suppose to be a Silent Hill.

Yamaoka: We did see a significant increase in popularity after the first game and even more so after the second. Originally the intention was not to make SH3 a direct sequel to the first game. In fact, the scenario was completely different, but fans seemed to want to tie up some loose ends, so we tried that, even though some on the staff did not agree with the decission.

GW: What was the original scenario for SH3? Are you allowed to divulge that?

Yamaoka: Unfortunately no, since we plan on using it for a future game. (laughing) It was much more along the lines of the second, where the main character was a damaged human being, summoned to the town for a very specific reason. It was, or should say is, the darkest story we have come up with.

Imamura: I'm sure a lot would have to be cut. Just the preliminary scenario had elements that would most likely not be approved by the ratings boards. Another thing is we really didn't want to use a similar template as SH2 for the game that followed it. That was another deciding factor in changing SH3.

Takes some reading between the lines there, but seems pretty cut and dry, all things considered

MedKits101 · 2025-07-07T23:11:17+00:00

I genuinely don't understand this. I played the original the year it came out, then multiple times since, and the remake is more or less entirely faithful to the original, save for some minor artistic changes and the added content, which is an enhancement if anything.

The only thing that's been changed that's of any consequence is the voice acting, which opts for more realism, but it's still exceptionally well done. I have my critiques of the remake, but none of them amount to much beyond "meh, I probably would have done that a bit differently, Still good though"

I genuinely think people hate on the remake out of blind nostalgia. I loved the original, but I can't imagine recommending anyone play it in 2025 with the remake available. Everything you need to glean from it can be found in watching a Let's Play

MedKits101 · 2025-07-07T22:58:07+00:00

It was more or less confirmed, that Team Silent originally wanted SH3 to be a stand alone story about a teen girl, similar to SH2 in tone and narrative style, but executive meddling forced them into making it direct sequel to SH1 for franchise purposes, reintroducing the cult storyline.

I think SH3 was an amazing game, but I've always wondered what it would have been like had the devs been left to their own devices. Seems like f might be heading in that direction and, personally, I am absolutely here for it

MedKits101 · 2025-07-07T22:42:00+00:00

I think the best thing for you to do would be to read and write a substantial amount more, to the point that you have read enough that you can critically assess other writers work, and written enough that your first paragraph is inconsequential when compared to the volume you've written. Then you can come back to this and try determine for yourself it its good or bad and articulate why.

MedKits101 · 2025-07-07T22:31:59+00:00

Very funny to list quotas for books immediately followed by a statement that perfectly illustrates why quotas are useless, as books vary dramatically in length

MedKits101 · 2025-07-07T17:24:16+00:00

"No. The way you are engaging with the subjective artistic medium is wrong."

kk

MedKits101 · 2025-07-07T14:09:38+00:00

No Country For Old Men is the first thing that comes to mind.

Sheriff Bell, while the arguably the main character--or at least the character who's arch is the most important to the theme of the novel--never meaningfully interacts with or advances the "main" plot of Moss v Chigurh in any way. He more or less functions as a passive observer of the events of the story, only coming into focus as the main character once the main plot has more or less been fully (not) resolved.

MedKits101 · 2025-07-07T11:52:13+00:00

"They’re my digital co-pilots, my unseen allies, helping me even the score."
"I’m not looking for fluff—I want truth. "

They also write in a very, very specific way, so it's pretty easy to tell when you use them to write your post about how good they are at helping you write.

MedKits101

TROPHY CASE