#also now i need a masonry bit

[the-gamling-dog]

Now when someone asks "Does your disability impede you during tasks?", instead of saying "No, it makes me avoid them entirely," I can say "Yup, nearly fell off a ladder today for daring to stretch my human body out vertically instead of horizontally.

[bumblebeesfromvenus]

Here are some German specific quirks I think König would have <3

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ────── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

(yes, I know he's Austrian, but the difference is really only that they talk funny and have better desserts)

♡ he HATES fans and air conditioning. Like I'm talking disdain from the deepest pits of hell kinda hate.

Ceiling fans and AC are not a thing here, and literally every German looks at it with a very disapproving look if there happens to be one somewhere.

König absolutely refuses to sleep with the fan or AC on, just open a window, Liebling!

He's so upset that he can't put the window "auf kipp" :( (pls Google it, it's so hard to explain lol) like he's crushed that he can't keep the windows "auf kipp" all day.

You have a ceiling fan? Nope, not anymore. That thing is getting taken down the minute you move in together. But if you insist on keeping it, he'll secretly cut the cable to the switch.

Everyone knows all they do is whirl around dust and make you sick! He's not having it.

König acts like artificial ventilation is his worst enemy (I agree with him) and he'd rather suffocate than turn on the goddamn AC.

♡ Sundays are strictly lazy/rest days. Nothing's open on Sundays here, so we're forced to relax and not run around like headless chickens trying to get things done.

He's absolutely baffled if you have plans to go somewhere on a Sunday. What do you mean you need to run errands? What do you mean you're going out? And if you want him to come along?? Yeah, no.

His brain stops working. After the many years he's been alive, not once has he gone somewhere on a Sunday that wasn't his Oma's house for Kaffee und Kuchen.

You're not going anywhere. Plans are canceled, and you better spend the day on the couch with him.

♡ König probably misses all the beautiful old architecture Vienna has to offer. You don't quite appreciate it as much when it's just there all the time, but now he wishes he could quietly people watch in the city center :(

In my mind he's a bit of a history nerd, so he probably frequented museums and castles, admiring the delicately sculpted ceilings and wondering how people lived back then.

He'd be most fascinated by the masonry work done on the outside of most buildings. I mean, that's stone, but it's so smooth and carefully crafted.

♡ there are some very weird sayings in German that you just can't translate because they don't make sense. König is sick of having to awkwardly try to explain what they mean after he's been caught muttering one under his breath, only to realize halfway through that he looks like a maniac.

German is a very literal language, and I think he misses speaking it. We have very specific words for some things and he probably struggles to talk in English sometimes purely because the words he wants to use just don't exist.

(I'm very upset they didn't give him an Austrian accent bc it's one of my favorites, but I can also confidently say that I think he wouldn't be taken seriously at all if he had one lmao)

♡ König goes on random ass walks sometimes. Where's he going? On a walk. No, like where is he going? HE'S GOING ON A WALK.

There's no destination, you just walk. No matter the weather. Ya walk until you feel like you've walked enough. (A very German experience and I hate it)

♡ dreams of his Oma's Kaiserschmarn (me too, König, me too.)

It's basically a giant pancake that you tear into little pieces (traditionally, it has raisins too, I think) and you eat with either cinnamon sugar or applesauce (or both) and you will drift up to heaven.

It's warm, it's fluffy, it's sweet;

It's perfect for a gloomy Friday afternoon spent with his Oma and Opa 🥺

(Can you tell that I'm projecting)

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ────── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

"Auf kipp" is a very specific window position where only the bottom two hinges stay attached so you can tilt the window towards you and a little crack is open so you can always have fresh air!

"Oma und Opa" grandma and grandpa, which he loves so much, undoubtedly.

"Kaffe und Kuchen" basically tea time. You get together and eat cake and have coffee! Mostly on the weekends :)

"Kaiserschmarn" what dreams are made of.

🩷

[alpaca-clouds]

Worldbuild Differently: Unthink Religion

This week I want to talk a bit about one thing I see in both fantasy and scifi worldbuilding: Certain things about our world that we live in right now are assumed to be natural, and hence just adapted in the fantasy world. With just one tiny problem: They are not natural, and there were more than enough societies historically that avoided those pitfalls.

Tell me, if you have heard this one before: You have this fantasy world with so many differnet gods that are venerated. So what do you do to venerate those gods? Easy! You go into those big temple structures with the stained glass in their windows, that for some reason also use incense in their rituals. DUH!

Or: Please, writers, please just think one moment on why the fuck you always just want to write Christianity. Because literally no other religion than Christianity has buildings like that! And that has to do a lot with medieval and early post-medieval culture. I am not even asking you to look into very distant cultures. Just... Look of mosques and synagogues differ from churches. And then maybe look at Roman and Greek temples. That is all I am asking.

Let's make one thing clear: No matter what kind of world you are building, there is gonna be religion. It does not matter if you are writing medieval fantasy, stoneage fantasy, or some sort of science fiction. I know that a lot of atheists hate the idea that a scifi world has religion, but... Look, human brains are wired to believe in the paranormal. That is simply how we are. And even those atheists, that believe themselves super rational, do believe in some weird stuff that is about as scientific as any religions. (Evolutionary Psychology would be such an example.)

What the people will believe in will differ from their circumstance and the world they life in, but there is gonna be religion of some sort. Because we do need some higher power to blame, we need the rituals of it, and we need the community aspect of it.

Ironically I personally am still very much convinced that IRL even in a world like the Forgotten Realms, people would still make up new gods they would pray to, even with a whole pantheon of very, very real gods that exist. (Which is really sad, that this gets so rarely explored.)

However, how this worship looks like is very different. Yes, the Abrahamitic religions in general do at least have in common that they semi-regularily meet in some sort of big building to pray to their god together. Though how much the people are expected to go into that temple to pray is actually quite different between those religions and the subgroups of those religions.

Other religions do not have this though. Some do not have those really big buildings, and often enough only a select few are even allowed into the big buildings - or those might only be accessible during some holidays.

Instead a lot of polytheistic religions make a big deal of having smaller shrines dedicated to some of the gods. Often folks will have their own little shrine at home where they will pray daily. Alternatively there are some religions where there might be a tiny shrine outside that people will go to to pray to.

Funnily enough that is also something I have realized Americans often don't quite get: Yeah, this was a thing in Christianity, too. In Europe you will still find those tiny shrines to certain saints (because technically speaking Christianity still works as a polytheistic religion, only that we have only one god, but a lot of saints that take over the portfolios of the polytheistic gods). I am disabled, and even in the area I can reach on foot I know of two hidden shrines. One of them is to Mary, and one... I am honestly not sure, as the masonry is too withered to say who was venerated there. Usually those shrines are bieng kept in a somewhat okay condition by old people, but yeah...

Of course, while with historically inspired fantasy settings make this easy (even though people still hate their research), things get a bit harder with science fiction.

Again, the atheist idea is often: "When we develop further scientifically, we will no longer need religion!" But I am sorry, folks. This is not how the human brain works. We see weird coincidences and will go: "What paranormal power was responsible for it?" We can now talk about why the human brain has developed this way. We are evolved to find patterns, and we are evolved (because social animal and such) to try and understand the will others have - so far that we will read will in nature. It is simply how our brains work.

So, what will scifi cultures believe in? I don't know. Depends on your worldbuilding. Maybe they believe in the ghost in the machine, maybe there si some other religions there. You can actually go very wild with it. But you need to unthink the normativity of Christianity to do that. And that is... what I see too little off.

[hasufin]

State of failure

I am currently making hardtack.

This is a mistake. The year is 2023 and there is no good reason to make hardtack. The stuff is an inherently bad idea. There is no practical use for hardtack which is not met today by a product which is superior in every way.

Hardtack existed as a solution for a particular time and application: a way to create portable calories which did not require any cooking in situ, which could be transported in almost any condition, and could be stored for years at a time with no significant detriment.

Today, we have a great many options to meet these requirements. We have MREs. Canned foods. Dehydrated foods. UHT packaging. Freeze-drying. Energy bars. Every one of these options manage to be better-tasting, more nutritious, and just overall more pleasant than hardtack.

Throughout much of history, the idea of going an extended period of time without being able to cook at all would have been ridiculous. What could your circumstances be, that you could not, just once every few days, start a fire? and if you can start a fire you can, at minimum, make waybread. Which isn’t particularly pleasant, sure, but is worlds better than hardtack.

But for a certain period of time, hardtack was indeed the solution. it’s mostly synonymous with sailor’s food, but was also a significant part of a soldier’s diet; certain forms of the stuff, known as “hard biscuit” were used even through WWII. It does have its advantages, mainly in durability. Actually, that’s pretty much it. Hardtack, if kept dry and free of insects, will last pretty much indefinitely.

What, you may wonder, is hardtack?

Well. It’s basically the worst, most basic form of bread you can imagine. It’s unleavened and as dry as possible. It consists of nothing but flour and salt, with just enough water to form into a stiff dough, then baked and dried. That’s literally it.

The hardtack above used 2 cups of whole wheat flour (plus a bit more for the working surface), about a teaspoon of salt, and somewhere between 1/2 and 5/8 of a cup of water.

I combined the salt with the flour. Note - no fat, no sweetener, no flavoring, no leavening. Then, I added half a cup of water and proceeded to knead it. And knead it. And knead it some more. It is impossible to overknead hardtack, because it’s going to be indistinguishable from masonry no matter what you do.

Now, there is some skill to this. You’re up against two competing needs. First, you must make your hardtack as dry as possible. Water is your enemy. If there is water, it could mold, or grow bacteria, or fungus.

On the other hand, you want your dough to be completely smooth. Any seam or fold in the dough will become a crack. The biscuit may break apart; some mold spore or insect could get in.

So, while I started with half a cup of water, I found that amount inadequate and added a little bit of additional water to make it work into a smoother dough. As you can see, it still wasn’t perfectly smooth but I successfully incorporated all the flour.

Once I had a terribly stiff dough, I rolled it out on a floured surface. There’s plenty of leeway here on how you can do it - some people would simply take pieces of the dough and pat them flat. Especially into the 19th century, this could be done with machinery, to make very consistent biscuits. That’s actually pretty important, since sailors and soldiers would want to be sure they were getting a fair ration.

Personally, since I have round biscuit cutters, that’s what I did. This is the style largely favored by the British, to be packed in barrels for Naval usage. Americans tended to make squares or rectangles for most efficient packing in tins. If these were being made professionally, the biscuits would then be impressed with a seal, usually indicating the company which manufactured the biscuits.

The next, and more important, part is to poke holes in the biscuits. These are not for show: they are meant to release steam when the biscuits are baked. If there are no holes, steam may accumulate in pockets, resulting in bubbles. While this might yield a moderately more pleasant hardtack - one that can be more easily broken apart - it also makes it less durable and more prone to spoilage. The holes need to be poked all the way through, which isn’t quite how most such baking is done, but there is no elegance to hardtack.

Next is baking. To be honest, hardtack is not baked. It is sterilized and dried. The simplest method is to bake the biscuits in a low oven for many hours - four is typical, but sometimes the hardtack is baked several times, or overnight. It should be baked just hot enough to assure anything in the flour is killed, and for long enough to remove almost all moisture from the biscuits.

I have opted for a compromise, in large part because I already had my dehydrator out. I baked the biscuits at 250°F for two hours, then transferred them to the dehydrator, where they are currently drying for.... well, until I decide to shut it off. Probably when I go to bed. Sadly, my dehydrator tops out at 160°F, which is 40°F too cool for proper sterilization. If it went up to 200°F, I could put the biscuits directly in there without needing the oven at all, but such was not to be.

So far, it smells surprisingly pleasant, and the one piece I have tasted confirms: it’s terribly bland, of course, lacking even the sourness of yeast. It’s also - as one could predict - quite hard, requiring prolonged dipping in tea to make it soft enough to bite. In short, the flavor is inoffensive while the texture is weaponizable.

I made this stuff knowing what it would be. I started out with the complete expectation that it would be akin to eating a roofing tile. Why do I do this?

Curiosity, I suppose. Now, sometimes I try to improve these historical recipes - I recognize the limitations under which they were made, and try to make them pleasant by adding spices and seasonings which were not available, applying techniques which would have been impractical, and adding fats and sugars which were uneconomical.

Not this recipe. You cannot improve hardtack without compromising its purpose. But I’d seen so many references to it, I knew I wanted to make it for myself, just to experience it.

I’m not going to share the stuff with my friends, though. Not anyone I want to keep as a friend, at any rate.

[mechanicalriddle]

the moment weve all been waiting for EXALTED SECRET 2023 BIOS YAAAAAY

Heres my bios for the secret santa ! this years theme is Girls Who Rot, Have Rotted Previously, or Are Rotting Right Now

I like to provide some little details, tidbits, tone and setting ideas in my bios in case you want to draw them in like a little scene; don't feel obligated to get that fancy, though!

without further ado.

Pleione (Plin for short, she/they, roughly equivalent to early 20s) is a Marrow Aspect forged from the remnants of a young royal from a long-forgotten kingdom, resuscitated from the depths of the mausoleum in which her body was interred by (accidental) necromantic means. She's spent the past two decades quietly living on her Anchor's manse-estate, indulging in her passions for art and botany.

Plin is a big chicken who is deathly terrified of conflict and does a lot of screaming and cowering when things come to blows for someone who

Her personality is particular, peculiar, and holier-than-thou. She's got dynastic sensibilities, snobbish and disinclined to associate with 'the proles'. Get her on the subject of one of her special interests, though, and you might find each other fast friends.

Motifs- Plin has an orchid motif on account of the fact that she needs a dose of a special tea made from a (formerly) extinct orchid several times a day in order to NOT DIE. She hasn't died yet. She doesnt know she can come back give her a break. Some other motifs include glass, terrariums, spiders & fireflies; marble & porcelain, old-timey anatomical drawings, delicate floral and baroque patterns; antique-white, minty green, deep purple, and black.

Ideas- If you want to draw her doing something she is equally likely to be found reclining on a huge pile of pillows with a book or with her knees planted in the dirt rooting around in a thorny shrub. She loves to dissect and draw plants and is liable to be found at a desk or behind an easel doing one of those activities

Anima- Currently I am thinking... a grove filled with ghostly-white plants twining over enormous bones (hopefully of the animal variety, but hard to say, really) and probably features giant flowering orchids that are shaped suspiciously like skulls... Also its hard to say but the ground does look an awful lot like meat, and those stringy bits look an awful lot like connective tissue... hmm

---

Desert Fang Grim Devil Lioness (Grim for short, she/her, 36 yrs old) is a renegade Midnight caste former-warlord-turned-backwoods vampire-MILF. upgrades!

Grim was fazed a lot as a child (being pawned off by your family as a slave will do that to you) and vowed to grow up into a woman who Wouldn't Be Fazed By Anything. Having achieved this (with a few notable exceptions), she mostly gets her way by via being larger, stronger, and scarier than as many of her problems as possible. Sometimes problems don't and can't have physical largeness, though, which is annoying.

One of these problems included being counter-merc'd by one of her targets and dying of exposure under the desert sun. She didn't... quite... let this stop her, though. There are people in need of her skillsets, and dying isn't really a disqualifier for their service. She was raised as a deathknight and for several years served as one of the First and Forsaken Lion's most fearsome officers.

Another problem is... More recent. Having run off with her lunar mate and tried to start a family far, far from FAFL's stomping grounds, it turns out toughing it out in the wilds of the North can kind of suck.

Motifs- Pretty normal deathknight stuff. Black iron of the wrought variety, and soulsteel; tattered and blood-drenched fabric, rough-hewn basalt and dark masonry. Honestly got stronger canid than felid vibes, to spite the name. Black-and-red is an obvious throughline but grimy grays and natural tones complete her overall color scheme. Things that are totally inert and lifeless, and will always remain as such.

Ideas- Riding her terrifying steed (basically just a half rotting perma-permafrosted elk corpse with a broken antler), slicing something in half with her awesome reaver daiklaive, hovering over a pot of survival-stew boiling over a crude hearth, walking thru the woods in the dark covered in blood. Or maybe hanging out with her awesome baby (pictured) if youre inclined to draw something... Nicer :)

Anima- A bit stereotypical, I think like. a blasted land with bloodsoaked earth so barren and expansive that it blends with the crimson sky, as well as off in the distance banners that tower like skyscrapers which only flutter by virtue of their enormity. Not even Mela's breath will touch this forsaken place.

Grim is the current wielder of Gorgon.

---

(WHOOPS forgot the tattoos in the second thing but like hell im fixing that at this point)

Last but not least, the Gunstar Autochthonia Girl Hirudana Siithavari (Siithi for short, she/her, 32 y.o.) a No Moon ostensibly still answering to the Deliberative; at heart, a roustabout and a scallywag. She crawled deep into Authochthon's world-body on a suicide mission and then beat all odds by sheer cockroach-style stubbornness, earning her Luna's favor. Also, terrible death-sorcery (necromancy is sort of an unknown factor in our rendition of the Gunstar shard but she somehow managed to make contact with the neverborn and stumble into its practice)

she likes drinking, and gambling, and yelling, and generally being a nuisance. Sometimes a little bit of heart-of-gold shines through, and quite frankly everyone is probably better off with the secrets of necromancy in her hands rather than someone slightly less grounded in reality.

theres more pics of her in her tag if you want to poke around.

Motifs- Bronze, brass, grimy earth tones mixed with bright accent colors. Black leather, studs, needles, teeth. Tubes, pipes, gears, grates and various industrial junk. Worms, bugs, and other vermin. Dankness, darkness, the sickly shadows of Black Non. Smoke-haze and drug paraphernalia.

Ideas- Generally she spends most of her time at the bar, the gym, in her lab, or asleep. you could draw her pumping iron, or taking a toke on a decrepit sofa in her dingy weed-cave (not a literal cave though that would be kind of fun), or sitting at an industrial workbench pouring over a half-disassembled chainsaw. or corpse. or both at the same time.

Anima- Her lower-level anima is kind of gloopy like a lava lamp. Iconic is a swamp with oil for water, populated by mangroves assembled from pipes and black plastic tube-vines, with the moon reflecting brightly on its surface. Her spirit shape is a Buffalo Leech, one of the largest species of leeches (on earth at least). i'll attach a pic of her hybrid form if you wanna draw that instead!

(necessary disclaimer for these sorts of things) youre welcome to take this as an opportunity to do some experimenting but if you don't think you can passably represent a certain characters body shape i would recommend picking one of the other options. thank you!

[blackjackkent]

Found the Mason's Guild!

If this was indeed the headquarters of the local Selunite Resistance against Shar's encroaching darkness, they didn't do a very good job, because it is DARK over here; this area is covered with the scary sort of dark where Selune's blessing isn't enough and we have to carry the moonlantern around.

Hector tries to assuage his anxiety via being a history nerd and Shadowheart is unimpressed.

She's right, though. There's a series of skeletons mounted outside the entrance to the guild building proper, which doesn't seem to bode well for a friendly welcome.

You don't scare me, I have a fancy lantern. >:|

There's also a lot of abandoned cut stone everywhere in case we want to leave this life of adventuring and build a giant marble tower.

Stepping inside, the place has definitely seen better days. Karlach notices a pile of bones on one stone slab (which the narrator describes as being "of varying shapes, sizes, and creatures"); it has a plaque next to it stating: "Here lies the Grand Mason, his bones and lies exposed." But the import of this, if any, is not obvious.

Oh, hey, more presents for Karlach in the event she needs a tune-up.

This seems promising.

The basement is full of even more cut stone and some broken statues.

There's an elevator here which doesn't seem to serve an obvious purpose:

As well as this, which was hidden behind a perception check:

I brought Astarion in quickly to deal with this bc it's a DC 18 and Hector's middling sleight-of-hand is starting to run through my lockpicks.

Unlocking this pushed open a hidden door in the wall. This note is pinned up inside:

Uh oh.

Unsurprisingly, this super conspicuous chest sitting out nearby is super trapped:

As soon as Hector biffed the disarm roll, some gates came up, a wall opened revealing gargoyles with fire in their mouths, and we went into turn-based mode.

O.O; I'm gonna reload and bring Astarion with me for the rest of this section.

There was only 33 gold in the chest once Astarion hacked it open, too. :P

Proceeding onward, we get to a very large room that looks like it might have once been a mess hall or something like that. Promising note for later:

This marked an area on our map for something to check out at Moonrise later.

From this note, I took literally one more step forward and the place erupted with wraiths like the ones Mummy and Daddy were back with Oliver.

...Astarion I hope you've been keeping up to speed on your rapier work.

Ultimately not too bad a fight. Particular shoutout to Shadowheart, who landed a couple very nice Sacred Flames that obliterated two of the shadow creatures. Nice to see since she honestly struggles in combat somewhat compared to the rest of the team.

Upsettingly, each of the corpses of the shadow creatures has some text when we inspect them afterwards:

"A happy, faded memory comes to you. A woman walking along a beach, holding hands with her husband-to-be."

"A distant memory of a man stretching his back with a groan. Another day of hauling masonry blocks done."

"Before the shadows, there was once a house full of warmth and children's laughter in this one's life. No more."

"Calloused hands work a hammer and chisel around a massive slab of rock. Months from now, a face will take shape."

"You can almost taste the souer ale that once clung to this soul's breath. He was insensible when the shadows came for him."

"You sense this one hid for days as the sounds of battle got closer and closer to town. You didn't even care who won, so long as it ended."

:(

There's journals on the table reflecting information about the last Selunites who stood while Ketheric Thorm's Dark Justiciars took over the town, bringing the shadow curse with them. This apparently counts as completing the quest of investigating the Selunite resistance.

Hector's okay with this, because historical knowledge about the Selunites is reward enough for him. For everyone else, though, it's probably a bit anticlimactic.

Luckily there's one more trapped and locked chest to open - DC 21 this time, so very glad I still have Astarion along. Decently nice helmet in it too, so we'll call that a win. :D

[siphersaysstuff]

BIY Lego Town Hall, in progress

So the Lego "modular" city blocks are a fave theme of mine, and I was looking at the prices for the Town Hall from 2012, and NOPE. NOPE NOPE NOPE. Starting at $500 incomplete and only going up from there, never mind shipping.

I got a lot of spare bits, I'll build my own, thanks. Even if I have to do some Bricklink buys (and I DO and have one already on its way), it'll be way cheaper and more fun since I can do a lot of altering on the way.

The first floor is nearly done. I still need a lot of 1x8 rail-plates to complete the columns and slanted roof parts. A couple key pieces to finish the double-doors, and I'm debating my planter options. The light-gray 1x3 arches are gonna get replaced with dark-gray. Instead of flat gray walls up front, used masonry-bricks, I think they add a bit o' dignity.

Working on the interior. Using micro-builds from other sets, particularly The Office, to make it nicer inside than the rather plain original. Miiiiiiiiiight pull apart the back wall and go all light-gray masonry-brick like with the front. Which I don't have enough of, at least not 1x4 ones. Nothing but 1x2s would be a structural nightmare. Maybe some art on the left wall.

Second floor is less done. I've run out of not-small nougat-colored bricks; the original set uses a dark orange, and I like the more subtle lighter look of the nougat. Also I had (had) a shitload of 1x4 and 1x2 masonry-bricks in that color, which are fine for the front and back walls. The side-walls can be plain cuz they're gonna get mooshed up against some other buildings.

Not got much furniture in there yet, but soon.

Also working on a more elaborate elevator car. The original was basically just a floor, which felt... bad. Gave this one walls and buttons, and an escape hatch. Lacking the Technic piece for the locking mechanism on the back-left corner; once I get that (in the mail now), the design might change depending on how exactly the car sits height-wise at each floor.

The third floor is... whoof. I need a lot of 1x2x2 white windows (in the order), and I have very few nougat bricks in either form left outside of a lot of 1x2s and 1x3s, which is not ideal for big stretches of wall.

The nougat bricks might have to get bulk-ordered. They're surprisingly pricy.

Made some decent progress on the roof and clock tower. Most of it is done and the parts to complete the gray front and skylights are on order, as is the huge clock face dish.

Clock tower interior. Was debating putting a bunch of the random Technic gears I have back there, but had no good idea for how to properly attach them to the wall without them sticking WAY out, so ppppffft. One giant Mario gear.

The original bell tower design was shorter (only two 1x1 cylinders used) plus the bell was affixed to the floor. No thanks. Now the bell hangs, and even better, thanks to the 1x1 round plate/bar, it can even swing from side to side a bit!

I wanted to make a gold bell, but sadly they don't do the 3x3 dish in pearl-gold. Ah well.

So, all told, getting there. I'm sure I'll tweak it more on the way, there's been tons of light alterations I've made all over the place already.

Also, any excuse to sift through the bulk bit bins at a Bricks & Minifigs. Mmmm.

[dioticodes]

how to add masonry and infinite scroll to a tumblr theme

Hi, welcome. If you’re here, it’s because you want to add either Masonry, Infinite Scroll or both to your custom Tumblr theme.

Heads up, this guide requires some familiarity with HTML, CSS and Javascript as you will be editing your current theme and since all themes are different, I can't give step-by-step instructions on how to edit your exact theme.

Also, this post is best viewed on my desktop theme. Blame Tumblr for not supporting Markdown properly.

OVERVIEW

Alright, so what are we even adding? Basically, Masonry is used to display your posts in a nicely laid out grid, even if they're all different sizes. You tell it what your posts are, what you want them to fit into and it'll come up with a nice grid layout for you. Infinite Scroll is used to... infinitely scroll through posts with having to go to another page. It’s the endless scrolling of your Twitter/Instagram/whatever feed.

Now maybe you’ve already got one or the other in your theme and you’re looking to add the other one. Sounds pretty simple, yeah? It kind of is. The trouble is that Masonry and Infinite Scroll interact with each other. When you’re using Infinite Scroll, whenever you scroll down and load more posts, Masonry needs to check whether your post layout is still okay and correct it if it isn't.

PLUGINS

For the sake of this guide not getting too confusing and because they integrate so easily together, we’ll ONLY be using David DeSandro's Masonry and Infinite Scroll Javascript plugins. If you’ve got different versions of these plugins, remove them now as they may cause issues.

First, we need to add the plugins to your theme’s head:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/masonry-layout@4/dist/masonry.pkgd.min.js"></script><script src="https://unpkg.com/infinite-scroll@4/dist/infinite-scroll.pkgd.min.js"></script>

HTML

To get Masonry working, we need to know what your posts are and the container that they're in. Give your posts a class (e.g. .post) and your container an id (e.g. #posts). We can also specify additional options, such as column width and spacing between the posts. We want the layout to be responsive, so by following the example code Masonry provides, we'll create post-sizer and gutter-sizer.

To add Infinite Scroll, we need to know what the posts are (same as Masonry) and where to get the new content from - this will be the next page of posts on your blog. Tumblr lets us get that easily using pagination variables. Make sure you give the next page a class (e.g. .pagination__next), since this is where we'll be loading new posts from.

Your HTML might look something like this:

<div id="posts"> <div id="post-sizer"></div> <div id="gutter-sizer"></div> {block:Posts} <div class="post" id="{PostID}"> <div class="post-content"> {block:Text} {/block:Text} </div> </div> {/block:Posts} </div> <p id="footer"> {block:PreviousPage} <a href="{PreviousPage}">« Previous</a> {/block:PreviousPage} {block:NextPage} <a href="{NextPage}" class="pagination__next">Next »</a> {/block:NextPage} <a href="/archive">Archive</a> </p>

CSS

For the styling, we want the layout to be responsive so we'll set post-sizer and gutter-sizer to have a % width. For the rest of the styling, we'll use some of Masonry's example code again.

Your CSS might look something like this:

* { box-sizing: border-box; } #posts { width: 800px; } #posts:after { content: ''; display: block; clear: both; } #post-sizer, .post { width: 32.66%; } #gutter-sizer { width: 1%; } .post { background-color: lightgrey; margin-bottom: 10px; } .post-content { width: 100%; padding: 10px; float: left; }

JAVASCRIPT

In your theme's head, we can create a new script and set up Masonry inside it like this:

<script> window.onload = function() { var elem = document.getElementById('posts'); var msnry = new Masonry(elem, { itemSelector: '.post', percentPosition: true, columnWidth: '#post-sizer', gutter: '#gutter-sizer' }); } </script>

Then to actually get Masonry to generate a layout, we need to call it like this:

msnry.layout();

Usually, that's all you really need for Masonry but for Tumblr posts, any media embeds might take a bit of time to load. For example, Instagram embeds get taller when they're fully loaded (or at least they used to) and this can screw up the layout of your posts. To deal with this, you can add an observer that checks for any changes with media embeds and calculates a new layout if needed:

const embedObserver = new MutationObserver((m, o) => { msnry.layout(); }); embedObserver.observe(document, { childList: true, subtree: true });

Then finally, we need to set up Infinite Scroll. Remember, we're using the same posts that Masonry is changing. Since this plugin is made by the same guy who wrote Masonry, we can integrate it easily using outlayer:

let infScroll = new InfiniteScroll(elem, { path: '.pagination__next', append: '.post', outlayer: msnry });

Every time it loads a new page, it'll update the URL in your address bar. If you want to turn that off, you can add a new line to the previous codeblock, setting history to false:

let infScroll = new InfiniteScroll(elem, { path: '.pagination__next', append: '.post', history: false, outlayer: msnry });

And that should be it! The whole script should be something like this:

<script> window.onload = function() { // INITIALISE MASONRY var elem = document.getElementById('posts'); var msnry = new Masonry(elem, { itemSelector: '.post', percentPosition: true, columnWidth: '#post-sizer', gutter: '#gutter-sizer' }); // CALL MASONRY LAYOUT msnry.layout(); // CALL MASONRY LAYOUT ON EMBED LOAD const embedObserver = new MutationObserver((m, o) => { msnry.layout(); }); embedObserver.observe(document, { childList: true, subtree: true }); // INITIALISE INFINITE SCROLL let infScroll = new InfiniteScroll(elem, { path: '.pagination__next', append: '.post', history: false, outlayer: msnry }); } </script>

FINALLY...

Do keep in mind that your theme code will be different to this, so it's not a case of just copying and pasting everything directly. Remember to remove any old Masonry or Infinite Scroll plugins you already have. Your class and id names will probably be different and you may need to add certain HTML elements if you're missing them. You'll almost certainly need to tweak the styling too.

Feel free to shoot me a message if you need help or want to heckle me about the guide being outdated.

[gamesception]

let’s read rgu, chapter 24

So last time Akio went to the castle to kill Dios (sigh), while Utena stayed behind to free Anthy from her crystal coffin.  That done, Anthy now summons the castle so that everyone can chase after Akio and stop him.  This feels pretty close to the end, are there really four chapters left, including this one?  What spanner’s going to be thrown into the works to stop this careening free fall towards a conclusion?

Yay, the gang’s all coming with.  Oh, and hey look, it’s the gate from the anime.

Honestly, I feel like maybe the answers to /some/ of the mysteries could have been fed out before this point.  Like, it might have been better for the pacing, or allowed for like maybe a fun twist here at the end.  Oh, well!

Statues of the various characters who have been involved in the rose duels, even Chuchu.  And a dual/twin/gemini/janus sort of thing, two male figures staring into each others eyes, which I assume represents Akio and Dios.  Where they always a duel figure in the manga?  If so, staring inward at themselves implies maybe a level of narcissism or self obsession from even before they were split apart.

Whelp, Saionji didn’t make it very far.  Are we going to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this, where in each room another student council member, in order of their duels, gets boxed away according to their bespoke character flaw?

Oh, wait, no, we’re just going to do them all at once.  Also, I want to say something like “really, Juri?  She’s a witch?” or make a ‘may we burn her’ joke or something, but mostly I’m just sad at how little weight the word ‘Witch’ carries here compared to in the anime.

There they go.  Seriously, what was the point of even bringing you doofuses along?

Of course, Touga gets special treatment.  The manga certainly has a favorite among the student council, so that’s not surprising.

Utena notices that Anthy’s been a bit more... direct than usual, and asks her about that, or just for more info in general.

Parallels again, and now I’m worried.  Are we setting up for a betrayal?  Was this all part of Akio’s plot?  Was he counting on Utena rejecting him, staying behind, and freeing Anthy?  Like she needed to do that to fully embody/become Dios, and only then can Akio kill the otherwise intangible Dios by killing Utena - or having Anthy kill Utena?

I... wait, what?  Was Akio and the prince not the same person?  No, no wait, we have the same inward facing double figure here.  This story doesn’t quite hold up.  Saving Anthy made dios the prince in the first place?  Or split the Dios persona from the Akio persona?  Or they were always separate, and saving Anthy made Dios more powerful?  If he was so much more powerful than Akio as to make him jealous, how was Akio able to defeat him?

“Fell in love with the same prince” - boooooo!  Just be in love with each other, come on.

“Friend”.  Just pals bein’ gals.

But just then there’s a big earthquake, and the castle starts to collapse!  And some masonry almost falls on Utena, but Touga pushes her out of the way at the last second!  And it falls on him instead!  and he’s not hurt, but he’s pinned and can’t go any further with them!

Thanks, Touga.  Might as well have put him in a box with the others.  In fact the student council as a whole might as well have been left behind.  Anthy could have taken just Utena to the castly and nothing would have changed.  Oh, well!

So Utena and Anthy reach the top of the castle, and there he is.  Dios.

Already dead.  Kind of anticlimactic, that.  Guess my prediction didn’t come true.

Oh, no!  He’s too small to be a Prince anymore.  I guess now he’ll have to be a...

short king.

This reveal that Akio used to be Dios would land a lot harder if we had gotten the story about him being a different person who got jealous and overthrew Dios before this same chapter.  Also the “from a certain point of view” obfuscation from Anthy seems really kind of pointless when there’s all of like one scene separating her story and this reveal twist to it.

But we’re here now!  The set up’s in place for a climactic final dual with lives on the line between Akio and Utena, but still three whole chapters left, so I’m not sure where things are going yet, and not knowing is still pretty exciting in its own right.

[wild-flowerhoney]

Mentor and Tribute ideas: Luke and Annabeth(or they can both be tributes and Hermes and Athena can be their mentors), Thalia and Jason(Zeus and Juno as mentors)Octavian and Ethan, Ares and Clarissa, Aphodite and Selena, Hephaestus and Charles, Artemis and Zoe

first of all ty for giving me the chance to talk more about this au!! now, to the good part:

im considering luke as percy's mentor for the betrayal potential but im unsure. same with annabeth, could be a tribute for district eight (textiles) with athena as her mentor, just as cold and distant as she is in the series, or athena directing district 13 and have annabeth be there.

thalia, i think jaded past victor would suit her while jason would be the younger brother that is everyone's golden boy that they expect will become a victor himself - spoiler alert he does not want to take part in the games and thalia would die before she let him. they were raised separately, thalia with their mom who just didnt care about her, jason with juno and zeus. both in district five (power). jason possible future nico's bff?? who knows.

octavian absolutely has career mentality but he joins them himself he's not part of them initially, maybe district five (power), ethan i feel like tribute. no idea if for district nine (grain) or eleven (agriculture) or anything tbh, just that it needs to be those lower ones.

clarisse as a career for district two (masonry) mentored by ares would be perfect, if a bit obvious.

silena as the female tribute for district one (luxury), with aphrodite as a distant mother.

charles is district three (technology) and with the careers solely for silena i feel like. they eventually distance themselves from the group (or charles does anyway). i like hephaestus as a mentor.

zoe is a stroke of genius tbh. tribute for district seven (lumber) with artemis as her mentor. nothing to add to that.

also lets pretend i didn't forget victors' families are exempt from the games - it's only for victors, spouses and the kids had with them. none of these guys fit bc it might be a different world but the olympians will cheat.

[its-ribs]

Day 5: Spring 5, Year 1

Hey Journal!

I WENT SPELUNKING!!!

So I found out about the bridge opening yesterday, and decided to go explore as soon as I finished my chores. There's another broken bridge even further past, so I couldn't get too far, but there's an Adventurer's Guild! Zuzu obviously had a large one, but you always needed money to get out to anywhere they sanction caving. I met the chapter leader, Marlon, who gave me the rundown on the cave systems in the valley.

The lift broke a while ago, and they need someone to check out the shaft on every connected floor, which I obviously volunteered for. Marlon and his colleague Gill (maybe boyfriend?? No way to know for sure yet) both said they haven't needed to head down there, so they've let it deteriorate for a bit, and gave me a probationary task at first.

They'll give me some time each day to reach the first level connected to the lift, and they'll come searching for me if I don't return within a fair time. They also gave me a sword to defend myself, but if im being honest I'm not psyched about using it. I'm entering the territory of the cave dwellers after all, and if they defend their home its going to crush me having to raise the sword to them.

They guided me to the entrance, and I got a little way in at first, and after collecting a bit of copper and some sturdier looking masonry, I found a way down to the next level, but that's where my luck kind of started to turn south.

Turns out, rocks are heavy, and the tiny pack I brought wasn't gonna cut it if I wanted to take anything meaningful home. It also made it a little more difficult to avoid the slime creatures and bugs down there. (They seem fairly docile, but I don't doubt they pack a mean punch if they feel threatened)

Eventually I backed out. It was my first time swinging a pickaxe, and now that I knew the feeling, I felt confident about my choice to keep diving down there. Marlon and Gill weren't surprised I backed out so early, in fact they're surprised I even found a second level on my first attempt. They seem like truly good people, and according to Lewis, they're our town's only real line of defence against the creatures of the night, so I guess I'm just really grateful that they're so willing to supervise me like this.

And thats everything I did today Journal! As I was getting ready for bed though, Lewis asked if I could meet him at the edge of town in the morning, so I'm excited to see what thats about.

Anyway, goodnight Journal!

Love you always, Ribs

[pbandjesse]

Today was a good day. A productive day. I am really enjoying work this week. I like being in charge of myself but also having Heather and Alexi to fall back on if I run out of ideas. But also encourage me to take a break and not work myself to death. I appreciate that.

I wish I had slept better. But Sweetp started crying and yelling at like 4 and wouldn't stop until James got up and played with them for a little. When my alarm went off at 7 I was pretty miserable. I was also very stiff.

I stretched for a minute. I should really try to stretch more. Maybe I'll add that to my routine when I get to work.

I loved my new dress. And I felt super cute. The plan was to change into my painting jumpsuit when I got to work and that was a good plan. No paint on my new dress and I wasn't as dirty after.

I was not having fun when I got up though. I went and got washed and dressed. But I felt like I was running late and everything was wrong. I had to carry the snails and the stinky water spilled on me. And James gave me a soda in a breakable cup and I almost dropped everything and was very snippy when they came out to the car while I was trying to clean my dress off with Clorox wipes. And James felt bad but I was just having a hard time and felt bad for not speaking kindly to them. But I hugged them before we left and things were okay.

We both got to work at the same time which was fun. James says it makes them happy. Made me happy too.

I was very productive despite how stupidly hot it was. First off I went and put the snails in their tank. The filter is way to strong so a bunch of them got sucked up right away. Which didn't hurt them but no one would come out of their shells. Later in the day I turned off the filter and immediately they came out. So I'm going to have to figure something out there.

Once I was done in there I went back to arts and ate the sandwich James made me. Then I changed into my paint clothes and put all the paint stuff in my wagon and slowly made my way to the pueblo. This was not easy because my wagon doesn't go down the large gravel path. And the wagon fell over. Super sad. Nothing broke but I was frustrated.

Once I got down there though it went well. I did all the painting in about an hour and a half. I would set myself up with a long sleeve t-shirt tied backwards around my waist as a rag. Which I felt very smart for figuring out. And I would struggle a bit because of the texture of the masonry but I got a good system down and I think it's going to look great. It was a little bit lighter then the paint already on the building but Joe thinks it'll dry down and look fine. Regardless I would stipple the paint best I could so it blends a little bit.

I was really dirty after all that work. I did a little sweeping around the building. But then would pack everything away and went back to arts to clean up.

I would sit next to the spigot and wash my brush but also my self. My legs were so dusty. I was so sweaty. I was happy I was able to change into my original dress and not feel as gross.

After I changed it was almost 10. I decided I would go down to the office and start doing office type work. I was happy to see Heather and Alexi. And they were surprised I was already done painting. They were just like. You are so productive! Made me feel nice. Makes me want to keep doing good.

I would do a ton of printing and laminating. I worked on the lessons and the examples, as well as maps. I don't think we need to keep printing these maps every time. So now we have one for each group, laminated, with the locations circled. This would take me through lunch time.

This whole time I had finished two podcasts as well as started a new 4 and a half hour YouTube video. During my little lunch break I would watch some tiktoks and ate my pasta leftovers. I gave myself a half hour. And then I was onto the next thing.

I went to the eyrie to steal Nurse Joan's plastic boxes. And worked on filling those with all the materials for my fiber/brush making workshop. Those are almost done. I will have to go up to the barn to ask for horse hair, but in the mean time I bagged feathers and pine needles. I counted sticks. I poured glue in containers. I was very happy with my progress.

I would also set up my clipboards with the new laminated lessons and my supply lists. I also started going through the boxes to make sure the boxes had what was needed. When I noticed the one didn't have the vine rings I meant to make I would spend time actually making those. Hot gluing and then wrapping them in twine. I might make more. Different sizes. But I felt good about the work I did.

I went back to the office after that because my headphones died. I would do a little work on the computer researching door latches for Heather. And got to be a part of a conversation about parent reviews and things that happened over the summer. Apparently the office never new about the bat in stockade. So that's crazy. But the conversation around being inclusive at camp while balancing parents political issues was interesting. And it was nice to hear Heather and Alexi talk about it.

I would read for a few minutes. I had hurt my side carrying the boxes and from being in the heat I was not feeling amazing. Then James wasn't answering me and Jess when we were trying to make Ren fair plans. So it was a whole thing. Which was frustrating. I decided I would take a walk and go check on my snails.

I would have a chat with Joe when I passed him over there and he showed me the tree that is being taken over by lantern flies. He tried the vinegar spray but while it seems to have helped a little there are still a ton. Which we tired squishing but it's like. A lot. Tomorrow I may go on a mission to squish a bunch of them.

After I discovered that the snails don't like the filter I turned it off and went back to the office. Me and Ayça moved some stuff to the attic and she talked to Heather about coming back next summer. I hope she comes back as senior staff. She's very nice and I like her. She's practicing her English too so I hope she has an easier time next year.

We got alerts that a big storm was coming in. It was like 330 and Heather said I should leave to try to beat it home. I would decide to take a few things up to the arts building, including two things that came in the mail for me!! And then head home.

But I did not best the rain. Almost as soon as I got on the highway the rain started and very quickly it got bad. Lots of lightening. And then it started to hail!! I have never had to drive in hail before and it was super scary.

I would get out of the storm while I got on the weird part of my drive home where 83 merges with the beltway. But almost as soon as I got back on 83 the rain got super bad and very sore hail (like an inch across!!) started coming down so once I got to an overpass I just parked on the side of the road with my hazards on.

A few other cars joined me. And I was just suffering. It was scary. The rain was very heavy and then watching the hail hit the ground was wild to me. I was there for almost 20 minutes. And then when I decided the hail stopped and it was just rain it was really tough to get back on the road because people were driving really stupid. But I got in and made it home in 15 minutes.

I was happy to be back here. I parallel parked in the tightest spot I've ever done. I made James come to the window to look.

There was much to do. But James didn't make me actually help. So that was nice. While James sorted the recycling and took our camping stuff to the car, I went and took an excellent shower and washed my hair and shaved my legs and felt a lot more human.

My stomach hurt though. And my back and side were still sore. Sweetp was being cute. But I just wanted to lay in the ac.

So that is what I did. James made me a bagel. And I double checked my clothes/outfits for this weekend. And then made sure I had everything else packed. Felt good to be done.

I have mostly been hanging out all evening though. I did my nighttime moisturizing routine already. My poor argin oil bar is super soft and I broken it by accident. But at least I am ready for sleep.

I'm going to go brush my teeth now and hang out with my Sweetp and my husband. Tomorrow I have lots to do at camp but it's mostly moving furniture. And then we are going camping!! It's a long drive but hopefully it's an easy ride and not to bad setting up our campsite before the sun goes down. Wish us luck. I love you all. Goodnight!!

[ask-marios-apprentice]

Ice things are Ice

Ice flowers.

By lowering the temperature of water and dropping in it's dried leaves other parts

You can create Ice Flower Tea.

For most people, this can give you ice powers.

But for me.

I've been granted a special piece of equipment

The Ice Gloves

By using the dried leaves in a special thermos filled with water. I can now throw ice dodecahedrons. (The machine couldn't produce perfect spheres, so this is the closest we can get)

Me and Mario actually traveled to Solstice. It's a town up North that's permanently winter. And a good thing too considering it's like 119° in Castle town right now.

My mom also came with us. After having some conversations. It was decided that at least twice a month , a parent should watch me be mentored by Mario. Like how mom watches her kid play soccer or masonry.

We decided to train on a track for track and field open near Alice's Cabin. Alice had come out actually ended up coming out with some hot chocolate.

Mario: I don't really know how dodecahedrons bounce, so just start out with something slow.

Good thing too. I think I would have accidentally knocked over an elderly Flip Flop Folk Gentleman.

The thing with the ice decahedrons is that I kind of have to spike them in order to bounce. Specifically make them hit the edge or the point (basically not the flat part) for it to bounce and eventually crack.

There is a bit of liquid encased in ice.

So that eventually when the ice cracks, liquid would quickly freeze the object / opponent /surface area.

I think I can do some pretty good stuff with this. It can make a good stunner like my honey gobs. But maybe I can use it to create some quick platforms. Think it also could make some good puzzles like if I have to cool off of an overheated device or something.

Anyways.

Well I was training. My mom and Alice actually got to talking

Akira: so you're saying the SUPER before you was a famous entrepreneur.

Alice: Indeed Miss Martin. They have the entire market cornered. Though Winston more famous because they were the first dry bones rather than the turnips they were selling the town of own.

Akira:Oh... Well the next SUPER sounds pretty interesting being valedictorian of her college.

Alice: Well technically they were salutatorians, but then the valedictorian got arrested for manipulating the prices of vitamins and medications. Still Merida was pretty impressive. Especially with her enchanted physics textbook and intelligence.

Akira: I guess that sounds pretty... Interesting. But you also said you had a dentistry. It's nice to know the SUPERS are very well educated.

Alice: Thank you but the dentist was just a front for my Mob. How else do you think I got ammunition for this. [Alice pulls out her Tooth Tommygun]

Akira:Uh... [Looks at Mario] Hey Mario do you think that we can wrap up Garth's training soon? I have...a...appointment soon.

Mario: I guess we trained enough for today.

Alice: Miss Akira. If you ever need to have a tooth pulled. You can come to me. I'm sure my pliers can be brought out of retirement.

Akira: Thanks...but no thanks.

Mom had left to go do her appointment and Mario left because he had date night with Peach.

I decided to stay around that area. See what else i can do with my new gloves.

But I eventually left after Alice made the same proposal about pulling teeth.

I'm going to go brush my teeth now.

Garth signing out.

[sekhithefops]

7 Days to Die Alpha 21

So, its a safe thing to say that outside of the high fantasy madness that is Azeroth one of my other favorite games is the eternally-in-alpha 7 Days to Die which is still early access but will be turning ten years old this December... and yet I can't stop playing the thing. o_o

At current time of writing I've got 445 hours clocked on this yippin' game. Thats outdoing most any Triple-A releases lately, and its just an eternally early access indie title so... yeah. Bit of a favorite to say the least.

Well, they recently released Alpha 21, which did a bunch of overhauls for the game, and I'm here to show off exactly what I noticed, what I liked, and as a veteran of the Zombie Apocalypse give a few fun hot tips for the new ruined world we'll all be blowing up slackjaws in.

Graphical Upgrades!

This is a minor thing, but it really shows just how much love is going into this game from the devs that they went out of their way to update stuff this inconsequential.

Its a bit hard to see, this is an older screenshot, but those two things to the right there are what forges used to look like before. Just small little mounds of dirt.

This is what the forges look like now. Much more detailed and attractive looking (though don't ask me how the heck we made these without any proper masonry or woodworking gear) but much nicer and more pleasing to the eye.

Also stations like the forge (for smelting metals and simple things like nails and such) and the campfire (for making most any kind of food) can get attachments to them. A bellows, crucible, and anvil for the forge and a grill, cooking pot, and measuring cup for the campfire. This has always been the case, but before you'd just clip them into their slots and that was it.

Now it actually changes how the stations look! Above is the campfire by itself, and below see how it looks with each individual addon.

Lastly, and this is one of the more fun ones... they updated the zombie deaths and how it looks when you take them down in certain ways. Before you could take their head off with a well timed shot, but now... and be warned these are a bit graphic, but its a zombie game so of course they are...

You can snap their necks so hard they almost fall off, you can bash the tops of their skulls open, you can even take their head off in such a degree as to leave their lower jawbone still attached and their tongue forever tasting the breeze which, as a former retail worker, I find just delightful.

... ye gods what is wrong with me.

The Dew Collector

Moving along from that train of thought, we've got this lovely little device.

Before, in order to get water you'd need to find a source of it, a pond or something, and fill a bunch of mason jars with fresh water, then haul it back home and boil them each individually into drinkable fluids. Time consuming and it meant you had to sacrifice some inventory space for the jars and that each drink you took left a fresh empty jar clogging it up as well. Also making new ones required glass which could be put to better uses such as windows or other devices.

These beauties take their place! The jars are no more, they're gone from the game entire.

Instead, the Dew Collectors fill up with water slowly over time, holding a maximum three drinks worth, and are always turned on. I recommend two of 'em per player, and you have to put them outside with clear view of the sky above them to get them to work right, but they're a very welcome change.

One small suggestion I'd make to the devs is that if its storming, they should fill up faster. I mean those things could catch rainwater. Maybe the rainwater needs to be boiled or something? Normally these things give clean water, but otherwise its a fun new thing.

Which leads into my next item on the agenda...

Crafting Skill Books

Along with the older bonus books we'd find across the world that give us things like the chance to find more lead or brass when looting, or learn how to mine better, or such... now we have these guys. Before you'd learn how to craft gear by leveling up the associated stat, i.e. to learn how to make guns you'd level up the Gunslinger stat and find specific skill books for the blueprints... but that caused problems.

For one, to be able to craft the highest level of a specific weapon you HAD to pour your points into it when you might want to put them into, say, a skill that made farming easier or a skill that let you have health regeneration.

Now, those same skills give you a bonus to damage, but also make it more likely that you'll find the specific weapons and ammo associated with it when searching through ruins in the game... and the magazines that give you skill points are yippin' everywhere.

Bit of advice early on, check mailboxes. Every mailbox you pass, stop and peek inside. Everyone was a magazine subscriber when the zombie apocalypse began it seems. You'll also find certain magazines in certain places more often than others.

Want to learn some new cooking tricks? Break into abandoned houses and find the kitchen! Cooking magazines will more often than not be there.

Want to learn new gun tricks? Gun shops not only have weapons, they likely sold magazines on guns too. I mean it makes sense when you think about it.

The Pop'n Pills Medical Centers have Medical Journals, the Mo' Power Electronics Shops will often have magazines about Robotics and Wiring... just use logic to find what you need really.

Also, these.

The Crack-A-Book Bookstores are goldmines now. Literally too. Those one-use-per-time skill books still exist, and the traders will pay good coin for those, so if you find one you've already read, save it and SELL it! The magazines you can grind like mad though. Most of them go up from 50 to 100 ranks until you hit mastery, so you'll be using them a lot.

But yeah, these are the three biggest ones I noticed since the new build went live at the beginning of this week, and I'm really having a blast so far. It changes up the mechanics considerably, but personally I feel its in a good way. It can make things a bit frustrating, you need to find five issues of Forge Ahead to make the forge itself, and ten to make a Workbench, so bad luck can still be an issue... but that was always true about the game.

If you haven't given this a go yet, don't let the seemingly endless Early Access scare you away. I've had more fun with this than I've had with Fallout 76 or any other one of the mainstream game companies attempts to ape whats popular.

ADDENDUM: One other thing I forgot that was changed. (I knew there'd be one.)

Running over zombies with your motorcycle or truck will kill them now. 100%. They will die and it will be awesome.

That being said, to compensate for your new ability to perform vehicular manslaughter, the vehicles take a LOT more damage now.

So yeah, thats a thing. A welcome thing as it never made sense how slamming through one of the undead with my jeep just had them flung over me to stumble back to their feet like nothing happened, but be ready to use up some repair kits keeping your bike in one piece.

[birbfeeder2artisticboogaloo]

thousand autumns donghua, episode 16~

HERE WE GO FRIENDS IT'S THE LAST EPISODE OF SEASON 1 i am both excited and sad ;A; so let's DO THIS 💪😤 we are at the border!!! idk which one, but we are at A border, and shen qiao is here to kick ass and go :) RIGHT SO in the previous episode, shen qiao killed a man called kunye and it was really hot. this kunye also warned shen qiao that yan wushi is in MORTAL PERIL!! so he's come to the rescue, even tho yan wushi BETRAYED him lol BAI RONG IS HERE!!! HI SWEETIE!!! she's so sweet, warning shen qiao that he doesn't need to help the man who treated him like rubbish but he insists!! he is polite but FIRM!! and he says that bai rong is better than her sect peeps, which is TRUE hulan gu?? somethinggggg valley??? idk lol ok we're here at hulan gu. idk where it is but it looks pretty cool!! sweet masonry bro. looks great!! AH DUAN WENYANG IS HERE TOO he searches for the scary monk--who STILL has yet to say emítuó fó‎, and i'm super sad about it ._. nice outfit mr monk, ur looking good!! OH NOES THE BEIMU WARRIORS SHALL MARCH SOUTH!!! toward the central plains and-- YOINK THE OLD MAN APPEARS!! HE STEALS THE SPECIAL RING and angers the monk lol monk: yws i am a nice man but u are pushing me past my limits OH SHIT NOW THEY ARE ALL FIGHTING TWO AGAINST ONE AND YAN WUSHI IS DESTROYING THEM god these fight scenes are incredible, i love them so much ;A; COME ON LAO YAN DON'T SCREW IT UP oh my goddddd they're so cool OH NOES YAN WUSHI IS WOUNDED THE OLD MAN TOOK A SWORD TO THE TIT NOOOOOOO NOT HIS TIDDIES oh look shen qiao is here 😊 yan wushi: damn!! that idiot almost took off my nipple!!! OH BIG JGY'S BACK!!! i wish he would treat his instruments more carefully ;A; do u know how much work went into crafting that. do u even care. big jgy get ur priorities straight OH MY GOD HE SCRAPED THE STRINGS SIDEWAYS WHAT AN AWFUL SOUND!! 😫 OUCH OH IT'S it's yu ai??? i forgot what he looked like lmao, he's the one who almost de-nippled the old man ok this is hardly sportsmanlike this is like four dudes against one, it's not fair at all OH NOOO DOnN'T YOINK OUT THE SWORD!! IT WAS KEEPING UR BLOOD IN!!! YAN WUSHI U DUMBASS oh shit he MAD. BIIIIG MAD damn wow ok he's a fucking badass motherfucker 💪😤 never seen anything like it!! GET EM KING lol they all are running after him like it's a game of rugby aww poor old man hobbling away…..oh hey weird beard man is back as well!!! and he shoved yan wushi down the stairs. is this big jgy's revenge??? lmao beard man celebrated a bit too early did he??? DON'T LOOK AWAY FROM UR QUARRY U IDIOT wait why am i helping him, i don't care for him at all LMAO YWS POKED HIM IN THE FOREHEAD 🤣 OWO WHAT THIS??? WHO ARRIVES LIKE A GENTLE BREEZE IN THE NIGHT??? WHO IS SO DAINTY AND DELICATE AND BEAUTIFUL LIKE HAITANG BLOSSOMS ON THE WIND???? IT IS HE!!! IT IS SHEN QIAO!!!!!!!! he's so cool omg ;A; ok yu ai u NEED to stop calling ur shixiong 'a-qiao' that is. SO disrespectful. u lil bitch >:V 'a-qiao a-qiao' go fuck urself yu ai >:( OH SHIT SHEN QIAO JUST RENOUNCED THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND SAID THAT YU AI DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE THEIR SHIZUN'S DISCIPLE!!!!! OHHHH SHIIIIIITTTTTT OH MY GOOOODDDDD SHEN QIAO U ARE. THE MOST AMAZING PERSON LOOK AT HIMMM HE'S BARELY EVEN FUCKING TRYING YU AI CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO COMPARE SORRY I'M YELLING SO MUCH BUT THIS IS HONESTLY SO AWESOME :DDD HAAAAA!!!! SHEN QIAO BROKE YU AI'S SWORD BROKE HIS FUCKING SWORD IN HALFFFFF HAAAA GOT EMMMMMM SHEN QIAO MARRY ME SHEN QIAO PLS MARRY ME AT ONCE he knows who he IS. he knows what he can DO. i am. SO IMPRESSED. SO PROUD. I LOVE HIM. SO MUCH ;A; yan wushi: lol why didn't u kill that dumbass?? shen qiao: ….shut up :) oh uh yu ai and beard man left, big jgy and dwy and the monk are still here tho duan wenyang: 'yan wushi give me the golden flower fingering!!' << actual subtitle in this donghua. AMAZING. HAAA SHEN QIAO WHACKED HIM AND DUAN WENYANG MADE THE FUNNIEST SOUND like 'AAAAAAAAAAA' omg i've replayed it like four times already it's so fucking funny

shen qiao: u run ahead, i'll follow in a bit :) yan wushi: ……am i having an emotion lol stupid monk thinks he beat shen qiao?? ok sure giant glowy hand vs giant glowy sword, who will win???!!! oh crap big jgy's helping the monk!!! …..bUT NOW YAN WUSHI IS TRYING TO HELP SHEN QIAO??!?!?! NO WAIT DON'T USE ALL OF UR EVIL SPIRIT!!! OLD MAN WHAT ARE U DOING omg are they just gonna die together??? that's so romantic ;A; 💔💔💔 PFFT he hit the ground real hard, it was a bit funny, sorry 🤣 yan wushi: *doing his best impression of a corpse shen qiao: …fuck :( i'm sad now :( AWWWWW HE'S TAKING THE OLD MAN AWAY WITH HIM IS HE LITERALLY FUCKING DEAD??!?!?! he walks very competently for a dead man awww flashbacks of their memories~ their uhhhh happy???? times together??? like shen qiao dying and yan wushi yelling at the forest!! i assume they didn't feel the need to show the wild passionate sex they had in the inn bc we already know about it lol WHY IS IT TRYING TO MAKE ME SAD 😭 I KNOW HE'S PROBABLY FINE BC THE BOOK IS LONGER THAN THIS SO. SO I'M NOT SCARED OR WORRIED. AT ALL. IT'S FINE. I'M FINE ;A; god the theme music is gorgeous btw i don't think i've mentioned how much i love it, it's so poignant and sweet ;A; and as we all know, birb LOVES a poignant tune, yes i do yes i do 😌👌 OH now they're by the river!! it's a good place to die :D AND it's where that other dude died last time!! :D OOH HIS FINGIE!!! IT TWITCHED I SAW IT duan wenyang is so sad!!! his shidi kunye is like super dead ;A; oh boy shifu's mad at him lmao. AAAAA AND THAT'S IT THAT'S IIIIIIITTTTT UNTIL THEY MAKE THE NEXT SEASONNNN AAAAAAAAAA ;A;

SO!!!

my thoughts overall???

EXCELLENT DONGHUA. really lovely animation!!! sometimes the models themselves were a bit odd or stiff, but the actual MOTIONS were smooth and pleasing to the eye!!! the music was GREAT, really well done!! and i love shen qiao and yan wushi and bai rong and shiwu!!! i LOVED IT!!!! 💚💚💚 9/10, WOULD DEFINITELY RECOMMEND!!! they lost one point for not having a SINGLE emítuó fó‎ however smh 😔 thanks for joining me on this lil journey~ hope u've had fun as well!! 😊

[theressomethinghappeninginparis]

Transcript of the first page:

So, the Freemasons exist to this day and you are more than welcome to contribute to what I found about them. I am no member of them myself and as all clubs back in the day, much information on them is vague. Maybe not as bad as with the Knight's Templars, yet the library still has only bits and pieces on them.

I tried drawing their ideals in a chart: above all comes self-knowledge. From this, it spawns humanity, tolerance, freedom, equiety and brotherhood, all nice values even to this day. The Freemasons were a fraternal organizations meaning only men could participate (since women were viewed as "too stupid" to think; today, they allow women too). As with all non-Christian organizations in very Christian countries they were depicted as evil, world-domineering people who want to enslave the rest of the world. They funnily had only two goals away from the rumors:

spread the Rennaissance-Thinking named Aufklärung

spread knowledge and not belief.

Freemasonry follows no religious dogma, it needs no set religion to join and anyone can join them. Their symbol is a tool to measure just like they try to measure the world and not believe it.

Transcript of the second and third and page:

Left is a scan of the structure of the Freemasons. It's a bit complicated and I didn't get much, but here's what's important to me: people have masonic degrees as seen on the lower right side of the drawing. They go through a lot of stages until they reach the Supreme Council and are called Sovereign Grand Inspector General. They even had a separate orders for women (like the "Amarath" or "Daughter of the Nile") and for younger members like "Job's Daughters".

What they all have in common is they beleive in a "Great architect of the universe" in a metaphorical sense, not as a god. Each member has a different kind of architect in them and can enrich life as they wish. Their members were all over the place when looking at status, ethnicity or religion. They were strong advocates of separating the state from religion and held their meetings in private so that their members were safe.

Transcript of the fourth and fifth and page:

The ideals mentioned on the first page have a bit more behind them.

Freedom: getting rid of any kind of oppression and slavery

Equiety: all men are equal and classes need to be abolished

Brotherhood: within the members, shall be aquired by trust, care, safety, responsibility and talk to others

Tolerance: by actively listening to others and (trying) to understand their view

Humanity: is all of the above, symbolized by the "Temple of Humanity". Here's the ties to the Templars who worshipped the Temple of Salomon, where their headquaters were.

I also tried to make a timeline of them- of course a lot is missing, yet I tried to compromise with things still making sense.

Transcript of the sixth page:

Middle ages: Freemasons are created, we don't know why or how. Speculation says it had been started by masons building cathedrals and churches.

1646: The first documented invitation to the Freemasons in Warrington, Lancashire.

1660: More evidence of men taking part in non-open Lodges, that's the name of their meeting rooms.

1717: The election of the first Grand Lodge's Grand Master takes place and four small Lodges fusion.

1723: The first book woth rules comes up, "The Book of Constitutions of Masonry". Meetings are being recorded now.

1736: Freemasons were sent to the British empires overseas int he 17th and 18th century to spread their ideas.

1751: The first Grand Lodge opens in London, they call themselves "The Antients".

1800: The first meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, takes place.

1811: The first permanent Lodges were established, warranted by the Grand Lodge of England.

1813-1816: the Lodges continued to merge together.

So, what did we learn today? No one mentions the LV, Paris or the Monstrum, Paris is still in panic and I'm not sure if Freemasons exist to this day. I'll have a look.

Oh, and I hope my mail will get answered by Carvier soon, it's been a few days already...