southsamurai @ southsamurai @sh.itjust.works

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By all the gods and cthonic entities, I love my chickens.

Last night, I had to get up not long after my pet hen settled down next to me. I hear her trilling, and then bok-boking as I leave the room. This is with my wife and kid still there. The whole decade I was gone, she was standing on the arm of the couch, watching the doorway, craning her head around and making her little-lost-chicken sounds.

I finally come back after eternity, she stretches her little neck out, flaps her wings and dances a little.

I forgot to grab her a little treat, so I turn around and go back into the kitchen and hear buuuuuuk and feet stamping. Because I came back and just left again. I come back with a cashew and some bread, and after she savages that, she leans up against me, flips her tail, and goes to sleep.

But today? Holy pollo!

I arise from my slumber and head to the reading room for some contemplation on matters digestive. While in there, I hear my kid going out back, then coming back with the boka-boka-boks of a put-upon rooster.

Those sounds fade and they move to the living room. Big boy is not an indoor bird because, unlike baby girl, he does not recognize pads as the appropriate poop place. But he comes in for visits, and is very often hilarious. Sliding around on the linoleum, running around to visit each room, bawking at the things he's seen dozens of times but forgotten because a rooster brain can only hold so much information before it gets shunted out in the form of poop.

Ahhh, but today, he hears me coming through the house and starts gobbling and bawking (as opposed to a bok, buk, tok, or bu-kawk, they really are all different) loudly.

I turn the corner into the living room, and my kid is holding him. He starts running in the air, his giant little feet just pumping, his neck stretched out towards me, and lets out an ear splitting BRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRR. We call that his angry teakettle. It isn't a sign of actual anger, the sound for that is slightly different, but it is a powerful scream nonetheless.

My kid stands up with him, and he is frantically scrabbling at the air as he is carried towards me and I walk to him.

We reach each other and he burbles. His wings fold back in, and he stretches his neck out and down. I start petting him, right at the base of the neck down between his wings and begin talking sweet to him. Like a switch, he purrs for a bit, then starts melting. I put one hand under his chest while my kid shifts their grip so he doesn't fall. That's because he absolutely will slide out of your arms when he's grooving on pets and scritches like that.

I'm petting him, he's purring and giving the occasional buk or bok while I talk to him, tell him he's such a sweet rooster, my favorite rooster, and that he's just a big, wonderful boy.

After a minute or so, I pull back because I need to shift my balance since I wasn't positioned well and my back was starting to spasm. He pops open his eyes, stretches towards me with this buuuuuuk of longing. Now, attributing human emotions like longing onto an animal is rarely appropriate. But in this case, the way he was reaching for me, combined with the sigh of satisfaction when I started petting him again, I can't think of any better way to describe it.

As I was writing that paragraph, my wife had gone to toss some scraps for the birds. Big boy stomped his self right in the door, up the ramp, and into the house. He stopped, let out a nigh window rattling baaaaaawwwwwk! And began stamping back and forth.

So my kid picks him up and starts to take him back out. Bad move. They caught a peck and a wing beating for that. Until they turned around and started coming this direction. That's when he settled back and gave his approval via contented books. Which, again, is different from bok,buk,bawk, or other variations. I'm not even joking, there's a dozen or so distinct vocalizations that roughly sound like the bawk or buck that people think chickens sound like.

In any case, I'm stretched out, waiting for my back to stop spasming, and as soon as they round the corner and he sees me, the excited teakettle starts screaming, his legs are pumping furiously, and my kid (being a professional chicken chauffeur) brings him to me.

Whereupon, he starts clucking contentedly while getting his pets. He got his fill and lightly pecked the kid until he was driven back outside

But, back to what I was almost ready to finish with.

Earlier, after second pets, he had also reached his desired level of interaction and played teenager jockey back outside.

Meanwhile, my wife starts crying because she remembered how scared he used to be of everything, barely willing to be near any of us, how long it took to get him to take treats from us, how long it took for him to not run off if we came close. And now, he gets excited to see us, and gets super excited when he sees me. He's happy, or as happy as a fury driven agent of mayhem gets. He is a murderbird after all. Just ask the poor critters that have tried to take him on and been killed, or fled in terror at his wrath.

But he's my friend, and I'm his. And that feels so fucking good. This rooster, he wasn't hand raised, he had been neglected, seen part of the flock he hatched with get eaten, been passed around and unsure of what was going on in his life. We got him in summer of 23, not quite two years ago. It took pretty much the entire first year to get him to the point he wasn't scared/angry when we'd pick him up to check his feet.

Now, he comes running to us. Sometimes, he'll come running and jump into arms, or onto laps. Not for treats, either, though there was a phase in there where he'd come running and start looking for treats and not caring about us otherwise. But me and him had a breakthrough this past winter, where I'd wrap him up at bedtime and get him settled in when it was drizzly. He'd get dry, and warm, and eventually would just sit there instead of jumping off.

And that's when I started petting him. It was weird to him at first, but he was warm and drowsy, so he put up with it. He put up with it long enough that he seemed to realize it felt good, and he started coming to me when he'd see me grab a towel. That turned into an almost daily thing. Even when the weather started warming, he still wanted a little petting at bedtime, even if he wasn't sleeping inside (well, on the porch).

From all of that, to this goofy, dumb, but glorious beast that seems to love us. Makes me cry happy tears sometimes because it's just so nice to see him have space to enjoy life instead of always being on swivel.

No, no, the only thing I expect of you is smugness and condescension. It's pretty much all you ever do.

Seriously, go back through your own user history. Read it like someone else would if they stumbled across you randomly. I'm not saying you have to change, but don't pretend you're not just running around lemmy swinging dick.

Everyone has patterns. We all fall into habits, ways of saying things, word choices. Yours are consistently nasty, even when there's no point to being so.

Thing is, behind all of that nastiness and condescension seems to be a person with some degree of passion. But it's buried so deep that it eventually just becomes tiresome to keep trying to find the human in there. It comes off like you're just trying to fuck with people. If that's your goal, keep at it. If it isn't? Maybe slow down some and consider the outcomes of your choices.

Jfc, I'm still dealing with a muscle I pulled turning over in bed. In November of last year.

There once was a man from Nantucket
Whose dick was so long he could suck it
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin
If my ear was a cunt, I would fuck it

I've seen black holes that weren't this dark.

I mean, take the stupid hat off, it might help

Ahhhh, please don't take this wrong, but I'm not sure what you mean. The way your comment is written, there's a few possible interpretations, so I don't want to jump to a conclusion.

That doesn't make it better.

It makes it more smug and condescending.

I wouldn't know much about 5e in general, and I genuinely appreciate that information.

I've only ever run a few games, and played 5e twice. 3.5 is/was a bit more "punchy" with illusions from what I've read (and that's what the post asked about).

It's a matter of opinion, honestly.

3.5 illusion spells are kinda unbalanced compared to other schools. There's some really good ones, with some really bad ones, and not much in between.

Or, that's what some people think.

Others see illusion as a very versatile school that takes skill as a player to make optimum use of, but when that's the case it can be the most potent school.

With that in mind, a gnome illusionist in early game is going to have a nice edge from the racial fe at. If they stack more spell focus, even if it's just 1 more, a +2 to DC can be a major benefit even in the high teen levels.

I've had a player run a gnome illusionist, and it can be a fun class/race combo. A lot of layered fakery, distractions, controls. You use the class right, and you can control a battlefield with almost no risk. Since the will save on most illusion spells is opposed by wizards and clerics rather well, a point or two to the DC can be enough to dominate combat. If you can befuddle the ones most likely to see right through your efforts, the rest have way less chance.

But, you'd only benefit if you went that route. Illusion as a school has other aspects, and the trickery side of things might not be what you want, so taking Gnome only because if the free spell focus wouldn't do much

Ahhhh, gotcha.

Yeah, unless you're talking about transmissions pulled out and leaking fluid allll over the pavement like a dirty, dirty power transfer whore, tranny isn't an ideal word choice nowadays. Which, if you're using some of that sexy, slippery fluid to pleasure yourself while flipping through c/hotmopartrannies, carry on.

It was never exactly a good word to use, though it wasn't as widely known that it was predominantly used in a derogatory manner back in the eighties and early nineties when it got more common in usage.

But nowadays, the only people that use it regularly are bigots, so if you aren't one, and you use it, chances are that people will assume the worst, what with the worst often being the case.

But, you know, if you've got any pics of a Muncie m20 just sitting around, you know, maybe don't Bogart that shit

I'm coming to this specific post late.

But I do wanna say that I've had interactions with the .uk admins over the last year or so. Their user histories exist.

I think it important to note that the individual admins have been public in their support of trans issues. While the slow response is definitely an issue, try not to villainize them without something concrete to back that up. Any of us that disagree with the delay in particular (and please note the inclusive plural), remember that someone can make a bad choice and still be an ally.

Yeah, the optimum response would have been immediate action via comment removals, with debate to follow and reinstatement if merited after debate; combined with prompt communication (within a realistic range of prompt for someone not glued to their instance 24/7). But optimum isn't always going to happen. My grumpy, cantankerous old ass is not often optimum, so I sure can't hold delays and iffy reasoning against anyone else, as long as they get there eventually.

"These people"

For crying out loud.

Well, I would give you the answer, but since I snapped back as soon as I read the post, I'm now responding what has been 650 years later for me, and I'm too fucking old for this shit a second time. I bypassed getting snapped back this time by just not reading the post and coming straight in to comment.

Now, what will happen if I read the

Hi, I'm Earl Sheib, and I'll shave that thang for 39.95!

You do know you're responding to a lemmy post, right?

On lemmy, things are threaded, there's comments in response to posts, and those comments can layered underneath the parent comment.

So, someone responding to your comment not only doesn't need to make their own post, they shouldn't, because the discussion is ongoing already. Starting a new post would just start another thread, which defeats the entire purpose of threaded forums

I mean, you care enough to respond, obviously. But not enough to do anything else.

That kinda points to you just thinking that your take on things is superior, and nobody else is worth talking to. Which is fine as far as that goes, there's shit I feel the same way about. But, I don't come back with "I don't care what you think" when I don't care what someone thinks.

A bit contradictory. Which, again, is fine as far as that goes. Nobody is required go be consistent or honest with themselves, or even with others.

Just, you know, it doesn't convince anyone you don't care what they think, if you respond at all, much less with the whole "my opinion is so rare and special" type of opening.

You do know that having any dog that isn't spayed/neutered that makes pups makes you a breeder, right?

The only difference between a breeder and someone letting their dogs make babies is that the breeder has some idea of what the puppies will look like.

And, since breeders can be divided into two or three "camps", with two of those keeping records of past breeding, the pups resulting from those efforts are going to have known issues, rather than random ones.

Like it or not, dogs are shaped by humans. The only question is how much control is applied to the process. in theory, breeding would be a well regulated process focused on the health of the dogs as the primary goal. If we could ensure that, it would be superior to adopting mixed breeds in that regard.

I get the idea you're working from, and I support it. But trying to pretend that random dogs reproducing is better than controlled breeding is absurd.

Tbh, it doesn't matter if an admin likes the fact or not. Doesn't matter if they agree or not.

A dogwhistle is a well defined thing. It's a word, phrase, or idea used to disguise intent by communication in code with the target audience while trying to bypass the unknowing.

The admins may decide to ignore the fact that dogwhistles exist, but it doesn't matter if they agree with the definition because it is a fact that they exist.

Since the specific dog whistle in question is absolutely, 100% in use by anti trans bigots, it also doesn't matter if the agree or not because it is an established fact. Disagreeing just means they're chosing to ignore facts.

Tbh, at this point, I'm beginning to suspect you aren't here in good faith. If you're running around denying verifiable facts, then that points right to an agenda, and one that's very much at the core of this issue.