#because snail internet but

[galedekarios]

i'm assuming the patch will drop soon and i just wanted to let you all know that when it drops, i'm staying away from tumblr and other social media until i've played it for myself.

when i get back, i'll tag every new post, edit & gifset that has new content with 'patch 6 spoilers' and 'bg3 spoilers'. 🖤

[snailsandstrawberries]

people will ask why I like dan and phil so much and ill just say I think theyre funny because I cant say its because theyre so openly queer and happy while being queer and despite everything theyre such a good influence and can feel like such a safe space for little closeted me

[nymphaforesta]

c.

[getupthestairs]

i am so sorry for forsaking you email. email i love you please come back baby

[daggers-drawn-returns]

Help a Transgender Woman who is Homeless and Living on the Street Replace Her Glitchy, Malfunctioning Phone on its Last Legs Before it Gives up the Ghost

October 19th 2024

Hi it's Thistle Ishtar Daggers-Drawn again. I want to take a second to thank you all for all of the help you've given so far. I'm much better off than the last time I posted.

Unfortunately, being homeless is an endless parade of problems and my wife as a homeless person Is no exception.

My phone, which is a crappy $40 phone to begin with, is on its last legs with the screen registering selections In the wrong places and also the charge port doing That Thing where it needs the cord to be In a very specific position no matter what cord it is while also refusing to charge the battery at anything more than a snail's pace.

I need a new line and also new service because I'm slowly losing access to every single fast food restaurant as they tell me to get out and stop using their Wi-Fi.

The cheapest I can find in this town is the Debut 6 from Cricket Wireless which is $76 with a service plan that includes five gigabytes of data.

As for getting a phone through the lifeline program, otherwise known as an Obama phone, I need an ID to get EBT which is what I need to be eligible for that phone and I'm still in the process of retrieving my birth certificate, Social Security card, and other paperwork.

Please help me raise $78 so I can continue to access the internet, have access to my bank cards, and stay in touch with my friends and family.

Cash App: $ThistleDD

Venmo: @ThistleDD

Western Union: (616)580-4844 or newwavenova@gmail.com

Thank all for your help so far! I really could not be doing as well as I am without your help! Every bit of it is appreciated and needed.

[lovphobic]

hope your ex burns tbh not only is it so fucked up but also manipulative as fuck kinda making it seem like you'd be dying to hurt them lol also kids?? with this line of thought your ex shouldn't even be allowed to drink much less be responsible for children

TRULY? HONESTLY? she was like ohh i dont know if i can commit to that and this and that bullshit. like ok so somehow being born like this WAS indeed my fault and i did it specifically to hurt you, who was born 4 years before me, who i wont meet for twenty whole years. yes that makes total sense. i gave myself this disease JUST to hurt you.

[afro-elf]

please help anas!

@dr-anas96 is someone i consider my friend. he speaks to me as often as he can due to spotty internet and an illness that takes so much from him. he's a sweet, thoughtful dude. he has told the stories of himself and his family to anyone that can hear

his campaign is moving at a snail's pace which scares me to death. his family is starving and he suspects he's dying of cancer but there are no hospitals in gaza able to treat him. he looks more frail every time i see him. sometimes if there's a long stretch between messages from him it feels like a hole being torn in my stomach because i know there's a chance he will never speak to me or anyone again. i don't care if someone thinks that's dramatic, anyone who has regular contact with people in gaza knows this feeling well

please give what you can

[thepeacefulgarden]

If your spouse or partner, or your religious leaders, or your parents (when you're an adult), or anyone else tries to control who you can and cannot see and speak to, where you can and cannot go, what or how much you eat, what you can and cannot wear (within the scope of appropriateness for the occasion), etc., or restricts or monitors your access to phone, Internet, or transportation, that's a red flag. If they restrict your access to any kind of medical care, be it vaccines, reproductive and sexual healthcare, mental health care, or anything else (big or small), that's a red flag. If they snoop through your belongings, your phone logs, your browser history, your snail mail, your email, etc. without a damned good reason (and no, feeling insecure and needing reassurance is not "a damned good reason"), that's a red flag. If they guilt, shame, threaten, or otherwise manipulate you into "letting" them go through your private stuff, or put restrictions on you, or whatever, or if they get upset when you try to set a boundary, that's a huge red flag. If they express an interest in moving you out to the middle of nowhere, and they have or have had control issues, you might want to reconsider or hold off going with them. And make sure that if you do choose to go with them to homestead or whatever, that that's really what you want, and that you have a support system and a backup plan in case something happens and things don't turn out the way you want. Same thing for simply being a stay-at-home parent. That's a valid choice, but make sure it's your choice, and that you're prepared in case something goes wrong. If they try to sabotage your other relationships, or turn your family and friends against you, that's a parade of red flags. Remember, just because they don't hit you doesn't mean it's not abuse. If something feels wrong, sketchy, or just plain "off," it probably is. Don't ignore that.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Hello!

I am an aspiring author who struggles with accurately portraying historical clothing, and I stumbled across your blog while searching for photographs and information on late 19th century/USA Gilded Age fashion. From the research I've seen compiled across books/the internet, the clothing of the upper class from that area is very well documented in paintings, garment catalogues, photographs, museums, etc....but finding information on what the day-to-day wear of normal people was like is proving much more difficult. Since you seem to be knowledgeable in the subject of historical clothing in this approximate time period, I was wondering if you knew about any good resources to learn more about what people who couldn't afford to follow upper class trends were wearing in the general era as well as any general information around these items.

If it helps, I'm focused on eastern and southeastern United States farming/small railroad town/mountain mining/gulf coast wetland communities, but even just more general resources about what sort of clothing that the average poor person during the Gilded Age wore would be greatly helpful. I've been able to find a few photographs here and there, but these probably aren't an accurate depiction of a persons' 'day-to-day' wear, and I also haven't found much on how women learned to sew homemade clothes, what garments if any would have been bought, where people in rural areas would have sourced their cloth, what undergarments were like, how work shoes were made & aquired, ect.

Please feel free to ignore this if it isn't something you're interested in answering as I'm sure you get a lot of asks, but I'd greatly appreciate it if you have any pointers!

So here's the thing about 19th-century clothing:

in many ways, it's the same all the way down

now, that's a serious generalization. is a farm wife in Colorado going to be wearing the same thing as a Vanderbilt re: materials, fit, and up-to-the-minute trendiness? obviously not. but because so much of what people wore back then has only survived to the present day in our formalwear- long skirts, suits, etc. -we tend to have difficulty recognizing ordinary or "casual" clothing from that period. I also sometimes call this Ballgownification, from the tendency to label literally every pretty Victorian dress a Ball Gown (even on museum websites, at times). Even work clothing can consist of things you wouldn't expect to be work clothing- yes, they sometimes worked in skirts that are long by modern standards, or starched shirts and suspenders. Occupational "crap job clothes" existed, but sometimes we can't recognize even that because of modern conventions.

A wealthy lady wore a lot of two-piece dresses. Her maid wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The trailblazing lady doctor working at the hospital down the road from her house wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The factory worker who made the machine lace the maid used to trim her church dress wore a lot of two-piece dresses. The teenage daughter of the farm family that raised the cows that supplied the city where all those people lived wore a lot of- you get the idea. The FORMAT was very similar across most of American and British society; the variations tended to come in fabrics, trims, fit precision, and how frequently styles would be updated.

Having fewer outfits would be common the further down the social ladder you went, but people still tried to have as much underwear as possible- undergarments wicked up sweat and having clean ones every day was considered crucial for cleanliness. You also would see things changing more slowly- not at a snail's pace, but it might end up being a few years behind the sort of thing you'd see at Newport in the summer, so to speak. Underwear was easier to make oneself than precisely cut and fitted outer garments for adults (usually professionally made for all but the poorest of the poor for a long time- dressmakers and tailors catering to working-class clientele did exist), but that also began to be mass-produced sooner than outer clothing. So depending on the specific location, social status, and era, you might see that sort of thing and children's clothing homemade more often than anything else. Around the 1890s it became more common to purchase dresses and suits ready-made from catalogues like Sears-Roebuck, in the States, though it still hadn't outpaced professional tailoring and dressmaking yet. Work shoes came from dedicated cobblers, and even if you lived in isolated areas, VERY few people in the US and UK wove their own fabric. Most got it from the nearest store on trips to town, or took apart older garments they already had to hand and reused the cloth for that.

I guess the biggest thing I want to emphasize is that, to modern eyes, it can be very hard to tell who is rich and who is anywhere from upper-working-class to middling in Gilded Age photographs. Because just like nowadays a custodial worker and Kim Kardashian might both wear jeans and a t-shirt, the outfit format was the same for much of society.

Candid photography can be great for this sort of thing:

Flower-sellers in London's Covent Garden, 1877. Note that the hat on the far right woman is only a few years out-of-date; she may have gotten it new at the time or from a secondhand clothing market, which were quite popular on both sides of the Atlantic.

Also London, turn of the 20th century.

A family in Denver, Colorado, c. early 1890s.

Train passengers, Atlanta, Georgia, probably 1890s.

Hope this helps!

[daggerfall]

M's Updated New Player Guide for Elder Scrolls Online

I have to simplify a great deal of this information since the intended audience is people brand new to ESO looking to get into it for questing (not pve or pvp), so if anyone thinks bits of this are a little wrong or lacking nuance, please understand it is likely intended. Credentials: trust me.

Top 3 Important things to know before you get started

Character creation: You pick your class during character creation and this can never be changed. Trust me, people miss this. Your race, appearance, and name can all be changed but for a cost (crowns, the in-game micro transaction currency), and little bits of your appearance can be changed with cosmetics that may or may not be free. Any class can quest just fine, some will be better at solo content than others, but don't sweat this. Some classes are also DLC (warden, necromancer, and arcanist). All classes are capable of all roles for the purposes you, a new player wanting to quest, care about. Make the character you want and can stick with, as you will need a Main for purposes of crafting, and crafting knowledge can't transfer to other characters you may make. Also, plan for them to deal damage primarily. Supports are not needed in questing and you'll often be alone anyway - save yourself the pain of killing enemies at a snails pace and invest in damage with a smidge of survival.

Alliances and the Main Quest: The start of the game for new players should always be the base game main quest and your respective alliance's main quest. Unless you started with the expansion that unlocks any race any alliance, your alliance will be tied to your race. Bretons, Orsimer, and Redguards: Daggerfall Covenant. Dunmer, Argonians, Nords: Ebonheart Pact. Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit: Aldmeri Dominion. Imperials are DLC but any alliance. This can be changed later for crowns, but only affects what alliance you fight for/against in PvP zones, minor dialogue interactions, certain cosmetics, and which version of certain quests you get during the main quest. The starting city/zone for each alliance is as follows: DC: Daggerfall, Glenumbra. EP: Davon's Watch, Stonefalls. AD: Vulkhel Guard, Auridon. When you leave character creation, you'll be sent through the Coldharbour tutorial and spat out on your starter island (DC: Stros M'Kai. EP: Bleakrock Isle. AD: Khenarthi's Roost). Finish those storylines until you hit your starter city, and the main quest will progress again with meeting the Prophet at the Harborage.

DLC, Chapters, and ESO+: Depending on the version of game you got, you may be pushed or tempted to play the newest DLC (chapter or smaller zone DLC). This is a trap. ZOS advertises the game as play how you want and in any order you want, and any longtime player hates this marketing strat. Functionally, any DLC can be played at any time in ESO, but you will miss certain bits of dialogue and story by playing out of release order. Characters will remember previously meeting you if you play in order, but not out of order. They may drastically change their appearance to the point of the story making no sense if it happened in that wrong order, or even die and reappear with no acknowledgement of their death. If this is your first time playing ESO, I Highly recommend playing everything in the intended release order at least once, and then decide for yourself what stories you think work as independent stories for other characters you wish to play. Don't listen to the devil telling you to play some random dlc because you like dunmer or vampires. Listen to me, some guy on the internet instead.

The intended order is (without listing every single dlc) the Coldharbour main quest and your alliance's main quest at the same time ➡️ Cadwell's Silver and Gold (the other two alliances' main quests) ➡️ Imperial City (PvP zone with a solo storyline, but can be skipped/played at any point) ➡️ Craglorn ➡️ all dlc in release order (including dungeons, zone dlc, and chapters). Dungeons can be done in any order (base game I and II dungeons should be done in the numeric order) up to Wrathstone, which is when year-long story arcs began and included dungeons in the plot, and more returning NPCs appear in dungeons.

The Infamous "ESO DLC flowchart" can advise you the order of when you should play certain storylines (base game and dlc), but it's just the release order and natural flow of the storylines. It updates too often for me to post the image here, but you can easily find it by searching those terms. Another good ESO starter guide I like is this one, that explains which story points to hit and when.

The base game alone is good and contains hundreds of hours of content. Get through the base game's main quests and decide for yourself if you like the game enough to continue on. And if you do want to continue, then the best way to play DLC is to buy the subscription ESO+. Among many other things, the main use for the sub is access to every single DLC in the game* while the sub is active. If you play consistently, you can play through the dlcs faster than it would cost to buy them individually, and you can end your sub whenever you want/need. The sub also gives free crowns each month which can be used to purchase permanent access to specific DLC for if/when you end your sub. Or spend them on a cute outfit. Up to you. You might get addicted to the craft bag in the meantime and keep the sub forever.

*ESO+ does not give access to the newest chapter, until the next one comes out usually a year later.

ALRIGHT big stuff out of the way. More advanced stuff for once you're already in the game and playing now.

Avoid any quest that goes into your journal as a Prologue - delete it right away. Prologues are like introduction/teaser quests for zone DLC and chapters. Doing prologues out of order should also be avoided. Once you're onto playing DLC, there is a prologue for each starting with the Morrowind chapter.

Start researching item traits at crafting stations ASAP. The timers for research grow exponentially with each trait, so an early start is good. This is necessary for crafting later on, and everyone should have A crafter (ideally their main for resource reasons)

Find the stable master early on and begin "training your horse" each day for 250 gold. Also buy a mount there. It takes 180 real life days to fully complete on each character, but you'll notice the difference with your mounts speed and stamina, and to clarify, inventory means YOUR inventory. That's 60 more inventory slots! And mount training affects all mounts on that character!

Speaking of mount speed - once you reach level 10 on a character, you should do the Cyrodiil tutorial quest (I promise there's no PvP required for this). Use the alliance war tab to queue into a campaign (any works but go for one that isn't all that busy. Under 50 ideally), and complete the tutorial IN FULL. Do not accept the option to skip parts of it because you know what you're doing. You'll reach rank 3 in the assault and support skill lines and gain a few skill points, all while never having to do any actual PvP. Take the first passive in the Assault skill line to gain access to Major Gallop for faster horse speed. You want this on all your characters.

Find the bag merchant in town and spend your gold on maxing out your inventory space when you can afford it. Bankers can also be found in each town and you can store a lot of items in your bank with them FOR FREE. No other player has access to your bank. Your bank space is shared across all of Tamriel and all of your characters as well, to allow for easier item transfer to alts

Back on crafting, don't worry about materials or crafting your own gear for a long time. You pretty much need ESO+ to be a crafter due to the craft bag. Just put on random gear you loot off enemies or get as a reward, and replace it as you level up and outlevel your old gear.

As a quester, you can use any gear and any skills you want - with a few suggestions. Don't use heavy armor as your primary armor type (a few pieces are okay), ice staves, 1 hand and shield, or restoration staves. Those are primarily support armor types and weapons. Also, read your tooltips and skill descriptions, and don't use skills that state they will taunt the enemy. ESO's aggro system works differently than you may expect from other MMOs. Anything else is free game. Though I will advise this isn't Skyrim, and using skills will deal far more damage than spamming "basic attacks", or light and heavy attacks. Stealth archer isn't a thing here, sorry.

DON'T fall for the crown store trying to sell you respec scrolls, werewolf and vampire skill lines, etc. You can redo your skills and attributes at any point for gold in a capital city, other players can give you lycanthropy or vampirism for free upon request. Merchants and banker assistants from the crown store I don't consider a scam. Those are good uses of crowns once you're further into the game.

The build advisor for each class/role is painfully out of date as it hasn't been changed since launch, and entire skills/morphs have changed over the years to be entirely different. With no nuance to avoid it getting complicated, stick to either investing in magic or stamina as your primary resource, and most of your skills costing that same resource. Skills scale their damage with your highest offensive stat, so splitting evenly doesn't do anything besides make your pool bigger, but you can use both stam and mag skills and they will deal similar damage. You just might run out of your "off" resource faster. Light armor benefits magicka users better, medium benefits stamina users better, generally speaking.

Join the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild ASAP in your starter town. Regardless of RP, they have storylines you'll want to complete, as well as skills and passive abilities you may want, and it's better to get a head start on this leveling process. Undaunted is related to dungeons and can be skipped early on, but if you start doing dungeons, make sure you join! It has no respective storyline.

Weapon and class skill lines progress by having those skills on your bar upon gaining experience while On that bar, not with each cast of the skill. Individual skills rank up and can morph into other skills by gaining experience with that skill on your bar. Guild skill lines have their own unique progression requirements - read your tooltips!

Main quest marker icons appear slightly fancier than generic quest markers, and I would advise to avoid taking them out of order. Most main quests will guide you to the next quest giver easily, so if you find yourself going far out of your way, you may be getting lost or starting a different storyline. Blue quest markers are for repeatable daily quests.

Delves are public instances and can be done solo. Public dungeons are public instances and may be able to be soloed depending on skill. Dungeons/group dungeons are for 4 people, not public instances, and you should not try to solo them. Trials are raids for 12 people, not public, and you very much should not attempt to solo them.

Depending on what DLC may have come with your version of the game, you may be pushed to try the various DLC features added with each chapter. This includes psijic order, antiquities, companions, tales of tribute, and scribing. All of these individually (except psijic) can be started/done early without spoiling yourself on future DLC. But there's no real need to rush through getting access/completion of them right away either.

There are daily login rewards that reset each month. Most of them are bad, but it's good to keep up on them for the monthly cosmetic or big reward. Sometimes they give AP which can level the PvP skill lines without PvP, sometimes gold, sometimes crafting materials, could be anything. There are also daily tasks to gain "seals of endeavour", currency that allow you to purchase things that otherwise can only be gambled for in crown crates. Keep up on them, and about twice a year, you can buy the most expensive mounts in the game. Golden Pursuits happen every few weeks/months, with multiple tasks to unlock a specific reward. It's a brand new system from when I'm writing this. These are the daily tasks I recommend keeping up on sooner rather than later.

Add-ons (PC only) are allowed in ESO, mods and macros are not. The application Minion is how most of us download and update our add-ons for various UI and QOL features.

Once you reach level 50 on a character, you start gaining levels in Champion Points, which are shared across all of your characters. Once you hit CP 160, you will stop out-leveling your gear and can start making gear you plan to keep. CP goes up to 3600, but you'll hit the cap on effectiveness around 1500 (role dependent) I think.

The fashion system in ESO is either using the outfit station to apply motifs (purely cosmetic) you've learned to that character to your outfit, or costumes you can get with crowns or other means (questing, collectables, etc). Motifs learned on one character allow any character to use that motif in the outfit station, but only that character can Craft an item in that style.

There is no auction house system. There are guild traders instead - storefronts that guilds bid on weekly to gain ownership of and use for their guild to sell items to other players, for a small cut of the profits. Anyone can buy from them, only guild members can sell. Most of the junk you find in questing is worthless to other players, and most players use add-ons to know the marketplace average worth of any item in game.

Speaking of guilds, joining guilds is a good way to get access to free wayshrine porting for easier movement across Tamriel, and more. Porting to another player is free, even if you're not at a wayshrine. Many guilds also have a "guild hall" (player owned house open to all that has many resources depending on the owner). No one will enforce being social or else, but this is an MMO. Being social can be a good thing!

If you're looking to just make enough money to get by, you can sell all the random gear you loot to merchants. It will despawn from their inventory with enough time or items being sold. Once you get ESO+ and the craft bag, daily crafting writs is the best way to make easy money with little effort. Get certified in all 7 professions and do your daily crafting writs for about 5k gold per character per day. With enough skill point investment in hirelings that send materials in the mail daily, you never have to spend any gold to do writs.

Thieving is mildly good for making gold, but it has a cap on how much you can sell a day. Sell or launder at outlaws refuges in each city. Thieves guild and dark brotherhood are DLC content so don't look for them in the base game.

Before you start doing dungeons, at any level of difficulty, you should understand how ESO dungeon etiquette works. People here aren't as friendly as final fantasy, but hear me out before you say we're all mean. ESO does an extremely poor job of keeping the casual questers from the sweaty endgamers, and forces them to share the same dungeon queue when they're in that queue for entirely different reasons. Endgamers need transmute crystals quickly, questers just want to see the quest, and each person needs the other to achieve their goal, but you can't do both at the same time. Both are valid reasons to do dungeons. Quests can't be repeated on the same character, so they can't even do the quest with you if they already did it years ago. Quests also give a skill point for completing, which is another valuable endgamer resource. In general, if you plan to use the group finder to find a team for a dungeon, do not expect them to sit around and wait for you to sit through dialogue. At best they will wait for you to spam through it for the quest completion, if you warn them in advance. Randos aren't going to be overly social, even a "hi" at the start may be ignored. It's to be expected, but not intended rudely. If you want to see a dungeon's quest in full, this is the time to find a friend to group with you! It's an MMO! Be social! Many ESO dungeons are unable to be soloed unfortunately, for strange mechanical reasons.

This isn't meant to be the most strictly followed list of all time, but things that I end up inevitably telling people or wish I had learned sooner. It's meant more as something to refer back to and to gently guide you in the right direction, as well as get you in the right mindset for character creation when planning a character you'll play for Years of quests.

Also, you need to know your role before queueing, and that includes knowing how to actually deal damage as a damage dealer. You don't need to be amazing, but please don't just spam light attacks. Don't queue as a tank unless you actually understand the basics of ESO tanking, same for healing. Look into resources online for beginner builds. If you don't want to learn your role or how to git gud, then I'm sorry but doing dungeons with strangers is not for you then. It's a team effort, and their time should be respected too.

Related, if you get to the point of wanting to try the trials (which do technically have a repeatable quest), normal difficulty is less scary than you may fear, but still requires coordination and a group. Ideally you come above 160cp in full sets of gear and a basic understanding of your role. Checking Craglorn zone chat or the in-game group finder for normal PUG (pick-up group, just sorta grabbing anyone that wants to come, versus an organized run) trials is the best way to find a group without using discord or joining a guild. But I do recommend finding a social guild that does casual normal runs! Just please read if they're doing normal runs or vet hardmodes runs, or if they want specific classes/roles.

[rateaters-sutff]

Cool computer fact!

Statistically, computers often buffer more often when purple pixels are shown on the screen.

The reason behind this is pretty interesting! Computers have a harder time processing purple pixels because it takes 9000 snails boiled for days in a lead vat to produce 1 gram of purple!

This means your computer needs to wait for more snails to be boiled and that color to be wireless transmitted from your internet provider to your computer!

In order to speed up this prosses, hold a live snail against your monitor and allow it to move around. Doing this attracts the snail chemicals that create purple, which are being transmitted to your computer. Allowing shorter buffer time and more fun!

[brucewaynehater101]

Oh I was absolutely going with them Jason Finds Out During TT route. I think it would be especially funny if he's heard horror stories from Rouges and his own Henchmen that Robin The Third is some kind of demon that Batman summoned on accident. There are some rumors about how the demon feeds off of grief or anger or vengeance because it's illusions of being g a human are stronger when the Bat is there so *clearly* it is taking its power *from* the Bat. Others say that Nightwing summoned it so that it would keep Bruce on a leash without the first Robin having to come back. Some say it was some person in Gothem who did it or that it was the combined form of the many curses on the city.

All Jason knows is that when his replacement turned around, it's head luled to the side just an inch or two, like a puppet on strings that had to much slack on that one string. Jason manages to shoot one of its arms but instead of a spray of blood, it is broken shards of porcelain and sand. His hits feel like he's punching a solid wall but some do leave visible cracks in Tim. This Thing in a Robin Costume could not ever be human. He knows because when he left, he took a handful of sand in a vile to see if he could figure out what it is. Jason still has that vile to this day, the only proof he has that Tim isn't a human. Sometimes he will set it on a flat surface and watch the sand in it make it slowly roll towards whatever direction Tim is in.

As for how he heals, that's to the magic that animates him, all Tim needs to do is hold his pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle and after a few moments the piece he's holding will weld itself back into place. Also his sand will slowly come back to him, attracted like a magnet and he can tell where all his sand in instinctually. He let's Jason keep the vial of it as it's basically an unhacklable Jason Tracker. The sand isn't fast at moving towards him, roughly about the pace of a snail or sloth. It's certainly moving but just getting from downtown to the Batcave could take his sand a week. Also the pull isn't super strong, gaining about as much force as a particularly stubborn ant.

Ras took half a pound of Tim's sand instead of his spleen and Tim would very much like his sand back.

As for Cass knowing, she 100% does. Tim has shown her his true gorm and when she asked why he didn't show the others, Tim replied, "they wouldn't understand. They would worry over things that aren't problems and try to fix things I already fixed and end up breaking those things."

Eventually the Bats must find out though, and when Dick asks if that means they need to do special things to keep Tim from dying to Magic Users, Tim laughs and laughs like Dick has told the funniest joke in the world. When he calms down, he asks a question of his own, "Dick. How could I possibly die if I have never been alive in the first place? I am simply an object enchanted to move and speak. I am no more alive that the AI Babs uses to scan the internet for pictures of us. I am no more alive than a character in a video game. At most, at *most* I can be compared to some of Ivy's plants that she uses to attack us. I can not be killed for I have never been alive. Broken, yes, but that I can fix. I simply have to be put back together like a jigsaw puzzle."

Oof. Poor Dick is going to have to figure out how to feel about that statement. Tim not being alive at all and comparing himself to a video game or AI might fuck with Dick's sense of self, sentience, etc. I would love to see how they all logic, cope, and understand identity after this.

I do love the idea that the sand tries to make its way back to Tim, but he knows where it is at all times. Jason has an estimated location of Tim (N, S, E, W), but Tim has like coordinates.

I wonder if Cass would try dancing with Tim. Since his movements are different, perhaps she would enjoy learning to dance in a way that's similar to how he moves? It could be eerie and fun for her.

I'm curious how Ra's would feel about Tim and his sand in this. Why did he keep the sand? Does it look distinct from other sand? Was it just cause it was part of Tim and Ra's thought he might be able to use it? Also, does he attempt that shit he did with his Nyssa since Tim probably can't reproduce?

[mybeingthere]

Designs and colours of shells are wonderous - a true mystery of nature.

Here the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute explains the technology of shell-building. Yes, I understand everything, but it is still a wonder. Images are from various internet archives.

"Where do shells come from? The animals make them. Mollusks have an outermost layer of tissue on their bodies. Called the mantle, this layer connects the animal to its shell. The mantle also creates that shell.

Specialized cells in the mantle build the shell using proteins and minerals. These are secreted—released into the space outside the cells. There, the proteins create a framework that provides support for the growing shell. The proteins in the framework also determine which minerals are used in specific parts of the shell.

Calcium carbonate, the main mineral found in shells (including eggshells), binds to the protein. If you have ever seen construction workers build with concrete, this is similar. The protein is like the steel rebar that gives shape and support. Calcium carbonate is like the cement that fills in all the gaps.

Calcium carbonate can form two different types of crystals. One is called calcite. This incredibly common crystal can be found all over the world. Calcite makes up chalk, marble, coral, limestone—and seashells. The other form is aragonite. This crystal has a different arrangement of calcium carbonate. Both calcite and aragonite are found in seashells.

A mollusk’s shell has three layers. Each is made up of similar materials. But how those materials are arranged gives them each a different look and feel. The outermost layer is mostly protein. It’s often rough and may have bumps or spikes. Proteins in the middle layer cause calcium carbonate to form calcite crystals. These fill in the spaces, making the shell tough to break.

The innermost layer is the one in contact with the mantle. It’s a smooth, iridescent layer called nacre or mother-of-pearl. Nacre is made up of protein and calcium carbonate. But it looks and feels completely different from other parts of the shell. That’s because the mantle secretes different proteins for different layers. Different proteins cause calcium carbonate to crystallize in different ways. Those used in the middle layer create calcite. Those used in the innermost layer create aragonite.

As the animal grows, its shell must grow along with it. This happens along the outer edges. A snail adds to its shell around the opening, where it pokes its head out. For a clam or mussel, it’s the outer edges where the two shells separate. The result is growth rings, like those in a tree, that allow us to measure a mollusk’s age.

When the animal inside dies, its shell is gradually pounded against the rocks and sand. Over time, shells break down. They become part of the sand. White beaches have sand made almost entirely of tiny bits of shells."

[david-goldrock]

You voted for, so let me translate the entire poem

Let us talk about god About blind faith, and cold logic, and a lacking purpose A pale alternative to a pointless and alienated existence About the mantle and the lady and all that is familiar And the bitter truth of the thorn in the rose And the dangers of sugar and the cold reality Let us talk about god dsgnruwhurjehgtsbvalk

That is what I managed to write before the cat jumped on my keyboard Glanced at the words, glanced at me, glanced at the words And turned to lick its own ass

"Well, what's your opinion?" I asked it, for it is known cats do not tend to spare criticism If you wanna hear "Wow what a beautiful song" go and ask the dog For the truth, turn to a cat

Left the ass, glanced at me Glanced at the words, glanced at me His entirety is a Nietzsche's mustache The eyes of the abyss that looks back at you Uberkatze that will soon herald that god is dead (supercat, a reference to Nietzsche's "uberman") Opens his moth to talk, and thus spoke Zarathustra: "For someone who claims that god doesn't exist, you write about him a bunch, do you feel threatened?"

What? Threatened? From what? A flying spaghetti monster? No I just think that faith and god is a cool concept

It scoffs and responds: What do you fuck about? You dig (talk an excessive amount about something) And are an infidel And forces to confront And freeze in your place From the horror of the truth Because Darwinist monkeys Tried to trick To pile stones That cannot be lifted And cells from a fetus And a fossilized snail And big bangs And facts that most, as all Dwarven (become small, as dwarfs) On the banks of the everyday Of 7 billion Yearning souls From the heart of each land To the shore of each sea Go and tell all these That god doesn't exist

And then it hit me: The religification has come to me in my home! Because of course, a cat that once in Ancient Egypt was a god Now that were back to writing in emoji hieroglyphs, and the cat-worshiping gets a rejuvenation on all the walls of the internet Of course the cat will stand up to the side of the messianics, the darkened, the preachers and return-in-answerers (to return in an answer is a jewish idea, which I am unqualified to explain, but in this context it means to become religious) Well - Not in my house I won't be silent and I won't accept Religious compulsion from the mouth of a creature that licks its own ass

And it tells me: From the perspective of a cat Things are a bit different There is no Damocles' sword of time that is ticking Death approaches The end of the movie And in the meantime, we eat, and fuck Without doubting The world, ourselves By Allah Ya Allah You digged With all that messing around with "purpose" We start, we decay There's no one above No stairway to heaven Hell has no elevator

Well, exactly, so why search for imagined meaning? Why not settle for what there is - We were born for a short existence, kitty Let us fulfill it instead of casting the responsibility on some kind of creator There are better things to live by

Like what exactly?

Yes The tree is but a tree And the sea is but a sea But has anyone ever Seen democracy? Touched an ideology (In order to get the feeling of its texture) Or grasped an idea? Just today I hunted justice And I held a vision I hadn't met a cat That had counted its steps By a measure of morality Or a written contract Ironically you with the brain You don't have smarts Just the mercy of words That will build you a dam To stop the nothingness And to act as a reminder But the nothingness is winning I am sorry to herald And yet there's no shame in filling that which is empty Even you -

Me? I am a nihilist anyway, I don't believe in anything

Even you Rise very morning to work For money, a feeling of recognition and honor Maybe money exists if people live for it? If people are held by it? If people are worth because of it? If people fight, vouch for each other, sacrifice for it? If there's money, then there is god, why not? Nations and peoples and states ignite Flames in tens of thousands of hearts As far as I am concerned if all of them exist than god does too

Let us ask the audience, we'll do a survey here Who's more real, god, or Brad Pitt? Sorry for shoveling messages down your throats But no one ever died for Brad, the poor guy Certainly hadn't lived for him What is true: You You examine in a magnifying glass A view that's seen by a telescope Fight for flags And scoff at a horoscope If faith is a perspective Then the world's a kaleidoscope If life is a raging sea Then god is a periscope One can see with him high up And all looks clear If you hadn't begun to sink by now For this pitcher is hollow Take the word of a cat Every time over You kill god To crown under him A different hollow pitcher

You wanna talk about god? Let us talk about love Where is this love that you talk about? That you sing it?, that you write it? That you live it, you experience it You die for it, you kill for it Where is the evidence to prove the existence of this love? This catalyst, this causer The motive, the engine of life The battery of the existence, the fuel of the soul Where is this love? If there is no god, what about your love? If there is no god, what about love? If there is no god, what about love? If there is no god, what about love?

Its mustache bristles, and his eyes are boiling fire He finished And returned to lick its ass

I should have asked the dog

[cattimeswithjellie]

Stream Recap, DocM77, 6-15-24

((In which Doc intends to do an Interior Design on his shop, but instead spends two hours ranting on the tunnel bore and an hour ranting in the shopping district about that doggone sneaky Ore Snatcher! Ren comes along eventually to help him investigate. We get our first look at Doc's Mum.))

9:30 Doc opens the stream in studio view, singing along with the end of his theme song. He greets chat and tells them he is a man suffering from Emotional Stress. There is new information about the ore snatching case that has upended everything he thought he knew, and also his mom has told him that 4k subscribers is “scrub numbers” and she won’t come on his stream for less than 5k. (He is joking about that second part.) His mom is at his house, though, and he hopes she’ll come on-stream later. He thanks subs and donos. He greets the Single Ladies in the house and congratulates a chatter who has become one of Ren’s mods.

12:00 Doc tells Chat that he read the comments on the YouTube video and learned something important. He thought that the Ore Snatcher had been frightened into returning the stolen ore blocks, but in fact the ores were provided by Skizz in order to fulfill a Mission Possible task. ((the mission: Do a good deed for a Hermit without being noticed or taking credit.)) The plot thickens! Whoever the ore snatcher is, they either still have the ore blocks or they are stuck in the mail system. Doc is a homeless swamp dweller, no one can send him things in the mail! He doesn’t want to be part of another prank war, but if he doesn’t nip this in the bud, he’s going to wind up with another exploded tunnel bore. He personally still believes it is Scar despite strong evidence to the contrary. He asks Chat who they think it is.

13:40 Chat is full of ideas. Grian is by far the top suspect, if one counts votes for “ore-stealing snails” as Grian votes. Jevin and Cub are also seen as likely suspects, with votes also coming in for Tango and Big Salmon. Some chatters also believe it’s Scar, though the consensus appears to be that Scar is still traumatized from Season 9 and would not start things again. ((This is the positions Scar has taken with other Hermits out of Doc’s hearing; he doesn’t want to get in another dust-up with Doc after last seasons hiding-in-the-toilet debacle, but he will gleefully watch while Doc fights with other Hermits.)) Chat also points out that Scar already has quite a lot of diamond ore, even after recent theft issues.

15:30 Today Doc wants to use Chat’s creative brain to decorate the front of his shop. He also wants to run the new tunnel borer a little bit because it’s new and he wants to show it off. He brews up some night vision potion so the video quality will be better for chat. A chatter comments on Doc’s sudden jump in subs this month, Doc says it is wonderful but not likely to be sustainable given that it’s large numbers of gift subs that got him this far. He welcomes chatters still trickling in, admitting that it’s very early for a stream, and gets upset because someone has harvested and replanted some of his netherwort. Everyone is stealing these days, for shame!

18:30 Doc is glum because people are stealing and because he is caught in a lawsuit now. Cleo deserved it, tbh. He talks about the Doccy fund and how Karin thinks they need a vacation. Doc never needs a vacation (until he gets sick). Upon reflection, maybe he does need to take vacations, but every time he takes one he gets sick or the weather is bad. Maybe he should just stay home. He is happy in his little room playing Minecraft all day long, but normal people like doing things. His IRL friends complain when he ghosts them, but he has so many internet friends to see! Chat is divided in their encouragement that Doc should get out more and stay inside more. Doc also admits he is very careful with his money because he doesn’t want to do sponsored streams or product placements.

22:30 A chatter asks if Hermitcraft is updating to 1.21. Doc says yes and he assumes relatively soon. Xisuma was talking about a temp upgrade to 1.20.6, but Doc doesn’t know why or if that is going to happen. He would rather just wait for 1.21 for a better and less buggy update experience. Doc says that every time his mom comes for a visit the weather turns bad, but it’s clearing up now and there’s a kids’ festival somewhere so they may go to that in a little while. He confides to Chat that when he empties a shulker and doesn’t know what to do with it, he just throws it into the swamp to despawn. Somewhere, a Hermit paying three diamonds per shulker box probably cries.

25:00 Tomato update: Doc has about 35 plants this year, 60 was too much last year. Things are going well so far despite a little cold and foggy weather. Cold and fog is okay for germination but not so much for growth. Doc claims that the number of plants is due to his unhinged neighbor who wants _lots_ of tomatoes. He jumps down to tunnel bore level and drinks a night vision potion. He is considering updating the tunnel bore to play a little tune as it travels along and explodes everything, but that is the sort of redstone that is too fiddly to do onstream. The new tunnel bore is much slimmer than the old version and easier to harvest from.

27:00 Doc begins running the tunnel bore, one explosion at a time to preserve maximum diamonds. He explains how much more efficient the new bore is than the old one. The old bore is still in position near the other Hermits, ready to unleash 80 wardens on the Ore Snatcher, whoever that is. Doc speaks wistfully on how if he’d known the Magic Mountaineers were going to blow up their mountain, he’d have hidden the 80 wardens in there for them. Chat likes this idea and points out that it’s not too late, since the Magic Mountaineers have yet to do any significant grinding in their new volcano.

29:40 Doc realizes that his night vision potion did not last nearly as long as usual, Chat points out that he neglected to extend them with redstone when he brewed them. Doc complains that he has to do everything in this stream because Chat is lazy and doesn’t warn him about anything. Chat is deeply indignant because they did warn him and he doesn’t pay attention. A chatter makes a $1 dono and asks about Doc’s tattoos. Doc asks if Chat really expects him to strip for a dollar. The chatter points out that Doc has a tattoo on his arm, but Doc would have to take off his pullover and roll up his sleeve. One dollar is not even enough for Doc to take his hat off. A tip of the hat, maybe. It would cost at least a thousand dollars to see Doc’s full arms

32:00 Back to tunnel boring. Chat says Doc would be an expensive date. He says absolutely, equal rights means he gets to expect his date to pay. After being with Karin so long, he doesn’t know how to date anymore and would probably chase off a potential partner by talking about Minecraft for hours.

33:00 A chatter asks who the ore thief is. Doc immediately ramps up into rehashing the details of the ore theft/return-but-not-really. Everything is a mess now, he doesn't know if he should be mad, sad, angry, forgiving, concerned because he killed the pig, etc. It’s very complicated. People ask why he killed the pig and he explains that he cut a lot of Cleo’s dialogue for spite because they were complaining about the length of the video. Much of that lost dialogue was Cleo pointing out that the stolen diamonds were not very valuable and the redstone was not damaged, etc, without acknowledging the terrible AGONY that comes from having one’s redstone touched. Doc decided to teach them a lesson about how it feels to have something you love messed with. Chat points out that trying to teach another grown adult a spiteful lesson is actually a really good way to land yourself in court. Doc admits he might not be entitled to teach Cleo life lessons.

35:10 Doc assesses his overall position regarding the court case as being not particularly great. He’s going to plead emotional distress and diminished capacity and hope he gets a jury trial. He’s not sure about having Joe as his lawyer either, but Joe jumped on the opportunity to practice some law. But the jury trial is his best bet because Hermits do irrational things all the time and that’s pretty much the only shot he has at getting a verdict in his favor. It’s also going to be hard to be respectful to the judge. Chat suggests buttering up the judge by calling him tall probably wouldn’t hurt either. Doc figures that if Trump is still running around free, there’s got to be hope for anyone ((notwithstanding the fact that this is a civil action and Trump has not been doing super-great lately on avoiding massive civil damage judgments)).

37:50 Doc wonders if he could apply some mafia pressure tactics to the jury. He and Chat discuss the merits of various Hermits as jurors. Ren could hang the jury, but he’s but he’s a witness in the case and that’s a conflict of interest. Doc supposes a court case is probably a better outcome for him than the water bucket to the redstone that Cleo was originally contemplating. Etho should definitely not be involved in the case because he is a chaos-loving troll who would probably be a terrible character witness. Chat points out he would also be a bad juror because he’s pretty scared of Cleo. That’s a pervasive problem for potential jurors, actually, lots of Hermits are scared of Cleo.

41:00 Doc faces the possibility that he might simply have to face justice for his pigslaughter. He feels this is unfair because he was terribly provoked, even if the provocation did not, technically, have anything to do with Cleo or her special pig. He tries to cite the “Stand Your Ground” defense, reinforcing the possibility that all of his knowledge of jurisprudence comes from television, but acknowledges that “eye for an eye” refers to repaying value for damage, not actually poking peoples’ eyes out.

43:00 A chatter sends Doc a message about the Jolly Roger as the best pride flag, mentioning it makes sense because many pirates were gay. Doc does not know if this is really a thing, but it seems like it would make sense. They did spend a lot of time out at sea where it was really a sausage-fest, so who knows? Chat has feelings about the term “sausage-fest.”

44:15 A chatter suggests that since Doc can’t deny the act of killing the pig (actus reus), his best defense is a lack of culpable mental state (mens rea). He claims that it was a crime of passion, not premeditated, he was in emotional distress, and anything else he can think of. Doc hears that Bdubs is a strict judge. He talks briefly with chat about the tunnel bore work that has been continuing all this time. He has collected 55 diamond ore blocks and some loose diamonds since the start of the stream. A chatter asks a redstone question about the borer and Doc explains how it works. A discussion begins of possible modifications to the new design. Chat talks trial strategy amongst themselves in the meantime, agreeing that if anyone can plausibly claim insanity, it is Doc.

51:45 Doc mentions that the big sub droppers from the past two weeks do not appear to be around today, so it is time for sub count numbers to return to reality. He’s still going to ask his mom to stop in and greet the stream later. She doesn’t speak English, but it’s all right. For now Doc is going to keep using the tunnel bore and think about new designs for later. Chat suggests that Doc can teach the chat to learn German very quickly to get ready.

54:00 Doc notes the time and realizes how much time he has spent mining and chatting already today. There may not be very much time for interior design today after all. A chatter suggests having Doc’s mom join the server and call it Momcraft. Doc laughs at MomandDadCraft, pointing out that they do have one mom (Stress) and lots of dads (Doc, Keralis, Joe, Impulse, Tango, Bdubs, Skizz). He thinks maybe it should be Dadcraft. Chat points out there is already a streamer called Dadcraft. “Hermitcraft is DILFcraft,” Doc says, sounding as though he is reading from Chat. No one from Chat actually said that, so this is Doc’s own extremely cursed invention. Chat predictably loses their mind. Doc likes DILFcraft better than Dadcraft. But Dad is also a good title.

56:50 Doc tells about taking Doccy to gymnastics yesterday and how loud and agile the small children are. Doccy managed to climb about 12 feet into the air, which gave Doc a little heart attack. Doccy is climbing a lot now. They fell a little way a few days ago and got a bit banged up but nothing major. Kids are like rubber balls, they bounce, within limits. Doccy was fine once they realized they were not bleeding, and went straight back to climbing. Doccy is three now and using a walking bike, but their friend has a real bike and Doccy is jealous. Doc may have to provide the bike sooner than he’d planned, but he worries at how much faster a pedal-bike is than the walking bike. The Doccy fund is currently the “Buy Doccy a Bike” fund.

1:00:00 A chatter asks if the DCP (the informal Doc art collective) is a family, does Doc have a favorite? He says he has favorite art styles but he will not actually say what they are. He accuses the chatter, who is a DCP member, of just wanted to be told that they are the favorite. They’re never going to hear it! Doc thanks a new sub and mentions that it has been a little while. Next week he will probably be back around 2k subs.

1:01 A chatter asks about Doccy’s wish for a bike. Doc says a good parent tries to get their kid things that they want, but kids are impulsive and what they want tends to change very quickly. Getting a kid everything they want is how you end up with a Tiktok-addicted preschooler who doesn’t understand any gratification that is not instant. Chat is distracted by the idea that Doccy wants blue hair. Doc says Doccy will get the bike on a special occasion, the only question is when. Currently nail polish is all the rage at Doccy’s school, and Doccy got Karin to paint every finger a different color. Recent events have made Doc just a little nervous about somebody accusing him of indoctrinating Doccy with rainbows, but they are just having fun. People are crazy.

1:05:00 A child at Doccy’s school also got a temporary tattoo and that became very important to Doccy, so Doc bought a pack of 180 temporary tattoos. Doccy put one on and lost interest, leaving Doc with a lot of temp tattoos. He needs to make sure that the bike is not a similar passing fancy. One of the “single ladies” makes a dono, and Doc reiterates that he is catering to all the single moms with his good looks. Single moms and big donors are the backbone of the Doc economy. Doc clarifies that all the chatters are single moms to him. Chat is still kind of confused, but after three weeks they are getting used to it.

1:06:00 Doc has now obtained more than 100 diamond ore blocks during the stream, plus loose diamonds. He flirts shamelessly with chat and reveals he has no ring on, but promises that Karin doesn’t mind his silly behavior. The single moms in Doc’s chat appear to be mostly pet parents. Doc has learned a lot about Twitch lately. There’s a lot more to Twitch than just turning on the camera and talking crap. A chatter makes a dono “for the girls and the gays.” Doc says he thought once about whether he might be gay, just as an academic point, but he decided he was not attracted at all to the idea of kissing and being romantic with a man. Chat, of course, immediately brings up the Dad-Kisser Doc photo. Doc laughs and shares the story of the photo, which is that the Dad in question was the father of one of Doc’s Minecrack servermates and the kiss was the culmination of an escalating series of jokes between the two of them and the Dad in question. There may have been a Twitter feud involved. Doc is with Karin, Karin identifies as a woman, and she makes Doc very happy.

1:12:11 A chatter makes reference to an old Tweet Doc made about his “size.” Doc plays dumb and agrees that yes, he is very tall. Chat wants Doc to know that they remember the yoga pants. Doc actually does not remember the yoga pants. He thanks subs and tells chat that he is mostly joking about the pushes for big sub gifts, but having kids is pretty expensive. Nobody pushes too hard for cash on Hermitcraft but some of them definitely do product placements and sponsored streams. They’re tastefully done and that’s fine for them, Doc’s not judging anyone. He just doesn’t want to do product placements himself unless he really has to. He agrees that Bdubs does great sponsorship ads. He talks about how tough it is to do merch because it’s hard to find products that are not trash and don’t cost the moon. The TCG releases are the exception that proves the rule, Doc loves those very much. Chat is of the opinion that they would like merch even if it is expensive.

1:20:30 Doc talks about the fan culture on Hermitcraft. The fans want to belong, they want to be entertained, they want to be fascinated by beautiful and interesting things. Art is very important for humans. Once survival needs are covered, then art is the next biggest thing. Chat points out that Earth without art is just Eh.

1:21:30 The European Football Championships have started. Germany is doing well and Doc is moderately excited. He understands that his majority-American audience has no idea what’s going on and everyone in chat is nerds who don’t like sports talk, but that’s fine. Hermitcraft’s biggest audience has always from the USA, followed by a fair-size following in the UK. Doc isn’t as into sports as he used to be when he was actually playing.

1:24:00 A chatter is watching Doc’s stream while weeding the garden. Doc thinks this is valid, he watches streams and videos the same as Chat does, sometimes watching and sometimes just listening. Chat points out that Doc has been using the tunnel borer for an hour, so listening is an extremely valid way to experience the stream. Doc always likes the comments on his videos that say people have anticipated his video and it starts the weekend right for them. The little nice comments and kind gestures makes a content creator’s day. Some CCs don’t read their comments at all because of the negative ones, but on Hermitcraft many of them read their comments.

1:26:00 Doc receives another donation from a “single lady.” He tells a story of back before Doccy, back in the day, when he considered what it would be like to date again in his forties. Would he be a sugar daddy or look for a sugar mommy? Chat can probably guess which one he would have chosen. In the post-Doccy world, he has decided it would be nearly impossible for anything to break up his family. So no sugar mama fantasies for Doc, unless Karin wins the lottery. He lives vicariously now through Chat. Chat is amused and mildly disturbed. Doc points out that while Hermitcraft videos tend to be very family friendly, streams tend to be just a bit more spicy. Doc and chat discuss whether “ass” is a curse word when used in “I have a lawsuit on my ass.”

1:33:00 More dono and sub thanks. Doc discusses his understanding of court procedures, which suggests he believes he needs to be indicted and charged by the Poe Poe before he can be served with a lawsuit. It remains unclear whether the upcoming trial is going to be a civil or criminal action, but it could well begin with Doc getting arrested and end with Cleo getting paid because that’s just how Hermits do. Doc offers relationship advice to all the lonely hearts and single mothers in the chat. Chat offers helpful critique. A chatter activates voice-to-text to make it chant the Single Ladies song. Doc uncovers a spawner and gets shot at by a number of skeletons. He says the best level for tunnel boring is -49.

1:37:30 Chat asks how the diamond ore counter works, it is just a little program that works with Fabric and the OBS overlay to count diamond ore in the inventory. The chatters who devised it were tired of having to count manually on all Doc’s streams. Doc talks about building the rainbow beacon, it’s not something he usually does because he’s not LGBTQ+ himself but he knows it means something to people in the community to be an ally. He lost 500 subscribers and got some angry comments but it was surprising to him that any people in the community are homophobic with LGBTQ+ players on the server who are an integral part of it. Doc doesn’t want to mix politics into Hermitcraft, but this is not a matter of politics to him. He appreciates all the members of the DCP and in the fan community who are LGBTQ+ community and wants them to feel included.

1:45:00 Doc discusses more of his ideas on tolerance, religion and politics. ((To catch all the nuance, it’s better to just watch the stream than to read someone else’s summary.)) During this time he reaches 200 diamond ore blocks collected during the stream.

1:52:30 Doc tells the story of the time at EuroDisney with some other Minecrafters when a bunch of drunk Dutch tourists showed up at the bar they were in and tried to stir up a bunch of trouble. They were using racial slurs on the bartender, throwing their weight around and trying to pick fights, etc. They started to pick on Bdubs, who was visiting Europe for the first time. Bdubs didn’t react to them, which made them mad, and one of them grabbed for him. Doc punched the guy, because nobody attacks his friends. Bdubs probably didn’t even need the help except that there were three very big guys there. Guude and Pyro were also there, but Guude was half-asleep at the bar and Pyro is tiny, so what to do? If you are Doc, the solution is “punch the biggest guy,” which worked in this situation partly because the guys were very drunk. Doc backs up Bdubs claim of being 5’10, but Dutch people tend to be tall and these guys were around 6’4. Chat is skeptical about the height claim but they like the story.

1:57:30 A chatter asks if there is a schematic available for the new tunnel bore yet. There is one on the Redstone Archive discord for a smaller version of the bore, but nothing for this size of a tunnel bore. A chatter wishes Doc happy Father’s Day (tomorrow in the US) but it’s on a different day in Germany. Doc says he’s a father every day. In Germany the tradition for Father’s Day is to go out and get drunk, but Doc does not really do that. It’s been a long time since he last drank. Chat mentions that if they are all single mothers, they do not have to care about Father’s Day either. Doc tells a story about growing up in a poor neighborhood in an apartment building with a drunk and angry neighbor who hurt his own family. It made him not very fond of alcohol and drinking.

2:00:00 A chatter asks why Doc doesn’t use freecam to check for diamonds faster than running back and forth down the tunnel bore. He says the freecam is very resource intensive on the PC, and also that use would be borderline cheaty. Plus he’s not in a hurry on this project. He and chat have a conversation on how growing up around alcohol affects people’s use of it. Doc doesn’t believe straight edge is the best way to be, but some people are more inclined to it. Still, alcohol is a dangerous drug that doesn’t get enough recognition.

2:02:00 Doc hits 250 diamond ore. He is enjoying today’s chatty and chill stream. He talks about his friend Methodzz’s family brewery and drinking that beer at Hivemind meetings. That is very good beer. He keeps trying to convince M to sell online, but they don’t have that kind of manpower. He jokes about starting up a business partnership for GOAT beer, only available in 5-liter kegs. He would do product placement streams for GOAT Beer. (There could be GOAT Champaign Strawberry Punch for the Chat, who are, as established, single ladies.) Chat has opinions on what they want to drink.

2:07:00 A chatter asks if Doc’s mom is going to appear onstream, he says it seems unlikely for now. She is busy with Doccy and they are going places today. Doc planned on doing interior designing today but he got stuck in the tunnel.

2:12:00 Doc gives Methodzz credit for getting witch farms buffed, because apparently he talked to Kingbdogs about it enough that it happened, and to a much greater extent than predicted. Now witch farms are insane. He assures a chatter that they can pretend to be a single mum, they don’t have to kill their husband to become one. Chat likes talking about murder. There are a lot of songs about women killing their husbands, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

2:14:00 Doc advocates for life with a tunnel bore. He’s had a tunnel bore since S7, life without one is not the same. He tells Chat he will be roasting a chicken later, but his mom has already done all the prep work. He likes the way he cooks it better, though. He shares his technique. He talks about his mom’s new weight loss diet.

2:18:10 Doc signs onto his test world to look at a schematic of the tunnel bore. Hivemind member TheWhiteEyes has ripped apart the tunnel bore and rebuilt it with a trigger on each end so he only has to run across the machine half as often. The design is not elegant, but it’s a good proof of concept. Doc says the best way to do the design and still make it compact would be one switch in the middle. He returns to Hermitcraft and resuming boring.

2:22:00 Doc takes his last night vision potion and says he’ll stop when it runs out. A chatter asks whether the borer is more efficient than caving, he says it’s hard to say because he hasn’t been grinding out, just talking and being chill. He jokes with chat about MILF hunting, chat says he is unhinged. Doc points out this is the most chill stream he’s had in ages. A chatter comes in and says hello, Doc scolds them jokingly for being two hours late. He only likes chatters who give up their whole social life to be in chat on time. Unless they are minors, minors are not allowed in his parasocial circles.

2:28:00He tells Chat to touch grass and immediately regrets it. Chat reminds him not to tell Scar to touch grass, he got stuck in tall grass just the other day. Doc laughs and agrees that Scar is the unhinged one. A chatter jokes they are not sure they are allowed to joke about that. Doc says he lost his inhibitions about that when Scar posted his Real Life video and showed himself falling out of his chair and getting picked back up, all set to silly music. Doc no longer feels any compunction about laughing at Scar’s mishaps. Chat thinks Doc must be the only hermit who watches other hermits’ videos. During the server tour, the other hermits were really surprised about what Doc was up to, and complained again about his videos being too long. Doc makes another borderline joke about size and laughs at himself.

2:30:00 Doc reaches 300 diamond ore mined during the stream. He runs out of potions and decides he is done. He assures Chat that the shulker boxes along the wall are not forgotten, he keeps extra potions in them. He returns to the surface and lands at his base. Apparently leaving a shulker box somewhere or dropping something is a great way to farm a bunch of comments from the concerned and observant viewers. Chat is mildly appalled by this revelation. Doc has very close to a full shulker of diamond ore blocks again, He is wealthy again now!

2:34:00 Doc says he has been watching Grian leave and rejoin the server for awhile now. He’d better go to the shop and see if anything is broken. It’s never wise to assume Grian is not up to something. He places down and mines up all his diamond ore miniblocks so they will stack with each other again. Chat agrees, with no evidence at all, that it was Grian. Doc assembles a decorating kit and heads for the shopping district. The buffer at the ghast farm is full so he kills a few of them before they get too squished.

2:37 Doc arrives at the Nether hub. Nobody has taken Scar up on his idea of making their portals are really deadly. Doc thinks it would be funny, but not being able to use the nether hub would actually be pretty inconvenient. The Hivemind has some ideas in reserve and they are eager to help if Doc ever gets into it, though. Doc arrives at the store and realizes he forgot white glass. He discusses his plans for decorating the shop interior. He freecams into the guts of the armor trim machine and all the headphone users suffer for it as he discovers another block of diamond ore has been replaced with deepslate. Doc threatens the “ore snatching bastard” that he will find them and eat their soul. Grian has been sneaking, he is SUSPICIOUS. Chat’s collective ears are still ringing. Doc says he should’ve released the wardens on “Buttcrack Mountain” because nobody truly innocent lives there. Still no sign of snails. Doc admits the block was unpowered but it’s the principle of the thing.

2:42:00 Doc admits he dropped his guard. He’d been planning to build an alarm system that would drop wardens on anyone who broke a block, but relaxed when he’d thought the diamond ore was returned. Turns out they were not returned, they were replaced by Skizzleman, and the ore snatcher was still at large! The ore snatcher is clearly selecting highly visible blocks just to taunt Doc, and it is working. Doc is literally spitting mad and it is not possible to understand everything he says. He needs to catch the Ore Snatcher in the act. Without catching them red handed, there is no proof. He needs a security system.

2:44:00 To Doc, the most annoying thing is having something break and not be 100% how it is supposed to be. Someone is trying to drive the friendly swamp creature INSANE, but why? Because it is funny, probably. He removes the top-level diamond blocks and replaces them with other blocks. He doesn’t bother collecting up the ore blocks that fall. He decides to go talk to Ren. Another pig might be killed today.

2:47:00 Doc flies to Ren’s base and looks for him. He sings “Chocolate Ren,” then looks for Ren’s coords. Ren is not far away but he doesn’t see Doc. Doc pursues him and asks him for help. Ren gets his mic turned on. Doc tells him the Ore Snatcher struck again and needs to be caught. He needs Ren to stay online 24/7 and leave Replay mod on, sticking close to Doc’s shop so he can cover it. Start a project in the shopping district to keep him close to the shop and just grind until the culprit is caught. Ren jokes that this sounds very reasonable, and that he’s like the clerk at the gas station who has to review all the security tapes every night to see if anybody tried anything. Ren says he’ll do it for 120 Euros per hour. Doc tells Chat that he needs subs immediately. A few chatters sub, and Doc offers to pay him 2.50 an hour.

2:52:00 Grian signs on and Doc tells Ren this is the prime suspect. It’s either him or Scar. Ren is not convinced, Grian has not been around much this week. More subs come in and Doc tells Ren the single ladies are going crazy for him. Ren sings the song. Scar was very convincing in talking about his innocence, but he might just be a much better liar than believed. Ren says maybe it was the person he least suspects. They talk about whether it might be XB or Joel. Doc doesn’t want it to be Joel. Joel is completely crazy, and if they get in a war, the server will be destroyed. Joel has no motive, though. Angry Bird or Offroad Guy are the only ones who poke the Goat with no motive.

2:55:00 Ren asks if maybe someone has a residual grudge from things that happened last season. Doc the Sand Baron says that’s ridiculous, who would be so petty as to hold a grudge past the end of the season? Ren laughs. He asks if there were any conflicts while setting up in the shopping district and Doc says no, apparently forgetting Big Salmon entirely for the moment. Usually when someone is pranking Doc, he at least knows why it is happening and whether he deserves it or not. But he’s been chilling lately and now he needs to destroy someone. Ren agrees it is a conundrum. Doc brings up the possibility of reassembling Team Star to get his revenge, but the viewers would hate it because it’s been done before. Chat is actually pretty enthusiastic about the idea.

2:56:00 Doc notices a chatter saying that Ren sounds sus. He considers this possibility. Ren says he has been very focused on his lore. Doc agrees that Ren doesn’t want to be distracted by prank wars. Ren says he and Doc have been through a lot together and he does not stray. He points out that, as promised, he not only didn’t kill False in Demise, he made sure she won. Doc agrees that his husband is loyal. Ren admits that this is starting to sound like a case of the gentleman protesting too much. Doc explains that with his mom around, he couldn’t monitor the server like he wanted to and that how the Ore Snatcher managed to strike. Ren asks to see the evidence.

2:58:00 Doc and Ren go back to the armor trim shop. Ren thinks the shop is looking very good already. Doc wants to hire Cleo to make it look like a cute boutique, but that’s a problem with the whole lawsuit thing. He shows Ren the missing block. Ren notices the loose blocks from earlier, but Doc doesn’t care about those. Doc is wondering now if there were two culprits because the first culprit took a block with powered redstone on it, which is very risky, while the most recent block removals were carefully chosen to be inactive blocks. Doc is now the most annoyed in the history of everything, and he has to admit that it would be really funny except it’s happening to him.

3:03:00 Ren advises Doc that the snatcher be snatching, the snatcher will not be replacing. He suggests that sometimes rich people get additcted to shoplifting from stores, taking things even they don’t need them. Doc asks if he’s suggesting that it actually was Cleo, and that Cleo is a kleptomaniac. He says no, but somebody has an addiction and they can’t go back. Doc says Cleo is definitely a kleptomaniac. Doc points out that people leave Ren alone,, then has to add “aside from the village people,” lest the world collapse under the weight of pranks he’d have to be ignoring from earlier in the season. Ren is too deep in the lore to desert his neighbors now. Doc has now talked himself into believing that the Glitcher is several people. Ren thinks that it feels so incredibly Cub that it probably can’t be Cub. They both pace the store.

3:05:00 Ren wants to know when Doc will get the shop open, because he has been waiting for weeks now for armor trim. Doc protests that he has been very distracted and it’s not his fault. Ren says he spent all the diamonds he had set aside for armor already. That’s fine, Doc tells him, it will only cost him sand. Doc also thinks it’s highly coincidental that once Scar opened a shop in the Shopping District, right in sight of Doc’s shop, that’s when things started disappearing. ((The timeline here is very hinky, but Doc is clearly on a roll.)) If he catches Scar at it, he’s going to chop off his arms. Ren is supportive.

3:06:00 Ren mentions the prank on the Death Scar and seems to be making some kind of point, but they are not in a group and he keeps falling out of range. Ren suggests that this may be an elaborate two-front prank by Jevin. Doc considers this, but he’s pretty sure Jev absolutely exhausted himself placing all that yellow concrete. He’s not sure he’s even seen Jev online since then. Ren says that Doc is sleeping when Jevin is online. Doc protests that there has to be a motive. There was a motive for the Death Emoji prank ((Scar put a creeper in Jevin’s house, in retaliation for Jevin killing a bunch of allays for his head shop)), but there’s no obvious motive for the Ore Snatcher but amusement. Also Jevin was very careful to leave no doubt as to who did the emoji prank, unlike the Ore Snatcher.

3:08:00 Doc muses about the time that he shot Scar out all the way to the world border without telling him he was doing it, then made him kill himself to get home. Surely Scar wouldn’t want revenge for that, would he? Ren suggests maybe Wels, who lives nearby and might have been a little torqued about the enormous goat-headed man statue appearing outside. Doc ruminates that telling him he wouldn’t rap battle with somebody living in a 2012 castle might have been a little harsh. Chat hasn’t seen Wels online lately, and they think Ren is blaming a lot of non-Ren Hermits. Ren thinks this seems especially targeted, to go after the redstone of someone who has made their name and reputation as a redstoner. It’s like going for a footballer’s ankles, he explains. “Or a porn star’s balls,” Doc agrees soberly.

3:09:50 Doc, who has possibly been down a dark hole too long, proceeds to explain his theory that 90% of his chat are single moms. Ren doesn’t even know where to begin parsing this information, especially since it takes him a minute to realize Doc is taking the piss. Now that the sub rush is over, Doc feels like the single ladies are abandoning him. Ren says that’s the story of his life. Doc says it’s difficult with the ladies, being middle-aged gamer nerds. Ren agrees, they had to spend the prime of their youths building their channels and didn’t have a chance to meet that special someone. Doc smugly tells him to speak for himself. Crushed, Ren admits he meant the royal “we.” Fs in the chat for Ren. Doc continues on in this vein, apparently not realizing that he’s being a little mean talking to a single guy about how impossible it is to date in their line of work.

3:13:00 Doc asks what Ren is cooking for dinner, then interrupts himself to point out that some of the single ladies in his chat are actually single ladies. Doc says maybe he should set up a dating service with chat. Ren says this sounds like the start of a 100-Hour Cringe Compilation that he does not want to be a part of. Doc imagines a “Dating Game” style game show where Ren says nothing but innuendos. He thinks that would go over well. Ren thinks it would be entertaining but he would never recover.

3:14:00 Doc’s mum finally appears on the stream! She speaks to him briefly in German and only glances at the stream, then leaves. Apparently she was reminding him that if he wants to cook that roast chicken today he’d better get started, because she is hungry. Doc tells Chat that he wanted to stream till he got to 5k subs again, but Chat was slow and how his mom has told him to get off the computer. He tells Ren to start streaming so he can raid in, but Ren has streamed five days in a row and needs a break. Ren sends Doc off to dinner, Doc reminds him to keep an eye on the shop and make sure nobody is stealing. If Ren catches the thief, he’ll get free armor trims all season long. Ren says if he catches the thief, he wants 500 subs. Doc is aghast. Taxes and children cost money! Ren takes off, Doc thanks the subs and donos, then says goodbye to the stream. He notices at the last minute that the overlay is not working right again, but has to leave. He raids into Martyn (which becomes its own whole thing) and ends his stream.

[hiiragi7]

Saw your post on "casual intersexism", and while they're all good points, I did have questions about one- the "casual use of the word hermaphrodite". I know that calling a human person that is both wrong and rude, but is it a word that should be avoided entirely, including in scientific/nonhuman context? IE, talking about hermaphroditic snails, made up alien species, etc. This is a genuine question, because I know any word can be used offensively in the right context... but is this one of those, or one that just shouldnt be used..?

It's... complicated. Everyone in the intersex community has a different opinion on this.

My thoughts are that if a species is actually hermaphroditic and that is the most accurate terminology, then in a strictly biological context it may be fine and I do not consider that to be "casual use" as it is used in a scientific context. However, there are also more specific biological words that may be both more accurate and more specific to what is being talked about, so be sure you're saying what you think you are saying and using the proper terminology if it's actually a conversation about biology. Too many people I see will claim they are using the word hermaphrodite to talk about biological features and then just use it completely wrong anyway. Due to this, in my opinion, the use of the word in this context should probably just mainly be left to biologists or people who are otherwise very educated in this area...

Also, if we are talking biology, hermaphrodite is not a "more scientific term" for intersex, they are not interchangeable and in a biological sense they are completely different concepts altogether, so please keep this in mind too. Way too often I will see the furry community or fanfiction writers who do not know this and will just throw around the word hermaphrodite as if it is just a biological term to describe sex similar to how female or male is used when it is not.

Related to that, I do not believe it is appropriate to call OCs or characters hermaphrodites. These are characters/species created from the mind of a human being and therefore are subject to human biases and stereotypes, and I have never in my life seen "hermaphrodite OCs" done respectfully, if they even can be. This may be related to how the character's entire biology is based off of a fetishized slur, but in my experience they are always stereotypes and always fetishizing. These characters are also anthropomorphic in a way in which calling them hermaphrodites is... extremely uncomfortable and absolutely fuels intersexism.

I am strongly of the opinion that anyone who is so drawn to the label of hermaphrodite as to use it in this way has some shit to unpack, because it is admittedly fucking weird to use a slur to define your character's biology or species.

This is just my thoughts as a singular intersex person, also. Again, this topic is one that nobody in the intersex community fully agrees on and you'll find a lot of different people with a lot of different opinions and it is worth listening to what they have to say. Don't just listen to me alone, I'm just a random asshole on the internet, find what other intersex people have to say too. We aren't a monolith and all that.