Author: Chanel Hand

It's funny to think about I'm technically a published writer. It'd be funnier if I added this before senior year, but it's too late to change that.

Minecraft’s Most Useless Mob

Got a much longer essay in the works so let’s divulge into something stupid!

 

Defined by the Minecraft Wikipedia, “a mob is an AI-driven game entity resembling a living creature. The term “mob” is short for “mobile entity”.” There are passive, neutral, and hostile mobs each within a biome, along with the two (possibly three) boss mobs: the Ender Dragon and the Wither. While the list is most made of mostly animals, villagers and witches also count as mobs.

Many of these mobs are very helpful and impact the game in a positive way.

But not all of them can be perfect. Many of them can end useless contributions. And that’s okay! But what happens when one of them is just an absolute waste of time.

What happens then?

 

Enter: The Horse.

Now, the Horse is a fine mob, genuinely. It doesn’t do much; except that’s the entire problem! If you spawn in a green biome, as opposed to a Snow or a Desert, you are very likely to find a Horse. Good! However, if you are not in a green biome, good luck finding one as they are only in plain and savannah biomes. And then, if you’ve found your plain and Savannah biomes, congratulations!

Now you have to ride one.

 You would think riding one is simple, right? You right click, or press X, I don’t know what console you’re using, and you should be riding one! Good to go!

Not even close.

First, you have to be Accepted by the Horse. Doesn’t seem that difficult. If you are lucky, there may be 4-5 generated in your biome. But if you are unlucky, there is only one. And that one Horse has a 50/50 chance of accepting you as its rider. If you don’t get accepted, you may be stuck hopping off and on and off again until it changes its mind, and if it doesn’t, sucks, next biome!

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, the Horse does accept you, and you have now Tamed Your First Horse. Great! But when you press A or D, your Horse won’t budge. That’s because you still need a saddle. It’s basically the only way you’ll gain control of your Horse.

Now, I don’t know about your Minecraft experience, but I found saddles very rarely. Very rarely. So, upon finding your very own Horse, the chances of riding her within the next week are already unlikely if you didn’t have a saddle before taming her. Which I didn’t. So, if you want to ride your Horse, your only chance of having anything to do with it is finding one of those.

But hey, maybe you’re luckier than me! Thank goodness because now, you have completed all three steps to taming a Horse:

  1. You found a Horse,
  2. You tamed a Horse,
  3. You saddled a Horse.

Now you may negate exhaustion and cut quicker across your world by—

What?

 

Oh. Okay.

At least they’re faster than a mine cart; notoriously, one of the slowest modes of in-game transportation.

And you need a hay bale to max out their health?

 

Or a gapple? (One of the most valuable items in the game)

Yeah, alright.

To cut my insanity short, even if horses aren’t a terrible mob they just waste your time. Just put a boat on packed ice. Oh you don’t know how to do that?

Just walk.

all information taken from the Minecraft Horse Wiki; may contain Horse slander or untrue facts about Horses

 

Contact

This is a poem about healing, reaching out, and the path to recovery. This poem contains depictions of depression via the speaker’s environment.

 

  1. The floor is invisible beneath the piles and piles of clothes forming a moat around your bed, on which you haven’t moved. Your arms, your legs, your body is a thousand tons, the weight of a herd of elephants, you won’t be getting up any time soon. The used-to-be-purple-now-gray t-shirt clings to you, it’s gross, terrible, you haven’t changed for a new one, but you know it’s nothing compared to the rats living in your fridge that hasn’t been cleaned out since September. (You’ll just let them have the food.) Your phone buzzes. You don’t look. No one needs to worry about you right now or hear from you. You’re fine. The room is fine. You’ll deal with it tomorrow.

  2. Today, you left your room. Not a lot. It was just the fridge. It hasn’t started to smell (yet) but you don’t remove the food inside. In the back of your head, you know it will spoil, but the hand stays right where you left it. As you mull over this, a bug crawls under the space between the floors. (You close the fridge.)

  3. The TV hums in the back of your ears, on it there’s a man named Jim and his girlfriend “Pam,” and a Schroot or whatever. You just needed something quiet. Tonight, you’ll have a TV dinner because there’s else to eat. Tomorrow you’ll Doordash. (Or not.) It’s going to be the most depressing thing you’ve eaten in months.

  4. Someone knocked on your door today. Whoever they were didn’t stay; but they left a care package. Inside, there’s a bag of fruit, a blanket, a bottle of bubble bath, and a green shirt with the tag still on.
    “I hope you’re doing okay.”

  5. You took a bubble bath that night.

  6. There’s still not enough energy in you to go outside, but Doordashing is too expensive. You take a fruit from the basket. Tomorrow you’ll clean out the fridge.

  7. It’s a disgusting and tedious process, exactly how you expected. You don’t do it in one go: not everything’s gone. But it’s a start. You’ll watch The Office that afternoon. (His name is Schrute.)

  8. Your phone buzzes.
    “Hope you’re doing better.”
    It buzzes again.
    “We miss you.”
    You mark it as important.

  9. The green shirt you’re wearing feels better than the used-to-be-purple shirt. You feel clean. It’s nice.

  10. You load your laundry into baskets. You’ll take it to the laundromat in time. Right now, you’ll sweep the floor. Put trash in bags. Mop.
    Have you seen your floor since August?

  11. You take a bubble bath that night with the leftover solution.
    Tomorrow, you’ll go grocery shopping.