Living By One's Dice

Love, grief, and magic in the mundane

Practically every single person who has ever pet one of my peafowl has softly exclaimed "Oh, they're so soft!" so I feel safe in declaring that they are, indeed, soft, or at least that they feel very soft to many people.

But, there are definitely chickens who are softer than others, like a rooster is not soft a rooster is smooth, but has Textures because you can feel the shafts of the feathers, or because the iridescence is structural and that structure has Texture. A big, fluffy cochin hen is going to feel different than a cemani hen or a silkie hen or a frizzle.

If you pet a peahen down the back, she is Incredibly Soft. 11/10 can recommend. Her neck is smooth with very soft bumpy texture as you go over the scallop feathers in front.

If you pet a peacock down his neck, it is like petting a wire-haired dog that has been rolled in corn starch. 0/10 petting experience. Same for his train. But his back and wings are all smooth/soft, and the butt fluff is downy soft.

If she didn't like it, she would simply walk away from me! They do have distress noises, but they're usually either warning noises or panic nosies during restraint. I am seated in an Adirondack chair, with no way to force her to stand there or tolerate me annoying her, and even when petting her I am not restraining her movement. They have a 1200sq/ft flight pen + a, 8x24' coop, and my chair is in one corner, opposite the coop so I'm basically as far away from anything central as I can get. They choose to come over and interact (or sometimes they don't, and we just hang in different areas of the pen), and Mantis often chooses violence (biting me over and over again) to get my attention and get pet.

You'll also notice that I ask for permission twice- once when I hold out a finger and once when I hold out my hand palm up. Both of these are gestures that, for us, mean "May I pet?" and you'll also notice that she holds still when I do those gestures- that's permission, waiting for me to pet. This was a while ago; we're at the point now that when she comes up looking for treats I will say "Just pets" and she'll stop looking for treats and hold still to get a beak rub. You can see her at the end reaching for my hand with her beak, that's her trying to ask me to keep going (hence why no asking permission first there).

These are, despite what some people think, intelligent birds. They have social structures and rules, and some form of communication that humans can participate in if they are patient and observant.

I've gone. Not one for goodbyes, I thought it best to slip out quietly. Love to you all, Giles.

I love not farming

I respect the hell out of farmers and I'm glad that's someone's dream. because it's sure not mine

I would not be taken in by the tradwife influencer grift about milking a cow in a sundress. I have been around cows. my uncle was a dairy farmer. I love not milking a cow. I love getting milk from a store. I love getting vegetables and fruit and meat and bread from a store.

would I rather it be a local farm's store or a local bakery or butcher shop? yes! maybe when I make more money!

is a harder argument.

It's *not* simple. Pattie is weaponising "smol bean against huge corporation" by bringing to the court of public opinion, Patagonia is leaning hard on being "transparent" while not mentioning the requirement for Pattie to drop their name entirely.

Pattie probably *did* violate the corporation's trademark by creating merch that's close to the logo, Patagonia *is* only suing for a token amount and the removal of the confusion, though see above. It might be parody. Pattie does good work for conservation. The corporation donates less conservation work as a percentage but more as an actual value.

Let’s play the biggest game of kick the can on the internet.

Anyway guess whos 18 now!!!

hot topic knows exactly

why they’re selling it.

no. tell me what you fixed. i wanna know what the glitch was.

you know those patch notes that are like “fixed an issue where if the player sat in a bush for too long, they’d become the size of a skyscraper” 

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.

liveplay ttrpg shows are not 'professional gaming', that's the whole problem I'm talking about. they're entertainment products which make format, content and form choices that would be nonsensical or obstructive at an ordinary table. it's not just "oh if only 'hobbyist' gaming groups (🤮) could pay for all that kit and lighting and professional writers and voice actors".

liveplay production involves story meetings aimed at making the narrative maximally entertaining to a watching audience (not the players, who are also professionals who are there to entertain that audience!). It involves editing (trimming out downtime, uninteresting mistakes, technical issues, moments where the vibe is wrong or there's friction in the room). it involves a room full of production crew watching every move the GM and players make, sensitive to wastage of their time and effort if things don't go to plan. and not for nothing, it involves an entire team of people who need to keep game publishers happy by playing and displaying their products correctly and certainly never criticising them or openly adapting around their shortcomings for the sake of the group's enjoyment.

I've played at tables where we've been lucky enough to have fun props and miniatures and printed maps and sound systems and even a bit of lighting, and where everyone in the group was a seasoned player with writing and performance backgrounds, and the experience was still full of normal natural constructive frictions that are largely if not completely absent from entertainment liveplay shows. player disagreement is normal. stopping mid flow to argue about a rule and look it up and help each other with system technicalities is normal. the music just not working today is normal. the party choosing a direction the GM didn't prepare for and having to adjust their in-character choices a little and tolerate some hastily cobbled together fluff to meet them halfway is so normal it's a running joke. someone finding a scene a little too much and asking for a break or redirection is normal. someone saying something a little ill judged in the moment and having to walk it back with as much grace as possible is normal. storylines not going to plan and petering out without major dramatic resolution, or npcs being ignored and cast off with a shrug is normal. all this shit and more is normal because a normal table is structured around the organic decision-making of a bunch of players who are primarily in it for their own fun and sense of transport, not for an invisible imaginary fandom slash consumer market. which are all the things that make ttrpg play inherently a pretty bad vehicle for storytelling, incidentally!