Comments From a Simple Treedog

[Sycamore]

Senility only works when you know about it beforehand...

[Sycamore]

Eliza sat, a knot of apprehension building at the back of her throat.  The knot grew as Matukhana?s spoon plunged into the quivering glop, swiveled, and excised a salty clump. The fox?s paw took an eternity to raise the implement to his mouth, and another passed while his lips engulfed the morsel. There was a single tolling beat, the momentary calm before what was sure to be a raging tempest.

Matukhana?s lip puckered. One sagging eyelid twitched. Eliza shifted uncomfortably on the edge of her log, fighting the urge to flee.

...

Matukhana set the porridge bowl down, and addressed his captive. ?Been absent a long time, ?aven?t ye, cully??

So, umm... what happened to the salt, then?

[Cairn Destop]

Maybe the cook didn't add enough. 

[Sycamore]

Not judging by the descriptions.

[Erethas]

That confused me too, or perhaps Matkuhana is good at not letting outbursts show?
Even so, I expected a little more reaction.

I tend not to vote until the last day just in case someone posts during the voting session, also that I can be more sure.

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

That was actually intended to be a combination of things.

First off, since the post is written from Eliza's perspective, the corsairs' interruption distracted both her and Matukhana.

Eliza misses any further reaction because she's distracted Medjool, who she was pretty afraid of.

Matukhana, yes, would be in pretty serious pain, but he also knows the corsair rule of thumb that you don't show weakness to your crew, ever. So he'd bite it back as best he could.

And if things hadn't gone the way that they did, there would definitely have been much throwing of porridge and probably a serious beating in Eliza's future. :p

[Dirgecallers]

No one was more surprise then me I think about the ending. I did not think that it would end with everybody dying but 1. Was the unknown survivor something that you were planning all along?

[Bellona Littlebrush]

Not all things are as they appear, sir. I hope you've enjoyed the ending so far, but "the rest is still unwritten", as it were. You'll see just what we have in store once voting is over. :)

[Eliza Lacrimosa]

Indeed. We've still got some amazing tricks up our sleeves, so you'd best stay tuned! :p

[Jarrtail]

So...that's not the end? I certainly hope not. Birch and I still have much to do  ;D

[Birch]

<3!!!

*sniff*

My thanks to you all for having me go out with style.

[Cairn Destop]

I found this final week both a good and bad one. 

Good:
The chapters added this week are all collaborations.  This means the competitive nature of this contest is missing from the contestants.  They are more focused on presenting the best story possibe and have set aside their desire for the coveted title of winner.  That is indeed a testiment to the bond forged by the participants.

Bad:
With everyone taking credit for each post, there is no final judgement possible.  We have to rely on the prior chapters to determine a winner.

[Revel]

Well no, only three were collaborations. Three were normal posts as usual. That doesn't mean the rest of what you said about the Good isn't true though.  ;D I love my "sisters"!

But isn't the point of this final round to be tallying up our strengths and weaknesses over the course of the whole story? As I understand it not all death votes were considered on a weekly basis and some were voted off for their performance from earlier weeks as well. It would be awful if someone were voted out strictly by one weeks performance, as many of us had school.  :-\ A week of tests and papers shouldn't erase several weeks of good and punctual writing...

[Venril]

I agree.  I always vote on the macro of the person's performance across the contest.  Unless someone has either an incredibly good or incredibly bad post in one particular week, I typically based it on their writing as a whole.

[Jarrtail]

I concur as well. I mean, you're voting on the winner of the entire contest, not just that week. Makes more sense to base your decision on their prior performance as well as the last week's.