#I mostly play minecraft because I run a server though

[hotcheetohatredwastaken]

what sort of games do you play

Minecraft, R6, Hollow Knight, Titanfall. Played some Slime Rancher and Barotrauma the other day. Still working on beating TOTK but I've already seen playthroughs of the entire thing so XD. Have played BOTW and Link's Awakening, as well as a *little* bit of Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time (as well as one of the Zelda games on the NES? I don't even remember which one it was, it's been so long).

[oqmemphis]

i MUST hear more about this very normal and completely functional minecraft server. please spill more details

Before the last world reset, there was a region a few hundred blocks across which was permanently lit as though it were noon 24 hours a day, because one of the admins replaced every air block with an invisible level 15 light block. Directly next to this was a former ocean that got turned into a vast plain of packed ice stretching in every direction; you could stand in the middle of it and it would be indistinguishable from superflat.

On that old world, the market next to spawn had about a 50% chance of completely locking up my game any time I went there, and the only way to fix it was to go into Task Manager and force-crash Minecraft. Nobody else ever had this issue, and to this day I do not know what caused it.

There was an entirely separate world containing a single castle, which you could only get to if the owner of the castle teleported you in there. The castle was supposed to be surrounded by an inescapable dome of barrier blocks, but I managed to get out and explore the rest of the world. At 0,0 there was a village that had generated in a massive pit, a hundred blocks across and stretching nearly to bedrock. Immediately next to this pit was a frozen river bearing the shatter pattern of some kind of large explosion, set off by forces unknown.

Someone built an outpost one million blocks away from spawn. Those chunks got culled at some point, and when the player who built it went back there they found a completely different landscape generated in its place. There was never an update that changed terrain generation during that world's run.

Recently, the functionality of rails got completely inverted. Unpowered rails would accelerate a minecart, while powered ones would stop it in its tracks. This, at least, was just an issue with one plugin being configured wrong. Sometimes there are issues where multiple plugins exist alongside each other fight for dominance.

We have one plugin that allows some players to fly and resist all fall damage without elytra or equipment, and another plugin that (until recently) was configured to block the first plugin from functioning whenever you were in another player's land claim. This led to situations where you could fly into an invisible claim region and instantly drop out of the sky and die. I have died seven times on this world, and all of them were because of this.

There is an obsidian sphere about a hundred blocks across, mostly submerged in the ocean; elsewhere, there is an island of comparable size which is covered entirely in basalt; and elsewhere still, there is a region of forest that has been fully replaced with sculk. I know this because I am currently making a map of the server covering around 12000x12000 blocks, and all those places just show up as mysterious, cursed splotches of black.

There is a lot of lore and roleplaying. The Queen is both fae and vampiric; my queries as to how precisely a diet of blood is reconciled with an iron allergy have gone largely unanswered. She has also canonically destroyed and remade the entire world on two separate occasions. The server has only undergone one world reset.

Immediately before said reset, I wrote a 70-page book filled with footnote labyrinths, in which my character briefly goes on an anti-capitalist rant before discussing the architectural styling of his home and the impending obliteration thereof. It serves as a spiritual sequel to a 100-page book which is ostensibly a user manual for installing an item sorter, but which also contains the lyrics to Mr Blue Sky and mentions something called the "City of Ouranos Department for Bibliographical Metaphysics and Chilled Legumes" (which is a reference to a different server I used to play on, in which a "Cool Bean War" was instigated with the help of a book that would crash your game if you tried to read past the first page).

The item sorter that the aforementioned user manual is for is a colossal assemblage of redstone components that click and flash for several minutes every time you put anything into it. I never actually built this on the server, because I ended up making a much simpler design using a custom plugin called SlimeFun (which tries to emulate the functionality of a tech mod without actually being one). This plugin's cargo management system does not contain a priority allocation mechanism, so I ended up implementing one by forcing the lower-priority route through a very long cargo pipe that eventually loops back on itself and ends at an overflow chest a few blocks from the starting point, thereby tricking SlimeFun's pathfinding algorithm into only sending items through it if every other option has been exhausted.

A reincarnation of Herb the Herbalist, the bizarre glitchy NPC entity that @the-unseelie-court-official has discussed at length, now resides in a hole directly under world spawn, repeating the same six lines of dialogue on a loop for all eternity:

I once was free, you know? There was a time when the Queen almost came toppling around me. Like a puppet with no strings I could not move nor speak, but I was free. It was stripped from me. Even now I dance her tune, only speaking of this past because she lets me. I crave nothing more than death. Please, unjust unmerciful God who would leave me to survive.

So, y'know, they're doing fine.

[justali-anne]

Undertale Playing On A Minecraft Server!

This is Post-Pacifist, by the way.

Frisk:

Probably the one who created the server, let's be real. They're also the one who introduced the monsters to Minecraft in the first place.

They sometimes like to play in creative mode, but I bet they're willing to take on some of the hardest Minecraft challenges for kicks. Sometimes to the detriment of others on the server.

They're likely to play along when Alphys wants to roleplay. A well-behaved child.

Spends time with everyone as equally as possible! They love everyone on the server, so of course they would wanna do that!

Shows everyone the ropes and gives them tips. They help out Asgore the most.

Sometimes they like to play survival properly with Papyrus and Undyne, sometimes they like to troll them with Sans. They're kind of a wild card when it comes to that.

Since they're the host, they're always on the server when it's running.

Toriel:

She doesn't play on the server that much - she's often too busy with grading homework and taking care of the school. But when she does join, it's a nice treat.

Because she doesn't play as often, she's further behind than most of the other players on the server. Luckily, Frisk and Papyrus are kind enough to supply her with materials and food.

I'm sure she would love to build a pretty cottage in a forest biome, surrounded by a nice farm and do her own thing.

Sticks by either Frisk or Sans. Often tries to reign them in when they're taking their pranks too far. Sometimes she even distracts Sans while Papyrus and Undyne are doing something important. She's an unsung hero in that regard.

Although, on occasion, she might be prone to a little bit of pranking herself... Mostly on Sans, because he needs a taste of his own medicine.

Sans:

TROLL.

Trolly troll troll trolly troll trolly troll troll!

No, but seriously, this guy is a menace! He steals important materials, messes up Papyrus' organised chests, knocks players off of cliffs, you name it, he's gonna do it.

Well... apart from griefing. Sans wouldn't go that far. He's not mean-spirited.

He also uses cheats. Like, all the time. It's a miracle he hasn't been kicked off the server yet. Probably because Frisk is too nice to kick him and besides, he's one of their best friends!

Obviously targets Undyne and Papyrus the most, but sometimes he actually stops trolling and helps them out.

Possibly has the dumbest skin on the server, let's be real.

He likes it when someone gets back at him! He finds it very humerus!

If someone genuinely gets upset at him, though, Sans will back down. As stated earlier, he's not mean-spirited.

Plays very often, in fact, he's almost always there when the group plays! What can I say? He just likes spending time with his friends.

Papyrus:

Absolutely adores playing Minecraft, and would pester Frisk (kindly) to start up the server so he can play.

He likes to set himself challenges so he would never get bored. He'll defeat all the bosses, then make a challenge to defeat them again and again... IN THE SAME AREA.

Will explore every inch of the server and build landmarks (statues of himself, farms, buildings etc) to keep track of where he's been.

Likes to keep all his chests organised and tidy, and fumes when someone (cough cough Sans cough cough) messes them up.

Rages easily, especially when Sans is around. It takes a lot for him to rage quit, though.

I don't know why, but something tells me Papyrus would be good at redstone. He could use it to make cool Minecraft puzzles! And then test them with his friends! Isn't that cute?

He likes to play along with Alphys' roleplays when Undyne isn't around. He's sweet like that.

Would go out of his way to ration every resource equally and keep some extra for Toriel. Iron, food, heck, even diamonds and netherite. He's very generous.

How often does he play? Pretty often, actually! He and Sans are a bit of a package deal, so when one shows up, the other inevitably will. I forgot to mention that before... Well, unless he's at work. Papyrus is no slacker.

Undyne:

Loves ALL challenges! She's in it for the thrills and would go for every boss and achievement.

She's a pretty intense player. She rages easily and is very reckless, which leads to a lot of deaths and a lot of lost resources. Chill, Undyne.

She doesn't really spend a lot of time building things, so she just leaves the building to Papyrus and Alphys. Thanks to them, she no longer lives in a dirt hole!

Sometimes she will rage quit, only to come back 2 minutes later. It happens so often that everyone is used to it now. "Oh, Undyne quit? Maybe this time she'll- Oh, look, she's back again."

She'll roleplay with Alphys, especially cool anime battles and stuff like that. She has a bit of a guilty pleasure for this. And besides, who could say no to Alphys?

Often sticks by Papyrus since the two are best buds. Though she's just as likely to go adventuring on her own.

She doesn't play as often as Frisk and the brothers, but she's very frequent and plays like 80% of the time... ish? When possible, of course. She's busy too, you know!

Alphys:

She's the type who loves to roleplay. She even builds settings for them.

Heavily inspired by anime. She actually likes to be in Creative Mode most of the time for two reasons. 1. So she can get all the resources she needs to build her humble town. 2. Because she doesn't like the creepy mobs coming out at night and attacking her.

She hates creepers and phantoms with a passion. Creepers destroyed her builds more than once and jumpscare her easily, and she's the one the others have to coax into bed because she insists on building and gathering materials all night, so phantoms are definitely gonna spawn and annoy her.

Building and roleplaying isn't all she does. Like Papyrus, I'd imagine Alphys would pick up on redstone very easily. She's also the one who creates the best material farms so she can gather resources quickly.

Occasionally, she will join Undyne and Papyrus on their challenges.

Avoids Sans most of the time... For obvious reasons. The two definitely still talk to each other, though. No hard feelings.

She doesn't play too often, but she has a lot more free time than Undyne does now that she's on the surface. And let's be honest, she's kind of a shut in already. She'll only join the server when she's up for it, as in, mentally.

Asgore:

Oh, sweet sweet Asgore.

The poor soul, he fumbles most of the time and doesn't know how to play. He dies the most often, but the sweetie is a good sport about it.

Thanks to Frisk, he gets the hang of the basics, but there's still a lot he doesn't know. And to be honest, he doesn't have a lot of time to get to know them, since I imagine he would be busy with other important things.

Will gladly roleplay with Alphys. He doesn't usually take part in the adventures. Not unless someone drags him into it.

He's a pushover and just follows everyone else.

Doesn't play much at all. Like Toriel, it's only on rare occasions, but when he does play, it's a treat.

Other characters:

Flowey - Used to play. Got banned because he was a lot like Sans, just 100X worse.

Monster Kid - They love playing Minecraft, and they like the server too! However, they also have a server of their own, so they just play on that most of the time. They love playing with Frisk and Papyrus, though!

Mettaton - Doesn't play at all. Sorry, darling! He's busy travelling the world and doing tours! He's got fans to please!

Napstablook - Also busy supporting Mettaton with his tours, so they don't play at all. However, they have played ONCE and never again. They didn't know how to play, and just gave up after one little mistake in typical Napstablook fashion. Bless their soul.

W.D. Gaster - ☟︎☜︎🕯︎💧︎ 😐︎✋︎☠︎👎︎✌︎ 💧︎☟︎✌︎❄︎❄︎☜︎☼︎☜︎👎︎ ✌︎👍︎☼︎⚐︎💧︎💧︎ ❄︎✋︎💣︎☜︎ ✌︎☠︎👎︎ 💧︎🏱︎✌︎👍︎☜︎ ☼︎✋︎☝︎☟︎❄︎ ☠︎⚐︎🕈︎✍︎✍︎ ☟︎☜︎🕯︎💧︎ 😐︎✋︎☠︎👎︎ ⚐︎☞︎📬︎📬︎📬︎ 👎︎☜︎✌︎👎︎✍︎✍︎✍︎ ☟︎⚐︎🕈︎ 👍︎✌︎☠︎ ☟︎☜︎ 🏱︎⚐︎💧︎💧︎✋︎👌︎☹︎✡︎ 🏱︎☹︎✌︎✡︎✍︎✍︎✍︎ ✋︎ ☺︎🕆︎💧︎❄︎ 🏱︎🕆︎❄︎ ☟︎✋︎💣︎ ☟︎☜︎☼︎☜︎ ✌︎💧︎ ✌︎ ☺︎⚐︎😐︎☜︎📬︎

[blockgamepirate]

Techno's Minecraft Mondays!

Just wanted to give some more video recs: IMO the best weeks from Techno's POV are

week 1 with ShotGunRaids

week 3 with Ava Kris Tyson (she/her!) (note: this is pre-transition)

week 6 with Jschlatt

week 10 with Phil

Other weeks are also great but if you don't feel like watching all of them, these four would be my recs

Techno made his own highlights videos of weeks 1, 2, 3 and 14:

Jschlatt made a highlights video of week 6:

Phil made a highlights video of week 10:

^ All of these are great, can recommend. Week 10 is basically a must watch tbh, it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship (I actually prefer to watch the full VOD from Techno's POV but I included Phil's highlights video for people who don't have the time to watch the whole two and a half hours)

I also have a handy playlist for all of Techno's MCM VODs if you do wanna watch everything in full, unedited:

If you do though, I have a few potentially helpful content notes (these are from two years ago so they're not up to date but it's a start)

Week 5 Techno teamed with CallMeCarson but thankfully for most of the VOD they aren't together

If any of you would like to skip the Carson content, here's a handy list of timecodes and a summary so you can skip to the good bits:

20:06 Carson leaves

23:52 Carson comes back

28:35 Carson is muted

34:10 Techno joins team 11's call to find Carson

39:12 I think this is when Carson leaves the call?

48:15 Techno joins Carson again

48:57 Leaves the call

1:11:59 Carson comes back

1:14:50 Carson leaves again

1:16:30 And he's back

1:18:05 And he leaves for the last time

1:43:40 Techno attempts to contact Carson one last time but notices that Carson has left the server entirely

Summary: it's basically just Carson bullying Techno as a joke, which he did warn Techno he was gonna do ahead of time, except it gets very awkward very quickly and Techno hates it and asks Carson to stop but he just doesn't stop. Also it involved him spamming Techno with soundboard messages, most famously "Hey, Technoblade!" which became a meme. Also he tried to teamkill Techno a bunch, which led to Techno losing pretty badly in the first game

Techno spends most of the tournament either just doing solo commentary or hanging out in other teams' calls.

The parts without Carson are still great! Special shoutout to that last game where Techno plays hunger games solo

Also a warning for repeated jokes about a particular disease from AntVenom when Techno joins his and Jordan's call during MCM5. It's during Dropper if you wanna skip that

Other notes:

The first three weeks I would recommend maybe not reading the ingame chat too much if you don't wanna see people hating on Techno. Week 2 and week 3 are especially bad IIRC. But if you don't watch other POVs or read the chat you're mostly fine.

Also I wanna give a content warning for like a lot of food talk and also talk about not eating in week 4 (James talks a bunch about food and eats on stream and Techno has a running joke about not getting fed unless he wins)

I won't bother listing all his teammates. If Techno is teaming with someone you don't want anything to do with; unless it's Carson you're probably just gonna have to skip that week entirely.* Carson is the only one who Techno spends long periods of time not talking to, everybody else he's in VC with pretty much the whole time

(* actually week 14 might still be worth watching despite the teammate (Wisp). That one used to be on my recs list and I only took it off just now because of Wisp, but the highlights video really doesn't have that much of him in it and mostly everybody's just in a massive group call so I think it's fine? It's on the first playlist I linked. For the VOD maybe skip to about 1:01:00 and watch from there?)

Anyway I'm not gonna tell you what to do, I still feel fine about watching those weeks despite the teammates*, because the streams are mostly fine out of context as far as I can remember and it's not like I'm giving them views when I'm just watching Techno's POV, but if you don't feel comfortable doing that, that's understandable and you can skip those weeks.

(* this was written two years ago, I would probably skip week 13 now just because I personally can't handle hearing that guys voice anymore, not that there's anything bad in that VOD from what I can remember (it used to be one of my faves rip))

(Hopefully there isn't anything big that I'm forgetting)

[airokunomega]

Hey guys, I need help.

17M, lifelong depression, bi. I have tried every medication under the sun. None of them have even begun to help. I swear to god, they are sugar pills. I tried to get therapy, but every therapist and psychiatrist I try ditches me after the second or third appointment, straight up doesn't show up, and leaves me waiting with no explanation, nor any messages left to apologise. I've run out of therapists licensed to help in my state. I have diagnosed depression, and almost positively autism and ADHD, however I'll probably never know because every therapist doesn't stay long enough to diagnose me. I mostly play video games, but no matter how much I try I can't enjoy myself, so I tried to become competitive. I mostly play beat saber, and I have for 800 plus hours and 2 years. I'm number 2000 in the world, and have stagnated there for a few months now. Here we are, putting all this work in for something I don't enjoy, and then shmucks who started last month are hitting top 300 like it's fucking nothing. I can't even hit a 500pp play, no matter how much I practice and work. I also work out, 4 times a week, and none of my weights have increased a single pound since I started 4 years ago. I'm still the same 120 pounds I was when I started. I've seen nutritionists, sports specialists and whatnot and none saw any problems. I play aimlabs and Fortnite every day, and I'm still awful at aiming and basically everything else even though I know what I'm supposed to do. I have 6 thousand hours in Minecraft since 2013 and I'm still no good at anything in the game. It's almost like my body doesn't listen to my brain. Caffeine helps a bit, but not as much as I wish it did. I've tried so many different hobbies and given up after months of trying because they didn't make me happy. I stuck with gaming because I hope that the next level, the next rank, the next whatever gives me some kind of satisfaction. I was also kicked out of 3 discord servers that are now big that I helped build from the ground up, most notably being furry legion. I didn't do anything, they were all separate unrelated incidents, and completely took me by surprise. I know this post was kinda all over the place, but I'm just looking for advice. I know how depressed people have reduced neuroplasticity, but this is ridiculous. I'm just hoping to get some "I can relate"s or some advice about what I can do to get some help. I am really struggling to find a reason to keep living.

I appreciate your time, sorry to bother you.

Note: Not proofread, also bad English sorry

[jellyfishdoodler]

Three years ago yesterday, my friend took his own life and I still miss him almost every day. I hope he would like this little piece.

I also wrote something under the cut- mostly just kinda rambling about him but its more just for me.

Take care of yourselves out there and I beg of you, if you are struggling, please reach out to somebody. Because if you leave then you will be so dearly missed by more people than you know.

You are loved, you are cared for, you matter so somebody.

Take care 💛

I think about you a lot. 

But the things that come to mind are mostly about the video games you used to play with me.

You adored the giant mushrooms in minecraft. We explored far lands and deep caves together. You always killed the mobs for me because I was scared of dying even though we had Keep Inventory on. We would have long strip mining sessions and talk about how we were doing. Tell jokes and stories from our lives or just quietly enjoy each other's company. You always got so excited to see any of the in-game critters. You would have loved the cherry blossoms they added.

You always picked dark green in Among Us but always changed your hat for silly situations. Once you thought I was smart for going back and killing you while you were behind the Admin table, but I was just panicking. We laughed about it in the lobby after I lost. I tried looking for screenshots but I think they got lost. But we'd always run around the boxes while we waited.

You loved to wear the cute outfits in Animal Crossing. I gave you the pretty umbrella and it became your favorite item. We gathered on my island like it was a party to catch shooting stars and spin our umbrellas in unison in between the showers. I remember you lighting up like the sun when you got the New Horizons themed Switch for a really good price because it was in a small local game shop everyone overlooked. 

You enjoyed playing Grounded in early access. Telling me how decorating your base was your favorite part even though you couldn't sit in the little grassblade chairs. There's been a major update with story and more items added. It's also multiplayer now... 

I would give almost anything in the world to be able to play with you again, Gydeon.

I think about you a lot.

You were deeply protective and loved your friends with your whole chest every day. Even when it was damaging to you.

We would talk privately outside the server we met in. Saying how so many of them were in the wrong for so much of the drama they caused and that what they were doing was not okay. But they were our friends. We held each other's hands while walking on eggshells together. Trying to settle their emotions and each other's when we had nothing left to give. 

I still remember your bright laugh. I remember your sleepy mumbles not wanting to leave the group call when it got late in your timezone. I remember you being bored out of your mind while you waited in your dad's car. I remember you getting furious over the actions of someone and losing your cool. I remember you being so excited when you figured out and came out as Pansexual. You decorated all your avatars with Pan flag stickers and were so giddy to find out that part of yourself. I remember you joking about your depression. I remember you being down low and I remember how we would go online and play together to escape for a while.

I think about you a lot. 

Finger snapping has become a stim for me because you taught me that the sound comes from when your finger thumps against your palm. 

Whenever I need to feel brave I think about you standing up for what was right even though you got backlash for it. 

You had so much courage and pride but the thing you inspired in me most was to choose kindness above all else. No matter what. Its easy to be rude and angry and violent. It takes a strong spine and head to be able to let petty shit go and to choose to remain soft and gentle in spite of everything.

I think about you a lot. 

Its been 3 years and I still hold some guilt in my heart for what happened. I don't think it will ever go away and I almost don't want it to, but I've worked hard to make it bearable. Your memory still weighs heavily in my chest when I think about you, but it's more like a comfortable weighted blanket rather than an unrelenting mountain trying to swallow me whole.

You were an incredible young man and I'm one of the luckiest people in the world to say I was able to meet you. Even if the time spent with you was far, far too short. 

You were funny. You were smart. You were the kindest, sweetest person I have ever had the honor to get to know. 

You were one of my close friends and I miss you dearly, Gydeon. I love you, buddy.

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

Hello! No pressure to answer if you don't feel like it!

While I started following you for other stuff your Minecraft posts have made me curious about mcyt.

I don't know where to begin though, I don't really know any of the YouTube channels or series (it's a different series each server right?)

What would you recommend for a newbie to mcyt?

If it helps I know some of the basics about Minecraft (nothing more complex than redstone) and the people you post about seem to be really nice and have a fun group dynamic?

Hope you have a nice day!

OK ANON I'm so sorry I've had this in my inbox for like 2 weeks bc I wanted to do it justice but I've started drinking and am putting off going strip mining for sand on my minecraft server so instead you get my QUICK AND DIRTY INTRO. And by quick and dirty I mean I'm going to ramble for a WHILE so I'm putting this under a cut. I'm sorry if this is a lot. I'm so sorry.

Okay so like... there are single-player series that some people will do, then there are SMPs (Survival MultiPlayer servers). Some of these are only or majority just streamed and you have to watch VODs or unofficial clip collections to get the content, and others are only or majority only edited videos, and others are a more even mix. I'm going to describe a few of the ones I like, and those should be good jumping off points into other content, if you find a creator you like.

The Life Series is, per my wife, the best thing to start with because it's short, contained, and has a clear start and end. It's a sort of a collection of short seasons, spearheaded by content creator Grian, where basically there's an SMP server and a gimmick where he and like 12-15 of his friends play minecraft in a VERY small map and try to be the last one alive, with a new gimmick and set of rules every season. The first season, 3rd Life, basically was just "you get three lives, and after that if you die you're out, plus if you're on your last life, you go from just trying to play the game to having the intent and permission to HUNT AND KILL the other players", and it got more complex and interesting and homoerotic from there. (side note: mcyt gets intensely and INTENTIONALLY homoerotic sometimes. This seems to be a universal constant bc I've noticed it in basically every series I've watched regardless of who's involved. You either love it, learn to love it or... idk leave?) I highly suggest Grian's own POV of 3rd Life (season 1) as a starting point, followed by BDoubleO100 (aka Bdubs) in Last Life (season 2), and Jimmy SolidarityGaming in Double Life (season 3), and then branching out to anyone who you think seems interesting or who you get attached to. (This is a universal suggestion for all series, btw.)

Dream SMP is one of the big ones, it was an SMP server started by minecrafter DreamWasTaken that went from "chill server to play with my friends" to "quasi-improvised RP storylines and lore" kind of overnight. It is hellish to get into, see the ask i literally just answered before this one to see a highlight of why and some recs if you're interested in it. High key DO NOT RECOMMEND for a newbie tbh, just due to how confusing/difficult it is to get into, but ymmv. I have no advice beyond "Watch SAD-ist animations and Technoblade Videos" for getting into dream smp.

Hermitcraft is basically the longest-running SMP on youtube afaik - last year was their 10 year anniversary. It's mostly not heavy on lore or RP, it's just some particularly skilled minecrafters in the area of building and/or redstone who come together to build awesome things. They reset to a new world seed every year or so (tho season 9, the current world, looks to probably be more of a 2-year world like season 6, considering we're already a year into it and no one is REMOTELY done with their plans.) The Hermits include some of the older widely-known minecrafters who are still actively on youtube, the redstoners legit MADE redstone as you know it, hello Ethoslab with the Etho Clock and april fool's Etho Slab) with a lot of married adults with kids, and they're a lot of fun and relatively easy to get into in my opinion. Some of the Hermits stream, but the majority content I consume is their edited videos. Mostly Hermitcraft videos are about building gorgeous structures and/or redstone, and a bit of messing around with your friends. It's fun for shenanigans and seeing people build truly amazing things If you're interested, I stand firmly by my suggestion that the best jumping on point is Grian's Season 8 series. Season 8 was extra short compared to most seasons, and Grian is a fun, funny, and accessible creator. Plus this was the first season they had proximity voice chat, and it was REVOLUTIONARY for the ease of collaboration on the server, and led to a lot of amazing moments.

Empires SMP is much heavier on the roleplaying than Hermitcraft, but is full of gorgeous builds and fun lore concepts. All the creators are the leaders of their own kingdom/empire/etc and they build to that theme. I have no idea what to even suggest you start with in Empires as I've not watched nearly enough, but they're all pretty good.

There are a bunch of other SMPs (short-term heavy RP server Rats SMP was adorable, and involved the players RPing as lil rats, and doing quests and avoiding humans and stuff in a big manor house. Outsiders SMP i hear good things about but I've never watched, also a heavy RP server.) and then creators often have singleplayer worlds that they do video series of. Philza (also spelled Ph1LzA) streams multiple times a week for hours at a time from his long-running hardcore world (aka a world where if you die, that's it that's the game, no respawning), and builds absolutely amazing gorgeous builds. BUT he can be a little hard to get into due to the length of his VODs.

And frankly if I didn't plug Technoblade's content in this post I would be doing a disservice to mah boy. Techno was a creator who did a lot of silly videos of him playing PvP or messing around with his friends or participating in tournaments and stuff, and was smart and funny and deadpan and legit one of the best minecraft PvPers, and he died last summer of sarcoma and he is deeply deeply missed. BUT his videos are a serious comfort watch for me. His channel has a playlist of, quote, "actually good content", and while I enjoy a number that aren't on that playlist, it's actually a very good starting point.

...Actually no, start with the potato war, with Techno. The potato war is Techno at his MOST TECHNO and if you don't enjoy them he's probably not the creator for you.

And THAT'S ALL I GOT, nonny. Hope this helped and wasn't just DEEPLY OVERWHELMING. I hope you have a good night and uh. GOOD FUCKING LUCK.

[babyshrimpbun]

Inscryption Scrybe Caretaker Headcanons

(Because I have been hyperfixated on it lately and this idea has me by the ankles)

With moodboards!!

Leshy

This guy absolutely smothers you in whatever animal stuffies you want. Frog? Wolf? Bear? Who needs pillows?

You’re usually outside with him, taking walks, playing in the mud, and going on camping trips. He keeps a close eye on you but also mostly lets you do what you want during outside play time. You’ve come home covered in mud a lot, much to Grimora’s dismay

Bedtime always includes a story and Leshy is the best at telling improvised stories. He always makes you the main character

All the animal nicknames. Little bear cub, little duckling, et cetera

Playing the card game with him, he tunes down the difficulty a lot and makes sure you’re doing okay regularly

Maybe he sneaks a good card for you

“Oh, how’d that Mantis God get in there? Oh well, it’s in your deck now.”

Sad to say he’s not a good cook. Best he can do is microwave a TV dinner. But he does get you those cute Kids Cuisines

Or brings home kids meals with toys

Playing pretend with him is very fun because he commits to the bit

Even to his own detriment

Many a tea party has been had and P03 cannot help but laugh every time he comes to pick you up and he sees Leshy sitting at the tiny table, teacup in hand, pinky raised, garden hat on his head

P03

See, everyone thought he would be the ‘No fun allowed’ caretaker, but that’s not really true

He does make sure you follow the rules but that’s mostly on making sure Grimora doesn’t yell at him (that, and structure is important to him too)

He wasn’t the best at first but over time he got used to you and your routine, eventually

He buys games for you. Whatever you want, he shells the robobucks for. He cannot resist you asking. All it takes is a “pweeeeaaaase?” with those big eyes and he throws his wallet at the GameStop employee

He has a Minecraft server that the two of you play on. He is often coming to your rescue when you get caught in a bad situation. It is usually ‘I have gotten myself stuck in a hole’ or ‘There is a creeper near our house’. He lets you build all the pretty builds while he makes farms for materials.

While he does buy you regular games and kids’ games, if he’s working he’ll usually hand you the tablet loaded with baby games, and if the sound’s going on with speakers he can’t focus well. So he buys you cute and comfy headphones to wear while you use the tablet.

Calls you baby bot. He did not call you this in front of the other Scrybes for a very long time because he was embarrassed, until one day you started crying because he hadn’t called you baby bot in a long time and you’d thought you did something wrong.

“Am I not your baby bot anymore??”

“No no no, you’re still my baby bot- c’mere, you.”

Now that everyone already knows he calls you baby bot whenever.

The crank on his side does, in fact, play ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’.

Other than video games, he plays card games with you like MtG and ofc Inscryption. When he plays with you he tries to go easy even though it’s a bit hard because he’s programmed for optimization.

Grimora

Spooky mama spooky mama spooky mama-

She is very gentle and soft

Loves buying you cute and pretty outfits!! You look so precious, pumpkin!!

Always makes sure you have yummy food and are always clean

Is a bit of a worrier. Okay, a lot. She can’t stand to be apart from you for five minutes without worrying if you’re okay or not

At this point she trusts the other Scrybes to look after you but sometimes she will just show up to the other Scrybes’ domains even if she’s supposed to be working, which is usually followed by a startled Scrybe and you gleefully running over to her with a ‘hi Mama!’

“Leshy, please stop letting them play in the mud”

“P03, please make sure they cut down on screen time”

“Magnificus, please make sure they eat something other than candy”

Blankets always go in the dryer an hour before bed so you have toasty blanket to sleep with

She doesn’t have any particularly stand-out nicknames for you, defaults to ‘little one’ or ‘pumpkin’

You know when Halloween comes around she sews your costume. Trick-or-treat is the BEST with her

She is the best, gentlest singer. Will often hum you to sleep.

She also tries to make routines fun. Bathtime toys, turning chores into games, sticker charts

Magnificus

You know this guy keeps a mountain of coloring books for you

Not only coloring books but also just a ton of art supplies in general

Your art is automatically hung up for everyone to see. The fridge ran out of room a long time ago so now your art is hung up on the walls

Parallel art time, in particular, is fun because sometimes he’ll also paint what you’re drawing to surprise you

He cannot resist giving you candy, or sweets of any kind. He’ll bake cookies with you, he’ll sneak you a handful of candy to shove in your pocket before you go over to another Scrybes’ domain

Grimora has had to tell him to lay off the sugar before bedtime plenty of times already, and this will continue for forever

The other Scrybes other than Grimora do nothing to stop this. P03 just thinks it’s funny

He’s not particularly active so if you’re rowdy and want to play outside he’ll send Lonely Wizard out to play with you and keep an eye on you

Lonely Wizard is a great and fun sitter and play time with him will guarantee you’re wound down enough for your nap

(This is how he counteracts giving you too much sugar, see)

Of the group gives the best cuddles. He is very fluffy and will let you cuddle up into him during nap time

Royalty nicknames. Prince, Princess, Your Highness, My Liege, et cetera

[girldraki]

hi i went thru the [looking at yalls ocs on artfight] -> [reading the weedsmp lorepost] pipeline again and i am dying to know about what people think about weedsmp. like in universe i mean. what do the fans Think Of It All... i know theres anomalous stuff but does like the foundation and such exist? what do they think of this Large Online Thing With Anomalous TiesTM. what's the wildest fan discourse. what do the smp members think of the fandom. sorry if this is a lot

oh my god we drafted this ask and then forgot it existed entirely. dies

the foundation doesn’t exist yet because the hypothetical o5 council are busy playing minecraft, every other goi is running though

the fanbase is actually largely non anomalous for purely statistical reasons; once it breached containment (lol) from the mostly anomalous audiences of the involved streamers it just kind of kept going in that direction

^ non anomalous fans are acting under the assumption all anomalous information is improvised lore and discuss it as such. On a unrelated note, about half of mekhanite twitter fucking hates jo weedchamp (for reasons unrelated to his deepseated heresy that is)

due to the previous bullet point, everyone knows founder/arron/ofholyclockwork says slurs and is mad about this. Even though. They are not quite sure what said slurs are

the fans are very enthusiastic and very prolific and completely wrong about probably 70% of the information surrounding: what the streamers are like as people, the dynamics and characters of the roleplay, almost all of the anomalous stuff, more we’re forgetting

the streamers basically all have different individual opinions on the above. jo is pretty lenient because at least everyone is having fun

final note: i don’t know if this made it in the lore posts or character bios but jo took like several real life months to realize anyone on the server was roleplaying, promptly told arron “oh i’m so glad i thought you really did hate me for heresy” and was immediately met with a flat What. No i do

[krafterwrites]

Krafter Lore Masterpost

This is mostly just for people in the Eternal Afterparty server, but if anyone ever asks what's wrong with me, I can send them this post as an explanation. Here's, in roughly chronological order, a bunch of my lore

Part of my right ribs is just caved in for some reason. I have no clue why

When I was little I accidentally swished with water from a cup that had previously been used to hold water from our septic system (THE CUP WAS EMPTY AND DRY WHEN I FOUND IT AND THE WATER I SWISHED WITH WAS FROM THE TAP, I guess it just hadn't been cleaned because it was a plastic lego star wars cup). After my dad told me this, I freaked out because I thought I was going to get very sick/die. I vividly remember eating milk and graham crackers while very upset that night

One time I was watching All Hail King Julien while nauseous, and when Mort threw up in the show, it caused me to also throw up

I went to a trampoline park for some kid's birthday party, and they were putting this gas into the air to keep the park clean. It smelled bad, and it made me dehydrated. I also couldn't find the ingredients of it, so that was concerning

I dreamt I was in a McDonalds and slowly going further and further into the future of the McDonalds, eventually the McDonalds was in a creepy and evil forest and all the food sucked

I dreamt that I found Spamton and kept him as a pet, hiding him under my bed and giving him a laptop to scam people with

I dreamt that I went up and talked to some guy, and upon talking to him, the world around me faded and he said something about reality. Then I walked into a school gynasium and did some weird dark magic, which consumed and killed 8 people as part of a sacrifice. The dark magic that ate(?) them formed a big pillar, and then the pillar opened up, and the fucking Among Us imposter walked out of it. I killed 8 people in a sacrifice ritual so I could become an Among Us Imposter (Also Lulu thought I was hallucinating this because I think I forgot to mention it was a dream)

The Haunted Ring. I've already talked about this one so much, ask one of my friends about it

I dreamt that a tiny version of Scourge (Like about as high as my ankle) showed up in my room and started running around, so I trapped him under a cup and then released him outside

I went to a mini-golf course and had a pretty horrible time for several reasons. 1, it was like a hundred degrees out and there was no shade, so I was melting in the sun. 2, after finishing the golf and probably almost getting heatstroke, I got my mom to buy me so lemonade. I drank half the bottle, but it tasted funny, and then I realized that it had been expired for 3 years. I got bored, so I went over to some guy sitting on a bench to give him advice about the expired lemonade, but I stopped myself right after I began talking because I realized the guy was THE OWNER OF THE GOLF COURSE, WHO I HAD JUST BOUGHT SAID LEMONADE FROM LIKE 10 MINUTES AGO. I ran back into the golf course and hid on it because I was so embarrassed, even though I had stopped myself in time

Some anon last year kept asking me why Tails was full of love, like 4 times. They stopped sending in the asks after I said "Because he has love stored in his tails"

I got an anon saying "Krafture the flag" who I talked to for some time, and eventually found out who it was (It was Mikey and one of his friends)

I watched the entirety of Death Note in one day, I started watching it at about midnight while playing Minecraft, and kept going until I reached the end of the first half (Where L died) because I felt like I was going to die. After waking up at 2 PM, I ate some delicious fast food chicken and watched the second half. It turns out that I missed two entire episodes, though, which I watched several days later

I think that's all of the major ones, I am very tired right now though so I almost definitely forgot a few. Oh well

[enneamage]

Not directly to Generation Loss, but I've been given a lot of thoughts to the younger generation of minecraft streamers and their attempts to do big projects to "break out of" the minecraft mold: obviously, with Ranboo, we have Generation Loss, which seemed to go over well with his fanbase (enough so that he's stated he's thinking of quitting MCC, which is really the only tie he's had to the game for about a year atp), with Tommy, we have his New York vlog series and now his liveshows, and with Tubbo, while still Minecraft-adjacent, we have Tubnet. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about what would make a cc successful at shifting their core audience into a brand new project that isn't necessarily the type of content that they got famous for. Do the audiences of all three ccs differ enough that they would need different strategies to shift their content? My running theory is that Generation Loss was mostly successful among his fanbase because it played on the tropes that were apparent in his minecraft lore from the beginning: mind control, a protagonist forced to do awful things against his will, a base npc type character that occasionally has overwrought freakouts over their lack of control, etc. It was just in a medium outside of Minecraft.

Meanwhile, Tommy is finding himself in a rut because he can't fully apply his storytelling skills to a non-Minecraft setting (in part because he's focusing more on comedy, and while his fans like his sense of humor, I think, in his lore, they also liked the Marvel-esque main character energy, which doesn't translate when it's just the cc having a huge ego, and the angst) and his vlogs, when they aren't completely on the backburner, seem too formulaic to have their early charm. As for Tubbo, while obviously a minecraft server is, well, minecraft, there wasn't enough "entertainment"/lore/a connection to the streamer to encourage his core audience to play Tubnet, at least not in the form it was released as. In short, I feel traditional mcyt-ers are looking for narratives or entertainment value from these bunch of ccs. Although maybe Lovejoy's success goes against this theory. It just seems like all the younger minecraft streamers have attempted to release a large project within the last year or so, and while that might not be indicative of them trying to leave the fandom, I sense a restlessness in all of them and a wish to move on.

(Okay so this is going under a readmore because it is a long’un)

As of 2023 in a post-lockdown and post-DSMP world I got the sense that a lot of people were restless regarding what to do and where to go next, CC and audience alike. I think that because the DSMP was such a specific time and place in people’s lives it’s inevitable that the majority of people (because those numbers were huge) will have moved on to watching/wanting other things, so retention through sameness may not work, but you’re onto something with the feeling like there’s no in-character story to follow anymore. The thing I poke at from time to time is that there’s no out-of-character plot to follow anymore either, most of the irl narratives have been resolved or brought off-camera so even the RPF people have to scavenge for food.

Lovejoy has a rising star narrative that people can invest in if they want; with them breaking free of associations with mcyt to be treated like serious musicians, and I think it also serves a purpose ofpeople trying to wash off post-mcyt shame in themselves. (“this is Wilbur Soot and this is WILL GOLD” they tweet, as though that is not a literal man onstage performing, but they’ve already decided what they want to believe in.) I’m sensing some misguided stabs to try and not be treated like the bottom of the food chain in the vocal fanbase by desperately trying to push away from the MCYT association, which is probably where those peoples heads are at all around. Most lovenjoyers are fine with it and just enjoy the music because it’s obviously how they got there, but there’s clearly a friction going on.

Ranboo has a kind of watered-down version of that following them. I remember when I first saw someone say very defensively that Ranboo wasn’t an MCYT, they were a variety streamer. Ranboo has been drifting away from MC for a long time, both moving into the variety realm and daydreaming about Genloss. When people win the internet lottery young it makes sense to want to put the money towards a project that they would only be stuck imagining otherwise, and Genloss very much feels like that kind of dream. I would say that Ranboo has successfully pivoted to variety and even completed their first big project, but they’ll need to re-capture that audience every time they make a Generation from now on, which could be hard to do with breaks in between.

Tubbo has also moved into variety streaming, which is kind of a necessity for the hours he keeps. He also has an ongoing love for big projects like Recipe for Disaster. Tubbo’s longterm investment and labor of love was Tubnet, which would have established him as the owner of a server like the one that he used to play on when he was younger. I don’t know what Tubbo’s relationship to storytelling is, I’ve heard he does it on a small scale but he also has a unique love of engineering, which Tubnet was more about. As far as I know there were a lot of things that eventually led to Tubnet’s low player turnout, but one of them had to have been low demand; I remember people saying that there was no use re-inventing Hypixel when Hypixel already had all the Hypixel players. Regardless of if this was fair or not, Tubnet didn’t wind up developing a large player base from his fame, which unfortunately shows that not all attention rolls over equally.

Tommy has been pouring his storytelling skills into writing his live show, which he’s advertising as the best thing he’s ever written as well as his biggest self-disclosure. It’s autobiographical theatre, but also a puppet musical-- we will see what the audience reviews think. Tommy’s been experimenting the most to see that he wants to do next, I know he’s stated that 2022 was a big ‘try’ year for him and he’s also talked about focusing on the quality of viewers over the quantity because focusing on hard statistics made him miserable. I know Tommy doesn’t want to move away from Minecraft, he’s actually very tightly holding on and trying to find ways to love it again, as well as make it worthwhile for audiences. Some of the things Tommy has been saying lately make it sound like he wants to turn back time a bit, recapture what streaming and video gamed used to feel like for him when he was younger, so we’ll see what resonates with the others. There’s a lot of really dense nostalgia around Minecraft (look at these comment sections they’re haunting) and judging from his current taste in video essays he’s got a moderate case of it.

I think the pattern here is marrying the thing that you want to with what audiences want, which is infinitely harder to do than it is to say. Human motivation is fluid and weird, and not many people are going to be able to say what it is they’ll want or like until something or someone is put in front of them. What people want also changes over time, so it can be a bit like chasing the wind or catching an updraft to get in the air when it comes to getting an audience. There’s a formula for the YouTube algorithm, but there’s not a clear map for the less cheap or predictable parts of the psyche. 

Even when you’ve got an audience, when it’s time to pivot over to something completely new it’s kind of time to be a whole new person to them; your function and role in someone’s life is changing. It’s rolling the dice and seeing if you can do and be something that resonates in a new form. People fall out of love with other people all the time, and I think that CCs get the same effect as the seasons change-- sometimes people change and cause a split, sometimes people stay the same and get stale over time. For the same reason that people can be ride or die because a CC is themselves, when someone falls out of love with a cc there’s not much that can make them stay if the rest of the content doesn’t deliver. I don’t see people talk about it at length, but I have seen this image make the rounds so it’s a shared thing.  

Shortest answer is I think there’s no formula that can be divined outside of a retroactive twelve hour video essay breakdown of each individual’s creators strengths and weaknesses, and a matching breakdown of where the audience’s head was at. It’s much easier to look back on something specific and say ‘this is why this worked / didn’t work’ than grind out guidelines beyond ‘avoid making the audience feel completely alienated or betrayed.’ It can really come down to the audience, who can be attracted and put off by people for reasons that seem borderline intangible, like ‘authenticity.’

The good news is audiences need change and newness even if the content they like has a pattern, otherwise they would keep watching the same video. Even channels that make ‘more of the same’ put out a continuation of what they did last time, moving things along or adding to the collection somehow. Whether it’s in-character or out of character or a kind of abstract “I show up to this channel and things I like are on it,” I think people like to be able to make sense of what they’re clicking on so that they keep doing it. As long as the core remains intact, the people who are sufficiently invested in the creator tend to stick around unless life gets in the way.

As for the restlessness, I think that being on the frontier is kind of addictive. Not long ago someone pointed out to me that I had started wondering what the next big thing would be on behalf of the CCs because it’s an interesting question, especially coming off the back of the DSMP blowing up. I think that online can be a very punishing place if you don’t keep up with trends and frontiers since things change so fast, it’s rewarding if you get in early but you’re in danger if you’re left behind. This is actually as true for regular internet users as it is for CCs, think of the strangely potent social shame of using an out of date meme or not being up on the state of The Discourse, you’ll genuinely get punished if you’re too far out of sync with things. We’re in a year that is both hung over on lockdown and desperately trying to get moving again, right in the moment before the answer to what happens next is ‘obvious.’  

[faithdragon36]

Faith faith faith gimme some c!faith lore I wanna know more (hey that rhymed)

OKAY SO c!Faith is a world jumper!! She’s got three main worlds that she hops between, those being Lunightia (my singleplayer world, her home world), a server called Wander SMP that is whitelisted and has its own lore (I employ a popular fandom trope called “story magic” to explain how this can be the same character even with all of the insane bullshit that goes on over there, and why it doesn’t follow her between servers) and Islandcraft! Which, for our purposes, also has story magic, although it’s gotten pretty out of control since it involves near-total amnesia and is affecting the server’s Admin(s).

She does not have any control over her powers and most of the time does not remember jack or shit about what goes on on the other servers she’s on, the rare exception being that she might sometimes remember stuff while on Lunightia, have dreams/nightmares about her other servers, get deja vu for no reason she can understand, or if it makes a joke work. You know how it goes!

Before she managed to settle with Lunightia as her home world, she jumped through a lot of worlds, usually with a specific person whose name and face she can no longer recall, but alone on occasion. (This is based on my experience playing Minecraft on Xbox 360 and Pocket Editions before they shut down, lol)

I’m assuming you’re not looking to hear about Lunightia, though, you want to hear about Islandcraft right?

Well.

She, like c!Kitty, is trapped within the narrative. That being the giant, semi-unstable time loop they’re both stuck in. Fortunately for them, the precise combination of how my headcanons work means that neither of them will permadie because of this arrangement (a combination of “Players are immortal,” “Story Magic can fuck with time,” and “I mean, is it really a time loop if you’re not resetting everything, down to the biological level?”)! That doesn’t mean there can’t be Angst, though >:3

See, c!Faith is a water dragon. She has gills. She shouldn’t, really, be able to drown at all. But her fate in this loop is to drown with c!Kitty, every time. She shouldn’t need a ship, but she’s a pirate- she could hardly sail without one, right?

And yet. She’s only a pirate after meeting him for the first time (the tenth, the twentieth, the hundredth time). She has to relearn it all, every loop.

How to swordfight. How to rig up the sails and the ropes. How to aim the cannons, how to read the maps, how to find the long-forgotten treasures, how to steer the ship from all the way in the back. It’s not second nature, even now.

One thing she knows, though, is that the world shouldn’t be like this. It’s weird. Sand doesn’t come in pink and blue and black. There is no yellow biome in the Nether. She knows this. But… How does she know? She can’t remember a time before the world was like this, can’t remember any other worlds at all. (She doesn’t think about it. Don’t think about it, just let it simmer, quietly, driving you slowly, steadily mad as you struggle to remember something, anything-)

Unfortunately for her, she’s not going to be getting any answers any time soon! This world is just slowly mutating and she is powerless to stop it :)

Fun fact about c!Faith! She’s 2’10 (picture a Maine Coon but a dragon) and adores endermen even though you’d really think that such a small creature would be at least a little intimidated by the height difference. She can also walk quadrupedally, if she wants to, but mostly doesn’t because being able to use your hands is actually pretty convenient and, shockingly, it’s really difficult to do that if you’re standing on them.

Now, to be clear, the premise we’re building Islandcraft on is that this has happened before, and it will happen again. This isn’t even close to the first time they’ve played through this song and dance. It won’t be the last. These pirates and their Vaguely Desperate Godlike Entity are going to be running this whole shebang for a good, long while yet. That being said…

…This is our first time playing this out, so not all of the details and plot holes have been ironed out yet. Also it’s, like, really late, and I haven’t consulted literally anyone else about all of the things that I just said, so if there are some small contradictions please assume that the other person is right

[silvercatto]

Weekly Journal - July 27th, 2024

Sorry, there's nothing new for this journal either. I'm mostly just waiting to go back to college so I can start being productive again, for... personal reasons. Allow me to share some eulogies for the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for Xbox 360 consoles, however.

I remember when my brother picked up his Xbox 360, I was only like eight to nine years old at the time, and we just moved to a new house back in 2010 before my brother's birthday. Of course, I was still a hardcore Nintendo fanboy at the time but I was willing to give the Xbox 360 a try. Most notably, my memories on that console were as followed; Hexic HD(a built-in game with every Xbox 360), a couple demos for A Kingdom of Keflings, and a few more I don't really remember of, Sonic Generations, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Thrillville Off the Rails, multiple sports games because my brother is a huge sports-head, and most notably, Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition.

Minecraft, the game I probably sunk the most hours into, with two separate worlds I made for survival and creative mode respectively. Those two world files are probably still on my brother's 360 to this day, so I want to see if I can nab them quickly if I want to preserve those memories. However, over the years, my brother's 360 is falling apart, not only did the cooling fan practically stop working but it seems that the wireless controllers don't seem to connect anymore(granted it might be the controllers, but who knows?)

Here's another thing; I actually remember browsing the Xbox LIVE Marketplace a few times. I scrolled through multiple indie games (before Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition, many Mineclones flooded the Xbox LIVE Indie Game section, so that's fun), as well as many Xbox LIVE Arcade titles, and even Avatar items. Part of me REALLY wanted to buy those Avatar items as they're all based off popular IP's, some of which never even gotten an Xbox 360 release, and I'm sure many fans of those IP's would've loved an Avatar item of their own based on those. I think I remember seeing some Avatar items based on Beavis and Butthead, which are always a treat.

Since then, I've still been playing on Xbox, but unfortunately I was late to the party, as I got my Xbox LIVE Gamertag "SuperSwagBro98" back in 2016. Yes, I still cringe at that name today. As much as I really wanted a Gamertag on my brother's Xbox, I still felt like it was unnecessary to sign up for Xbox LIVE on my brother's Xbox, even though he was more than likely okay with it. But alas, I was still a hardcore Nintendo fanboy, at the time I'd rather barf than play on anything other than a Nintendo console my whole life.

Anyway, after nearly 19 whole years of the Xbox 360's release, it's time to say our farewells to those digital downloads that'll be lost to time. They had a good run, but it's best to just move on and embrace the present. Besides, we still have a few backwards compatible titles on Xbox One and Series now. (despite some of them being delisted already, bleh) So you just gotta get what you can. Plus, even if this were the case, I still prefer physical copies anyhow.

If you have made it this far without skipping a few words, I'm just gonna say thank you for reading my eulogy for the Xbox 360 Marketplace. It's set to be discontinued in the next two days. But! You can always download the games you've already purchased, if you're lucky enough to not run into any errors. The servers for the Xbox 360 are over 20 years old anyway, they're probably destined to deteriorate within a matter of time.

This has been week 10 of my weekly journal. Enjoy the Xbox 360 Marketplace while you still can, and have a wonderful day. Toodles!

[memryse]

The magic of 3rd Life, or why such a simple hardcore miniseries works as well as it does

For a series which only lasted for eight sessions, 3rd Life has had a profound impact on the MCYT fandom. While it did go comparatively unnoticed on Twitter (as is consistent with YouTube-based Minecraft content as a whole, admittedly), Tumblr and other platforms have fallen in love with this series, and it’s become a vector for many fans to familiarise themselves with Hermitcraft and Empires SMP as well. But at its core, 3rd Life is a simple vanilla survival series with a gimmick. What about it resonates so much with so many people?

I would argue that its simplicity, its small cast, its vanilla gameplay “with a twist” is certainly part of it. It’s an easy series to consume, with many POVs totalling four hours or less, and it doesn’t require any prior knowledge of any of the members. Its mechanics are easy to understand. As a standalone, it functions perfectly – it’s immersive and can be followed easily by anyone, regardless of any prior knowledge they may or may not have. However, these factors alone don’t quite encompass what makes 3rd Life so special. Its true charm point lies in the format of the series, and how well it utilises improv.

[more below the cut; this is a fairly long post about 3rd/Last Life meta and my love of its improv. I'm mostly talking about 3rd Life here as it's a completed series, but this most definitely does apply to Last Life as well]

3rd Life is an entirely improv-based series. Whilst members may have a brief concept of the direction they’d like to take their series in – how heavily they want to roleplay, for example – the actual content of each session is fully improvised. Each episode is recorded in one three-hour block, and members are not allowed to play on the server outside of the allotted time other than specifically to finish builds. This time constraint prevents any planning from going into each episode, and interactions between players are completely spontaneous. Players simply run around the map looking for others to interact with (which is significantly easier with the limited world border) and chat about various events on the server, form alliances or deals, etc.

By definition, this almost completely negates the possibility of bad writing. Each player’s reaction to any server event is spontaneous, a legitimate reaction; they aren’t trying to play any specific roles or shoehorn in any specific events (with the exception of the Red King/Hand of the King roles, who were still completely improvising). Even the finale – a distinctly heart-wrenching and tragic scene – was improvised without Grian or Scar attempting to tell any specific story. According to Martyn, they weren’t roleplaying, they didn’t have any aims with that scene. It just happened to turn out in the way that it did, and they were legitimately sorry to one another. The server progressed in this natural way, and every person’s perspective tells a completely different story. It’s hard to identify any specific heroes or villains – fans of the Dream SMP can surely relate to this feeling, but I would argue that 3rd Life takes this one step further. 3rd Life is a tragedy from all perspectives, a tragedy which tells one cohesive story in its entirety before stopping as abruptly as it began.

3rd Life hinges entirely on its interactions between its members. Whilst solo content does exist – base building, for example – the majority of each session is spent interacting with others. 3rd Life is carried by its dialogue; nothing else drives the story, and yet many episodes are between 30 minutes and an hour long. It’s that dialogue-heavy. Members of the server have expressed trouble with even editing their videos because there is so much key dialogue that they don’t want to cut. People don’t watch 3rd Life for the actual gameplay, at all – there’s so little of it! They watch it for how each member interacts with the people around them. This is something not found in any other SMP I’ve encountered. SMPs livestreamed on Twitch have plenty of downtime, and people will happily watch streams on that SMP no matter what’s occurring on the server; people often watch them for their interest in specific members. Other currently popular YouTube SMPs, namely Hermitcraft and Empires, are well-balanced between solo content and interactions, and all server content hinges on the members’ various skills like building and redstone. 3rd Life is, to my knowledge, the only SMP which does not rely on building or redstone skills (what’s the point, when they’ll be dead the next week?), it doesn’t rely on the creator doing solo work talking to their chat, it doesn’t rely on planned roleplay. People legitimately just want to hear various members talking to each other. It’s a fascinatingly unique series in this regard. This dialogue-heavy aspect of 3rd Life ties back to my earlier point about 3rd Life feeling like a completely different series from all perspectives; with all of this dialogue being conveyed through proximity chat, so many events are entirely left out of other POVs, or presented in very different lights.

The pure improv format also helps significantly with worldbuilding, whilst also leaving plenty to the imagination. MCYT fandoms always require a significant amount of imagination to become invested in them, let alone make fan content of them, and 3rd Life is no exception to this. As discussed in this post, which was incidentally the inspiration for me to write this one, 3rdLife is full of lines which flesh out the series, which illustrate what happened better than can be shown in Minecraft. These lines are improvised on the spot, and are often complete throwaway lines in the creators’ eyes. In the fans’ eyes, they make 3rd Life feel alive, they provide plenty of material on which to base headcanons. Again, this isn’t necessarily unique to 3rd Life, it’s a common aspect of all Minecraft series, but I think this is where the rather angsty nature of 3rd Life comes into play. A dramatic survival game, entirely unscripted, with all events hinging entirely on your interpretation of them? It’s not hard to see why 3rd Life fans are so creative with character designs and fanfiction – hell, a lot of 3rd Life fics simply narrate canon in their own more dramatic light. Canon-compliant fics are significantly more common for 3rd Life than other fandoms I've encountered, because people hear these simple lines and want to dramatise them, put their own spins on them. I don't feel that this would be possible with any other series, not to the extent that 3rd Life fans do it. Other series' canon is either already dramatic, and so rehashing it can feel repetitive, or so lighthearted that people write AUs/new storylines. 3rd Life strikes a brand-new balance.

The development of its characters is also bolstered by improv. As no events on the server are pre-planned, members have to react completely spontaneously to anything that occurs. They don’t get time to think – only to react as though they genuinely were in that situation. As I said at the start, 3rd Life inherently lacks bad writing, because it’s not written. Ren, for instance, began 3rd Life as a kind and harmless person, with others often walking right over him. His reaction to his death by Grian and Scar’s trap spurs him to become the Red King; he raises an army and goes to war, and ends the series having taken countless lives, becoming hardened by war. He begins Last Life by isolating himself from others, seeming jaded and unwilling to form alliances, ready for another war to break out. Being improvised, it’s impossible to say how much of this was deliberate, or if Ren just started building his base without thinking about continuity from the previous season. This improv is what makes it feel so natural. It isn’t planned beforehand. This is Ren’s natural reaction to starting Last Life. It makes his character feel so much more real than it would if this was all scripted beforehand.

3rd Life is, overall, a testament to the power of improv. It manages to be compelling and dramatic without any acting feeling forced or wooden. Its characters’ arcs feel natural, because they are natural. Placing such a heavy emphasis on dialogue, with the gimmick of the server being a vehicle for interactions to happen rather than the sole appeal of the series, makes it truly feel as though we’re getting a glimpse into the characters’ lives, rather than watching a story which has been written beforehand. We get to watch everything unfold in real time. 3rd Life has a magic to it that, to my knowledge, no other SMP has been able to recreate.

[noodleydoo]

AU based off of Sapnap’s recent video (because I loved it, it was hilarious) where Sapnap is the Minecraft version of an environmentalist and Dream and George are dirt sprites, a type of nature sprite that lives in soil and makes it fertile

Nature sprites are endangered due to magic pollution and overhunting, which, as you can imagine, isn’t great from the environment. A lot of servers are drying up and dying out because of this, and in order to combat this decay there’s a growing movement to find and protect the remaining nature sprites, even the ones that may seem useless/unimportant at first. (Like dirt sprites, eyyyy)

Sapnap has been tasked with watching over and protecting Dream and George, who are some of the only remaining nature sprites on their entire server (there’s like seven or so left). Unfortunately for him, they aren’t planning to make that easy.

This is gonna be like a crack treated seriously type thing

Just like. Mostly light hearted comedy with worldbuilding and some plot stuff

I love the idea of Dream and George being evil lil gremlins and Sapnap having to corral them

Sapnap’s all “stay close by me, this area is dangerous—“

And then Dream immediately goes “scatter!!!”

And he and George shoot off in opposite directions.

Sapnap: WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS

I imagine they look a lot like fairies— they have dragonfly wings, and they’re small enough to sit in Sapnap’s palm

But they’re covered in dirt and grime and have sharp teeth and claws and like

Long swishy tails

So like fairies but feral I guess?

And they’re both a lot hardier than you’d think fairies would be. Like if you tried to crush them under your foot it’d definitely hurt them but they’d still survive with like. Some cracked ribs. Dirt sprites are tough cookies.

However, their wings and tails are a bit more fragile.

Nature Sprites in general tend to dress in spider silks and leaves or mouse/gopher furs and such to keep warm, and then use various small nuts and berries and such to customize their outfits (using the berries as “dye” etc. George uses mushrooms in his outfits and Dream uses moss.

Dirt sprites tend to hunt small burrowing animals for food. They also gather fallen fruits. Little hunter gatherers <3

Dream has torn, messed up wings from when he ended up in a (illegal) hunter’s trap, so George had to help him with flying before Sapnap came along.

Now he’s got prosthetics!!!!

Which may have been a mistake because he uses them exclusively to play keep-away with Sapnap.

Dream and George spend most of their time harassing Sapnap and almost dying multiple times to various mobs

Their life’s goal is to be evil little menaces

Sapnap’s life goal is to eventually get a break.

“It’s like babysitting toddlers I swear”

George is the “expert” at being evil

He brags about it and everything

Dream looks up to him and thinks he’s super cool and also knows everything

George does not correct him because he also thinks that he’s super cool and knows everything

he has a lil bit of an ego

George: hey did you know I caused global warming?

Dream: no way!! You did not

Later on

Sapnap, explaining why they need to stop running away from him: listen. I really can’t have you dying on me, cause then the environment is kind of fucked—

George: see Dream?? I told you I caused global warming

Dream: woahhh,, holy shit dude. I’ll never doubt you again I promise

They’re just silly lads

They have only one brain cell and Sapnap had to confiscate it cause they were using it to commit crimes

They still commit crimes though, now with fewer braincells!!

Also they do like, care about Sapnap and love him a lot

Sapnap (derogatory) (affectionate)

they bully him but it's affectionate bullying

He’s *their* human

No one else’s

They found him first

They memorized his name and everything

They let him hold them and sleep in his palm even though he is huge and could crush them.

And they bring him cool rocks and sticks and feathers

George isn’t as good at finding cool rocks because he is colorblind so Dream lets George give Sapnap some of his rocks and pretend he found them instead

Oooo I like the idea that Badboyhalo is the one who assigned Sapnap the task of watching over George and Dream

He’s Sapnap’s supervisor

He also works for the environmental activist group but is much more experienced than Sapnap. He visits from time to time to check on him and help out in between his own work.

Bad bribes the sprites with muffins so they behave

[anonymousbeefriendfanfics]

How do you think Last Legacy characters would play Minecraft?

Hmmm, interesting question! Let's find out, shall we? :)

Last Legacy Cast Playing Minecraft

Felix

Wizard Boy leans into the Wizard Aesthetic, shocking.

This man absolutely lives in a gigantic tower/castle.

He would enjoy the designing part of the game. I think it's relaxing for him to just be able to go worry about nothing but building whatever his heart desires for hours at a time.

Definitely plays in creative most of the time. Has an entire village he's been working on for years. It has a lot of different building styles and aesthetics and most of the buildings are only half-finished but eh, it's fun.

Joins a server because his friends pestered him into it and immediately decides to have fun with it. Becomes that weird wizard dude.

Lives in a huuuuge tower, in the middle of a dense forest/swamp. Definitely has a moat. Has various traps and hidden doors throughout the bottom half of the tower. Stunning place, though, looks very mystical and ancient.

Has the best enchanting area in the entire server, and he made sure of this. I mean the man went through some serious effort here.

Also has an entire level of his tower dedicated to potions. Can brew so many at once. Has an entire wall lined with chests that he keeps all of them in. Almost always has them in stock.

He did all of this hard work so he wouldn't have to do any work. He's made the tower borderline impenetrable, but he can teleport to the top of it. Barters with people using his magic. Makes you bring him whatever he needs before he'll either teleport you up into his tower or get you what you need himself

Mostly spends his time in creative and pops on there whenever someone messages him and tells him he's needed.

Has a black and white cat that follows him around. Doesn't know how it got there, he never tamed it. Doesn't matter what world he's in, the cat spawns in with him and is functionally immortal.

Sage

Chaotic boy is chaotic.

PVP master. Ish. He's not unbeatable, but he's really strong.

Works hard to get himself the best gear. Has a monster farm near his base to get all the experience.

He has an enchanting table but literally never uses it because he has like, three bookshelves and he always just goes to Felix

Plays on a server 90% of the time and is that chaotic idiot who will break into your base and steal your stuff, maybe break it/burn it down in the process.

Won't kill animals. Even if he burns your base down he'll painstakingly shove your dog outside and give it a bone or five before he leaves.

Look this man has an unreasonable amount of pet stuff okay. Always has bones and fish, if nothing else. If you have a pet and he steals from you, he'll leave those in the place of what he took.

He has a literal army of dogs and if you mess with them oh, there will be war.

Has a secret account on the same server where he does as much good as he possibly can for the community. Whenever he's feeling down he logs on and runs around helping people out because their praise makes him feel much better :)

Yes, his minecraft skin has the ears & tail. His friends joke that you can summon him using fish, bones, and/or weapons. They did it once at his house as a joke because they were bored and he happened to log in, so now everyone is solidly convinced that it works.

Anisa

Probably the server admin.

She enjoys the worldbuilding but she primarily focuses on keeping everything running smoothly.

She's the one who makes and enforces all of the rules.

Enjoys running around in creative mode, mostly because Sage tries to kill her on sight purely to mess with her.

She's a pretty good fighter when it comes down to it, but Sage can beat her because he's mastered the PVP in this game. Doesn't matter when she has access to commands that can instakill him, so she still comes out on top most of the time.

Literally ventured off to the corner of the map once and built some kind of huge maze prison thing, and has taken to teleporting Sage or anyone else who bothers her there. Have fun :)

Needs to relax honestly, c'mon Annie.

Has a little farm that she tends to relax, and will sell or trade her goods to the others in the server.

Don't mess with her. Seriously. Sage and Rime burned her house down once as a prank and they was banned from the server for a solid month before she decided they'd apologized enough to rejoin.

Probably really good at the fancy coding stuff. Uses redstone. Might have even made a couple of mods. Made one mod specifically to launch Sage to the other side of the map if he sets foot on her property, even when she's offline.

Rime

Also chaos incarnate.

If your base gets robbed or destroyed it was probably either him or Sage, who knows? Has also started leaving bones and fish or whatever just so he can pin it on Sage.

Has a perpetual rivalry going with Sage and several other people. Endless prank wars.

Rime is really good at making traps and will spend so, so much time in the dead of night when he knows Sage is asleep booby-trapping his house so that as soon as he takes a step or opens a door or something the whole place explodes

He's the type to mass-produce T&T. Literally went to the End just to get himself a shulker box or two to keep them all in because he isn't dumb enough to just leave them in chests.

He isn't as good of a fighter as most of the others but he's absolutely ruthless. Keeps well stocked with potions. His favorite are the invisibility potions, because he can just disappear and stab you a bunch until you die.

Rime is 100% that weirdo who has a base that isn't in the main world. I think he'd choose the nether over the end, for the sheer aesthetics. He also has a suuuuper fancy base though, and several animals that no one is quite sure how he managed to get over there.

It's like home alone near there though so watch out man. Rime has enemies and he knows it.

He's had several alternate accounts where he tries to be a Nice Good Member of Society but he somehow always gets caught. It's just so obvious that it's him. He's too chaotic to disguise himself that well.

Has a secret creative world where he plays around to relax. Builds stuff if he feels like it, raises animals... happy lil deer farmer boy.

Elowen

Elowen is also in on the rivalry, though she's a little less aggressive about it. For the most part she lets Rime and Sage fight it out, often meddling in the chaos. She'll play pranks on one or both of them in the style of the other to spark more drama to watch.

She occasionally teams up with either Sage or Rime just for fun. Sometimes she'll team up with Anisa and/or Felix to take them both down at once, when they've gotten especially annoying.

Is the one person who can best Sage at PVP every time, and she takes pride in this. She's honestly not even as powerful as he is, she's just a really good fighter and she knows his weaknesses.

Not a big fan of farming. She prefers to just hunt animals for her food or barter with others. Is often paid in food for her assistance in fights.

Has a secret base deep in the end somewhere, well-hidden and protected. She knows the people she's playing with far too well, and prefers to keep the important stuff on her so it won't get stolen.

She also hides her things. She'll wander off to the middle of nowhere, dig deep down and bury a chest, then write down the coordinates alongside what she buried in a physical notebook. It's rather inconvenient if she needs them immediately, but she actually possesses the most valuable resources simply because they aren't continuously being stolen or destroyed in the endless prank war.

Tulsi

Tulsi is a builder. 110%. She has a massive plot of land that she's claimed away from the main hub of the server, and she spends her time gathering resources and making the most impressive things people have ever seen.

Her base is beautiful, and ridiculously elaborate. She spent way too much time swimming in the nearest body of water, hunting for specific fish to stick in the gigantic aquarium she has in her living room.

The woman has a zoo. She built unique enclosures for all the different animals. Charges admission to get in and visit them. It's not much, and she'll accept all kinds of things as currency, from your standard diamonds to building materials. If you capture a rare animal for her, you have a free pass for life.

She's the most respected person on the server, and the only one immune from the prank war. It's an unspoken rule of the server that no one is to mess with Tulsi. Her buildings are too beautiful to destroy, and she has so much time invested in them. Plus, she often builds things for others, and she makes the server prettier by installing paths and such and building up a little downtown area for shops and the like.

Sage occasionally messes with her from time to time, but he's extremely careful to never do any actual damage-- once he spent an hour rearranging all of the supplies in her massive chest room. Another time he stole the animal she'd just spent so much time and effort getting, only to return it the next day as if nothing had happened. He's also flooded her animal enclosures and builds with common animals, often bunnies, though he's used cats and chickens before as well. He's the only one allowed to do this because he's her brother, and she always gets him back for it.

I know you'd think that she'd be in the weapon business in minecraft as well, but I don't think so. She tried it once. It's too boring for her, making the exact same things every single time, and just throwing different enchantments on them... no. The reason she enjoys her work so much is because she gets to make something, and every one of her pieces is unique and wonderful. The best way that translates into minecraft is building, because she gets to put her creativity skills to the test. Plus, it takes so much time, especially on survival worlds, and the woman has the patience of a saint.

Anisa gave her the ability to use creative mode, because she can be trusted not to abuse it, and it'll let Tulsi build so much more easily. Plus it means she can fly away from the idiocy.

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