adult but it doesn't feel like it, they/them, neurodivergant. will show up in random intervals to talk about random stuff, might post art if I feel like it. likes hermitcraft and crafty things
Anyone else thinking about how odd the hermitcraft economy is?
in season 9 they had a minor economic recession after the diamond ore war because there were far too many diamonds in circulation making them (hypothetically) worth less than normal and ren stepped in as the king and did what has been done in the midst of a lot of irl economic depressions; he created a government so they could employ the policy of Keynesian economics (basically more gov't intervention to stabilize the economy, it mostly worked in 1930's japan!), he took control of diamonds and even introduced a new currency, royal emeralds (much like Germany after WW1! they had some hyperinflation because of the war reparations they had to pay and the gov't not understanding that printing more money makes the money worth less resulting in the mark [currency] being so worthless they started burning it because they couldn't afford wood for fires. a new gov't came into power and they replaced the mark with rentenmarks which did a lot of fixificating for the economy). Ren's gov't also introduced a lot of gov't funded projects like the quests (the irl equivalent for this would be Roosevelt's New Deal which introduced policies/projects called the Alphabet Agencies (among other things) such as the AAA, CCC, TVA (do you see why they're called the alphabet agencies?) that would adjust the value of grain so farmers could start earning money for produce again and create work that would support a growing economy, projects like building roads and bridges)
so basically, all the policies ren's government introduced were very logically sound and worked in real life to fix the economy (except that irl the Great Depression only fully ended because WW2 started-), the issue is that hermitcraft is not real life and hermits do not behave like real people, they behave like hermits.
lets start with the hermitcraft economy. unlike the real economy, hermits rarely adjust prices according to how many diamonds are "in circulation". i say this despite the fact grian in a recent-ish episode says that "everything costs more this season because diamonds are more common". that can't be true because the caves and cliffs update literally made diamonds more difficult to acquire. I will circle back to this point made by grian later
hermits not adjusting prices by server-wide abundance of diamonds (because they cant really know how much anyone has, much less the total amount of diamonds in circulation, they just know who has a lot and who is broke) means that more diamonds doesn't make them worth less like it did with German marks, it just means hermits have more expendable currency and can spend more money and less time gathering materials for projects. It is also notable that diamonds are constantly being added and taken out of circulation because they're an actual useful currency rather than real life currencies which are symbolic slips of paper. diamonds can be used for armour and tools and it can be acquired by mining. so because of how hermits spend money, taking diamonds out of the economy in s9 did nothing but make them poor and angry at the government. the hermitcraft economy is actually stronger with more diamonds in circulation and is worsened by gov't intervention.
so already the use of real life strategies is utterly useless in hermitcraft economy but there are a few other reasons as well
the hermits tendency to resist government as well as the flawed and greedy government itself are a couple but also the fact that all the hermits are self employed (in real life but also in universe). they own and stock their own shops meaning all profits are more or less direct; its not passed through hands of big corporations so the person producing the product gets mere cents. the hermits are essentially small business owners (which becomes a bit of a problem come season 10 but we're still talking about season 9). The important part is the self employment. the season 9 gov't introduces the quests which mimic and echo real life government funded projects but because they're all employed and the quests gave small amounts of diamonds back, they did very little for the hermits
I'm sure theres more to say but i think its time to move on to the very interesting season 10 economy
if you've missed it you must be living under a rock but hermits are all using permits this season meaning only one shop in the shopping district is selling any given item/material and as a result of this prices have gone sky high. at one point a single stack of mangrove logs cost 7 diamonds when in previous seasons you could get at least 1 stack of wood for 1 diamond if not more
So what is causing this economic depression and hyperinflation?
well, circling back to the point grian made about resources costing more because of abundance of diamonds, I would think it actually costs more because of the permits.
grian thinks the diamond prices are fair because he has middle of the road permits (and is one of the hermits who designed their shopping district, permit and economic system this season so he's biased), there is enough demand to keep him afloat when he's stocked but its nothing people are clamouring for and buying him out. on the other hand, joel made a lot of shops that no one shops at because his objectively weighted permits have not been selling as well as they anticipated when making the permits (also some people like etho and pearl have additional income from their not as fabulous permits because they've made a pay to play game to go with it) and finally there are hermits like mumbo whose gold, iron and item frame shops were constantly getting bought out so he was frustrated with trying to restock despite getting lots of profit
(another interesting dynamic to think about is permits like cleo's book permit which lost value as the season went on because everyone needed books early on but now that they're all playing late game Minecraft, everyone is pretty stocked up and buying from cleo less often)
Basically, grian is satisfied with the pricing because he's middle class and couldn't afford it if they were more expensive but appreciates not being constantly out of stock, joel is unsatisfied because he is lower class and never has enough expendable currency to fund his projects because materials are too expensive and his permits aren't worth enough to sell them for more, and mumbo is unsatisfied because he is higher class and is constantly out of stock because his materials sell out too often and he wants to sell them for more to stay in stock more (classic supply and demand, he doesn't want to stock them as often making the supply lower and the demand proportionally higher making them worth more and therefore more expensive)
the reason i say the permits are to blame for the high prices is because they cause the responsibility of constantly stocking something to fall on one person (in past seasons, if one persons sandstone shop was out of stock you could go check someone else's sandstone shop). the threat of taking the permit away if they arent stocked along with the difficulty of constantly stocking some of these materials raises the cost.
a great example of this is skizzleman because his mangrove and cherry wood shop was one of the first shops to be built in the shopping district, meaning he somewhat set the prices this season. now, mangrove and cherry are both difficult trees to harvest because of their unconventional shapes and the fact that they are more recent additions (and skizz's stubborn desire to design his own farms...) so because of the time required to gather them the prices already were hitched up. add that to the fact that they are trying to constantly be in stock and therefore low prices that allow hermits to completely buy out the shops are unfavourable, and you get sky rocket-ing prices. (it is also difficult because skizz had no prior experience with hermitcraft pricing)
in conclusion... hermitcraft needs a laissez-faire economy (f. a. hayek) to function and not go into economic depression. Between the nature of the diamond currency, hermits' tendency to rebel against governments, the way they use the concept of supply and demand to price their goods, and the restrictions permits put on supplying products, hermits have proven that extensive structure and government intervention have not improved economic wellbeing the way that it does in real life
thus, hermits do not behave like regular humans, they operate on fae laws of its funny so lets do it and therefore must be governed as such (aka not governed), thank you for coming to my ted talk
finally tried my hand at a twin cinema poem and yaowza !! took me a couple hours to figure it out but i'm very happy with this one and i wanted to share. you can read gideon and harrow's thoughts separately to see their perspectives on their own and each other's actions, and putting them together supposedly reveals the truth of the lengths they would go to but can't communicate to one another :3
i just think that a form where they are talking to one another without hearing any response and yet are intertwining so perfectly is deeply on theme and makes me ill
also sorry for image quality i formatted this on canva and idk how to put such a complex form into an image description so apologies </3
sadly, i'm in a bit of an artblock/burnout so i'm kinda procrastinating on some projects by doing other stuff like this eefo character design... sigh
[pls reblog, don't like]
⬇️ my choices explained under the cut
INTRO
i'll start by saying that this character design was brought to life with my kinda limited knowledge of etho and my absolute passion for heavily redesigning characters and giving them my own twist.
THE MASK AND THE MASK's MASK
the first image that came to my mind was his mask. i knew i wanted something to cover almost all his face and for it to be wolf inspired. i still wanted it to reference his skin in some way though, so i added the little metallic plate and the black forehead ribbon as the way the mask holds up.
underneath his main mask i put another simpler black mask that mainly serves 3 purposes: it makes the wolf mask more comfortable to wear without too much metal to skin contact, it mantains the face covered in case the other falls off and... guys i remember i saw a clip of hermits asking him to take off the overlay of his skin to see his face but there was a second mask underneath. i don't make the rules.
CONCEAL DON'T FEEL
after that i slowly worked up a little bit of context in my head while i was adding more details and making my choices. so what i did was making a collage of the infos i collected over time about him and his character and sprinkle a little bit of kakashiki (-cit tango) visual elements.
as we all know etho is a brilliant redstoner and a guy who really cares about privacy. put that together and you get the lore i made up for him:
with his advanced irl tech knowledge, he found a way to transfer his soul in minecraft, kinda like SAO works, and has to conceal his appearance to not get caught. here comes the layered clothes, the enormous coat and ofc the masks. due to all of this i also headcanon him preferring to live in the colder biomes, and this ties back also to the fact that he's from canada ykyk.
AWOO BUT NOT TOO MUCH
i really like wolfie etho designs i saw going around but i didn't want to design another ren with a different palette (my ren is a anthro german shepherd) so i channeled the wolf energy in the mask, the thick fur of the coat that ends with a tail (inspired by marcille dungeon lord outfit, a few notice but her dress has a tail) and in his hair, also kinda looking like a tail.
TYPE: VIBES
the eye of the wolf mask being red and scarred (for life) is of course inspired by his kakashi skin. i sprinkled red tassels here and there to fill in the spots and mainly cause i personally love tassels and wanted to add some red accents for redstone.
his kinda slouchy posture is totally for vibes, etho comes across to me as this kinda lazy/chill guy that channels the energies he has into thinking about the redstone he gotta do and calls it a day. i tried to channel that also in the kinda generic plain clothes.
for the vibes i wanted to put him in crocs/flip flops too but i couldn't otherwise he would absolutely freeze. i had to give him some warm boots or whatevs *sigh*
i tried to make his single visible eye as cute and puppy-looking as possible 'cause c'mon he a cutie pie okay? for the mole near the eye, guys i literally can't recall where i got this piece of info and if it's even remotely true but, i read/heard somewhere he has a bunch of moles on his face irl??? idk idk this is so random, i'm sorry.
SO YEAH
this is the end of my long long explanation for this character design. i hope you like it and if you don't, i know my bestie likes it (he's a bit of an ethogirlie lol luv ya bestie <3)
every time i ask people if they do any new years resolutions its all ooooo i dont like making them bc i fail or ohhhhh no i couldnt keep up wiht that and then when they ask me and i tell them about Pasta Quest (i am eating as many different pasta shapes as possible in the space of a year) or when i did Fruit Adventures (every time i saw a fruit i had never eaten before id get one and eat it and read the wikipedia article about it) theyre like hang on i forgot you can make Fun Ones i want a fun one
while i actually made this post back in May, since New Year’s is approaching here’s some of my fave suggestions from the tags if you’re looking for inspiration!
other favorites from the notes I didn’t get screenshots of at the time:
learn the names/species of local plants, bugs, and birds where you live (iNaturalist or Merlin the bird app help with this)
learn the rules to 10 new card games
steal the colored paint cards from hardware store paint aisles and use them to make art
try out every different apple variety you can find and rank them
similarly LOTS of people in the notes doing soup quests, and a few cheese quests also
similarly lots of people reading/watching certain amounts of media over the year, and tracking/rating it
track the number of cats/dogs/etc you see over the year
not to sound like a medieval peasant or a catholic but i resent anti-carb propaganda so much like bread will never be evil it is holy it is divine it is one of life’s most simple yet decadent pleasures. love is stored in the bread
literally cry laughing at these photos i took. it doesnt look real. everybody look at the Tesla Shitbox that's definitely a real car and not just an elaborate high graphics render of a low poly car model from a ps1 racing game
The day after the election one literally appeared in front of the car dealership near my apartment. Over the past few weeks I’ve legitimately seen one pass by me 1/3 of the times I’m outside so either I’m being stalked or Elon is fucking spawning them in now can we get a mod to remove this PLEASE
like a tow truck??? just a regular tow truck or like, one of the trucks they use to take damaged vehicles to the repair place??? because either option is fucking hilarious
I woke up and checked things and started to spiral.
And then I took a deep breath.
Okay kids. It's time to listen to your organizer elders.
I don't care if every call is reversed and she wins by 30 electoral points.
Get involved. Do one thing to make the world better: mutual aid, volunteer, join your local political groups, read to kids, go to community groups.
Survival on this blue spinning ball means coalition building. It means accepting you save the world by doing what you are good at and sharing it with others.
It means to stop looking for saviors in your political choices, and also not crucifying them. It means getting away from political purity and ideology and fucking working toward the next one and the next one.
Political change is different than political theater. It takes work. So much work. And if you are tired, tap out, but don't leave the game.
Guess what happened tonight?
The first openly Trans woman was elected to congress.
2 black women are serving together in the senate.
It is ugly and it sucks and we need to take a breath, take a nap, and then get up off the mat.
the problem with having a book out the same day as the US elections is that it's like..... hey, so, i see you're struggling through the unending horrors. can i offer you some nice sword lesbians in these trying times? 😬
All the Painted Stars. It’s out tomorrow on the US. @a-kind-of-merry-war sent me an ARC a while ago and it’s a stunning read. May or may not have a post about it tomorrow if I can get my brain to cooperate.
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snowghoul
titsay
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